Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!news.arc.nasa.gov!eos!data.nas.nasa.gov!news From: cyee@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au (Chut Ngeow YEE) Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern Subject: Do You Know Where, Why, or What It Is? Message-ID: <1991Jun17.050639.17000@nas.nasa.gov> Date: 17 Jun 91 05:06:39 GMT Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov Organization: NAS Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Lines: 199 Approved: prabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov My previous postings on the seven stages of life seems to have raised some eye brows. I have been trying very hard to avoid touching on that issue, but it seems that I have to go thorough this pain of the ass now. I planned to do some a series of articles which I hope would clafify the situation somewhat, but I really am not greatly concerned about the matter myself. When I read about Baba Muktananda meditation on the "blue pearl" I do not have the slightest idea what he meant. Then there is the kundalini shakti, the witnessing consciousness etc. There seems to be a whole range of subtle phenomena that various people mentioned and which Da Avabhasa commented about. I will do some research and present you my finding, it will be a good exercise for me but they will be things that I have to verify myself when the times come (if ever). Until then, lets have some crazy time with a wild talk that I re-discovered by accident: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Sri Da Avabhasa: Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is there anything? Where is it? What is it? Devotee: I couldn't possibly answer. Sri Da Avabhasa: I am not asking you for an answer. I am asking you to really consider this. There is no answer. All of our complication, all of our thinking, is animated as if we have answered these questions. We act as if we have answered these questions, but we NEVER answer these questions. We have never answered these questions, and yet we carry on in an orderly fashion, living, acting, eating, shitting, sexing, as if we had already answered everything. Human beings have never answered anything ultimately. We have merely adapted to the ordinary facts of what appears to us. We have never understood these ordinary facts. We cannot account for these ordinary facts. We cannot account for the ordinary fact that we are here. We talk to one another, we think, we engage in functional relations of all kinds, as if we had answered the great questions. I am suggesting to you that we have never even ASKED the great questions. Therefore, these conventions of our relations with one another are just conventions. They are not the products of great wisdom. They are just conventions based on the facts of ordinary apparitions. Why, then, should we be so terribly bothered by our conventional mind, as of underneath it there were some great secret to be learned? There is no secret under it! There is no secret at all! You open your eyes, there are others, you talk, you have words, you engage in social activities. There is no great wisdom underneath it. Why should we imagine that merely because we think about our thinking we are going to discover some great answer? There is no answer in our mind! Our mind is not based on any kind of question, not to mention an answer! The mind is merely an accommodation to the way things seem to be! There is no great answer in it! All that we are bothered by is this conventional apparition of things as they seem - the fact that you are you, and we are we, and other people have other ideas about what they want to do at this moment. What the hell else is going on? Do we have to think that there is some kind of great thought underneath our thoughts? None of us have even HAD a great thought! (Laughter.) All we are involved in are conventions of experiencing and knowing based on what seems to be. That is it! We do not engage in these conventions because of some great absolute thought about Reality. We engage in these conventions because of what seems to be! Thoughts are just our way of working out the conventions of our apparent associations. Reality is TOTALLY beyond thought. Reality has nothing to do with the conventions of our thinking. All the thinking that disturbs us is just a result of our application to this appearance, these conventions. We do not have to realize why anything is, what anything is, where anything is. Rather, we must go beyond thought. Thoughts have never accounted for those matters. Our thoughts only account for the mere appearance of everything. We did not begin to think because we realized where, why, or what anything is. We never thought about any of that. Thought has nothing to do with where, why, or what anything IS. Thought has only to do with "there is that." Devotee: Thought comes after the fact. Da Avabhasa: Yes! The fact! The fact is what we must find out about! Our thought has never accounted for the fact of where, why, or what anything is. Where, why, or what, for example, is "arm"? We cannot deal with that! Where, why, or what is that? Where is it? Why is it? What IS it? To say my, me, right, arm, hand - those are merely presumptions. Where? Why? What? Do you know? Do you? Do you know where, why, or what THAT is? (Shouting) do you or don't you? ... Consider it. Your thinking has to do with the fact that you perceive your hand, for example. Your thinking has nothing to do with where, why, or what your hand IS. It has nothing to do with it! You have a conventional reference for your "hand", but such conventions have nothing to do with knowing where, why, or what it IS. They have only to do with fact THAT it is. THAT anything is, is the basis of mind.... Our entire lives are based on the fact of what we perceive. Our lives are not in the slightest based on knowing where, why, or what anything IS. Our lives are based on the fact of what appears to be, and our functional relations to these things. This is what we make language of, responses of, and mind of. We don't make language, responses, and mind of knowing where, why, or what anything is, not ANY thing - not even your "nose", so-called. You don't know where, why, or what this is, do you? Do you? Where it is? Why it is? What it IS? DO you know this? (Long pause.) It IS! That is the