Águas de Março / Waters of March,
performed by Elis Regina in 1973
and written by Antônio Carlos Jobim.
I love this song. It’s simple, beautiful, and about all the little things that make up life.
When I hear it, it’s also about the divine in and as everything.
Read MoreIn a metaphorical sense, there is a mutual fascination between the divine and the human.
All as the divine
The premise here is that all is the divine.
It’s all – this universe, the living and evolving Earth, humans and our experiences and culture – part of the play of the divine. It’s the divine expressing, experiencing, and exploring itself as all of this. We are the divine temporarily and locally taking the form of a human with experiences we have.
As Alan Watts said, we are the divine playing hide and seek with itself.
The divine’s fascination with the human
In that context, we can say that the divine wants to experience itself as all of existence, all beings, and as humans.
The infinite wants to experience itself as finite. The timeless as time and within time. The spaceless as space and within space. The one as many. Oneness as separation. Love as an absence of love. And even wisdom – the wisdom of receptivity and noticing what we are, as stupidity – the stupidity of rigidly holding onto any ideas including taking ourselves primarily as an object in the world.
The human fascination with the divine
On the other hand, as humans, the divine is fascinated by itself as the divine. It seeks to connect with itself as the divine. It seeks to understand, to be saved, to awaken, and so on.
A mutual fascination
In that sense, we can say there is a mutual fascination between the divine and the human.
And more correctly, it’s all expressions of the divine’s fascination with itself. It’s all the divine exploring itself in always new and different ways, including as us and our experience here and now.
It’s all happening here now
We can take this as how existence is, and it may be although we cannot say for certain.
What we can say with more certainty is that lila – and all of these stories about the divine – mirror what’s here and now. As with any stories about anything, including existence as a whole, they can be used as pointers for what’s here in us and our immediate experience.
What we are is capacity for our experiences – for the world as it appears to us. All our experiences happen within and as what we are.
This capacity, this awake no-thing, shape shifts into whatever experience is here now.
What we are have all the characteristics of the divine. It’s timeless, spaceless, awake, one, love, and full of the world. And our world – including who we are, this human self – happens within and as what we are.
It’s a somewhat artificial division, the distinction between what and who we are. And calling what we are the divine is a stretch for some. And yet, we can find the whole mutual fascination story here.
What we are takes the form of this human self and all the experiences of this human self. In a metaphorical sense, it’s fascinated with this human life.
And this human self, if we are so inclined, is fascinated with the divine. Typically, all the divine characteristics are projected out – onto an image of a God or the divine out there somewhere, in the sky, in nature, in spiritual teachers. And yet, all the characteristics are already here if we only notice.
The mutual fascination story as a pointer
The mutual fascination story has some truth to it, and it also falls apart to some extent when we look a little closer. It depends on artificial divisions and stretched metaphors.
So why did I bother writing about it?
It can be a useful pointer.
We are so used to the human fascination with the divine that we may overlook the reverse fascination. In a very real sense, the divine is fascinated with the human. It’s fascinated with itself in the form of this universe, this living planet, all beings, and you and me and our experience here and now.
The fascination goes both ways.
Read MoreI love to think of nature as unlimited broadcasting stations, through which God speaks to us every day, every hour.
— George Washington Carver, Tuskegee University, 1930
I love this quote and it fits my experience.
Although the quote speaks for itself, we can also explore it further.
First, what do we mean by nature?
We obviously mean nature in an ordinary sense, as ecosystems, landscapes, oceans, air, water, plants, animals, and so on. And we cannot exclude ourselves from it. We, as human beings, belong to nature. And even our culture belongs to nature. It has grown out of and is part of Earth as a living and evolving system, although I doubt that was what Carver had in mind.
And what do we mean by God?
For me, God is the word for all of existence and what existence happens within and as (awake emptiness). God speaks to us through nature as nature.
So the question is, how does God speak to us through nature?
Nature, through its existence and as it is, speaks to us. There is a huge amount of information there for us, which helps us understand nature, ourselves, and how to better live our lives. Most humans through history have learned from nature in this way. Sometimes, it’s just insights we pick up from living our daily lives. Other times, it’s information systematically sought out. I imagine people through all time and in all cultures have systematically learned from nature, and we do it today as well – including through formal science.
There is another way God speaks to us through nature.
If God is all there is, then we can also find God in nature. Some do it through nature mysticism. They may sense or perceive the divine in or as nature.
There is also a simpler way to find God as nature – as all there is, and there are two ways to talk about this.
We can notice ourselves as capacity for the world as it appears to us. We can find ourselves as that which all our experiences – of ourselves and the wider world – happen within and as, and we can call that capacity, awake nothing full of everything, awakeness or consciousness, or Big Mind.
We can also call this the divine. If this awake nothing full of everything is not only our own “true nature” but the true nature of existence itself, then this is the divine, it’s Allah or Brahman or God. God speaks to us through nature AS nature.
The true nature of nature, existence, others, and ourselves is right there on display and not hidden at all. It’s just up to us to notice it.
If the true nature of everything is on display, why don’t more people notice? And how can we find it for ourselves?
Why don’t more people notice? Mainly, because we identify with and as this human being, and we are fascinated with these stories of ourselves as this human being with all sorts of identities and roles and activities in the world. There is nothing wrong with this, although it’s inherently a bit uncomfortable since it’s not completely aligned with reality.
How can we find it for ourselves? The most effective approaches I have found are the Big Mind process, Headless experiments (Douglas Harding, Richard Lang), and Living Inquiries. Through these, we can relatively easily get a taste of what it’s about, learn how to re-notice in daily life, and – if we are interested – learn how to bring this noticing more regularly into daily life and explore how to live from it.
Wait a minute… if God is all there is, what does that make us?
Yes, good question. In this context, we are the divine locally and temporarily taking itself to be something physical and separate, and then –sometimes – (re)discovering its true nature. This is the play of the divine, lila. As Alan Watts said, it’s the divine, or nature, playing hide and seek with itself.
Through noticing what’s here in immediacy, we can find a few things….
We may notice that the One experiences itself as many.
No-thing experiences itself as something.
Consciousness experiences itself as matter.
And sometimes….
The One experiences itself as separation.
Love as not-love.
Clarity as confusion.
It can help to use a more structured form of inquiry to notice this, for instance Headless experiments, the Big Mind process, Living Inquiries, or The Work of Byron Katie.
This is all what we can notice for ourselves here and now.
COSMOLOGY
And we can also see it in the universe as a whole. We can make it into a cosmology. (After all, any cosmology mirror us here and now.)
Existence is oneness experiencing itself as many. No-thing as something. Consciousness as matter.
And sometimes – locally and through us and other beings – oneness experiencing itself as separation, love as not-love, clarity as confusion.
MORE DETAIL
There is easily one or several books worth of material here if we want to go into more detail. I’ll just say a few words.
I find that I am capacity for the world as it appears to me – including this human self and any me or I or observer or doer. That’s the oneness. It all happens within and as what the mind may label consciousness. Within this oneness is immense diversity. The world is many. (It’s an overlay of thought that divides the world up in this way, and it’s a very useful function of thought.)
I find that no-thing experiences itself as something. What I am is no-thing full of the world as it appears to me. No-thing full of somethings. (Again, the somethings are separated from each other through an overlay of thought.)
Similarly, consciousness experiences itself as matter. What I am – and I assume what you are to yourself – can be labeled consciousness. The world as it appears to me happens within and as consciousness. And when thoughts label some things in the world matter, and sensations come in to lend a sense of substance to those thoughts, then consciousness experiences itself as matter.
Also, when these dividing lines created by thoughts – often in the form of mental images – are held as true, there is an experience of separation. So the One experiences itself as separate, as an I here and others out there.
When thoughts are held as true, the mind can tell itself that this human has been wronged, is a victim, and so on. And then love – which is another word for oneness – experiences itself as not-love.
And when the mind takes thoughts as true, clarity – which is yet another word for oneness – can experience itself as confusion.
STRUCTURED FORMS OF INQUIRY
We can all (?) find this for ourselves, and structured forms of noticing – AKA inquiry – can help here.
Headless experiments can help us find ourselves as capacity for the world as it appears to us – including anything connected with this human self and any I or me or observer or doer.
