Positional Thought

Mind cannot help but create mischief and pain, because we are always thinking from a position. That position is basically the opinions and conclusions that we have formulated as a result of our conditioned mind set which by its very nature is comparative. We look at people and circumstances and we make judgements about them based on our individual programing. But we are not really aware of the process and how we arrived at those opinions and judgements. All we know is that there is an absence of the conformity that we seek. So we are constantly in this self created conflict that we mistakenly attribute to the "other". We have lost all vulnerability and for this reason we are suspicious of anyone or anything that does not conform. Without vulnerability there is no love or understanding. There is only fear. Fear is always the result of positional thinking and positional thinking is the result of fear. They feed on one another in a vicious circle of prejudice and violence.

What if it were possible to realize, understand and transcend the self that is this bundle of conflicting opinions and judgements. To approach all people and circumstances with an emptiness that allows the moment. Regardless of your culture, religion or politics, to stand before existence as a being that has moved beyond the immaturity of opinion, conclusion and judgement. To realize a degree of acceptance that transcends the violence of positional thought. You may say how is this possible? You may say a person must be able to differentiate, to accept and reject in order to survive. But does your survival actually rely on differentiation or is that the reason we a killing each other, not only physically but psychologically. So one has to be acutely aware. It is a state of meditation that negates all ones conditioned thinking. It is allowing the moment to be selfless, without a state of knowing and the projection of what you think you know.

When you understand from a position you are lost. You will engage that position to the nth degree, to the destruction of others and to your self. When there is an absence of position then there is no opposition, now something else is possible. Ones understanding undergoes a transformation. Understanding that is the outcome of compassion and love. But one must realize that such compassion is not the result of an idealistic conversion to "do-gooder" status. One does not "become" what one is not in order to accumulate "piety", which is actually a position. Action in the moment is selfless, without acknowledgement...one is anonymous. But not practiced anonymity.

The problem is the mind is always seeking to identify its self with some activity that gives it a definition. So it is very difficult to live in a world that is concerned with the self, because one is surrounded with all that contributes to the idealistic illusion of self. A person is constantly hammered with the idea that you need to belong to some organization with a belief, creed or something that allows them to understand what you are about...So that there can be your "position" their "position". People are surprised to learn that this writer has no beliefs and does not think from a position. They want to be able to pigeon hole you so that they can feel secure in their own minds that they "know" and you do not "know". But it is difficult to be in conflict with someone who is an "emptiness".

The Uninvited

In order for there to be a true awakening a person must first realize the full extent of their conditioning. So many people think that they are on a path that leads to illumination. They do not realize that all paths are fraught with illusion. Anything that promotes an ideology of accomplishment with degrees of "arrival" are only the projection of ones own mind. Then there are those that seek out the "supernatural" and believe they have gifts that are beyond the masses. Because we are so much in fear we seek some sort of order in the chaos that is ones daily life. Yes, if you are seeking anything you are in confusion, you want to escape to another dimension of the mind, one in which you can create order. We want life to be predictable, we want to make the unknown the known. So one will pray, meditate or seek out a psychic, shaman or holy man to find that "knowing" that helps us escape the truth of the moment.

But what happens if you stay with the moment, no matter the circumstance? To face the reality without ones chosen crutch of escape. To be totally aware of the movement of thought, to see how the mind creates all these fantasies so that one can cope through ones neurosis of choice, ones narcotic. When you do this (escape) you are engendering fear. You are creating a prison out of the illusion of "knowing". So if one is totally aware of the trap of ones conditioning then something new is possible. A person must be aware so that you can see through the fog of your own mind. It does not come as a result of "self" effort. It is uninvited, there has to be vulnerability that strips away all belief in thoughts accumulations. It is as if you are standing in the moment stripped of all the layers of self, of all that has been accumulated through out ones life. You are now without a defined self. It is freedom that is beyond "knowing". In that moment of freedom and total vulnerability something is realized that is not part of the known and cannot be known. It is a release and rebirth that is beyond the named and the defined. It is the realization of the true self, the unconditioned. But as mere words it cannot be conceived of. For to seek it out as an accomplishment of the self is to add to ones confusion and conflict. One must realize first a total release that is freedom from the known and the activity of knowing.

