Saturday 31 January 2009

There Is Nothing Wrong With Seeking.

It can seem to be a desert. It can seem very lonely, this seeking, this awakening, this apparent enlightenment that there is no meaning to our lives. Great frustration can arise for the seeker. It can seem that the only thing that matters is to "get" this, to "awaken", to be liberated from self and to then, the mind tells us, start living "properly". There appeared a point for my character that I had great clarity of mind, that I understood awakening completely, that my mind grasped it all as much as it could. I knew that what seemed to be was all there is, and that nothing exists except what could be called consciousness, and that we've dreamed ourselves up for a laugh. I understood that the goal was not awakening, that there was no goal. I had astounding revelations along the lines of my life wasn't the comprehensive failure that I had labeled it, and that everything I did was a prayer. But I knew this was just another experience, involving an experiencer, and wasn't liberation at all. I comprehended that there was no way I could comprehend it, that it was something huge beyond comprehension. I fully grasped that even the seeking of it was it, and that the seeker was what got in the way of just being. Yet maddeningly, absolute being was elusive. I knew it was everything already, but couldn't see it. There is no hope for the individual, I knew this, I understood that the last thing I wanted was to die as an individual, but I wanted to die anyway. I couldn't kill myself off. The more I longed for it, the more elusive it was. Then I gave up. I knew it didn't matter if "I" "awakened" anyway. There were loads of teachers out there with lots of methods for "achieving enlightenement" but I knew it was all a lot of hooey. Most interesting mind you, very fulfilling a lot of it, terribly energetic and serene, but nothing to do with the absolute - I knew it was just another story. The heavens roll into infinity, the particle microscosm begins to reveal its inward endlessness, science beckons with mind-expanding incredible stories of the nature of manifestation, but I knew it was all appearance, and that being was a great deal more than all that. Still I couldn't "get" it. The only hopeful thing I heard was, "You could die at anytime". This goes for death as it is usually understood, and death of identity. I realised that there was nothing I could do to bring it on. I gave up. In a great cloud of grief and depression, I just gave up. And by crumbs it apparently happened. There it was, everything, nothing, beauty in the meaninglessness, and I was that. It was already everything, it was so obvious, and all the seeking and resisting and being separate was it as well.

Blimey.

2 comments:

Claudia said...

After listening to the urbangurucafé pod, I have been reading your blog from the beginning, relentlessly, almost breathless... Seldom I have read something so vivid and written so very "on the brink" as the undescribable is unfolding!...

Now, my character feels totally identified with your character "at some point", as you describe it in this post: The mind is fully grasping whatsoever there is to grasp about "non-duality", but it is not seeing it. It is like staring at one of those Magic Eye Stereograms, which seems but a fuzzy, intertwined surface, trying hard to see and the harder it tries, the lesser it sees - only once the muscles behind the eye that control the focusing lens relax and lenghten (the so called parallel-view) the hidden picture is revealed - and it is utterly stunning and beautiful, and you can't loose it anymore... Oh, I know this is a terribly poor analogy, but it's all I can say...

No One In Particular said...

Well said indeed Claudia. That stereogram analogy is definitely knocking around. It's as good as any! It's just looking at the stereogram in the first place, whatever is seen, that is LIVING. There's no need to wait to live, there is no such thing as waiting anyway. This is it!