The Big Mind process can help us find ourselves as Big Mind (AKA capacity full of the world), Big Heart, and a variety of other aspects of what and who we are.
Living Inquiry – which is based on traditional Buddhist inquiry – can help us explore in detail how thoughts (words and mental images) combine with sensations to create our experience. Specifically, it’s helpful to notice how the mind associates certain sensations with certain thoughts, and these thoughts lend a sense of meaning to the sensations, and the sensation give the thoughts a sense of substance, reality, and even truth.
The Work of Byron Katie is a great help in exploring thoughts we take as true, and in finding what’s more true for us in our own direct experience.
There are many other forms of inquiry out there as well, which may work as well or better for you. These are just the ones I happen to be familiar with.
Read MoreThis playfulness in inherent in you as a human being, just as it’s inherent in all life and all existence. Without me, without this playfulness, nothing would exist and certinaly nothing would evolve. I am how the universe evolved into solar systems, planets, living planets, and you and everyone and everything you know.
– from this dialog
This is one of a series of – imagined and yet real – dialogs with aspects of who and what I am. In this case, Lila – the play or dance of existence.
Hi – it’s good to talk with you!
Likewise. It’s good to talk with someone who sees me and even appreciates me.
You mean most people or beings don’t?
Yes, people like me when I appear in the way they – as a human being with ideas and conditioning – want. And they don’t like me so much when I appear in the ways they don’t like. Also, they tend to recognize me as the dance or play of life only when they themselves are in a playful mood. They don’t recognize the play or dance so much when they are in other moods. Then, they often see me more as a challenge, inconvenience, or problem. Which is fine, but it’s good when I am recognized as dance or play.
What about P., the one writing this and asking these questions, does he recognize you?
Yes and no. He does when he does, when we notices all as happening within and as consciousness and what he is. When he steps back a bit and notices the bigger picture. And he doesn’t so much when he gets caught in something smaller, when his own stressful beliefs and emotion issues are triggered and he gets caugth in it.
It doesn’t matter to me since I am always Lila and who he is and what he experiences is me too. But it does matter to his life, and when the storm passes he does switch back to noticing me.
Most of the time, I am just a simple noticing away from him. Sometimes, I am more in the foreground. And sometimes, I go more in the background when he gets caught in things.
You already hintet at it, but can you say more about what P. and his experiences and the world as it appears to him are in relation to you?
I am all of it. It’s all Lila – it’s existence exploring and experiences itself in always new ways. It’s not really a relationship since it’s all me. It’s always me whether someone or something is noticing it or not. The noticing doesn’t matter to me, but it does matter to the one noticing when they are noticning.
How does it matter? What does it do for them to notice you?
In general it helps them appreciate the dance of life. It helps them open to finding appreciation and gratitude for life as it appears to them here and now. It helps them step back a bit from their ideas of how life should and needs to be, it gives them a bit of space to those ideas, and that gives them more freedom and room for appreciating life as it is.
It depends a bit on the noticing. The noticing can be more of an idea, and then it’s an invitation for them to notice it in their immedate experience. And it can be a more direct noticing.
How is this for P.?
He did experience me directly first, in his teens, before knowing my name or that anyone else had noticed or knew about me. So that gives him some ease in his relationship to me. He knows me intimately and not primarily from what others said or wrote, and that’s still how I am for him.
He does also notice me as an idea and sometimes he is more focused on the idea than me as I am. But he does also use this idea to shift into noticing me more directly.
Do you have any advice for him?
Yes, he sometimes uses me as a reason to sit back and not intervene in situations. He sometimes leans back into me and doesn’t take care of his life as much as he could.
For the sake of his life, he needs to be a little more engaged in his life and a little more engaged in being a good steward of his life and being more actively on his own side.
It’s not a huge shift, it’s more of a tweak. But it’s important to him to make this shift more often. He is ready to do it. And it will give him more of the life he wants and a life that can benefit him and others and life more fully.
How can people find you?
Hm, good question. I am always here. In a sense, I am all they know. They just don’t always notice or recognize me.
If they wish to find me, there are several ways and each one has to find the way that works for them.
They can find me through the Universe Story and Epic of Evolution, often first more as an idea but then in a more immediate way.
They can find me through noticing the creativity of their own mind and how it filters their experience of themselves and their world, and how this is a dance and always new.
They can find me through noticing that their experience of themselves and the world happens within and as what they are, and that this is a dance and play of consciousness.
Thank you. Is there anything else you would like to say?
Just that for you, as a human being, noticing me can make a big difference. It can help you appreciate the inherent playfulness of life, even when it’s not to your liking. It can help you open to more gratitude and appreciation for what’s here as it is. It can also help you find your own inherent playfulness.
Can you say more about this playfulness?
This playfulness in inherent in you as a human being, just as it’s inherent in all life and all existence. Without me, without this playfulness, nothing would exist and certinaly nothing would evolve. I am how the universe evolved into solar systems, planets, living planets, and you and everyone and everything you know.
Because of your culture and ideas of how you should be as adults, you sometimes lose connection with this playfulness, or you think it’s only there in some situations in your life. In reality, I am always here. I am all you know. And bringing me into your life more intentionally in more situations, and even all situations, can help you a lot.
It will immensely enrich your life. It will open you up to see new opportunities and possibilities. It will help you follow your sense of what’s right in the moment, even in what you call small and ordinary activities. It will help you do things in slightly new and different ways because it feels right and you are drawn to it.
It will help you notice the inherent playfulness of life in all the different ways life appears to you. It will help you notice the inherent playfulness in how you relate to life and in how life responds to you.
This is a small shift in noticing, and what you notice is just what’s already here. And this noticing can profoundly enrich and transform your life.
Thank you. I appreciate this conversation a lot. Thank you for being you. And thank you for being me!
And thank you for being me! Without you – and all beings and all of existence – there would be no me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am immesely grateful for you. For you as you are.
I have one more question. You do sound a lot like P.?
Yes, because he is the one doing this dialog and writing these words. I am filtered through him and his experiences and biases. And that too is part of what I am that, that too is part of lila. That’s part of the richness of existence. Any other being having this type of dialog with me will do it through their own filters and experiences and it will be unique and different. I love it!
I have lost a lot over the last ten years. Loss strips life away to the essentials. And that helps us see and value the essentials.
Some of these essentials are shelter, food, clothing, family, friends, and nature.
Another, if we are lucky, is our life- and romantic partner.
And this amazing human body with its senses and ability to take in our surroundings.
Who we are and the wholeness and richness of who we are as a human being in the world.
The adventure inherent in life and being a human being in the world.
The quiet bliss inherent in just being.
Noticing what we are – that which all of these experiences happen within and as.
And there is always yet another.
I am going through some – perhaps all? – of the verses from the beautiful Gospel of Thomas to share what comes up for me. I may also give a commentary or response from a few different viewpoints to make it more interesting. The Gospel of Thomas is thought to be older than the four gospels in the New Testament and may be a source for these.
3b. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.”
I will explore this as Big Mind, Big Heart, and Lila – the play of consciousness or the divine.
Big Heart
Know yourself as me and you know that you not only are love but your whole world and all of your experiences are love. You see behind the surface appearances and the labels human puts on whatever is happening.
If you don’t know yourself as me, you are still me. Nothing has changed except your noticing. And you will feel you live in poverty. You will long for what you are and what you think you don’t have. You may not “have” it but you are it. You already are it.
Big Mind
Know yourself as me and you know what you are. You will understand that as a human being you are a child of me. You and all your experiences happen within and as me.
If you don’t know this, you will live in poverty. You take yourself as fundamentally a separate being subject of birth, loss, death, and whatever else.
Lila
I temporarily and locally forget myself and take myself to fundamentally be a human being. In this, I feel small, limited, temporary, and although my experiences are rich and varied I experience it as a kind of poverty.
I feel that something is missing. I may long for it and seek it. I may first seek it in the wider world. And then perhaps as what I am.
When I notice myself again I know what I am and I understand that this human being is a metaphorical child of me.
You may see me as the divine and the play of the divine as all of existence. You may see me as consciousness and the play of consciousness. It the same.
Read MoreSometimes, it can seem like the world is a dream and that may be more accurate than we realize.
At our local and personal level, we can explore how the world is as a dream in a specific way.
