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At this time of year in New England, all the growth of summer and the business of autumn settle into a silence that is palpable. The sun is at its nadir and the days are amazingly short. The chatter of birds and mammals is at a minimum and all the humans are tucked into their houses for the duration of the season.

I have often pondered at the purpose of seasons in our lives. The simple periodicity, the progression from one state to the next is such a gentle manner, reminds me of the beating of a heart or the cycle of breathing. In the seasons we can ponder the subtleties of their differences because they are drawn out in such a luxurious manner.

I, personally, have always enjoyed the sweet differences in the seasons – the sparkling magic of spring as the life in the plants and animals reemerges from the darkness of winter, the fullness of summer’s bloom and the settling down of autumn back into the primordial silence of winter. I find each moment in the cycle captivating.

There is something precious in each part of the cycle of seasons. There is no moment that is better than another, only the shifting flavors of eternity. One of the most intriguing times is the winter solstice, when the activity of the year’s cycle reaches its quietest point. The birds have flown south, the leaves are on the forest floor and the loudest sound is the wind as it washes everything clean and ready for a new start.

Looking around, there is still plenty going on, but inside, in the feeling that rests deep in our hearts, the seasons also turn. And the inner feeling of the winter solstice is of a palpable silence. All things outside are at their quietest, but there is still much happening, but that inner feeling – that is where the silent root of all things comes to the fore and pronounces once again, “The King has come.”

The King is our inner Self. The King is the source and goal of all things including the person we call ourselves. Most of the year He sits back and allows the dramas of life to play out. The wise men know that he is there and consult Him constantly, but for almost everyone He is just a thought, a remembrance. But once a year, when the world goes silent, He stands forth and reminds us that He is “the reason for the season.”

Thus we revel in the reemergence on the inner silence by gathering with our loved ones and exchanging the gifts of joy and shared wonder at the beauty of life. The symbol of this time is the twinkling light, the liveliness in the silent immensity. We find as many ways to celebrate this as there are cultures around the world, but the impulse is the same – to appreciate the silence that is what we are.

From this the new year emerges, fueled by the dreams still left to be lived from the previous time. The sunlight grows stronger, the ground warms an it all begins anew. And as we roll into the busy activity of the new cycle of seasons we can rest assured that the silence that we are will be there to support all that we do.

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There is a popular saying, “Misery loves company”. While I do not argue the veracity of this observation, I prefer to put my own spin on that time-worn phrase - Infinity loves company. Though the infinite Self is alone and self-sufficient in every way, it still can long for more of its kind.

This may manifest in an awakened soul seeking others with a similar experience or reaching out to the unbounded nature within those he or she meets along the way. It’s as if there is an attraction of infinity to itself. It wants to find itself not only in the innermost sanctum of the seer’s awareness, but also on the coarse surface of the observed world.

Perhaps this is a prime motivator in the coming forth of spiritual teachers. Certainly they have nothing to gain by speaking of their truth. They are already at home in themselves and need no specific actions to experience fulfillment. But there is something in the nature of life itself to find greater values of awakening everywhere. This impulse is so natural that there is no questioning it. It just happens…perhaps even if the conditioned, individual mind resists such reaching out.

Perhaps the root of this motivation is the sweetness that the inner element effuses into the life of the knower. The altruistic heart longs to see this gentle element flowing in the hearts of others. There certainly is nothing to lose in sharing something that is inexhaustible and life-supporting.

So the teacher is teaching because the love in him is reaching out to that same thing in everyone else. Love is eternally renewing itself. This is summarized in what I have called “the world’s greatest love poem”. It is by Rumi and, translated by Coleman Barks, goes:

There is a field
Beyond all thought
Of good and evil.
I’ll meet you there.

~Enjoy.

The human mind cannot really know anything. That is because there is really nothing to know. No knowledge is absolute.

The human mind is really good at convincing itself that it knows something. We grasp onto a relative truth and hang onto it as if it was our life-raft. That’s where problems arise because we are hanging our world-view on a partial truth. There will always be situations where the partial truth will not apply and we will experience difficulties.

It is better to know that you know nothing.

While the mind is very bad at knowing anything, it is an excellent at being. It loves to just be, and in being, in dwelling within its simple, natural true nature, it finds the only Truth there is to know.

This Truth has no words to describe it. It is not a thing and cannot be defined in any way. Yet the mind, or some other faculty that is hard to describe, knows it.

