The Question of Being
Above the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi were written the words, “Know Thyself.” Jesus came along and added a sense of urgency and consequence to the ancient idea when he said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
What Jesus is saying is that spirituality is serious business, with serious consequences. Your life hangs precariously in the balance, teetering between a state of unconscious sleepwalking and eyes-wide-open spiritual enlightenment. The fact that most people do not see life this way testifies to how deeply asleep and in denial they truly are.
Within each of our forms lies the existential mystery of being. Apart from one’s physical appearance, personality, gender, history, occupation, hopes and dreams, comings and goings, there lies an eerie silence, an abyss of stillness charged with an etheric presence. For all of our anxious business and obsession with triviality, we cannot completely deny this phantasmal essence at our core. And yet we do everything we can to avoid its stillness, its silence, its utter emptiness and intimate embrace.
To remain unconscious of being is to be trapped within an ego-driven wasteland of conflict, strife, and fear that only seems customary because we have been brainwashed into a state of suspended disbelief where a shocking amount of hate, dishonesty, ignorance, and greed are viewed as normal and sane. But it is not sane, not even close to being sane. Nor is it based in reality. In fact, nothing could be less real than what we human beings call reality.
By clinging to the mind in the form of memory and thought, we are held captive by the movement of our conditioned thinking and imagination, all the while believing that we are perfectly rational and sane. We therefore continue to justify the reality of what causes us, as well as others, immeasurable amounts of pain and suffering.
Deep down we all suspect that something is very wrong with the way we perceive life but we try very, very hard not to notice it. And the way we remain blind to our frightful condition is through an obsessive and pathological denial of being -- as if some dreadful fate would overcome us if we were to face the pure light of truth and lay bare our fearful clinging to illusion.
The question of being is everything. Nothing could be more important or consequential -- nothing where the stakes run so high. To remain unconscious of being is to remain asleep to our own reality and therefore asleep to reality at large. The choice is simple: awaken to being or sleep an endless sleep.
-- Adyashanti
What does the question of being mean to you? Can you share a personal story of bringing forth what was within you? How do we distinguish between conditioned thinking and what is truly within us?
last year s.o read me tarot and kept saying I had all the best possibilities if only i trusted my self. so i began to plan how to become succesfull, accepted, make money etc Suddenly i asked myself what does it really mean to trust myself and i realized that the only self that could be trusted goes far deeper than the me that runs for outward things. I feel quiet now, I see my mind can detect all thought as being a thing outside not to be followed. I also sense that i have a desire to let go, that would be to trust myself. Something like to be in being. I don't know how i came to this so i don't know if there is really a lettin go or i am taken by an inner force?
Please help me understand this passage better. For example: "Your life hangs precariously in the balance, teetering between a state of unconscious sleepwalking and eyes-wide-open spiritual enlightenment." I believe i am on a journey from somewhat darker to somewhat brighter. I don't understand this teetering nor hanging precariously.
I also believe that this journey may not be all stillness, it might also be in doing, in constant motion (not agitation, but deliberate, slow action) - one step, one prayer at at time.
And i am not sure of: "awaken to being or sleep an endless sleep." I accept my 'being' and am happy to awaken. But this life has also some meaning and is part of the awakening. To me, it might not be an endless sleep or a full awakening, but somewhere in the middle. It is a mystery and most likely will remain a mystery after all.
Is there a reason that the audio does not match the text provided ? The first two paragraphs (above) were not included in the audio presentation of the text.
I wanted to comment on the art/picture here. I love the various patches depicting life's "patchwork" accumulated over time and the question of "who's under there?" Love this.
Being means awareness that I am. Just that. I am. I allow myself to happen, just as I am. When I start to think about what is conditioned thinking and what is truly me, I am already moving away from simply being. The conditioned me is also just meant to be, just as it is. Accept it and just be.
Love: Residing and resonating within. Beyond imagination, beyond view, yet closer than anything I have ever known, is this. The light within us, is. It is the peaceful way. It is the peaceful knowing of perfect love, perfect truth, and the eternal embrace of life and being.
Being to me means being aware of my soul and how it's connected to universal conscience. It's detaching myself from ego, emotions, desires, wants and enjoying the every moment.
There is an immense potential in each of us, multitudes of possibilities in each one of us. To pretend we are less than what we are is really a sin. As they say each one us are guilty of 'all the good we did not do'.
timely. Here's the blog post I shared on the 17th Every Light Has a Shadow; The Bravery of Acceptance. Indeed when we bring forth and accept all that is within us it frees us and often helps others. Being all of who we are feels more "real" to others around us too and allows them to be who they are. http://storytellerkp.com/every-light-shadow-bravery-acceptance/ I hope the post helps you to be all of who you are too. HUG from my heart to yours. Kristin
