Tagged: reasoning
Mind-less integration to life
The mind is an interesting “phenomena.” It is able to add creativity to our lives. It is able to take us on a fantastic trip away from the mundane… The mind is the inventor of duality in our lives.
One of the most deceitful aspects of the mind, is the belief that life follows the same “rules” that we understand or that we expect.
Is the mind “good or bad”? 🙂
By now, that question should be out of the question…I hope.
Anything in the realm of the mind is not absolute. The mind merely interprets “reality” based on what we already know.
That is why to integrate with life, we may need to put aside all of those learned things that we may take as “truth.”
The above is not easy, but could be necessary to integrate with life.
We have learned about “stats” and “rivals”… Our thought has been trained to perceive confrontation, separation, analysis and logic as the way to perceive “truth,” nevertheless in a situation out of social context, (“real” life) things do not work, as we may believe.
Let us review the “process.”
We are aware. We are in this beautiful world.
How did we get stuck in the idea of “attaining something” or “achieving something” in life? How did we get stuck in fearing to “go away” from this experience to the point of becoming sad and suffer for what is a natural process?
How did we get stuck in the game of questions and answers such as : How did I get here? What is the purpose of being here? What happens after being here? etc. 🙂
Do we see that by “doing” all of those things we are missing the experience of enjoyment of “what is” and thus , integrating with “what is” for the sake of cluttering our minds with beliefs about something which does not relate with the experience of living “now”?
That is called to live life only with our heads and forgetting the heart.
The heart feels. We feel life.
If we talk to a person, do we think: How is that person going to take advantage of me? Or what could be her ulterior motive? Do we fantasize about those “if” scenarios which only exist because we are giving life to them in our heads?
Do we want to think “logically” to untie all the knots, which have been tightly tied up in our minds?
That is why, we may need to get away from thinking. We may need to just look at things “empty minded,” to experience things without labels or judgments.
That is what is meant as “silence.” To silence the mind, not by the compulsion of “trying to do something to keep it quiet.”
That doesn’t work. That is violence.
The mind will keep itself quiet when our feelings with all their strength arrive, that is when we learn again to feel life rather than to “think about it.”
“I think I love you.”
Love is not thinking about it.
“I believe that this is the right procedure”
You may be wrong. Why don’t we give our intuition a chance, so it doesn’t get stale?
We live. Our minds are busy thinking. Those thoughts are taking us away from enjoyment of life.
Do we want to know the cause, the reason… do we want to know a solution, a ready-made recipe, a belief to explain the phenomena? Do we need to read more books to get the answer? 🙂
If we do, our thoughts will only make more thoughts in return… 🙂
Limited by my own experiences
The “soul” or essence, cannot be viewed only as something individual for paradoxically; the Totality is in it.
If the above cannot be understood, perhaps by looking at the concept of “self-similarity” which brought about “fractal art,” then this idea could be intellectually understood.
The whole has the same “shape” as the parts.
In consciousness, “we” are the parts making up the whole.
Therefore, our consciousness of how we relate with the world is nothing but how we relate with ourselves.
“I am the world.”
This “I” has a personality in it. To go beyond that personality is to find our essence.
To deny the personality just to embrace the essence is what a “black or white” consciousness could observe.
The personality is “bad.” The essence is “good.”
However, when we understand the world through its paradoxical aspect, we cannot embrace one side of the coin and deny the other, for one side depends on the other side to be a coin.
This understanding will bring about a different consciousness.
Yes, we are the essence, but while living life, we also have a personality which could develop ego, that is isolation from the Totality which in turn will bring the effect of suffering.
That is how spirituality is not about denial. It is about integration of the 2 sides of the coin.
That essence, the soul is timeless, but when our consciousness is located in the personality, then time exists.
Does time exist?
🙂 Tell me about your consciousness and “I” will tell you an answer according to that.
A wrist watch has hands moving continually in a circle. That is life.
