One must take care not to fall into the trap of the intellect by believing that you can liberate yourself from all of the mind-made actions, thoughts, ideas, and beliefs by using some other action, thought, idea, or belief to do so. The mind can never let go of the mind. That would be like asking it to commit suicide, which it will never do. For this very reason, I refer to the mind and intellect as a "cosmic house of mirrors," from which a person can never escape. As soon as someone tries to let go, then the act of letting go becomes another form of holding — holding the construct of letting go. Instead of setting you free, the mind keeps you imprisoned in an unsolvable maze.
Meditation attempts to escape the mind and its labels and understanding. The best philosophies for meditating are therefore non-philosophies — a philosophy of nothing. But even adopting a non-philosophy is the same as believing in a philosophy. It is just another form of holding, which is yet another obstacle to attaining enlightenment. The practice is simply a process of non-clinging to all boundaries and limitations; a process of not identifying with anything, including non-identification, until you become everything and nothing. This space can have no name, but is about balancing and hovering in your primal state of beingness, as you pass through the phases of consciousness through meditation on your sojourn.
In the West, consistency is integral to our comparative analysis of binary oppositions for the sake of so-called sanity and cognitive consonance. This goes to the core of who we are; into the nervous system of our tongues, through language and into the deepest levels of our thoughts and consciousness. There are few things more frightening to the Western mind, than a truly open mind that can see the validity of opposing points of view. Be open. Whatever construct you choose is perfect. You are not even you, unless you choose to be. This type of thinking frightens people because they want to "know" who people are, and what things are. People are terrified of those who change their self-definition because to understand means to control. When we can understand "it," we can control our interactions with "it," as a part of our risk management. But, to understand we must first observe. This is how the mind becomes a weapon. We observe, label and control. We label people to control them. All labels are for control. All definitions are a part of the intellectual dissection and compartmentalization of control.
Nondualism is not very well understood due to the dominant systems of thinking in Western culture. The ultimate deception is in the dichotomy; by choosing one or the other we tend to overlook possible interconnectedness between the two. Dualism makes you forget there ever was a whole. Most of your thoughts have been isolated, concentrated and refined by dualism; a violently divisive and narrow model of consciousness. Practicing nonduality splits open our outer oppositions surrounding our spiritual nucleus. Just as the planets orbit the Sun, our emotions revolve around the nucleus of our conflicts and oppositions. When you sink to the center of yourself, you reach the calm enormity of what defines your being. There is a dimension of peaceful wholeness in the surrendered, non-dualistic mind — a dimension of non-meaning. Surrender is finding the balance between the fighting sides inside of you. The meditative surrendering from constantly balancing between oppositions is healing. We are emancipated from polarity when we hover above opposites in the meditative state. Restful nothingness can be achieved in both the thinking and feeling states of observation. Move to the center of yourself and you will find a calm presence of release that is not easily disturbed.
Great healing occurs when we are better able to love our darkness. We cannot dissect our nature and simply throw out the bad. When you try to dissect and dispose of parts of yourself, you become psychotic. Only butchers of the mind dissect; this is the brutality of dualism and reductionism. We are full spectrum beings, and just as white light is every colour, we must accept our full colours to shine as brightly. As a species, we are in crisis. Crisis is imbalance. We are in crisis because we have difficulty accepting our true nature. Only complete love can completely heal our fractures and our spiritual dementia. All healing starts with beginning to accept yourself and love yourself; even your flaws.
We are at war with everything because we are at war with ourselves. The war is in the world because the war is in our minds. We find peace only in the meditative moments of surrender from our violent minds. People around us are constantly under the scrutiny of dissecting judgements by others. We do not actually know other people; we only know our judgements. When we release people from our vicious minds, we grant them a small reprieve from a life of endless guardedness. Through meditation and surrender we can bring peace into the lives of others by sharing our safe emotional atmosphere. People love the freedom and space to simply be; it is treasured when given. There is nothing more spiritual than freedom. Zero control; that is true love. Real love is freedom.
