This is not about a better state yet to come, a better state of mind, better experiences, a more peaceful life. Those are all benefits for an individual. As long as the individual is the center point or reference of the search, the one to whom it's happening, the one who is seeking, then spirituality will always be just another self-help, just another method to remove fear and pain and replace it with some concept of peace or enlightenment.
This is not about something which is yet to come, something which has yet to be achieved, something of benefit later.
This is exactly about this very instant, right now. Whatever that instant might be, whatever it might feel like. This is it. There is nothing else that needs added or removed. This right here and now is the ultimate, the absolute, whole reality, undivided reality. It is already the case.
Therefore this isn't about doing hundreds of hours of meditation in hopes of some divine wisdom being bestowed from beyond. It is about seeing that, in the midst of the daily, the ordinary, the pain and pleasure, Life is Whole. Reality is Whole. Existence is One.
Nothing needs to change - we don't have to get rid of certain bad feelings or thoughts and hold them all tightly in a perfect state of bliss. We don't have to discard anything, manipulate anything.
We only have to directly question our root assumptions we have about reality, about what we ARE. We have to SEE that THAT is what this is about, not some feel-good concept of Enlightenment. We must realize that what is being sought after isn't missing, it isn't now ABSENT. It is only called something else, assumed to be something it's not. It is mistaken, not absent.
Therefore we must examine the idea we have about reality, about the idea that existence is something which comes and goes. We must dive into appearance and see what it is instead of what we assume to be.
In directly and honestly inquiring into this most root and cherished idea about the nature of reality and your Self, you may come to realize that this very instant is Whole Reality, Whole Existence. It doesn't need to be improved or added onto or have the bad removed. It is just as it is, perfect no matter what appears.
Perfect because it is whole and undivided. That is what you are. Now. Not once this is understood. You are already THAT.
3 comments:
There is this assumption, until it is questioned, that there is some greater knowledge or insight about the universe, for us to catch. Once it is looked at as an assumption, you don't need to run after it.
Does the wave have to wait until it crashes on the shore to become ocean or is the reality that it is already and only ever was ocean? The name and form are concepts, appearances, not reality. Appearances change while reality is. Reality never comes or goes and never changes. And you are that, now, regardless of what arises or passes away.
Very well said my friend.
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