The origin and nature of THOUGHT

Have you ever stopped to wonder where your thoughts come from? Or are you so taken in by every movement of your mind that you’re barely even aware that you’re thinking most the time? 

WHO is that thinks -- and who is it that’s aware of what's being thought? Do you think, or do your thoughts essentially just think themselves? These are all very important questions, and the answers might well surprise you.

I invite you to investigate for yourself. A great practise is simply to sit and observe your thoughts. Ask yourself, “I wonder what my next thought will be?” Then sit quietly, alert and attentive, watching and waiting. You’ll likely come to some really interesting conclusions. 

I came to realise that 'WE’RE' not actually the thinker! Oh, sure, if we want to reflect on something, we can consciously direct our thoughts with our intention. But most of the time, we’re not the ones doing the thinking. If we were, then we’d always be able to control and predict our thoughts, but we can’t. Thoughts just happen, in awareness, like clouds of vapour rising up from the ocean, existing for a limited lifespan, then dissolving away again. Try the above practise, and keep doing it -- it’s fun, relaxing and liberating. You’ll see that you’re not actually the one doing the thinking. It’s more like the thinking is doing you.

Thoughts just seem to rise and fall. ‘We’ are not the thoughts, for we cannot be that which is observable -- we are obviously the subject, not the object. That said, when we’re in our ‘normal’ mode of consciousness, we tend to get completely consumed and caught up in our thinking, automatically believing in and identifying with every thought, investing our very sense of self and being in these fickle movements of mind.

But if we’re not our thoughts, then what are we? 

Investigate for yourself -- what is it that’s watching and is aware of the thoughts...?

No word or description is adequate for it, but it might be referred to as the 'watcher', the 'witness' or simply pure awareness. This, I believe, is our natural state, and it’s always with us, throughout our entire lives. No matter what’s happening outwardly or inwardly, no matter what our thoughts and beliefs are and no matter what configuration our personal psychology assumes, that pure space of awareness is ALWAYS there in the background, underlying our every experience in life. Without it, we’d simply cease to be. It’s like the paper on which the words (our thoughts and experiences) are written. Take away the paper and there’s nothing. But that’s a whole other discussion.

Back to thoughts. Upon observation, you can see that thoughts are like clouds passing across the sky of your mind or awareness. Sometimes they’re light and fluffy and other times they’re thick and stormy, covering the whole sky. Sometimes they move across the sky quickly, chopping and changing, and other times, such as in meditation, sleep and times of deep relaxation, they slow down and perhaps even subside for a time.

So where do they come from? I don't believe thoughts 'magically' arise out of nowhere, although it might seem like that. The activity of our minds and the overall structure of our psyche is largely driven by what what in Sanskrit is called 'vasanas', or mental tendencies. Vasanas are like grooves that are created in the mind, much the same way as water flowing down a mountain carves grooves and channels in the rock. 

You might think of consciousness as being like water and it tends to flow along these grooves and this is what largely determines the content of our mind and pysche. Of course, it's possible to create new grooves and new vasanas by redirecting our consciousness and focussing on different thoughts, but that takes conscious effort. Outside of the 'base light' of awareness (the ‘paper’ on which the content appears), people's personalities and the structure of their minds are largely just vasanas and conditioning in operation, influenced by other factors such as environment, heredity and culture. 

This is what brought me to the realisation that it's not really 'me' that thinks all the thoughts that ripple across my mind. Upon investigation I came to see that the thinking just seems to flow of its own accord, as consciousness moves along those grooves. Kinda groovy, huh?

So thoughts just tend to occur, driven largely by our conditioning and vasanas. They don’t have any independent existence/intelligence of their own, as they’re just the flow of consciousness assuming certain configurations. 

This isn’t to say we need be slave to these thoughts. On the contrary, when we realise that they’re just thoughts, movements in consciousness, then we can experience a tremendous amount of liberty and freedom from them!

I used to suffer depression for several years, and I can see now how it was caused by the thoughts that were habitually occurring in my mind. I no longer take my thoughts nearly as seriously, because I’m very clear that they’re just thoughts -- they’re not reality, just crude (and very often distorted) reflections of reality. The depressed thoughts were just a kind of weather-front passing through me. When I learned to dis-identify from it and just witness it, I began to transcend it -- and it passed. 

I highly recommend the practise of simply observing your thoughts. It creates a healthy detachment. Rather than being helplessly buffeted by every thought that crosses your mind, you come to realise that they are just the dream-like movements of consciousness and they have only the meaning you ascribe to them. They just rise and fall. They might be part of a chain of thoughts (clusters of thoughts can form and create big entangled structures that become beliefs, habitual thoughts and/or preoccupations) or they might be totally random. 

When we're 'unconscious', which means automatically buying into every thought that passes our mind, then we’re a slave to our thoughts and they can make us suffer -- and how! But when we simply observe and allow consciousness to flow as it does, without grasping onto it or obstructing it, then there's a tremendous freedom and liberty. 

