After a moment of that realisation, I chose to pay for Alice. Not that I want to be generous or that I’d like her to see me as generous, or even to rescue her from her need to settle the fee – I was simply doing myself a favour of transcending what is untrue, as not to buy into the belief of priorities. Do notice that there are lots of stuff going on behind those priorities. I call them conditionings which we may not be aware of. To name a few, there may be meanings of lack, of to each its own, of I am not supposed to be stingy, or guilty and many more strange meanings that we have taken on as gospel truth in our journey of experience. The question I always used to ask myself is – if the treatment is truly my entitlement, is it relevant whether I pay for it myself or by another since all the modes of payment are merely means to what I am to experience?

Thus the question of generosity came to mind. Is there generosity in the above experience? No. There wasonly an intention to give up the meaning of priorities. It is not a giving from the space of joyous abundance – hence, I could not see it as generosity but rather a giving from my giving up of my mind’s meaning. In that moment, I came to realise there are different levels of giving. Giving from giving up our meanings, giving from adhering to a certain value, giving to save face, giving to increase the ego, giving from seeing another a victim, giving from pity, giving from compassion, giving from fear. Still, the ultimate giving is when you no longer have any more meanings of priority, which includes the giving to yourself. This is when unconditional giving arise herein.

Anyway, as Alice tries to repay me for the fee I have made, I reminded her that she was doing a great service to me by accepting the fact that I am simply doing it for myself and not because of her. And as weleft the healing centre, I suggested that I treat her breakfast. Looking at me dumbfounded, I told her I just felt generous to share what is in my space. Well, whether she feels guilty of receiving or not is another matter altogether…. :)

Imagine you have an itch on your skin due to an assumed mosquito bite. Grumbling and agitated by the itch, you move your hands towards it and start scratching incessantly while at the same time search for the darn mosquito at the wrath of your merciless desire to annihilate it. Right at that moment, if you had bothered to notice, there is a relationship going on. In fact, a very intimate one moment – you and your mosquito. Yes, that is what it is. Whatever you experience at any one moment in time is your relationship to whatever is there. Yet, let us dissect that relationship further and explore whether there is a deeper relationship beneath it that you may not be aware of.

Putting aside the mosquito image, what is left is the itch that is compelling you to scratch. The dislike of that itch is what you are relating to at that moment. That is a more closer-to-reality relationship that you are having rather than with the mosquito. In relative, your attention is more towards resolving the itch rather than the mosquito. Which is more important at that point – scratch or search for the mosquito? I am not saying that the mosquito is not in the equation of your itch, but rather the itch is what you wish to end or avoid, if possible. And since you can’t have that immediately, and it gets into your nerve to scratch harder to end the itchiness with the target of blame going to the mosquito.

Yet surprisingly, the itch is in fact not the actual closer-to-reality relationship. Like an onion being peeled, another layer comes into attention. If I were to invite you to temporarily give up the need to scratch just for a while, what will you be faced? Unbearable-ness, I am certain. It is the unbearable-ness that you can’t handle that makes you stretch out your finger to scratch. Now, you have come a long way in noticing what is actually going on. It is about you and your unbearable-ness. From not being able to bear, which is your threshold of discomfort, you have gone as far as making the mosquito responsible for it. How would the mosquito know it has hurt you, except to feed itself when it is hungry? Yet, you labelled it as biting (the mosquito is toothless!) or attacking you.

Could you have imagined the mosquito is actually not exactly what you are relating with but in reality your unbearable-ness of the itchiness? And when you do not notice that, the mosquito becomes your victim of circumstances. Your unbearable-ness has nothing at all to do with the mosquito – if you are ready for that truth! Consider a moment an image of a hunger stricken child in Africa with flies all over his face. Does the child consider the flies a problem and try shooing it away? What I am conveying is that if there is no underlying issue with unbearable-ness, the mosquito will not at all be the attention of your distraction.

