(This is Part 3 of a series. Go back to Part 2.)
To put it another way, we gradually become bored with our mind, with our identity. We notice that the mind is a kind of funhouse mirror, really, constantly playing its Top 40 Spins about reality—whatever they happen to be. Over time, as we continue in our observation of the mind's productions, we gradually become bored with polishing and protecting the precious identity.
To use a metaphor, we become aware that there's a light inside, and like mud on the sides of a lantern, our precious thoughts and beliefs and reactions and so on are the very things which are obscuring that light. We discover that the thing which we valued and protected the most—our identity—is the very thing that is blocking the truth that we seek.
We begin to notice something else too: that reality can't be contained in words. We notice that whatever we can possibly say about reality is false, because reality is so much deeper and vaster than the poor words or constructs trying to convey it. And because descriptions of reality are always grounded in duality, any assertion about reality will always be both true and false.
An example: Not long ago, after a day of socializing, I confided to a friend that I was a loner. That has some truth to it; I do love to be alone. However, its opposite also has some truth: I really love talking to people and had a great time in my socializing that day.
Another example: Suppose we make some assertion such as "God is immanent." Well, that has a lot of truth to it: the One is immersed in reality, indistinguishable from it, peeks out from behind every eye, every rock, every blade of grass. However, the opposite also has a lot of truth: "God is transcendent." He/She/It/the Void is not at all limited by the material universe.
Both are true. Or we could equally say, Both are false. Neither assertion even begins to actually describe some ultimate truth about reality, which is far beyond any possible efforts to describe it. All descriptions are false, and true. As a corollary, then, you should consider everything I say beyond this point as being grounded in some sort of lunacy.
To continue in this lunatic journey, then, at some point we become completely bored with our mind, with our identity. We just touch bottom about it somehow, we just don't care about it anymore. The identity, which has already dissolved to some extent, dissolves further at this point because it's getting even less energy.
The ego/identity is never considered the enemy. On the contrary, the attitude towards it is friendly, even compassionate. But its absolute illusoriness is also being clearly seen, and in that clear seeing the identity just dissolves by itself further and further.
Yet it's also always there to some degree. The body has a certain organic, inherent identity, for instance. It can be seen to operate as a unit. We can see that viewpoint, or any viewpoint at all, but we're not stuck in any of them.
Nor, it should be said, is this a "process" that can be willed to happen in any way. The whole thing ultimately happens by itself, and yet our actions to somehow strive towards it also serve a purpose. (See, all assertions are caught in paradox.)
Perhaps we could use a metaphor here: it's sort of like a farmer who tills the ground for his plants. His actions are quite important; yet they also have nothing to do with the actual miracle of a plant flowering.
What does become interresting is what might be described as being aware of being aware. Awareness of the awareness. And at a certain point, that awareness of awareness begins calling one, calling one further and further into it. Or it would be more accurate to say that it begins calling itself, calling itself into its own nothingness.
(This is the end of Part 3. Go to Part 4.)
—jim sloman, 11.21.06
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