I’m becoming invisible. Those forms, be they people or other, to which I had been attached are falling away. And not of my own doing. Even when it appears I may have been the agent of change, it felt as if I had no choice in the matter. The past year has been particularly momentous. A mother dies. A job found is relinquished. A lover leaves. Add these to previous separations from close family and here I am completely adrift. Free.
J. Krishnamurti writes:
Where are you going to start? You must start from freedom. Where there is freedom there is love. This freedom and love will show you when to co-operate and when not to cooperate. This is not an act of choice, because choice is the result of confusion. Love and freedom are intelligence.
This true intelligence is life, of course. Call it consciousness, being, the universe, or god, it is the intelligence which rules the stars and operates all quantum mechanics. It is said a million monkeys on a million typewriters would in time write all of Shakespeare. But it is more truthful to say a million Shakespeares could never create a single monkey.
People are enamored by their creations though. They are dazzled by belief, ideas, and all kinds of thought. So much so, that most people forget what they are and believe some idea about themselves instead. In fact, that may be the best definition of a person: consciousness identifying with thought. The limitless god becomes the limited ego.
Again Krishnamurti:
Thought itself is always divisive, so all action based on an idea or an ideology is division. Thought cultivates prejudice, opinion, judgment. Man in himself, being divided, seeks freedom out of this division. Not being able to find it he hopes to integrate the various divisions, and of course this is not possible. You cannot integrate two prejudices. To live in this world in freedom means to live with love, eschewing every form of division.
For me, this may be Krishnamurti’s prime idea, the thorn which removes all thorns. Thought is binary. Like all the ones and zeroes behind all computer software, it creates a marvelous world. In this manner, thought is a wonderful tool. But it is not the true intelligence of the universe, the One. Again, it is binary. So when one identifies with any thought, one is inherently divided. Violence and war are not random events in the history of humankind; they are the intrinsic and inevitable outcome of people.
And people will be people. But in the midst of all these thought forms arises love. Not romantic love or possessive love, but unconditional love. This is the love a newborn brings into the world. This is pure being, consciousness, life, before it is socially conditioned into a thought form by all the well-meaning parents, teachers, and friends. It is what we are and not who we think we are. Love is the holy spirit, the satguru coming into the world of thought-forms and showing the true way.
So for me, this is the unavoidable equation. Whenever the way is questioned or misplaced or lost, I look to this one inescapable conclusion. A person is constantly divided, no ifs, ands or buts. Despite the plea for humanism on the one hand or the American Dream on the other, they are impossible ways. Violence of some sort is inevitable, even if it is just that quiet desperation Thoreau speaks to, a quiet desperation which is so ingrained in the person, it appears not be a desperation at all. Hey, it’s the way of the world!
But there is another way: in the world but not of the world. There is nothing to do but stop doing. Surrender to the holy spirit, the satguru, love. And love will beget freedom and freedom will beget love. Yet, will it be an easy way? It all depends what one sees as easy.
When one identifies one’s self as a person, it won’t be all that easy. I can tell you this from personal experience. Losing a mother hurts. Losing a lover is literally heart-breaking. Under such conditions, one’s social conditioning reappears with a vengeance. One spins out of control until that time one centers in being, if one centers again in being.
And, to repeat, people will be people. Unconditional love, despite all the rave reviews, is not loved all that much by people. In fact, from someone other than a newborn, it is quite threatening. The death of Jesus points to this, if nothing else. Most people will just rain bad thoughts on anyone espousing unconditional love. Impractical. Good-for-nothing. Has no future. True. True. True.
So, if you’re looking for a shower of love, don’t look outside. Look within. And be. There’s no need to look any further. Being is love.
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