SUICIDE

February 11, 2013

This morning during Meditation the topic came up to write about suicide.  This is not an easy topic to talk about, well it is easy to talk about but maybe it is not so easy to hear, we shall see.  Today is the anniversary of my significant other, of nine years, Mark’s death.  It is not surprising that this would be a topic of discussion, but it is surprising in that it showed up.

All “suicide” stems from one thing.  Suicide stems from the belief in the “I” thought.  Without an “I” there is no one that would commit suicide.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that “I” don’t know how powerful thoughts can be.  Have attempted suicide on a few occasions and do know how dark it can get and how strong a belief can become.  So this is not about belittling the power of the mind.  Instead let’s shed some LIGHT on it. 

Let’s take this slowly if we can. 

Thoughts of suicide appear when one is paying attention to thoughts and not who they ARE.  You are not a thought, if you were, you couldn’t pay attention to it … you would be it.  So when someone attempts suicide it is because they have placed all the attention on a “thought” and in turn created it into a belief and then believe the “belief” is true.  It is always something about a past or future that cannot be changed but is not let go of.  The person imagines something about themselves and/or the circumstance they “think” they are in and see no way out, but how could one, you have to be alive to see it.  Suicide wouldn’t exist if everyone would just wait to see what happens, instead of just assuming they know what will happen.

Let’s look at an example of how a “thought” becomes a “belief.”  Let’s use warts (heh) as an example.  If you have ever had a Plantar’s Wart, you know that it starts out small (like a thought) and then over time it gets harder (like when you keep paying attention to a thought) and then eventually it is so hard that you have to get it cut out or nitrogen to remove it (a belief becomes solidly believed and suicide seems the only option). 

So if you can see this … if you can see the thought become solid and believed in, then you also can see that the undoing of the belief is the undoing of Suicide. 

One does not have to kill the “I” thought or any thought and killing the body will not kill the “I” thought, because the “I” thought is not the body. 

How sucky will it be if you kill the body (thinking it is you) only to come to find out that you weren’t the body and now you are without a body but still *think* you exist.  There is a good book on this, it is not the Truth, but it is a good pointer and can be helpful in seeing things from a different perspective.  It is called “Stephen Lives.”

It writing is not about killing the “I” thought, it is about beginning to see that it is not real. 

Only you can stop paying attention to the thoughts, the quickest way to begin doing this is to look and see who is watching the thoughts. 

You can’t be the thought if you are watching the thought, so who is watching? 

This will take some practice because you have been watching the thoughts for so long, you believe them to be true. 

Look how strong beliefs are; if we didn’t have them, there would be no war, there would be nothing to fight over, if you didn’t believe there was something to fight over.  And how do you begin to see that there is nothing to fight over, by beginning to STOP and take a look, honest look around you and see if anything that you believe or are thinking, is actually happening, or are you just “thinking” about it. 

If you are just “thinking” about it then it is not real, it is your imagination and you must wait and see what shows up.  Stop assuming you know what is going to happen, you don’t. 

Begin to start waiting to see what will happen, you might be pleasantly surprised.

If you are having thoughts about suicide and how awful everything is, you may want to at first, get some help with the emotional part of it, that can be assisted by certain medications and am not saying that everyone should be medicated (you actually do not need it … but it can be helpful in the beginning - just to get you to a place where you can begin to see that thoughts are not real). 

There are benefits to medication as well as some awful side-effects, so watch yourself, make a plan not to be on them for very long and do the work.  Self-investigate.  Do this with the question “Who am I?” and write down everything that comes up.  If it is something that you can change or alter then it is not who you are, do a process of elimination until there is nothing left (no beliefs about who you are, all that is left is who you Are, without beliefs).

Continue to bring yourself/attention back to the moment you are IN.  Not the one you are “thinking” about, the one right in front of your face.

Please feel free to write privately.

There is also a movie called “The Bridge” (that is a link to the full movie) that can be watched online by clicking that link, it is well done and can offer, again, some insights.

PRAYER & STILLNESS

(I AM is not a thought)

The following is in response to a question raised in Western Religion Philosophy Class at College of the Siskiyous.  Weed, CA.

Prayer

“Prayer has been an essential part of Christianity since its earliest days. Prayer is an integral element of the Christian faith and permeates all forms of Christian worship. Prayer in Christianity is the tradition of communicating with God, either in God's fullness or as one of the persons of the Trinity.”  (Wikipedia, 2013.)

Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with Prayer, though at it’s premise in the way most seem to use it, perpetuates two lies; one that there is something that the one praying is separate from and two, that things can be some other way than how they are.  They are both actually the same thing.

