Putting things in perspective

What causes what?

Why are things the way they are?

What is the right order of things?

What is the way and mechanism of change?

All of these questions are answered at a place. This place is one's yet un-conquered territory.

A glimpse of one's being.
Shining with all it's glory.

A totality.

A homecoming.

At the revelation of this light,
The activities of the mind are seen and understood as happening because of ignorance.

The reality is alive and conscious.
In a way impossible to conceive for the mind. The role and life of mind is finished here. It is seen simply as a battle of borrowed concepts of which absolutely everything is false.

This revelation of one's self,
As the very reality.
Sets things in right order.

Tao te Ching has beautifully explained this order as

Consciousness
Virtue
Humanity
Justice
Etiquette

We see that how from a natural course of action we downgrade step by step at the place where 'gestures' become more important than a real aspiration for sincerity, honest and truthfulness.

And how again one,
When troubled by his own 'craft' and the artful ways he has learnt to deceive himself
Seeks a way out of that

How one longs to achieve a virtue
And also understands that the virtuous action is a natural outcome of the consciousness and not a product of cultivation or learning

One then is ready to drop all efforts
And touch this ultimate sweetness

A birthright

One's destiny.

Curtains come down.

Play gets over.

The false is over.

The real dawns.

From religion to responsibility

Just by declaring oneself to be non religious is not a done deal. In many ways, during upbringing one takes on the thought construct and attitudes that are a result of millions of years of experience that humanity has gone through. If one closely observes their own psyche, it is not very difficult to identify the elements such as 'hoping' which are a product of religious thinking.
To be free from religion is not just giving up the rituals, but it is giving birth to individuality. There is an enormous amount of work involved and as J.K. puts it is 'not a layman's task'. And one interesting thing to note here is those who have a certain religious tone are seen to have easily gone beyond it. And those who once were totally atheistic are seen to understand the real meaning of god.
What a wonderland is this universe!  

Arising of thought

There are schools of philosophy built on the human condition

Yet the simplest of the simple has remained as the most obscure.

The one building a construct upon construct is considered learned

Yet he is nothing but a fool.

The answer to everything is not an answer

But a witnessing and coming into light of the questioner itself.

What is that, through which one identifies this as this and that as that

That name giver: That itself needs to be questioned.

Using that, one is looking outside

But not really looking at that-itself.

Instead of asking a question-what is this and what is that,

If one steps back one step and realizes: Oh there appears to be a mind that thrives on questions.

Then, one, not feeding the mind with more concepts, witnesses the rise of the mind itself.

Mind looks at mind and through this looking it subsides-vanishes

Leaving behind a clarity: A wordless understanding.

When they asked Buddha what did you achieve?

He says "Nothing. But I lost much."

This most profound- the nameless- wordless-

When established in one- Gives rise to the most intelligent words ever.

This apparent nothingness - completes one's quest now and forever.

This lowest of the low- is the highest of the highest

This description-less has the quality of a dark night and that of a bright diamond

Where the total abandonment and total involvement meet

The eternal and ever new at the same time

How many glories can one sing of this that is as lowly as a particle of dust.

Blessed be all those who long

Fruitful be the journey of those who advance

Stabilized eternally be those who catch a glimpse

Glory be upon those who be

_/\_

Why did those
Who understood
Become ecstatic?

Just one drop of this
Wipes out all the ideas
One has about oneself

So what could those
Who are immersed in this
Do anything else
But whirl?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Many times we come across this rhetoric that why bad things happen to good people. A lot of people seem to have this sense or conviction that they are the "good people" and there are certain "bad people" who are responsible for all the disorder.

The idea of myself being good arises from the ideas we have of certain virtues. 

And of course the good deeds bear no fruit and they backfire turning so called good people into bitter ones. Then one concludes that there is no place for good in this filthy world. 

Too many people jump into action without understanding the order of things and want to be kind, compassionate, loving etc and when their "good" action is not reciprocated, end up concluding that I am a nice person but people around me don't deserve it. 

How childish it is but we see that the maturity is not a function of age, but of consciousness. 

Without understanding where does the so called "virtue" lie in the whole scheme of things, one makes attempts at acquiring and practicing it. And the result is a disaster and needs no examples, we know already how the story goes. 

So what is the right order of things?

Let's see what Tao Te Ching has to say about it and see if it resonated with us!!

"A man of superior virtue is not conscious of the virtue. 

A man of inferior virtue performs for the purpose of virtue, hence he is not virtuous. 

A man of superior virtue acts without action, and performs with his true nature. 

A man of inferior virtue acts with intentional effort.

A man of superior kindness acts a natural act. 

A man of superior justice acts with righteousness and feelings for others.

