Am I doing it, or is it doing me?

Another summer, and after a few summers have come and gone I have finally decided to get back into circuits training – a physically intense group exercise. I had been going to the gym all along, but only to “train” at my own pace, not pushing myself at all very hard. Participating in the circuits’ class doesn't only demand that you try your best to keep up the pace, whether in press-ups or sprints, along with everyone else; it encourages you to throw yourself totally into the activity, holding nothing back.

In the days following this I felt rejuvenated in mind and body. After about three days I went for a swim and found myself effortlessly swimming length after length after length! Usually to swim more than a few lengths in one go I would have had to make quite an effort. Not this time. But where did all this energy, this effortlessness, come from?!

O my poor raggedy self,

What do you really desire? Your meditation has become a fetid nest for your laziness; once again you have found yourself asleep, out on that artificial limb of self-deception; again you have forsaken the organic branch of self-realisation.

Ego is again dragging you along, as it continues denying both death and life.

Awake! And be aware: you are egoistic, always the doer, your so-called living is constant effort. Just this awareness is a great step; don’t despair. Then…at least don’t be half-hearted about it! Don’t be a reluctant doer – be total; make a supreme effort! People only think about their life being so much effort; they complain and invite the sympathy of others – which is exactly how they want it. Yes, how you are depends not on some crass burden society has forced you to bear, but entirely on you.

Watch again how your mind attempts to escape reality by rationalising it: separating pleasure from pain, gratification from “annihilation.” Watch how each man wraps himself up in cotton wool, in cafes and cars.

See how social conditioning has taught you to cling, to be miserly; with your money, with your love, with your energy. Your “life” has become dead. You have been deceived and mocked.

Cling no longer; throw open all your doors, and all your windows – make way for the incoming of fresh energy. Do you really desire more of the divine? Or do you love your little life so much?

Become empty; be an instrument, a flute through which God, existence, life can again play its tune. Then you are not a doer but a happening.

Meditation is the way of paradox; it does not follow the path of your logical, consistent, miserly mind. Life itself is a great dance, and if you can face up to your reality – yes your reality, that which you have created for yourself – you can just turn around and join in the celebration!

Forget about yourself, and become again like a small child. Picture him. So caught up in the energetic play of life that he cannot even recognise his own face in the mirror.

Security of thought

I just want to note a special thing that happened with me the other day.

For 9 months now I have been working in the non-occupation they call security. I chose this job for the time being as a experiment in meditation. Of course, you can make an occupation out of anything, but security is one job where this becomes rather silly in the end, because, as I have found out, the task of "securing" a place is most effective when you are simply a presence there, aware and alert. Otherwise a "security presence" can never really achieve peace and even creates an underlying feeling of insecurity. The mind is restless and always needs an insecure world, with which it can then occupy itself, trying to make it secure. I began to see how futile this was. In this attitude, the only thing my mind was securing was itself ...Ah-hah! so security is a game...then why not play it?

So instead of working, I'm watching. With my eyes, of course - but also with my awareness or consciousness. Instead of constantly calculating with my mind and thinking what to do? I am simply observing, inside and out (and I have found that they are both the same thing; while I am calculating and thinking of what to do next, I am not seeing what is really going on on the outside, with people, because I am only concerned with securing my mind or ego - "me" as a separate individual. And this is what security has come to mean: 'guarding people's separateness.' But because people are not separate in reality, security really means guarding people's illusions or sleep. Ultimately, of course, it is about securing life against death. But life no longer means life, and death has come to mean only what is in reality a natural part of life. In the terms of our society, life has come to mean the ego, the separate "thing" we value the most.


So, that experience... For months my mind was reacting to not having enough occupation. After work, and sometimes during it, I would find myself becoming overly occupied with something completely trivial. Strange as it may seem - with all the relaxation - I was finding myself tired and fatigued at the end of my work shift. Shouldn't I be feeling refreshed? For months, instead of giving in to this tiredness and going with it, for some reason I would find myself fighting it. Deep down perhaps I was afraid of letting go, so my mind told me not to. Get a grip!! But no, I wanted to see what happens when I relax - but I was purposefully postponing something from happening. It took me a while to realise this fully, and to become tired of the same routine gripping me over and over. But finally I did become tired of it. And I let go.

It wasn't any special effort, and I didn't think much about it. I just did it out of mere frustration. I got in from work one evening at about 8pm and went to bed and slept!! It was just the body's natural way of taking me, once I gave into it! I woke up at 12.30am and didn't get back to sleep until about 7am!! I woke up again about 3.30 in the afternoon - just in time to get myself ready and go to work again! But this time, work was feeling so much different. There was none of the usual drag. I was feeling immensely blissful, rejuvenated. I was breathing. I am breath...Breathing is me? I am not. Only breathing is. Shut up, mind!

But mind is shut up. Secure.

I have to let it go. Free.