my current belief state on a post body condition.

i like the idea of reincarnation but it doesn't sit quite logically for me as there hasn't been enough time in recorded history for the infinite number of lifetimes mentioned in the literature.
It has come to me (from my readings and musings) that the idea of an  infinite number of possible worlds arranged in a probability order existing in parallel makes more sense.
So, standing here/now i am confronted by an infinite number of possible worlds from which to choose to draw into my next current here/now. The ones closest to me (the highest probability factor) are the most similar to my current experience.
Each of these worlds is complete with everybody and everything and even contains a different version of this mind/body. (observe the different body chemistry and thought patterns in the world where i am happy as compared to the one where i am sad.)
So who/what is it that makes the choice of which next possible (most probable) moment to make actual ?
We could say that it is consciousness (my ? consciousness) or call it soul or even Soul. Regardless it is something that identifies with the 'me' parts of each world.
Although the above takes care of the time component we still have the problem of the space component. (it is a problem because it is part of the illusion - hmm, more on this later)
The ocean analogy takes care of this (i think - let's try it)
i am a wave. i have unique form. i change my shape but remain the same wave. i hit the shore, and die.
Each water molecule disperses back into the ocean. with tides and winds etc. they get spread from one end of the ocean to the other. If each of those water molecules can communicate with each other then the information (personality) that each contains is available to all (a hologram?) then it seems reasonable that any new wave formed with one of the above water molecules would from the perspective of said water molecule be a variation of the previous wave (of course made unique because of the combination of all the other water molecules) Said molecule in having the experience of the new wave would then communicate those new experiences back to all of the water molecules it shared the identity with as the original wave...
Which means that every molecule is enhanced by the enhancement of any one molecule.
The soul is a water molecule that now appears as part of a wave and now is part of the deepest ocean and now fish urine...
all at the same time (all at once), every where, (or is that never, no where)

i am every thing.
or is that 'i am no thing'?
or is it 'i am'

who am i ?

who am i who am i who am i who am i who am i who am i
who
who am
who am i
am
am i
am i who
i
i who
i who am
who...

am i waiting ?

i believe i can't do anything to 'get' enlightened.
i believe it will 'happen' someday.
i believe that my lifelong obsession with 'transcendence' has some meaning.
i believe that i don't know anything. (any knowing i have is just belief - intense belief - but just belief)
i believe that my beliefs are the best story that i can invent (to live by) and that most people have very limiting stories.
i believe that if grace visits me then i am ready and willing.
i believe that grace will come in a form that daily life will deliver. (grasp the golden moment of opportunity as it races past)
i believe that there is a purpose for my 'awakening' (to write and teach - maybe!!)

is belief something
more than just entertainment?
i believe it is!

where am i now

seemingly nowhere, yet subtly somewhere.
it appears like some movement has occurred.
(of course appearance through the lens distortion of my desire...)
my interest is still alive and kicking, my earnestness is still earnest.

deceiving myself

I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams — like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves. Each man’s life represents the road toward himself, and attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that — one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can. Herman Hesse


"who stop deceiving themselves" this could be a key to the 'portal'
Whenever i have an opinion about myself (or the world) then i am deceiving myself into thinking that i 'know' something when clearly it is just a view that i hold for the moment.
The only way not to deceive myself is to know (hmmm,) that i know nothing. Everything becomes fresh and actual without the overlay of my opinion (knowing) or judgmental attitude.
The question then becomes 'how do i avoid the habit of thinking that i know anything?'
Is it just a matter of reminding myself everytime i realise that i had an opinion?
It is probably beyond me to do anything other than this.


Why am i lying
about what really matters ?
About who i am.

There is no need to move from where you are...

"In the land of no escape, things just are, everything is.
There is no need to move beyond what is here in front of me." Stephen Williamson
i stumbled over this mans blog today. How (re)freshing.
He also says; "If my definition of liberation presents itself as something that you want to seek, then don’t. Long for it perhaps, but do not seek. There is no need to move from where you are to where you want to be. Stay where you are.  Be who you are. Simply allow identification to slip away. The process is one of dissolving, not moving, grasping or reaching." (i took the liberty of fixing what i thought might be typos - here is his original post)
But the message to me is simple and profound, to accept my current state as the perfection that it is, and that it is just where i am on my evolutionary trajectory.
Enjoy the longing for enlightenment just as i might enjoy coffee or sex, while i am drinking coffee or having sex. (or indeed enjoy the desire for those things before they actually eventuate)


Appreciating
the expression of writing
right now, right here. YES!

