The Rise of the Machines
The rise of AI can be seen as nothing more than the illusion believing itself to be real and creating life like the source it emanates from. Similar to a dream within a dream, AI allows the dreamer to reinforce separation and the belief that the dream is real by saying, “look, surely something temporal couldn’t create something and as it has, then it must be real.” Nothing is further from the truth. Like the Icarus effect, we are flying too close to the sun. Not realising that we are designed to overreach and in that falling from grace, we may see who we truly are. What, then, does the turbulence of this age, from the rise of AI to conflict around the world, offer us? Simply this. An opportunity to know who we truly are.
An Eternal Embrace
I am finally where I want to be. Sitting here sipping a mint tea feels divine. There is a gentle breeze and I feel happy and relaxed after the turbulent year I have had. How life has had its many ebbs and flows but I am here now. I feel grateful; grateful to be here and grateful to God. A thought arises, why don’t more choose to accept who they truly are and life as is? Carried gently by the beloved; forever in the most beautiful of embraces. I wonder why so many resist a life of ease and want to fight the answer that presents itself in the mirror. Surely you can accept it is you that you seek? That you are the object of your adoration and that wherever you turn, you see the face of your beloved and this beloved that carries you, is you. That when the veils fall and reality is seen, it is seen that it is this. Simply this.
An eternal kiss.
An eternal embrace.
An eternal love.
Image of the Kiswah (Ghilaf E Kaaba)
The Kiswah (or Kiswa) is the large, black, silk and cotton cloth that covers the Kaaba, the sacred stone building at the centre of the Great Mosque in Makkah (Mecca).
Move Fast and Break Things.
In the silence, there is insight, clarity and understanding. In the silence, too, is an opportunity to face yourself, and yet we find that so many will not take that opportunity. We have been conditioned to rush, rush, rush, as Mark Zuckerberg once stated,
“Move fast and break things.”
Why, then, would we want to see or even acknowledge the trail of destruction we have created in our wake? Maybe this is why society is suffering from record highs in mental health issues. In keeping with that, our solution, then, is to medicate, to avoid, terrified as we are to stop. Is stopping that terrifying? We then find that we pay lip service to stopping by speaking of wellness, the retreats in Bali, the spa days and the mental health days.
But, does this really solve anything? Or is this us simply papering over the cracks, rather than getting to the root cause of why we feel so alone, so disenfranchised and so lost? Yet, if we were to embrace the silence fully, to sit with the uncomfortable, to take our time, and to slowly but surely start shining a light at the dark recesses of our mind, we may find great freedom in silence. This freedom that would be found would be transformative, and yet familiar.
Why familiar? Because we recognise it as our own being. That this is our natural way of being; that we can live from this space and make all decisions from this place of silence and ease. That the illusory nature of time would become apparent to us and we wouldn’t feel the need to keep rushing. That the trusting of this, of our natural way of being, would mean that even more treasures would open up in this silence. To sit and stare, to be aware and then to move from that awareness, would provide us with insight, clarity and understanding on a moment by moment basis.
Although, it would be recognised that there is only this moment and this familiarity with this moment is because I am not separate from it. It is me and I am it. This realisation collapsing duality and a realisation that there is only this. Welcomed home by yourself, for yourself, you realise there is only home and you have always been right here and now.
Following The Flow
We are conditioned to be structured. Through the educational system and then later in life, we are conditioned into the idea of structure and routine. Work, eat, sleep and repeat. One day is similar to the next with very little divergence. This works well until that moment when something feels slightly off. Sometimes it can be just a simple feeling that something doesn’t make sense or sometimes something radically alters our worldview. The end of a relationship, the death of a loved one, losing a job or suffering a financial loss. We find, then, that our most carefully constructed model starts feeling obsolete. The immediate thought is that something is broken and needs fixing. So we go about trying to fix the problem, again, another conditioned response. We find, though, that the harder we try to fix the problem, the more it persists and despite our best efforts, the problem simply does not go away. We find ourselves stuck.
Rumi states, “the wound is where the light enters.”
