Here is a thought for the New Year coming up.
The greatest tragedy about the human race is that we all
think we are different.*1 About 3000 BC ago, something went wrong with the course of
human race: our ancestors
started to invade other tribal communities and that has made what we are today,
divided and conflicting. However,
no matter how different we “think” we are from others, we cannot avoid the
inner feeling that we are one and the same as a human. This is because we are intrinsically
one.*2 When you become aware of the Awareness, you know it is to be
true. What we are is always the
Experience experiencing itself. There are billions of consciousness on the
Earth, and we are all experiencing what we feel. Yet most of us do not realize what is feeling the feelings.
In the realm of the Awareness, the self does not exist. This means that you do not exist.
All senses are first memorized by the brain, and then the recognition
comes in the mind. But the brain
is not trustworthy. It is, as you know, notorious about memories. We don’t remember all the details even from yesterday. Our sense of smell, touch, vision,
taste, and hearing are all in the faulty brain. We cannot trust them.*3
What does this lead us to? First drop your given names. You did not choose them. Let go your mind.*4 The worst case of the mind is
either suicidal or homicidal. Let
it go. Empty your mind. Let go your self and ego. Experience who you truly are.
Then the funny thing is that once you now who you are, you
completely drop it and start address your self to be what you are.
So, I say this to all of you. I am the evil and the good. I am sorrow and happiness. I am all the miseries on the Earth and I am love. I am all these and beyond. Kiss my forehead and you know it is to
be true.
“Siddhartha silently looked at him with his still and
unchanging smile. Govinda stared
into Siddhartha’s face with fear, with yearning. Sorrow and eternal seeking were written in his gaze, eternal
failure to find. Siddhartha saw it
and smiled. ‘Lean toward me!’ he whispered in Govinda’s ear. ‘Lean toward me here! Right, a bit closer! Very close! Kiss my forehead, Govinda.’ …He no longer saw his friend Siddhartha’s face; instead he
saw other faces, many, a long row, a streaming river of faces, hundreds,
thousands, ...He saw the face of a fish, a carp…he saw gods, saw Krishna, saw
Agni…Govinda saw that his smile of the mask, this smile of the oneness…kind,
perhaps, quizzical, wise, thousandfold smile of Gautama, the Buddha, as he
himself…, no longer knowing whether a Siddhartha existed, or a Gautama, or I and
Thou, …Govinda stood for a brief while, leaning over Siddhartha’s silent face,
which he had just kissed, which had just been the setting of all formations,
all Becoming, all Being…Govinda bowed low. Tears ran over his old face, but he was unaware of them; the
feeling of deepest love, of humblest veneration burned in his heart like a
fire. He bowed low, down to the
ground, bowed to the motionless sitter, whose smile reminded him of everything
that he had ever loved in his life, that had ever been valuable and holy to him
in his life.”
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
*1: Those
of us who believe in individualism and the free will might want to ponder upon
the fact we did not consciously choose our birthday dates when we were fetuses.
*2: That
we all came from Africa, perhaps from the Lucy lineage. That we are made out of cosmic
dusts. That we came from the Big
Bang.
*3: Like
Rene Descartes did: once deceived,
cannot trust the deceiver. Like
the Heart Sutra correctly chants.
*4: The mind and the body are not enough. There has to be spirituality in between them.
