What About Consciousness?

now (0.00 / 0)

Hi Krishna,

I have a question. You say at the end of this talk "... and it's very easy now. So it only has to ever happen now, so it's no big burden."
I've gone back and forth with this one many times. When it feels easy to me, I recognize that I only have to do it now. I don't feel that burden of having to do it for the rest of my life or whatever.
Then, another time, when it feels too difficult, painful, or boring to put my attention on silence, then that thought - that I only need to do it now, does not help much at all.
What about those times, when it feels too difficult or painful to even attend to that silence for one second?

Regards,

Bapa

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by: Bapa @ Mon Oct 26, 2009 at 09:03:54 AM CDT

Without force or Shoulds or Ideals (0.00 / 0)

Hi Bapa,

You say, "When it feels easy to me, I recognize that I only have to do it now....Then, another time...then that thought - that I only need to do it now, does not help much at all."

That is it: when it is recognized, it is obvoius and effortless. When it is a thought, it is ineffectual and difficult.

There is slience in every moment, but we are otherwise engaged. I am not much interested in convincing myself or anyone else to fall in love with silence, it must be our own natural impulse to fall in love, we can't force it.

This all seems to work best when we engage in this "waking" stuff only when we are naturally drawn to it.

I don't mean to say that we can't use intention, but if we find something else filling our awareness choicelessly then what could we possibly say ( or do) about that?
Either  we can shift our attention if we choose to, or we can't even if we choose to. I would suggest that we embrace what we experience, particularly when we feel we have no choice.

There does seem to be a difference between boredom and
pain, but then again why force yourself to do anything? It all becomes a bit like having to eat your greens.

"What about those times, when it feels too difficult or painful to even attend to that silence for one second?"

I would say that you don't have to then, or ever.

Love,
Krishna

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by: Krishna @ Tue Oct 27, 2009 at 02:23:45 AM CDT

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Love (0.00 / 0)

Hi again Bapa,
Then again, if you don't particularly feel any obligation here but instead are talking unquenchable longing in the midst of pain, that's another matter. In that case  Prayer and Invocation is something I'd suggest. This very yearning is the essence (for me) of the conscious core wound and that is Devotion itself: the finite yearning for the infinite.  
Being with the pain has a new meaning when it's for this love. The Sufi's are the most vocal about how this longing for The Guest is a valuable treasure in itself, heart-wrenching as it is. The fire of the wound melts us, and it has a "direction" of surrender and merging. All of our pain has a place of meaning here: the finite yearning for the infinite. The manifest yearning for it's home and source. Knowing this doesn't make it "not pain" but it makes a huge difference for me.
The pain of this yearning is redemptive of Life and needs no redemption itself. I can never prove this, or argue this with anyone, it's just what I feel.

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by: Krishna @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 12:24:47 PM CDT

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yearning (0.00 / 0)

Thanks, Krishna. I know that path. For years I have loved that poem by Kabir- you know the one- that ends with this verse-

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that
does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

Sometimes  I have walked that path, so I know the truth in what you have written here. But this path does not call all of me, as it seems to have called you. Or it calls all of me for a while, then off I wander again.
I don't know. Maybe I will wind up on that path again. I don't feel it calling me now.
Like Waking Down, I don't know that it gives me help where  I need it the most.

Ghasso,

Bapa

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by: Bapa @ Mon Nov 02, 2009 at 09:09:37 AM CST

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intite (0.00 / 0)

Krishna-

I like what you have written here, and I like that you compare it to falling in love. I think of it as a mutual welcoming. When I welcome the silence, it welcomes me. It reminds me of the slogan I remember seeing on a 7 up bottle (I think) as a kid:

You like it, it likes you.
I remember thinking it absurd that the liquid in that bottle would like me. Perhaps it did, though. I do feel that way about the vast silence. I need a word that means intend and invite. Intite.  I intite the silence, and I feel or imagine it welcomes me. Like some long lost friend, still there.
Yeah, you don't force a friendship, it either happens or it doesn't.
I like it, it likes me..

Peace,

Bapa

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by: Bapa @ Mon Nov 02, 2009 at 09:06:13 AM CST

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Tree trunks, Branches, Caterpillars and Our Own Dharma(s) (0.00 / 0)

Thank you Bapa,
I love that, "You like it, it likes you".
I enjoyed both your responses. Very beautiful.

Also they opened up something like a side issue in all this about the way that I hold the whole the Waking Down in Mutuality process in relation to all such things.

Because It entails a bit more than this conversation I'm posting it on another thread : Tree trunks,  Branches, caterpillars and Our Own Dharma(s)

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by: Krishna @ Mon Nov 02, 2009 at 14:28:18 PM CST

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