by Alexander Countey
We can never claim to be higher then
another, never claim to have realized what others have not, never hold
ourselves superior in any way to other humans, to other beings, we are all
simply at different points in our paths, we are all simply in the same illusion,
the commonality of the experience of the world, of the world we witness, the
common illusion shared between all sentient beings in this world, is itself the
proof of the unity of existence. This common illusion is the divine connection
that hold us within our identity, into our ego, into this world. As Ram Dass so
elegantly states it, “Don’t prolong the past, don’t invite the future,
don’t alter innate wakefulness, don’t fear appearances.” We must neither
attach to nor reject the world we witness. We must not get lost in the past
experiences that, although they undeniably hold relevance into whom we identify
ourselves as, what we believe, what brought us to this point, it must be viewed
as neutral and equal as any other experience, as no better nor no worse than
any other pathway. As each pathway is equally as valid, it must be observed as
equally valid as every other experience. We must not take away or alter our
focus to block out the world, it is too easy to be ignorant of what is around
us, ignorant of the impact of our actions, ignorant to the world as it unfolds
around us, our focus placed somewhere else, focused away from the world, so
focused we become blind and ignore, focused to push away and reject the world,
focus so strong on a single point that it becomes blind to all that is around.
We must not push the world or others for our gain. We must never push or demand
from others to gain our wishes, never force others to act as we wish, never try
to convert someone into our beliefs, never to proselytize, never to manipulate
others for any reason, never to seduce or to entice others. To do such would be
to demand their focus, would be an attempt to interject ourselves into their
path. We must witness each action as for what is not done in their best
interest, we must witness any action that we make and observe if not done for
their benefit, we must never subject them to an act not requested of them
unless absolutely necessary. In this world, sometimes a situation is observed
where literally pushing another against their will is necessary, is fully
justified, is the righteous action for that moment. If someone is unaware they
are about to be hit by a train, it is fully justified to push them out of
danger, and as much as in the moment of them being struck by you, they might
find you personally as the aggressor, their ignorance of the situation quickly
vanishes as soon as the train passes, instantly dispelling their illusion and
making clear that your violent action was honestly performed with love, was
only done to prevent a much larger violence from occurring. To not act in such
a situation as we are capable, to ignore the world as we have witnessed it, if
we simply sat down and closed our eyes, began to hum or chant loudly, and
ignore the impending violence that we witnessed, would be to become complicit
in the violence, or even as in this situation, we would become responsible for
the violence. As the train is unaware of the man, as the man is unaware of the
train, only the one aware of both is even capable or able to act righteously.
Only the observer holding complete knowledge of the situation, only the one who
witnesses both and holds no attachment to their own life, will act to save
them. Only with no attachment can we act without fear of personal harm, without
hesitation or consideration of personal consequences, without judgment or
comparison of the value of the act, but simply acting as is righteous with the
knowledge we are conscious of in the world at that moment.