But let’s move beyond unbearable-ness and explore what is beneath it. It must surely be about our level of tolerance that brought about the threshold of discomfort. Yet, the level of tolerance can be stretched if we were to give ourselves the effort or patience to face a little bit more. But usually we don’t. Killing the mosquito or scratching the itch will be a better and faster way of getting rid of our discomfort rather than facing it. Rarely do we take full responsibility of it – and it has much to do with our latent attitude of survival – giving in to fear instead of developing love. Imagine if it is a human that you dislike – will you go to the extent of murdering, like killing the mosquito? I would choose to believe that you will not go to that extent. Then what course of action would you take next? Predictably, you either move away timidly or you impose intimidation onto the subject. Whichever way, you are introducing fear as your way of life. Because of that, you may never see a truer reality as in beyond the story of the mosquito.  As you play the game of blame or attack, you will never get a chance to realise the delusional construct that revolves around your experience.

Your attitude lies the key to your truer relationship – the only relationship that is ultimately true. The idea beneath that attitude is what moves you to take the course of action – either one that saves the world, or hurts it. If you are conscious, you may even notice tolerance is not loving. Wholeheartedness acceptance may be the direction. Whatever it is, it is a matter of whether you are keen to seek the truth and nothing else but the truth, or drown yourself in the ocean of deception. This is your only choice albeit there is no right and wrong in either. The past is gone and the future yet to arrive. Your Now is the only potential given to you to realise a reality that is seldom known. The Now cannot be robbed from you. It is offered and re-offered to you until you come to a fullness of realisation. And until that happens, the nightmare of delusion continues … there is only you and your ideas, nothing further than that.

I just heard from a friend complaining that his mind keeps “running” back and forth into thinking though he tried his level best to be on the in-breath and out-breath meditation method as taught by his teacher. He finds himself fighting an unending battle of stationing himself. To him, the breath is more important than his discursive thinking. Of course, if a bodily discomfort was to appear, he would really have a hard time handling all these “distracting” stuffs that are seemingly pulling him away from the specialness of his breath focusing.

That brought me to the subject of the mind choosing its own object. The mind, as you would have noticed by now, choses its own object all the time. If you are not aware of this reality, do sit quietly for a moment and learn to “get yourself out of the way” – to mean ‘not involve’. You may catch a glimpse that the mind goes from one object to another all the time, on its own. Of course, the objects always revolve around the six senses all the time. Now, if you are able to be in that non-interference state for a longer period of time and just observe the mind in a nonchalant way, you will realise that the mind has a nature of its own happening in your field of experiences – whether you like it or not. There is nothing much you can do about this mind experience except, either to observe it, or to be involved in it. When you observe it with right attitude of non-interference, you will gain a certain insight that makes you realise that the mind is not you, or there is a no-you in it. Yet, when you are involved in it, the sense of ‘you’ in the experience will suddenly become seemingly real. Many a times most of us experience the latter and take for granted that all the mind activities are us.

Out of the above two, you can also use the mind to create another state of experience of calmness by choosing a specific object of focus, say, in-breath or out-breath as shared by my friend. By focusing and intermittently bringing the attention back to the breath when it gets distracted, you will upon time, experience a deep state of calmness which you may not have experienced before. It is a pretty pleasant experience to have and you may be enticed to meditate more and more by the hours to get the experience so as to feed your need to be calm and also to enjoy that extraordinary pleasant experience.

The mind is a playground of sorts – 1) observe, 2) immerse, or 3) create a new game out of it – all to your intent. Yet, whichever route you take, bear in mind that all has its own different consequences. If you observe it, you will realise a lot of stuff about this mind you have not known and probably gain much awakening, detachment and realisation out of it. If you immerse in it, you will have unending storylines which you are responsible for, irrelevant whether you like it or not. And for the third, you may create an addiction out of the experience and stay escaped out of the world that you have to sooner or later deal with – it may not be a practical solution unless you go to a remote and become a recluse.

You can’t have all three games played simultaneously. Also do remember that you can’t choose one and experience another consequence for they all have different routes. As a gentle reminder, if you are on the route of observing so as to gain insight into the nature of this mind, stop choosing your object of choice – a thought, in-breath, pain, anger, whatever – are all the same. They are all in seemingly varied  degrees due to your likes and dislikes. If you force your attention to only one, unknowingly you have set yourself to the third route though you think you are on the first.

