Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day
How to submit material to the Highlights
Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3239, Sunday, July 27, 2008, Editor: Mark
As long as you do not see that it is mere habit, built on memory,
prompted by desire, you will think yourself to be a person -
living, feeling, thinking, active, passive, pleased or pained.
Question yourself, ask yourself. 'Is it so?' 'Who am I'? 'What is
behind and beyond all things?' And soon you will see your
mistake. And it is in the very nature of a mistake to cease to
be, when seen.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels
The present moment is the most profound and challenging teacher
we will ever meet in our lives. It is a compassionate teacher; it
extends to us no judgment, no censure, no measurement of success
and failure. The present moment is a mirror, in its reflection we
learn how to see. Learning how to look into this mirror without
deluding ourselves is the source of all wisdom. In this mirror we
see what contributes to the confusion and discord in our lives
and what contributes to harmony and understanding. We see the
relationship between pain and its cause on a moment-to-moment
level, we see the bond between love and its source. We see what
it is that connects us and what it is that alienates us.
- Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield - Stories of the
Spirit, Stories of the Heart, posted to The_Now2
Even though the surface appearance of things maybe good or bad in
any situation. The surface appearance of things may be
destruction. It happens. The surface appearance of things may be
death, at this moment. Death is happening in nature all around.
It's the time of year when things die, all the leaves falling
off. Is it that bad? No. With nature you can look at death and
say "how beautiful it is." Now in the human realm
usually we call death bad. And react. We bring gentle acceptance
to what is. The mind might say "Yes, but this obviously is
bad." Yes but with the allowing the "isness" of
this moment comes the realization of goodness even though on the
surface it may not appear so. Even in the face of death that
realization of goodness can be there because death is the ending
of the form. The leaves are forms of life. The human body is a
form. The ending of a form is death.
And so the realization comes of that which is beyond form. That
realization can only come to you when you allow the for that this
moment takes to be as it is. I am not saying you become passive,
that you are no longer capable of action. No, it is an inner
accepting of `this is what is.' Then action, intelligent action,
if it's necessary, arises out of that. It's the basic, the
ground, the basic realization is the "isness" and then
action is no longer reactive. When you do not allow the `isness;
of this moment, action is reaction. It is not intelligent, it is
conditioned. It is perhaps intelligent in a relative or limited
sense but not in a true sense. It is not intelligent, it is
conditioned action, it is reaction. And that is the meaning of
the Eastern term Karma, because Karma translated means action.
Karma is reaction, action-reaction, which is a continuous cycle
that keeps you trapped in the same conditioned existence. You
re-enact continuously.
So it's only through first of all realizing this is all there is,
this moment is life itself. This moment is as it is because the
totality has brought it about. Whateverevent is happening at this
moment is connected to the totality of the cosmos. Nothing is
separate, there are no separate events. Even physicists these
days will agree with that, they have seen the interconnectedness
of all things. Buddhists have seen it also, even 2,500 years ago
they saw it. And so it is as it is. You allow it to be. You see
the immutability of `is.' You can't really argue with `is.' `Is!'
And that becomes the basis, that inner alignment becomes the
basis for action if action should be needed, very often action is
not needed. A simple allowing is enough for greater intelligence
to come into play and you could sit there and things develop in
the right way.
So allow the form that this moment takes, to be as it is, instead
of reacting to the form that this moment takes. Allowing this
form to be takes you to what we could call the
formless-consciousness, unconditioned, not the
object-consciousness. The reaction is the object-consciousness.
So this is a strange, almost a paradox. Peoplewant to reach the,
whatever they call it, "ultimate reality", the
`transcendent.' And usually they regard the forms that surround
them in their daily existence as an obstacle to reaching the
transcendent, or reaching who I truly could be, or who I somehow
suspect I could be, the essence of who I am or could be. Somehow
it seems the universe is conspiring, my daily life and my
existence seems to be conspiring to hold me back from that. I am
surrounded by so many limiting and limited circumstances in my
life that there seems to be some kind of conspiracy and it wants
to prevent me from fully being myself. Does that sound familiar?
I want to break out of this limiting life situation that I am in.