Once you know that thing, then you know that you know nothing and have never known anything. It’s really very simple. It’s the simplest state of the mind – its natural resting place.

Go there.

What more is there to say?

Continue to Enlightenment is Nothing – Part 2

I was speaking with a professor of philosophy from a local university a couple days ago. Our discussion quickly turned to what I consider the heart of the matter, which is the fact that any belief system must necessarily be rooted in unprovable assumptions.

In this conversation we soon realized that we would need quite a bit more time to examine each other’s core belief structures before we could start to reach shared conclusions. It was a prospect we both looked forward to, for we each knew that discovering someone else’s world shines a light on one’s own inner spaces.

Core Beliefs

Fundamental beliefs tend to be those taught by parents, in school, or in religious institutions. Though varying in each person to a certain percentage, they are mostly shared within cultural groups. A common example of a deep core belief is, “I am a physical body with a certain size, age, gender, etc.” To almost everyone, to question this belief would be absurd. We simply know that is what we are. But do we really?

What part of that belief is absolutely true and what part is up to discussion? I would ask, “Are you the body, or are you the awareness of the body?” Which is more fundamental? If there is no awareness is there a body? If there is no body is there awareness?

These sort of fundamental questions can lead you to a deeper appreciation of this life you are living. This is spiritual inquiry – questioning the root assumptions that guide our thinking. Ask yourself, “Where did I first learn to believe that thought?” You’ll often remember some event in your childhood that involved someone else interpreting your experience in a certain way. You then accepted the belief of that other person without having fully considered other options. In fact, that person from whom you received a belief probably received it in the same manner in his or her childhood, and so on back into a distant past. In this manner beliefs are handed down like genetic information, from generation to generation.

Idea Pollution

This process of assimilating the beliefs of others is like accepting a foreign object into your psyche. It may find a resting place somewhere in your network of beliefs, but since it came in as a part of someone else’s belief network, it doesn’t make all the connections to all the different aspects of your own belief network, as a conclusion you had come to on your own would. It just sort of hangs out like a stone floating in jello, not belonging there, but going nowhere. When you repeat that thought to yourself in the circumstances that relate to that belief, it overrides your natural response and causes you to behave in a manner that is generally not entirely satisfying. This is because this belief conflicts with other beliefs you have created for yourself and accepted from others.

Imagine that your subconscious mind is like a jello that has many different objects floating in it. These are the beliefs that you have gathered from so many influences in your life. Spiritual inquiry is the process of examining these foreign thoughts and evaluating them for their value to your own personal philosophy.

Imagine your jello is lime – a nice jiggly clear mold of grassy green transparent stuff. This is your natural mind in a simple state of awareness – fresh, sweet and healthy. Now think of the foreign beliefs as objects in the jello. One might be a chocolate kiss. It certainly makes sense as a good thing on its own, but does it really belong in your lime jello? Or maybe you have a salted, roasted pecan and a dollop of guacamole. Pretty soon these intrusions of partially processed thoughts are taking over your jello and the natural lime flavor gets lost. Or even worse, you come to distrust the fresh lime feeling because is doesn’t taste good with the curried onion relish that is all over your jello because your mother inserted it there. Then you start living someone else’s beliefs and your life gets pretty messy.

Cleaning House Through Inquiry

Spiritual inquiry brings you to the shore where those basic assumptions by which you live your life are laid out on the sunny, windswept sand for you to examine closely. What you will find, of course, is that there is no way to prove these basic assumptions. A deeper analysis could lead you to the conclusion that all your assumptions are meaningless. From there where do you go? Suddenly your life is without a foundation. Your knowledge of the world has no root in absolute truth. Everything you know is wrong.

From this paradox, a knowledge arises that, like the phoenix rising form the ashes, moves in to replace the void that is left by your state of complete unknowingness. This knowledge is not of the same nature as the knowledge structure you had built before. It is a wisdom that arises in this eternal moment, arises from deep within the nature of life itself, and which is direct and entirely personal to you. It is a wisdom that is not known in words, but in a deep silence of the mind. It is a knowingness that has a reality all its own, separate from the person you have always been.

When There is Nothing Left It Shines

It is the face of the universe before it was born. It in the flow of all the thoughts that have ever been or ever will be. It is the light that shines across the infinitude of space, never stopping, never ending. And it is what you naturally are. Your body may come and go, but this inner nature remains, outside of time, space and identity. This is what I mean when I say, “Beyond the last assumption, the Quiet Eye is watching.” Go there.