A friend shared with me that her purpose of coming into meditation is to train herself to be in the Now. I looked at her, surprised, and for a moment paused and asked her a question, “are you really sure you want to be in the Now?” She replied a brief yes. I asked her further whether is she aware that when she is experiencing upset, that emotion is her “now” experience and that is what she has always wanted to get out from instead of “be in the Now”? I also casually poked her that when her Now is bestowed with good fortune, there is a part of her that is looking out away from the Now, expecting that the experience can last a little longer? Now, each of these situations, has always been presented to her, unconditionally, yet she is not able to receive it unconditionally, except to miss out what is already there.

Even that is also not true as when she is not present to what is already here, she has no choice but to be in the “now” experience of wanting to get away or desiring something imaginative of the future. Both too are Now to her though they both seemingly fall under categories of “past” or “future”. Again, do you not notice, you can never “escape” the Now? So what’s the point of “Be in the Now”?

My wise teacher used to remind me that there is no power in the Now, subtly referring to a book title “The Power of Now”; for Now has always been and will always be the myriads of experiences that plague human existence. To him the Now can be occupied by ignorance or wisdom, ego or Holy Spirit. It is in the Wisdom or Holy Spirit that true power is found, not Now. Only through much discernment and realisation years later did I notice what he was trying to point me to – to develop wisdom through non-interference of mind states so as to recognise the existence of ego and how it tricks one into the trap of delusion.

If “Be in the Now” is only for that purpose than that phrase is well-justified. More accurately, this specific journey of realizing the ego would need a more comprehensive name, like say, Ego Exposed!, The Ending of Ego, Wisdom versus Ego, The Overcoming of Ego, etc., rather than the ambiguous Be in the Now. Otherwise, bringing your mind to what you are doing in your daily life, as the statement indicates, is unnecessary, as you are already always in the Now, else you wouldn’t have experienced it!

You think you have not enough. You think someone, somewhere, is always better off than you at any one time. Sometimes you also do think you have more than enough. You think, you are better off than anyone in the world. Yet there is another in-between; you think you are equal to another. You think you are equally as good as another, or worst, equally as lousy as that dumb born loser. Whether you are here or there, in or out, up or down, you are constantly changing the mask of comparison. Sometimes a midget, sometimes a giant, sometimes at level to another. Yet, there was never another except you and what you think, seemingly speaking to you, doing what you think must be done, on someone, or at someplace, or with something. The thought or role-play spoken secretly in your head is not known by another, yet there was never another in the first place. If ever there was, it was the one you had initially listen to, the one you were seeing inside, except now being positioned outside you. For how can you be inside or outside unless you take a stand of either? If you think you are inside thinking, there must be an outside to meet it. If you think you are outside, you must imagine someone is thinking you. Thus, when you see another, you are actually seeing the same cause in different illusionary position, thus making it seemingly an effect. For cause and effect is actually one, played out in the illusion of separation. Where you stand, in your own imagination, matters to this illusion, unless and until you recognise it as it is.  Otherwise, you are living in a world of your own voice, unknown.

If you actualize that voice into action, or speak words in manipulative demeanour for the sake of luring another to your secret den, you are doing it to that voice, and for that voice only; just to savour deeper what you secretly conspired, never mind it is from a state of lack, pride or equality. The myriads of your experiences are based on that voice of which you think you think, yet, it is nothing until you think it. The voice is, but a single idea brought to thought, and left as quickly as it came; yet when pursued, it mutates to countless uncountable conflicting ideas.

It is here salvation is offered by the Now – you can use it purposefully for God’s sake in ending this insanity, or pursuing a dream that has no end. For purpose is only truly purposeful if awakening is required to wakeup from a dream, else all other purposes are not purpose except choiceless choices made within the field of a scripted choice. Thus the gift of Now is only two – the miracle of wisdom to see thought as it is or the perception of thought that makes it real. It is here, the journey ends, or continue. The end is but eternity; continue is but a lifeless end to begin again and to end prematurely, endlessly.

