It’s Sunday again, that happened quickly. And right on time here’s the roundup of last week’s Notes. Enjoy.
Wishing you all a blessed week.
—Martyn
When we talk about acceptance we're really speaking about accepting the content and sensations of the inevitable present moment, not some larger abstraction like "accept your situation" or "accept your limitations".
There may be some validity in that, but what's really being pointed to is something more immediate, more intimate. It’s about non-resistance to the moment-to-moment lived experience of being that's arising and falling away constantly.
It’s this moment right now that we must come to accept. Because to resist the inevitable and inescapable present is to suffer it.
"Live naked, nailed to the tree of life" said Simone Weil.
"Let it all happen to you; beauty and terror" said Rilke.
"Let it be" said Paul McCartney.
Truth is beyond all paths, all ways. It is ineffable, beyond description and understanding. But it is what Is, it is who and what we are before thinking. Which is not to say, before, as in time. But prior to. And always present with or without thinking, feeling, sensing.
In the end we must throw down all teachings and teachers, scriptures and expositions. The naked truth is here, this, now.
What does it even mean to be free? Free to do or not to do? Really? It’s more like, free to surrender to the will of God or not, free to resist reality or not. And yet not even that.
Only the ineffable is free.
But by realising ourselves as That we are free.
Before thinking or saying or doing anything else, rest in the nonconceptual for a while. See how that goes.
Rinse, repeat.
That’s the key instruction. That’s the key to the Kingdom.
Life in its totality is spiritual reality. There is no sacred or profane in the final analysis. To awakened mind there's no separate category called 'spiritual'. There's only spirit or consciousness and everything is that, no exclusions. Truth is beyond considerations of good and bad; all is one. That’s a tough nut for dualistic mind.
Just because one discovers the true Self doesn't mean one rejects relative life. Impermanent as the relative field of being is, it's how the divine shows up in order to be experienced (by itself). So we honour that, not reject it or condemn it. It is what it is. Let it be, then let it pass as it goes. It's all part and parcel of the One.
Sometimes we find ourselves following a path because we're out of other options. Life has a way of corralling us to do the work we'd otherwise avoid.
#resistanceisfutile
For the record, I’m not about comparative religion or spiritual traditions in any scholarly or academic way. I’m about awakening, Self-realization, liberation. I’m interested in religious ideas and practices only inasmuch as they effectively serve that purpose. 🙏
This is my message - get out of the mind, see what lies beyond. Which is to say, discover its source, the silent Self.
God is already all in all, we just don’t see it yet.
“For we see through a glass, darkly”
But in truth - it is done.