Nisargadatta said something that really stuck with me: he advised us to see the content of our consciousness -- our mind, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, etc -- as being something foreign or alien to us, something that's NOT 'us', but a process that's happening within us ('us' being, at the deepest level, the space of pure awareness I spoke of). This might be a radical notion to many, but I've found it very helpful. I still experience occasional low moods like everyone else, but I find it virtually impossible to be depressed these days, because I no longer unquestioningly BELIEVE all the thoughts that cross my mind, or give them an importance they simply don’t warrant. 

When our focus is freed from the movements of our mind, it can be redirected to the witness -- the awareness -- the sense of being, or whatever you want to call it. And in that core level of awareness, is an incredible sense of peace, contentment and joy. It’s the happiness we spend our lives seeking in the outer world and in other people, but which can only ever truly be found within us. This is probably the most important discovery we’ll ever make.

So, try it. Watch your thoughts. Go beyond your them and trace them to their source. Be open, curious and aware. You might be amazed at what you discover.

The Future

“I used to think about the future and then it became the present, so I thought about it quite often then and then it was in the past, so I didn’t think about it that much.”

Father Ted

One of the things that has frequently tripped me up over the years is the notion of future. It’s easy to get lost in it and for concerns and insecurities about the future to overwhelm us, causing untold stress and turmoil. In fact, when it comes to mindstuff, the ‘future’ can be like a gaping black hole, ravenous, all-consuming and virtually impossible to escape.

The ego loves its security and in a world where security is ultimately an illusion (after all, anything at any moment could compromise your sense of security), that can be something of a problem. The future is the great unknown and that is something that utterly terrifies the ego!

To minimise this sense of unease we adopt all kinds of strategies for trying to control circumstances and outcomes as much as possible. Again, going back to what I wrote previously about control, that can only work to a limited extent. We can pursue the things that we think will bring us fortune and security and we may even succeed; but even when we do, it’s rarely enough to dispel our fears and insecurity. This is because our insecurity is a structural component of the ego.

In a sense, our insecurity over the future is a legitimate concern, because we really don’t know what the future holds. Bad things can and frequently do happen. I think it’s likely our fear of the future/unknown is a survival mechanism that’s developed to protect us from potential harm by always keeping us on our toes. Yet in our modern world, where our immediate physical survival isn’t usually an issue, this survival mechanism has become a stress mechanism.

In this media-dominated information age, it’s virtually impossible to escape the news and the news is rarely good. We don’t just leave it at that though. We take what’s happening and project it into an imagined future, playing out all kinds of horrific scenarios in our minds. Sometimes it’s necessary to project ahead in this way as it allows us to make prudent choices that avert unnecessary catastrophe. If I’m walking along a train track and a train appears in the distance, it’s prudent that I project into the future and realise that if I don’t step aside, I’ll get squished.

There are times when this is a useful practise and times when it becomes highly dysfunctional. For we tend to get lost in our imaginings, creating entire alternate realities in our minds. We forget that it’s just fantasy and actually believe that what we’re imagining is real. I believe it’s this tendency that creates much of our anxiety and fear over the future.

Two things have helped me to deal with this. The first is the recognition that the future is actually an illusion of the mind; and so, for that matter, is the past. The only thing that actually exists is the present moment and that present moment NEVER ENDS. In spite of this concept we have of past, present and future, there’s never an instance where the present becomes the past, or becomes the future. It’s a continuing, unbroken, unfragmented whole.

The present moment just IS -- and it always will be. Of course the CONTENT of the present moment is always changing and it is from this that we’ve derived the notions of ‘past’ and ‘future’. But past and future don’t actually exist. However hard you were to look, you could never actually find them because the only place they exist is in the mind; the past as memories and the future as imagination, expectation or anticipation.

What a terrible mess we get ourselves in over something that exists nowhere other than our own minds! However long we wait, the future will never arrive. All we have is this moment, this timeless, eternal moment, the form of which is continuously shifting and changing.

The second thing that’s helped me deal with this structural insecurity is the recognition that I’m not what I think I am. Along with the concept of time, another core human assumption is that we are our bodies. I’m not going to go too deeply into this for now and I’ll assume that if you’re reading this you’ve already got some sense that what you are is something more than just a bag of bones, tissues and liquids.

But even when, on a conceptual level, we know that we are something deeper than the surface-level appearance, it takes a while for us to fully embody and integrate that realisation. In other words, we usually still act and react as though we are just our bodies. And because we know that ultimately our body is going to die, we have a fundamental insecurity that underlies every second of our existence, whether we’re aware of it or not. I’d even go so far as to say that the root of our fear of the future is fear of the termination of the body.

But when the realisation that we are something far transcendent of form takes root not just in our head, but in our heart and our gut, this underlying existential insecurity begins to loosen its grip. When we truly know with the entirety of our being that we are eternal and deathless, then we cease to fear the inevitable dissolution of our form. Our bodies change throughout the course of our lives and the content of our minds and psyche changes from moment to moment. But this timeless awareness that we are remains unchanged.