Yet, there was never at all a futile voice that you needed to play in – of hide and seek that was never at all real, yet played for the sake of self imagination. It is a game of non-necessity, where nothing really happened except your own initiative just to entertain yourself briefly. The game of hide and seek, though needed two, is played all by yourself, in your own thoughts , which is at least to say is an impossible task – yet you played nevertheless on your own, an imagination yet known by you. The thought was never was, and was never in existence, until you turn it to a voice by your believing in it. And here perception came to be, of memory once gone, made real, over and over again in illusion. You would not have existed without that voice, and that voice, non-existence without you. Until you have awaken to that, a dream is what a dreamer you are, dreaming with the voice swimming through your head. Yet, if you have awaken to it, a voice is just is, finally finding its way in ending.

The Borderland (The Transition, A Course in Miracles, Text, Chapter 26)

….

There is a borderland of thought that stands between this world and Heaven. It is not a place, and when you reach it is apart from time. Here is the meeting place where thoughts are brought together; where conflicting values meet and all illusions are laid down beside the truth, where they are judged to be untrue. This borderland is just beyond the gate of Heaven. Here is every thought made pure and wholly simple. Here is sin denied, and everything that is received instead.

This is the journey’s end. We have referred to it as the real world. And yet there is a contradiction here, in that the words imply a limited reality, a partial truth, a segment of the universe made true. This is because knowledge makes no attack upon perception. They are brought together, and only one continues past the gate where oneness is. Salvation is a borderland where place and time and choice have meaning still, and yet it can be seen that they are temporary, out of place, and every choice has been already made.

Nothing the Son of God believes can be destroyed. But what is truth to him must be brought to the last comparison that he will ever make; the last evaluation that will be possible, the final judgment upon this world. It is the judgment of the truth upon illusion, of knowledge on perception: “It has no meaning, and does not exist. “This is not your decision. It is but a simple statement of a simple fact. But in this world there are no simple facts, because what is the same and what is different remain unclear. The one essential thing to make a choice at all is this distinction. And herein lies the difference between the worlds. In this one, choice is made impossible. In the real world is choosing simplified.

Salvation stops just short of Heaven, for only perception needs salvation. Heaven was never lost, and so cannot be saved. Yet who can make a choice between the wish for Heaven and the wish for hell unless he recognizes they are not the same? This difference is the learning goal this course has set. It will not go beyond this aim. Its only purpose is to teach what is the same and what is different, leaving room to make the only choice that can be made.

There is no basis for a choice in this complex and over-complicated world. For no one understands what is the same, and seems to choose where no choice really is. The real world is the area of choice made real, not in the outcome, but in the perception of alternatives for choice. That there is choice is an illusion. Yet within this one lies the undoing of every illusion, not excepting this.

Is not this like your special function, where the separation is undone by change of purpose in what once was specialness, and now is union? All illusions are but one. And in the recognition this is so lies the ability to give up all attempts to choose between them, and to make them different. How simple is the choice between two things so clearly unalike. There is no conflict here. No sacrifice is possible in the relinquishment of an illusion recognized as such. Where all reality has been withdrawn from what was never true, can it be hard to give it up, and choose what must be true?

it is all happening here
in the mind of the beholder
a subjective perception
of comparison with another

my big house is reduced to small
by the many furnitures I put in
or the colour I chose
or even my wanting it bigger

how then can space be real
or even true
when I say I need my space
or
do not intrude into my space
or even
this space is mine!

except a misguided perception
entailing separation
between your idea and reality

what then is beyond space
where separation is impossible
and hierarchy unheard of
where high meets low
where up is down
where top is also bottom
and you is me
and we
is

but a figment of imagination
deriving from space
where it can be filled
or occupied
or even
used
and returned

let space teach us
instead of lead us

to think that we are actually here!

As they finally came by, without further ado, I picked up the wallet from my pocket and chose a big note in exchange for a packet of tissue. It was an attitude that I have determined from the past and trained myself not to question the motive of the request as and when it appears before me, acknowledging fully that it is my own wish to give unconditionally without being plagued by thoughts of doubts.  And if ever any of such thoughts were to arise, it is about my mind that I have to address and not what is been projected outside of it. What is seemingly outside, as I remind myself constantly, is merely my own thought put onto it.