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The first stanza of The Great Way - Sengstan (Third Zen Patriarch)

This is brilliant. If there is any one thing that i could think of to allow peace into the world it would be having no preferences. i can hear people shouting "What about love. We must have love!" Well, i contend that 'real' love is total and complete acceptance of 'what is' without a desire to change it or keep it or take meaning for my idea of myself from it.
Doing it (?) however is another story. As i asked in a previous post, 'can allowing be done?'
Being aware of preferences as i am confronted with circumstances is all that is necessary to expose them and then i have a choice (do i really have a choice about anything?) to consider not having a like or dislike for it. To consider that whatever my idea of 'good' (or bad) is just that, my idea.
Just like my idea of myself is just that, my idea.
Thoughts, nothing more.
It is my reactions to those thoughts where 'reality' enters.
If i have no ideas of good or bad regarding anybody or anything then my reactions are not likely to provoke reactions in others. (but then again they will probably react to their own idea of what my reactions mean. Maybe this way of being has to be better understood before people are less likely to misinterpret lack of judgmentalism. )
So, if i intend to be aware of my predilections or aversions to what or who appears in front of me (or what i think about), perhaps that intent to be aware is all i can do? From that maybe something can grow...


have an intention,
to be aware of dis like.
then may be what is.

the ocean of me

i like the analogy of the ocean being a metaphor for consciousness (all that is) and a wave as a temporary manifestation of the whole being a metaphor for individual people (or souls).
i am sleeping in a caravan in Melbourne at the moment and each morning i wake to the sound of surf, which is strange as the nearest ocean is 70 kilometers away. Then i realised that it was the sound of the freeway which was only 1 km away.
My first reaction was to feel ripped off as the sound of surf is a 'good' sound and the sound of cars is a 'bad' sound. That was until i remembered that the difference between them isn't 'out there', it is in my mind.
Further to that, remembering that each car had at least 1 person in it and the total that made up the sound of surf is beyond my comprehension (i'm guessing hundreds of thousands) and they are really all me. (phew!)
This has been a bit of a theme for me since i have been here in Melbourne. The other day we drove to the bay (about 20 km), it took an hour and we never left the suburbs. Yesterday, i was having my morning poop and as i wiped my bum i flashed with awe on the fact that each day i wipe my bum 21 million times and that is just in Australia.

Each car is a wave
in the ocean of me.
Making sounds of surf

i can't give up - i can't not give up.

i can't give up the search, or more accurately i can't give up the wanting to attain liberation (the advaita cops will get me for that phraseology )
i can't choose what i want to want, or more accurately i can't choose to not want.
Just like i can't choose what my next thought will be.


i can not give up
the wanting to know reality
though it doesn't help

I truly obtained nothing from Enlightenment.

Buddha said:  'I truly obtained nothing from Enlightenment.'  There is just a mysterious tacit understanding and no more."

Maybe he (before realisation) obtained understanding, and post realisation knew the he from before was an illusion. So the emphasis was on the 'I' not obtaining.

i only think that
i am I until I dies
then i am not i

more ramblings...

what i imagine is that when itching arises, that the compulsion to scratch that arises will simply be observed and then casually dismissed as "inappropriate" to act on. That there won't be scratching as an outcome.
Currently, scratching almost always ensues.
what i imagine is that Seeing, when it is present (which i assume will be constant) contributes a space which allows intelligence (as opposed to emotional) reactions to occur.
what i believe is that both the above imaginings are just concepts.
what i imagine is that this existence only has 'reality' from inside this existence.
what i imagine is that when I 'wake up' that i will be in another existence that includes this one, and that this one will be 'seen' as a minor part of that new (to me/who?) existence and that from that perspective "i" will be seen as a figment of the imagination of the "i" that i imagine myself to be now.

i am so confused
about just who is confused
confusion's ok

a different kind of 'doing'

Abandon every attempt, just be; don't strive, don't struggle, let go every support, hold on to the blind sense of being, brushing off all else. This is enough. Nisargadatta Maharaj

You cannot control your way to freedom. You cannot concentrate your way to heaven. If you want to find it, see that the very idea of "someone who is in control" is a concept created by the mind, and lay it down. Don't touch it. If you touch it, it will bite you. Surrender is the ticket, and there is nowhere to get to. carson boyd

This is a different kind of 'doing'

Doing the 'not doing'.

Because of the habit of 'doing', an attentiveness (is that 'doing'?) is required until the habit of 'doing' is transformed into a habit of accepting everything that occurs with me. (is accepting 'doing'?) By habit i mean the spontaneous reaction. By reaction i mean action in response to... (hmm, i wonder, does an enlightened being react or just act ? If they see everything and everybody as themselves then i guess it is all just action. But then again, action implies a 'doing' which is (maybe) a contradiction to just 'being'. Oh, i don't know!)

i believe 'not knowing'

is a good place to reside

i'll just leave it there.

immense earnestness

For this [seeking Reality], you need a well-ordered and quiet life, peace of mind and immense earnestness. At every moment whatever comes to you unasked, comes from God and will surely help you, if you make the fullest use of it. It is only what you strive for, out of your own imagination and desire, that gives you trouble. Nisargadatta Maharaj
How does intent to reach 'self realisation' and immense earnestness manifest ?
If i keep intent alive and current, is that earnestness ?

if i want a lot
and keep the interest alive
is that earnestness ?

i thought i had paid for entry...

