The Ocean of Being

 

We humans can be likened to the ocean. The waves on the surface are like our thoughts, imaginings, emotions, sensations and perceptions. Beneath the surface and holding the waves is the vast ocean of Being.

Our attention tends to be focused on the waves of phenomena and maybe fixated by beliefs that the surface is the total of who we are, while overlooking or ignoring the depth of our being.

From the perspective of the oneness of the ocean, we can understand that most of ‘our thoughts’ are really the waves of the collective mind of humanity — high and low. And like waves against a shore, the more we’re identified as the mind, the more we feel the crash of the waves and we get tumbled in the surf.

While it can be fun to play in the surf, we can also get beat-up by it. So when we want clarity, peace, to know the truth of life, we drop deeper into the calm of the ocean of being.

Diving deep into yourself is only a way of speaking, because there is no place you have to try to get to. Some people like to dive deep and some like to play on the surface, it doesn’t matter — when you know with certainty it’s all one ocean of being.

The Siren's Song

The Greek mythology of Sirens can be seen as an allegory for the mind; the stories and hypnotic trance it generates, and the unnecessary suffering caused by believing it.

There are a few different versions of the story, says wikipedia. The most common is that; “Sirens were dangerous creatures, who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting songs, causing them to wreck their ships on the rocky coast of their island.” Another version is that; “Sirens would charm sailors by their song and having lulled them to sleep, would come and tear them to pieces.”

Some historians say that the etymology of the word siren comes from ancient Greek words that means; ‘rope’ and ‘bind’, giving the meaning; one who binds or entangles through magic song”.  Also interesting; according to some of the ancient Greek writers; “Sirens were fated to live only until the mortals who heard their songs were able to pass by them.”

Isn’t this the way the mind works! Through one ‘song’ (mental story) or another, we can easily get lulled into a dreamlike state, and the next thing we know we can wind up ‘on the rocks’, entangled in the morass of thoughts and emotions and maybe torn to pieces by the torment of the mind — until we no longer get lulled into and ‘lost’ in the mental dream. Which is to say, when we see this tendency and we don’t believe it to be true, we can choose to pull our attention back and be the witnessing presence. Then we are free to let our humanness rise up — and let it fall back, like a wave on the ocean — and we remain free.

Ripples On The Waters Of The Collective

The divine presence is never absent from life. So too, the peace of Being is never absent. But in this busy and often crazy world, the focus of attention may be on other than peace, then of course, it appears to be absent.

While each apparent individual has their own unique perspective and personal challenges, at the core it is the same One seeing, and this one consciousness is always at peace.

Awakening (or what ever you want to call it), is the realization that you are, in actuality, this One. Which is to say, you can live as a regular human, with all its ups and downs, and still be aware of and nourished by the presence and peace of Being.

Resting in this peace invites serendipity. And this peace radiates into the collective human consciousness like quiet ripples on the waters.

The Walking Wounded

                                     

Many people might put themselves into this category. Shame, blame, regret and a story in one’s mind that goes with it; “I am this person, wounded by this life, I’ve been hurt by others, I hurt myself, I hurt others”, and carrying the emotional/mental weight.

As debilitating as this can be, it doesn’t block awareness of our inherent being-ness. As we become more present we gain the capacity to see our story — as story — and not who we are.

Making the distinction between consciousness and the stream of thinking is the first step to freedom, because we realize that the wounded self is not who we are in reality.

Barking Up The Wrong Tree

There persists in our culture a misunderstanding about going within oneself and there finding some voice that will give all the answers. But of course when you look for an inner voice you may notice more than one, and depending on the level of fragmentation of the psyche, there could be several. 

This is barking up the wrong spiritual tree. Instead, look and see in your immediate experience; is inner silence here, under thoughts, feelings and perceptions? Does this silence actually go away or change – or is it your attention that focuses on to thoughts, feelings and sense perceptions? This silence will lead you home.

On The Right Track

 Living in the dream-like turning of thoughts has always been fraught with deception and problems. And in this age of global communication, it's even more so. Each day it seems there is some new crisis. And with so many different sources telling us what to be afraid of and who to be angry at, it can be dizzying. 

All this makes it easy to get off-track and lose one’s sense of center and balance. And these days, we see many people spinning-out with extreme polarization, running with ideologies, both far-right and far-left, like they’ve been infected with a psychic poison. We know that what we fill our mind with can make us sick, like an infectious disease. So being ensnared in biased bubbles of beliefs is dangerous, both personally and collectively. The medicine for this mental poisoning is to come out of the mind and live from our center. This is both the refuge from the craziness of this world and the source of right action.

So where do we find our center? How do we find our center? It is always located in the stillness of being, our own consciousness — independent of all mind-talk. To become conscious of our own consciousness puts us on the right track. So simple and an enormous challenge. This is our ongoing choice and humanities evolutionary stepping-stone.

The word surrender has a negative connotation in our western culture. We are trained to get more, be more, and that is the measure of success. Surrender implies that one gives up, defeated, failed, a loser… 

And on a more automatic, subconscious level, in the moments when one lets-go of the ego/mind, one may catch a glimpse of infinity but to the ego it may seem like an abyss of emptiness, nothingness, non-existence — death. And that triggers the survival instincts. Fear can arise, initiating a psychic contraction and the mental mechanisms of avoidance — running into the mind. Then one may feel temporarily safe — even in the misery of one’s personal story.

So the resistance to opening to one’s infinite dimension can be real strong, even though it’s based on false information and belief.

‘Inner-surrender’ or letting go of the ego/mind has nothing to do with giving up worldly possessions or one’s life —and emptiness is not the point or goal of self inquiry.

