I couldn’t help writing this post after reading a blog published by a colleague on “Emotional intelligence”, debunking the cult of positive/negative thinking. The truth is, it is the mind that creates the duality, positive and negative thinking. Have we ever tried to understand thought as the window or screen through which we se the world? Let us try and understand it together.
“We are the world and the world is us”, stated one of the greatest Zen masters. A thinker. I do not wish to call it a philosophy because it dilutes the essence of self-awareness or enlightenment as some would like to call it, placing it on the altar of greatness. When a philosophy is institutionalized it becomes part of a thought process, leading to cult proportions and perhaps religions. There is no greatness attached to understanding daily living and to understand this is to reflect upon thoughts and its various ramifications. We as a human race have been living in communities, societies and nations, we have evolved over a period of time, and many technological advancements and inventions are continuously taking place. But has our consciousness as a race changed or evolved? Are we not the same miserable pitiful selves fighting against each other, jealous, greedy, and envious, wanting to succeed over the other at any cost? We have been the same since we started living in communities, societies and nations despite all the technological and scientific achievements. It is our thoughts that have created this world and hence, the “Truth” as quoted earlier, by the Zen master.
We need technology, we need science. But do we need pride in achievement? Achievement as we understand it, measured by success and stature in society. Who wants to measure happiness? …
Happiness is about ending sorrow, ending pain. For once do not think that one will end it as a full stop suddenly, and then forever live in eternal bliss! Our thoughts are an accumulation of experiences, knowledge, it involves culture as represented by music, art, literature and experiences that come with relationships, right from the time we are born and those that have also been passed down as knowledge. Our parents, society, education systems are all part of this. We identify ourselves with our thoughts. We all depend on one another. We need to live in this society as man and woman; we should share our love with our dear ones but is it only for the dear ones? Isn’t LOVE a flower that is willing to share its beauty for all to cherish? Our idea of true love is just another pattern of thought and is the reason for our pain, we prefer to love one and hate the other, love my wife and hate my neighbor, love my country and hate the other. Well, why do we live so, in this eternal conflict? We see the world through our thoughts that have been embedded as a consciousness in our brain and our mind thinks by taking leafs out of this brain whenever we need to act in this world, we do not act upon seeing but act upon reaching out to an experience (a known past) and therefore the purity of love is diluted because we identify ourselves to a particular pattern of thought from the past or thoughts from the past, all fragmented, beliefs. I believe in capitalism, you believe in socialism, some one else in communism. We also have our religions through which we seek to find LOVE. There is always conflict when one seeks, when one pursues there is time and time involves thought and thought is the SELF as accumulated over eons of experiences, beliefs and opinions, When we see the truth of this, the first and only step to self awareness blossoms.
From here on, one should stop to seek but look within, try not to escape and seek answers from existing patterns of the thought or not escape into activities of extreme pleasure like excessive partying, drinking and smoking, not to mention sensual pursuits. Pain and pleasure are two sides of the same coin. To be aware of both is intelligence, to deny them is ignorance. When we stay with the truth of our pain, the one, which is the result of our thoughts, we cannot afford to slip into another pattern! We need to stay with it without condemnation or justification, this is the first and only step! It may take forever to find answers because it needs to come from within and there is a moment when it does spring, it comes from deep beneath those layers of self doubt and reflection, the “SATORI” moment. There is a “flip in the consciousness” and when this happens everything one sees is clear, without thought as an experience from the past which in turn creates the future, interfering in one’s actions. One lives the moment and moves to the next, this movement from one moment to the next is timeless, devoid of thought. It is at that very moment that LOVE manifests in the entire consciousness, the endless vast, beautiful and most humble light.
Therefore positive thinking or negative thinking are dualities that we have created, thinking essentially it is and thinking instantly upon seeing is awareness, its no great mystery! To intellectually decipher it and study it is insignificant because we need to look beyond words, those that are all part of the known world. We may call it Zen or Ohm or any such word but to name it is futile, to be free is to be free from the known. When one sees with LOVE as the only guiding light, one is aware of pain and acts out of pure LOVE because this state of awareness only allows one to be compassionate without judging or condemning. And so if a friend is in pain and laments about the day’s happenings at work, LOVE knows to listen and place an arm around the shoulder of the Buddha, who is in pain.
Yes, everyone has the Buddha inside him or her. To let it blossom and be the flower, the warmth of compassionate light is the ending of sorrow, the ending of pain! Pure LOVE or Nirvana!
To quote a Zen master or an enlightened bodhisattva is to dabble in intellectual glib, it does not give one an answer simply because the answer is not ones own! Have we found it for ourselves is the question? To quote is to opine and to opine is to bring in thought, the self, which is part of the known world. The intellect is part of the known world; intelligence is freedom from the known.
Well, I can’t help but not quote…:)
“When things of the mind don’t fill your heart, then there is love, and love alone can transform the present insanity and madness in the world, not systems, not theories, either of the left or the right”- Jiddu Krishnamurti. This Buddha was once asked during a conversation. “What about your consciousness after your body is no more?” To which he replied “ If some one reads me, understands me and sees me as a mirror, then my consciousness lives on”