In dreams, all the content of our experience – all that happens in the dream – happens within and as consciousness. It can’t really be any other way. It makes logical sense. And we can notice it when we do lucid dreaming.
In our waking life, it’s the same. All content of our experience – including our human self and the wider world and anything else – happens within and as consciousness. We can notice this through different forms of inquiry. In my case, I have found the Headless experiments, the Big Mind process, and the Living Inquiries, to be especially good at revealing this.
From this, we see that what we are is consciousness, and what we often take ourselves to be – like this human self – happens within and as consciousness. In other words, who we are happens within and as what we are.
This can seem abstract at first, if it’s just an idea or something someone else points out. We can then get a taste of it for ourselves, perhaps through inquiry or spontaneous revelations. And we can then continue to explore it and get more familiar it and allow our life to be transformed within this noticing.
If the world sometimes seems like a dream to us, it may be because it’s more true than it first seems. Just as our dreams happen within and as consciousness, our waking life happens within and as consciousness.
Similarly, we can say that all of existence is the dream of the divine. It’s all consciousness and all of existence happens within and as consciousness. It happens within and as the divine. And this consciousness – right here and now – is no different from this consciousness. It’s the same consciousness.
These experiences – that we may take to be “ours” – are the experiences of the divine. These experiences of sights, sounds, sensations, taste, smell, movements, and thoughts are the experiences of the divine. These thoughts saying these experiences belong to “me” as this limited and local human self are the thoughts of the divine.
I love a thought experiment from Alan Watts.
Say you can decide what you’ll dream about. First, we may chose to dream very pleasant dreams. After a while, that may get boring and we throw in some challenges, and perhaps some that seem very serious and a matter of life-and-death. If we know we are dreaming while we dream, we won’t experience the full effect of it. So we may also decide to forget that we are dreaming while we are dreaming so the dream feels more real to us.
By following this process, we see that what we end up with is the life we have now. There are perhaps a lot of good and pleasant experiences. It’s mixed in with challenges – big and small – that makes it more rich, juicy, and interesting. And we – as the divine – have temporarily forgotten we are dreaming in order to make it seem more real and make us more invested in the dreams.
Why is this happening? Perhaps for the divine to express, explore, and experience itself. For the divine to explore and experience its own potential infinite richness made a little more manifest.
The world can be seen as the play of the divine. And this is not a new discovery or noticing or speculation. In the Indian traditions they call this lila.
Our world is real in a certain way and also a dream in a certain way. That’s why I said “a little more manifest” in the previous segment.
Although there is validity to all our conventional ideas about the world and our lives, it’s all happening within a larger context that changes how we see it when this context is more alive to us in our immediate noticing and experience.
Even what we tend to experience as most physical is still happening within and as consciousness. The physical is real in that we experience it as physical and this seems to be a shared collective experience. At the same time, it’s our own mind – through combining thoughts and sensations – that gives it a sense of solidity and physicality. (How the mind creates its own experience through combining sensations and thoughts can be explored through inquiry, for instance Buddhist inquiries or a modern version of these such as the Living Inquiries.)
As we explore all of this, we may find that the world is simultaneously kind of real and kind of a dream.
What’s the purpose of trauma?
There are several answers to this question, partly because meaning is something we create and add to life.
What’s the purpose of the creation and maintenance of trauma?
At an individual level, the main purpose of trauma may be protection. The pain of trauma is an incentive to avoid situations similar to the one initially creating the trauma.
At a collective human level, it’s probably the same. Traumas serve a survival function for our species. When a situation is overwhelming and we feel we can’t cope with it, we create trauma and the pain of the trauma helps us avoid similar situations.
What’s the purpose we find through healing from trauma?
At an individual level, we may get a lot out of exploring and finding healing for our traumas. We obviously learn from the process, we learn how to heal from trauma and perhaps emotional issues in general. We may find we are more mature and humanized. We may be more raw and honest with ourselves and others. We may find ourselves as more real, authentic, and perhaps in integrity. We may have reprioritized and found what’s genuinely important in our life. We may discover the universality of human life and that – even with our individual differences – we are all in the same boat. We may have found a different and more meaningful life path. Our life, in general, may be more meaningful to us. We may have found a deep, raw, and real fellowship with others on a healing path. We may have learned to be more vulnerable with ourselves and others. We may have discovered how the path of healing from traumas fuels, leads into, and perhaps is an integral part of an awakening path. We may discover the deep capacity for healing inherent in ourselves, humans, and life in general.
At a collective level, it’s similar only scaled up and with the extra illumination and richness that comes from the interactions of people with different backgrounds, viewpoints, and experiences. Collectively, we learn about and from healing from trauma. We realize the universality of it, and of our profound capacity for healing. We see that healing from trauma is something we do together and not just individually. We discover that much of what we thought were individual traumas are actually more universal and collective traumas. We discover that culture is not only what gives us much of what we love about human life, but the painful unquestioned assumptions inherent in our culture is what creates much if not most of our pain.
What’s the purpose of the experience of trauma in the bigger picture?
If we assume there is something like rebirth or reincarnation, then the experience of trauma provides food for our healing, maturing, and eventually awakening. It’s the One locally and temporarily taking itself to be a separate being going through a reincarnation process and through that healing, maturing, and eventually awakening to itself as the One. The One the adventure always happened within and as.
Traumas seems an important part of the dialectical evolutionary process of humanity as a species and – by extension – of Earth as a whole. The aspects mentioned above and much more go into this.
And it’s part of the play of life or the universe or the divine. It’s lila. It’s life exploring, expressing, and experiencing itself in always new ways. It’s part of the One temporarily and locally experiencing itself as separate.
When I use the word trauma, I mean the traditional one-time-dramatic-event trauma, and perhaps, more importantly, the developmental trauma that most of have from growing up in slightly – or very – dysfunctional families, communities, and cultures.
In a wider sense, any emotional issue, any painful belief, any identification, is a form of trauma and comes from and creates trauma. It’s the trauma inherent in the One temporarily and locally taking itself to fundamentally be a separate being.
Read MoreWhen I notice and allow what’s here in experience – thoughts, feelings, etc. – it feels like it’s all being digested.
Since it’s all happening within and as consciousness, we can say that it’s consciousness digesting itself.
And we can say that it happens all the time, just by living our life, whether we notice and allow, or are distracted and fight.
We can even say that all of existence is existence digesting itself.
Or that all of life and existence is the divine digesting itself.
The divine, or existence, or the universe, creates itself into complexity and digests itself.
Read MoreLila (Sanscrit) or Leela can be loosely translated as the “divine play”.
– Wikipedia article on Lila
I like the word Lila, the play of the divine. Traditionally, it’s seen as the One (the divine) expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself as the universe in its always changing richness, including as us and our life and experience.
A slight variation of this is to see Lila as a projection. Lila reflects what’s here, in immediacy. The play of this consciousness. The creativity of this consciousness.
All my experience is not only an expression of this consciousness, it is this consciousness. It’s this consciousness expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself. Right now, it takes the form of this experience as it is, here and now.
I am calling this a kind of projection since it’s only a projection if we see Lila as “out there”. Even in the traditional sense, Lila is also – and obviously – what we take ourselves to be, our lives, and all our experience. Including this one, as it is, here and now.
Why is this important? The traditional view can be dismissed as a fantasy. (See footnote.) But it seems undeniable that our experience is an expression of the creativity and play of consciousness. All of our experience is this consciousness expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself.
And why is that important? For me, it helps me hold my experience more lightly. It helps me see it as a little less important. A little less solid. A little less final.
What I am experiencing is the creativity of consciousness. It’s the play of consciousness. And somehow, that makes it more interesting. I find curiosity for it. Receptivity.
A footnote to “The traditional view can be dismissed as a fantasy.”. This depends on the words we use and how closely we look at it. It’s undeniable that we and our life and experience is part of reality or existence or the universe. From here, we can say that we and our life and experience is reality or the universe expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself. And we can say that we and our life and experience is the play and creativity of the universe.
Of course, reality and the universe is not a human being like you and me, so the words (express, explore, experience, creativity, play) are metaphors or analogies more than meant to be taken literally as we use the words when we talk about humans.
And we can also say that our familiar human creativity is an expression or part of this larger creativity of existence or the universe.
