Love and Compassion

When all negative thinking has been identified as nothing more than false belief what is left is naturally positive. Free of beliefs the mind is naturally loving and compassionate it is only the negative aspects of ego that obscure this fact. On a retreat a woman told me that she thought it very important to be humble and loving I replied that when we try to be humble and loving it is because we feel we are not. The ego is not able to be loving and compassionate but it is able to mimic the appearance of what it thinks is loving and compassionate. The spiritual world of all religions is full of those who think that mimicking love and compassion is the same as being loving and compassionate. It is usually a screen the ego hides behind. Many seekers take it as a sure sign that someone is enlightened if they smile a lot. Love and compassion are natural aspects of consciousness but consciousness has no need to prove that it is loving and compassionate. It is only the ego being deficient of these qualities that needs to prove how loving and compassionate it is. Consciousness is free of all negatives, once this is understood it becomes clear what needs to happen. We need to see clearly every trace of negative thinking, this thinking cannot be removed it can only be seen clearly for what it is – something that is not true or has no basis in reality. When this is seen on a very deep level (not the level of ego) that which obscures consciousness becomes redundant. Negatives obscure consciousness because they carry a negative charge or feeling, this feeling then occupies our attention causing neurosis (thinking about things that are not worth thinking about) while we are doing this consciousness is obscured, it is still there and even the neurotic thinking could not be there without it but our attention is fixated on the negativity and associated physical feeling produced by the ego. We do not need to concern ourselves as to whether or not we are loving and compassionate we just need to identify the negatives. It is helpful to separate the meaning from physical feeling. When we are able to feel what we feel without the usual attached meaning the feeling will naturally fall away as it is in the meaning that the feeling comes to exist in the first place. There is no meaning in consciousness that is to say consciousness is free of meaning. The important principle here is that nothing can be changed except through seeing that which does not exist. If we remove meaning from our minds nothing can be said to exist. I am not suggesting we do this, what is required is only to remove the negatives as it is in the negatives that we find the aspects of the ego that are not practical or useful. The aspects of the ego that are useful do not need thinking about, they are naturally there without the negatives. The ego has a place and could never be removed, it can only be seen for what it is. When we see what the ego is we see the place of the ego and most importantly we see what has no place in the ego. Seeing the ego is possibly the most difficult thing we may ever attempt this is because the ego does not wish to be seen, this is understandable because contained in the ego are all the things we would rather not know about. The ego’s mission is to keep our attention away from these things we would rather not know about. Knowing the things we would rather not know about the ego would lose all of its power, to the ego this is the same as death and it will do anything to preserve itself. The best way for the ego to do this is in neurotic or unnecessary thinking and especially in negative thinking as in negative thinking physical feelings are stirred up that cause us to think more rather than less. The ego does not exist but acts as though it does and to sustain this illusion requires us to think in neurotic and unnecessary ways, it also requires us to create negative stories or drama’s that in turn cause physical feeling to become attached to our stories that then become harder and harder to disentangle.

