Hi,
Where I come from they say: “Do you know what thought did? It thought it did.”
Socrates said: “I no longer know anything.”
Lao Tzu said: “Everyone seems so certain and I walk as though upon thin ice.”
Some else said: “Beware of anyone he says they know, for they know not.”
And so on. Even the leading edge of science is saying that now.
I am sure that when you meet someone who is less awake than you, it is very obvious. We are aware of those who are less awake — and we are afraid (or, much more rarely, excited) of those who are more awake. When I first read your e-mail I deleted it. I thought that you thought you knew, and were not interested to know that you do not. Then I thought I would write a reply anyway — for those who are open. One of your main issues is control. You don’t know that. You may think you know what I mean, but you don’t. You are not seeing it. Whenever something is seen, unconditionally, it transforms. Notice when you contract. If you are really interested in expanding your consciousness, try this, just as an experiment…
Sit down, close your eyes, and imagine that everything you think you know is not true, and everything you think you don’t know is not true. Just imagine that if you think it, it is not true. And feel how you feel.
>“It is my experience there are many things that can be understood by the mind and many that cannot. The understanding however can only point the way and cannot take us home…”<
What part of you says that? — the mind. The mind cannot know the mind. And how can it point the way! If it knew the way you would be there already. The mind is like a man — it thinks it has to know all the answers.
>“Later on you state that “we cannot truly know anything”…this I agree with on an essential level but again not on the relative level…I can certainly “know” what I am feeling… for instance…”<
Everything is true on the level it is true. And there are endless ‘levels.’ (And there are no levels.)
>“You have certainly found your way home, Paul…”<
You don’t know that. Paul does not know that. How can you know if someone is home if you are not experiencing home. You do not know what home is — you only think what you think is home, is home.
>“yet it seems by your words that you believe your way home (to ultimate truth)”<
There is no such thing as ultimate truth. Just more bullshit conditioning.
>“is THE way home for all.
Please, listen, there is no way. You are awake, or you are asleep. There is no way. When you want to be awake, you are, and you then realize that you have been awake all the time, but did not want to. When it is unconditional, it is. In their own way, everyone who awakens says the same.
>“This is not my experience.”<
Of course it is not your experience — you are not awake.
>“My experience has shown me that there are as many ways home as there are > people on the planet.”<
Again, there are no ‘ways’ home. Your experience is about sleep. You are not awake, so your experience is useless. Worse — you thinking you know is in the way of you waking to the truth. You do not want the truth. When you do, you will realize that you are the truth and have been all the time. Your expertise is about being asleep. If you are such an expert on being awake, how come you are not awake! It is true that each person who has an awakening experience may think that his or her’s is *the* way — which means they are not awake. Many people have an awakening experience and then think that this is it. (I have not read it, but I like the title of this book: “Halfway Up The Mountain: the Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment.” Mariana Caplan.)
>“Others do not have your “wiring” and are designed to find truth in their being via various other ways…all of which are perfect for them.
It depends on your definition of *perfect.* If it was that perfect they would be beyond suffering already. When you are really awake you are beyond wiring. The wiring is still there, but the awareness nutralisis it, and it slowly dissipates. Then it is a matter of tuning into each person’s wiring to see how to assist the person to see their wiring. Nobody awakens anybody. They can disturb them enough so they awaken themselves. “I come not to bring peace but a with a sword.”
And, and this is another level altogether, there are other things. There is a *reality* that is beyond what we can even conceive. Everything we experience here is based on a perspective. There are other perspectives. In this dimension we are still in kindergarden — thinking we have graduated.
>“One last thing…your comment at the end of this e-mail is that “seriousness is a disease: ” to me…seriousness is more an affect of fear and ignorance.”<
Dis-ease. Yes, it is all ignorance. When the feeling of connection to the source is not there, there is the fear that things can go *wrong*.
And what do we get out of all this?
Remembering. Letting go of the past and everything we think we do and do not know and just being in this very moment, just as it is, as unconditionally as we know how.
Sending lots of love… paul