Additional footnotes:
This article relates to the big (spiritual) and small (psychological) interpretations of awakening. I took the big and applied it to the small. Although when it comes to Lila, the small is really built into the big.
We sometimes unthinkingly say “my consciousness”. I avoid that since who I take as I or me happens within consciousness. If anything, I and me belong to consciousness, not the other way around.
I should also mention that for a long time, I didn’t know there was a word for what was alive for me in immediate experience. I was happy when I found the word Lila, also because it meant someone else experienced it as I do. (Or, at least, similar enough.)
I keep returning to this.
I have gone through what we can call a dark night of the soul for the last few years. I won’t go into much detail here since I have written about it in other articles. But what keeps coming up is what seems like a central invitation. And that invitation is to see, feel, and love even what’s most difficult to see, feel, and love – as the divine.
In my teens, the divine revealed itself to itself as all there is. It was easy to see and love all – or almost all – as the divine, and even feel it as the divine.
I said “almost all”… Some things were not so easily recognized as the divine, especially what this human self strongly dislikes, and especially strong emotional pain, and – to a lesser degree – discomfort in general.
My dark night phase has been a series of losses – of health, relationships, money, opportunities, belongings, identities, ideas about the future and more. And that has brought up things in me. It has brought up what hasn’t yet been seen, felt, and loved. And what hasn’t yet been seen, felt, and loved as the divine. It has brought up emotional wounds, trauma, and cherished beliefs and identities created for protection and safety (as all beliefs and identities are).
When unprocessed psychological material comes to the surface, it’s often painful. And there are often reactions to it. If I get caught in my reactions, it’s even more painful. And if I relate to it is with kindness, respect, and patience, it’s easier. It’s a relief. It can even bring a bittersweet feeling, a sense of wholeness, and a sense of returning home.
Meeting it with kindness, respect, and patience is the portal to seeing the unseen, feeling the unfelt, and loving the unloved in me. And that, in turn, is the portal for the divine to recognize itself as even that, even the discomfort, even the pain, even the reactivity to it. To see, feel, and love itself as all of it.
There are different types of dark nights, and even within any of our mind-created categories, each one is unique. And yet, they all seem to be about removing veils. Wearing off identifications, beliefs,
In my case, one of the many beliefs life seems to wear out in me is the belief – held deeply in me and not aligned with my conscious view – that some things in my experience are not the divine. That this emotional pain, this dread & terror, this discomfort, is not the divine. That it’s somehow inherently wrong. Alien. A mistake. The child in me still reacts to it as if it is all of these things.
There are no shoulds here. But there is an invitation to see what happens when I get caught in the reactivity to what comes up (amplifying the discomfort), and what happens if I instead remember to meet it with kindness, respect, and patience. And perhaps see the unseen, feel the unfelt, and find love for the unloved. And perhaps then, allowing the divine to recognize itself as what’s here – the emotional pain, the reactivity to it – as itself. As a local and temporary expression of itself.
Read MoreAlmost all of us create enemy images in our minds. It can be of ourselves, parts of ourselves, others, situations, life, God, and just about anything.
We invest these with energy so they seem more real and true, and we identify with the viewpoint of these enemy ideas. We view the world through them.
This creates stress, discomfort, and inner and outer conflict. So there is a built-in motivation for us to eventually, when we have had enough, find another way.
That’s the simple and down-to-earth way of talking about it.
The other side is that if all is God, then these enemy images are part of the play of the divine, they come with the built-in mechanism mentioned above, and that eventually leads to the divine recognizing itself as the divine and all there is.
It’s all part of the divine expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in always new ways, including by temporarily and locally taking itself as a separate being that creates enemy images of parts of the world, invests these with energy, perceives and lives as if they are true, notices the discomfort inherent in it, and explores ways to resolve the enemy-image situation, and eventually recognizes itself as the divine again and as all there is.
How can we explore enemy images, find a different way or relating to them, and perhaps even invite them to resolve?
In general, we do it one image at a time. We notice an enemy image and notice the effects it has
Here are a few more details about enemy images:
If we can form an image of something, we can make it into an enemy image.
It can be ourselves (not good enough, unlovable etc.), a part of ourselves (too easily angered), someone else (she insulted me), a group (Republicans are cynical and uncaring), an illness, a type of food, a species (cats are weird), life (life is cruel and too hard), or God (God fucked up my life).
We believe our own stories telling us something is bad, wrong, a problem, and should be avoided or go away. We perceive and act as if it’s true. We experience discomfort and conflict because of it.
At a more elemental level, our minds associate enemy-thoughts with certain sensations in the body where the sensations give a sense of reality and truth to the thoughts, and the thoughts give meaning to the sensations. Our mind can also create more chronic body contractions so these sensations are more readily available, stronger, and seem more solid.
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There is a nice symmetry in life: The infinite wants to experience itself as finite, and the finite wants to experience itself as infinite.
Spirit wants to experience itself as all the things it isn’t: finite, separate, vulnerable and so on.
And humans want to experience themselves as what they (think they) are not: infinite, one, invulnerable and so on.
The divine has gone to great lengths to set up and evolve into a universe where parts of itself take itself as a separate being that is born and will die. And some humans go to great lengths to escape just that, whether it’s through ordinary human activities (to forget, feel alive) or spiritual practices.
And this symmetry is all part of lila, the play of the divine, Spirit expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in a myriad of ways.
Note: We cannot really say that Spirit or the divine “wants” to experience itself as finite. I am just using that word for the sake of symmetry. A want sounds too much like human wants and it’s not like that. I imagine it’s more of a pull, a movement, to explore itself in as many ways as possible, including temporarily as finite. On the other hand, any human experience is the divine’s experience so the divine does (locally) want, feel, think, long, suffer and so on through and as humans and other beings.
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Our perception of space, time, solid objects and a sense of reality to them all is central to our human experience.
It can be very interesting to explore this basic perception and how our minds create it, and inquiry – for instance the Living Inquiries – is a good way to do it.
In general, the mind creates its experience of the world through (a) sensory input with (b) an overlay of thoughts (images and words) combined with sensations. And sometimes, just (b). And that’s how it is with its experience of space, time, and solid objects as well.
Space. As I am sitting in this room, there is (what my thoughts label as) sensory input about the – visual, sound, touch. On top of that, my thoughts put mental images and words to make sense of it and make it into a room with floor, walls, ceiling, table, chairs and so on. And physical sensations combine with those thoughts to make it seem more real and substantial. When I close my eyes and see images of the table, and hear the word “table”, sensations – for me now, in the front of my upper body – lend a sense of solidity to those thoughts of table.
Time. Similarly, I have the word “present” overlaid on top of this room as it appears to me now. And I see images of a timeline with past, present, and future, and certain other images and words in certain spots on this timeline. For instance, for the part of the timeline that represents “this evening” I see “6pm SETI talk with Dan Werthimer” and “8pm Tallis Scholars concert” along with “Oakland” and an image of going there with Lyft and a map of San Francisco (where I am right now) and Oakland. Wherever my attention goes, images and words pop up to create content and an impression of past, future, and present, and more generally of “time”, with a range of events placed on it.
Here too, certain sensations are associated with each image and word to lend a sense of substance and reality to them. Sometimes, it’s just enough for my mind to think to itself “this is real”, and sometimes there is more of an emotional charge to it. For instance, I remember first learning to ride my bike as a child, and see an image of my father supporting the bike, letting go, and me cycling for the first time without support. I feel sensations in the forehead and front of the belly that lends a sense of substance and reality to these memories. These sensations, along with some other images and words, tells my mind these memories are “real”, they represent – more or less – what happened.
Substance. I have my laptop on my lap as I sit on the sofa with my legs outstretched. When I close my eyes, I notice sensations on top of my thighs along with an image of my thighs with a laptop resting on top of them. These sensations and images, along with some other ones, creates an experience of “thighs” and “laptop” and thoughts that these are substantial and real. My mind creates an experience for itself of these are real physical objects.
Looking closer. When I look a bit closer, I see it’s all created by thoughts and sensations, and it’s all made up by awakeness. It’s all happening within and as awakeness. As is space and objects in space, time and events in time, and anything else – including any ideas of a body, mind, universe, life, and even Spirit and awakeness.
If we continue to explore this, with some skill and guidance, we come to see our experiences more as just that – as they happen. And that can be quite a relief. The heaviness goes out of it, and the sense of it being “real in itself”.
