Illusion?

Francis

If we are consciousness and the rest is illusion, what is the point of continuing on in body? I am truly only what I was before birth and what I will be after death and so why not just stop participating in the illusion?

Simone

Dear Simone,

You are starting from the wrong assumption: 

'We are consciousness and the rest is illusion'

The right assumption to start from is:

'We are consciousness and the rest is consciousness'.

Love,

Francis

The world through our glasses

Rudra spent a weekend in Satsang with Pamela Wilson. In that atmosphere it became clear that everything, good and bad, is attended by a bird with a straw in its beak. The straw is from the nest of love calling us back home. All is welcome. As Pamela said "misunderstanding is welcome here".  

A few random quotes from Pamela:

"When we are kind to the mind, it relaxes".

"It starts with cluelessness and ends with cluelessness".

"We are beginners at love".

So often we stand in our own light obscuring the narrow way. The narrow way is the path of 'what is' and turns out to be vast. As the Buddhists say 'the path exists but not the traveler on it'.

Desert Blooms

The 'non-dual' insight can become so heady and cerebral. Us characters want everything to be explainable and slotted in to a neat hypothesis. Something to be sustainable and reliable as life hits us in the face.

There will never be an answer on that level. The finite cannot know the infinite (can it even fully know the finite?). Even those are concept words.

The dessicated plains of non-dual theory are bloomless without ingredient x, which is a shower of something resembling love. What is that love? I know the very word brings up many hours of cult and religious/spiritual practice....  in many people's minds it is labelled 'mood making'. Equally Rudra  knows  what it refers to, as every human being does; something exquisite, compassionate, caring and melting. He saw much of that in his hospital visit and sees it daily especially in others.

The New Math

"One and One makes One".
H.H. Dolly Alpaca

Dream World / Real World

The Dreamlike world; the very fact that it is dreamlike strangely makes it more imperative to pay attention with compassion. Even that is a bit prescriptive. Attention is payed and payed with Grace and compassion.


For that part which wants to understand this conundrum it could be posited that when the world seems so real it brings into being a responsible owning person who feels he or she has to do the right thing. That's where the trouble starts.

No Thing

Whatever you add to it, does not increase it.

Whatever you subtract from it , does not deplete it.

Travelling under false papers 11

"Since you are not the captain, do not steer the ship".

Rumi. Masnavi 11:3436-56

Shortest book ever written,

Rudra has been writing for over a year, scraps here and there. The synopsis of his efforts and maybe the complete book could be published as follows: ?!

Leave well alone

"The universe is perfect, intervene at your peril.”

All it takes

"You do the work,

and I'll just show up."

Pygmanandaji

Doors to Crosscheck

Rudra has been indisposed and spent time in Bantry Institute of Higher Education (Bantry Hospital to you). He will report further on his journey there in due course. Suffice it to say that the breaking down of the body can be both contractive and expansive (expensive also). The loving support of friends and family has been second to none and all points to gratitude and simplicity.

From Rudra's hospital diary "Open the gates as wide as they will go, so that all of life's pleasures and pains can fully express themselves and pass through."

The obvious conundrum

Thinking about being still and peaceful and trying to be still and peaceful are universes apart from being still and peaceful.

Evaporation

There is no perfect life there is only perfection. Stuart Schwartz

Non-Duality for Dummies

Count to one.

Pinning the jelly to the wall

Building up a wall, or dismantling the wall. The choice is very simple.

The Ripple Effect

Thoughts of the individual, its welfare, opinion and continuance hover like a low mist. The internal dialectic is persistent. Above the fields of the Pure Land is a vast blanket of vebiage and concepts, entangled and warring.

The beginning of freedom is the understanding of the nature of these thoughts. Vigilance and a hawk eye, coupled with sincerity and a burning passion for liberation are the catalysts for release. Yet the subtlety of thought co-opts all attempts and methods. It wishes to own any insight and progress made.

The breaks in identification reveal that the mist is in fact illusory. Understanding transmutes into Heart.

Rudra listened to a Tibetan teacher outlining the neccessity of altruism and the attention to the mechanics of Karma. Beside him a drip from the roof fell into a standing pool of water. The ripples, outgoing, spoke of a sublime beauty and simplicity far beyond the need for explanation. How simple life is then and how simple the complications are too.

When your eye is single.

When there is someone at home to receive the post it is inevitable that there will be good and bad news.

The Bottom Line

Life is simple. Who we take ourselves to be is not.