Responsibility

If you are a follower or a believer then you are always in a state of apprehension and in fear of rejection. You create limitations on yourself by narrowing your ability to accept the reality of the moment. Since birth you have been subjected to an onslaught of programing that has shaped your thinking and limited your ability to realize something that is not a conformity. Even if you have been a "rebel" all your life, that rebellion is just a symptom of your programming. Organizations say you must conform for the good of society. They tell you that there must be order and one must fall in line if one is to succeed and be part of the team whether it is religious, political, corporate or social in nature. Conformity is the greatest threat to freedom and understanding. Conformity that is the result of ones prejudice and the incessant call to be a "responsible citizen, worker, layman, church member or do-gooder". If a person is to realize the truth of the moment one must go beyond conformity and non-conformity, beyond responsibility and irresponsibility. One may realize in the moment a state of existence that is the whole of accepting all that goes on in the world and understanding that one is the world and that change starts with the individual. One accepts responsibility for all those that suffer at the hands of the religiously and politically greedy. In doing so one sees that one is a part of the problem and perhaps then a change comes in ones inner most consciousness. A person may then cease to contribute to organizational tyranny. A person does not become a non-conformist, instead ones consciousness under goes a revolution in which something totally new is realized. There is no blame to posit, no enmity toward or calculated disturbance. A person does not seek to destroy, but only to realize the self and how all conflict and violence has originated with the individual. If you are the world then you are its change, its realization, its illumination. Do not wait for others to organize and condition your mind into another illusion. Break away from the conformity of organizational greed and prejudice. It starts with you. Freedom that is not a conformity or a responsibility, or a duty to rules of law or social contract. There is no expectation only the acceptance of what is and the change that comes with a consciousness that is unconditioned. A consciousness that is not influenced by the collective and its organizational violence.

When we talk of responsibility that is a realization of the whole, we do not mean responsibility that is the result of ones attachment to the conditioned collective. It is rather a state of existence that does not "know" responsibility as the defined. A person does not "know" they are being responsible as an action or reaction to stimulus. It is action in the moment that is out of love which is the flowering of the unconditioned. That which is without expectation and needs no acknowledgement. When we speak of love we mean the selfless, that which is without the known and the state of knowing. There is no projected self that knows. Which means there is no comparison, measurement, judgement, choice or choosing. In the emptiness of the absolute moment there is total freedom. Within that total freedom is the illumination of unknown.

A Group of Believers

It was an informal meeting of people who came together to share experiences and to encourage each other in spiritual awakening and awareness. Many of those who attended belonged to organizations, churches and temples of various systems of belief. All seemed to have icons that they followed as a sort of guide through their search for deeper understanding. Some of the people present new of my writings and wanted to question me regarding my "beliefs".

M said; "L, I have read and talked to you on occasion about what you write about and am not sure that I understand some of what you say about belief". "I think that a person must have some kind of belief that gives them direction and helps guide them on their journey to higher understanding." She went on to say, "How can a person get from point A to point B if they do not have a belief about the possibility of B".

The reply, We all have beliefs because that is the nature of thought. It is a survival mechanism that is ingrained in the species. It is what makes it possible for us to imagine the possibility of something that is not a reality. It is part of our exceptional ability to be creative, artistic and altruistic. Belief is an extension of desire, so its base nature is to want or create what is not. If reality is the true nature of what is then belief is the illusion of what it could be or should be. It is illusion because mind believes that it can create reality simply through imagination. But the actual is never the imagined, because thought is limited and reality is unlimited. So belief is the illusion of the imagined and is limited by the content of a consciousness that is conditioned and defined by ones accumulated experience. A belief limits a persons ability to realize the truth of the moment. A believer is constantly projecting what should be instead of understanding what is. One is always looking ahead to an "ideal conformity". To have everyone believe as they do. It is to live in the illusion of a self created state of idealism whether religious or political in nature. A belief does not allow for the possibility of the unimagined. The actual reality of the moment is the unimagined, because it never conforms, it only seems to conform as a result of ones ability to reconcile in order to justify the illusion. A person simply expands the parameters of ones belief to include the perceived reality of the moment. This activity is the believers clever way of escaping the truth of the moment. Since we are all in various states of belief, we are all constantly blind to the truth to one degree or another.

Belief creates non-belief, its opposite. It is positional thought which is the beginning of the conflict of opposition. Belief and non-belief are two sides of the same coin, which is the duality of thoughts illusion of the me and the not me. But the reality is they are one in the same. They emanate from the mind that is caught in the separation of the one who thinks and what he thinks of or about. Thinker and thought are not separate they are one in the same, so what is projected is the self as an entity that is conditioned by what it "knows". Your belief or position and non-belief or opposition are both created by you, they do not exist as separate from you, they are you. The conflict and fear you experience as a result of belief is self created.

So to be totally sane one must neither believe nor not believe. It is the freedom of the moment which is absent the self that knows, a persons conditioned state of fear and conflict. When you are free of the minds self imposed limitations then something is possible that is beyond what the mind can fathom. When you project the self as belief or non-belief you are engaging thoughts movement as time/space, escaping into the illusion of the known. Time/space does not exist except through the illusion of a projected self that knows. The dimension of time as a conceptual ideal exist only as long as there is a separation of thinker and thought. The gap or space between thinker and thought is the illusion of the movement of time. It is the division of a conditioned mind that believes in the conceptual and buys into the self created illusion of what should be.

M said, "I am somewhat bewildered by what you have said". "I see the point but am not sure that I can wrap my brain around not believing in something". "Its as if you are saying give up, its useless to try and believe because what ever you believe is going to be false." The reply, yes that's exactly it you give up because you have exhausted trying to believe. It has got you no where, you are still the same, in the same conflict, repeating the past as if there is no out. One comes to a point where there is nothing left except that awareness that sees the folly of it all. Now seeing the truth of this in the moment what do you do? I cannot answer this question for you, it is yours to discover as an original in the moment truth. It is the new and for you the never before in which you are experiencing the true self, the unconditioned.

