There is a watching of the past as it goes by, but not occupation with the past. So the mind is free to observe and not to choose. Where there is choice in this movement of the river of memory, there is occupation, and the moment the mind is occupied. it is caught in the past: and when the mind is occupied with the past, it is incapable of seeing something real, true, new, original, uncontaminated. A mind that is occupied with the past - the past is the whole consciousness that says, `this is good; `that is right; `this is bad; `this is mine; `this is not mine' - can never know the Real. But the mind unoccupied can receive that which is not known, which is the unknown. This is not an extraordinary state of some yogi, some saint. Just observe your own mind; how direct and simple it is. See how your mind is occupied. And the answer, with what the mind is occupied, will give you the understanding of the past, and therefore the freedom from the past. You cannot brush the past aside. It is there. - Collected Works Volume 7 Bombay, 4th March 1953
Let the thing that you are watching tell its story, rather than you tell it what it should be. You follow, sir, what I mean? Can you do that? Can one do that? So that it reveals everything. Like a flower, when you watch it very, very closely, there it is, you see everything in its detail, the delicacy of the vein, you know, the beauty of the whole thing. In the same way, perhaps, if we could watch this burden of attachment - I won't even call it a burden, attachment - it may contain an extraordinary beauty in it, and go, from that move. But apparently we can't do it. Why not?
- To Be Human- Brockwood Park 5th Seminar Meeting 17th September 1978
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Self Expansion is *inspired action* based on positive solutions of what is known and valued to be true... Self Liberation is letting go of the need for a solution, getting to the root problem, while opening up to the mysterious unknown in a rapturous spirit of adventure, new discoveries and natural wonder.
ReplyDeleteThe way to finding an answer is in giving fullest attention to the question.. humbly sitting in silence, waiting and wondering, not knowing. Best to eliminate all multiple choice answers one knows is incorrect BEFORE making a choice. Life is not an SAT test, so speed is not an asset here, and no answer at all is better than guessing and getting it wrong.
ReplyDeleteFor example... there is no solution to the problem of fear, in whatever context it arises, for one who is so preoccupied with finding an answer and "getting past it" that he fails to give attention where it is due... which is on the question of fear, what it is, where it came from, how it arose, etc. Pat answers given without a full understanding of the question (or problem) are to be disregarded as irrelevant and escaping the issue.
Who I am , who you are, is a product of past conditioning. People don't change just by will power alone, and minor modifications are only that. Understanding by seeing it directly within oneself is the only way and nothing half ass will do. This inner transformational fire of awareness alone purifies and burns away all unwanted remnants of the past.
ReplyDeleteAll that I occupy myself with as a writer and student of life and the cosmos is ultimately aimed in the direction of being less prolific, simple, clear and concrete, recognizing all this mental activity as the road map of life and process of discovery, yet remembering that "the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon itself".
ReplyDeleteIt's not that most of life isn't worth thinking about, for a moment or two... but to fixate the mind on many extraneous things, which are distractions from my center and primary purpose, is to be lost in delusional thought patterns... again. The key is in awareness, letting go, remembering again and again to be here, in the light of the present.
ReplyDeleteAction is self-assertion, letting go is self-surrender. What am I surrendering to? To accept my limits of knowing the great unknown universe with a tiny human brain and an ordinary sentient mind, isolated from its source. Accepting the limits of personal knowing is quite simply "letting go and letting God"... which is to allow a Higher Self and ... See Morepower to show me the nature of the question, the problem or confusion, and in this choiceless purely passive yet totally awake awareness estate, all is revealed.
ReplyDeleteCan I prove this... no I cannot. It is the only way that has ever worked for me, to simply be aware and open, with the courage, eagerness and discipline to keep discovering, without jumping immediately to any big answer or conclusion.