If you’ve ever explored and moved into this primal awareness, you’ll notice that it at its core is a deep and expansive acceptance. It doesn’t hold life to ransom and it doesn’t have demands or like and dislikes or even goals and directives. It just allows life to be as it is. It remains open, untouched and untouchable.

Knowing what we are and questioning the content of our minds lead us to a deeper and infinitely more secure state of being. Life still happens around us and at times it’s distressing and grim, but when we’ve removed some of our investment of ‘selfhood’ from what is ultimately transient and insubstantial, we experience far greater freedom than ever before.

The need to desperately control the future lessens. We come to see the primary importance of living well in the present moment. We can surrender to a greater intelligence, of which we are an inextricable part, and allow that intelligence to guide us rather than our fears and doubts.

When we surrender to the flow of life, we come to see that that no matter what the ‘future’ (or, rather, the forthcoming configuration of the eternal present) holds, we will be fine. That which we are is ultimately untouchable. Whether our future contains fortune or misfortune, we will be fine. We will always be fine.

When we’ve let go of our insecurities, our attachments and our desperate need to control life, we’ve let go of the very obstructions that make life difficult in the first place. And when we do encounter life’s inevitable challenges, we deal with them with greater ease and grace, always returning to our innate sense of balance and wellbeing.

I believe that when we’re in this Tao-centred state of being, connected with the flow of life and the truth of what we are, then life is often kinder and gentler. Moreover, our state of being has a positive effect on those around us and the world at large.

So why worry about the future when we can instead move our attention inward and allow life to guide us? We can flow gently and smoothly with the current of life and be led exactly where we need to be.

Maybe life really CAN be that simple? Even if I’m wrong, what a way to live!

We can't help the world until we've transcended it

The news is one of the most potent and toxic drugs known to man and it’s available on tap, twenty-four hours a day.

I find that just thirty seconds of it is enough to send me on a seriously bad trip. I end up in a state of lamentation at the apparently woeful state of the world. Most of our problems clearly stem from widespread and pervasive human dysfunction and all its symptoms, from the dubious activities of governments abroad and at home to the machinations of the monstrous corporate machine and our ongoing decimation of the natural world. Once you get onto this particular train of thought it’s very difficult to get off it again...and it almost always ends in a crash.

But get off the train we must. As long as we’re wrapped up in the problems, we’re part of the problem. I strongly feel that whatever the problem, transcendence is the answer. We can only help the world by shifting our perspective from appearance to reality, from symptom to cause and from problem to solution. Only by inviting, adopting and embodying a different level of consciousness or awareness can we be of any use to the world whatsoever. Only then do we stop being part of the problem.

This topic is really based around a quotation by the great Nisargadatta Maharaj, an Indian sage who had truly a wonderful way of cutting through the crap and getting to the essential truth of life. The question has to do with our “preoccupation with the disastrous condition of the world and the urgent need of setting it right.”

Nisargadatta had this to say: “Striving for the improvement of the world is a most praiseworthy occupation. Done selflessly, it clarifies the mind and purifies the heart. But soon man will realise he pursues a mirage. Local and temporary improvement is always possible and was achieved again and again under the influence of a great king or teacher; but it would soon come to an end, leaving humanity in a new cycle of misery. It is the nature of all manifestation that the good and the bad follow each other in equal measure. The true refuge is only in the unmanifested. [...]

“The only way to renewal lies through destruction. You must melt down the old jewellery into formless gold before you can mould a new piece. Only people who have gone beyond the world can change the world. It never happened otherwise. The few whose impact was lasting were all knowers of reality. Reach their level and then only talk of helping the world.”

When we get lost in the woes of the world and enraged by the inhumanity of man, we simply end up causing more suffering. In another statement Nisargadatta stated even more plainly: “The world doesn’t need to be saved by you. It needs to be saved from you.” Ouch.

Einstein once observed that it’s impossible to solve a problem using the same level of consciousness that created it. When I get upset and frustrated by the state of the world (which is ultimately but a representation in my consciousness), I’m giving absolute importance and reality to something which only has relative importance and at the deepest level, arguably little in the way of ‘reality’. When I get caught up in the content of the dream, I tend to forget that it’s a dream. This is not to debate or diminish the fact that there’s a great deal of suffering in the world, because unquestionably there is.

Some sages and masters are content to simply sit back and allow the world to go by, feeling no need to intervene or change it in any way. Such a laissez-faire attitude to the suffering of the world may seem unconscionable to some. I can understand it, although I don’t think I could quite be like that. When I see someone suffer, I feel deeply compelled to help. When a cause feels important to me, I act on it. I sign petitions, raise awareness and when I can make charitable donations. Just because it feels right to me on some level.

