Here is the first of a five part series of Youtube videos by Krishnamurthi. The next few include Chogyam Rinpoche.

For more interesting Videos Check out Part 2 Krishmamurti

This is of interest to many people, it is an interview with Carlos Castenada the author of The Teachings of Don Juan and other books.  In the interview Carlos talks about his first encounter with Don Juan.

It would be very easy to disregard the material of Castenada  because of the usage of psychotropic plants.  But anyone who has ever read between the lines of The Journey to Ixtlan and Tales of Power will realize immediately that the agenda behind all of the experiences was to help break down the normal way of thinking.  Please note, I am in no way saying that people need to use any substances to break through from limited thought.  There are a number of books in the series, if I was to recommend any I would say to read The Journey to Ixtlan followed by the Tales of Power, within these two books is the essence of the teaching.

Journey to Ixtlan

A brilliant book by Carlos Castenada

I love this question. I saw it today on a Social Network and I just had to create a response.

Rumi Sketch

I was standing in the sun this morning before I went to work, it’s winter here but it must’ve been about 22 degrees C. I could feel the warmth on my skin and all was very blissful, and then my mind entered and I was thinking, is it vitamin D or A, my chain of thought was broken.

Enlightenment

I had been thinking a little bit about the question What Is Enlightenment? I wasn’t in a hurry to answer but eventually, something emerged, and I will try to package in a way that makes sense, so please bear with me.

The question itself could be a little bit of an issue. I remember Krishnamurthi once saying, Can we ever ask the right question? NOTE: I am not a Krishnamurthi clone either.

What is Enlightenment? As soon as we say “IS” it implies that such a thing exists. We have read oodles of books o the Spirit, some very profound and others that are best suited for the fireplace on a cold winters night. They all seem to have an opinion about Enlightenment, Freedom,Truth or the God thing. Well I’d like start fresh and challenge the lot, not for the sake of an argument but because I am reasonably clear that there is a serious issue with the question.

So I see a problem a big one What IS Enlightenment? As soon as we say IS, it is saying there is something there and the next logical step is to go and find; and what is the thing we are seeking to obtain or achieve and that is Enlightenment, that’s a no-brainer really. The issue for me is, at the very beginning of the quest we are beaten, we are seeking, the sought being Enlightenment and us being the one who wants it, the needy, the lacking, the one that is minus the thing we seek.

Let’s go a little further with this. I’ll throw this in because I think it is relevant ‘Any movement in any direction is a movement away from ourself’, please read that line again and think on it for a moment.

The very question ‘What is Enlightenment?’ Implies lack and when we look at it even harder, it’s easy to see the separation; we are sepearated from Enlightenment. I need to challenge that, not for the forum or an argument but because it is misconception. Underlying us, is the very thing that is sought, the very experience which we are seeking is the very thing that is at our core. If we move towards solving the question, we are defeated because there is no need to take the journey, because we are moving away, out of God space, trying to solve a question which has come from thought. The mind is wanting to know, the mind asks a question, it creates its own self imposed perameters and says ‘ Hey Answer this’, it’s really saying, look I am great, I have the ability to understand what is outside the framework of thought, but I shall pretend to be wise, I shall because I’m pretty shifty, proud and haughty, I can pour the ocean, the whole of it into my little bucket.

So where am I now? Ok , here it is. The question just doesn’t do it for me, the question is a problem to itself and try as you might, you’ll be on the path of Endles Becoming, on the quest like the deer chasing the musk, always seeking the elusive Beloved and moving away from yourself

There is nowhere to go and nothing to do.  And that’s what people find so difficult

Be There Now

Peace

Tony

Alan Watts has been one of my favorite teachers. I was very happy when I found this youtube on Wiggles and Squares and its relationship to humans and nature.  This video is from 1971.

And here is Part 2 Conversations Alan Watts

And Part 3 Conversations Alan Watts

Then Part 4 Convesations Alan Watts

For more Alan Watts check this out Alan Watts Video

Singing Bowl

ZEN KOAN

A monk told Joshu: `I have just entered the monastery.
Please teach me.’ Joshu asked: `Have you eaten your rice porridge?’
The monk replied: `I have eaten.’
Joshu said: `Then you had better wash your bowl.’
At that moment the monk was enlightened.

It’s always a terrible feeling when you feel like you’ve beren tricked  You go to the market, buy something and three hours later you realize what you bought was rubbish and not only that, the rug salesman also short changed you. It wasn’t a magic carpet after all. 

 Life and God are pretty much the same, it’s not intentional though, it’s just that you put the pieces together of life’s puzzle and thought it was something but then someone walks along and says “Hey silly, you are holding the thing upside down”

What has happened, and it is the greatest trick ever done to mankind, in fact it’s the Divine Comedy, we have mistakenly elevated some things to the holy level and others to the mundane.   If you get this, then suddenly you are looking at the puzle the right way up. 

Within the heart of all things is the same pulse, vibration, essence…unfortunately, whether you can cope with it or not it is also in those people who you find incredibly annoying, or even those things that you call evil.  And in saying this, I am not saying go and do whatever you like because God is present in all things, so it must be ok.  With knowledge comes responsibilty, and without the Dharma, the planet would disappear over night.

