selves and stories

letter to a reformed seeker

Echoes from Emptiness - Cartoon by Michael Leunig

 

Dear (newly wide-awake) reformed seeker –

If you haven’t yet been called delusional, flakey, misguided, weird, out-of-touch, in denial, crazy, mistaken, blasphemous, arrogant, heretical, evil, a nutter…

If you haven’t been judged, shunned, ostracised, scorned, ignored, rejected, excluded, gossiped about, sent to Coventry…

No worries – there’s still plenty of time.

Seven billion stories (and counting) are poised to project their characters onto the empty pregnant space that you know yourself to be.

Hang in there – if you can find a ‘there’ anywhere. (Chuckles)

When the barbs come thick and fast you’ll be astonished to find that they fly right through your shimmering spaciousness. It’s quite a trip actually!

Best

etc

Cartoon by Michael Leunig

in truth there is no other

279

Can old friendships survive this mind-shift?

The ‘person’ I appear to be, is a story in the mind of a sentient creature, and that creature cannot help but assemble its version of ‘me’ according to its conditioning.

Its conditioning determines acceptance or rejection as a ‘friend’ and is the brain’s device for determining those things – including people – that will comfort it, agree with it, support its survival.  In short, what we commonly call friendship is a fantasy.  If my friendship is determined by such needs it’s not a genuine relationship at all.

Wild wideawakeness shines an uncompromising light on such dissembling.  Some friendships fall away naturally, some survive because at root they are story-free, or because the stories are recognized for what they are.

When the fantasy aspect of friendship has melted away along with all other fantasies, the stage is swept clean and there is room for true relating to occur.  One-in-One.

It makes no difference whether the friend understands this savage wisdom or not.  For in Truth there is no other who could be called a friend.

~

dream drama 101

168

Wee-me’s story is a dream dreamed by Creation via the sensory tools customized for its unique mind-body organism.  The same goes for those of all the so called ‘others’ and their stories.

How did those sensory tools – and those pesky ‘others’ – get into the picture?

Creation dreamed them up, like everything else in the Great Dream Drama.

Dream Drama 101 is basic but brutal.

You pass the exam – which qualifies you for no-thing whatsoever – by waking up to the unarguable:  there’s only one dream (1), only one dreamer (1), and it’s all your dearly Beloved self (0). You’re the salami in the sandwich!

Wrap your arms around yourself.  Huge hugs are in order.

~