Isn’t it all about balance, business, give-n-take, cause-n-effect? To every action there must be a reaction, han? its about justice, isn’t it? aren’t we all but seekers of justice, executors of justice? and aren’t all Transcendental things, things like Love, Forgiveness, Letting Go, about breaking this balance? They (preachers of these transcendental things) try to give you a reason to commit these things, that being achieving happiness or getting out of misery, but that’s either a mistake from their side or a deliberate lie. transcendental things should remain transcendental, i.e. without reason; but then who will commit them, and how?
Breaking the loop – is it possible? is it possible to do anything without reason? animals aren’t reasonable yet they flow in this loop; we are reasonable, but that essentially doesn’t changed anything. reason is just another form of this loop. often through it we reach to paradoxes; i call them glitches. but what can that do, at best it can make one insane. mind – reason = insanity, isn’t it? or is there a way around? lets take a look at those who follow these transcendental things. they don’t do it by themselves but out of things like Faith, Trust, Belief in the preachers or symbols of them. faith in Jesus or in Buddha or in God. but does that break the cycle? haven’t they got into just another one… maybe an otherworldly loop but still a loop. they are still acting out of reason – faith being the reason. maybe they will get into heaven in next life (or in this life), but how is heaven any different from earth? a rich lives just as troubled a life as poor, only the reasons and levels of trouble are different. a poor dreams his whole life to become rich, but once he gets there its all the same after some time. similar with heaven and earth. is there no way out? can one practice transcendental things for no reason? if i do i’ll still have a reason to do it, that being breaking the loop; i wish freedom that’s why i’ll do it, so its all the same again.
it apply to all ways. love of fate - without desiring greatness? become what you are - without seeking integration? choiceless awareness or meditation - without desiring to see things as they are? the very reason i’m doing that is stopping me from doing that. its impossible.
And yet such ways exist, and work, on many a people. they, the “normal” ones, surely carry something that i’m missing or unable to recognize. ignorance? trust? in Siddhartha movie, Siddhartha said to kamala the prostitute: “we cannot love Kamala, normal people can; that’s the secret”. But he didn’t answer why. why can’t the seekers of love find love? why the seekers of truth always find themselves lying while everybody else is bathing in truth and honesty (even when they don’t. they simply cannot lie. ever.)? is it because, as saying is,: “only when you stop seeking it you shall find it”? yeah, throw paradoxes when you cannot answer.
11 comments
I think you’re seeing some of the failings of “conventional wisdom.”
According to my own observations, true wisdom is anything but “conventional.”
Kinda like how “common sense isn’t very common.”
People like to craft eloquent, poignant, mystical phrases. They are rarely true or wise.
Example:
“If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing.”
If no one complains about the problems, the problems never get solved.
Refusing to speak ill of the causes of a symptom, eliminates neither the symptom nor the cause. In fact, refusing to speak of it, facilitates its proliferation. To not act against what is wrong, is to contribute to its perpetuation. “Silence is complicity.” <– this is a counter example; it is actually correct.
I wouldn't necessarily claim that everyone is a coward, but i would assert that most people seem to lack courage.
Most people seem unable to be honest, even with themselves… so instead, they merely pretend to be, which becomes believing themselves to be.
Isn't "pretending honesty" … the /exact opposite/ of honesty? Yes. It is.
You don't have to "try" to see the world for what it is. You just need enough courage and integrity to allow it to reveal itself to you, and to allow yourself to see it for whatever it is. Don't reach for it. Quiet the mind's spinning wheels and urges, and allow truth to show you what it is. It might take a while to learn how to remove the barriers and filters within, and then to learn how to interpret the raw data streams. Don't try to mold what it shows you, into some predetermined form. Just let it be what it is, and let yourself feel it.
Empty your "cup," and observe without expectation.
Common people are not more capable of love than you or me. What seems to be love in their behaviour often is just certainity in ignorance. Ego love. True spirituality, beeing totally aware of what is the moment, first needs great complication and enslavement to arise. The deeper ones affectiveness to thought is, the deeper he is in trouble, the bigger the possible enlightened freedom. The problem of the schizophrenic is that he is at the same time spiritual and profane and takes this knowledge as a rational excuse where actually he had to go through deep suffering. Don’t avoid suffering. When you think there is no way out of trouble you are right. There is no way out but the trouble is the way.
