Tagged: answers
The wisdom of contradiction
To complete the last article, consider this:
“Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.” ( From Batman Begins)
The above is a “spiritual” quote with the teaching to “never give up.” Nevertheless, it is not the complete phrase describing Life.
“Why do we rise, sir? So that we can learn to fall.”
Now, that is the complete experience.
To rise and fall come in the same package. Those are not different things, as we have been conditioned to believe. Being “successful” is only a word that we use to segment our lives. Yes, you can be “successful” at work, in sports, in your family life, at church, and whatever else we may think that we are “successful” at. BUT, that is not the whole package.
What about your health? What about your inner peace? What about your fears? What about your sex life?
Are you “successful” in all those facets at the same time, for as long as you live?
Under the above “reality” the perception of “success” and “failure” will vanish.
Now consider this:
“The true path is to go North. Follow me.” Sounds familiar?
That is incomplete.
However, the sage came a few days later and said: “The true path is to go South. Follow me.”
His followers were baffled. Why is this sage contradicting himself? Logically, there is no “truth” in contradiction! He is not a sage at all!
Which one is the true path? It is North or South? There cannot be both!
The sage gave the full experience: North and South. His followers may need a little de-conditioning to understand that.
If you could walk North all the way on Earth, wouldn’t you end up South?
That is “reality.” However, our minds are conditioned to perceive North and South as 2 different things. The “reality” of their difference is only referential.
Most religious “spirituality” avoid the full experience and embraces only one side of their own creation of duality.
“Do not do this…” This is the “true” path!
What could be the practical lesson out of the above?
Any spiritual path which does not embrace the whole human experience, is only a partial path.
Any religious holy book embracing only one side of a duality, is not the complete path. It is partial. It may have benefits for followers, yes… but it is not complete.
Self-realization is a path of inclusion, completeness; where openness of that which we know as “I,” opens in such a way as to disappear in the immensity of Oneness.
That openness can be labeled as “surrender” ”egolessness” or some other “spiritual” label.
“You” are God, not because you ARE, but because “you” ARE NOT.
“You” are Life, not because you ARE the same as Life, but because “you” ARE NOT.
When “you” ARE, you cannot be anything else. “You” ARE stuck in “you,” so self-absorbed that “you” can only separate from everyone else and Life. The paradox being that that which we think we ARE, we ARE NOT. What you put in words, is not.
Perhaps, this is the main issue with “spirituality “for the masses:
It is so concerned in making believers become something that they ARE NOT instead of supporting the seeking of who they ARE.
When you find who you ARE, you will find all the answers, without asking a question. 🙂
Question on Mind vs. Gut Feeling
How do u know while taking a decision whether it is a gut feeling (heart) or your mind speaking (conditioning)?
Thank you for your question. It is a question that probably most will want to “know.”
First, if you take a “decision,” that is your mind without a doubt. The gut feeling knows without choosing. It is immediate. If you wait around, the mind appears.
Be aware that because I am answering your question with words, you are going to try to understand my words by using your mind. Notice the trap.
The mind could make you believe that “you know” if you follow my words, and you will believe that this is a “gut feeling.”
By asking that honest question, you are demonstrating how hard it is to “Know thyself” when we are trapped in the mind.
The gut feeling is your internal wisdom. Your action when you listen to it, will be according to your role in Life, which means that you will feel fulfilled by acting on it, regardless of human opinions based on conditioning about favorable outcomes.
The gut feeling is not an emotion. It is not the mind. Both of them are conditioning.
First, we need to learn to observe our inner world. Notice when a stranger comes by you, there is the conditioning, which immediately jumps in “ He is ugly.” “What the heck does he want?” If you are not aware, present to observe this, you will not notice how your feelings get colored by those statements from the mind. To go deeper into your reaction, your conditioning, is to liberate yourself from that trigger.
To learn to observe, you need to be in a “neutral state,” as when a car is in “neutral,” it goes where momentum will take it.
Similarly is with your state of being, in that state you can observe. Free of judgment, free of opinion, free of past learnings. By becoming aware of our own breathing, focused on it but in a neutral state, we could learn to observe how the mind jumps in during every interaction with others. This is critical.
Notice that when you willfully stop breathing, the mind stops as well. To be aware of that state, means to know no-mind, the neutral state.