When we see the mental mechanisms that veil and obscure the presence of big love, then the on-going surrender of the ego/mind is a joyous lightening-up.

Like Blinders On A Horse

 

When we look at our world we can readily see that when people’s emotions go up, intelligence and clarity goes down. They are inversely proportional. It’s true for all of us. When we get fired-up with feelings such as fear, anger, despair, our clarity becomes less (and the ego identity gets stronger). 

Beliefs that feed the emotionality and story are like putting blinders on a horse — blinding us to certain things, and to a deeper truth. Every individual has experienced hurt and many people carry past wounds. And these un-healed psychic wounds contribute to the blinders of belief. 

Consciousness itself is not wounded and has never been wounded, is already and always free and whole. This is why it is so important to make this distinction between mind and consciousness, and to see that the essence of our being is conscious Life. 

Some may think; “oh I had a negative thought or emotion. That means I lost it”.  No. It means you’re human. In this human drama, it’s not realistic to think we can live in a condition of calm and equanimity all the time. But when we recognize and accept that our real nature is infinite conscious life, the blinders come off — again and we recognize our true home — again, ever deeper, until our last breath.

Maya

Probably all readers have heard the term ‘maya’, the Sanskrit word meaning illusion or magic. Maya can also mean "a magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem".

To reflect on this for a moment, maya is the illusory nature of every thing. Not just the five senses but thoughts, imagination, world, me, you, angels, demons — all that appears to our consciousness is regarded as maya.

Nevertheless, we appear in this experience of life as an individual, in the world, so here is where ‘the rubber meets the road’. Meaning that, it’s our deal to play as an actor in this cosmic theater — with all the others that show up in our experience.

Our opportunity (and our shared purpose) is to discover our real Self — that which is not illusion, the silent, conscious presence that does not suffer and die. To recognize and accept the core of our Being turns maya into ‘leela’ —the play of consciousness with itself.

The Final Frontier…

 

There is a philosophically interesting episode in the original Star Trek series, where a scouting party goes down to a planet looking for a place for the crew to rest after a difficult mission. They quickly discover that what ever they are thinking about becomes their experience — both the good and the bad. They become totally confused. To stop the chaos from unfolding, Captain Kirk orders the scouting party to, “stand at attention, don’t think, just be at attention”. Just then a being shows up and informs them that this planet was created by their race as a kind-of amusement park, where they could simply imagine anything they want and experience it.

In a similar way, our thoughts; the conscious ones — but to a much larger extent, our ‘unconscious’ and semi-conscious, habitual thoughts manifest as our personal reality. And our experience is drawn-out over time (and maybe playing out over lifetimes) as the mind generates a past, present and future. Sadly, for much of humanity, we see generations of repeated suffering as people are constrained by the deep mental wiring and beliefs of a hard life.

While there is big mystery to humanity’s unfoldment, those of us who are fortunate to live in relative safety, security and freedom have the opportunity to shape our experience to a fair degree.

It is my wish and prayer that all beings come to recognize the value of stopping the momentum of the mind and consciously focus attention on the field of living silence again and again so that one can shape one’s experience with harmony as the foundation.

Practicing Good Mental Hygiene

In our high-tech world we are advised to practice ‘good digital hygiene’. Our cell phones and other digital devices can easily become infected with all kinds of viruses, malware, spyware, ransomware, personal data harvesting, etc., so it’s recommended to reset our phones or at least turn them off and back on daily to clear some of these potential threats.

In a similar way, the outer and inner stresses of our lives can cause the mind to become infected and go into negative spirals of thought and feeling, so it’s wise to practice ‘good mental hygiene’.

We ‘reset’ the mind by bringing ourselves fully present. Because in these moments, alert awareness takes priority over the mental noise. And while the mind won’t be quiet for too long, each time we become aware of the silence that is present under all thinking and feeling, even briefly, it interrupts the incessant, habitual, (and dis-empowering) inner-talking.

In these moments of presence we can take a breath and simply be — not trying to know what it all means — and the space between thoughts becomes greater and more significant. And even in the midst of these uncertain times, it opens our consciousness to a recognition of the beautiful simplicity and clarity of our natural Being.

Seeing The Seer

                                   

   (photo by David F. Smith)

Who or what is in those eyes reflected in the mirror? What is seeing — deeper than the facial features and the mental layers of personality? Not ‘somebody’ — but Life itself, conscious and intelligent.

Seeing the core of one’s Being, even for an instant, can be life changing — a ‘sacred sighting’ (darshan in Sanskrit), that fills one with awe and delight.

This One has not aged as the body has aged, doesn’t need to be fixed or healed in order to be whole, is not female or male — but infinite Life itself, seeing itself through the eyes of a life form.

Letting Go Of That Which No Longer Serves

“Letting go of that which no longer serves” is a phrase I came across in the study of Chinese medicine. That system is holistic so it refers to letting go of mental and emotional toxins as well as physical.

We all know that holding on to disagreeable or negative thoughts and emotions fires-up the nervous system, causing stress and ‘dis-ease’ that can negatively impact our lives. So to let go of what doesn’t serve is both a matter of worldly practicality as well as opening us to a heightened awareness of the spaciousness of our being.

The ‘great play’ of humanity (the battle between the forces of dark and light) has been going on for aeons of time. And it is easy to feel weighted down, carrying the burdens of human suffering, both personally and collectively.

We could say that our challenge is to make time to not know what it all means. In other words, to decline to engage the mind and simply be aware, allowing our attention to drop back to the light of Being — again and again.

Then even with an aging body and uncertain future there is a contentment, a peace, a lightness of spirit and one can be carried on the currents of love.

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.