Phantasms

Peek behind the curtain. You may be atonished to see a busy laboratory. the technicians are evaluating new products which affect the brain and the organism. The research and development unit are evaluating the likes and dislikes of the client and working on strategies to keep the client satisfied. The task is open-ended. The work runs on a 24 hour schedule 365 days a year.

The cost of this is painfully exorbitant and takes its toll on the company owner, both physically and mentally.

Only in moments of Stillness is it seen that this whole scenario does not exist at all.

So much toil for nothing.

Through a glass darkly

Rudra and Roushka continue their adventures. They sat with Satyananda at The Sanctuary in Smithfield, Dublin which is a beautiful retreat centre in the heart of Dublin. Set up by Sister Stanislaus it comprises a small zen garden with shrubs, fountain and a circular sun garden. Indoors is a satsang hall, library and dining area along with offices etc.

Satyananda fielded and invited questions on all topics from the technical queries on the mechanics of self-realisation* to urgent personal conundrums. Needless to say the atmosphere was deep and the satsang revealing.

*Rudra doesn't understand this phrase. He is a simple fellow and most of the time is spent looking for his glasses even though he has a strong intuition that they are not really his at all. In fact he is doubtful if he even has a role in life. Something tells him that Life is the role.

Hands Up

The Kingdom of Heaven is not only in your hands, it is your hands. Josh Baran

Emptifull

Rudra and his twin Roushka spent 4 days at Aherlow Castle. Roushka is still misssing believed lost in the big oak wood. There are scratching sounds as if behind glass walls. At times he appears, bespactled and learned as if to show off his knowledge of the world and its ways. Truth be told he is a very convincing expert and wears the cloak of an engaged and engaging listener. However there is an insubstantial air to him that cannot be ignored.

Rudra remains bemused and absorbed with whatever plate is served up. He feels as light as the wind and describes his state as being similar to an excavated field.

All praise and salutations ring out to the compassionate teacher Stuart Schwartz. All praise and salutations ring out to the fellow students and the magnaminious hosts. The echoes and the perfume of that time appear in most unexpected places.

Blessed

"Blessed is the pathless path and the walk-less walker" Hans Laurentius

Residents Lounge?

Owner Occupier

Totally convinced of his ownership and 100 per cent identified with the property. He is convinced that his  house is to be maintained and defended against allcomers. He has the deeds and is aware of his rights. He will take up arms if needs be to repel outside threats (anagram of 'the rats') 

Tenant

Is aware that this is not his house but must act as if it is to be a good tenant. Will keep the space orderly and in good condition whilst relying on the owner to undertake major repairs. Is aware of his proprietary rights and tenancy obligations. Will defend the establishment up to a point but not as resolutely as the owner.

Squatter

Has arrived here by cunning and judicious observation. He does not recognise the owner's rights but lives evasively and often in fear. If challenged he may put up a fight but is more inclined to take to his heels.

Ghost

He is a peripatetic resident only revealing himself occasionally and seemingly at random. He obeys his own agenda and has no truck with rights and ownership. Being substantially invisible he has no business with  the world (in fact he does not subscribe to its existence). Yet he is here because there is a lingering longlost attraction to what was his world and is drawn back in some atavistic manner, much as a salmon is drawn to its place of birth.

The Space

Has no attributes, is utterly accomodating and belongs to no one. Is always there but is rarely even noticed. Without him the property would be unworkable. He has no colour, creed or philosophy. He has no ideals, opinions or boundaries. He doesn't do love or hate, yet due to his continuous generosity he can only be love.

The Challenge

Rudra was travelling behind enemy lines when challenged by a sentry with the textbook question "who goes there?'.

Unable to reply he was shot like a dog.

No Stance

Assuming a perch implies its maintainance and defence. 

Resistance

“There’s no better velcro for identification than opposition,” Pamela Wilson

Certainty, the smart bomb.

It's not what we don't know that hurts us, it's what we know for certain that just ain't so.

Mark Twain

The Divan Of Abandonment

Come sit without expectation
Without effort
Without agenda
Without judgement
Without prescription

Without method
Without goal

Outside the walls of your citadel
In the domain of utter emptiness

Lies Presence

Come bask
Where being, having no choice,

Talks the language Of being.

Unhappy? Moi?

"Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and everything you do, is for your self-and there isn't one". Wei Wu Wei

Santa Sailor

Is he fuelled by alchohol, drugs, hope or religion? Is he fuelled by sex, aesthetics, philosophy or family ties.

He is out of the loop and walking on air when fuelled by no thing.

Walking on air

It's wiser to see that everything is alright than to try to make everything alright..

The merits of astonishment

I doubt if compassion can be learned or 'practised'. True compassion springs out like a lion from a bush.