When the point of reference is 3 o’clock, then our consciousness will believe that it has 60 seconds to enjoy life, for after that, 3:01 will arrive, which is different from 3 o’clock.
We call that death.
Nevertheless, the hands of the watch will keep moving and even repeating the same movement, for that is the way a watch works. Just like the Universe. Life.
Who created the watch?
No one. The watch is all there is. It exists the moment we become conscious of it.
But… someone has to give power to it, for the hands to move… 😉
50 years ago, the example of the wristwatch would not have been a good example, for a battery is needed for the watch to work.
Someone created the battery… and the battery is something separate from the wristwatch.
Now, we have solar-powered watches. No battery needed. The Universe provides itself the energy which it needs to move. Movement is what exists. Nothing is idle.
This example only wants to convey that to understand and explain to others “how everything works in life” depends upon having experiences that could closely match the phenomena.
“I” am limited by my own experiences.
That is how paradoxically words which are meant to explain something or to describe something, will be limited by the experiences of the one explaining his experience.
Any spiritual teaching has the same issue.
If I didn’t know about “fractal art,” I wouldn’t be able to explain the paradoxical nature of the soul. If “fractal art” did not exist, then there couldn’t be something in my experience to convey what I would like to.
I will be limited.
When we abandon all the concepts including the ones explained above, we only need to realize about our own immortality.
That is all. However we get there, that may need to be experiential.
That is the “time” when enjoyment truly starts…
Put the ideas and concepts aside. Put the reasoning aside, and then we are left with the experience of enjoyment of what is… for however long is lasts… for that enjoyment can only last as long as our consciousness is aware of it. Paradoxically, when we forget about ourselves.
Everything resides in our state of consciousness.
Intensity is in your heart. Reasoning kills your feelings
Mathias, the wise tree; was sharing deep things with his friend Ananda. Going to the depth as only Mathias and Ananda know how to do.
Mathias: What makes a being imperishable?
Feel.. an answer from your heart…
Ananda took his time and answered to Mathias.
Ananda: To belong to what is imperishable.
Mathias: To belong gives you permanence?
Ananda: Yes.
Mathias: My friend, to what do you belong to?
Ananda: To everything that exists… and also to that which doesn’t exist…
Mathias: Intellectually speaking we could say : “yes” and “no,” but in reality from your heart, ask yourself: What is that which you belong to?
Wait for the answer. It is something non-intellectual. It is not the answer which everyone believes to be. Observe your own roots before replying.
Ananda: The response that came was “love.”
Mathias: Do you belong to love, then?
Ananda: Yes… crazy answer… 🙂
Mathias: Let me be crazy, then… 🙂
Ananda: A response without reasoning.
Mathias: Are your intentions in your actual existence hand in hand with love?
Ananda: Yes … but not completely.
Mathias: Where do you get love, my friend?
Ananda: It is there.. it is like the drop of water belonging to the Ocean.
Mathias: Do you feel full of love, then?
Ananda: No.
Mathias: What is needed then to experience love?
Ananda: well…that my inner wall goes away…
Mathias: What wall?
Ananda: The internal wall which has been placed there to give me an identity. To make me believe something… what I am.
Mathias: In which moment do you become aware or conscious of that wall?
Ananda: when I wake up.
Mathias: and before that what is in there?
Ananda: Emptiness.
Mathias: and in that emptiness, what do you place?
Ananda: Nothing.
Mathias: Then.. in that emptiness there is a need to place love.
Ananda: Yes, for emptiness makes up a “form” and through that form, I relate.
Mathias: What inspires that love in you… what makes it happen?
Ananda: Beauty.
Mathias: What is beauty?
Ananda: something which inspires….
Mathias: Today I will give you a secret formula, my friend… Are you ready?
Intensity is in your heart. Reasoning kills your feelings. Tell that to everyone.
When you open your heart, when the wall goes away… simply think of this and then feel. People think more than what they feel.. and it is the opposite. More time is needed to feel and less time to think. More gratitude and love comes from that exercise.
