• Truth

    February 3, 2017

    Last night, we invoked the quality of truth. Did you take this in? Did you understand it?

    Truth cannot be understood or defined in words. To understand it is to be in its presence and experience the state that arises.

    Truth is not a more accurate set of facts or a better theory of reality. Truth is the absence of falsehood. Truth is an all-pervasive clarity which excludes nothing. John 8:32 says “the truth shall set you free.”  All the partiality and cleverness is swept away. There is such relief in the wordless contemplation of truth.

    Truth does not argue its case. How then is it to be known? What effect can it have if it does not engage in debate? By its very presence, truth shames cleverness and falsehood. It humbles bias. The constructions of the mind fall away, unworthy of consideration.

    Dr. Majid Ali tells this story:

    There was a ferocious captain in Genghis Khan’s army during the invasion of India. He killed people with his sword at the least provocation and often without any provocation at all. His reputation preceded him where ever he went. On this occasion, after he entered a town, he demanded from his lieutenants to know if there was anyone left alive.

    “No one, sir! No one except for this spiritual man,” a lieutenant answered.

    “Aha! A spiritual fool!” he thundered. “Take me to the fool,” he ordered.

    His lieutenant led him to an ancient small temple with a broken wooden door. The captain ordered the door smashed down. Within moments, his soldiers smashed it. The captain entered the tiny courtyard. A thin man in a loincloth and wooden sandals stood quietly in the middle of the courtyard. The captain contemptuously looked at the man and roared,

    “Do you know who I am?”

    “No, I don’t,” he man answered.

    “You don’t know who I am?” the captain asked, shaking with rage.

    “No, I don’t,” the man repeated his words calmly.

    The captain pulled his sword from its sheath and flashed it with his full might. “I can slice through your body and not blink an eye,” he thundered again.

    Everyone standing behind the captain froze, their eyes fixed on the little man. Time seemed to stop. The man stood silently, looking back at the captain with quiet eyes. Then he asked, in a whisper, “Do you know who I am, sir?”

    “Who are you?” the captain roared again, thrusting his sword forward until it nearly touched the man’s abdomen.

    “I am the one who your sword can slice through and not blink an eye,” he answered.

    The captain trembled and left without a word.

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  • Despair

    November 30, 2016

    I would like to know what this work has to say about despair. In our inquiries together, we don’t seem to deal with it but I think many of us experience despair.

    I think all of us experience despair at times. Let’s agree on what despair means. (Group member consults telephone internet). Ok, according to the dictionary, it means to be entirely without hope, to have no confidence in the possibility that circumstances can change for the better. Can we begin with this?

    This view says that despair is the result of circumstances…that there is cause and effect. This seems clear. Can we carefully separate them so that we are able to look at them individually? Despair is not in the circumstances, it is a state of mind and body sensation that is a reaction to the circumstances. This distinction opens up the possibility that my reaction can be different. But in despair, I see my state as an inevitable consequence of my circumstances, I justify my despair and that helps to make the situation seem hopeless.

    Is it ever really true that circumstances cannot change? But having invested in the circumstances as a valid explanation of my state, I no longer see the possibility of change. I leave no room for the universe to move in another direction from the one I have identified and adopted. So, to address my despair, I first must see how I have accepted this state, helped to create and sustain it by my thinking, and that it may now support some habitual function in my psyche, perhaps justifying self-pity, inaction, victimization and defeat. Can I see that despair is my state? Can I observe it impartially?

    Please understand that I do not make light of the circumstances that can bring us to despair. There are situations in life that can be absolutely horrific and there is seemingly no way out. But I know from my own experience that, most of the time, it is not nearly as dire as that. The circumstances have turned against what I want for myself or others and my worst imaginings have taken hold of my mind. But that is because my vision is partial and my wants are based on limited understanding.

    Thankfulness is a wonderful antidote for despair if I am capable of it, thankfulness for my life and what I have been given. Spending time with other people doing simple things may be helpful. Doing something no matter how small to improve the situation can also shift my state.

    However, I think there is also a deeper despair than the one provoked by personal circumstances. There is despair at my limitations, the cruel things I have done and the unspeakable cruelty of life on this planet. In any real spiritual work, this despair must arise and it is irrefutable. If this despair remains objective, not supporting psychic habits or identities or political causes, it may invite an experience of redemption in which the beautiful and the sweet, the overwhelming feeling of love, are gifted to you, lifting you out of despair. This kind of despair is a link to the divine. It’s an objective feeling which connects to higher states. Ecstasy and suffering combine and the profusion capsizes reason.

    Isn’t forgiveness the answer when I despair about the things I have done?

    Perhaps for you it is and may it be so. For myself, I have not found an end through forgiveness. My trespasses live on.

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