Notes. As usual, I have taken some shortcuts in writing about this and there is always a great deal more to say about it. Any of the ideas used here are made up in the same way, including the most basic ones and also including “mental images and words” and “sensations”.
Also, when I write about closing my eyes to investigate, it just because it helps me see my own mental images – and other imaginations – more easily. These are here also when my eyes are open, but the visual impressions tend to “override” them so they are easily noticed, at least at first, with the eyes closed.
And the mind uses a wide range of imaginations, not just images and sounds. The mind imagines all the senses and uses all of it to create its own experience of the world. It takes sensory impressions, puts an overlay of imaginations, and combine these with sensations to create a sense of reality and solidity for itself, and sometimes also an emotional charge.
This is all lila – the play of life (or the divine). This is how we can explore lila in immediacy – right here now. This is one layer in how life creates its experience of itself here and now, and it’s the layer it’s most easy for us to notice and explore, and that has the most practical effects when we do so.
There is nothing new here. Individuals from all cultures and times must have been aware of this, in their own way, with their own take on and flavor to it. These are sometimes called mystics, but that makes it sound too special and far away. This is very simple, ordinary, and immediate.
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Why do we experience the world as beautiful?
Why do we experience people, animals, plants, landscapes, art, music, science, the Earth as a whole, stars, nebulae – and much more – as beautiful? As intrinsically beautiful?
Could it be because we are it? We are the universe experiencing itself as all of that. We are Earth experiencing itself as landscapes, animals, plants, humans. We are life itself experiencing itself as all of that. We are a product of the evolution of the Universe, Earth, and life on Earth. We experience ourselves. And we find it fascinating, interesting, and beautiful.
And what happens when we find some of it not beautiful? Could it be because we have stressful and unpleasant stories about it, and those stories temporarily shade our experience of its beauty?
In the even bigger picture, we can say that all is Spirit. All is Spirit expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in myriads of forms. So it’s only natural for Spirit to find it beautiful. Spirit – as us – finds Spirit – as the world – beautiful. And Spirit sometimes forget. Spirit – as us – sometimes tells itself parts of itself is not beautiful, and temporarily believes it, and that too is Spirit expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in myriad of ways. That too is Lila… the play of the divine.
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When we speak about our veils of perception – the veils of identifications and beliefs – we can do so from one of two different perspectives.
One is that these veils are a problem. They hinder clear perception, they create suffering, they cause a lot of the problems we experience as humanity. And so, we may think that they are a problem, wrong, bad, a mistake and so on.
Another is that the universe and life is Lila, it’s the play of the divine. And for the divine to experience itself as limited and as separate beings, it created these veils to allow for just that experience. They are not a mistake. They are not wrong. They are part of Lila, the play of life, the divine, and the One.
Both are valid, and there is some truth to each view.
In the big picture, the veils are part of the play of the divine. They are how the divine is able to experience itself as limited and as separate beings each with their own experience, view, and perspectives on itself and life. They are how the divine is able to create an experience of drama and – sometimes – of an apparently very real life-and-death struggle.
And for us – the divine experiencing itself as limited and as a separate being with its own dramas, struggle, and perspectives – these veils are what keeps this perception in place. They do create suffering. They do limit us. They may be seen as a problem. That too is part of the play. That’s part of the divine experiencing itself as limited.
Alan Watts used a brilliant thought-experiment to give us a taste of Lila.
Imagine you can decide the content of your dreams, and that these dreams are lucid – you know you are dreaming as you are dreaming. You may decide to dream about pleasant situations and getting whatever you desire. After a while, that may get a bit boring. You may decide to throw in some challenges to make it more interesting. After some time, you realize it’s still not very exciting because you know you are dreaming as you are dreaming, so you decide to forget you are dreaming while dreaming.
What you dream seems real to you as it’s happening. That makes it more juicy and interesting. But that too gets a bit boring, so you throw in some more serious challenges, perhaps life and death situations and even dying and being born again. That’s certainly juicy, but that too gets a bit monotone in the long run. So you decide to dream that you intuit or realize you are dreaming, and wish for and work toward waking up.
That becomes a new and different challenge. It becomes the new drama. And then, eventually, you wake up. And you realize that the dreams, however real they appeared and however real the actual experiences were, were dreams. They were created within, from, and as what you are. Nobody really was born and died. Nobody was really harmed. The drama wasn’t as real as it seemed, although it certainly seemed and was experienced as real.
And that’s Lila. What we – at least many of us – would choose if we could decide the content of our dreams, is how the world is. And that’s because we are the divine living and experiencing Lila. We are the divine expressing, exploring, and discovering itself in always new ways, including through the drama of life as it is for us humans part of this living planet.
And what are the veils of perception? The expression may sound vague and general, but it can be understood in quite specific ways.
From the consciousness side, these veils happen when the mind identifies with certain thoughts and their inherent viewpoints. That’s how a sense of being a separate self is created. As soon as the mind takes itself to be the viewpoint of any thought, it experiences itself as separate. Instead of being that which any and all experiences happen within and as, including thoughts, it takes itself to be the perspective inherent in a thought, and usually a great number of thoughts. It tells itself it’s a being, a separate being, a certain being, a certain being with certain roles, identities, preferences, and so on.
From the energetic side – as described in, for instance, Vortex Healing – there are energetic structures that make these identifications possible and support these identifications. The divine creates these to allow for identification, and the aspect of Lila that involves experiencing itself as separate, as a separate being, as a separate being with identities, roles, and viewpoints, and so on.
And there are ways to explore both the identifications and the energetic structures, and invite them to unravel when the time is right. That too is part of Lila. That too happens when the divine – experiencing itself as a separate being – is ripe. That too happens through grace, which is another word for the divine being ready and ripe for it. What needs to play itself out for it to happen, has sufficiently played itself out.
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There are different forms or versions of oneness.
All as a system. The universe is a seamless system. Everything is evolving from, within, and as the universe. In the same way, the Earth is a seamless living system, and all parts of the Earth is evolving from, within, and as the Earth. (And, yes, that includes humans and our culture, technology, and society.) Everything has infinite causes. Our health and well being is intimately connected with the health and well being of the larger social and ecological wholes. This is a systems view of oneness.
All as consciousness. In our immediate experience, any experience happens within and as consciousness. Any experience is consciousness and cannot be anything else ever. It’s form empty of substance. Any appearance of substance of solidity comes from mental images or words combining with sensations, and that too happens within and as consciousness. (Images or words lend meaning to sensations, and sensations lend a sense of solidity to images and words.) This is something we can – if we explore it skillfully – agree on whether we come from a psychological view or a spiritual view.
All as Spirit. To us, any experience is inevitably consciousness. But is reality in itself – the whole universe – consciousness? (Or Spirit, Brahman, Buddha Mind, Allah, God.) It certainly appears that way to us, but that doesn’t mean it – in itself – is. As with anything else, we cannot know for certain. We can say that there are hints that everything, in itself, is consciousness, including synchronicities, various forms of ESP and knowing, and perhaps distance healing. But, in fairness, these can be interpreted other ways as well.
Is it so obvious? I have assumed that it’s obvious that all our experience happens within and as consciousness. I know that to many, the world appears to be made up of solid and substantial “things” that exist “out there” in the world. And yet, within one session of Living Inquiries, guided by a skilled facilitator, we can all have a taste of how the mind creates its own world. And that all of it happens within and as consciousness. A brief exploration will typically reveal it, even if most will revert to the “solid objects in a real world” experience afterward.
My view? To me, each of these three forms of oneness seems valid and useful. The systems view helps us organize ourselves so we are more aligned with reality, and it can also open for awe, gratitude, and humility, and a deep sense of belonging. The second helps relieve stress from recognizing how the mind creates its own experience. And although the third is perhaps a less needed addition, it does help us function in a more sane and mature way in the world.
Play of the divine. These three forms of oneness have an additional component for me. And that’s lila – the play of life, the mind, or the divine. From a systems view, the universe is the play of life. From the second view, our experience is the play of the mind. And from the third view, all of existence is the play of the divine. It’s life, the mind, or the divine, expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in a great multitude of ways. There is perhaps no ultimate “goal” to it all apart from the play itself, and that’s perhaps enough. Of course, within this play, there are apparent sub-“goals” or stepping stones, but it’s all happening within and as the play.
