Sitting in the light

The world does not want what you want. At the very act of achievement, gaining the thing that life told you that you wanted, it snatches it away and reverses itself. It tells you to be strong and forthright and then when you are it says you are domineering and insensitive. When you are compassionate and kind the world spins round and slaps you across the face shouting at you to be strong and ruthless if you want to survive. It’s a no win situation.

It seems that the world wants us to be all things at once - the saint and the demon simultaneously. Of course much of the confusion arises in the act of choosing, the presumptions we make about who we are and what we want. We define ourselves - tell ourselves stories about who we are and the die is cast. With our presuppositions locked, we sally forth into the world. The only problem is these notions we have are not the world - they are the inevitable fictions we tell ourselves in order to survive. The rest of reality is blindsided by our adherence to this myth of our own making.

As we grow older these myths harden into near unbreakable patterns so that we see the world only through the lens we have fashioned. We no longer pause to reflect on our biases and we certainly do not bother or even consider the deeper questions that lie beneath: is it good? Is it kind? Is it necessary? Not limited to these basic formulations, other inquiries could be made but these three are a good starting point.

None of this is avoidable, this ‘choosing’ is an inescapable quality of consciousness. And the world in response to our choosing will always assert its antithesis. And just as we cannot be all things in life, we also run the risk of living on auto-pilot, our preconceptions becoming so ingrained that our habits lock us into a set mode of being - like we are a silent witness to our own lives.

So where does that leave us?

The act of being present in the world necessitates choice but those choices then limit the world, abstract it even into something foreign and ugly at best, at worst our perspective hardens to such a degree that we become minor characters in our own show.

Thinking about this quandary three main ideas come to mind, neither of which I feel fully collapse the divide between illusion and reality.

3. Living a rich life

There is a certain quality to quantity. Perhaps if we have a broader notion of who we are then the story we tell ourselves about who we are is wider and more encompassing of reality. If we weren’t so fixed in our definition of who we are then we get closer to life’s insistence on us being all things. Such a diversity of character would then likely imbue a sense for even greater acceptance of life as our definition of ourselves fans out into new areas of reality.

2. Living an examined life

Asking those big questions, reassessing our programming. Is this right? Is this a good thing? Of course constant reflection of this kind is tiring and it takes courage. We have to accept that some of the answers may force us to redefine ourselves in new ways. We may have to change. Furthermore, we will need to exist in a state of doubt and cast away many certainties. This lack of assurance can be very unsettling to downright terrifying for some people. It means to live as a small craft on the stormy seas of doubt.

1. Sit in the light

My preferred method would be something that I think about often, something that at a glance sounds kinda new-agey and that is to simply BE. Do away with hierarchies and the choices of the world and ground your being in the present. Sit in the light of the window and let that be your reality. For really there is no story to tell, no world outside that which is pure experience. The central truth to the mystery of life lies here in the infinite awareness of consciousness as all that is. There is no you (ego), no past, no future. There is only the light of sun illuminating that which is. Of course you run the risk of being labelled mad and getting locked up with this one but … meh.

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Lately I’ve taken to naming my farts, both of us have actually - my girlfriend and I although I think I’m much better at it on the fly. So far the names have been:

• Ripping the Velcro

• Blubber lips stay away from me

• The Bengal tiger roars in the dark jungle night

• Can You Hear The Singing Stars?

• Like rolling thunder

  This naturally raises a few questions for us which I’m hoping you dear readers can help us with:

Please enjoy my music. I’m attaching my new album which is on Spotify.