Much appreciated-went on a ride-rides for me are a form of misunderstanding of not being conscious enough to take a pause , and a breath and then exhale… the field I want to play in is becoming different and w/a richer sense of self connection to what field fits where I do I want to hang out for a bit, a new field where I can be quiet and observe or include in some way,
Thanks Kate. I found it took me quite some practice to pause, breath, reflect. There is a book I love on this topic...Dr David Hawkins...Letting Go - A Pathway Of Surrender. Thank you for taking time to comment. Blessings to you.
Thank you for words that met my need. I have felt so scrambled, for lack of a better word, since November and now that the political transition has taken place I feel such despair, shame for where I live, and a whole lot of anger. I am at a loss and searching for pockets of peace. So, thank you for providing that this morning📿
Thank you Susan. I am so sorry that you are going through the pain and despair. There is so much suffering in our world. My challenge, like yours, is to do what I can to bring care and love to others. To do that I cannot be dragged down by the suffering, but choose a place of peace within to give me the strength to be some kind of light to others, particularly the ones I love. I think the good news is that there is a place of peace within, within me, and within so many many others. For what it is worth, I put myself on a very very limited time each day to "catch up with the news". That is not to ignore the world, but to recognise that the commitment of most media to report the worst in our world, does not serve the best in me, or anyone else. I want to have the energy to love others, and make sure my mind is playing on that field. Thank you Susan. I wish you the very very best.
Hi Ian, thanks for a well-written and thoughtful piece, as always. No doubt some Buddhist friends will disagree with it. Here is a recent conversation I had that illustrates what I mean. I had posted a quote from the Bhagavad Gita, "Being can never not be ; Non-being can never be."
Response: Hi Eric, being or in my understanding, awareness always exists but self can be recognized as “no self”?
Eric: I am not a fan of the "no self" concept. It is easily confused with the feeling of existing. To say "I don't exist" is absurd since obviously one exists in order to say it. Yes, I realize that it's the transitory personal identity that is referenced in the concept. Hence the potential confusion.
To me, "being" is simply the fact of existence. What it is, whether mind, awareness, consciousness, particles, the void, emptiness, silence, God, etc. is another question and takes us into the quagmire of metaphysics.
So my take on that quote is, "what exists can never not exist. What does not exist can never exist." It indicates "something" is unchanging and permanent.
Thanks Eric: My sense of the "quagmire of metaphysics" is that it seems that way because we humans seek to understand and explain something, a subjective experience of Awareness, God, Consciousness that is beyond the mind's capacity to understand or explain. The question of no-self etc it a great example. Don't get me wrong, I think we naturally use the tools we have at our disposal, like the intellect, to try and explain that which we intuit, feel, experience, but it is no surprise it turns into libraries full of books, lecture halls full of listeners, synagogues ringing with debate and prayfull disagreements, substacks full of articles 🙂. I am not cynical about that, as long as at the core we respect and love the essential preciousness of the ones beneath the disagreements. So I agree with your view of the quote that it indicates "something" is unchanging and permanent. On the no-self question, I think that the Buddhist view that there is no independently existing self is really really valuable as an insight into our absolute interconnectedness. I think Rupert Spira comes closest for me to a view of "no self" that is graspable...that our mind created view of our "small self" is a congregation of stories, perceptions, thoughts and understandings, all of which have no permanence, in that they are always changing...the existence then is the place from which this all arises. I mean if you want to go really out on the metaphysical limb, he concludes that none of us actually exist materially speaking, because there is no material, we are expressions of consciousness no material. Wow...all of that on only one cup of morning coffee!!!! Blessings to you Eric.
Yes indeed our capacity to understand is the issue. We don't know where we came from. So we make things up. Then fight over who is right about what we don't actually know! Oh, my.
The concept you mentioned by Mr. Spira that "our mind created view of our "small self" is a congregation of stories, perceptions, thoughts and understandings, all of which have no permanence, in that they are always changing..." is what I meant by "the transitory personal identity" that is referenced in the concept of no-self.
With regard to your last reference about his saying we are expressions of consciousness, I hope he is not claiming this to be an original idea. It is contained in the Vedas, Upanishads, and is the core of Advaita Vedanta going back thousands of years.
And yet, it is still merely another idea among many...again, we make things up.
Can one just rest in what I call the "simple fact of being?" It is silent and always already present everywhere.
Thanks Eric. You are right Rupert Spira most certainly says that this idea is not his but is in the Advaita Vedanta tradition. I think he works to put these concepts in terms understandable for our time in history. I am sure he agrees with you that we just need to rest in the simple fact of being. That is the essence of his work I think.
Thanks Sally. I was going to include an Aussie saying about the ego being a tool not a master...I didn't cause it is so Aussie...but you will get it. Aussies would say of the ego..."don't let the tool be a tool"!
Thanks Anne. We actually have the freedom to choose, but, in my experience, it takes serious practice to get to the point where we make conscious and wise choices.
Much appreciated-went on a ride-rides for me are a form of misunderstanding of not being conscious enough to take a pause , and a breath and then exhale… the field I want to play in is becoming different and w/a richer sense of self connection to what field fits where I do I want to hang out for a bit, a new field where I can be quiet and observe or include in some way,
Thanks Kate. I found it took me quite some practice to pause, breath, reflect. There is a book I love on this topic...Dr David Hawkins...Letting Go - A Pathway Of Surrender. Thank you for taking time to comment. Blessings to you.