As I understand, your question is: How to loose the initial motivation of awareness, how to overcome the pollution of the ego in meditation. The only answer I’ve found so far is:
Spontaenity. If you live in your corset of daily routine, like meditation every morning, special schemes of approach to other people, thought patterns on the past or the future or on evaluting the present in terms of it is driving forward personal growth – then you won’t “improve” yourself. Its all ego then. Because it is still your miserable self and you will go on avoiding life with your little tools of conditioning while – in addition! – convicting more and more all you do. The whole thing with personal growth I experienced to be the most dangerous – concept. Instead be spontaenous, do whatever you feel like and accept, when you aare too weak or to scared of doing so. Courageousness cannot be forced.
^ good stuff there.
yes, i also once realized that i’m tying to escape from suffering rather than going deeper into it and this is creating the duality (schizophrenia). but the fact also is that i’m not suffering from life but rather from inability to find a way out. i don’t have a problem with life, i just don’t want to be confined. quite like prison life.
so basically both of you are suggesting that i should essentially let things happen, rather than forcing them or myself to make them happen. let the reality unfold. but doesn’t that assumes me as passive watcher? but i’m not a passive watcher, i’m quite active; and maybe its not even possible to be completely passive. and if i try to become passive (which is what i planned in my last plan) that inevitably requires forcing and reason to force.. and all the above complications attached with it.
“do whatever you feel like and accept” – how does that ensure that it will lead me towards freedom? and if it doesn’t, then why should i do it? you see – that’s the paradox, even in this way. how can i follow a way without some future prospects? even if the way is about not following any way, its still a way. “I” always needs a reason to do anything; “I” is reason itself.
But i’m understanding what you both mean. and i am thankful for that, i really am. i wasn’t expecting any advice on a topic like this on this site, it was more a rant from my side. things are settling a bit nowadays, and i’m feeling that maybe the impatience i have will reduce automatically with time. maybe then i’ll be able to execute your advices. thank you again.
quaero, your misery is, that you consider freedom as goal, as something to be reached in the future. The whole point is that you ARE actually free. Everyone is born totally free and enlightened. Gurdjieff says, all you need is remembrance of your natural way of beeing.
You say wachting is passivity. I ask you: Isn’t beeing, simply beeing just pure acitivity? A groing tree, a flying – aren’t they just active by beeing what they are? They are fullfilling the purpose written in their soul and man has to come back what he actually is. You can’t be more than you are, you only think so and thats the problem. Beeing active means reacting as an individual to the world – as a real world and a real self – how can one react if he isn’t watching. Passivity means escaping from oneself in thinking. Activity means accepting what one is and act out of his midst.
Even a psychotic is. The way he is, is a try to express himself to a world where he learnt this was forbidden. Not the psychosis, not the symptoms have to be overcome, but the false beliefs.
But that’s all just words. I am talking where I can’t actually practice it. Im wondering – personally – if there is a point of suffering, where it becomes too much, that one cannot bare – or if and how this point can be transcended. Thats why im writing on suicide blog. I’m totally lost in my exhaustion.
““do whatever you feel like and accept†– how does that ensure that it will lead me towards freedom?”
That IS freedom! “do whatever you feel like and accept”
Freedom is not a destination, it’s a way of life, state of being.
I suppose if you feel like you’re not allowed to “do whatever you feel like and accept,” then you would not feel free, and freedom could be perceived as a destination… but it’s not a place you need to go. It’s something inside you. It’s who you choose to be, and what you choose to do, and why. It’s courage. It’s acceptance of the self and the environment. Freedom seems like one of the few things that can literally be willfully manifested internally, and then applied to the world… not the other way around. Freedom doesn’t come from elsewhere, and it’s not something the world applies to you. It’s what you choose, and that you choose, and that you decide what will or won’t stop you.
You’re right, though, that many aspects of life, particularly socially-connected things, are often quite paradoxical, sometimes infuriatingly so. Maintaining the freedom of self, amidst all this chaotic mess, can certainly be frustrating, and you will likely struggle with patience. Desire can be both a worthy adversary, and a valuable ally. Patience is one way to manage it… but i don’t think it’s ever “easy” to just wait, especially when you desire a change or attainment that is not readily accessible.
I cannot consider myself free until i have control over my thoughts, my feelings too. E.g. If a person say anything abusive to me i shouldn’t feel angry and should have a full calm choice of what to do, unprejudiced by any feeling. Now, i cannot do that alone because here i cannot trust even my own thoughts; i need a way, a plan in which i trust and can follow; but then i face this paradox that following a way leads to contradiction.
