So what is it that has brought us here to suckle at the teet of the being we call Earth? What driving force has prompted us to arise amidst this chaotic maelstrom of material supplication and forge a path of destiny? Does anyone care? Perhaps if they were more interested in their own personal experience of life instead of fulfilling life for its own sake, they would be able to see past the goals and expectations they have set for themselves. The rabid feast of life feeding on life will allow you no time to yourself; no time to reflect on anything that lies outside the banquet hall. That serves a purpose for the cooks and the grocers, but what about the customers? They might enjoy a change of pace if they actually knew that it existed. However, that would cause a decline in business for these providers of our sole source of entertainment and welfare. They dont like that at all. After all, they need to eat too! It just so happens that they have built up the whole operation around the problems that would conspire to keep us down. So all they have to do is sit back, watch, and grow fat on the product of our own ignorance. They would never willingly let on to the fact that we could walk out at anytime if we were so inclined. They could do nothing to keep us in the banquet hall themselves, but they can certainly employ other customers to persuade us. That is where things start to get interesting in a disturbingly seductive way.
What is it that allows us to live in the fullest sense of the word? What is it that allows us to truly be here and enjoy every second we have? It is somehow not an automatic force provided by nature and yet it is more natural than the common state of being prevelant in most of society. That pure effort that completes the passive side of existance must be provided by us. And yet who is it that is making the effort? We must realize that the image we have of being solid individuals is incorrect as far as reality is concerned. In the face of the unceasing change of becoming, we too must submit. We are merely processess happening in the moment, with no real solid identity that is somehow above phenomena of life. It is part of the phenomena of life as well. Every moment our identity is created and then the next moment it is destroyed to make way for the next creation. Otherwise, we would be able to remember every single thing that ever happened to us. Our physical bodies are part of it too. They are born, they decay, they die. Everything is subject to the law of change. However there is a kind of paradox in the sense that change itself will never change. It will always continue. It did not begin, and it does not end. It just is.
So we must realize that the image of a seperate, solid self that is apart from phenomena is not the way of things. It is a decieving appearance. The experience of the moment cannot be captured and made to stand up on its own. It is part of a larger context, a bigger picture. It is a constant process that never ends. We are completely different people than we were five years ago. Our idea of being "a solid person that phenomena is happening to" is a way of trying to seperate ourselves from the flow of occurence. It is a way of shielding ourselves from the precision of natural reality. That sharpness of seeing things as they really are is irritating to us because it continuously proves the fact that we are not solid, that there is no secure existence to be found anywhere. The ground is constantly shifting, changing. And we are simply part of that ground. So the idea of a seperate self is a fundamental deception in itself.
Of course the reality of being and existence is self-evident, so there really is no question, or a need to prove it in some way. All you have to do is look around. It is just happening. It also just happens that we are not above things, we are part of them. One must realize that it could not happen another way, if we were above things, they wouldnt happen at all. If we were seperate, we would have no need for each other, which we obviously do. We never entered into this process, so we can never leave. When the countless layers of deception and artificiality created by one's desire to have a concrete, solid self become more real to them than actual reality, one becomes lost in the madness and things become unecessarily confused. It is all based on fear and desire. You fear dissolving into nothing so you desire permanent stasis. You want to possess your self, you want to hold on to something. You want to own a peice of security. But because it is impossible to freeze the process, you must continually recreate that sense of having a self. Then you lose your bearings because you convince yourself that you arent lying to yourself. You choose to forget the fact that you are fooling yourself after all. This is choosing madness over sanity. It could be considered a kind of sickness.
So when we come to share with people and enact a practice to become sane, to remedy this fundamental sickness that has been passed on to us somehow, can we take this force that brings us here for granted as a possession as well? We might not actively consider it a possession, but we treat it that way if we simply take it for granted as something coming from us. We dont exist in that sense. Once you accept that fact that you are not a solid self, you can begin to appreciate the complete beauty and fullness of the world in a way that you never could before. Once you stop being fixated on your idea of your self, you can see things as they are. Then you can actually enjoy the phenomena of you happening, instead of trying to constantly secure that experience or change its nature. You also begin to see unsurpassable wonder in the emergence of the healing force that continues to unify and complete existence at all levels. Something that takes that extra step and keeps on going that extra mile. It is the force that allows us to practice in the first place. It is a true gift, a wonder to behold. It is nothing but the highest grace.
- rajajuju 12/03/00
