A Wonder

*

Walking with colorful butterflies
around
within
Dissolving into bubbles of joy

Nothing lasts
Nothing is lost.

Please, do watch this:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/273

What a beautiful talk!

This represents my own opinion about various cultures in our world.
I do not understand the hierarchic thinking which states that the 'western civilization' is indeed more advanced and progressive than other cultures.

Every culture, as Wade Davis says, is an answer to the question of 'what it means to be human?'.
Every answer is unique and none is better than the other.
It is the multiplicity, the variety of answers, the variety of cultures and belief systems that makes it all so beautiful.
We are nature itself, and thus we are as colorful as nature is.

The different peoples and cultures are not the only representation of this diversity, but within each culture, every human being is a unique flower, a unique organism. Every human being is a miracle, just as every tree and butterfly and every rock are miracles.

I hope one day all human beings will be able to celebrate our multiplicity, both on a personal and cultural level.

From Heidegger’s “Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics,” in “Basic Writings.”

"It is the number in the natural serious of numbers that stands in third place. In ‘third’? It is only the third number because it is the three. And ‘place’ - where do places come from? ‘Three’ is not the third number, but the first number. ‘One’ isn’t really the first number. For instance, we have before us a loaf of bread and one knife, this one and, in addition, another one. When we take both together we say, ‘both of these,’ the one and the other, but we do not say, ‘these two,’ or 1+1. Only when we add a cup to the bread and the knife do we say ‘all.’ Now we take them as a sum, i.e., as a whole and so and so many things. Only when we perceive it from the third is the former the first one, the former other the second, so that one and two arise, and ‘and’ becomes ‘plus,’ and there arises the possibility of places and of a series."

(Thanks to SomethingCompletelyDifferent for the quote)

 

I think this is very interesting.

Unity is not “one” because “one” implies “the other”, it is All, which begins with “three”.

The number 3 has always been a special number, in many traditions.

The holly trinity in Christianity; The three Gems (Buddha, Dharma and Sangha) in Buddhism; The 3 Gunas of Hinduism and 3 Doshas of Ayurveda and so on.

It usually represents a wholeness.

Thus, indeed it is the first position, while at the same time it needs both the “one” and “the other”, in order to be itself.

This brings to mind certain aspects of Hinduism. For example - Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.
Although Brahma is the creator, Vishnu- one that sustains and Shiva- one that destroys, they are all three aspects of the one- Brahman.
Shiva is often the most popular of the three.
Shiva is the one that destroys life. Destruction which within it contains the seeds of creation. Thus, he simultaneously creates life, In what appears to be an endless dance of birth and death.

In "Quantum Psychology", Robert Anton Wilson tells a short story which I shall post and discuss in this blog.  You are more than welcome to comment and write your own interpretation. So please do not hesitate to respond, I'm grateful for every reply.

***

"A young American named Simon Moon, studying Zen in the Zendo (Zen school), at the New Old Lompoc House in Lompoc, California, made the mistake of reading Franz Kafka's "The Trial". This sinister novel, combined with Zen training, proved too much for poor Simon. He became obsessed, intellectually and emotionally, with the strange parable about the door of the Law which Kafka inserts near the end of his story. Simon found Kafka's fable so disturbing, indeed, that I ruined his meditations, scattered his wits, and distracted him from his study of the Sutras.

Somewhat condensed, Kafka's parable goes as follows:

 

A man comes to the door of the Law, seeking admittance, The guard refuses to allow him to pass the door, but says that if he waits long enough, maybe, someday in the uncertain future, he might gain admittance. The man waits and waits and grows older; he tries to bribe the guard, who takes his money but still refuses to let him through the door; the man sells all his possessions to get money to offer more bribes, which the guard accepts—but still does not allow him to enter. The guard always explains, on taking each new bribe, "I only do this so that you will not abandon hope entirely."

Eventually, the man becomes old and ill, and knows that he will soon die, In his last few moments he summons the energy to ask a question, that has puzzled him over the years. "I have been told," he says to the guard, "that the Law exists for all. Why then does it happen that, in all the years I have sat here waiting, nobody else has ever come to the door of the Law?"

"This door," the guard says, "has been made only for you. And now I am going to close it forever." And he slams the door as the man dies.

 

The more Simon brooded on this allegory, or joke, or puzzle, the more he felt that he could never understand Zen until he first understood this strange tale. If the door existed only for that man, why could he not enter? If the builders posted a guard to keep the man out, why did they also leave the door temptingly open? Why did the guard close the previously open door, when the man had become too old to attempt to rush past him and enter? Did the Buddhist doctrine of Dharma (law) have anything in common with this parable?

   Did the door of the Law represent the Byzantine bureaucracy that exists in virtually every modern government, making the whole story a political satire, such as a minor bureaucrat like Kafka might have devised in his subversive off-duty hours? Or did the Law represent God, as some commentators claim, and, in that case, did Kafka intend to parody religion or to defend its divine Mystery obliquely? Did the guard who took bribes but gave nothing but empty hope in return represent the clergy, or the human intellect in general, always feasting on shadows in the absence of real Final Answers?

