Am I Supposed to be Feeling Something?(Att'n: Anna)

[Guest guest]

Nisargadatta , " anabebe57 " <kailashana wrote:

>

> Nisargadatta , " skywhilds " <skywords@>

> wrote:

> >

> >

> >

> > ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE FEELING SOMETHING?

> >

> >

> > Are we supposed to be feeling happy?

> >

> > Outraged?

> >

> > Ashamed?

> >

> > Stupid?

> >

> > Smart?

> >

> > Superior?

> >

> > Inferior?

> >

> >

> >

> > What if most feelings just have no name?

> >

> > What if most feelings are not even, primally,

> >

> > experienced as either " good " or " bad, "

> >

> > negative or positive?

> >

> >

> >

> > What if we've been " brain washed " into giving them

> >

> > one or another social, cultural, artistic or, even,

> >

> > asocial meaning or significance?

> >

> >

> >

> > What if feelings are infinite and beyond articulation,

> >

> > hence, beyond commodification?

> >

> >

> >

> > What if attaching significance to feelings is just a

> >

> > capitalist effort at objectifying the self in order

> >

> > to either sell it, condemn it, or exploit it in some way?

> >

> >

> >

> > What if even poetry and art, literature and philosophy,

> >

> > even this here, are forms of soul

> >

> > prostitution?

> >

> >

> >

> > And what if even the words, " soul prostitution, "

> >

> > are equally forms of said commodification,

> >

> > exploitation.

> >

> >

> >

> > What if language is a whore?

> >

> >

> >

> > What if the very act of naming is a form of manipulation

> >

> > and enslavement?

> >

> >

> >

> > What if we're all in the business of selling our feelings,

> >

> > and are thus, whores of shared emotion?

> >

> >

> >

> > What if it would be best just to leave feelings alone?

> >

> > To just feel them and leave them at that?

> >

> >

> >

> > And what if even this suggestion fails itself?

> >

>

>

>

> to feel feelings

> to think thoughts

> to imagine

> to love

> to scheme

> to revel in the dream

>

> one needs only to be

> unattached

> to oneSelf.

>

> herein lies the paradox of duality.

>

> Being alive AS the thinking thought

> the feeling

> the imagining

> the lover

> the schemer

> the reveling dream

>

>

>

> and surrendering nothing that is not already ours;-) and we meet

here, right now,

> no-one sees no-thing but the Beloved.

>

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Anna,

 

I hope this doesn't sound too damnably patronizing. It certainly

ain't supposed to be!

 

I read your delightful and profound poetry, and enjoy your words and

thoughts, your feelings and sentiments, your considerations and

revelations, your anxieties and annihilations, almost, perhaps, as

thoroughly as you do, at times. Of course you've heard something to

this effect before!

 

But I want to ask you a direct and sincere question. And I hope and

expect that you will answer it in the spirit in which it is asked (and

I credit you with not engaging in any of Pete's " conversation

stoppers " --something I very deeply wish I could credit others with! I

suppose you could still beg off, and I would continue to revere your

reverence--which is perhaps the secret of your soulful creativity.)

 

So, when you write,

 

one needs only to be

unattached

to oneSelf.

 

I trust you really believe this to be a necessary precondition. But

I'm wondering whether you can share my experience that

pre-conditionality is just a conditioned supposition. That is, an

attachment, itself:

 

a " should, " an obligation, thus, actually, and I really mean,

actually, a form of bondage. So, my question is, have you meditated

deeply on this seeming paradox, that is, as it applies directly to

what you've written here? Have you? And if you have, would you or

wouldn't you agree that even this " paradox, " however wisely tolerated

or celebrated, can be, can potentially be, best ....... shed?

 

Similarly, when you write,

 

and surrendering nothing that is not already ours

 

 

As if ours and not ours had any actual meaning? Mightn't you shed the

scaffolding of " already ours " ? The very idea of possession, doesn't

it seem as cumbersome and irrelevant to you, as it does to me?

 

Now, you might well say that I'm simply pointing to some necessary and

only apparent contradiction or another, and that I'd best honor and

abide by it. Or you might off handedly suggest that I'm merely

pointing to rhetorical and poetic devices, that I'd best not let

myself be encumbered by such trivial concerns. And that they merely

serve to convey something altogether more liberating than I yet know.

 

 

But I might as well tell you that I, like you, am playing. And as I

play at letting go of such imagery as " ours, " and " unattached, " and

" oneSelf, "

 

Something Happens

 

 

that hadn't happened before.

 

And I'm wondering if, in letting go of these suppositions, it is

possible that, as you say,

 

we meet here, right now,

no-one sees no-thing but the Beloved.

 

--yet without meeting, because even this is an encumbrance, and

certainly not " right now " ! And to shed, too, the very idea of " the

Beloved. "

 

I'm just wondering.

 

I'm just wondering.

 

 

Anyway, as we say, " it works for me! "

 

 

Sincerely,

Sky