Benjamin is a log,
cast into
the Fire

There is just
This
within itself,
and again.

Your clever conclusion
is the introduction
of ignorance.

Head
never catches
Tail

Go left,
Go right,
Or stay here.

You shall never be away.

Do not try to escape,
or just try
if you can't otherwise.

You cannot blame the ego

You cannot blame the ego (i.e the idea of the self resulting from self-consciousness), for it is merely a glove worn by the Supreme Self, the Source of All.

Even as we say "there is no me" or "all actions which arise from the "I", reinforce the idea of an "I"" or "he who thinks he is an actor is a fool", we prove just as ignorant as those who are confused by or attached to the ego.Ultimately indeed, it is the Supreme, the Unseen, which moves all things as they are, things which, therefore, cannot escape their nature.

You cannot blame the ego, neither that which wants power over this world, nor that which wants to escape this world. The Supreme Self never wanders naked.

Doubts

Let's be honest to one another: nothing is perfect. And although one day you may awaken and take a break from the 'story of your life', realise that Everything is much bigger than you, that you are a fully integrated part of this galactic dance, a mere reflection of Light through the prysm of consciousness, you still can fall back into the story.

Or so it seems: the statement of 'having fallen back into the story' is born from the the situation where one believes to be what the story tells. And thus the very experiences of awakening and realisation are re-interpreted from this point of view. And finding 'the way out' with the maps from that story are not going to help more than trying to escape a dream by finding a door within that dream.

But why has there been a falling back (or whatever change which has born the necessary conditions for this statement to arise)? I have found no answer so far to this question, for this 'falling back' (perhaps for the sake of clarity i should stop calling it this way) is tossing me back on the shore of personal identification:
Each time as i perform an action (writing, reading, working, studying) there is no detached observation of that action and its putated doer. Yet the above awakening (or the several waves which have constituted a general process) has engraved its truth too deep and too clearly for it to be ignored. I am not Benjamin only, for that is merely the surface of the water which appears more clearly to us than the depth of the water itself, but without the depth, there is no surface, the surface is nothing by itself. So during action there is a forgetfulness of the All (the integrality of Being) and in between actions, sometimes the fire of senses becomes the object so to speak and the obviousness of Beingness-Consciousness-Phenomena smites 'me' and makes its statement very clear: I the All only Am.

What is there to be done? One will say nothing can be done by 'me' and it would make sense, if there is no 'me' which is not the All then there is no real 'me' which can do anything at all about it. On the other hand the 'me' is not completely invalid either, after all, the manifestation which is witnessed and lived as 'Benjamin' is the only place where this will happen.

Now the issue seems to be the integration between the 'me' and action. If there had been no awakening, i would still fully believe in my actions and run after them incessantly, helplessly. If the 'me' is a mere idea then what actions matter to this 'non-me' and what should then be done and not done? Sometimes a deep longing to perform this or that action is there, and it's fine, longing can appear just like clouds appear in the sky, eventually they move on. But suppose i respond to this longing, say for example do my homework, then soon, while performing that action, i shall forget completely about all metaphysical matters and believe fully that 'i am doing my homework' with all the absurd tumult which will entail that statement. So what is the alternative? Do nothing because really nothing matters? Nah, if it were so, birds would not fly and fish would not swim.

Where is realisation in action? How can there be any detachment while my mind completely is focused on action? The answer cannot be some action again or it would perpetrate the absurdity of the issue. The very core of the issue is the idea of 'me' as a personified entity, which is a mere assumption...

And there is an echo in my memory of this day when a friend frustrated himself asking me what the purpose of his life was and i told him i could not answer this because there is not anyone to own life, that the 'me' merely is an idea without substance. That the question itself is irrelevant when that is seen.

Discussion

It seems helpless to feel irritation when people who ask you about your views simply brush them off if those do not fit their definitions.
What if i say Life is not just living organisms? What if i say Death is nothing more than the end of objects but not the end of Life in itself?
"Noooo Benjamin, come on, be serious: if you simply change the definitions of things, there can be no discussions..."