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Why is it appropriate to use a strong word as trauma in this way? Because beliefs and identifications are inherently stressful and – yes – traumatic. There is a low-level trauma inherent in any belief and identification. And in some situations, when life pushes up against the rigidity created through beliefs and identifications in just the right way, it can create a full blown trauma as trauma is understood in a conventional sense.
– from a previous post
There is a lot of information in that paragraph, and it may seem a bit opaque.
What does beliefs and identifications mean? A belief is when we hold a thought to be more or less absolutely true. And identification means that we are identified with the viewpoint of that thought. We – as strange as it may sound – take ourselves to be that viewpoint.
Why does it create rigidity? Because the mind goes from the fluidity of being able to consider and recognize the validity in any thought and viewpoint on a subject, to holding one or a few thoughts and viewpoints are true and real and excluding the validity of other – now apparently opposing – viewpoints. And this creates a certain rigidity of the mind.
It also creates a rigidity of the body since it needs to contract certain muscles to support these beliefs and identifications. (See the previous post for more on this.)
Why is this rigidity stressful? When life pushes up against these beliefs and identifications, it’s stressful. And life will since life is inherently uncontrained by any belief or identification, so it naturally creates situations that goes against any belief or identification.
How does this create trauma? It creates trauma, as trauma is understood conventionally, when life pushed up against the rigidiy of the body-mind in a strong way, or a way that’s especially stressful to that particular body and mind.
The role of society and culture. I should add that society and culture plays a significant role in this. Society and culture comes with a blueprint for most of our beliefs and identifications. The ones that may appear more uniquely individual are variations of themes set by culture and society.
Rigity and life flow. This rigidity of mind and body, in a sense, limits and blocks the flow of life. It limits our perception. It limits how we perceive opportunities and make chocies. It limits how we live our lives. And it even limits the mind’s and body’s natural and inherent capacity to heal itself.
At the same time, in the bigger picture, this rigidiy is the flow of life. It’s life creating this rigidy within itself. And in the even bigger picture, it does so in order to express, experience, and explore itself in its richness and in as many ways as possible. Including through temporary rigidity and what that temporarily creates.
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How do difficult things look from the perspective of awakening?
How do tragedies look? Loss of all kinds, whether personal or collective?
It depends, of course. It depends on the level of clarity. It depends on how embodied and lived that clarity is. It depends on conditioning, tradition, and culture, both in how it’s perceived and expressed.
Here are a few things from my own experience.
It’s lila. The play of the divine. It’s all the divine – or life, the Universe – exploring, expressing, and experiencing itself.
It’s all Spirit. It’s happening within and as what we are and everything is. It’s happening within and as (what we may call) awakeness, consciousness, love, wisdom.
It’s not what it looks like. Partly because of lila. Partly because the way it looks, in a conventional sense, is filtered and created by believing stories and being identified with identities and stories. And many of these stories, especially when it comes to loss, are stressful.
When we examine these stressful stories, we may find that reality is kind. (As Byron Katie often points out.) And we can find this for ourselves, even in small ways, through inquiries such as The Work.
When it happens to someone else, there is empathy. We know very well how painful and distressing human experiences can be. We know from our own experience. We wish to be present with others going through it. We wish to be human with others. If appropriate and possible, we wish to alleviate the suffering. That’s all very natural.
And when something diffcult happens in our own life, we wish the same. To be present with what’s here as it is. To recognize the suffering as very natural. Recognize it as the play of the divine, and as Spirit. And if appropriate and possible, to alleviate the suffering. (In our own case, through presence, inquiry, love, and more.)
Mainly, it looks very human. In the best case, it looks like clarity and maturity in a very human way.
In other cases, our own wounds – areas in us not yet healed or on board with the clarity – are triggered and we act from these wounds and lack of clarity.
Often, there is a mix. There is clarity and lack of clarity. And that too is very human.
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Here is one way to map out the discomfort/suffering dynamic.
Core. The core is identifications and beliefs. It’s holding stories as true and real, and this has energetic, emotional, mental, perceptual, and lived components. It’s reflected in all our human levels of being, in how we perceive, and how we live.
Periphery. These are the consequences of the identifications and beliefs. They include additional beliefs that support the initial ones, reactions towards the pain created by the initial beliefs, reactions towards the life situations the initial beliefs brings us into, and more. There is sometimes a great deal of these more peripheral beliefs, and they in themselves can become core beliefs for additional ones.
Ground. The ground is what we are and everything are, aka consciousness and love.
Identification means identification with or as the viewpoint of a thought. We hold it as real, and perceive and live as if it’s real. This creates a sense of separation. It also creates discomfort and even suffering since it’s out of alignment with reality. Life and reality rubs up against our beliefs and identifications, and this is uncomfortable.
Say there is a belief that there is a separate self. This can have a more peripheral belief that this separate self is unlovable. And this in itself becomes a core belief for a constellation of other beliefs, for instance that I need to seek love by doing what I think other people want me to do, and that her look means she doesn’t like me and that is terrible. All of this creates discomfort and suffering.
And that discomfort is an invitation to – eventually – examine more closely what’s happening and find more clarity and release from it. And that will eventually lead Spirit to recognize itself – and all there is – as consciousness and love.
Why is all this happening? We can see it from a few different perspectives.
At a human level, we can see the formation of the initial beliefs and identification as mimicking the adults in our life. We take on what we see our parents and others doing. It’s a form of love. It’s a form of taking care of ourselves. It’s innocence.
At a multiple-life perspective, we can see it as a habit that is passed on over lifetimes.
At a Spirit perspective, we can see it as Lila, the play of the divine. The universe – and our experience – is the divine expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in always new ways. And this includes temporarily experiencing itself as separate, as a separate being. It’s part of the play.
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Dramaturgy is the study of dramatic composition and the representation of the main elements of drama on the stage.
I have been listening to the Norwegian (VG) broadcast of the world chess championship between Magnus Carlsen and Sergej Karjakin. The commentators will sometimes talk about the dramaturgy of the match. The dramatic flow of the twelve games making up the championship. (They both make mistakes, sometimes missed by the other, the underdog finally won a game, then the current champion, and they are now even before the final game tomorrow.)
Our life has a dramatic flow and composition as well. And sometimes, it can be helpful to step back and see it that way. Whether things go “our way” or not, we can at least appreciate the dramatic flow. I find that quite helpful.
This is a more western way of talking about lila, life as the play of the divine. It’s a more limited view but perhaps more accessible to many.
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Some talk about a purpose to life (external to what we make up for ourselves), or of life as a “school”, or a series of tests, or perhaps having a goal we may miss or not.
I see how each of those can be helpful for a while, but they are also inherently stressful. They are stressful because they assume we either pass the test or not, or fulfill the purpose or not, or reach the goal or not. They are additionally stressful because if we believe those stories we believe stories that we cannot know for sure are true. Trying to take them as true while knowing we don’t know for certain is inherently uncomfortable. And they are stressful because we may think we need to push away the grain of truth in any stories that appear incongruous with the one we try to hold as true.
Our minds are fundamentally honest. It knows when we try to deceive ourselves in the ways described above. And that’s discrepany is inherently stressful and uncomfortable.
Ther is a story that makes more sense to me and is far less stressful. And that’s the story of life as lila, as divine play. We can still use the stories of goals, tests, or purposes if they seem helpful, although these stories are seen in the context of the play. We can still grow, mature, and heal, and that too is part of the play. We can even believe stories, and that happens as part of the play.
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A friend of mine asked in a Facebook update why do I feel the way I do?
That’s probably a question many of us have.
I’ll say a few words about it through the lens of Living Inquiries, since that’s what I am exploring most these days.
Through looking at the images and words connected with the sensations, and feeling the sensations, we get to see how the mind creates the experience of whatever we are feeling. We get to see and recognize the components, and how it makes up a certain experience. That’s one answer to why we are feeling the way we do.
As part of it, we get to see the many associations to the feeling, including perhaps fears or hopes about the future, and painful or joyful images about the past. We may even get some hints about how this identification (velcro) was created way back in time, perhaps even early childhood. (That’s not so important in itself, but the images, words, and sensations making up those early stories are.) That’s another answer.