A man of superior etiquette acts according to his true self, hence no one responds to him by moving away. 

There, when Tai is lost, there is Te (virtue). 

When Te is lost there is humanity.

When humanity is lost, there is justice.

When justice is lost, there is etiquette. 

Antiquate becomes prevalent when people fail to be sincere and honest. 

Hence, chaos begins.

A person of knowledge and self-opinion will be hindered from the enlightenment of Tao.

Thus, this is the beginning of ignorance!"

Does it speak to you? Does it resonate? 

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing...

Of many 'pointers' to the 'truth' that are used in 'popular wisdom', like the one from Buddha's 'What you think you become', Jesus' 'what is above so is below', is the one from Rumi that is even used in the movie 'Rockstar' (:P)! It goes like 'Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there'. Like all other 'one liners', it is just half truth omitting the further gnosis without which the words don't make any sense, neither do they convey the intended meaning. I sometimes think that the notion of poetry has born out of the words of the 'seers' or or 'jnanis' that make no sense to the people who have not yet experienced any meditativeness. People tend to think that the words of people like Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Hafiz are 'poetry' and make pitiful attempts at the so-conceived 'art' that consists in deliberate abstractions and contradictions that simply mock the abstractions and paradoxes in the writings of those of the likes of Rumi. For those who are talking from the place that is indeed beyond words, the contradiction is inevitable because of the structure of the language and the logical mind, but because of certain 'hassnamuses' and their attempts at 'poetry', the real secrets of the universe have remained as 'poetry' and have become an 'object of admiration' for the 'culture junkies'. What a misfortune! 

The whole thing goes like this.. 

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense."

These words look poetic but they are as precise as Patanjali's Yogasutras. This is the description of that which is revealed to a seeker. Call it God, Soul, Self, no-self, Atman, stillness, oneness, whatever.

There is indeed a field there which is out beyond all the ideas. The field of pure awareness. By pure I don't mean holy or sanskari. Pure means unclouded by thought. In the thought identified state, everything one knows is through the thinking. There is a thought construct, assumptions and certain conclusions based on this thought construct. The knowledge so to say is 'verbal'. But the state of pure awareness is a realization of that conscious field in which all the thought arises and vanishes. There, you don't look at the thought to validate what's true and what's not. The whole thought structure falls away and is rendered unnecessary. There is not even a need to establish even the most primary assumption 'I' and 'you'. Everything is that clear because even 'everything' is an assumption that there are different things like this, that and so.. so infact there is nothing to sort out because this is another dimension of consciousness which is 'complete' if we can use the word. There is no need of any thought movement. There is no suppression of thought either. Thought is simply seen arising and vanishing and falling in its proper place. It is seen that how the thought itself creates an illusion of a thinker. There is actually no one there who is thinking. Such is the nature of thought! 

This has been the plight of all those who have experienced and stabilized in that field. It is impossible to communicate. So come all the parables and metaphors and 'poetry'! 

Marathit sangaycha zala tar..

अवघा रंग एक झाला । रंगि रंगला श्रीरंग
 मी तूंपण गेले वायां ।
पाहतां पंढरीच्या राया
_/\_

A bit more on UG and others

Its a puzzle for me as why UG declared that all the spiritual quests are nonsense and at the same time it is crystal clear that it is infact true. However, the statement is not an end in itself. All the spiritual 'quests' are sure nonsense because the realization is not something to be 'attained' so there is no question of any quests and any sort of 'doing'. Although he says there is nothing like enlightenment, it is true at the same time that he himself does not function the way other people do. Maybe that was his way of pointing out of the pointlessness of asking questions and expecting answers to be given to you. He said there is no self to discover but how could he have not seen that the disagreement he has with other realized ones is only because of the use of language. When others like Ramana are talking about the 'Self' they mean the exact same thing when UG says there is no self to discover. The word 'Self' is used by Ramana to negate the separate 'I' people assume themselves to be. Ramana uses the word 'discovery' to indicate that there is nothing that you 'become' but you just 'discover' what is already there.. so the word 'discovery' is used by him to negate the false ideas about the whole thing. So when UG says there is nothing to discover, it means the exact same thing as 'Self discovery'..

It looks like he wants to not lengthen the discussion even by one word. He simply declared nothing you do will make it happen for you. It looks like whatever methods he was given by different people consisted into 'doing' more and more things to 'attain' to enlightenment. And when he gave up on everything and didn't bother anymore, the thing happened to him. He said it is 'acausal' and no volition on your part can make it happen. He didn't even say that don't try to make it happen and in the most effortless state it will happen neither did he imply. Pappaji who was the realized disciple of Ramana told people that 'you' cannot know the truth, 'you' have to disappear. UG would agree only to the first half of that!