Err... well, if we would simply stick to definitions then why are we discussing in the first place? And why would Mr X who wrote definitions in a dictionary have the monopoly on Truth? And why should i believe in Death? Death is nothing more than the depth of Life, the deep silent abyss whence things arise, of which they are made.
"The world is just water within water..."
But when this irritation arises, i turn to the most obvious Obviousness: Reality. What is the point of dividing and categorising the All if the ultimate answers (in the mind) to all things (in the mind) is in the keeping of it as a whole (in the mind)?

They play around with words, sharp as rasors, wound themselves and look for answers in words again. What are those words to 'me'? Not the conscious-self, which is knowing, but the self as being. The obvious Obviousness tells me this: "Love Being Benjamin".

What we saw...

Whilst men is digressing when conscious of oneself, the origin and bourn of all is overlooked. Self-consciousness is a mere child of awareness and those who ignore their quality of witness see not the very worth of Existence.

I am the stars,
I am the sky,
I am flowers,
I am sound,
I am the smell of the Earth,
I am the terrible end of things,
I am the wonderful love
that bears all those things,
I am eternity,
I am.

Devotion

What is my devotion? It is not a ritual (or perhaps it can be seen as one, but let's not do that). Why? Because there is no action to it, an action requires a doer.
What is my devotion? It is to see that there is just This.
This is not me, it's nothing. It's the very ISNESS of all things we know as objects or make objects from in our minds which itself is an object, a reflection like two mirrors facing each other.
The World, that is This in its Form, manifested as what we know (anything you may know including 'you, me') is an enchantment. It takes us, so it seems, into a story and we forget, so it seems, that in the end this story is just This.
This is the Great Holy Stuff. Why great and holy? Great because it is everything, greater than that you can't. Why holy? Boy are you kidding me? What imense ass-kicking power can This be so that you can sit on your chair and make the sharp-cutting statement that there is something at all existing?
There is something.
There is something.
Can there be nothing? How could there be a 'nothing'? Where would that nothing stand on? See where i'm getting at?
No my devotion is not to bend forward. My devotion is to see the bending or whatever silly movement is not mine, that the very idea of being a 'me' is an enchantment. It's beautiful.
See what you see. Be what you are. It's all too so precious.
It goes. It is the going. It never comes back. Seizing it in the now is the art of life. The sole purpose of there being something at all.
Imagine death. It means not death to This.
It means death to the 'you'. Don't be scared, you are not the 'you' you know. That one is just an idea. A cloud. You are the sky wherein the cloud takes place. The cloud we'll surely miss. This is also the beauty of this.
Attachment.
Attachment is soo beautiful.
It is love because we genuinely know, actually we know only this: that things are transient. And we are scared to lose them, to lose everything.
We are like some kid in a toy shop who wants all toys but can't even hold more than what fits in his arms. You need to let go of one to get another.
The art of life is like something i am sure exists but i can't point at. Some job or something where you have to do something but not too much. Please come up with an example?
Not now ok.
Anyway, the devotion: there is just The Great Holy Stuff. Just this.
Watch the letters of words, see words are letters, possibly ink.
Watch the movie and see it's just a screen, possibly pixels.
Watch things and see it's just life, and possibly just being.

Maya

This world is an enchantment--this is not to say that nothing is real about it.

Stories in books are made of words and words made of letters. Yet, as we read, we are drawn into these beautiful, violent or romantic stories and we forget the words they are made of.

In the same way we are drawn into the world's stories and even when those are violent or passionate or stories of suffering, in reality the world is peaceful and calm.

It is hard not to be drawn into the enchantment, it is hard not to identify with this or that.

Hard but not impossible.

un-guru yourself

Don't tell about advaita. What is it to me?
Why bother?
If there is no-thing, if things arise from the mind only and tell me it's illusion, then when there is illusion only is this illusion not reality?
It's all there is! There is not a thing that can exist without being an illusion.
Everything is 'me'? And now?
'i don't exist'? So what!
'i am the witness'? So what, that too will fall away!

