Thursday, January 28, 2010

Just Knowing Is Living Lucidly




In a dream I was being chased by a lion which had an enormous head. It roared behind me as I ran with my heart pounding so hard I thought it was going to stop. As it got closer and I knew that I would be killed and devoured soon I suddenly became lucid; I knew, right in the middle of the dream, that I was only dreaming. I stopped, turned around and faced the roaring enormous head. I put my hands out towards it and started to play with its face which now looked and felt like play-dough. I laughed and laughed as I played with its face. Then I woke up. There was a smile on my face.

There is only knowing. Everything is only an appearance in that knowing. Is there a tree? No, there is just the knowing of a tree. Is there shame of being exposed to be ignorant? No, there is just the knowing of shame. Knowing is the only constant. Everything is changing appearances, changing formations in this ongoing and constant knowing. There is no Mulla. There is the formation of matter and energy (the body) and of thoughts, concepts, and feelings (the mind) which are all happening in knowing.

What is the difference between living with this realisation, that there is only knowing and living ordinarily, without this realisation? It is like the difference between being lucid while dreaming and dreaming ordinarily, without being lucid. There is peace and laughter in living with the realisation that there is only knowing. Life could not be taken that seriously again.

In ordinary dreaming there is the experiencing of fear, pleasure, seeing, hearing, touching, etc. This shows that there is knowing going on and is present all the time during the dreaming process. But this knowing is mixed with the belief that what is experienced is 'real' and out is there. When one becomes lucid that belief in the 'reality' of what is happening is gone. There is then laughter and play in the middle of what was fear before; the frightening lion was only made of play-dough after all!

In the same way, in our everyday life, knowing is always present but also is almost always mixed with the belief in the 'reality' of what appears to be happening. In a dream, 'reality' is spun out of pure thoughts. In everyday life, what we take to be 'reality' is spun out of our thoughts about 'what is' (haven't you noticed how different people respond differently to the same happening? And haven't you noticed that the same person may respond differently to the same thing depending on what and how he/she thinks about it?) This belief in the 'reality' of what thoughts say about 'what is' determines the next response of the mind which is taken to be 'real' again and thus the next response and the same again and so on again. In this way the mind is kicked along its way to 'dream' the everyday life with its pleasures and pains.

Realising that there are only appearances in the knowing (of 'what is') is pure knowing without the extra belief that mixes with it and deludes the mind into responding with thoughts, feelings or actions.

There is only knowing and you are that. It is not reducible to anything simpler. You are that knowing-experiencing that knows fear but is not and cannot be fearful. It knows all the manifestations and appearances but is not and cannot be any of the manifestations and appearances. Do you see that? How now can you not laugh in the face of someone who is screaming at you with anger?!

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