Yet I now realise that I must also simultaneously remain grounded in the deeper Reality. The deeper Reality has a transcendent quality: pain and suffering tend to melt away when I remain connected with that inner expansiveness that exists beyond thought and conditioning. An inner attitude of acceptance and transcendence overcomes resistance, enabling solutions to come more easily and generally making situations flow more easily. By retaining conscious awareness of what is Real and what is simply dreamstuff, we access a power far greater than the anguished fretting of the ego-mind.

Whenever we’re having a bad dream we have two options: we can try to change the dream, or we can wake up. Both options require a degree of lucidity and the realisation that what we are experiencing is a dream. We can actively work to change the dream and make it more pleasant, or we can sit back and just allow it to unfold with an attitude of curiosity, knowing that it is finite and will end in due course.

I’d imagine that most people would probably opt to improve the dream in some way. Again, this necessitates the awareness that you are the dreamer. You can’t change the dream from within the dream until you recognise that it is just a dream. Until you reach that point, you’re simply too immersed in it: you’re unconscious in every sense of the world. Your actions within the dream are scripted. To awaken in life is to awaken within the dream, to realise what’s going on and to make your choice -- consciously change the dream to something better, or else sit back and enjoy the ride regardless of what happens.

It would seem that our very belief that there’s anything ‘wrong’ with the world highlights a deeply dualistic mode of thinking. Only the mind can create ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. If there’s only one underlying reality, one infinite expanse of awareness/consciousness/being, then everything is part of a deeper unified perfection. Beyond the prison of dualistic thinking, either “God” is everything or nothing at all. When we judge any aspect of reality as being ‘wrong’, then we’re waging war with the universe in its infinite perfection. We’re waging war with God. (I tend to balk every time I hear or use that word, but it sounded appropriate in this context!)

Again, it doesn’t mean we have to sit back and do nothing when someone needs help. We can take whatever action we feel to be right. But at the same time we realise that, on some deeper level, everything, EVERYTHING that is happening and has ever happened is born of a deeper underlying order and perfection. We can’t strip reality into component parts labelled ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Well, in fact we can and often do -- but that’s a large part of the problem.

Accepting the unacceptable, trying to refrain from judging the seemingly terrible (while perhaps taking whatever action we feel to be right), contributes to greater coherence, greater peace and greater unity in the world. It’s turiya - a new mode of consciousness, still relatively uncommon in the world. And it may be the greatest healer of all.

Ultimately, I don’t believe we’re of much use to the world until we become, as Nisargadatta put, “knowers of reality.”

Time

I’ve been thinking about time. Well not so much ‘thinking’ about it as being open to insight...

And I had a flash of insight this morning when I recalled the old saying that we are born anew each day and that, basically, all that gives us a sense of the continuity of ‘time’ are the thoughts and thought patterns in our minds. Without thought there would be no past and no future. Past and future exist as nothing other than thought. All that’s actually ‘real’ is the present....it’s the only reality. It’s all that ever has or ever will exist in terms of time. Nothing ever happened in the ‘past’ (it happened in the present moment; the form of which simply changes). Nothing can ever happen in the ‘future’ (it can only happen in the present moment). Is it the human mind that keeps us locked in a sense of ‘time’ - an illusory sense that is glued together by mere thoughts?

In Eckhart Tolle’s ‘A New Earth’ he makes the point that if you were to visit a world where there were no humans; only animals and trees and could ask them what time it was (and assume that they could answer you!)...they would probably stare at you as if you were mad and answer simply ‘Why, it’s NOW! What other time could it be?’

If ‘time’ is simply a mental construct held together by mere thoughts...why do we cling to it so strongly? Is it because from our past we assemble a sense of identity (which can only be our ego identity, the false self, because the ‘content’ of this self is incidental and interchangable and therefore can’t reflect our TRUE, innate ‘identity’)? And do we need the notion of future simply to project onto it our desire for fulfilment and wholeness (which we mainly tend to seek by acquiring and accumulating ‘things’ and objects)?

Is this inability to be at peace, to appreciate and dwell fully in the present moment because we’re bound by the mental constructions of past and future an inherent human dysfunction?

When I say that past and future don’t really exist obviously I’m not denying the passage of ‘linear time’ as we experience it. Buuut....there is no succession of separate ‘moments’ really; there’s only one infinite present moment without beginning or end, and the form of this moment changes constantly (one moment I’m standing in this room, the next moment I’m moving into another room).

The thing is, we latch onto these changes and make stories of out of them and we cling to those stories and invest them with meaning and emotion and carve an identity out of them, rather than simply letting them go. We carry the ‘past’ with us rather than realising that it’s simply the movement of a dance. Once a particular movement has been performed it’s over; the present moment takes on a new movement. Why keep that movement alive in your mind and miss what's currently going on? And why project yourself into an imagined future to think about what the next movement will be, again missing what's currently happening?