The God Particle

As I write this the search for the so - called god particle continues. As I understand it the god particle is the particle that will explain why the universe when looked at very closely seems not to exist at all and yet appears to be solid and real. How is it that something that seems not to exist has the appearance of existing, or if a rock does not exist why does it hurt when someone throws one at me. I thought that this question was about matter and how matter that does not exist seems most conclusively to exist as in the example of the rock or in the way the universe manifests itself. This I feel now is the wrong way to approach this question. There probably is no god particle - what causes the universe to exist in the way it does is more likely to be found in consciousness. Without consciousness there is no universe and no rock to hurt me, and no hurt to be felt. There seems to be an assumption in science that the universe exists regardless of consciousness but without consciousness what appearance would the universe have. Let us leave aside the bigger questions regarding the way in which the universe appears to exist and focus instead on our human experience of how we exist in relation to the universe. It is not that plants, insects, animals and all forms of life are any different from the human form of life in regard to this question it is just that humans seems to be the only species that is interested in these questions. The closest we can come to a god particle will probably be found in the area of belief. Belief is the ingredient that works with consciousness to construct what we feel, what we do, and how the universe and all it contains appears to us. We know that the body, the brain and the sense organs work together to construct what we see, hear, touch, taste and smell. This information is not about what is actually there but an approximation of what is there. This process of constructing workable information about the universe has been proceeding since the earliest forms of life arose. Information is the same as belief because whatever the form of information there is can only have meaning through the operation of belief. These beliefs are not only the obvious beliefs like ‘I believe in god’ they also occur in our ‘knowing the colour red’ or in knowing the sound of a dog barking or anything else that appears to the senses before the thought that tells us we know. Once something is ‘known’ in this sense it is known forever after or until this same information is interpreted in a different way. Since the beginning information received through the senses has become more and more sophisticated. Information received by the eyes that tell us of redness probably does change but only after millennia. Other beliefs or information may not take so long to change such as the beliefs that change in each of us as we move from childhood to adulthood. Beliefs like the colours and sounds we experience do not need to change in the short term as they are practical and useful to us. Some beliefs we hold are not practical and useful and may even be dangerous for others or ourselves. In between there are beliefs that make little difference one way or the other like which is the best football team. Beliefs that are not practical and useful must inevitably end. Even in science it can be seen that beliefs about the universe and us have changed dramatically over the last few thousand years. There is no reason to assume these changes in beliefs will stop anytime soon. There is nothing practical or useful about any negative belief, in fact a negative belief is by definition a belief in something that is not true. What we call depression can be seen to be a cluster of negative beliefs about the world and ourselves that are clearly not true. Beliefs continue only so long as we believe they serve a useful purpose. Of course our belief that our beliefs serve a useful purpose can also be false. It does not matter whether or not we think our beliefs serve a useful purpose if the belief is negative it must end even if that end occurs at the end of our life. Holding a belief that is not true even though it serves no useful purpose can only occur because we want to hold that particular belief. This means that we are responsible for all our beliefs useful or not. The fact that we do not know why we believe something makes no difference as what ever it is that is wanted and believed will manifest itself in our life. The proof of this is in all our actions, try to do something you do not want to do, this is impossible for the moment you do something some part of you has already decided that this is what you wanted to do. Even our feelings are subject to this rule, if they are there, anger for instance; they are there because it is what we want even though we may no longer know why we want it. Although there is probably no god particle to be found, in some ways when beliefs become real through the potential of consciousness it is as though there really is a god particle, or more precisely we become god like in our ability to create our own reality. The problem with this god like ability to create our own reality is that most of the human race are unaware of this ability. Assume this is true and look around you and notice the infinitely varied realities that are being created, notice also how many of these realities are negative. The power to change our reality lies in what we want, if we want something negative you can be sure this is what we will get. Again the problem here is that we do not know that it is our own unconscious need for negative experiences that creates through the action of belief and consciousness our own personal reality.  Observe the reality you create for yourself, look for the patterns that are always there, patterns of repeating the same mistakes over and over again and never seeming to learn. This ability to not learn from our mistakes is often mistaken for addictions. Not knowing that we create our own reality we make excuses for what we do and why we do it. Making excuses takes us away from responsibility and makes it increasingly difficult to rectify the situation. Be assured that whatever it is you want you already have, anything you want to change needs to be changed now and not in the future. Without awareness of what it is we really want it is impossible to change anything. The task then is to increase awareness of what it is we really want. There are many ways to increase awareness including meditation but the catch is we have to want that.

Instead of enquiring deeply into what precisely is wrong with the way we think, we tend to be more inclined to ask what is wrong with the things we think about.

