One of the remarkable things I noticed about myself is that when I am questioned about my take on things, the way I articulate a response is something that surprises me a great deal. I also have times of absolute incoherence of speech but more on that later (or never).
So I was talking to my brother in law about the ways used by the people who have had encounters with deeper mysteries of life and their dilemma about whether to keep a historical continuity or to lay out totally new narrative to guide one from the current experiences to the deeper mechanics.
The topic was about reincarnations and the soul going through different stages of vegetation, animal forms, human incarnations and so on. And I noticed myself saying "Certainly there is not going to be a provable answer about this thing. And what one can say is, it is 'as if'' the 'soul' has gone through all those stages if we look at the development of the human embryo. The same thing goes about God."
Rather than having to arrive at some reasonable answer, one can experiment with different as ifs. Whatever suits one in the given situation. The nature of the mind is such that it is never going to settle this issue intellectually. What one can then do is to explore the as if ness of things. If the conviction as if god exists helps one to put down the burden of their thoughts, rather than questioning about the existence of god why not to focus on what it did for you. If it brought certain kind of ease or provoked some intense devotion or just gave one a sense to go on. Then, something worth noting here which often goes unnoticed is that even though there is a question about existence of god, what it did for you is real. The sense of ease that was brought to you was real. The hope that was brought to you was real. The devotion was real. That means we have a capacity to generate any experience we desire. We are doing it anyway but just didn't ponder over it. Through this, one can realize that one is constantly generating their experience by themselves. And when this process becomes compulsive we call it stress, anxiety, depression and so on.
Then one can notice a very important thing that the natural state of the mind is that of ease. The ease was not a product of the belief in non existent god, rather the dis-ease is the product of belief in the non-existent world. Yes. The non-existent world. The image of the world made up in the mind being nasty and terrible. Again is the world a terrible place or not is debatable like the question of god. What one can notice is one has the power to put any meaning in it and generate any kind of chemistry within the system at will. It is just that we are compulsively creating a bad chemistry in the system. This is the first flip. The journey of discovery. Once this much is clearly understood, recognized and registered, one is not the same anymore. A tremendous shift takes place. Extending this understanding further it is noticed that it is only a single thought in this given moment that is creating all the present, past future and everything. Then one can really witness a thought rising up in the moment and see that if it is not followed, what happens. One falls into a deep ocean of silence. A new territory is discovered. Then one sees that where the simple as if has taken them!
All the different teachings of different awakened beings are simple as ifs. They are the devices made to work in such a way that the thought process comes to an end. And make one fall into 'that'. And through that experience one knows what is knowable and what is not. What is to be known and what is to be left. What is to be perused and what needs to be dropped.
There is a story about Buddha that a devotee person comes to him and asks about the existence of god. Buddha says no. God doesn't exist. Then the news spreads everywhere and one atheist person comes happily to him to make sure that he heard it right. To this person Buddha says. Yes. God does exist. Now we know why!
So I was talking to my brother in law about the ways used by the people who have had encounters with deeper mysteries of life and their dilemma about whether to keep a historical continuity or to lay out totally new narrative to guide one from the current experiences to the deeper mechanics.
The topic was about reincarnations and the soul going through different stages of vegetation, animal forms, human incarnations and so on. And I noticed myself saying "Certainly there is not going to be a provable answer about this thing. And what one can say is, it is 'as if'' the 'soul' has gone through all those stages if we look at the development of the human embryo. The same thing goes about God."
Rather than having to arrive at some reasonable answer, one can experiment with different as ifs. Whatever suits one in the given situation. The nature of the mind is such that it is never going to settle this issue intellectually. What one can then do is to explore the as if ness of things. If the conviction as if god exists helps one to put down the burden of their thoughts, rather than questioning about the existence of god why not to focus on what it did for you. If it brought certain kind of ease or provoked some intense devotion or just gave one a sense to go on. Then, something worth noting here which often goes unnoticed is that even though there is a question about existence of god, what it did for you is real. The sense of ease that was brought to you was real. The hope that was brought to you was real. The devotion was real. That means we have a capacity to generate any experience we desire. We are doing it anyway but just didn't ponder over it. Through this, one can realize that one is constantly generating their experience by themselves. And when this process becomes compulsive we call it stress, anxiety, depression and so on.
Then one can notice a very important thing that the natural state of the mind is that of ease. The ease was not a product of the belief in non existent god, rather the dis-ease is the product of belief in the non-existent world. Yes. The non-existent world. The image of the world made up in the mind being nasty and terrible. Again is the world a terrible place or not is debatable like the question of god. What one can notice is one has the power to put any meaning in it and generate any kind of chemistry within the system at will. It is just that we are compulsively creating a bad chemistry in the system. This is the first flip. The journey of discovery. Once this much is clearly understood, recognized and registered, one is not the same anymore. A tremendous shift takes place. Extending this understanding further it is noticed that it is only a single thought in this given moment that is creating all the present, past future and everything. Then one can really witness a thought rising up in the moment and see that if it is not followed, what happens. One falls into a deep ocean of silence. A new territory is discovered. Then one sees that where the simple as if has taken them!
All the different teachings of different awakened beings are simple as ifs. They are the devices made to work in such a way that the thought process comes to an end. And make one fall into 'that'. And through that experience one knows what is knowable and what is not. What is to be known and what is to be left. What is to be perused and what needs to be dropped.
There is a story about Buddha that a devotee person comes to him and asks about the existence of god. Buddha says no. God doesn't exist. Then the news spreads everywhere and one atheist person comes happily to him to make sure that he heard it right. To this person Buddha says. Yes. God does exist. Now we know why!
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