I don’t know if I’ve expressed this with any clarity. But I know what I mean, at least. I remember Byron Katie explaining to Oprah Winfrey how we can deal with the ‘bad’ things that happen to us. I remember her saying that if someone hits you, for example, the good thing is that the moment it happens, it’s OVER. The only way it’s kept alive is if you keep replaying it in your mind and running stories through your mind about it. If you keep replaying it in your mind, then it’s not the other person that's hitting you - it’s you that’s hitting yourself. (This doesn’t obviously mean you ought not take action to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but it does mean that you immediately let it go, because it’s no longer real - it’s just a memory, which means it’s just a thought and nothing more). I found this tremendously liberating and something immediately ‘clicked’ in my mind.

Obviously we can't escape the measurement of time in this world of ours. We still need to operate by the clock in order to function in our society. There's no escaping 'clock time' But perhaps psychologically we can unhook ourselves from it and recognise it simply as a construct. The past is over the moment it happens and so we can just let it go. By all means, deal with whatever issues come up from it in the present, but then let that go as well. Just let go of all your baggage of ‘past’, and equally the baggage of ‘future’. Recognise it all just as thought. It has no inherent existence. All that’s real is this moment, right here, right now. The form of that moment is continually changing. Let's just flow with it and stop creating ‘time’ out of it.....

Rule Number 6

Love this little parable, which I saw in a Wayne Dyer book called 'The Power of Intention' some years ago. Came across it again and it's so true. Makes me laugh - a very good one to keep in mind whenever you get stressed out......

Two prime ministers were sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fists on the desk. The resident prime minister admonishes him: "Peter," he says. "Kindly remember Rule Number 6," whereupon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologises and withdraws.

The politicians return to their conversation, only to be interrupted yet again 20 minutes later by a hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying. Again the intruder is greeted with the words: "Please remember Rule Number 6". Complete calm descends once more and she too withdraws with a bow and an apology.

When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: "My dear friend, I've seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of Rule Number 6?"

"Very simple," responds the resident prime minister. "Rule Number 6 is don't take yourself so Goddamn seriously."

"Ah," says his visitor, "that is a fine rule." After a moment of pondering, he inquires, "And what may I ask are the other rules?"

"There arent any."

----------------

I'll explain why I found that story so good. It cuts through the ego; it cuts through the mind-stories we tell ourselves. Most the suffering of our life is actually in our heads ("this shouldn't have happened", "how dare she speak to me like that", "it shouldn't be raining today"). We take these mind-stories so seriously, so often. Many people worship their stories and get so caught up in them that they utterly mistake their interpretations and stories about life with life itself. This is the ego, I believe: identifying with the content of your mind, investing it with a sense of self and a solidity and realness it doesn't inherently possess. When you cease to cherish those thoughts and stories, when you stop taking yourself so seriously......wow. You actually begin to taste freedom, and become more in touch with life than ever before. You realise that the thoughts you've been terrorising yourself with in your head are just thoughts, just clouds passing through the sky of mind.

When you do that you disidentity for the 'little self' and can access the 'True Self', whatever you want to call it. So, for some people - particularly those who are deeply engrossed in the 'little self' and the content of mind - this story can be a very helpful pointer. For others - perhaps those who already have a degree of freedom from mental bondage - it's not as appropriate. For others, who are completely unawakened and totally identified with mind, telling them to 'stop taking themselves so seriously' would get you a punch in the face, because they really believe they have every right to take themselves that seriously.

Ultimately, we might be the centre of our own universes, and we might often think that our problems and issues and stories have absolute importance. The reality is they only have relative importance - relative to us. And what are we but tiny sub-microscopic particles on a world that's smaller than a grain of sand in all the beaches in all the world. Whenever I remind myself of this vastness, my problems immediately shrink and I immediately jettison my self-importance and so slip out of the realm of 'little self' and into the province of the 'big Self'. As the little self we're actually totally insignificant because it's only an illusion of mind; as the true Self we're...everything.

Thoughts on life, death and beyond

My grandparents with my Mum, taken in the West Coast of Scotland, Summer 2000

A few nights ago I dreamt of my grandfather, who sadly passed on in 2004. I was back in his and my grandmother's house and oh my god, it was JUST LIKE I WAS THERE. Even in the dream i started crying because i realised how much i missed it, how much I missed THEM and how big a part of my life they were. Every single detail was there, even things I'd long forgotten. it wasnt the happiest time i was there in my dream, either - it was after granny had gone into a nursing home and my grandad was alone and really his whole world had disappeared. it was so difficult. i really miss them both. the end almost seems cruel from a certain perspective and yet, ultimately, all was well.

i’d like to believe they are still here, with us. recently i’ve willingly dismantled all my old beliefs and i dont currently know what to believe. ive even been open to the possibility of nothingness after death. nothingness before death as well - and even during life. in my heart, what do i feel? in my heart i totally believe in a continuity - because i believe that the form, the physical self is only a very small part of this whole that we are. we’re just a speck of dust when compared to the vastness of our true self; our true nature. does that true nature continue in an individualised fashion? I’d have to say YES. I know in my heart that my grandparents are still here. still alive. in fact, more alive than ever. the form can only express a limited aspect of our true nature, very limited, and as the form gradually dissolves that expression becomes narrower and narrower, until it's just like a very faint, intermittent trickle of water; the water being reflective of our essential nature or spirit.