   Eventually, near breakdown from sheer mental fatigue, Simon went to his roshi (Zen teacher) and told Kafka's story of the man who waited at the door of the Law—the door that existed only for him but would not admit him, and was closed when death would no longer allow him to enter. "Please," Simon begged, "explain this Dark Parable to me."

   "I will explain it," the roshi said, "if you will follow me into the meditation hall."

   Simon followed the teacher to the door of the meditation hall. When they got there, the teacher stepped inside quickly, turned and slammed the door in Simon's face.

   At that moment, Simon experienced Awakening."

***

The man in the story gave away his power, gave away his authority.
 Not only that, he lived his life in hopes for an "award" which might arrive one day-he will be able to go through the door.
He only managed to find courage to ask the final question, at his last moments. perhaps, if he would have decided to seek and question earlier...
Perhaps if he would have stopped relying, blindly, on some unknown providence- he would have learned, much earlier, that this door was- in fact- his own.
Then he would have been able to find the courage it takes to pass through, in spite of the guard.

He lived his life in the realm of hope, and not that of the present moment.
He clung to the door, stubbornly. The unwillingness to let go, perhaps, was the very thing preventing him from going through. Clinging to the door, from this side- it was impossible to pass on to the other.
Clinging to ideas of "Enlightenment" or "Freedom", or any other concept, can be viewed as an act of violence towards the self.
I recall the poisoned arrow story, the Buddha had told. The man rejected medicine and any cure, before he would be told who shot the arrow, why, what the poison consisted of, and so on.  All this time, the man's body suffered greatly from the poison, which could have been easily removed, if he had not been so stubborn.

Perhaps the intellectual process and the attempts to understand the ineffable in a logical manner, were indeed the obstacles of the monk.
He clung to his wish to understand the tale, in the same way the man in the story, clung to his wish to pass through the door.

Clinging to the door might be similar to a man on a boat, wishing to cross the land, yet unwilling to get out of his boat. I think the Zen master's reaction showed just that.
He shut the door in front of the student, and in one instant, made him let go of all conceptualization.  One speechless instant, had been able to transmit that which words could not.

It would not have helped, if the master told the student there was no door to begin with. And that there was absolutely no need to pass through it.
The conceptualized perception of the man in the story, created this door, and its guard. His unwillingness to let the door go, had made him spend his entire life with it, unaware all this time- that the door was HIS.

HE created this door. He and no one else.
HE created his own suffering, and HE was the one he has been waiting for, all these years.
He never received permission to pass, because he was the only one who could grant this permit.

Absurd? Insane? Indeed !

In Rumi's words:

I have lived on the lip of insanity, 

wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door.
It opens.
I've been knocking from the inside!

 

 

Muscles straining
Breathing diligently
Mind focused
Within
The Infinity
Of the eternal moment

At Peace

Thoughts melting
Exposing tranquility
Body relaxed
Within 
The Balance
Of the effortless effort.

Sometimes a kind of inspiration comes upon me, and I approach this beautiful instrument.
It comes alive under my fingertips, no more a monument to silence, no more being just another furniture in our living room.

Tonight I learned so much, as I played the melodies of my childhood. Some of the pieces I play almost by heart, and it dawned on me, that I have memorized the mistakes I used to make as a child, as well. I am repeating the same patterns. I may have put the notes aside, letting them collect dust, but in my memory, the patterns of my childhood still remain.

Everything- places where I miss notes, places where I play the wrong combination of them, even the sensations are the same. I remember approaching some places in a piece and feeling a certain sensation of fear. Fear of getting it wrong, fear of being a disappointment. That fear was there too, as I played. But now I have played while being aware of it all, the notes of my mind were there, right in front of me- just as the notes of the piece were there.

I realized it is easy to change the pattern once I'm aware of it. There is no need to feel frustrated (this is also one of those feelings that reappeared)- as a child, it used to frustrate me that I just could not get it right. Now I've just relaxed, and let the music play me. There is nothing to chase, there is no 'ultimate goal' to reach. Sometimes I make mistakes as I play, but I keep on playing, just enjoying the process. And next time, I'm noticing the pattern and changing it with mere awareness...

The music spoke to me, telling me the emotions, the rises and the falls, sometimes revealing secrets, in between the notes...
My whole life was simply spread out before me, and as I was changing the patterns in the way I played, I was changing the patterns of my life.

Old fears and worries, embracing them with compassion, they dissolved. Places where I seemed to have been "stuck", how silly it all looked- it was me all this time. It was me- putting myself in those exact spots, and insisting on staying there. I was never stuck, all I had to do was let go.

Just let it go...

Just play!

Play for the fun of it, not for getting it "right" or "wrong", play because playing is what you are. Because life is play.

Transplant patients sometimes take on part of their donors' personalities.

http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/44/our-hearts-are-full-of-memory/

http://www.sfms.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=1540&TEMPLATE=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&SECTION=Article_Archives


I've heard of this before, you've probably heard of it too.
Personally, I think it's not only the heart, it might in fact be, that our memories, are not only a result of a few brain cells.
Possibly, they are a combination of various body organs and millions of cells...Perhaps through the brain, they are able to be translated in conscious terms, but they exist all over the body.

