“If you do not want to know God, never look within or stare at a blank wall, and certainly do not let them revoke your ticket to ride.”- j. senor
I have been riding on the biggest roller coaster (read my previous blogs to get a better idea of what I am referring to here) in the history of creation, and certainly it has been inundated with peaks and valleys (more like Mt. Everest and Death Valley, but that is “beside” the point- “laterally” speaking, ha… that is funny, in a very subtle way, but funny nevertheless, right?).
Anyway, I had this laminated ticket (mind) that allowed me access to the relative reality of the manifest world, or what I call the biggest roller coaster ride in the history of creation, and I have had it revoked.
Now, just so you know, I did not always enjoy having the ticket- the ride can make you sick sometimes and just when you feel like puking and want to get off, you find that the controller of the ride (Supreme Consciousness) has gone out for a double shot of espresso, but having it seemed, well, it just seemed like what you were supposed to have. That is, if you want to experience. And, isn’t that the point? I mean, the point of Supreme Consciousness manifesting a mind. You know, in order to experience itself in myriad form?
So, imagine my chagrin at having my ticket revoked. And, after all the trouble I went to of having it laminated. I didn’t want the ticket to get destroyed by the intensity and duration of the ride. Thought I was protecting the ticket… ensuring that it would always be there. After all, even in lieu of occasionally losing the contents of my innards, the roller coaster ride (manifest universe) is very exciting and worth riding, and riding several times. Plus, I have grown quite attached to it.
The thing is, ya gotta have a ticket. No ticket means no ride. Can’t hardly have a universe manifest (ride on a roller coaster) without something, call it mind (ticket), to manifest it. And, I don’t think you can sneak onto (or off of, for that matter) this particular ride. Simply got to have that ticket (mind).
Now, you’re probably wondering who the “they” are that revoked my ticket and how it was revoked. Me too.
My best guess is that the “they” are the techniques, the scientific methodology that the 8-limbed path of Ashtanga Yoga espouses that can take one from the illusory notion that we are only our mind and its contents to the Truth that we are at our essential nature not just the mind and its contents, but what is beyond the mind… Pure Consciousness itself.
The techniques are the culprits. They have revoked my ticket. They have taken me beyond the mind and into Pure Being itself.
Voila.
They work.
Oh, happy day.
Chagrin gone.
Revoke away.
That darn beautiful ticket (mind) had allowed me to continue riding the ride with its pleasures and pains and constant creative motion for a long, long time. And, I had embraced it and my attachments fully… that ride can be so much fun. (And, just so you know, I do find that laminated ticket sometimes… it hasn’t been hidden very well, and when I find it, how I do ride away).
But, the lamination may have been a bit much. I mean, this mind-manifested world of things (the roller coaster ride) is great, but so is what lies beyond it… the no-thing. And, in fact, isn’t that why we do our practice, i.e., to be in this world of manifestation, but not disturbed by it? To know the stillness and peace of Unity Consciousness while in manifestation? To know, no-mind?
Let us all, then, do the practice. Moving beyond the mind. Supported by Grace. Into Pure Being where tickets are, well… they are mute.
Shanti, shanti, shantihi, Aum.
Hi Sis!
I am going to be as honest as I know how. And honesty is a real bitch.
My first thought: Just wait.
My second thought: WOW!
The first reaction comes from an envy deep within. I gather you have achieved what I am still striving for. I know what it is called, but have no clue how it would feel if I ‘got it’, and striving to attain an image of howt I think it would feel is, well, the infrastructure of my own roller coaster. And I wanted to rain on your parade, and say it won’t last. And why did that come first?
The second thought was based on wanting to be with you and see how you are, who you are (h-o-w; w-h-o, w-o-h!, o-w-h!) right now. To see how the unmanifest manifests, in you. But, I get tripped up in words, things, objects, the 10,000 things.
Now I’m going to ramble.
Last night I heard an interview of John Cage, the avant garde musician, by Terri Gross. It blew me away. He caught my attention (mind you, I’m scraping our eaves in prep for painting our house when he was being interviewed) when he said his experiments with music started with sound. Why,he asked, should we ignore the sounds around us, even the sirens, car alarms, and trains that make up our day? Why not listen to two, or even three sounds at once? The gist of it was that all things are manifesting the Unnamed continually.