Thank you for words that met my need. I have felt so scrambled, for lack of a better word, since November and now that the political transition has taken place I feel such despair, shame for where I live, and a whole lot of anger. I am at a loss and searching for pockets of peace. So, thank you for providing that this morning📿
Thank you Susan. I am so sorry that you are going through the pain and despair. There is so much suffering in our world. My challenge, like yours, is to do what I can to bring care and love to others. To do that I cannot be dragged down by the suffering, but choose a place of peace within to give me the strength to be some kind of light to others, particularly the ones I love. I think the good news is that there is a place of peace within, within me, and within so many many others. For what it is worth, I put myself on a very very limited time each day to "catch up with the news". That is not to ignore the world, but to recognise that the commitment of most media to report the worst in our world, does not serve the best in me, or anyone else. I want to have the energy to love others, and make sure my mind is playing on that field. Thank you Susan. I wish you the very very best.
This is a gift, thank you.
Hi Ian, thanks for a well-written and thoughtful piece, as always. No doubt some Buddhist friends will disagree with it. Here is a recent conversation I had that illustrates what I mean. I had posted a quote from the Bhagavad Gita, "Being can never not be ; Non-being can never be."
Response: Hi Eric, being or in my understanding, awareness always exists but self can be recognized as “no self”?
Eric: I am not a fan of the "no self" concept. It is easily confused with the feeling of existing. To say "I don't exist" is absurd since obviously one exists in order to say it. Yes, I realize that it's the transitory personal identity that is referenced in the concept. Hence the potential confusion.
To me, "being" is simply the fact of existence. What it is, whether mind, awareness, consciousness, particles, the void, emptiness, silence, God, etc. is another question and takes us into the quagmire of metaphysics.
So my take on that quote is, "what exists can never not exist. What does not exist can never exist." It indicates "something" is unchanging and permanent.
Of course, I could be wrong! 🙂
Thanks Eric: My sense of the "quagmire of metaphysics" is that it seems that way because we humans seek to understand and explain something, a subjective experience of Awareness, God, Consciousness that is beyond the mind's capacity to understand or explain. The question of no-self etc it a great example. Don't get me wrong, I think we naturally use the tools we have at our disposal, like the intellect, to try and explain that which we intuit, feel, experience, but it is no surprise it turns into libraries full of books, lecture halls full of listeners, synagogues ringing with debate and prayfull disagreements, substacks full of articles 🙂. I am not cynical about that, as long as at the core we respect and love the essential preciousness of the ones beneath the disagreements. So I agree with your view of the quote that it indicates "something" is unchanging and permanent. On the no-self question, I think that the Buddhist view that there is no independently existing self is really really valuable as an insight into our absolute interconnectedness. I think Rupert Spira comes closest for me to a view of "no self" that is graspable...that our mind created view of our "small self" is a congregation of stories, perceptions, thoughts and understandings, all of which have no permanence, in that they are always changing...the existence then is the place from which this all arises. I mean if you want to go really out on the metaphysical limb, he concludes that none of us actually exist materially speaking, because there is no material, we are expressions of consciousness no material. Wow...all of that on only one cup of morning coffee!!!! Blessings to you Eric.
Yes indeed our capacity to understand is the issue. We don't know where we came from. So we make things up. Then fight over who is right about what we don't actually know! Oh, my.
The concept you mentioned by Mr. Spira that "our mind created view of our "small self" is a congregation of stories, perceptions, thoughts and understandings, all of which have no permanence, in that they are always changing..." is what I meant by "the transitory personal identity" that is referenced in the concept of no-self.
With regard to your last reference about his saying we are expressions of consciousness, I hope he is not claiming this to be an original idea. It is contained in the Vedas, Upanishads, and is the core of Advaita Vedanta going back thousands of years.
And yet, it is still merely another idea among many...again, we make things up.
Can one just rest in what I call the "simple fact of being?" It is silent and always already present everywhere.
Thanks Eric. You are right Rupert Spira most certainly says that this idea is not his but is in the Advaita Vedanta tradition. I think he works to put these concepts in terms understandable for our time in history. I am sure he agrees with you that we just need to rest in the simple fact of being. That is the essence of his work I think.
Beautiful Ian, as always your writing is an eloquent, fluid & musical experience.
I imagined Shakespeare reading over my shoulder, ( he laughed at the monkey bit) & he said "if music be the food of love, play on!" 🙏❤️☮️
Thanks Sally. I was going to include an Aussie saying about the ego being a tool not a master...I didn't cause it is so Aussie...but you will get it. Aussies would say of the ego..."don't let the tool be a tool"!
Thanks for the chance to contemplate 🤔 in this field. It is a masterstroke to point out the ‘choice’ we can make 😊
Thanks Anne. We actually have the freedom to choose, but, in my experience, it takes serious practice to get to the point where we make conscious and wise choices.
I'm learning to pay attention to vibration. Thanks for your contemplating today!
Thanks Hans. You definitely win the first to read and respond competition🙂. Thank you for your kindness. Yes attending to vibration is important.