Prayer is actually saying that the one that is being prayed to … isn’t doing a good enough job and could do better.  It would be just as wise to begin to accept things how they are and the possibility (the very real possibility) that you don’t know how things are supposed to be.  Then you begin to grow out Faith (which does not require any prayer) that everything is perfect and unfolding perfectly and always has, even though you may not understand why or how it is unfolding.  If you still require “prayer” then possibly one might pray to begin to know this … to begin to have Faith that this is so.

Things cannot be any other way than how they are, if they could they would be.  That seems pretty easy to see (as long as you are willing to stop telling a story of how things should be and just begin to experience them exactly as they are).  If something is going to be some other way, just watch … it will … things are constantly shifting and changing and if one begins to stop listening to the thoughts about how things should be and begins to pay attention to how they are … the mind begins to become quieter and quieter.

“Vygotsky theorized that very young children don’t think silently to themselves the way adults do — at first they only “think” by speaking out loud to their parents, siblings, or caregivers. Later, this develops into “self-talk” (if you’ve ever been around young children you may have noticed them mumbling to themselves when they’re alone in their rooms). Later still, self-talk internalizes, and becomes inner speech (what adults experience as thinking — or at least one type of thinking).” (Moyer. 2013)

This is what is being pointed to.  You weren’t born thinking.  You were born in Stillness and came into a world of noise “thinking.”  You “learned” to “think” prior to thinking/thoughts there was only the natural state of simply “Being” Aware of everything in Stillness.  This is how it is right now, begin to stop paying attention to the thoughts and begin paying attention to the Stillness.

On Stillness

“The Jesus Prayer or “The Prayer” has been widely taught and discussed throughout the history of the Eastern Churches. It is often repeated continually as a part of personal ascetic practice, its use being an integral part of the eremitic tradition of prayer known as Hesychasm meaning "to keep stillness"). (Wikipedia. 2013.)

Not surprisingly, this Prayer is popular in the East, but not in the West.  The East has been immersed for thousands of years in the practice of placing the attention on Stillness, not the thoughts.  Thoughts are given a great deal of importance in the West, because it is what most identify with as “who they are” as part of or sometimes the entire identity/personality, however, if this is really honestly looked at.  How can one “be” a thought? 

When one becomes ready to let go of the thought “I” … Stillness (in a sense, rushes in and fills all of everything) then there is no room for the thought “I” there is only Stillness … just like when you were a child and you didn’t “think” to exist … you just existed in Stillness.  That is where one returns (though has not ever left), they release the thought “I” back into the Stillness from which it appeared.  No “I,” no problems (who would have them), no prayer needed in Stillness, one would not be still to pray for something.

This does not mean that the world stops, you just begin to experience it from a place of Eternal Stillness.  The mouth will still move (for some) the body will as well, there will look like there are problems but there will not be anyone there for the problem, there will just be a watching of all of the movie playing out, which also includes people praying for things in the movie. 

Another way of seeing this is like going to a movie, you sit there in Silence (which is not Stillness but it is a close in the world pointer).  Sometimes you have a “thought” that you would like the movie to go some other way than how it is going.  However, you cannot change the movie just because you *think* it should be some other way.  Most people should be able to see this analogy.  This is how it is with life and prayer … life/the movie is playing out for your entertainment (feel free to ask “who’s”) and “prayer” is like the “thought” in the movie theater … it doesn’t hurt anything to have it but it doesn’t change a dang thing either.  :o)

Cited

Wikipedia, (2013). Prayer.  Retrieved from:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer,_meditation_and_contemplation_in_Christianity

Wikipedia, (2013). The Jesus Prayer.  Retrieved from: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Prayer

Moyer, J.D. (2011) Sytems for Living Well. “Why I Pray as an Atheist.”  Retrieved from:

http://jdmoyer.com/2011/07/25/why-as-an-atheist-i-pray/

SAME SELF

(Q&A from a Philosophy Class at College of the Siskiyous)

1. With billions of people on this planet, so many different selves, how could it be possible that they are all one self?

First one has to let go of all apparent "others," including who they think they are.  When that is dissolved, then what remains?  How do you express to one that thinks they exist, that without the personality, there is no one there, that there is actual emptiness there and only emptiness there and yet the word emptiness has to be dissolved also, because emptiness is also a lie, just like the personality is.  If you tell someone that they are no-thing at all, they will still go looking for something, because they think they are something … it is nearly a futile work, to attempt to share with another that there is only one, because even saying one "implies that there are more than one, so it is actually less than Zero.  Zero, no-thing is aware.  It is what is looking out of your eyes.  It is silent and still, it does not move and yet it sees everything.  It has been and is aware of you, it is closer than your own breath and it moves and animates you, you who are reading this, are just a thought that appears in front of the Self.  Who wants to hear that they have misidentified themselves as a thought?  Well apparently you do, or you wouldn't be reading this.