‘Language was invented for the purpose of lying’, this is a quotation from R D Laing.  Language can be thought of as imagination, all words are without meaning other than the meaning we assign them. The act of assigning meaning to words involves the use of imagination. The word did not exist until we were able to imagine that it did. There is no limit to the number of words we can imagine and no limit to the meaning we assign to words. When we assign meaning to a word this meaning has power so long as we all hold and imagine the same meaning. There are some words that are reasonably straight - forward and that most of us agree with as to the meaning. There are other words such as god, love, truth and reality where it is not so easy for us to agree on the meaning. We can agree on the general meaning of a word yet there may still be great latitude between the meaning we each may hold. The world of language is also the world of thought. We each of us live in a world of our own thoughts. Each thought is given a particular meaning and is also assigned a certain degree of belief. This can be clearly seen if we observe the verbal interactions between people. We can observe the effect of words on each individual, we can observe words that cause us to love or to hate, words that make us angry or sad and words that can make us laugh or cry or even words that fill us with fear. If we observe carefully we can also see that words that make one person angry do not necessarily have the same effect on another person. This tells us that the meaning that we each assign to words can be very different. A word such as 'death' depending on the meaning given to it may cause some to live their lives with a secret fear. Where there is fear there is imagination and without imagination there can be no fear. What is it we may imagine that can cause us to feel fear? It seems that the answer to this question is ‘almost anything’. Many think that fear is natural and even necessary, while this is understandable it is also untrue. We are afraid for one reason only and that is that we believe in something that is not true and this can be thought of as an inefficient use of imagination. Suffering is always caused by imagination. The process of learning a language begins from the moment we are born. From the beginning we hear the voices and the language of our parents or our siblings or extended family. In time this process is developed, we go to school and are taught not just to speak but to write what we hear. At school we also begin to speak to our peers as well as hear what they have to say. Ultimately we learn language from everyone we may come in contact with. In all of these interactions we learn more than just language we also learn about the way words are used and the emotions that may be injected into them. Some of what we hear is truthful and some is less so. The fears held by our parents can very easily be transmitted through the language our parents use but also through their behaviour. If a mother or father are overly fearful themselves this will be picked up and ingested by the child without ever knowing what has happened. Parents will pass on to their children all that was passed on to them from their parents and again they will not be aware of what has been passed on. It is not possible to assign blame to anyone because no one can be held responsible for what was unknowingly passed on. We do not choose our parents or our language but the part of us I call the ego is the result of all our experiences and without exception we will have ingested much in terms of language and meaning that is not true. The chances of solving this problem are very slim mostly because we are surrounded by others who no matter how learned they may be have experienced a similar version of what we experienced. For most this problem will not be apparent until the degree of suffering they experience reaches a certain level. Suffering always tells us that there is something wrong with the way we think about things. Instead of enquiring deeply into what precisely is wrong with the way we think, we tend to be more inclined to ask what is wrong with the things we think about. We do this because it is easier, but no matter how easy something is it is worthless if it does not work. 

Childhood's End

It is natural for children to look to a father or mother to guide them and we all have to do this with our parents and then later with teachers or mentors of various kinds. There is a long tradition of this in spiritual circles and no shortage of those claiming to have the knowledge their followers are looking for. This knowledge is often referred to as ‘enlightenment’. As I said it is natural that we do this it is also to be expected that if people are looking for this knowledge or ‘enlightenment’ then there will be many who will claim to have this knowledge. There are many areas of life where teachers are invaluable and this may be true to a certain extent in spiritual areas. Ultimately though there is a problem and teachers in spiritual areas may knowingly or not misguide their followers. The reason for this is that it is not possible to know beforehand if a spiritual teacher knows what he or she claims to know. Naturally we look for clues as to whether the teachers claims are true or not. Unfortunately all of these clues require  belief and it seems to be true that if we are looking for something then we have a vested interest in believing things to be true that may not be true. Also a teacher is also unable to know that he or she is actually enlightened without believing it is so. Teachers may also look for clues as to whether they know or not but as with followers this is always dependent on belief and all beliefs will always be suspect. My assumptions are that all beings are inherently perfect – what I mean by this is that all beings are born with consciousness and consciousness is unchangeable and perfect. The only real problem we could ever have is to believe something that is not true. There is nothing about consciousness that requires belief and beliefs have nothing to do with consciousness. Our starting point should be to trust this knowledge - that we have consciousness and nothing we or anyone else could ever do can change this. There are no graduations of consciousness there is just natural pure perfect consciousness and we all have it. The reason we suffer is that we believe things to be true that are not. Ultimately this is something we all have to find out for ourselves, no one can really teach this because all teachings require beliefs and beliefs are actually the problem. Childhood's end is the point where we become responsible for our own beliefs and do not look to others to correct them. 

Self- Referencing

Have you ever wondered how we can kill and hate in the name of religion or God? Surely there is a contradiction here. Most religions advocate peace and love above all things yet the followers of these same religions find no contradiction in hating or killing those who do not agree with them. This contradiction does not only apply to the apparently religious it applies to us all. The question could be ‘how is it possible to hold two opposite beliefs at the same time?’. The answer to this question is we can do this very easily because all our beliefs are self referenced. That is we create our own beliefs in any form and with as many contradictions as we like. The power to believe anything is in a way godlike we can create a universe of our own in which our beliefs do not have to be consistent they can be anything we want them to be. This is not something that needs proving for the evidence is everywhere we look. It is because of this ability to believe anything we wish that we slowly but surely move towards states of insanity. The only thing that could possibly halt this movement is suffering and so it is that the more our beliefs deviate from what is true or actual the more we suffer. The more we suffer the more we are directed towards noticing the beliefs we hold that cause that suffering. Although we have the capacity to suffer a great deal without noticing the link between our suffering and the beliefs we hold the suffering cannot stop until we do.