When you have allowed, attended and understood what seems to be within, you are freed. Katie Davis
i do not experience myself as free. Does this mean that i have not fulfilled all of the above ?
i imagine that i have, but the evidence says i haven't.
But still there is nothing to do.
Surrender to 'what is' sounds like doing. Is allowing a doing ?
Is accepting a doing ?
If i change from resisting to allowing, am i doing something?
If i change from not attending to allowing attention... (can i make attention or only intend it ?)
When i meditate (what i call meditation) i intend to keep attentive but become aware that i was lost in a dream - and then i am attentive again (until the next losing)
This same sequence occurs every day. In fact my whole life displays this sequence. i'm lost in a dream, i realise i have been lost and become attentive, until the next time i become attentive realising i was lost in a dream.
i have no judgemental-ism about this. (i do sometimes feel sadness at the frequency of it, so i guess some part of me says it shouldn't be) but  mainly i understand it to be just 'the way it is' and allow it (i really have no choice anyway)
hmmm, Peter Marjason says it beautifully, powerfully, succinctly - no choice.

i do, i don't do
i watch it all then accept
i do, i don't do.

it seems to me (who?)...

it seems to me that there IS an experience of a mind/body called i, but that for the enlightened one (pun intended) that identification with the i doesn't happen. (of course this is just conjecture - this i playing with concepts)
i wonder, am i identifying when i am lost in emotion ?
i have no sense of i then. i am the emotion, or more accurately i am the expression of the emotion. Although there is no awareness of an i while this is happening, it couldn't be said that enlightenment is. Exactly the opposite seems to be the case. (does enlightenment have an opposite ? grin...)
Something has to happen to this mind/body for enlightenment to be.
i (who ?) might not be i after the happening but i still exist except that i (who ?) won't identify with i anymore. (can some not i out there confirm that this concept has some validity  - even if who (not i ) cares.

is this me called i
really not actually me
who knows, who does care

ho hum...

i waken enough
 to know that i am asleep
   still, the dream goes on.

giving up the search

Believing that there is nothing i can DO to transcend my current state of 'awakeness' - if i stop thinking about it (hah!), will it ever 'happen'?
My mind says i have to, at least intend to 'get there'
i tell people that i live in heaven now. i have an idyllic lifestyle. live in a beautiful setting. no financial worries (modest but sustainable) happy most of the time (can't remember the last time i felt depressed, probably a couple of years ago) good relationship with wife and family, but have broken out in a skin problem that i'm sure is triggered by my unconscious mind.
Is this related to my 'search' ?
Certainly this 'condition' belies the above statement about being happy (logically)
i had this 45 years ago when i was 'trapped' in an unhappy job (in the navy)
i do believe that even if environmental influences are involved that they would only be the means whereby this mind/body expresses whatever it is experiencing.
If i turn my back on enlightenment, would it heal up ?
i guess i won't find out. (even if it did heal there is no certainty that it would be related to 'giving up'

wonderful mystery
the way things work for people
enjoy the questions.

what drivel will dribble tonight ?

i don't mean to disparage these outpourings, just to point out their inherent meaninglessness.
they are not going to change anything. they won't bring me to 'that moment' any quicker. They can only add to the story of me.
If i feel any better because of them, that is a moment of pleasurable sensation (about 70 seconds before the effects of the pleasure hormone wears off) The pleasure is because of my reaction to what i think about it. But after it wears off i will look for the next thing to feel good about. i can probably get a few hits from my memory of it.
So why rave ?
hmm, the advaidic answer would be " raving happens" which is probably more likely to be true in a mind/body that has memories of a lot of raving.
Oh, and i do enjoy that 70 seconds of pleasure.

create it with thoughts
or use steel and masonry
pleasure lasts the same

let the drivel run.

i come with nothing to say,
but saying will be said.
i said.
or was it consciousness that said it - through me.
if all my thoughts are consciousness talking...
it sure talks a lot of shit.
but then why wouldn't it talk a lot of shit?
Shit might need saying as much a something very important.
Maybe consciousness holds shit as very important.
Maybe it's not what is said that is important but the saying.
or maybe the not saying between the saying is where the rainbow ends.

and i wait.

Oh, i suppose i should say something, at least occasionally.
seeking is still happening, albeit in a quieter, calmer way now.
knowing that doing won't lead to freedom.
knowing that there's nothing to be done means i just wait.
Wait for the moment when there is no i doing the waiting.
knowing that there is no time during which to wait.
knowing that everybody and everything else, everything that i react to, is just a line in the script of the movie that i wrote, produced and directed, and starred in.
knowing that and i wait  - because i can't do anything else.

and i wait, because
i can't do anything else
oh my sweet waiting.