Friday, February 15, 2008

Become The Sun

The self contains the all illuminating brilliance of The Sun. We have but to look within to find all the glory, all the bliss that we seek every second of our being. This is our search. Our search for completion, for the feeling of ultimate fulfillment; ultimate happiness and salvation. And our answer lies closer than the breath we take.
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Human beings constantly seek this fulfillment outside of themselves. In television, in a career, in a relationship, in the ultimate makeover, in husbands and mistresses, in Oprah, in Islam, in the Orthodox Christian Church, in Barrack Obama, in government, in misery, in children, in friends...the list is endless. Here is a quote of Aldous Huxley's:
"One of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their home-made monsters."
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I don't intend to offend anyone's sincere quest for the truth here, but would merely like to quote once again a saying in Buddhism for those of you who still didn't get it: "if you see the Buddha, kill him!!!". What this merely means is that we cannot grow attached to anything in particular, however noble the path may be, because at a certain point we begin to identify more with this attachment than with the actual truth which resides within our being. As long as we use the tools of the outside world only as just that -
tools to make us more aware of our inner truth - we are not in danger of losing our selves to them.
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Desirelessness does not necessarily mean less sensitivity to the outside world, but rather, more of it. The truth unites every being in the universe, and it is impossible to remain unaffected by the miseries of the world we live in. Once we have discovered the inner truth, we begin to see it every where around us (even if it lies hidden beneath several layers!). And the more we begin to see it every where, the more we begin to be the drivers of positive change in the world we reside in. Now, quoting from Huxley's "Doors of Perception" essay:
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Istigkeit - wasn't that the word Meister Eckhart liked to use? "Is-ness." The Being of Platonic philosophy - except that Plato seems to have made the enormous, the grotesque mistake of separating Being from becoming and identifying it with the mathematical abstraction of the Idea. He could never, poor fellow, have seen a bunch of flowers shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pressure of the significance with which they were charged; could never have perceived that what rose and iris and carnation so intensely signified was nothing more, and nothing less, than what they were - a transience that was yet eternal life, a perpetual perishing that was at the same time pure Being, a bundle of minute, unique particulars in which, by some unspeakable and yet self-evident paradox, was to be seen the divine source of all existence.
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The cultivation of truth - for our soul is like a farm that needs to be tended to regularly - can begin with living a more authentic life. The soul always flows in the right direction - see where it takes you - often the best plans are the higher Divine plans that our conditioned brains can sometimes never even conceive of. In Buddhism, sitting meditation is often said to be the most effective way to discover the inner truth - Vipassana is an excellent technique recommended by the wise. In Hinduism, a treasure trove of techniques are said to exist - anything from Sanskrit texts/mantras to yoga, or even the Bhakti (devotional) or Jnana margas (path of wisdom). Reading the Zohar (Kabbalah) or following the Sufi way (by expressing love for the Divine), are all said to be (tried and tested) paths to the great Truth which often lay hidden from undeserving eyes.
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My friend, seek not to collect moons, which are mere reflectors of light - Seek to become the one and only Sun which radiates luminosity in every direction. The path may not be completely facile, but the reward is eternal light, and with it, eternal fulfillment.

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