Favourable Conditions

Consciousness is complete and there is nothing we could ever do to improve or enhance it. Even though this is true for all beings it is not known by all beings. Suffering is the clue that tells us that we do not know consciousness even though what we are is consciousness. We do not know consciousness because our attention is focused on something that obscures consciousness. Consciousness does not have a centre or an edge and so can be said to be without qualities. We can describe any object - animal, vegetable or mineral in terms of its qualities, its colour, shape or dimensions. This cannot be done with consciousness and so even though we are clearly conscious we can only know that we are because of the results of being conscious such as seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling and thinking. We know that we are conscious because we have bodies that through the existence of consciousness inform us of the qualities of all objects but not of consciousness itself. Because one of these qualities is thought we are also able to add something new to what we experience – we can add belief to all that we experience and suddenly what we experience contains another new factor called suffering. It can be seen that if we reverse this process so that we observe suffering and notice that the reason suffering has come into existence is because we believe something that is not true and seeing that what we believe is not true suffering would disappear. When suffering and the belief that caused it have disappeared that which has obscured consciousness is no longer obscuring consciousness. The question then is what are the conditions that favour this removal of that which obscures consciousness? This is a tricky question because it is possible that any conditions could be favourable to this outcome. It could also be said that this then is like a lottery where a very few stumble upon those conditions that are favourable to this outcome. The ability to observe suffering and to see the connection between suffering and belief is clearly important so what conditions would favour this happening. Usually when we suffer we very quickly embark on a movement away from whatever it is perceived that is causing us to suffer or to cover up our suffering through self medication or the satisfaction of our desires which does in the short term help alleviate suffering. In the long term it does not and we find that our movement away from suffering only has the effect of burying our suffering to be unearthed at a later time. In meditation we begin to move not away from suffering but towards suffering, we begin to reverse the process I mentioned earlier we begin to notice our suffering and put ourselves in a position where it becomes possible to see the connection between belief and suffering. In the movement away from suffering this is very unlikely to happen for the simple reason that our attention is diverted away from the source of our suffering rather than towards the source.

100% Responsibility

The world is as it is and it is only our inability to accept this truth that causes us to suffer. This is difficult to unravel because we never quite see the world as it is. By ‘world’ I mean everything that is. At the same time that we are observing the world we are usually already contaminating the evidence. That is we are adding a story or a meaning to what we observe. Based on this story or meaning we form conclusions regarding what we have observed and what we should do. By adding a story we have inadvertently distorted what it is that was originally observed. The ability to create a story came about as a survival mechanism so that we could communicate and cooperate with each other. A story can hold many meanings. A story can be factual and useful and we can have the simple intention of using our stories for that purpose, to be factual and useful. We can however use our stories and draw conclusions that are not factual and useful and serve no useful service to anyone. Anyone who commits a crime or tells a lie is clearly using some kind of negative story. Addictions and mental health problems such as depression must also be based on drawing wrong conclusions to a false story. It is important to understand that whatever story we construct we have to live. Any story with negative implications must result in us having to live that particular story. Simply put this means that if our conclusion about the world is that it is miserable and hopeless then that is exactly what it becomes. The world is as it is and there is no story or conclusion possible that could explain or describe it. There is power in our ability to create a story and we feel powerful when we do this. There is a sense of power in thinking we know what is happening regardless of whether our conclusions are right or wrong. This is why this problem is so difficult to correct. The power we feel in being able to create a story that gives us the impression that we are in control and ‘know’ what we are seeing or doing is addictive. When something is addictive it means that we want that something more than anything else. Wanting the power to control and ‘know’ means we do not want to lose this power which means there is a limit to what we want to ‘know’. We are responsible for every story we construct in the sense that we have to live that story. If the story constructed is ‘I am depressed and feel hopeless’ then we must take responsibility for that story. This means no excuses for why we feel the way we do. If you ask someone who is depressed why they feel depressed there is always a ‘because’ something is not the way it should be. This ‘because’ story is circular in that it always comes to the same conclusion that what we believe is correct. If we are able to stop using stories to confirm what we believe we may end up at the truth, which is that we have feelings that are continually changing in response to what we believe about the world. These feelings or physical sensations have no meaning we add meaning to them in order to control and ‘know’ what is going on even if that results in suffering. If we can accept 100% responsibility for what we believe and see that what we believe becomes the world we live in, that is the world we have created in our head that we are then required to live in. Further if we can accept 100% what we are physically feeling without adding any meaning whatsoever then we will see the truth that physical feelings have no meaning and that they come and go naturally. It is only in the story we create and add to our feelings that suffering can exist.