Buddha

Who do you pray to, is that a silly question?  It’s a very interesting thing when you’ve let go of the old Gods which you carried around until they were too heavy to carry anymore.  Before I get too far, I must clarify that I am not anti-God, anti Christian or anything like that.  I just think it’s important to seperate our projection of what we think God is, from the real God.  And I don’t think it’s anyone’s job to tell anyone else who or what God is.  This is a very personal thing, and if it is to be real, it must be the individuals experience.

So what happens when you get to the point that the old God has been moved aside because it is now impossible to cling to something which was only a fabrication anyway?  People told you what God is and you packed all the ideas together and created a picture in the mind.  People find themselves in the situation of creating a new version of God, maybe swapping over to Buddha, the beautiful blue skinned Krishna or may even take on a Guru who claims to be the embodiment of God Himself / Herself.  Any guru worth their weight in incense is going to tell you, if you are looking for God, go look in the mirror, don’t follow me.   At least they’ll do this at some point of the guru /disciple relationship; if they don’t, I’d be packing my packpack immediately, signing out of the ashram and heading to Ganges or somewhere to cleanse myself of their nonsense.  Great teachers like Ramana, will always do that, they are not interested in groupies, they are interested in your well being, which is freedom.

Is this clear, people are praying to a projection of what they think God might be?  God, give me money, a new car, a new wife, heal my indigestion, make it rain on my neighbours cleanly washed car, please make my son’s football team win the competition and please God, let me win American idol.  It gets a bit silly.  So we have another dilemma.  What to pray for, do we petition God to fulfil our desires?  Oh God give me a gorgeous wife….blah blah blah.   So what to ask for?

I guess for me, if I had to write prayer it might sound like:

“Dear God who lives in all that is, and lives in me and also in my worst enemy who smells pretty bad, help me extract the beauty within every moment of my life and help me to see the creation around me as part of the giant garment I am part of, allow me to embrace things totally when they come into my life, and let go of things gracefully when it’s time for them to leave.  And please tell that cat next door to stop pooing in my garden, as I know you live in all thngs but I’m not quite ready to deal with that aspect of you”.

Prayer doesn’t need to be stuffy, it can be something that makes you smile and tickles your heart.

Detachment is something that we sometimes have a little difficulty with.  It is often associated with objects, and people.  This is a very Buddhist approach to things.   There are other sides to attachment as you would probably realize and I’d like to explore those in this article.  You don’t need to agree with me.

Bodhidharma - Courtesy Black Mountain Zen Center

We live in a world where it’s normal to act and then wait for a response or some type of reaction.  That’s the way most of us have been shaped… for every action there is a reaction type of stuff, this is logical; being logical is practical but it does not mean it is always wise.  We’ve all seen pictures and sketches of wandering sages and Buddhas in Asia, and read poems about mendicants whose homes are beneath stars out in the open. The image portrayed implies a certain amout of freedom and carefreeness, that feeling is something that most people I have met are envious of, not envy in an obsessive, jealous sort of way, more like ‘wouldn’t it be nice if all my problems disappeared and I didn’t worry about anything, I could just cruise through my day’.

The great Avatar Krishna, the Beloved of Radha and the cowherds, spoke lovingly to Arjuna the great warrior when Arjuna  realized he had to go into battle against his relatives.  Gopala (Krishna) eased Arjuna’s suffering by telling him not to look for the fruit of his actions, to just follow his dharma, do his duty and all would be taken care of.  Arjuna was a great warrior and did not wish to go to kill those he had grown up with and loved. Arjuna had slumped into a state of helplessness prior to this, Krishna’s words were the very healing balm he required.

Although the following idea is contrary to our programming, it is worth considering.  Here we go:

Not all actions need to be response based. Does that make sense?  We can do things without expecting an outcome.  This will sound a little odd to some people; most of us want and expect to get something back from what we do or put out.  There is a viewpoint that some of the great Lover’s of God have had, I’ll use these people as examples, although I ‘m not suggesting that they are the only ones who live this way.  These Lovers do what ever they do as an offering of service and are not interested in the outcome, they take action because it is their impulse from within to do so and do not turn around to measure how successful the response was.   By doing this, there is never any suffering if what they attempted has failed in some way.  And if what they did was very successful it also doesn’t matter because it is done in a selfless manner. Everything they do is selfless service to the world around them and they do not expect anything in return.  Everything gets done, they are the instrument of their chosen God.  They are not taking action and then looking up for some reward from heaven.  The act itself is complete.  Here’s an example: Imagine a musician playing music, being absorbed in it, he experiences it when it is happening, the applause really means nothing, it’s the ecstacy of abandonment into the music which is the thing of real value.  When the music is finished, the musician puts the instrument down and goes about his business.

To live in such a detached manner is very freeing.  We do not need to sign up with any God, we may come from the perspective that God itself is at the core of our being, it doesn’t matter so much unless you want it to, God or no God is not important here.  This approach of not looking for the results of what we do, makes it easier to get through life’s disappointments.  Yes we will still feel the joys and sorrows, but we will be free to move on to the next experience without being slowed down by our supposed self professed failures or hindered by our sometimes over inflated sense of brilliance .