“i AM free, and need to only remember my natural state of being”… But i’m not. I have so many things that are still controlled by known and unknown sources.
Can man ever live naturally, spontaneously? A fly can be fly, a flower can be flower, but a man cannot be man because he doesn’t know who he is; and he cannot be blissfully ignorant like animals because he is cursed (or blessed?) with self-awareness and reason. I don’t know my natural state of being. I’m hanging somewhere inbetween, where i’m half free and half bounded.
To consider my true state as free requires belief, but then isn’t it again schizophrenia and duality?
There is no such thing as “total freedom,” unless you count death. But in death, you have no control at all, and no awareness… so that’s incompatible with the notion of “total freedom.” Freedom is irrelevant in death. Everything is irrelevant once you no longer exist.
In freedom, the type that we can actually embrace, to the extent we can embrace it, you are free to restrict yourself, and focus your energy to a specific point, or manipulate your vessel down a chosen path… but you cannot choose or control what is beyond your own being. Freedom within a sandbox, among others who are free to interfere. Chaos can be the result… or, free beings can choose to cooperate, collaborate, and combined forces to achieve common goals. But in choosing to follow any path or focus one’s efforts, you are sacrificing part of your freedom, in order to attain what requires you to limit yourself to attain. In this way, there is “balance,” and an mostly-abstract “equivalent exchange.” It’s not always “equivalent,” as most “engines” are not 100% efficient. You pay more energy than what is actually converted into your goal… but you can minimize the “leakage” and maximize efficiency, if you trade the freedom to be wild and spontaneous, for the ability to focus your energy on the most productive point, for whatever duration makes that effort and focus valuable. But if there is no worthwhile value to be gained, then it seems silly to restrict yourself with requirements that don’t produce results.
Open and close. Hold and let go. Pick up, put down. Empty to become full. Fill to become empty. Move, rest, move. Like a switch… you choose when and why to turn it on or off. Except that we share this world with others, so sometimes other people press us to react to their choices, and sometimes we have to flip the switch one way or the other, even if we don’t really want to.
Maybe you can find your center, with all the extra stripped away… and then you can have a core, a base, where you don’t have to question or suspect your own thoughts. You already became what you are. You already are. You are becoming whatever you will become. Be what you are, and navigate.
its again the same type of conversation i had with Persephone: on what basis you are claiming that “There is no such thing as “total freedom—? there happened a man who achieved it (and many others after him claimed to have too). i trust that man. and i’ll seek it as long as i think its achieveable.
even if that man hadn’t achieved it or i didn’t trust him it still doesn’t mean that there is no such thing as “total freedomâ€. if i cannot change others i’ll turn my effort backward and change myself in such a way that i’m still free from others, rather than stop seeking freedom itself. i don’t have control over others but i do have control over myself. its actually perfectly reasonable to believe that i can control my thoughts (infact that’s the only thing i can control in this world). so why not take that to the extreme? its entirely possible that others are be nothing more than electrical impulses in my brain; and even if they influence me, that influence might be nothing more than electrical impulses in my brain (in other words – thought, which i seemingly can control).
“we are what we think” – first line of Dhammapada
Your entire basis for understanding the world, allows for the incorrect and fantastical, mystical assumption that we can simply manipulate matter with thought. You have to accept that is not reality, in order to understand the rest.
Due to this obvious and easily observable fact of nature, in addition to the fact that we each share an environment with other sentient beings who also have free will, “total freedom” is impossible. You literally cannot exist without anyone else influencing your reality, regardless of how you perceive your reality.
You imagine whatever “total freedom” means to you, according to what someone claims to have accomplished… but i guaranteed you, without a shred of doubt, that man did not actually, completely, literally, achieve “total freedom.” The best case scenario is that he was able to maximize the degree of freedom which is possible for a human being, which is not “total freedom,” even if it does “feel totally freeing.”
You are free to trust whatever fable or anecdote or legend you wish… but not until you shed the filters and see it raw, will you understand. In fact, clinging to those filters, those stories, those expectations which manipulate and influence your perception at its deepest levels, are a part of what prevents your “freedom.”
You can control your thoughts… and clinging to those stories, is something you are free to choose, but also limits what you are free to perceive.
We are not what we think by default. We only think we are what we think.
Thinking isn’t doing. If it was, i would be able to just think myself into physical prosperity, without “doing” anything. It doesn’t work that way.
i wrote a pretty big reply related to human nature and some experiments done in Russia, but now i’m just saying: maybe, maybe not.
also, what you wrote applies to you too.