I could only give you my experience through words of recognizing the mind. I cannot give you “the answer,” or the “method.” That is for you to discover.
Once you are familiar with how the mind jumps in, then you will not identify with it, you will know that it is not “you,” but all the conditioning from many past experiences; that is what most believe to be “I.”
This AWARENESS is to know something useful.
If you have not been aware of a gut feeling, my description may be worthless to you. You may feel a sensation in your gut (it could be energy or some feeling) If you are not aware of it, the mind will overwrite that sensation with an “educated choice,” a conditioned statement.
It takes inner observation, which is not a “practice,” but being conscious, awake to our inner world.
I am aware that I may not be answering your question with a “cut and dry” recognition of the mind vs. the gut feeling; but you are asking me “how to breath,” even though you are breathing… I could tell you “inhale air with your nostrils” and that is misleading for breathing happens without the “I” doing anything. If the “I” does it, that is not breathing but just an exercise on breathing. If you become AWARE of breathing, then you will know without any doubts.
Through my answer, you may have discovered the shortcomings of words and teachings, and hopefully you will be AWARE of what is going on in you. That is where the “true” answer resides, our journey is to uncover it. 🙂
We will get there… whether the “I” wants it … or not.
We make our destiny? OR Is destiny already made?
Isn’t destiny “you”? Isn’t “you” destiny?
A mango was sitting on my countertop. It was still green.
Have you noticed how the mango changes to become a ripe mango even though away from the tree?
Is the mango at anytime separated from Life?
We see 2 different things: A mango and everything else… Life. Nevertheless as time goes by, as Life changes, then the mango will change.
Let us assume that the mango had “consciousness,” the mango has an “I.”
Wouldn’t it be silly if the mango said: “I want to make effort to become ripe” or “I want to be ripe now.”
What would happen if the mango had the ability to dream about the future?
“I see myself doing this….10 years from now.” There is nothing wrong with having a dream, but Life changes will shape that mango to become something… when we become obsessive about the “form” of the change, then we have a particular objective: “I want to be xyz” but the end result, destiny is meant to make the mango ripe. That could be through any experience: I could be a beggar, a millionaire, etc. The end result is to attain insight, to be a ripe mango, ready for other experiences which will bring growth.
Growth happens through different experiences in Life, it means further insight.
Human mentality is caught up with “change” in a way which does not acknowledge Life.
“I want to change the world.”
The world will change by itself. That “I” is part of it.
“I want to change myself.” That is the hardest trick to do. Could you grab your shadow?
Don’t you see that you are the mango sitting in my countertop? Change will happen “naturally,” it may not be what “you” expected, but believe me; it is exactly what is needed…it is the experience that will make further changes for you and for all.
Are you interested in finding the absolute truth?
Some like to exchange one word for another, they may call that “God.”
Your perception, my perception, their perceptions… all of them have their own truths and falsehoods.
Since there are different perceptions, what is the truth?
🙂 It is a matter of utility. Today your truth has utility, tomorrow it is mine.
What do you desire? His truth, her truth, their truth?
Look at your heart. Feel the direction of its beating, its pulsing…for if you pick right or left, it does not matter…still you will find your destiny… just like the mango sitting in my countertop.
The heart has the answers. The head can only think of questions. Is that my truth?
No…my truth has falsehood and my falsehood… truth. 🙂
Is the answer more important than the question?
“There are no “bad” questions; only “bad” answers. “ We hear that cliché all the time, which is meant to encourage the shy ones to ask a question…
Let us take a look at this heart-felt quote:
“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
A question will set up the answer. GIGO : “Garbage in, garbage out.”
In the realm of spirituality, in the realm of life; there are no “why’s.” Things happen “because” that is the way it should happen. No need to discover the “cause,” when the consequence is the child of that cause. “As the father, so the son..” 🙂
In the realm of the intellectual mind a “why” is very important, when in life; it is meaningless.
A “why” does not deal with what it is “now.”
Someone may say: “But to know why something happens; will allow us to understand how that came into the picture…”
Intellectually perhaps, it adds information to our minds, but nothing else.
Life has many interconnected variables. There is not a single answer that could fit all of them… although that is what the mind wants. That is how a “black or white” view of life came into existence.