I remember once sitting looking at a painting in a glass frame. In the glass I could see a reflection of the neighbours outside; I saw their car pulling into the drive and them getting out and unloading shopping bags from the boot, before going inside. It was all there, reflected in the painting. I'll never forget the dawning realisation that crept up on me as I observed this. It made me feel that this is perhaps all that our phenomenal world is; a reflected image of something on a transparent medium - an illusion, a pale reflection of something that’s actually happening elsewhere. you might look at the picture and the reflection that was happening in it and see it as the whole truth, the whole reality - but in truth, it was but a reflection of something infinitely greater. the small, limited human mind might zero in on the reflection and think it is the whole truth; but in reality, it's just an illusion and there's a whole universe beyond that phenomenal apparition....a universe that's quite beyond the capacity of our minds to even begin to imagine. this, THIS - all of it, all of phenomenal ‘reality’ is just a pale reflection of an infinitely greater reality.

So my grandparents...they've stepped out of my perceived reflection of reality for now, and yet I still feel them, very close. in some ways i often feel them as more a part of my life now than they ever were and thats rather strange, but nonetheless true. before they were separated by space and time, but now i feel those boundaries are gone - and it’s like they are linked with me even more closely. My Grandad was a gentle, unassuming presence so i ‘feel’ him quite subtly, but my Granny was a force of nature; a strong, dominant, loving and vivacious personality and i feel her very strongly; it’s almost as though i can sense her sharing opinions, and comments and laughter, as well as love and support.

phenomenal reality is a strange thing. outwardly, in the world of form i see so much loss - the loss of my grandparents, of much the rest of my extended family, of friends and health and an ‘outer life’, i can see the encroachment of aging as a reminder of the impermanence of this always-terminal condition we call 'life' - in others and even in myself. i watch as a flower i pick from the garden, radiant with beauty and the lustrousness of life gradually crumples and dissolves into a dry, lifeless husk.

and its ok. waves come and then they dissolve back into the ocean. can i be at peace with it? Well, why not? Would you want the waves to be any other way? they are as they are. we are as we are. life is as it is. flow with it, let it be, let yourself ‘be lived by life’ rather than thinking that we have to be in the pilot seat and ‘live life’ (the ultimate ego delusion and yet so so pervasive and convincing at times!). sitting in the garden, surrounded by a slowly blossoming tree, shrubs and plants bursting into life with fresh, vibrant green; cloudless blue skies, radiant sunshine, a gentle breeze rippling so delicately through the leaves and grass and all the various birds going about their business, singing so sweetly just because that’s what they do...it’s life.

Imagine if a bird developed an ego and got the notion that it ‘had a life’, with things to do, achievements to gain, plans to make and appearances to keep; I guess there’s nothing you could do to convince that bird that all of that mindstuff was ultimately a fabrication. The birds don’t ‘have’ a life any more than the blades of grass - or in fact, us. That would be a mental conceptualisation. Ultimately, we just ARE life; life living itself. If we could really get back in tune with nature (of which we are really a part) then we’d see that it’s pointing us the way back to wholeness, peace, purpose and unity: just BE as you are. Let your true nature emerge and be at one with life; you don’t ‘have’ a life...you are life.

Beyond mind - into awareness

WHO AM I?

Self enquiry, don't you just love it? Before I might have been able to answer that with a rattling off of statistics (name, age, nationality, gender, geographical location) along with an assortment of mindstuff (I think this, I believe that, I want this, I like that, I don't like this) and I'd maybe even through in a few memories to give a little more cohesion and substance. Et voila - "me"!

But I don't buy that anymore. That "me" is just a collection of interchangable mental content. Nothing solid, nothing concrete, nothing that has any inherent existence or realness. Much like you could start describing your car; you can name it, give me all sorts of information about it and what it does, has done or can do...but there's ultimately no inherent realness to it! What you label a "car" and assume IS a "car" simply because that's what you've labelled it is in reality just a collection of various parts; metals, nuts and bolts, glass, fabric, mechanics. It's the same with people...and I don't mean that in a reductionist and nihilistic way at all. Clearly we have bodies and we have consciousness....but beyond that, when it comes to this notion of personal identity.....IT'S ALL JUST A MENTAL FABRICATION. Just like the car, we label it with a name and collect an assortment of facts and statistics and think we know what it is.