He went on from there to a discussion of people in our lives. Why do we always interpret what folks say based on what our previous experiences have been. We ourselves have changed and are not the same as we were when we last spoke to this or that person. So have they. So there are two new people meeting for the first time.
I look forward to meeting you again for the first time, dear heart, soundlessly, wordlessly, ‘thing’-lessly.
Jeri,
Just re-listened to Terri Gross’ interview. You gotta hear it. Go to npr.org, click on Fresh Air, go to the 7/31/09 show and check out the John Cage interview. It runs just under 20 minutes.
He talks about reaching enlightenment through sound. Memory blocks us from the Now. Quote from Eric Satie: Experience is a form of paralysis.
Just got finished with an intense weekend training with Michael Stone. WOW. I am still processing the information. Cannot really talk about it too much right now. You know how that goes. I will call you soon.
Not sure I understand the statement that Experience is a form of paralysis. Can you elaborate?
Oh, and why do we have to reach enlightenment? Thought we already were.
The idea that we have to “do something”, in order to “get something” keeps us from our current now experience, doesn’t it?
The formal practice of techniques, in my understanding, is just a facilitator to assist us in our present experience… to help us loose the bonds of our dogma about ourselves, each other and the world around us, to help us not be so concealed in thought. In that way, we can begin to be intimate with each other, love each other more and come into community.
We can serve each other.
I don’t know. I am no expert and really I don’t know a damn thing (oh, except that pumpkin muffins are to die for.)
Jeri,
Well, experience can set us up so that we think we know a person. We think we know how they will respond. So, if we interact with someone with that mindset, we are not seeing them as they are, since they are, to some extent, not the same person they were since last encountered. And neither are we. It reminds me of the blog you wrote about the guy in the park whom you first were adverse to talking to.
On another note, for me, striving is my ‘default’ position. That’s one of the ‘premature cognitive commitments’ that I’m aware of. That’s another facet of my entropy. I’m aware that this is another ’should’ in my life. The samskara runs deep, and the seed of another possibility is slowly growing — the possibility of going with the flow in my life, allowing a deeper, truer life. Does that make sense?
Among many other things, practice is a way to manifest the unnamed form that we are. If we wake up, that’s a bonus.
Another entropic (is that a word?) belief I am aware of is the trap of thinking being ’spiritual’ requires being in some sort of other dimension. It’s right here, right now. So waking up, remembering, whatever, is spiritual. There is no supernatural. The natural will take us where we want to go. The trap is holding onto an image, a form, of what that looks like. It doesn’t look like anything, it just is.
Pmpkin muffins, eh? Not that much available around here. But Starbucks Classic Cinnamon Cake is pretty good.
AAA uuuu mmmmm, shanti, shanti, shantihi, Jeri.
BRILLIANT!!!
Interesting thoughts Jeri. Is easy to get the ticket back.
I know, damn it… oops can I say that? And, before she knew what had happened, she was laughing herself silly as the largest roller coaster in the history of the Universe clickety clacked it’s way out of its resting place, picked up speed and twisted and turned… bumpety, bumpety… up and down, side to side making her clutch her ticket so it wouldn’t blow away by the force of the wind.
I certainly need to get out a lot more as well as halt just spending most of my time of day trying to play poker on myspace or facebook on the grounds that these days i have been missing with regards to this. Although I cannot tell you that I 100% concur with every expression, it’s good to read some clever writings rather than the standard trash I see flying round the internet.
hi there fine little blog ya have there
I use the same exact template on my website but for what ever reasons it seems to stream more rapidly on this blog despite the fact that this blog has alot more material. Are you getting some plug ins or widgets that speed it up? Do you think you could quite possibly write about the plug ins so I might use these in my own blog so twilight new moon followers could watch twilight eclipse online trailers and videos swifter I’d be grateful – thank you ahead of time 
hehe ok so here’s how asinine I am, midway through looking through your post I dropped my sensitive mouse and shut down the internet explorer in error and I could not locate your post again until 6 days afterwards to finish reading where I left off for the reason that I didn’t remember how I linked to your web site in the first place ahaha anyhow it was worth the delay..regards