Reasoning calculates. Reasoning does not measure based on the common good. Reasoning many times is subjective and it depends on the influence of the surrounding environment; that means that it only knows how to read the limited intentions but not the bottom.
The bottom is like the eye of the hurricane. It is there where the secret resides. All yours. Explore, submerge yourself and then come out bringing the gem in your hands… and then smile, because then, you found the path to your own freedom.
Reasoning needs to finish to understand Spirituality
This is the talk about “Spiritual matters” between 2 friends, Mathias and Ananda. The talk started with the recognition of fear and how an intuition is related with fear. As the talk went on, “reasoning and logic” turned that friendly sharing into some sort of “debate,” where listening to another in the light of self observation was forgotten and only intellectual concepts took over.
Mathias: Fear creates suppositions, suppositions create wear and tear in the self; that break down will finally exhaust you.
Precaution and intuition does not trap you in that state of mental exhaustion.
Ananda: When a person says that intuitively she has to leave from doing something, that intuition gives her fear to leave right away….
Mathias: That intuition is not intuition. Intuition is something fast, instantaneous. It doesn’t give time for doubt.
Ananda: An Intuition could be mistaken?
Mathias: If that intuition does not go according to your wishes, then for you it will be a mistake, but if it goes according to the Universe it cannot be a mistake.
Ananda: Then, an intuition could be according to the Universe or according to our expectations?
Mathias: Definitely.
Ananda: If I am afraid that a dog will bite me, and I want to get out from it, then intuition appears….
Mathias: When there is fear, there is no intuition. When there is day there cannot be night.
Ananda: Interesting…
It seems like fear is what is making us suffer..
Mathias: When there is intuition there is no fear for a few seconds but because an intuition is so fast, then fear could come.. That is why intuition needs to be followed by action because there shouldn’t be an empty space after it.
Intuition is quick. Fear is slow, long.
Ananda: But..fear is a thought, right?
Mathias paused and realized that Ananda kept asking questions without considering and observing in himself the answers that he was getting, then Mathias decided to discourage Ananda’s reasoning by asking unrelated questions instead. This is what is known as “Koans” or riddles or mental puzzles, words just to exhaust the reasoning ability of someone who is trapped in concepts which will not allow that person to “see” without limiting definitions.
Mathias: Is the day an action?
Ananda thought that question to be weird, it was not related with the talk at all but Ananda answered Mathias’ question anyway.
Ananda: The day is an action? No, it is not an action.
Mathias: The night, is a state of consciousness?
Ananda: Yes and No.
Mathias: To lie is an action or an alternative?
Ananda: It is an alternative.
Mathias: It is not an action?
Ananda: No, I have not performed an action.
Mathias: When you lie, you create karma?
Ananda: Yes.
Mathias:What is the meaning of karma?
Ananda: Action. But I have not performed an action…
Mathias: It is an akarma then?
Ananda: It is an akarma which could have consequences…
Mathias: There could be consequences when there are no actions?
Ananda: No.. There cannot be consequence when there are no actions… but to lie, you say it is an action, but I am not doing any actions..
Mathias then finally replied: Mathias haven’t said that.. Mathias only tries to make you tired until he can speak with you.
Ananda smiled nervously and said…OK
Mathias further added: Mathias only wants to speak with you.
Ananda is full of concepts and has a “debating” attitude. It is about demonstrating who is “right.” He has a conceptual answer for everything based on reason and logic. However, his learning in life is based on experiences and not in mentally understanding concepts. Mathias words are helpful as long as Ananda can see those words in himself and not when he separates those words as mental concepts.
The “problem” of Ananda is the “problem” of most intellectuals when dealing with Spirituality. Learning about life and the self is not “book learning.” To debate about who is “right” means very little when it is about knowing the self.
Ananda: I want to understand, that is why I ask questions..
Mathias: It is not from the game of reasoning where you could understand. You will only run around like a dog chasing its own tail until you get tired of it…But when you get tired and sit down and observe, you will understand.
Exploring the Depth of Living 