Holding Water With A Fork

Trying to grasp the truth of life with the mind is like trying to hold water with a fork. But we can be conscious of the ineffable truth of life (in the present moment) by turning our attention to and abiding in and as our own silent center - they are one and the same. 

The Ego

The ego can be likened to the eddies that occur in a river as it flows toward the ocean. Moving water creates turbulence, like the circular patterns of thought and emotions create a vortex of identity.

When we look, we can notice that the ego is not constant. It gets bigger sometimes and smaller sometimes. And there are moments when the ego is not there at all, like in moments of deep meditation or being fully present in nature or when our attention is fully absorbed in any activity. In those moments, there are no thoughts of “me and my story”, just absorption in one’s experience — just being.

One could say then, that the ego is more of a tendency, almost like a behavior. In this sense it’s more like a verb than a noun — ego-ing. Oops! Pardon me, I was ego-ing again!

When the ego is believed to be some entity, whether superior or inferior, thoughts and behaviors get constellated around that core belief and difficulty soon follows.

But the vortexes of water are never separate from the river. Which is to say, our true nature is like the river of life, eddies form and disperse and the water flows to the ocean of infinity.

Still Water

In Greek mythology, the allegory of Narcissus has different versions. The one that most are familiar with has to do with some ego fixation.
But there is another version of the story that is more like the metaphor of still water that is used in Zen and Taoism.
That is; a beautiful youth who rejects the alluring nymph Echo, (who had the habit of chatter and could only repeat what others have said) and turned to the still pool of water. In the clear reflection, saw his-Self (his true nature) and fell in love with what he discovers and was transformed into a flower. 

When we stop giving attention to echoes in the mind, it’s like we stop throwing rocks into a pond, allowing the ripples settle down. In the still water we can see our reflection clearly and when we see ourselves as we truly are, we fall in love.

The Persona

In the ancient Greek theater, actors wore a mask that was called a ‘persona’ — they would don a persona to play their part in stage performances.

In a somewhat similar way, the One consciousness, dons all personas and plays all roles on the stage of manifest life. In other words, this one that we all are at the core of our being, loves to experience, and through the awesome power of mind, plays as all life forms in this multidimensional experience.

In this grand drama, we humans lose sight of this fundamental truth and believe, “I am this person and this is my life”. All the harm and suffering in the world happens because the One behind the mask is not recognized — and the play becomes less a comedy and more of a tragedy.

Through some amount of suffering, there arises the desire for freedom from this human condition and to awaken out of the dream of separate self existence. This desire gives us the capacity to consciously reflect and shift our attention or ‘pull back’ deeper than the persona and become aware of our natural Being — that is aware of the body, sense perceptions, emotions and thoughts. We can ‘float' here and rest as that One. Which is to say, the open mind enables the realization of who or what one is — boundless consciousness itself. From this realization, we are free to play our part in this grand drama, with compassion and a confidence that all is that formless One.

The Movie Of The Mind

Through the awesome and mysterious power of mind, we appear as the central character in the multidimensional drama called ‘my life’. And the mind-talk runs like an ongoing narration of a story, of where we have been and where we might be headed — maybe with some feelings of anxiety.

But looking deeper, in the moments when the mind fully stops, we can see (if we don’t go numb) that the past and future stops — and what remains is consciousness. Like in a movie theater; when the movie ends, the screen that the movie was projected on is seen — and it is unaffected by what-ever show gets projected on it.

Similarly, our real nature stands out when the mind stops, illuminating the reality of what is — boundless conscious life. And the light of this awakened awareness transforms our human life in beautiful ways. And from this perspective we can see the mind’s projections and illusions, like when Toto pulled back the curtain revealing the truth behind the ‘great and powerful Wizard of Oz’.

Before The Beginning

In this experience of incarnation there is a beginning, middle and end. The existential reality for many of us is that the beginning is gone the middle is ending and the end is coming. But before the beginning — hasn’t gone anywhere. It is here, conscious, unmoving and unmoved, perfectly still.

This is the mother of all creation, where every thing and every individual comes from, exists in and returns to.

Self realization, considered the most precious of jewels throughout human history, is a recognition and realization that you are, in actually, this very One.

The Well of Silence

 

We’ve all been trained to use our mind to navigate our way through life and of course that has served us in many ways. But our society has also trained us to discount and habitually overlook the silent presence that is the core of our Being.

Stressful times motivate us to look deeper. And when the mind can’t answer big questions, can’t deliver the clarity, our best option is to return to the well of inner silence. This well never runs dry. Drinking from this well does not require long periods of meditation, just commitment and brief moments in our day.

Once we identify the silence that is under any and all thinking and realize this silence is always present (even with the mind going), then we gain the ability to choose. We can stop following thought streams and focus our attention on this inner silence and drink deep of the peace, ease and clarity of the conscious water of Life.

No matter what’s going on in the world and in our lives, this is the best thing we can do. This is the refuge from the complexity and chaos of the world, the place of solace, the place where we are refreshed and renewed.

The Individual Self

 

The individual self could be likened to a hot air balloon. Each one is unique and colorful but inside the skin of the balloon there is nothing but hot air.

It is of course entertaining to inflate the individual self and have it bounce around in the sky, that’s part of the human journey — as long as the weather is good. But when the weather turns bad and the ego gets buffeted around and there’s a fear that it could crash, then we are happy to have our feet back on the ground again.

By turning to inner quiet we deflate the individual self and our most basic nature becomes more apparent and activated. And as we open to “what is”, there is a reintegration of our individual self with the vastness of Self and we become grounded in peace.

Inner Guidance

Planet earth can be a strange and foreboding place and navigating our way through this landscape can be a big challenge.

With all the social, political and environmental change that’s up for humanity it’s easy to feel lost and insecure. How to be with all the uncertainty so that we’re not living in fear and worry? Or more accurately, not hold on to fear and worry when it arises, so that we continue to love and feel grateful for the blessings we have.

These are big questions and the mind can’t fully solve or resolve them, so attention needs to be turned inward to find clarity. When we become ‘inwardly’ quiet, we can receive the inspiration, intuition and insight that comes from the dimension of conscious Being. In the moments when our attention rests in its source, we open to an uncaused peace and guidance that can range from gut feelings, flashes of insight and sometimes big "aha!" moments — and realization of our relationship with infinite consciousness.

This is not complicated. Cultivating inner listening is not about trying to suppress thinking, but noticing the silence that is under all thought — again and again. Then action and non-action can come from clarity.

The Game Of The Individual Self

 

For many readers, the existential reality is that we are in the ‘4th quarter’ of this game of life.

We’ve made many plays, gained some yardage, fumbled, lost yardage, scored some points — and can see the clock ticking-down on this game called ‘my life’.

Probably all readers know or at least sense, that the ego’s game is not enough to deliver the fulfillment, meaning and sense of purpose that we want. And we see that the ego is really good at keeping the game going — while ignoring the light that animates all players.

But after taking some ‘hard-knocks’ we gain the capacity to be inwardly quiet and reflect. And in those moments we can sense that there is something else at work here, something bigger than this game of egos.

The ultimate point of this game of life is to awaken. To realize our true nature; that all exists in and ultimately is infinite eternal conscious Being. When this is realized, the search is over. Then we are free to play; succeed, fail, win, lose, it’s all part of the play of consciousness with itself.