Using another approach, I can see this part of my experience as a being, and have a dialog with it, or hold satsang with it. I can ask it who it is. What it’s doing here. How it sees me. How it would like me to relate to it. What would satisfy it forever. And more.
We can also answer the question other ways. For instance, whatever I am feeling is an invitation to rest with it, find love for it, and ask some simple questions about it to see what’s really there. (Especially if the experience is uncomfortable, but even when it’s not.) It’s an invitation to recognize it as an individual expression of a more universal pattern, something shared by most or (almost) all human beings, and perhaps also other beings. It’s an invitation to be more honest with myself, and perhaps others, about what’s really here. It’s an invitation to meet it with kindness in myself, and even others when I (imagine I) see it there. It’s an invitation to heal and mature.
And, it’s an expression of life. It’s life – the Universe, Existence – expressing, experiencing, and exploring itself. It’s the play of life.
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Here in Europe, I have come across a couple of people who talk about “dark forces” or entities, and claim to have seen them.
It’s quite possible that something may appear as dark forces, and yet…..
It’s so easily a distraction. It can be made into a belief, which in turn can be stressful and misleading. It can put a cause out there and a victim here.
Here are some other ways of looking at it, which may be more helpful:
It’s all lila – the play of life (AKA the divine). The appearances, our interpretations and everything else.
It’s all happening within and as what we are (AKA awareness, capacity).
It’s all unfindable. I cannot find it – forces, entities, dark, light, causes, outside, inside, me – outside of words, images and sensations.
It’s a projection. Whatever I see “out there” is also here. I can take any story I have about what’s out there, and find how it’s true for me too. I can find a specific example of how it’s true for me, and then another, and another.
None of this is saying that what can appear as dark forces/entities doesn’t exist. That question is not so relevant in this context. (Although it could be interesting as a research topic.) What’s more interesting to me, is what’s more true. And for me, that’s lila, that it’s happening as what I am, that it’s – all of it – unfindable, and that I can find in me and here what I see “out there”.
There are also other stories about this that are as or more true, at least for me, than the standard ones I have heard. For instance, it’s all love.
These forces reflect back to me what’s here, helping me to see it and take responsibility for it, and that’s love.
It’s (unquestioned, unloved) fear and wounds in me that makes me behave in ways that may appear dark and self-destructive. These parts of me wants to protect me, and that’s love.
I can hold these parts of me in quiet presence and love. That’s the invitation, and – in a sense – what they seek and wish for.
In all of these ways, it’s really love. It’s love all around. (It may seem scary, and the opposite of love, before it’s met with curiosity and love, before it’s questioned and loved.)
A final thing here: This is not condoning any harmful or hurtful action. To the contrary, this allows for a more clear and wise action, including saying “no” to certain behaviors. I can find presence and love for hurt and wounded parts of me, and that makes it more possible for me to not act on them in hurtful ways. (Not that it’s always that easy or straight forward. There is often a confused phase before the way I relate to these hurts and wounds heal, and perhaps they heal too.)
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As I woke this morning, this question returned to me:
How would it be if I was aware of dreaming while dreaming? What would I do if I could decide the content of my own dreams? Would my choices change over time?
Most of us would probably first go for our “dream” life. All our goals met. Our wishes fulfilled. Perhaps an easy and interesting life, in a house at a nice location, with some travel, and shared with good friends and family.
It would get predictable and slightly boring after a while, so why not add unpredictability, surprise, and some challenges? It would helps us stay alert and interested, and help us push our boundaries and discover new things about ourselves and the world.
But even that may get slightly boring after a while. After all, we know it is a dream. The challenges are no more real for us than the ones we watch in a movie or read in a book. The stakes are not very high. How can we raise the stakes and make it more interesting? By forgetting that we are dreaming.
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Nature is Satan’s church
– from Antichrist by Lars Von Trier
I listened to an interview with Lars Von Trier where he talks about fear of nature and nature as evil.
It is an interesting topic, and one that is rooted in the cultural distrust of nature in Europe and some other places, and also in our evolution.
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I woke up from a dream (fuzzy on the details) where I traveled around and engaged in a variety of activities. It was all enjoyable, rich and meaningful. There was also a sense that it didn’t really amount to anything, which was partly what made it so enjoyable and rich. There was a freedom in it.
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What are some of the benefits of belief? Of taking a story as true? Of identifying with its viewpoint and the identity that comes from it?
One obvious benefit is that it helps channel attention and action, often with an element of compulsiveness.
We also get to explore what is inside of the story, the world and options available within that story.
We get to notice what happens when we take a story as true, the dynamics of taking a story as true.
We get to filter the world in a particular way, adding to the richness of experience.
We get to filter the world through a sense of an I with an other, and also the viewpoint of the story and its corresponding identity.
Of course, most of this can happen when we use a story as guide for attention and action, even if it is not taken as true. We can still use it to channel attention and action, we still get to explore the world through its viewpoint and identities. We still get to add to the richness of experience through it.
The difference is the drama and reality that comes when the story is taken as true. The story and what it creates – including a sense of a separate I – seems real and substantial, and we act as if it is. And that is the unique benefit of believing a story.
What otherwise may appear as a game (lila) is now taken as a real death-and-life drama. That is the real and juicy gift of beliefs.
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There is a core mistake in most of our lives: We take stories as true, including the basic story of a separate I in whatever form it takes, for instance as a doer and observer.
And yet, that mistake is not a mistake. It has infinite causes. And it is part of the play of God, another way for God to explore and experience itself. How else would God experience itself as finite? How else would God experience drama, and being completely caught up in drama? How else would God experience the drama of seeking and eventually “finding” itself?
The initial mistake only appears as a real mistake when stories are taken as true….
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I keep coming back to this one as well…
Alan Watts suggested this exploration:
What if I could chose the content of my dreams, and each dream contained lifetimes of experiences, what type of dreams would I chose?
I may start out with choosing to get everything I want. (Everything my personality wants). Wealth. Leisure. Success. Security. Tropical beaches. Intimacy. Pleasure. Happiness.
After a while, that may get a little boring and stale, so I would introduce something to spice it up, maybe some light challenges. Some minor snakes in the paradise.
But knowing that it is a dream makes these challenges less interesting, so I may chose to forget that I am dreaming, as I am dreaming, just to spice it up further.
Even forgetting that it is a dream, light challenges may get a little stale, so I may chose to make the challenges more heavy, more dramatic. Poverty. Disease. Violence. Fall from grace.
To spice it up even further, I may chose to realize – or have an intuition – that it is a dream, and then strive to recognize it as a dream in the midst of the dream. Strive to know that it is a dream, even as it unfolds. And to recognize this consistently, through the different dream situations.
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Is a story just a story?
Yes, it is, because it is only a story. It is an overlay of thought making the world appear a certain way.
There are the basic stories of an I with an Other, extent, continuity and so on, overlaid on what happens in the sense fields. These are usually only noticed if we look a little closer, for instance through exploring the sense fields.
And there are the familiar discursive stories using language and words, the ways we talk with ourselves and others.
And no, it isn’t just a story.
Each story has some truth to it. But so do each of its reversals, and all of them have value only as a practical tool guiding our human self in the world. Or, sometimes, in guiding it in noticing what is really is. In that sense, stories has a practical value.
And they do also have another, very important, function. They create a sense of drama.
When identified with, they make the world of appearances seem real and substantial. They make the stories of a separate I adventuring in the world seem – temporarily – real and true.
They create lila. The drama of an I with an Other in its struggle to survive and enhance its life, and, sometimes, in its struggle to awaken.
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Stories are really questions about the world, which means they are an invitation for inquiry.
The story of lila, of God playing hide and seek with itself, is just such a story, as Alan Watts so elegantly shows in this talk on Hinduism.
:: each dream a full life, what content would I choose? ::
Just as a thought experiment, say that each night I dreamt a full human life, from birth to death, in great detail. And say I could choose the content of these dreams, with no limitations.
What would I do?
Maybe we would start with a few months of dreams that fulfills all our most immediate desires. Then, it may get a little boring, so why not add some drama? And to spice it up, why not forget within the dream that it is a dream? And to really make it juicy, why not take it to an extreme?
:: each day the same day, how would I want to live it? ::
I just watched Groundhog Day for the first time (better late than never), and that story too is really a question for ourselves, an invitation to inquiry. If I lived the same day over and over, how would I live that day? How would I, eventually, want to live that day?
