I got such a good laugh out of the I am ignoring Buck part!
--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 1/22/14, anartax...@yahoo.com <anartax...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Reversing The Flow -- Writing AS Spiritual
Experience
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, January 22, 2014, 10:50 PM
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).