What surprised me a moment later is the inner dialogue that came out from that act. The guilt of giving too much and the uncertainty of what I have just done plagued my mind into distress. It was a brief moment of uneasiness as I looked at the mind that was in tussle, trying to find ways to justify the act. Regret was one of the obvious unquestioned emotion together with a myriad of associated feelings with it. It was a case of betrayal, more correctly, a self-betrayal – feeling betrayed towards myself for the amount I handed out. As before in such situation, it has always been a norm to console myself by justifying the act, imagining that they needed the money more than me, or by refuting or admonishing my own mistake; and if all of such doesn’t work, a series of mindless guilt and punishment comes to place. It is interesting to notice how the mind works, or more accurately, delusion – trapped in a whirlpool of meanings of entanglements.

Just as about the plot seemed to get thicker, a glimpse of light of understanding shined through the mind as Wisdom reminded me one more time that both moments are not at all connected in any way, though it seems to be a consecutive leading on moment. It unravelled me the understanding that the moment of giving is simply an act of unconditionality and it has since long gone as quickly as it came. The next moment of regret, had nothing at all to do with the earlier act, as it too came and gone at that moment; the latter seemingly meeting the former and parting once again. The regret was merely a memory, a shadow or an ancient thought that was held back in the past, surfaced and joining into the moment to be freed and gone forever, to be forsaken. And that is exactly all it was, a pleasant remembering and a conscious wakefulness and understanding so not to perpetuate it’s meaning and thus consciously releasing it so as not to return again.

Every moment of what arises in the mind is but old unresolved meanings that we have harboured and not released. And if I were to believe in it, I am only securing another future similar incident to spark that meaning to meet me again – in fact that is why it arose again of a past I did not choose correctly to see it as a memory. The experience I had with what was outside me was not relevant at all to my peace as to what comes up within me. My outside experience is by and large defined by my inner perception, and thus is not always to my best interest, though I think I am that. I thought getting upset is to my best interest, yet it is not. I thought desiring my experience is to my best interest, yet it is also not. What arise from the mind is just what I have addicted myself to, re-experiencing it unknowingly until waking up from it one fine day.

“The miracle but shows the past is gone, and what has truly gone has no effects. Remembering a cause can but produce illusions of its presence, not effects.” - ACIM, The Present Memory.

Do read an awesome related entry: Living Memory

When I am with someone, I am there with the person; as such I “myself”, is experiencing time together with the person. I cannot be with the person and at the same time not there myself – it is impossible – for while being with the person, I can only experience my own experience with the person – I cannot experience him or her, except myself. If I don’t like the experience while with the person, that is exactly what I am experiencing. If I enjoy being with the company, that too is exactly what I am experiencing – in both situations, I am constantly experiencing myself about the person, never of the person. As such, I am having time with myself in the midst with another.

What is more true when I say “I have no time for myself” is that I am all the while paying attention to another instead of noticing my own involvement in another. When I subject my attention to another, I lose myself, so to speak, thus having the meaning that I am not giving enough time for myself – it is an unconscious habitual decision which most of us have yet to realise.

If I am fully aware of my own mind, I am able to be present to the internal process of interaction or responses of what is going on in my mind and what is perceived as coming from the other. When I am noticing this, I am totally being with myself in the midst of with another. One may ask how could it be possible to give attention to another while being with oneself? How could it not be possible considering that we are indeed encountering part of the experience which has to include me, unless our attention is fully 100% on the person and 0% on ourselves? Even that is impossible as we never and will never experience any moment without ourselves in it. It is more of I am oblivious to myself but not away from myself.

As in many situations, for example driving, we are not giving full 100% attention to the road as we may be listening to the radio, looking at someone or even thinking about a situation. If we are able to divide our attention at the same time, it can never be an issue dividing attention between ourselves and also another. It just takes a little training and adjustment. Attention giving is a function of the mind. Direct it and it will work for you.

After all have been said, whether you give attention to yourself or not, you are experiencing every moment of your time, albeit in an unconscious unknowing. When you wake up one day to what is truly happening in your space, you would have noticed you are having time for yourself only 100% all the time, irrelevant whether you are aware or not. Until then, being unconscious, you will try to find time for yourself, probably going for a holiday, or giving yourself a me time – whatever you do, it is no different from any moment than before; as wherever you go or do for yourself, your attention is still out there somewhere…

Thus, to trace back its origin and to realize what happened in the storyline is not truly as empowering as realizing these are merely meanings we subscribed to that make us re-experience it again this moment. In fact by noticing, “abandonment” is merely a meaning is enough to set us free in the now. Yet many a times the issue is not as simple as it is, as the meaning that we have bought into has mutated throughout the years into a belief – a more potent evolved state of perceived reality that are merely a reinforced meaning.

Hence to see the end of our so-called experience, be it happy or sad, is to see its meaninglessness. Even happiness is meaningless, considering that it is a result of expectation met, deriving from a certain idea or meaning that we put in as good or satisfying our need. It will be surprising to notice that it is guilt that propels one to seek for happiness as it is by not having that we subtly manipulate situations to meet our needs. If you have observed your mind or been authentic to your action can you finally see this reality. Many a times we are thwarted by what we think, rather than what we realized.

Take the example of admonishment – when we admonish someone with thoughts of ill-will, thinking that it is for their highest good, we are not noticing the reality that what we spoke is actually for us to hear. We don’t notice that our addiction of wanting to control and predict motivates us to control others for our own convenience so that we need not face the vulnerability when our expectation is not met. We impose our views upon others expecting that what we think is ultimate truth, yet how can that be possible when we don’t even realize that what we share with others are nothing except personal views.

Thus do we really, really know? Not at all. We know nothing except our perception about it. Do you know a car? No, we don’t – we only know how to drive but we don’t know what a car is. We only know how to use a mobile phone, but we don’t know what a mobile phone is. Similarly, we only know another by their character which we come into connection with through what we see and perceive, but we don’t and can’t know who he or she really is. We will never know, not even if we stayed with them for awhile, unless and until we come to know our mind inside out.

Delusion and ignorance rise hand in hand together. Because of the nature of delusion, the mind inclines toward not noticing what is exactly in front, thus ignoring the obvious. One common error in nearly all of our life’s transaction is this thing called “experience”. We experience having a new house, we experience having a good relationship, we experience stress in our work place, we experience someone betraying us once or again, and many more uncountable experiences we have within a day. In truth, we can’t experience anything that is outside except experiencing our perception about it. Thus we can’t experience a new house except our meaning about the house. If our so-called new house is plague with lots of malfunctions, we have to experience the meanings of those malfunctions, hence our unpleasantness deriving from it. Similar if our perception is in tandem to what the house is, pleasantness arise. Whatever it is, our experiences has nothing to do with the house except our meanings or perception about it. We have never once left our mind, and all our so-called worldly experiences are all based from it.

Similarly when we experience betrayal of another, we are in truth experiencing our own invested interest turning sour. We did not notice that the meaning the mind gives to the world backfired by unmet expectation. We did not notice that trust upon another is delusional as it is deeply invested in self-interest. There must be a payoff in certain form when we give ourselves away to another – else we wouldn’t have done it in the first place. After all that has been said, it is not about seeing wrongness in our actions or putting a blame to what is but rather, to see the reality that when delusion is not recognized, pain is rampant, suffering is inevitable. Yet the good news is that when one wakes up from it, each and every meaning of pain and suffering just disappears right away – just as darkness cannot exist in the midst of light.

What if the stark reality of life is that what we think it is, is not exactly what we think it is. What if we are now told that what we think it is, is not at all closer to any truth, except our own imaginary perceived reality. With this information, and with the wisdom within one to reflect upon this, the journey towards self-awakening is possible. But if one was to brush it off as nonsensical then the phrase ignorance is bliss will stay true until Truth comes a knocking. Only then the journey begins from scratch, slowly but surely towards arriving at one’s own door.

For those already on the Path, a wiser self-reminder is non-conclusion as to put a conclusion to any situation, event or experience is to invite delusion into the pathway.