only goddamned thing you know! That is what your mind is made of, the isness of it, the appearance of it.... The mind is based on the most superficial acknowledgment of the factual, perceived existence of things. That is all your mind is. All of your abstract thoughts are merely a swoon upon that ordinary acknowledgment of the factual existence of things. It is not based on ANY profound knowledge of where, why, or what anything is. (Shouting) ANYTHING WHATSOEVER! ANYTHING!! IS IT?!! IS IT??? You didn't make any goddamned mind out of knowing where, why, or what anything IS. You made mind out of acknowledging the fact that things are! That's all! .... We can go on being totally bothered by our minds, but what does it amount to?! Mind is nothing! Mind is knowing you have a moustache, two arms, two legs. What is so profound about all that?... This matter is a great consideration. I think that we should not be bothered by our minds, because our minds are just a convention, an ordinary arrangement whereby we deal with the fact that things seem to be. If you were to manipulate the organs of the brain a little bit you would not even see THIS. You would not see anybody! Based on the current state of perception in this body-mind, which we all can agree is duplicated in each of our cases, we presume that we exist, and we make speech and thought and mind out of this acknowledgment. But we have never once considered or answered the question why, where, or what anything, anything whatsoever, is.... Therefore, mind is not a big problem. If you are disturbed by your mind, it is simply because you have many thoughts, but there is nothing profound about it. Mind is merely a confused play upon what seems to be. You do not have to answer to your mind. There is no answer IN your mind. You must stop thinking, and just look, and consider where, why, or what is anything whatsoever? This consideration is prior to mind, has nothing to do with mind, has nothing to do with what seems to be. Everything we do and think and talk is a convention that we build upon what seems to be. Where, why, and what anything is, is an entirely different matter! It IS the great matter. Our complications of thought are just ordinary aberrations, built upon our most superficial acknowledgment that things exist. We are looking into our minds to find great answers, but there are not great answers in our minds. We never made mind out of any great thing! We never made mind out of a great answer, not to mention the fact that we never made mind out of a great question. Mind is an ordinary activity, like digestion, breathing, the movement of blood. it is an ordinary activity. The great matter is where, why, and what anything is. Where is it? Why is it? WHAT IS it? Do you understand the force of my question?... Our minds are not profound. Our minds are coinage, money, cash for living. They are conventions. Why should we get so deeply involved in the mind? The mind has no answers whatsoever. All the mind is equipped to do is tell you what to pay the taxi driver, what to eat for lunch, or the price of a cookie... Thus, if you have complications in the mind, they are merely conventional complications. They are merely aggravations of this functional, existing mechanism. There is no profundity in it, no profundity at all. If you are having problems, you are in disorder, that is all. That is ALL it is! There is nothing profound about it. Instead of merely dealing with the disorder of your personality, however, you are involved in a great quest, as if somehow deep in your being there were an original answer that you knew when you were a babe, and if you could locate it, all of your complications would disappear. Your complications are very ordinary. There are like the result of not putting the tinker toys together right, not piling the blocks together right, not combing your hair properly! That is all. That is entirely all. Spiritual life is a matter of considering exactly this moment of existence. Where is it, why it is, what it is, and ultimately ... what the Substance of it is, what it is arising within, what is is a modification of. You do not realize this through thinking, because your mind does not contain any answers, never had any answers, is not based on answers.... Therefore, spiritual life has nothing to do with thinking about thought, thinking about emotion, thinking about the body, controlling yourself, manipulating yourself, believing anything on the basis of a thought or anything else. It has to do with simply understanding the futility and ordinariness of thought, emotion and body, so that you stand still and can receive the Blessing. The Blessing is tangible and intangible. It is a paradox. You receive it only when you stand still. When you simply stand still - mind still, emotion still, body still - then you can receive my Influence, my tangible Blessing, the Blessing that all Adepts through all human time and beyond human time and throughout the universe have give. This Blessing has been given by God-Realized beings in countless numbers of forms, in countless numbers of worlds, in countless numbers of times. But it can be received only when the mechanics of personality are still, when you are not believing anything. before you think that you know where, why, of what anything is..... You submit yourself to this stillness, this process, voluntarily, because it awakens love in you. To be still, you see, is to be merely submitted, to release yourself into That which comes upon you and invades your mind, your emotion, your body. Thus, without thinking, without even volunteering, you spontaneously, naturally love it, submit to it, as a women does to her man, as a man does to his woman. It is a spontaneous gesture of submission that invades your life. It interferes with you when you are still, when there is no mind, emotion, or body to think about, to account for, to identify with. You become still through understanding, and this great Force invades the circumstance of being. When it invades you, and you recognize it, then you naturally, physically, emotionally, and mentally submit to it, before you even think or react. A great Bliss arises, a great knowledge without thought arises. It is a paradox, a great moment, a great wonder. It is a miracle... DA AVABHASA God is Not a Gentleman and I Am That One Yee