Reactionary self-modification

What does it mean to react? Is there action that is not a result? Mind is embroiled in the desire to find peace and harmony, something that will give one a sense of security. One may search endlessly and travel the world trying to find wisdom that will provide the answer. We believe that we must first find that external something that has made the journey and will be able to guide us. Someone or something that will show or speak something that clears the 'way' or creates the 'path'. Because we live on the surface we look on the surface. We accept and believe in the superficial, that which seems to provide a level of comfort and does not disturb us to deeply.

We fall into the self created guru-trap, because we want desperately to find. When one finds a 'teacher' or a 'systematic ideal' (religion) then one becomes infatuated with personality and or precepts. One tries to find an internal state of well being of peace through external activity. One may be given a laundry list of right conduct and told in order to find or obtain you must live accordingly and practice certain austerities. But what is the actual effect of such activity? Does one truly find that which is beyond self, that which is not grounded in the conflict of self interest? Whatever activity one is engaged in only further strengthens the illusion of the ideal self. When one realizes that action that is born out of self only furthers self, then it is possible to find that which is not contrived.

One may be told that it is desirable to become a vegetarian (as example) because it is wrong to kill animals (sentient beings). One may be able to grasp the significance of the act, that killing is wrong and may result in bad karma. So one may become a vegetarian as a reaction to something that one perceives to be unpleasant or not in line with one's new found consciousness.
But one must realize that self is born of reaction. Reaction means action that is born of another action, which is in turn born of another action. Reaction is always a result, it is never that which is new and original, and therefore not a product of the accumulated self. If one realizes that which is beyond the simple fact of 'becoming' vegetarian, that being a vegetarian has of its self little in the way of significance, then it may be possible for one to realize truth that is at the core of one's being.

Then vegetarian is not a status symbol or a religious precept, but the simple outward manifestation of deep self realization. One cannot find or become illuminated by outward acts of austerity that one has been 'told' are necessary. It is the foolishness of so called enlightened personalities who are trying to sell one a bill of goods. When one has true realization of self then many activities fall away of there own accord. These outward manifestations are not a 'practice' they are the intelligence of action that is in the moment. One is not defined by precepts which are a dead thing of the reaction of past. One is, 'living in the moment freedom' that cannot be conceptually defined.

One is a light unto one's self. To find the truth that is within one's self is the beginning of intelligence that is freedom. One may realize the source of all fear and violence, of that which is the center of all that is destructive. One can only have this realization when one is no longer reacting, but is instead in the absolute moment with that which reveals the duality of self. This revelation is that which is beyond knowing, beyond self.