This is going pretty deep. I'll understand if you want to bail out. For many people losing the sense of ego, of personal identity is a terrifying prospect. But ultimately it's the only real way to be free. If you're ready to shed your illusions then you'll be open to what I say next. If not, if you're quite happy to remain in the dream, then that's fine - sweet dreams. Usually it's not until the dream becomes painful (and it inevitably will) that you really have the impetus to wake up. For instance, have you ever been having a nightmare and you suddenly realise it's a nightmare and you desperately try to will yourself to wake up?! Been there, done that, wearing the t-shirt. I haven't fully woken up, but the more I practise the more I'm getting a glimpse of the twilight state between sleep and wakefulness. And it's delicious, liberating and freeing beyond all previous imagination. And I want to share it with anyone that is open to it.

The more I delve into nondualism the more I’m realising (for the first time actually FEELING) that ‘I’, ‘myself’, this ego entity is hollow, unreal, a mirage, a phantom, an illusion. A chimera. There’s nothing there. So why big it up? Why seek to bolster the ego and solidify it and add to it when...its just a shadow? The real ‘me,’ is pure awareness, is just this sense of beingness; devoid of all identity, devoid of characteristics and personality and even individual likes and dislikes. It’s the screen against which all the projections of the mind manifest - the projections of thoughts and beliefs, likes and dislikes, all conceptualisations of any kind. It’s the only reality....and its this immense, spacious void-like immensity is completely impersonal, almost like the sky or the heavens at night. Objects appear in it; clouds or stars or planetary bodies...but it’s beyond and ultimately quite detached from whatever appears in its vicinity. It’s the space in which all forms appear and disappear. It’s the ‘emptiness’ that Buddhists speak of...I never understood that before, but I do now - moreover I’m experiencing it. Eckhart Tolle speaks of it as ‘space consciousness’....again, it’s not something you can really understand with the mind because it’s beyond mind. It’s the space in which the mind manifests its thoughts. Compared to the mind - finite, quite small and ultimately very limited, the background of spaciousness - this awareness that is at the core of our being - is unbounded and limitless and free. Whereas the mind attaches to concepts and thoughts and beliefs and all manner of conceptualisation, the spacious awareness is free of those.

Albert Camus once said, and I really love this quote: “Gazing up at the stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe.”

And when you step beyond mind into awareness that’s exactly what our true nature, the which lies at the core of our ‘beingness’ feels like: a gentle, vast, incomparable benign indifference. The sky doesn’t really mind what kind of cloud formations there are, what shape or consistency they take or whether or not they offer rain or thunder. The sky just allows it all and lets it happen, without judgement or intervention or manipulation or creating any sense of personalisation. That’s exactly what it feels like when you access and tap into the level of pure awareness that lies beneath mindstuff, beneath emotion and sensation, beneath the many layers of sediment of beliefs, memories, prejudices and conceptualisation that forms our perception of ourselves and the world around us.

We create little identities out of this sediment, little selves or ‘egos’. I knew all this stuff intellectually before but now I can actually sense the reality of it for myself. There’s nothing inherently wrong with these egos, they just are as they are. The problems begin however when we give them a solidity and realness they don’t possess, when we identify exclusively with them and believe that our egos are the real and only ‘us’. That’s like continually looking behind you, seeing only your shadow and thinking your shadow is ‘you’. Some spiritual traditions see the ego as the enemy and something we have to battle and rid yourself of....but in reality you don’t need to. What’s the point in battling your shadow? No matter how hard you try you can’t make it cease to be. All you need to do is simply recognise that your shadow is not you and that in itself it has no inherent existence; its an illusion of the phenomenal world and has no substance. When you really understand that, you cease to identify with it. You cease to take your own thoughts and opinions and beliefs as seriously, because they too are like shadows, or clouds passing across the sky (going back to the metaphor of the sky as being like the nature of your true ‘self’ or core awareness). When you get a glimpse into the ‘unreality’ and lack of solidity or inherent realness of the egoic structure and all these notions of identity based upon thoughts and beliefs and conceptualisation.....you let it go. You let go of ‘your story’, the story of who you think you are, who you think others are and what you think the world is about. Thoughts cease to be the buffer between your direct awareness and your peception of reality. You can then become more in touch with life, with the reality with what IS, than ever before...when you don’t buy into your thoughts about a thing, you are free to see and experience that thing as it IS, whereas previously you experienced it only through the filter of what you thought it was...

The best way to get a glimpse of this expanded awareness, and the loosening of all mental constructs is to practise meditation. Many people who have meditated will perhaps have at least some idea of what I’m talking about. Words are really insufficient to describe the indescribable, to put what is essentially formless into form by virtue of language. If you have never tasted the experience of going beyond mind into the stillness of pure awareness, then you’ll probably not ‘get’ a word of what I’ve just said. It’ll be meaningless, confusing and probably insane-sounding. In future entries I will take more about going how to achieve expanded awareness and go beyond the mind. As the Buddhists say, ‘the mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master’. The vast majority of the human race are trapped in the prison of mind, hostage to layers upon layers of dense and sticky mindstuff. Life is perceived only through the filter of mind. This is the cause of virtually all suffering on the planet. This is the reason all wars are fought and all conflict arises: my thoughts (which I am totally identified with and which I think comprise ‘me’) are contrary to your thoughts (which comprise ‘you’). Deep down of course we know that our thoughts and identity are hollow and that's why we then have an unconscious compulsion solidify our sense of self and sadly most people do that by attacking and making enemies of those we deem to have opposing senses of self. But none of it’s real. A question that Byron Katie often poses is: ‘who would you be without your story?’ That’s a great one to reflect on. The short answer can be summed up in one word: “free”.

