The World Begins with Views & End by Views

The world begins with views and ends by views. A more precise statement will be that because of views, the world comes into existence. And for the world to cease altogether, it will also have to be because of views – but views that lead to the end of it rather than furthering its existence.

I have of late found a new understanding pertaining to the nature of the mind. I came to realize how views or ideas make me able to do certain things whereas at other times another idea has the capacity of making me disabled in doing other things. In common language usage I would have said I can’t do this or I can do this but in reality there is no “I” having a role in it. It is not my choice. It is rather the ideas leading the way.

I came to realize that when a person has a higher threshold of pain than another, it is not because of the person’s skill or ability to bear it but rather it is the idea that he is having that makes him able or not able to do so. And when I use the word idea or view, I am to mean everything that involves my perception. And since perception is universal; to mean, occurring all the time without interval; then it is also made to mean that at any one moment of time, ideas are running me. I can’t escape from ideas; I am run by ideas, instead of me running those ideas.

Hence every action that arises is merely effect of a certain idea. Ideas set the nature of the action. It can be one idea or a combination of a few ideas regardless. If only I am able to clearly see this truth in each and every person, I can never be upset for what they have done as I would have realized that what they did were merely unconscious results of the ideas generating in their system that they are made to act. It is like puppet being pulled by the strings – the movement is not made by the puppet but the one who moves the strings; in this case, ideas. Hence ignorance of ideas is a major cause of our distress.

If I am aware of a limiting idea and were to introduce an opposite to it, I will be free but yet that freedom is not a true freedom as it is just another idea that seemingly erased what is already there – moving from a smaller box to another one which seems bigger. A good example is the placebo effect. True freedom is when one sees the illusion of ideas and transcends it. To transcend is to mean non-interference except having pure awareness of observation where wisdom arise naturally into fold by itself. I can’t dictate when wisdom will arise except to allow the state of non-doing to take place. Only when wisdom arises will a new incepted idea come into space, having wisdom as its root. Otherwise all other ideas have delusion as its base. In this aspect, I will see right view or right idea as having wisdom as its root and wrong idea, ignorance.

Wrong idea will incur further wrong idea whereas right idea (those with wisdom as its root) nullifies it. When right idea is introduced into the mind, it becomes a little program that brings about more right ideas that finally brings light at the end of the tunnel. It is one right direction of little freedom towards True freedom. It is because of not having right idea that clinging comes into being.

Desire or aversion; in short, clinging; can only arise from wrong view or wrong idea. Where there is right idea there is no reason for clinging to exist as the idea is leading towards freedom, not attachment. Hence to see attachment as wrong is missing the mark as what is causing it is idea itself. For instance, when we say we are attached to our item we are to mean we are having an idea that the thing can be held on to. In other words, the attachment is a derivative of wrong idea and that causes us to be attached to the idea we have of the item rather than the item itself. The item can never be attached too except in our mind – ideas. We have never touched the world except engage in our own game in the mind.

Though the house, car, money or relationship belongs to me, the belonging is occurring all the time in the mind, not out there. They merely exist as ideas. What is intangible – the mind – can never meet the tangible – the materials. Solve the mind, the world is solved. There is no necessity to give up the world out there, except the world that is within – wrong ideas.

The world out there can be a market place for unlimited inceptions of ideas into our mind. And the only safeguard I really need is wisdom itself. Without which, there is no possible way that I can come out clean from wrong ideas except deepening its grip. Understanding this is peace, is true freedom.

I am Your Devil Advocate, Your Angel

I entice you
luring you into my den
you feel helpless
troubled and restless.

One part of you quivers
ready to go wild for it
and yet another voice whispers
biding you to be cautious.

I am your devil advocate
a mirror of you
reflecting your past
of choices you err
only now another chance given, to choose again.

And here you are in dilemma
once more
of the direction you are called to take
of desire
and another of fear.

To give up one
is to give another to grow
for both are inseparable.

Do you not see
both fear and desire
are merely shadows
coined by you in ancient time
made to believe they are real.

To choose either one
is to make the unreal real
for both have their own stories retold
many a times
of betrayal, hurt, disapproval and loneliness.
For there are no relationship
except relationship with oneself

To give up both
is to restore what you have lost
found hidden in both.

Oh dear one,
if only you could see
I am merely a devil advocate
reflecting what you have err.

For when you wake up from your dream
you find an angel instead
of misperception you have surrendered.

Welcome me
for I am your lover
and your worst enemy
showing you what is in you.
I can’t hurt you except what you see in me.

For I am merely
a mirror
here for you
to return to the Beloved.

Can I Not See?

I can’t see you for who I think you are if not for the function of perception running in the mind. My perception projects exactly how I see you. How can it be otherwise? Whatever projection I have about you is entirely a perception running in me. This perception is derived from whatever accumulated ideas I have about the world. As I do not have the clarity to filter or to question ideas that come through me, I literally buy into what I perceive each moment without much wisdom. What I think is right is in accordance to my old ideas and what I think is wrong too, is in accordance to my old ideas. There is nothing new to what I am receiving except strengthening what is already in me. The more I am unconscious to those ideas the more I allow those ideas become my beliefs, making it my reality, as my righteousness. Do I not see this?

Do I not see how I perceive you is from what is within me? Do I not know what I judge or praise of you has nothing less than what is within me? Do I not see the world I put meaning to come from within? And that the world is only an effect of the cause beginning from me? I am not separated from the world as the world of ideas I have in me is being defined and retold again and again in my own stories about the world out there.

Each moment of experience, from anything as mundane to anything extraordinary, is accompanied with my own ideas, each unique of its own. It never and will never leave me as I have never questioned or inquired about them before. As such, every moment of experience is a matter of fact, a story unfolding, which at its end becomes a complete drama of its own. Where it ends, another story begins; like the soap opera series that run for seasons, sometimes for years, in the tube. In those dramas I see the storyline in linear experience, usually a plot at one time. Whereas in my own inner story the plot thickens in each moment, many a times having multiple dimensional schemes or conspiracies in it, hence making the stories in me more juicy, complicated and very real. To each person I share about my story I skilfully tailor it to their needs and temperament, making sure that they are convinced by my manipulative skill. Rarely do I failed in the mission, except in moments where I exaggerate to convince those who are not convinced, and if that fails, I’d label them as enemy against me. For all I want from them is to reinforce what I think is true as a reality so that I can be loftier than anyone else. Do I not see this?

When I see others telling me their stories, I am not seeing my own stories about them. When I judged others about their complaints, I am not aware of my complaint about them. What difference am I from them, they from me? If I am not authentic with myself with regards to what is running in the mind, I would have continuously setup an unseen new trap, a righteous one, that is more detrimental to what I see about the world which I think has nothing to do with me; for what comes into my space becomes mine, irrespective whether I keep silent, move away or comment.

I have never left you for ‘you’ is an idea that I am creating in me. Neither have I left the world as the world is the source of my ideas. Nothing more than just a tiny mad idea of each moment turned into a dream (or a nightmare!)