In the acceptance of the world neutrally, we must be open to all knowledge as
it is presented, to reject the world we witness or pull our focus away to make
life easier for ourselves is to remove ourselves from the ability to act, is to
become ignorant of the world around us. I do not reject or deny the power of
meditation, of sitting still and calming the mind, of using techniques of
silence and still to calm the mind and the body, I am not in any way dismissing
or negating the use of such practice. My personal viewpoint of meditation is
that it is not to be practiced for the purpose of ignoring the world and
game reality, as much as that is the method of many styles of
meditation, but it is practiced to assist in calming the mind and finding
balance. It is practiced to help achieve a clearer state of consciousness and
being, to assist the mind and body to reach equanimity and acquiescence in the
world, it is a practice to help remove the weights and attachments we hold of
the world, a tool to learn to know the self, to practice the holding of
universal and unbiased compassion and love, to practice bringing the body into
peaceful tranquility and calm. It should not be seen as a blissful state of
escape, not to escape our duty, or to permanently remove ourselves from the
world, not to escape for personal physical and mental gains, but to achieve a
state of mind where we can simply witness the changing world from a view as
neutrally as possible. A practice of holding a calm inner balance, of neither
rejecting nor desiring anything, of neither pushing away the world nor pulling
it closer, neither focused inward nor focused outward, but pan-focal, conscious
of all with equanimity. Achieving such an extreme state of consciousness, one
in which all thoughts cease entirely, might never be obtainable within these
bodies, we may never know such a state of this equanimity beyond more than a
few brief moments, for many maybe only after spending much time in carefully
practiced meditation. Yet, there must be no attachment to holding or obtaining such
a state, we should not be attached to the state of our mind at any moment, we
should ultimately even release our attachment to becoming released, our
attachment to being free from ignorance, our attachment and desires to attain
“higher” or “deeper” meditative states, to become
“better yogis”, to be more “Buddha-like” in our waking
life. Attachment to these spiritual pursuits is clearly just another game of
the ego, is another trap easily fallen into by those who wish to let go, letting
go of the desire to let go is the final step, truly letting go of our desire to
seek enlightenment. For like so many other traps, how appealing it would be to
obtain a state of perfect bliss forever. ‘Life is painful, the chaos never
ends, why would I not want to simply be free to achieve limitless bliss, to
reach a state of ultimate awareness and become free of game reality, free of
the ego, free of the mind and the body? Why would I not want to become
god-like, or even god?’ This is the trap of seeking pleasure, indeed the
“ultimate” pleasure, the ultimate highest state. It is described as
such as such a state of bliss by so many different religions and philosophies,
as to be one of the most common concepts of religion in the world, is the
existence of higher states of consciousness that bring one closer to atman, to
god, to the truth. How could the seeking of this perfect state be wrong? To ask
such a question is to have missed the point of unattachment, is to still show
attachment, to still seek and desire the obtaining of something greater,
something out there, something we haven’t yet obtained, the desire to free
ourselves of our lives, of reality as we perceive it, of the world we witness
and undeniably are within, is equally evident as another trap of desire, itself
just as deep and difficult to get out from as any other trap of desire.
It is not simply appealing, indeed, to the spiritual seeker, it may be the most
appealing of outcomes, the most appealing of goals, to seek to achieve this
“enlightenment.” This desire of the seeker to see things more
clearly, to see more clearly then we did before, to see more clearly than
others, to see the world as god, to see as Buddha. When comparisons as extreme
as these are drawn, then the fallacy of this ego game presents itself most
clearly, for who would want to obtain a perfect god state if not themselves
already lost, trapped themselves in illusion, indeed delusion of their place,
for to mistake such experiences of our ego with the divine, ignorant that all
of our experience is bound into this illusion, bound into the same karmic games
and existence shared by every being, the experience we hold inescapable as the
experience of the ego, the experience as viewed by the mind, the existence and
only reality that we ever were or ever could be aware of, the negation of
reality leaves no expeirence to be known, nothing to be seen, nothing to
percieve and as null of experience as the state in which we describe as deep
sleep, devoid of sight, sound, time, space, devoid of any experience at all to
this ego, devoid of thought, devoid of the experience of the ego that we call
conscoiusness, this is the closest analogy to the true self, to the ultimate
reality, to the unknownable and inexperiencably all-encompassing truth that
unites all and disolves all illusion, for if all illusion is removed, what
remains of what we have experienced?, what remains of the view we hold of the
world?, what, of the things we hold dear as uniquely ours, is left? We must
accept that every experience, everything we have ever known, every thought,
every bliss, every heaven and every hell we have known, have only been within
this shared illusion termed as maya, that only in this illusion does any experience
appear to this ego, to this mind, to this body and to the sense organs of the
body, all bound in illusion within this ultimate reality. This ultimate reality
can never be known as an experience to the ego, will never be experienced by
the body, will never to be known to self that identifies as “I”, to
the self that we find in these bodies, to ourselves as we identify with as
other experiences are, as every experience we have known and ever will know in
these earthly bodies, in this world, in the experience of waking life, is
limited to these senses, to the ego, to illusion.