You Cannot "Know" Truth

They were asking what do you mean by the truth of the absolute moment? Also another person added, why can only the individual realize truth?...and why can't you just give us a direct answer so that we can have some idea of what you mean? This person's reply, It would be better if I did not talk at all...to not use words which are representational. Words and concepts are never reality, they only point to the possibility that you may understand beyond the content of your conditioned consciousness. This person frequently refers to negation, which must not be taken and understood as formula for success. It is a vehicle that allows one to clean out the closet as it were. Negation is the constant process of eliminating the validity of what was (the known) as the perceived truth of what is. The moment is an emptiness. What ever you realize or perceive in the moment is a projection of the self or what was. If a person stays with the moment and is aware of the movement of self then an unconditioned state of existence may be realized, but it cannot be made into some concept of nirvana or enlightenment to satisfy the self that is seeking. When all else is not, it is. This is very simple as a concept, but it is very difficult to realize in the reality of the moment because of ones attachments and projections.

It is easy to get stuck on the idea of truth and what is truth. There is no such thing as truth as a defined concept. What ever is printed in a book is a fiction. All words are a fiction, there is no non-fiction. They are simply the observations, interpretations and explanations of an individuality. That individuality is influenced by the content of his or her own mind and the influence of others that are part of the known and the activity knowing. By the same token all verbal exchanges are not the truth of the moment. We are all essentially liars in the sense that we cannot speak truth because truth does not emanate from the known. So one can never "know" truth. It can only be realized in the absolute moment through the vehicle of negation. It cannot be captured as a conceptual ideal and disseminated as a gospel, koan, sutra or any other such nonsensical wording that becomes the practice of believers and followers. Freedom is the door to truth, but it cannot be found or discovered through the duality of a self that knows. To want to "know" what truth is, is the self absorbed activity of one who can only understand and define according to a belief. Belief is the beginning of ignorance, for it presupposes a purpose and a destiny that is part of the never ending circle of the desire for what should be.

Why We Own?

They were a group of older men having a discussion about responsibilities and the various projects that were left undone around the house. They mentioned the pressure that they all felt at having things that were meant to bring them happiness, but somehow just added to the overwhelming feeling of not being able to cope. One person looked my way and said "what do you think L" ? "We know you live a life of simplicity and poverty", he said half jokingly. The reply was, its a state of mind isn't it? Its true that this person does not own much and what is owned is not owned psychologically, there is no attachment. But what is it that the mind seeks, and why does it need to own anything? G, put his hands over his face and said in a muffled voice, "well what is the key"? "Can you give me the key"? The reply, there is no key there is only the self and what is realized in the moment. If you look at your life now in this moment, and you are free to observe then that is all that is needed. You find the truth for yourself, not through the machinations of a so called expert. So if there is a key it is freedom, but not attachment to freedom as a conceptual formula. Do you see how the conditioned mind can trick you? G said that he sort of understood, but he did not see how that he could ever be truly "free" and can anyone be truly "free"? The reply, Freedom is not a activity of the self. It is not a state of existence that is an "accomplishment". Freedom, is the undefined essence of the absolute moment in which the self is not. You cannot "know" that you are free, for that is just another form of attachment. When you exist in that essence, then things fall away, as leaves from a tree, so that the new and never before can flower. It is a continuous rebirth of the joy of just being without the angst of becoming. It is not an activity of intention, which is a form of attachment, but the simplicity of seeing the truth of the moment. Your property, the things that you "own" are the identifications of self, that provide the illusion of definition. What you own labels you as this or that and can give one a sense of having become. In the moment one can look and see that they all have no real meaning. What ever the psychological affect it is always temporary and one is off looking to acquire more without having fully understood why one needs to acquire at all.

G dropped his hands on the table and said, "how do you know these things"? "Who was your teacher"? The reply, one does not "know" anything, what is, is the unconditioned which cannot be taught. What is taught by another is the illusion of self with all the conflict and confusion of a conditioned consciousness. One can only negate so that what is left is without the influence of becoming. G was silent for a time, he looked up and said smiling, you are a very different kind of person, in fact, I don't think there is another you. I smiled back at him, actually I am the same as you, in fact we are reflections of one another. That is how we see and ultimately understand. He laughed out loud shaking his head and said, "Who is this man"?

D said, "So what you are saying is that what we own can have a negative influence on us". The reply, do not think in terms of negative and positive, because then you are comparing. Comparison only leads one to conclude which is a conditioned response. Nothing new has been realized, one has just escaped the truth of the moment by referencing ones conditioned consciousness. Negate the one who knows, so that something else is possible. It may be helpful if one can look and see that one is in a prison. What you own also owns you, it is your self created prison. If you see in the moment how that all that you are (perception) is a creation of the mind and its desire, then that very seeing is the dissipation of all that limits understanding. D said "Wow, I don't know that I can really understand all that you have said, but on some level I think that it has helped me".