Alice In Wonderland

I am not hearing from one, or two or a handful, but I am getting feedbacks from a number of people that life seems to be getting more and more meaningless to them. And there are even some who think they are going through a mid-life crisis. And guess what? The parking bays at one shopping complex are full with cars during working hours! What is going on? Are people getting more and more restless, disturb and uneasy?

Seems like a great shift is moving in everyone of us – irrelevant whether we are aware of it or not. Our preoccupation with thoughts make us oblivious to this change. The rumbling within can be as loud as a shouting, if only one were to sit quietly, doing nothing and just observing the mind.

There are more eclipses, tremors and earthquakes than before. If the saying “what is within, so is without” is true, then is the nature of the world reflecting what is going on in each and everyone of us – the landscape of the mind? I do think so. The outer landscape is reflecting the inner landscape. In reality there is no outer or inner as both are just a reflection of each other. The inner landscape of the mind is more real than what is outside, relatively. For all our experiences of the world are going through within us – the way we perceived and the accompanied feelings. In fact that is all we are. We have never left our experiences.

Do watch the latest movie Alice In Wonderland. Alice, in one scene of the movie, told Mad Hatter: “What I am experiencing is just a figment of my own imagination.” Mad Hatter: “You mean I am not real?” “Yes,” replied Alice. And at the end of the scene when Alice was pondering whether to drink the elixir that will bring her out of the dream, Mad Hatter persuaded her not to: “You can still be in the dream” and for that Alice replied: “What a tiny wonderful idea”!

Are we all in our own dream making the world as what it is now? Is there a dragon out there for us to slay or an inner dragon that is awaiting our meeting? What tiny mad idea are we having that still imprison us in the dream? And where is the doorway out of this dream?

Would changing the landscape within, changes the landscape without? We are not taught that way and that is exactly what is happening here on earth – it is always about fixing someone, something – out there – instead of coming back within and see what is the thing that is pissing us off so much. When will we take responsibility of our thoughts and feelings, though they are not entirely us?

When will we be the master of our own creation, choosing what we want to experience in the world, by creating what is within us? And thus the first step is to take into awareness, with love, what is already brewing within – to face to face with it, in full acceptance, forgiveness and love. Only by doing so, can creation comes into picture – creating what we wish to experience. Otherwise, the pirated version of it, the imitation of trying to make something out of what is already here comes into play. It is just another cover up and we will never get out from it, on the contrary, entangle ourselves deeper into the conditioning of our own ignorance.

Alice: But I don’t want to go among mad people.
The Cat: Oh, you can’t help that. We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.
Alice: How do you know I’m mad?
The Cat: You must be. Or you wouldn’t have come here.
Alice: And how do you know that you’re mad?
The Cat: To begin with, a dog’s not mad. You grant that?
Alice: I suppose so,
The Cat: Well, then, you see, a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.

– – – – – – – –

Duchess: Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.

– Alice in Wonderland (1951)

In the Presence of Truth


Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Blogger’s Note:
If I value form, I may be blinded by his actions and judge therein.
If I value essence, form does not mean anything to me.
Whatever it is, if judgments come within me, the process of forgiveness is necessary
I am entirely responsible for it.
If I am not willing to see my own shortcomings,
That unwillingness is also my forgiveness.

The Fiery Tiger, the Weary Kitten

When you say or do anything to please, get, keep, influence, or control anyone or anything, fear is the cause and pain is the result.

~ Byron Katie

Whenever I am pissed off, the latest being yesterday, I could see the familiar trail the ego takes to finally culminates itself in upset. It begins with wanting – and it all started from fear. I wanted my wife to stay cool over an event that I knew will blew my top if she reacts – there is an obvious fear here that I do not want history to repeat itself. Funnily, I already knew what is going to come, and I never take the step to be aware of myself, but instead try to fix what is out there. And this has been the same pattern occurring again and again – isn’t that insanity at its greatest height – expecting it to be different? And one of my teacher has a better way of doing it, instead of just being aware – just create what I will like the outcome to be instead of predicting what I am going to experience. I seldom heed his advice and thus I have to relearn again and again the stupidity of ignorance.

And as nature always is, I can’t stop my wife from reacting – and the next moment, before I knew it (or rather I already knew it beforehand), I was upset for the reaction. So my meditation teacher’s advice keeps ringing in my head – we can’t get what we want, what we get is only suffering. Arrgggh…. Then the wakeup call came – it is not because of her reaction that I am upset. It is the similar pattern of pathway that I have experienced over and over again that I am already knowing what is coming my way – irrelevant whether it comes from my wife or anyone else for that matter. What a bitter news!

Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you.

– A Course In Miracles

And so I was with this upset for the reamining day, “lovingly” being with it – it was far from the truth. I was just kidding myself, as I could see how insidious and poisonous my words are whenever a conversation was held between me and her. It has the wanting of getting even – a revengeful thought, with an obnoxious facial expression, coupled with a deadly statement –  a battle of revenge. How painful the mind was!

Evening came and I was doing a session of meditation. A child, brought along by her mother, was making some little “noise” from the pens she placed on the whiteboard holder, each time she changes a colour. Even that, the upset is directed at the child, and at the mother who brought her along. How horrendous the mind is! So it is exactly what Yeshua said: I am not upset for the reason I think it is. This reminder jolted me out from my delusional anger.

After a day of painful journey, a burning mind, an unresolved internal conflict, the fiery tiger turns into a weary kitten – tired and exhausted from the fight of the ego, from not taking responsibility for the delusion of grasping – a time for peace to enter, to apply what the old masters have taught – forgiveness. Forgiving the world for what they have not done. And there I was, seated  stoically, reclaiming the power I have given out to the world, coming into peace with my own imaginary upset. I sat and sat until the moment I fully come into reconciliation of my own inflicted dis-ease – the so called “noise” that came from the child disappears, as she walks out from the meditation premise – indeed a miracle that comes from choosing from rightmindedness.

Indeed a lesson of love to choose correctly again…