2.  What makes a Self?

Nothing, no-thing, makes a Self.  You are in Self, Self IS, it cannot be made from things in this world.  Self just IS and the mind, you that are reading this, think in terms of time and so you cannot understand something that has no beginning and no end.  Yet that is how it is with Self, no beginning, no end, no time, nothing to attach to.  As you relax and let go of understanding, you will know this, not from understanding but from Knowing.  This is guaranteed but you can not use the mind to verify it, the mind will begin to assist you in not using it, once you realize that you can't in this domain, but this does take quite a bit of willingness to stop trying to figure everything out and sit back, smile and enjoy the ride.  Your help is not needed here that is the good news.  Less help = more Awareness.  :o)  Though if you insist on helping then sit quietly whenever possible, give yourself time to sit without moving, fixing, doing and ask the question, "Who am I?" and sit and wait as the thoughts tell you who you are, and do not accept them as true or false, just let them come and watch them go, that is a good practice/help for the mind.

3. Do the characteristics that distinguish one self from another come from the self, or from beyond the self?

"All is the Self."  There are not two, there is only one thing going on, one movement that appears as if it is many movements, but that is only because you are not aware of the screen that the movement appears on.  Take a digital picture and then zoom in and in, you will see it becomes more and more pixelated until you get to nothing, no-thing at all.  When you can no longer visually see or understand what you are looking at, then draw back out you begin to see all the little squares pull back together to make an image before you that you recognize, but they are not separate they are all one thing in the picture, one picture that appears separated by edges and color that blur as you zoom in, it is not different than the world, universe, body, which will become more apparent with 3-D animation.  This is not said to lessen life or the beauty and the magic of it's creation.  The wise will pay the attention to the "no-thing" that you are, do not waste the time trying to figure out how the world is not real, spend the time investigating who you are.  Spend the time asking the question, "Who am I?" for the real Gift of Seeing.

4. Is the self without restrictions still self, or would it not better be called God? 

Restrictions are for this world there is no restriction that can be placed upon the Self because the self is not in this world; the world is in it.  If there is to be restriction, there will be.  There is no need to worry or concern oneself with how things will be in this world, if you know you are always in the perfect moment, because you are.  So one just begins to see that, beyond what the mind/thoughts say, if you can look around and see that you have everything that you need to be in the moment you are in, then you can stop lying to yourself about how things have to change for you to be happy or whatever it is that you think you want to be different. 

 

JUST PLAYIN' - THE PART

January 30, 2013

It is said that Shakespeare announced that “we are all actors and the world is our stage.”  How often to we hear words and they ring true but we just let them go by without investigation.  Do you like the saying?  Or does it scare you?  If you like it, do you believe it or just simply take it as an interesting idea?  If it scares you, is it the thought that you are not the one doing it, that brings up the fear?  For if you are the actor, who wrote the script and where are you going and what will you do?  Ever notice that you can make all the plans you want to, but rarely does it happen the way you think it will?  You go to bed the night before and have all these plans about how the day will play out and then upon waking none of them happen.

You are not in control.

Life is being lived through you.  You have been assigned a part and it is being played out beautifully no matter whether you like it or dislike it, the show goes on.  If you don’t believe this, see if you can stop it.  See if you can stop doing what you do.  All things that point to Truth can be investigated.  You don’t have to take someone’s word for it, all you have to do is see for yourself.

We are all used to Serve Life.  Your only role is actually to watch/Witness how you are used. 

Eventually, as you begin to watch/Witness as opposed to “thinking” you are doing it, you will begin to be surprised by life.  It is actually working for you and everyone. 

Most people don’t like the “thought” that they are being used, however, it happens in spite of one’s likes or dislikes. 

The more comfortable you become with it the more enjoyable life becomes.  Because that old saying “what you resists persists” is not just a saying.  As you begin to become Aware that you are not doing it … it creates a natural relaxation and then resistance goes down and you get to see what is done. 

Most people “think” they know what they will do, they think they know everything that is going to happen and how they will react to it.  But it is not true, you don’t ever know what you will do until the moment arrives for you to do it.  So many times there has been the thought that “I” will do something or will not do something and the something “I” said I wouldn’t do, “I” did and the something “I” said “I” would do … didn’t happen. 

Just begin to watch and wait and see what it is that you do or don’t do, don’t tell a story about it (or even if you do … don’t believe it so firmly).

We are all just playing our parts, we can be kind to one another while we do it, kindness comes from seeing that we are all doing the best that we can, how could we do any better than what we are doing, if we could, we would, we can only think we can do better and “better” is the enemy of good, because it is saying that the moment we are in isn’t good enough.  If there is to be a “better” it will come.

So back to being used, all things Serve.  Sometimes we serve in ways that look helpful and sometimes we serve in ways that don’t look helpful, but just know that everything helps itSelf, no matter what it looks like.