It is rather easy for me to mistaken an original product with the fake or imitation piece. It probably takes a skilled person in a particular trade to note the difference. With more and more sophisticated technology available in hand, the imitation product may no longer be as obvious as in the past.
Training and purifying the mind has the same issue – many a times when I thought I am already in the state of pure peace and bliss, that state turns out to be an imitation of the ego. In term of “imitation” in mind states, it has the taints of like and dislike, obscured by ignorance itself.
A good example is the quality of acceptance. Acceptance in its truest sense is about acknowledging and facing what is without any intention or purpose of changing or fixing it. True spiritual acceptance requires an act of surrendering and allowing whatever is to take place without any reaction or interference to it. In reality whatever the mind reacts has little or no effect to what is except a fabricated perception of control. Not recognizing this reality is what creates our delusion.
In the imitation state of acceptance, there is always a desiring for what is to change – it may not be obvious in the foreground. One easy way to recognized it is to check whether there is a tolerating attitude going on at the background of the mind. Whenever I am tolerating, I am gritting my teeth in my mind, withholding myself back from bearing witness to what is, even though I may be facing it without much of a choice. Tolerance is an imitation of acceptance. On the other extreme, resignation is also an imitation of acceptance. When I finally see the futility of tolerance, I resign to the “fate” with animosity, giving up myself in a way that expresses my discontent and rejection. Both are extremes to acceptance. In true acceptance there is purely peace and impartiality.
In each true quality you may observed that there is always bound to have both extremes, on each end, mimicking the balance of its center. We can understand this logic as it take two ends to make a center. The Buddha’s teaching of gradual awakening is solely based on this understanding – coming into balance of both extremes – The Middle Path, the path that is founded by recognizing both extremes on each end – holding on and resistance, created by ignorance.
Holding on and resistance are both clinging or craving in nature. They manifest themselves as like and dislike, want and don’t want, desire and aversion. Both these nature springs from ignorance of what is – it is these nature that brought about the meaninglessness meaning of control. In reality, control is a freak, a lie – an unknowing fabrication that we took as a gospel truth in our day to day living. This lie proliferates practically in all our mental states, whenever there is no awareness and wisdom backing our actions. I may say all reactions are ignorance by nature.
The inward journey of finding myself is the continuous journey of recognizing imitations in the mind. All imitations have limitation by nature. I can’t change imitation as the word “change” already imply “I have the control to take charge”. Imitation releases me when I recognized it as untrue, as false.
Truth reveals when I recognize false as false.
I usually agree with your article content, but in this case I am sorry to say that I do not share your views.
I appreciate your frank statement. The journey is directly experiential and self-evident. I can only share what I have personally experienced. And it can only be experience when I am authentically in the state of being, which is pretty a vulnerable state as it is subjected to egoic intervention when I am not fully awake and aware. Prior to my first experience, the information my teacher gave was pretty alien to me until I finally understood what he meant when I came into that self-evident space of beingness. I invite you to have an open mind. All the best. Consider reading Byron Katie’s A Thousand Names for Joy and also the latest interesting book Busting Loose from the Business Game by Robert Scheinfeld (the book has nothing to do with business!).