In this is the Path of Not Doing, and in future articles I shall explore this a little more.

Yesterday I was inspired to write an article called I Live By The River – Drop In Some Time.   It  came about because of a childhood joke, and when I was looking for a title about being inspired by the River I was sitting beside, the title just jumped out at me. And today it responded.

Dozer in the River

The Universe has a way of teasing us, and I know for sure that nature is my greatest teacher; and let’s make this clear, I’m not a nature boy who wears organic hemp clothes and talks to trees and wild animals. Today I went back down to the river, I’d been on the computer too long and I started imagining the sensation of the sun streaming down on me and the benefits of Vitamin A or whatever it is.

I sat by the river, I read a book and then I thought, oh what can I learn from this (Japanese bamboo flute and Zen monks bowing).  Out of the corner of my eye I saw something, I tried to get it to make sense and I just looked and looked, yes, no, yes, no , no, no, I can’t make sense of what I was looking at..  In fact I didn’t believe what I was in my view, and I jumped on my bike, headed downstream along the road to get a better look until I was parallel with what I couldn’t believe had happened.  I had to ask a man who was parked where I stopped whether I was actually seeing what I was seeing.  And he said yes, it’s an excavator, and it had dropped into the river when some workers were building a retaining wall on the river bank.

What struck me was I knew what I was looking at but I had to get it reaffirmed by someone else.  What was going on was it was outside the normal parameters of experience and I was constantly trying to adjust what I was seeing into what I would normally see.  My mind turned it into a number of other objects which included an in water digger, a slope adjuster and numerous other pieces of machinery which I’ve never seen before or have no idea whether they exist or not, but I invented them.

Here’s what I got out of it.  We humans have a view of the world.  We are given a description when we are young and we build on it, we name everything and put things into boxes.  And every now and then, the weird stuff happens, and yes there are numerous odd things going on continuously which we try to fit into a familiar frame of reference, and then we ask others for clarification of our experience.  Many people have experienced the unusual, extra-normal, super- natural or the extra natural things such as UFO’s, visions of God’s , angels,  entities from beyond and other assorted things.  But because they don’t fit with the world we know, we make adjustments in our thinking and say no, it’s not true, it’s impossible, my mind is playing tricks. And the people around us that are also prepared to stay locked into limited thought help deny our extra normal experiences.

My mind played tricks, it tricked me into thinking that I wasn’t seeing what was really there.   And this is the nature of the mind, it sabotages our experiences.

Yesterday I said ‘I live by the river – drop in some time’ and the next day,  on queue an excavator drops in.  Fantastic stuff.

River

When we were kids we used to say “I Live By the River, Drop in Sometime”, at that time it was a great joke and we’d repeat it over and over again to different people, it maintained quite a long life and always sounded funny at eleven years old.   Little did I know how wise the saying was until today when I sat down to write this article.

I went down to the river this afternoon, I needed to get away, mainly from my thoughts; seeing  that the ocean is a 24 minutes and 15 seconds drive away, the six minute walk to the river seemed like the solution.  The river near where I live is not so large, well at least the part near me; however at other sections it’s quite fast, wide-ish and strangely enough there are about a dozen or so subsiduaries which go by the same name, it must be annoying to tourists but no one around here really cares.  So long as the kids have a spot to jump in, people with dinghies have a place to fish and tourists have something to look at and say ‘hey honey, that is just beautiful”, snap, snap.

So I went to the river, I sat there for a while, my back against a wall and the sun shining on me at an angle.  I just stared in and emptied my head.  It’s one of those rivers you look at and because the current is so slow at times it’s hard to tell which way it’s flowing.  And in this I find incredible wisdom.  I kept looking, there was a little ripple here and there and no matter how hard I looked I just couldn’t tell the direction of the flow.

Not knowing which way it was going, got me thinking, ‘Ok, which way is it going, how will I find out?’  I realized after sometime that the only way of knowing would be to step into the river.  As it is winter and where I live it is very cold, like 68%F, (ok that’s not cold but it is for me) I decided to just leave myself in a state of unknowing.  But … and a big BUT, what I started thinking about is the way that we can have opinions about things and they will only be an opinion until we try it for ourselves, after that it becomes a truth.  I began thinking about the Dharma, religion, spirituality, philosophy and the way people have opinions, all sorts of ideas about what God is, what is the Truth, how to get to Nirvana, how to be enlightened.  And really, they a just opinions until you dive in the river.

Where I’m heading is the need to try something to see if it works.  We can stand by the river forever discussing the ebb and flow but unless we are prepared to get our feet wet and enter the river, we’ll never know.  The only way to experience the Truth of something is to try it.  People look at different techniques and pathways to expand and say ‘it’s crap’ etc , but they are often just standing on the river bank guessing which way the current is going.

I see a great relationship between the river and God…… ‘I live by the river, drop in sometime’, suddenly became one of the most profound things I ever heard.