We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
-T.S. Eliot
It has happened!! Yes it has!! Well I don't know how many have had it before or having it right now. I don't know whether this is the end or the beginning nor do I care. But I know this IS and this IS gonna be forever!! It was a Saturday afternoon by the lake in the beautiful serene NBA campus in Pune. I was sitting by the lake pondering on my beloved Guru's ashtavakra commentary, feeling the breeze and looking at the green plants and trees moving in the breeze, looking at the movements in the still water. Mind was devoid of any movements and I was just feeling the presence of the calmness. And then IT was there. A knowing that everything IS.. The sheer existence of the nature just made confirmed my original thought that the universe is just IS. When I saw the trees and birds and the animals around, it hit me once and for all there is no higher purpose of this creation. It IS. It just exists (oh yeah camus!!), There is nowhere to go. Like once Osho has said, " Life is like a beautiful sunset with no purpose". It is right here, right NOW. It is not meant to be beautiful or ugly, it is just supposed to be.
I have heard this and read this many a times in many books and have kind of felt this before temporarily before. . But this time I knew this was IT. Uhhh.HE makes the profoundest of the knowledge sound so simple.
The universe is just IS, and so are we. I was working on my way to perfection all these days, waiting for the day, to become that all these days. I was waiting and working on the day for pefection, sometimes feeling great, sometime feeling not so great. Sometimes knowing that I am becoming calmer and dispassionate, sometimes knowing that I would never get there because of my past karmas or whatever it is. So the purpose kept on swaying, and so were my actions. I was sure that (after lot of affirmations from my guru and books) I was on the right path, but then when I am going to reach there? And what about my other priorities/desires in my life? Shouldn't I become a guru in Linux kernel and storage, architecturing new age solutions in my home in Silicon Valley in the US? How do I balance this? What is that I want to see myself at 40? How I do adopt seven effective habits in my life? Is this action urgent or important? Shouldn't I be doing service? How do I feel good about service when sometimes I feel so good not about other? Like anyone else,I wanted to be perfect. How would I find my perfect partner in my life with whom I would laugh at, discuss quantum mechanics and mysteries of the universe and share the joys of the bluegrass music, feel the depth of the classical music and the tears of the blues and the beauty of Allen ginsberg's poems? When could I sing so well to feel spiritually elevated? There were occasional feelings of achievement and guilt. Achievement when you did some things you wanted, and guilt when just could not complete 50% of the TODO list. These were the questions and happenings and I was somewhere on the road, doing ok for myself. I was generally happy in life and high on everything, but then the eternal perfection I was longing for was missing. Then you would accept that the eternal perfection is impossible to achieve and thought that may be after another "you don'tt know how many number of.lifetimes", the day would arrive when my Guru would touch on my head, and the I would know the mystery of the mysteries. So I better to do the right thing right now for that. ( Long term planning ? ) . Some of the days, my meditation would be really great, some of the days not so good. Again following the theory, I tried to be dispassionate towards even them.. I did feel the the dispassion and contentment often. The only dumb thing I was doing here was I was working for it. . But now since everything IS , with this present state and a future state being the same, how I could I ever work for perfection? I can never become that, as I am that. So once you know that what IS at this moment, there is nowhere to go, NOTHING specifically to do. You don'tt accept the current moment fully as again acceptance is again an effort, you know that this moment IS.
Any human misery is a result of the wanting. A want comes from a lack of the current moment or state, from ignorance that this state is not the perfect state. . You can never do any action to get to a better state, as you ARE ( so is the future state ) . All you can do is abide in your isness and naturally the smile follows..rather what else ? It is like a state diagram where all the states exist ( at the same time ).
So nothing to do? You want to ask isn't that a state of non-action or giving up?
There is no "non action" here. ( action and non action again are equal here. The giving up is not a result of frustration, it is from a state of absolute contentment. It's like "act with contentment" instead of "act for contentment". The contentment is not just a fool's paradise feeling, but from a state of being where when we know something, you know that. You didnt need anyone tell you that you were feeling good or love when you felt it. You knew that was love. Well as you realize that everything is just IS, any action or non-action are same. So if you do any action or if you don'tt do, both that are 'what is'. So how do you decide what choice to make? What choice is there to make, as both the events are going to and are part of this perfect moment? All we could say IS, the word perfection it could be a misnomer as Perfection indicates a positive quality. The "IS" is beyond qualities, it just is. From this knowledge, to achieve something (which again you don't care about) , you fix up temporality a sankalpa ( an intention ) and do it . Since now that the state change is unimportant, i.e. the result of the action is unimportant it is more natural that you would not be tensed about the outcome, and that you would give your 100% (like you do in you in a game) . And the natural laws of the world state that the world does reward incessant action (mostly)? Not that the reward matters though!!
The action that follows this state is that of spontaneity and that of love and that of awareness. Only thing that it cannot be the goal to reach this goal. Interestingly if you think that you wanna be that, it is quite easy, you just have to drop the feeling of that want. And vow, this moment is perfect and voila you are there!!!And then work again !!
A lot of people would already know this. If you know it, you do or you don't. It is like a joke, you get it or you don't. Since I ( oops who ) know that this knowledge is no knowledge again , I believe noone is going to get transformed reading this..( and even me in a later state when the mind is disturbed ).. And millions of Gurus have tried with their disciples, trying to get this across. Some have got it and some haven't. . And that again IS. A lack of this knowledge is the only way to have the world going around us. It is like a play. If everyone remembered or knew this, all this drama of life wouldn'tt have been happening. It would be probably just one hell of a party , ( which again would be meaningless !! ) So let life go on and let me find something to work on. And let me achieve that:) ?
All for nothing, nothing for all. JUST CHILL !!!
LOTS OF LOVE?LIVE IT UP!!
-suresh