“She treated me badly because…..” fill in the blank with something. It does not matter what it is.
Another question frequently asked is “how.”
“But, how do I do that… What is the method to get to that?” Experience, play with it. Please read the quote above.
A method means a recipe. Spirituality is not something that we cook with many ingredients. This is not a formula to make Coca Cola. 🙂 There is variety, every human being is different although the same 🙂
Here are more questions to “think about.” 🙂
1) What is the beginning of time? That question assumes that time is something with a beginning. The answer is already set up by the question.
2) Does God exist? That question has not been lived, experienced. It is just a bunch of: “Yes, because ….or No, because…” then we add stuff to support our thinking…no experience. If there is experience, that question wouldn’t be asked.
3) What is the purpose of life? It is assumed that life has a “purpose.” In the experience of life, the answer will appear.
4) Does my religion hold the truth? It is assumed that the truth is something to keep or hold… It is assumed that words, a dogma are the “truth.”
Mathias was sharing with Ananda about the “questions of life…”
Mathias: Friend, now you are a little growing shrub. Many animals will try to make a prey out of you…
Ananda: Why?
Mathias: There is no “why” in life; my friend. Flying birds are out there, they will feed on the best food that they can obtain. Being a little shrub is related with birds.
Why a big fish eats a small fish? 🙂
Because they are small….because they are fish… because someone is hungry… because it is lunch time… because it is 1 pm…. Because … because… because…
As we learn to free up our minds from the intellectual clutter, we shall see the answer in our experience… and then we shall wait for someone else to experience that similar experience so they can understand us, and save us from saying so many words and giving so many explanations … which could be so easily misunderstood by those who have not experienced the experience.
So “the answer” is : Wait and see… It will happen… if it has to… 🙂
Odd questions in Spirituality
The questions: why? How? Where? When? May sound like good questions to ask when we would like further information. The issue with spirituality is that spiritual knowledge is not related with “information,” but it is mostly related with experience.
We have been trained through our educational system to use the “scientific method,” to “know” things. That knowing means to classify, to describe, to contrast and to label.
That is a “static” way to describe, but there is no knowledge in it. It is just information.
Knowledge is always practical and should be used in our daily life. That is why, spirituality is way more than “theory.”
Reasons and arguments are mental paradigms for mental understanding. Paradoxically, that mental “knowledge” is an obstacle for experiencing “newness,” because when we ‘know” we have an expectation for something to happen according to what our knowledge dictates.
That could be true in the physical world, but not in the spiritual realms.
Where is the soul world?
A region without time does not have a location. Therefore it could be here or there, or nowhere.. 🙂 However, it exists. Experience does not dictate location.
What is happiness?
A definition is not happiness. We like to use the “word” to describe something but the interpretation of that “something” varies because we are “numberwise.” More words we use to describe, more confined our explanation will be.
Where is the soul? Where? That question Is looking for a location again. The soul is timeless.
Who am i? Fill in the blank. That definition requires further definitions and explanations. Confined in ideas and theories, we miss the experience. If we try to “cage” the experience as “this is it,” we do not allow things to change. If we say “I am a soul.” What difference does it make practically? Do I have the experience?
More words, more concepts mean less experiences.
Food for thought. Drink for feelings.
Paradoxical Life
How everything works, what is the truth?
Veracity may appear very much like falsehood
Your question has already an answer
Reason nor logic know intuition’s neighborhood
You think there is something like free will
because predestination gives you the chill
You think that we die at the end of this road
not realizing that eternity has the real code
Reincarnation opposes an eternal heaven
time is not a line but a repeating cycle
your cat has way more lives than seven
Everything in this world just recycles!
the consequence of your actions
will come back to you, no doubt
for life remembers your factions
no matter if you pull your clout
You think you are someone, a body
Paradoxically, there is nobody
you aren’t what you see reflected as such
You are what you feel and think as much
Science will give you an authoritative answer
obscuring their response with an alien, sophisticated language
modifying their theories as the steps of a dancer
combining Newton’s physics with quantum in a tasteless sandwich
The truth is a Paradox
The more you think and understand with your mind
the lesser you live, know and love with your heart
if you want to know how it is outside
you need to start … from the inside
Exploring the Depth of Living 