For some people it's their circumstances, their living
circumstances. For some people it's their work situation. For
some people it's the physical body which is beginning to be
limited. Can't move that fast anymore. What is this? I want to
break out of this. To know myself fully as that which is beyond
form and yet al the forms that are in my life are limiting me,
impinging upon me from all sides and when I free myself from one
limiting form for a little moment, and then, then the next thing
comes in! And that's in the nature of object consciousness, one
thing after another. And so people then live in continuous
reactivity...now to a limited extent yes you can improve the
forms around you. To a limited extent, this is true. You could be
living in a very unpleasant little noisy dirty hole (laughter)
and then through incredible effort and energy, ten years later,
five years later, you finally made it and you live in a mansion.
This is nice. And you of course will have created different life
circumstances; you are in a different life situation now. After a
little while of the feeling that you have made it, the new life
situation will manifest as other limitations. You will find other
limitations on you, perhaps you created a business empire. That's
why you could afford the mansion, and then lots of things there
impinge upo you. The stock market becomes important. A few people
I've spoken to told me that they experienced recently `the Dark
Night of the Soul.' I said `what happened?' They said `the stock
market.' (laughter) Well, I don't know, perhaps, perhaps. And so
in your new situation you find other limitations. And then you
try to get free there.
So there comes a point when you realize, yes, to a limited extent
you can play in the world of form, improve the forms. But not as
some ultimate answer to who you are. Not in an attempt to find
who you are. In that sense forms around you are not going to help
because you will always encounter the limitations of forms around
you. So you can play around with the forms in your life. This is
a beautiful game to play but without expecting self-realization
or self-enhancement through finally achieving a certain
configuration of forms in my life that is absolutely perfect and
right. It can be for a little while and then you encounter the
other side, that every form has built-inlimitations. Once you
know that the play of form is beautiful, you can participate in
it.
But! To know yourself beyond form, the world of form cannot help
you. Here comes the paradox that I pointed to earlier. The
paradox is allowing the form that this moment takes to be as it
is, internally. Let's say you are living in an unpleasant place.
It's cold, it's wet or damp, or noisy, or cramped. And there you
are sitting on a chair. It is the form that this moment takes,
and you realize the limitations of that form. And yet you allow
this moment to be as it is. Some people confuse that with
accepting a story they are telling themselves in their head
concerning this moment. And that is a mistake that some people
make, I have noticed that. When we speak of allowing this moment
to be they confuse that with creating some interpretation of this
moment which is a story and saying `Well I might as well accept
that this is how it is.' An example of that would be; say the
stock market has crashed and your wife ha left you, a
synchronistic event, (laughter) and then the story comes in, in
your mind which says `Okay, you've worked for nothing for 25
years. All that is built up, all the energy, 80% of it you lost,
and your marriage has failed. You failed at that also, you failed
at your business and you failed at your marriage. There's no
point in even carrying on now because it at your age what can you
do? Who would want you?!. You haven't got enough time to build up
another business empire.' The story goes on in your head. It's an
interpretation of this moment. I failed. It's been pointless. My
life has come to nothing. And this is a simple story, most
stories are more complicated than that. The story is not this
moment. The story is the story in your head. It's mind-forms.
Object-consciousness. So what is this moment, what is the form of
this moment? The form of this moment is not the story about this
moment; it is the simple appearance of this moment which is
chair, walls, window, cold, noisy neighbors, an unpleasnt smell
But even unpleasant is the beginning of a story.
Just sit, Just this. This is the moment. This is Now. And you are
sitting, perhaps you still have a chair. You're sitting on a
chair. And that's a strange thing, what happens if I allow this
moment without the story. And then, oh, strange, suddenly by
allowing the form, suddenly there's a peace that arises, from a
deeper place. And you look around at the forms and it is that
spacious presence that is there then. When the forms are no
longer obscuring that. But, you can only get to that when you
allow the forms... that which appeared to prevent you from
finding yourself is actually, becomes actually the doorway. The
forms that appear to be the obstacle become the doorway if you
allow the forms. Not the story, the simple form of this moment to
be.
- Excerpt from Eckhart Tolle retreat at Omega, October 2002