What's butt-kicking is not the particular. I care not about consciousness and about knowing i am not 'me'... The Real Stuff is Joy itself. The big big YES which has been trying to catch our attention till now by taking those many forms and shapes, calling: "i am! i am!"

Behold!
The Supreme Giver
The All Emcompassing Light
The Bountiful Mother
The womb of which
You have never left!

Waking up

Sometimes i fall asleep and after i wake up it seems so overwhelmingly obvious that this familiar thing which i call 'Benjamin' is so insignificantly small. Lost in all those ideas about what Benjamin is and what it should do, the very thing it is pointing to is missed out, overlooked: Life is happening!
Life (or whatever this is and is called) is so amazingly huge and hopelessly beyond all understanding, and yet while amidst the misery of 'being a weak and mortal thing' it is the greatest of all reassurances. Simply because...

It is...

The mind that was not a mind

Mike: I heard something profound recently.
Benjamin: Tell me
M: It is the phrase, 'blood washing blood', meaning you can't wash away blood with more blood. Like, you can't undo mind by using your mind: because it is blood washing blood.
B: Is it entirely true? I guess it is true when you have come to the conclusion that your mind cannot help you with more thoughts, but how could you come to such conclusion without the mind? I guess the mind in the end is quite able at knowing its own limits, but cannot go beyond indeed (i.e. unable to grasp Reality)
M: I think it is when reality 'sees' that anything mind-born creates something mind-born. Something outside of that 'knows'
B: Well, isn't it just a matter of words? 'Reality-as-mind' sees. Mind is a word pointing at this manifestation of Reality from which arises another manifestation of Reality called 'thought''.
Ask me what the world is and i will say this: "It is just water within water"
M: Fine if you are established firmly in the unshakable knowing of that. If not, it is just philosophy, and it will be hard to believe it.
B: What is 'establishment'? What is established in what? Where is the idea of an establishment and an established and establisher arising?
And yet i know what you mean: there is a moment of clear-seeing that is carved into my memories, when a friend and i were chatting about Life and people's search to understand their meaning and purpose. As we talked i was refusing to answer his question based on the premise that there was such a thing as a 'person' existing. So sneaking around with more questions about his idea of person and of there being anything at all existing separately, caused him much frustration. (I feel sorry about this by the way but there was no way at the time to say things differently). But i loved this moment, because i was 'established' or so was the thought...
M: well, I see what you mean, but i feel it's like this: Nothing happens, no enlightenment is possible, and yet, something happens.
B: Indeed it's not even about 'enlightenment' because 'enlightenment' has premises. And where are those premises based on?
M: Yes, a fluctuation. Being dosen't change, but your understanding can.
B: Whatever it may be: in the end it is not in the understanding that the 'answer' is found but in what is causing this very 'understanding', the root-cause of all things.
M: Yes, well the root-cause is now telling me to do some yoga before bed! :)
B: Haha! :)

No teachers

There are no teachers:

Look: if you believe yourself to be some sort of prisoner and if one truly wants your freedom, then that person won't tell you: "Oh i have the key of your jail. You can't see it but you need to guess how it looks like. And if you can get it yourself then you can open the door yourself."

Plain bull-shit!

If someone truly wants your freedom one will simply say: "My friend, you are free".

Need not needing

Oh you think you need something?
Maybe meditating?
A 'satsaᚁga?
Get rid of thoughts?
Or maybe you want more knowledge?
What else?

Well let me tell you the good news: you don't need anything.

Look if emancipation is what you are truly looking for then why need it through means? Is this not paradoxical? You believe you need to emancipate, this implies something you are and something you emancipate from. You believe you need to break through this separateness, this implies again a you and a world.
But look into this belief and see: How come are you playing with these ideas? Where in the world is this idea taking birth? Where do you base your knowledge on?

Consciousness. Consciousness. Consciousness.

There where every thing is born, shall every thing die.

I am the Proof

The idea of being ‘me’ is merely an idea, but the source from which it spring is not. Consciousness – the real me – is the proof of everything, it is the direct contact between the particular and the universal. Consciousness is the amazing proof of there being Life, something inimaginable, the miraculous.

