[ the cause of our suffering, dept. ]
Our nature is like a clear blue sky; our minds conceptual descriptions – when believed – create the clouds which would otherwise float by. Of course, this does not mean that there should not be clouds – they happen – but that the ego/ mind (which is nothing but beliefs) does what it does naturally by attaching an identity called “me” to these mind/clouds. A Me that uses stale, stored and conditioned memories of the dead past and projects that “knowledge” into a supposed future. All this stuff of the mind can be simply and directly seen without being personalized or grasped by an ego centered “me”.
MIND – A SIXTH SENSE.
It can be useful to refer to the mind as our “sixth sense” (in addition to our five senses) This perspective helps us recognize the place and function of the mind, and how its conditioning – cultural, social, philosophical and psychological – presents a prejudiced and interpreted “reality”. It is this conjured reality which we “think” we live in that produces our thought-based personhood and all the suffering that separation inevitably brings.
UNCOVERING OUR MINDLESS NATURE.
Natural well-being is not something to be achieved or believed, either in time or with practice. It is as close as our breath, and as obvious as reality. We discover it – or rather, uncover it – in relationship. From one perspective, truth, reality and love are found only in the experiencing of relationship. The nature of these relationships is both human and divine.
And while these relationships may be viewed by the mind as between two things or two people, real relationship is one of self to self, wherein the lover and the beloved are actually one. So our human relationships from this aware perspective include both seeing this separate “other” and simultaneously also knowing that “other” that appears so different is our self in spirit…“God in drag!” as Adyashanti said.
That knowing includes our entire human and conditioned experience – for nothing that happens is preferred or denied in awareness – but it is not limited to that experience. In other words, our divine non-dual awareness, which permeates our natural being, is aware of, but not limited by, the mind – the home of duality. This awareness recognizes that the mind is a beautiful tool; that it is binary and limited because it can only deal in two’s, contrasting and comparing, sorting into huge files what it likes and dislikes, compressing and expanding ideas and ideals of its own invention. Mind cannot conceive reality.
SELF/SELF RELATING
Indeed, we’re not limited – we’re not a dense conceptual ball of conditioned ideas that separate the world into things called “me” and “you”. It’s the mind that describes, and by so doing, discriminates and divides. We know that much and much more, about our natural, One, Undivided, Self. 🙂
