Thou Bear's Thy Heavy Riches But A Journey, And Death Unloads Thee.

In the unfolding story, if apparent cause and effect are taken note of and the journeys and bridges and waylayings are apprehended, and if some judgement of their worth and aspect are divined, with amusement and perhaps with pathos, it could be said that letting go completely (although the method, if there is one, of this surrender is disputed) doesn't squelch ambition, but simply makes ambition a goal unto itself. Unbridled, the undemanding ego simply undertakes whatever form of action furnished by whatever apparent source, and every action, freed from the necessity of validating the persona that carries it out, is an action seemingly fraught with fundamental meaning. The outcomes are perhaps not so conjectured, so the outcomes, if, indeed, cause and effect are even noted, are free to be whatever they can be, and not confined to simply whatever can be imagined. In this phenomenon of "being lived" lies the comforting answer to the still grasping, overburdened ego. You cannot fulfil infinite potential whilst still confined by fear and defences, although fear and defenses can often seem to play an important role; conditioning is conditioning, it is there, and our personas were all shaped by the multiplicity of apparent experience. To quench our flaws by an act of conscious will perhaps denies their usefulness. If the goal is unknown and the method of obtaining it a mystery, any defenses can naturally be discarded, or used for their full benefit; stubbornness, for example, is not always an impediment, and conscious compassion sometimes blinds us to some more useful form of "tough love".

The less you absolutely know what to do, the more potential fills that vacuum. Perhaps "what to do next" can become less some vexing mystery, and more some awe-inspiring discovery; if, indeed, "what to do next" is even noted, or pondered upon. The ego relieved of the burden of its own apparent journey is an ego freed to take the best possible journey, and that journey is no longer judged by a set of narrow rules and beliefs. In fact, the journey in time seems less a story with a beginning, a middle and and end; the journey is, in fact, just a timeless constant rearrangement of reality, there for the amusement (or bemusement) and edification of the parcel of awareness that we seem to be. It is frightening to let go. It is fearful to die, as a small person named Jim or Angela or Hassim or Nanako, and become an apparent slice of everything. However, paradoxically, that is already the case, no matter how stifled the journey seems to be, or how limited the character that takes it. Your confining persona could "die" at any "time", and if it doesn't, that is what is meant to be, and the boxed-in journey is not wrong, but exactly what is needed. If the mind is open, and the road is wide, there is no need for despair, except where despair can play its own hard role.

The Straight Story is a classic journey, taken by a stubborn old man named Alvin, who knows he has to travel to his estranged and very ill brother entirely on his own steam for the journey to mean as much as it does to him to his brother. Limited by lameness and blindness and having no drivers license, he decides to travel 240 miles from Laurens, Iowa to Mount Zion, Wisconsin on a lawn mower. It really happened, and was made into a film by David Lynch. Alvin just wants to be with his brother and look up at the stars with him again, like they did when they were kids. This is the end of the film. Simply sitting on a porch is wholeness, completeness, and perfection.

The Wheel Is Come Full Circle: I Am Here.

Words and concepts are all we have to play with in this forum. Yet words and concepts, tools of the dividing mind, will never bring anyone closer to what they already are. Even the clearest of ideas, related with succinctness of phrase and efficient eloquence, fail to describe fundamental awareness, the page on which all words rest, the plate all experience is supped from, the simple being that is before and after and during each thought, feeling, or happening. Words may nudge the mind into giving itself up as king, but whatever story of denial is indulged in, simple awareness is the book in which the story unfolds. You are: that is undeniable. And that beingness, the background for all things and thoughts and feelings that seem to exist, seems hidden; what looks for it is what looks.

In the book, on the page, any story may unfold. There may be a strong urge for the story to move from a destructive one to a creative one. There may be a story of less ego-fear, and more openness; less resistance because of less fear, and more creativity and compassion. Yet however painful the unfolding story may feel, and however strong the desire for less pain is, if there is no one that takes the story seriously, and no one claiming the pain, the pain ceases to be suffering. There is nothing wrong with pain; pain is yet another sensation that arises in awareness, as is confusion, and doubt, and struggle. In life, there is everything. A full life feels everything, and doesn't run away from what might be labeled "uncomfortable" or "difficult". There is nothing wrong, and more to the point, there is nothing wrong with you.