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I listened to the Alan Watts podcasts about Hindu mythology, which is specifically about Brahma and lila, God playing hide-and-seek with itself.
One part I found especially interesting is in the third segment where he explores what we would do if we had complete freedom to choose our night dreams?
For a few months, we would probably want to dream about having all sorts of riches and pleasures. But it would get boring and predictable after a while.
Since we know it is just a dream, and we can’t really get hurt by it, we may then choose to include some drama in the dream to make it more interesting. Something is at stake, and we may or may not get it.
And to make it even more juicy, we may choose to make it into a life and death drama, to see how far we can take it. After all, it is just a dream and we don’t really get hurt.
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In the Star Trek TOS episode Errand of Mercy, the Organians several times says nothing has happened, in spite of a Klingon invasion and several hundreds of their own dead. And that is also what some spiritual teachers in this planet says.
In what way is that true? In what way has nothing ever happened?
When I look for myself, I find that it is true in a Big Mind sense.
There is awakeness and its content of what arises here and now, including stories about this content. It is a timeless and spaceless present, within which there are stories of space and time placed on top of what arises.
In that sense, nothing every happens. It is all the play of awakeness, which is inherently free from this play, allows this play, and forms itself into this play. Nothing every happens, in the sense that nothing really happens in a dream. It is all the play of and within the one awakeness.
And yet, something does happen, when all of this is filtered through stories. With stories, there is a whole world of form and objects, including living beings, and a lot certainly happens within this world and to all of these beings.
If those stories are taken as real, then there is an I here that something happens to, and a lot of drama. I take the play of awakeness for solid objects in a real world, playing itself out in a drama of life and death importance.
If they are directly seen as only stories, and the consequences of taking these stories for real are also directly seen, then it is all different.
Then, we can freely play along and engage with the game, but now also seeing that nothing really and ever happens. It is all the play of the awakeness.
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Over the last few weeks, I have come across several references to Buddhism and The Work, and other similar approaches, as leading to nihilism… It is obviously coming from people who haven’t tried it out for themselves, and project something onto it, but it can still be useful to look at.
The easiest way to talk about it is through the filter of the absolute and relative…
From the absolute, from void awake to itself, no stories are real… they have only limited and temporary truth to them, their reversals each also have truth to them, and altogether they reveal the inherent neutrality of any situation. It is all God, God’s will, the play and appearances of God. No matter how it appears, it is just appearances temporarily covering up God’s play. The world of form, the content of awareness, is the infinitely varied faces of God.
If this becomes a belief, a story taken as true, it can look pretty weird… it can easily take the form of nihilism, apathy, anti-social behavior, lack of empathy, reckless disregard for social norms and rules, and so on, dependent on what else is going on in the personality.
But if it is realized, if void is awake to itself, it is very different… here, it is expressed through natural empathy and compassion, through a deepening and maturing of the human self it is expressed through. It is expressed in a deeply human way… It looks like clarity, wisdom, compassion and wholehearted engagement in the world. It looks like a life lived for the benefit of the larger whole, in a deeply (and deepening) mature and skillful way.
It is the void playing the game through a human self, knowing it is a game, and acting from the compassion, wisdom and engagement that naturally comes up in this human self when it functions in the context of void awake to itself.
And this difference between belief and realization is why, on the relative level, all nondual traditions emphasize ethics and norms… before the void awakens to itself, live your life in an honest and sincere way, in a way that does as little harm to others and the larger whole as possible, and in a way that supports life as much as possible. These may all be the temporary appearances of the awake void, but this path is one that leads to the void to be awake to itself, and the suffering is real in that it is experienced as real… so why not reduce it as much as possible.
The absolute is free from good and evil (or bad), but at the relative everyday level, it is a useful distinction… live your life in a way that minimizes suffering and optimizes well-being and joy for yourself and others, including future generations.
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Some of the functions of thoughts…
Whether believed in or not, they help our human self explore, orient and navigate within the world of form. And when believed in, when a story is added to the stories saying they are true, they create a sense of a separate self, and the richness of the human drama.
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It seems that lots of folks on the spiritual circuit wonder why they haven’t awakened yet. There is a resistance to what is (which happens to be what holds it, the appearance of non-awakening, in place.)
So why haven’t we awakened yet?
The immediate and technical reason is the resistance itself, which creates a sense of I and Other, splitting the seamless field of awakeness down the middle. This comes from a belief in a separate self, which in turn is propped up by innumerable other beliefs. The initial sense of I and Other is elaborated through lots of different identities which define exactly how this I is different from the rest of what is.
Another reason is that it is all the play of emptiness. It is all the spontaneous expression and manifestation of God in the form realm. It is lila, the dance of God. God manifesting, experiencing and exploring itself as and in form, including taking itself to be just a segment of this form.
Any experience, independent of its content, is God experiencing itself. Awakened or not, it is still God exploring and experiencing itself in its vastness and immense richness.
Specifically, there is a tremendous richness in the exploration and experiencing of being a separate self. Why would God let that go right away? There is so much more to explore and experience there, so it makes sense to allow the exploration to continue a little longer.
It may not always be what our human self wants, but that too is part of the game.
So if we take ourselves as this human self, and have stories about why we haven’t awakened, then exploring the genuine gifts of not having awakened may help.
It takes some of the charge out of our initial stories, allowing us to see that they are only stories, and revealing the inherent neutrality of the situation.
It also helps reduce resistance to what is, or rather identification with and fueling of this resistance. This in turn eases a sense of something being off. And it also allows for an easier noticing of what already and always is. A field of awake emptiness and form, seamless, with no center, sometimes with a sense of a separate self and sometimes not.
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When beliefs are gone, the inherent neutrality in any situation is revealed.
From the emptiness side, we see that it is just emptiness dancing, the play of God.
From the form side, we see that any story about it, and all its reversals, all have a grain of truth in them.
Both reveal the inherent neutrality in the situation.
But what happens when all situations are revealed as inherently neutral?
What happens, at least in my experience, is a deep appreciation for life, for existence, for the world of form, for the play of God, and for this particular life. A deep gratitude and appreciation for it, as it is, independent of its particulars.
Beyond appreciation, there is also a quiet and deep joy in the freedom of the play of life and God, as revealed here and now. And beyond this, a joy in the freedom of the play of stories and their reversals, all revealing some relative truth.
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When we take ourselves to be a separate self, it is natural to want to avoid suffering and friction. And if we identify ourselves as a spiritual practitioner, at least in some traditions, we don’t like resistance and misidentification much either. In fact, our whole practice is often aimed at getting rid of it.
As long as we want to get rid of it, or anything, we are stuck in it. We are identified with content of awareness (resistance, beliefs), which is exactly what we were trying to escape.
And when we finally see this, really see and feel it, allowing even this identification to go, we are fine with all of it… which is also when it tends to fall away.
It is tricky. Wanting something to change is what traps us. And only by fully and wholeheartedly allowing it all can it change, but by then it doesn’t matter anymore. We are doing it for another reason… because we see we don’t have a choice, and because we want to be consciously more closely aligned with what is.
One of the ways to be more consciously aligned with what is, and to allow it all, even the suffering and resistance, is to explore it from the emptiness and form sides more in depth.
From the emptiness side, it is all OK. It is the temporary form play of emptiness. All forms are revealed as inherently neutral. Or as God manifesting and exploring itself, as God’s will.
From the form side, we can explore the genuine gifts of what we resists.
At one level, we see that suffering is an invitation to wake up. When we are not fully awake to who and what we are, there is suffering.
At another level, we see that the misidentification is a part of the play of God. It is God temporarily forgetting what it is, and exploring itself as some small realms of its form aspect (as a separate individual.) It is beautiful, a beautiful play and exploration, even when suffering comes up because of it.
And resistance is an inherent part of misidentification. When we take ourselves to be a separate self, as a region of the world of form, resistance is what allows it in the first place.
Also, resistance and misidentification is what allows for an exploration of parts of the form realm in more detail. It filters a lot out, so that some regions of form come into the foreground and there is a deeper and more intimate familiarity with it. It is part of God’s exploration of itself.
In a very real way, to resist any of this, or to put it down in any way, is to resist and put down God.