I share this with everyone because I came to realise long ago that the solution to the world’s problems won’t be found in better or greater technology or in more scientific advances (observe: despite all the miraculous technological advancements of the last 100 years, wars are still being fought and millions are still starving on the planet). Einstein observed that a problem can never be solved with the level of consciousness that created it. Ergo, the only way out of our problems is a shift in consciousness. I believe that the real exploration of the 21st century won’t be technology or anything outside of ourselves; it will occur within each individual and it will be a journey of consciousness.

Finally please take note that all of these words, all of what I've just said are akin to a finger pointing at the moon. Don’t get too caught up in the finger itself; just try to focus on the direction in which it points.

We're not breathing ~ We're being breathed

Every so often I get bogged down in the old ways of thinking: that life is a struggle, that you have to fight tooth and nail to get what you want, that life is something to be conquered or mastered...that's how most people are conditioned to see life and it's perhaps little wonder that 'stress' is now more the norm than the exception and that freakishly high numbers of people are medicated. It's clear that our 'win or lose' materialistic, acquisition-driven culture is just running people into the ground, creating fear, avarice and disillusionment.

When we're conceived and begin developing in our mother's womb, the process of life happens to us of its own accord - we don't have to do anything. We don't have to struggle or fret or worry that we're somehow not 'doing it right' - because really, we're not 'doing' anything: we're being done. Same goes for when we're born and begin developing and growing. We are life unfolding in inherent perfection.

When the human mind kicks in and the 'ego' is formed (that part of us that thinks we are what we think we are; that we're separate, that we're this, that we're that), that's when we try to take over the process. Life is no longer something that effortlessly expresses through us, instead it is something we have to take charge of and manipulate and mould to our own intent. In other words, we lose touch with our essential nature and begin to think that we know better. We no longer see ourselves as an inseparate part of the whole. Instead, we see ourselves as being separate little egos, always in search of wholeness, little realising that the ego can never be whole - because it isn't even real in the first place, it's just a mental abstraction, which we use to compartmentalise our experiences.

Look at any animal and you will see how it is still in full alignment with its inherent nature - it just is what it is and it does what it does because that's what IS. Mind hasn't crept in to make it think that it should be something other than what it is - that it isn't good enough as it already is, that it must achieve and acquire and fight against life. I'm not suggesting that we all revert to an animalistic state, but we have a lot to learn from animals because they live in a far more authentic manner than the vast majority of people ever will.

We don't trust the process of life. We compartmentalise it. As Eckhart Tolle points out, it's even in our language: we say that we 'have' a life, which in truth is a contradiction in terms, because if we have a life than that implies we are separate from life. If we are separate from life, then what are we? In truth, we don't 'have a life', rather we ARE life: life expressing itself through us. Only the human ego could suppose that it knows more and knows better than LIFE itself, which is why most of us try to 'master' life and strive to 'get all we can' out of life. Hence the epidemic of stress that is all around us; hence the way the world is in the horrifically shambolic state it is in.

We don't have to 'do' anything in life, because ultimately any attempts to control life are illusory...instead, we're being 'done' by life. Case in point: observe your body. You don't have to breathe your body; your body is BEING breathed. You don't need to do anything or stress or fear that your body isn't 'good enough' at breathing - all you need to do is surrender and trust that LIFE knows more than you do. You don't have to worry about healing cuts, growing your fingernails or hair or digesting your food: it's all being done for you. Life is breathing you - and the moment that you let go and surrender to that fact, to the innate perfection that is within you and sustaining you, then you'll be free and you'll know peace.

This doesn't mean you don't have to do anything in life, of course, but it's just a reminder that ultimately there's no point in stressing or fretting about all the outward stuff, because that's all it is: 'stuff'. Just remember that life is breathing you, and all the rest is really secondary. So many people get totally lost and carried away by mental abstraction (with thoughts of 'I am this', 'I am that', 'this should happen', 'this shouldn't happen') that they lose sight of the basic fact that we don't have to make life happen. How could we? Life is happening to us. By all means we can hold intentions of how we might want our life to be, but ultimately life is what is is and it's time to relinquish the perpetual war that creates so much unnecessary suffering in our world; just let go and let life express itself through you.

You'll never find a seedling that gets upset thinking it should be growing faster, or that it should be taller or stronger. It just is what it is and so are we. We just tell ourselves otherwise. Let go of the need to 'be something', of not being 'good enough', of striving and struggling, of wanting and needing, of attachment and aversion. Let it all go and be free.