"The body knows" is a saying that can often be heard in holistic medicine. Well my experience always proved it to be so, and I think that it is because every cell of our body indeed has the entire information about the body as a whole.
Intuition now gets more recognition from the scientific community, as they begin to investigate it as another type of a thinking process. I think intuition is the communication of the brain with other organs and cells. a gathering of information, and a quick analysis of it, in non-verbal, non-visual terms. Intuition is the thinking that happens before we think.

This story and the ones like it, I hope at least, makes people think of who they are, what their personality is. And hopefully might help to kick out the Cartesian duality of "mind" and "body" out of their systems.
"Mind" is not a separate entity from this body. It is not a transcendent spirit, somewhere "out there", watching and observing...
Mind is as much a reality as this body. As much an integral part of this world. Our cells have the information of our entire system, not only information about the structure and function of our body, but also about the structure and function of what we call our "mind".

Sometimes I stop in the midst of whatever it is I've been doing, and  open my eyes, truly open them- and look.  And I open my ears and listen. And what I see, feel, hear, it is beyond describing. In it's complete simplicity, it is so complex.

All is a dance, but not like the dance our human mind can imagine. It is a dance of stillness, because all is happening simultaneously. 
Time or space lose their significance, when I watch this dance.  All the while, no one is watching this dance. It is all intertwined in this infinite chaotic silence.

At such moments, all I can describe is an incredible, overwhelming feeling of awe. It is like a child seeing the world for the first time. This feeling is more than of pure awe at the beauty of all. The amazement comes because of an overpowering sense that everything is SO incredibly beautiful, and so perfect. It is so perfect that the very word "perfect" shouldn't even be used to describe it! It simply the way it is ! All is as it is ! Wow !
It just cannot get more incredible...
It is inconceivable how anything can be more beautiful than this.

It is implausible how something can "exist" in the midst of it all, and the sensation that something does exist, yet it cannot be labeled as "something that exists" nor can it be said it "doesn't exist" - it overwhelms me even more !

I tend to avoid labeling things as "truth" and "beauty", but for the sake of this post, let me just say that in this experience, truth and beauty are one.
Beyond being one- it is one incredible sensation that should probably have a name of it's own... Something like Beautruthfullness :)

Any kind of E-motion is simply a form of energy in motion. Many times when people deal with their emotions, they separate themselves from them, often getting caught up in concepts such as "ego". Speaking as if it was a separate entity, a sort of a demon who took over them and made them act in a certain way, think certain things and so on.
To call one thing "ego" and the other thing "not ego"... I find this ridiculous.
What is this duality for? What purpose does it serve?

Chasing ego with ego is like trying to make the water drink itself.

It's like chasing your own tail, thinking it's a separate entity.

When "the ego takes over" - it is only "taking over" itself.

When you are watching yourself watching, when you know that you are yourself- it is still what you might call "ego" which is watching "ego".

Any kind of conceptualization will only serve as fuel for this insane chase after our own tail.
Any concept such as "ego" or "soul" or "God" or "spirit" or "beyond" or "matter" ...Any kind of those concepts, and more, only create the illusion of separation which inspires us to madly pursue our own tail.
Biting it ever so hardly, only to find it slipping from the teeth...Only to realize that pain is ever present, and peace is nowhere to be seen.
And then, instead of letting it all go, one blames it all on the tail - and here we go again.

What you call "ego" is nothing but a loop which has been created out of this mad chase. That is all.

There is no tail to chase.

*

It is only when you finally know, that you don't know - THEN you know.

Then, no one knows and nothing is known

*

The dance has never began
It continues with no continuation.
It moves without moving, and without being still.

It is of no time and of no space,
although time and space neither exist nor don't-exist through the dance itself.

There is nothing inside the dance,
There is nothing outside it.
How can one talk of a dance at all?

I sit and listen to the sitar, the sarod, the tablas, the bansuri...
Cannot possibly express what this music makes me feel...

As if life itself is being played on those instruments.
Every story my heart could ever tell, unfolds in those sounds.
It doesn't matter what those stories are.
It does not matter that no one is likely to understand my heart.
It does not matter what others think of me. I shall be as I am.
This heart has received many blows during its life, but the dance goes on.

Dance is life itself.

A dance can only happen in an open space. No obstructions can exist when there is a true dance. All falls apart.
The dance of the heart can be the chaos of creation and destruction, and it can be complete stillness... But even in the stillness, nothing stops, nothing has frozen. Even in the stillness there is movement... And in the chaos, there is silence.

Just like the divine dance of Nataraja. The 'Ananda Tandava' of the dancing Lord Shiva.

My words are just words. You don't have to look into them.
Don't think about them, don't try to understand.
There is nothing to understand at all...
Those words are neither stupid nor wise. They are just words.

I'm not writing those words you are reading now.
You are reading your own words.
It is life itself that is being expressed by itself.
It takes the form of these combination of letters, spaces, dots and commas.
You are reading what you are reading, not what has been originally expressed.

How can anyone ever tell anyone anything at all?

Enough with this nonsense...

Just listen to the music and let your heart dance.