Choice

This sense of being a separate being is delusive when not investigated. But denying what is genuinely felt – even falsly – is not leading anywhere. The point is not to convince oneself of non-duality, but rather to struggle for Reality which, when translated into action, becomes Wisdom.
This idea that there is a choice (free-will) is easily undermined by logic: i am the result of the Universe and its cause. But still it seems i am choosing somehow.
Now what becomes obvious is that i have no choice: i am choice itself. This is because i am the essence of present, without consciousness there is no ‘now’. Present is the very essence of this apparent choice where cause and effect hinge on this infinitely small point of non-time.

Doing the 'thing'

These days ‘i looked’ although when ‘i look’, it’s very uncertain what this ‘i’ which ‘looks’ is. Confusing? No.
I just sit or walk and observe, there are 6 senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell, taste and the mind. Yes, the mind. After all there are thoughts, an inner voice, concepts, ideas and images which i witness. Besides we know that what we sense is reconstituted in the mind as an interface, in other words, the reality ‘out there’ is not what the reality of the mind is. (And is the reality of one’s mind the same as that of the other? Is my green, your green?)
Now when observing those things – not seeking them, not following them up – just observing them as they pass by, there often are some thoughts. Again those thoughts are mere things: mental objects in the mental sense-field. All these objects are just a variation of this sense field: we know light by its colours only.
Now when this is going on for a time, there is an increasing awarenes of consciousness. Just like standing on a spinning horizontal wheel seemingly makes the world move, but as we look down nothing moves, we are standing quietly on a wheel. But is there an ‘i’ then? What happens when this consciousness is not here? Is it ever not there or is it simply not stimulated, is it at rest?
The idea of there being a ‘me looking’ does induces the idea of an ‘object being looked at’. But this idea is a mental-object. What is there when this mental object is discarded? What is the ground of transient changes in the consciousness-field? When the ‘me’ is discarded, when the ‘objects’ are discarded, there is consciousness only. Consciousness then may be similar to a rope, the very end of which are the ‘me’ and the ‘object’ respectively, they do not exist outside of the mind.
There are more questions in my mind, so unclear and perhaps it is not necessary to answer them, but let's take them down:
  • Are there other consciousnesses? The very idea of ‘another’ would suggest a mind-borne illusion. But it’s hard to believe there are no others. Are there others?
  • Space and time are ideas, they are changes in the field of consciousness. Outside of consciousness – if there are such thing as other consciousnesses – we would be on the same space and time. That would make us one.
  • So why and how is this singularity of consciousness possible?
  • Is there a beyond consciousness? It would be formless, timeless, spaceless. Is there a cause? There cannot be any beyond time, beyond space, cant there?
  • What’s happening during the ‘time-out’ of deep sleep? Nothing happening or simply no memory? Can i say there is nothing because a room is dark?
Who knows whether those questions will find answers.

The Cause of Causes

Studying about sustainable agriculture and the current food issues – especially when realising the corruption and danger rising in the shape of food empires expanding their realm and power on the earth – wakes up a rebellious mood in me.
And although i want to do something positive about the matter – because food is a basic need – i also realise how foolish i am to rise and resist the wave. I do not want to be a fighter, nor do i want to be a saviour, i simply want to do what i think is right.
Moreover the highest aim is knowing genuinely Being. Here is the Universe unfolding before my eyes, and i fight against it. But when we look closer at it, we soon realise that the Universe is complex system with a myriad of causes and effects continuously influencing one another. Eventually, as we step back to look from a distance at the world, we see a congruent whole. All causes, together are the cause of the next consequences, or the consequence, simultaneously becoming cause. So really there is but one cause and one consequence: the Universe, and because it is not a tic-tac system there is no time to it really, but simply apparent continuity.
Now if the Universe is the cause and consequence of all things, now and now and now. Then the Universe as it is now is necessary for me to be what i am now (no matter what i believe myself to be at that moment). The last thing i would want would be to fight against my own cause, or would it? And without me the Universe as it is, would not be. The interrelation – how subtle it may be – cannot be denied, nor can the extent of differences in any imaginary alternative case be guessed, even less measured.
So there is no need fighting, it is all in one’s own interest to love and cherish the world even if it appears to play against us.