It might be possible to not put so much importance on words and ideas and concepts. It might be possible to just live, openly, honestly, and willingly, with not so much resistance; it might be possible to be alive to any and all possibilities that always exist, now. It might be that a better life is just around the corner, but that life won't involve anyone or anything that is more whole and complete and perfect than what is, right now, for everything is, right now. Anything might happen, and anything is possible, now. Words are the icing. They are not the answer; there is no answer but this, now.

Below is an example of just how useless words are; even the clearest and simplest of phrases may be misunderstood!

To Seek The Light Of Truth; While Truth The While Doth Falsely Blind The Eyesight Of His Look.

Memory and speculation happen now. Pain and separation happen now. Bliss and the quiet mind is happening now. The paradox, hated by the mind, that we are both all one yet seemingly alone, happens now. You are what you are now. Not in some nonexistent future; the future never is; all is now. There is much habitual delving back into the story, taken seriously by the mind which only sees itself. There is much lauding of practice, of readiness, in the mind for "enlightenment" to happen. It can certainly seem to be a practice, a practice that can be realised in many ways. All practice has the goal of stripping the ego of its importance, allowing what is to be more readily apprehended. Yet no matter what the apparent state of mind now, no matter what is perceived and how that perception is interpreted, you are what you are now.

What is - the wall, the keyboard, the faint hum of traffic, the feeling of the body on the chair, the thoughts that note these things - is often dismissed. The story that the mind tells itself about what is happening is similarly discredited. The feelings that arise as a part of it all cry out to the mind to be explained; the"why" of it is craved, the sense of it all being purposeful and orderly is demanded by an ego frightened of its own demise. All these thoughts and judgements and feelings are said to be nothing, meaningless, unworthy. Yet the paradox that the mind dislikes perhaps most of all is that those thoughts, sensations, and feelings are boundless, timeless existence, despite their seeming solidity and logic and narrowly defined importance. You are what takes note.

The practice of peeling away at the ego is laudable. It unfolds choicelessly. Whether it be at the foot of a guru, with the nose buried in a book or two or twenty, face to face with a sympathetic therapist, or in self-help groups, empathy and tolerance can convince the mind of the possibility of oneness and the unimportance (and beauty) of the ego. However, it must be said (by who?) that whatever you are, you are now, "before" the ego is "ready". The message that there is no teacher and no one to teach may paradoxically be the teaching that forces the ego to realise that there is nowhere to go, no blissful state to seek, nothing other than what is, now, because now is all there is, and whatever it is that is noted, it is the noting that never changes.

And now, for all you frustrated seekers. From The Wizard of Oz, the clearest parable of seeking, its lesson being that we always have the power to go home, and, in fact, are always home since the journey is but a dream. Here is the best reaction when the guru says you were always home in the first place.

He Is Too Good And Fair For Death And Me: Whom I Myself Embrace, To Set Him Free.

One of the hardest things for the ego to accept is that this, life, however it seems to manifest, just exactly as it is, is enough. It's depressing for the ego the accept that all the problems overcome in time, all the rigmarole, all the worthy concern, all the chaos perhaps finally ordered, is of nothing, to nothing, and for nothing. There is, however, an ambiance of the ego having its cake and eating it too. For an ego unbridled of itself, unmoved by itself, and revealed to be a mere construct is an ego freed to do its apparent job. When time is no longer the slave master, the story in time has cosmic perspective. The mind may not be able to figure it out, but the mind doesn't care so much; and in this apparent relaxation of the ego, it can be noticed that everything, just as it is, is enough. What has been called the "is-ness" of it seems enough. The manifest, all around, as it is, is noted; maybe thought about, maybe not, and is seen for what it is, without, perhaps, too many mind-filters to obscure it from itself. In the story in time, this is a possibility; but there is no time, so what is described here, with these concepts of "is-ness" and intrinsic worth is...just maybe...just perhaps...how reality is already perceived, by "you".

The quest for truth, the search for freedom, the seeking of enlightenment, and the thirst for meaning seem to happen. These journeys are imbued with importance and worth. The ego is consumed with itself, cannot see itself, cannot escape itself, until it sees there never was a prison. Yet the machinations of the ego are the spice of life; the ego's struggles and triumphs are poignant, genius, spectacular. They can still arise. Even if the illusion is seen through, it is only another story of seeing through an illusion; there is no end goal; there is only what is. And that is enough.

The Marx brothers, those great gurus of the twentieth century, once again encapsulate the Meaning of Life: