A STORY LIKE THE WIND

Here it seems like life sings ‘This’ in as many ways as it creates flowers. There is no correct interpretation, any more than we can say opera is more truly music than rap (and I know some might say that!). The way it seems to be seen here: Preferences. Seems as if we like to attribute intention and motivation and personal traits to everyone, the same way we do for characters on a TV show. There is a bird that alights on the third highest branch of the tree just outside my window every morning. I suppose we could say she prefers it. And the wind, on a clear day, blows from the southeast in the world of imaginary points on a pointless landscape. We could say it prefers to blow that way. I don't know. Why do I seem to sit in the morning with a cup of tea facing the east reading Nancy Neithercut’s poems rather than facing the west and reading Eckhart Tolle's New Earth book? No reason, but the very act of looking for reasons and imagining they exist if only I could ponder deeply enough no longer happens.

As Nancy has written, life paints itself. What we can call preferences --- if we want to make up names for one part of the seamlessness --- is simply noticing some of the palette and brush strokes of life. But when that falls away, there is just the sun warming our face. What is a preference? Is there a world where some one can choose one thing over another? How would that happen? Who would be the one with a preference?

Some people hear such words and ask me if I am saying that I do not exist. I have never claimed that I was some one who does not exist, but if there are words, they are seemingly interpreted. Who could claim to not exist? Who could claim to exist? The whole idea is simply another concept. Word games. What is existence compared to non-existence? Who is there who knows the definitions and the differences? 

But people send me quotes from speakers they admire who have said such things, that neither they nor their audience exists. I suppose if I were at a satsang and one of the teachers was going on about how he does not exist, I might walk up to the stage, punch him in the nose, and then, as he lay on the ground, wiping his bloody nose with the handkerchief I so graciously offered him, I could ask, "So, I know you don't exist. You say that often. But who is it I see lying on the stage with a bloody nose?" Certainly not the enlightened man who says he does not exist. Saying “I do not exist” is as absurd as saying I am any thing at all, a Christian or a Republican or a man or a woman or a human or a goat or (fill in the blank). And, of course, that’s all the speaker really meant to say. That no one exists as an autonomous, defined, separate identity. They just don’t always make that clear, so my apologies for punching you in the face. Oops! Fortunately, I am not guilty by reason of non-existence. Or something like that.

Some people write me to ask what it is I am saying then, if I continually attack the usual concepts they have heard. Well, it’s just life speaking as it does, there’s no one with any intention behind it. But, I suppose if anything has been pointed to in my words, it is the falling away of all such ideas, of the imagined separation stories that persist even in nonduality when it veers towards becoming another belief system, as exemplified by those who so vociferously repeat the idea of their non-existent selves and no one talking or listening. I know teachers speak of using a thorn to remove a thorn. I know they do not mean it literally. I know (or really I imagine I understand, as I only interpret their words according to some unknown conditioning) that they are simply saying we do not exist as separate solid selves. And that is as it is seen here as well.

But the whole business of thorn removal is a bit thorny. It is easy to end up with a bloody trail of thorns in your skin as you keep bringing in a new one to remove the one already there. From the many messages I have received over the years, if I had one thing to say to mainstream nonduality speakers it would be to make quite certain to let your audience know without doubt that you are not speaking literally, as so many take your words that way. You’d be surprised how many messages and emails I have received that begin with the line, “I know I do not exist, but----"

So, we end up with people talking about not existing. And people hearing that and turning it into a belief. And even that is simply the wind blowing. For what mind is there that could ever be clear or confused or enlightened or awake or asleep? Without a story, the ideas of existence and non-existence simply unravel.

If someone were to ask me simply, "Do you exist?" it would be like asking me if orange is more up than a hippopotamus. And even that is a story of something seeming to happen. Nothing is known here, or anywhere else, and there are no claims or answers. Only words, which many tend to insist must mean something if they have learned a story about meaning and interpretation. But even what we imagine is meant in the words shaped by the thoughts of another is only our projection.

And not even that. :)

AoetL (Always only ever this Love)💓