What do you think
you are doing?
All this effort
you are putting
in getting more
is vain.
Worse:
it is the kissing
of your own slavery!
Oh you want glory?
Why not put all your effort
in the best action:
Being?
Bring the fire
where it belongs,
do some burning,
do some shining!
And light up the world
with Life!

The Child's Trust


This evening as i was walking in the streets of Leiden, i saw a couple with their son, who sat on his father’s shoulders. As i looked at the boy – and him looking back at me – i could see his peaceful face looking at the world and his body relaxed, making just the necessary effort to sit and keep sat.
That sight woke up an old memory – that of being the child, of about 4 years old, trusting completely the world which seemed to be upheld by mother and father. In being this child there was so much trust, peace and simple love, the mind is free from false ideas about being this or that, for being speaks for itself, it is self-evident. Of course many ideas, images, and feelings arise but they come and go, they are just there for a moment, they are not important.
At some point it is taught that there is danger, an incoming separation which apparently happens one day when mother and father are left behind. But is it really so? Does it need to be so forever? Is the innocence and trust of the child an ‘abheration’? Is it ignorance? Doesn’t the child then demonstrates more faith in Life than the adult who (mentally) has broken it down in little bits in an attempt to get control over it? Is Life after all not the ultimate mother-father? Is this apparent separation process not merely an expression or means of transmitting patterns of survival? And when these are acquired, is it necessary then to keep fearing? Are the body and its habits not able to care for itself? Just as all of Nature is caring for itself?
When i sat then there was a feeling of being just ‘this’, knowing the other and perhaps myself as the Source, the Mother. Why bother making a World with these things and those things, with past and future? There arose questions, sometimes an idea that ‘i am’ but these did not wake any interest. Being interested in such things was less strong than the sensation of simply Being and trust installed at the moment.

What is my yoga?

yoga or ‘yoking’ the exercise/means of re-uniting (if not in actuallity, in knowing the state of union, yukti) can work only when it is a yoga of ‘letting go’, not a yoga of ‘getting more’.
For instance, even as my wish to know Reality is genuine, it is a desirous state which divides the world between desire and object of desire, a state which denies liberation and denies Reality itself for that one is absolute and therefore know no duality.
On the other hand, while there is letting go, or a total denying of any desires and fears, remains the self only. This is proper yoga in the sense that it reunites all things with the self, for without desires and fears the self is then know as complete. This self is undivided, the outter and inner are one, the manifested and unmanifested are one.
Only ignorance can make the real seem limited, for the real is absolute tangible and yet undescribable – it is an essence proven by the very ‘i am’, consciousness. When desire and fear arise, they do so only as the mind identifies them as such – when attention for these is denied (on the ground of their being an illusion), getting out of the groove as it were, what is found peace. Peace is that in which all things arise, just as noise arises i silence.
Pay attention to your yoga: what yoga are you really doing? Strife to absolute freedom, be nothing, just be.

If there is anyone responsible for this Life,
I would like to thank this person (or whatever)
For making me feel terrible like this.
It’s just great! Bring it on!

I was told already:
“don’t try to understand me,
just love me.”
But i don’t understand the message…
Oh… I did it again right?

introspections within introspections

I have come to understand that my introspections have gone astray (in a certain way):
In stead of looking at what i really am now – or better: what there really is (for there should not be any assumption that this ‘me’ is entirely real without first observing – in stead of that, i have been trying to conform my self to an idea i had as to whom or what i should be.
This happened on the basis of prior experiences. But what are those experiences now? They are just ideas, memories, in which i drew the information for my introspections. Therefore these lost there quality of introspections for i was not analysing reality but rather imagination.
There is obviously a need to cast away all ideas (even though they are comform to what i once knew to be right) for there is this reality only, the one i should be dealing with.
Nevertheless, those imaginatory thoughts and memories are part of this reality i am wanting to know and the very ‘mistake’ mentioned here, is so but in appearance, for have i not then passed the test just now?