Do you have "Spare the Air" days back there? We get them here in
California and now they are irritating people because they can't burn in
their fireplace to make up for the unusually cold weather. If they do
burn then they are subject to a fine. A little wind usually calls it
off though.
Thing is I find it hard to tell people that my experiences these days is
"the world is out there" and somehow disconnected from "me." This is
not a dis-associative situation because when I need to engage with the
world there is no problem. I call "localization on demand." Otherwise
it is line on water and it would be so cool if everyone else *at least*
experienced this.
On 01/22/2014 02:50 PM, [email protected] wrote:
Bhairitu wrote:
'There's that old saw: "before enlightenment you chop wood and
carry water and after enlightenment you copy wood and carry water."'
'I find it interesting to watch the world falling apart. Our old
systems no longer work and the unenlightened materialistic elite
are trying to hold on to these antiquated systems. Time for them
to move over and get out of the way since they are a real drag on
society. Certainly having a quiet platform of silence helps to
observe these apocalyptic events and even laugh them off (or laugh
at the perpetrators). I find that some of the political forums
I'm on the posters really get hung up in the minutia missing the
forest for the trees. Folks here, not so much. That in itself is
a sign of evolution.'
I am finding that I no longer seek spiritual experience, though I seek
to find ways to understand what I am experiencing, and sometimes I
have a desire for more information. Almost all my 'spiritual'
experiences occured early on, in the years before I learned TM, and in
a few years following that learning. Then things began to flatten out
for long periods; in fact it often seemed like experience was
sometimes going in reverse.
But them the realisation came that it is not the experiences that were
important in this seeking behaviour, it was the nature of experience
itself and at that juncture, the seeking stopped. I just watched a
science fiction movie on Netflix. Now I am in my office and there is a
single lamp on a lampstand pointing at the ceiling. This is the only
light source in my office that is on. Just light shining on the wall
and ceiling, not very interesting as the plot of a movie, but it is
just as fascinating as the movie. This seems to be simply because it
is the nature of experience itself, it exists, it changes. It is a
beautifully strange, unlocated silence that strings together these
ordinary pearls of life. There is no longer any sense at all that
there is something beyond this.
In the beginning I imagined, based on what others told me, that
spiritual life was transcendental, beyond the normal sphere of living.
But as time has passed, that no longer holds. What I called
transcendent in the beginning has become immanence, it is no longer
something out of sight or mind. 'Transcendence' now sounds ludicrous
and bizarre. It was, for a time a useful fiction, but it no longer
means anything at all.
If I am meditating or looking at the stack of fuel meter tickets on my
desk (it has been uncommonly cold here this winter), it is pretty much
the same thing. It was not the specific content that was going on that
I was seeking all those years, it was just the plain fact that
something was going on. It took decades to finally get this. All that
intellectual filigree and nit picking about spiritual concepts and how
this related to that was all a smoke screen for something much more
obvious, that existence is, and that is that. End of question.
Trying to describe this quality of experience is challenging because
there is nothing extraordinary about it, and this is my second best
shot at it. I wrote and hit enter, and the cursor was probably out of
the box, and Neo trashed the whole thing I wrote. So this is an
attempt to reclaim a previous inspiration, and it is like reheated
food. A certain amount of caustion. I am going to cut and paste this
into Neo from a text editor.
I really do not have spiritual experiences any more. It's not boring,
but for someone who is still looking for them, it might seem to be a
rather austere way to experience life. If I feel tired, I am tired,
sometimes I am blissful, and sometimes not. I am not looking to be
happy or avoid happiness. I am not looking to be sad or avoid sadness.
If it comes that way, that is what I experience. It is a peculiar
quality to not anticipate things much at all. United States Federal
and local state taxes are do, so I do have to think about future
events, a certain amount of planning is required to get through a
year, and then another year. But its not frantic, though I can imagine
scenarios that could be frantic, such as economic collapse etc.
As for chopping wood and carrying water, it's easier now. An electric
pump brings water into the house, and there is some wood in the
garage, but someone else chopped it (probably with a machine). So I
just have to turn on the faucet, but I do have to carry wood into the
house, but it is for ambience, the oil boiler does the real job of
heating.
Now it's time for me to sit quietly and do nothing, which I do from
time to time. Formal quiet time, on my own schedule, not at someone
else's urging. I am not coordinating with anyone (I am ignoring Buck,
that is to say).
