Meaning, except Meanings (Nothing More Than That)

“I am” has no Me in it except Meanings
Isn’t it mean to put a meaning that means not “me”?

What is passion? To my idea, the word “passion” has a connotation of sensuality in it. I never questioned how this idea was derived until now. As I schemed through my memory bank, I “saw” this experience coming from a novel I read many years ago, probably 30 years, found on my brother’s bookshelf. The book had a tint of eroticism in it. And that is how the meaning of passion got stuck on me! Do you now see how meanings of words become our reality?

That reminds me back of my journey as a Buddhist, many years ago. Not that I am no longer a Buddhist now, nor can I say I am still one. Again this is touching on the topic of neither this nor that but simply beyond both. Anyway, I have been taught through readings and sharing that “God” does not exist in Buddhism. Young at heart and blazing with enthusiasm then, I took this fact without an iota of doubt and made it my gospel of truth. I never questioned its meaning and now on looking back, it is an obvious arrogance and blindness on my part. The problem with this idea is that whenever I read any book that has the word God on it as its cover, I would totally put it back on the shelf altogether, irrelevant whether the book is expounding love, freedom or peace in it. I see total wrongness at it. Period. I never questioned my own defiled limiting thought patterns. All I knew was that I was advocating Truth (hmm… what Truth?).

Isn’t that the nature of the mind, the nature of an undeveloped mind? Play a game with yourself. Observe throughout the day the meaning you have on words. You will be shocked by the resistance and holding on to each meaning that comes through you. But they are merely words that point to something, not what it is, and yet they define our reality, which in reality are all empty and meaningless. My meaning of a word may be totally different from how you defined yours – isn’t what conflicts are all about? A person who uses the word “bullshit” frequently would not be able to see the impact it has upon others who are sensitive to that word. Similarly the word “love” has different impact on people who are betrayed, loved, cared, abused, or whatever meaning they have accepted in their system. Don’t take words too seriously, they define the speaker, not the listener.

For many years I had difficulty coming to peace with the meaning of God. I am my own enemy within, struggling to kill the God within me. I tried suppressing it by moving away from shelves that talked about God. I shun the word by shifting my attention elsewhere. What hell I was in, albeit an unconscious one. Only until the day I realized it was the idea in the mind that I needed to reconcile with, and that concerned no one (as if concern on others works!), only then my journey of compassion begun. I came upon a book that changed the way I looked at God – not that I had come to peace with God but came to peace with the idea of God. The meaning found in that book jived with my set of ideas which I was  already having in my system. Nothing changed except the change of perception. And that freed me from the tyranny of God. Not really God but my clinging on to the idea of God.

Similarly, for those who have an ingrained meaning of God within them, I invite you to consider that the meaning you have of God is not what it is, except whatever god-knows-what idea that you have entered into your system. To experience something, to make it self-evident, be it God or what not, whatever ideas found in our system has to be fully defragmented and probably reformatted before full realization comes to our fold. Only when we come to peace with what’s within can we come to Peace, finally.

And that is all it is in our system – views: unquestioned views. Isn’t what communication is all about in our lives? We only agree to those who jive with our ideas. When we don’t agree to what others say, we bring in another idea to jive it in, so as not to create any conflict within or without. That idea is called “agreeing to disagree”. But isn’t that another way of putting it bluntly that I need you but I don’t need to support your idea?  And observe that we have never gotten out from our old idea except redefining it.  We broaden the scope of ideas to encompass others into our field. Like multi-level marketing, we only increase the downliners but who we are have never changed. Is that ignorance, or wisdom?

Wisdom finds peace in solitude and impartiality in din. Never once does wisdom hold on or resist any situation. It melts into it with ease without conflict. It has no personal agenda as personality is not in its equation.  It has no motive of “what’s in it for me” as each response is coming from the space of peace and freedom, with love as its nature.

So is there God? I don’t know. What I only know is that there is a vastness far beyond the conditioning of the mind could ever perceived and that requires no name, no meaning. To put a name on it leads me back to the finger, not the moon.