Quit resisting. Let your pain pierce your hard heart so the agony can flow out, and the love can rush in. It's the love that will bring you back to life. Wisdom doesn't come easily or without a cost; in fact, wisdom often costs us dearly. Your wisdom will run about as deep as the pain that has cut you. There are very few shortcuts in life, if any. But, if you are looking for the best shortcut available, here it is — LISTENING.
As an organism and being, your total intelligence is profoundly greater than what you can observe of yourself. Your education, intelligence, memory, vocabulary and obvious mental faculty is just the mere surface of your intelligence. There is a vast kingdom of understanding within you that you cannot consciously grasp. Each cell within you is its own kingdom of genius with a powerful will for life. You are one masterful orchestration; a system of great intuition, unfamiliar senses and ancient instincts that are constantly transmitting survival insight in your moments of challenge. Don't think you can outsmart or intellectually instruct the ocean of ancient wisdom within you. Intellectuality is often loud, clumsy, forceful and arrogant. Surrender and meditative calm will allow your total intelligence to come forward and instruct you with powerful patterns for living. Your will for life is speaking to you through every layer and level of your being's stratum; from the conscious to the unconscious. The way you open yourself to the ocean of wisdom within you is through humility, calm, and quietness. The way you marshal the vast kingdom of survival strength is through total humility and listening. Open yourself to your unfamiliar instincts that are quietly hidden below the noise and chatter of common thought. Trust yourself. Honor yourself. Accept yourself. There are legions of unknown forces within you awaiting your cooperation. The way you commune with your total force of intelligence is through surrender. In the quietness of your still mind, you will hear the whispers of a vast longing for life guiding you each step on your journey. You are safe. You are strong. You are brilliant. You are walking through life with total protection — if you listen and trust yourself.
Sometimes we hurt ourselves the way we struggle and resist. Acceptance can be its own form of dominant resistance — because survival is sometimes the best resistance. Sometimes survival is all we have. Everyone wants to be powerful and thrive and soar high, but life's challenges sometimes demand we contract rather than expand. Retreating is not necessarily a loss, but often a strategy of survival. The defense processes you observe in the natural world, in animals and in cellular biology have their analogues in your psychology and spirituality. You are not weak because you must sometimes retreat and contract; it is a part of your brilliance. It sometimes is natural and genius to fail. There is often wisdom, strategy and intelligence in loss. Surrender is not just a spiritual, meditative or transcendental philosophy; it is often pragmatic, worldly and rational. Detachment and surrender are both rational and transcendental. Non-engagement or retreat can turn certain defeat into victory. Do not be ashamed of what you perceive as your weaknesses, failures and losses, which may have been your greatest moments of brilliance and survival.
Take some quiet time for yourself. In the quietness you will begin to recognize yourself again. We so easily lose ourselves in the daily shuffle of life. Mindfulness and awareness will allow you to participate in your life rather than only reacting to life. Through practicing mindfulness, you can begin to enjoy the simple things in life that have been lost in the clutter. Meditation is the powerful antidote to many of the poisons in your life; it stills vast yearnings and inner-discontentments. Meditation provides a reprieve from the vicious swings of worry; that horrid place where our mind continually wanders, where it's filled with fear and grasping for unknowable futures. Meditation opens you to completeness; a moment of true reality. Meditation does not strive — it only opens you to what is. As your hopes and desires disappear, you emerge. Through meditation you begin to take form in your interior as a beautiful being. Free from self-deception and fear, you will start to see and believe in your own beauty. As you submerge into your own realm of nothingness you feel you are being pulled into some great oneness; a mending of the fractures in your own consciousness. Nothing to conquer or control, no-one to quarrel with — the still mind is peaceful, and the still mind is free. Your quiet moments prepare you for the harsh scuffles and abrasions of life. Take some quiet time for yourself to center and to transcend the madness. Quietness is the most unpretentious preparation for a life of peaceful significance.