However, at this stage, we see this wound as a problem and not a blessing and certainly not an opportunity to know ourselves. No, we need to fix this problem as it is causing us pain and we have been conditioned to run from or avoid pain. Unfortunately, in this situation, try as we may, we can’t run. So, the search for the solution continues. We then come across spirituality and see it as the panacea for all of our problems. Again, our conditioned response is to try and understand so that the agitation will go away. We don’t see that, if we were to simply accept our agitation and wallow in the mire, that this acceptance of the agitation may set us free. We persist - the mind whirs on looking for a solution to its agitation - believing that this unsolvable conundrum can be solved. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Let us now play with the scenario that some sort of an acceptance occurs and what is experienced is our true self. We have experienced who we truly are and a sense of peace pervades our being. Things just seem to flow and we realise the mind is silent. Things make sense and the need to know, discuss or debate dies.
As we settle into this, which is, in fact, living as we actually are, we find a trusting start to occur. The mind being stilled also sees questions that have preoccupied us, such as,
‘How will I survive?’,
‘Will my bills be paid?’,
‘Will I lose family and friends?’
seem to just fall away. We find a freedom that has always existed in us but now is more apparent. We live in the moment and are continually shown our story isn’t real. This constant disproving of the story deepens our trust in what is and a recognition occurs that what I am trusting is not separate from me. Trust deepens and we find life flows; we can trust this flow as it is always taking care of us. There is a surrendering to life that it will always do what is right for us. The eternal mystery is accepted without the need to know and life simply is.
Following the flow, then, is following yourself in the truest sense of the word. Accepting yourself and trusting yourself. It is seen that we cannot escape this and nor would we want to, as, where can we go where we are not? The collective is seen as one and all that is met is a meeting of oneself. The more the flow is followed, the more we see ourselves in every instant as we truly are.
Realising Infinite Possibilities
If I take a position, if I create a belief or if I think a thought to be real, I have trapped myself and I am no longer free. By taking a position or forming an opinion, I then must defend that position, as humans being as they are, do not like the discomfort that comes with having to admit you were wrong. We are conditioned to celebrate our successes, not our failures, and, as such, to avoid failure, we will, most times, double down on our position, even when we know it to be wrong in the hope that it may be proven right. The stock market illustrates this beautifully in the action of novice investors who, upon finding themselves in a losing position, will sometimes double down or take further losses on the hope that the market will rebound and they will recoup their losses, instead of just cutting a losing position. The desire to be right is so strong that many a time we will take loss after loss rather than admit we were wrong.
This behaviour is seen in all facets of life and the spiritual community isn’t exempt. Let us take the example of awakenings. I have, over the years, had many stories of awakening narrated to me. What is common in so many of them is the desire to have an awakening that is almost identical to the awakening that happened previously. Anything that occurs which isn’t like that will be immediately dismissed and not accepted causing the seeker to continue seeking. This is an example of taking a position which excludes all other positions. We are then limited and unable to open to the infinite possibilities that occur in every moment, simply because we have taken a position. We are now honour bound to defend that position and add more evidence to the position to justify our taking a particular stance. All compounding into a narrowing of thought which now cannot accept another point of view. With the passing of time, this narrowness of thought becomes even more constricting and, unless we are met with an overwhelming shock to our way of thinking, or if we can incrementally and progressively change our thinking, we will find ourselves unable to fully experience our true nature…
What then to do? If we can become aware of the problem, then that can start us on the process of accepting and being open to whatever the moment brings. In turn, this can lead to a dropping away of the stories that have been held in place. Namely that a certain position can only be that way. As we move towards openness, there is more trusting and a greater acceptance of what may occur. We are then not limited but open to any possibility occurring in the moment. This can bring up excitement, curiosity, and a natural enquiry. A wanting to know what can happen but also a resting in not needing to know the answer. A complete trusting. In this trusting, we are turned inwards and an exploration naturally occurs effortlessly and without intent or purpose. We are absolutely free in this space. Ideas, concepts and even the idea of the other cease to make sense. There is only this moment. Singular, whole and complete. A place of infinite possibilities.
A place where you are emphatically you.
