After the Beginning

The problem of human suffering has puzzled our race for eons.  Our conscious worry about our future must have started with the inception of memory.  Memory, as I understand it, is the capacity of life to, consciously or unconsciously, store information regarding experience and recall that information in a relevant moment or simply as desired.  This has little to do with time and date and everything to do with a value judgment about the importance of sensory information as it is perceived, recognized and cognized.  What determines what information is noticed and what information is ignored?  What then decides what the information “means” and moves in conscious response or unconscious reaction to the perceived stimulus?  What is it that generates interpretation of experience and then follows the non-verbal storyline of that interpretation?  What is it that generates thoughts and feelings and then follows up on those thoughts and feelings with even more thoughts and feelings, continually editing and revising its interpretation of experience?

There is an underlying consciousness that joins our experiences together in a way that seems to make “sense”.  This consciousness is always arising and unfolding as and through experiential awareness itself.  As big as this idea may sound in words, it is common knowledge.   As human beings, we have the tendency to know ourselves through the use of self-referencing.  This means that we use context to understand and experience ourselves.  Context consists of references, which generate a web of interconnected points of information.  We use one context to describe another and in this way a given context becomes another point of reference. 

For example, a language is understood by one word in relationship to another.  In order to understand the meaning of a word you have to understand the meaning of another words first.  So, to learn a language you have to connect a sound (word) to a meaning.  The sound then becomes a reference for the particular experience that it represents.  I can show you a round, orange piece of fruit and say “Orange”.  In doing so I connect the sound from my mouth with the experience of the object I am showing you.  In this case I may also use comparison and show you another piece of fruit and say “Apple”.  Now I have given you another reference.  I could go on and show you other fruits with other sounds or perhaps change to another type of object and give you a broader reference to show you what I mean by fruit as opposed to vegetables.  In doing so, the broader references “fruit” and “vegetables” become contexts with references such as “apples” and “oranges” within them.  Comparing apples and oranges is difficult within the context of fruit but easy when you expand the context to fruit and vegetables. 

What I am pointing out here is that language is one way of building references.  What we say is symbolic of what we mean, in regards to our references.  As sensory beings in communication with one another we spend much of our time explaining and conveying our experience through words.  We seek meaning and context in order to communicate precisely our unique experiences.  We learn and develop more and more references as we expand the context of our lives, personally and collectively.  But within this never-ending expansion we generally fail to notice that which is beyond context and reference, the inherently peaceful presence of universal intelligence that rests at the very heart of experience.

For thousands of years humans have been busy building contextual structures of understanding.  We create, learn and use innumerable references that become powerful repositories of our historical background.  This has given way to elaborate strategies for survival, with systems of government and tribal protection, which has allowed the expansion of our population and the ability to overcome the adversity of nature.  In a world where our consciousness is not constantly concerned with basic survival we are able to become sensitive to our creative capacity for invention and exploration through science and technology.  But within this ever-expanding context of our humanity lies a deep existential fear, the fear of our inevitable annihilation.  For, through memory, we know that our time here, as individuals and as a species, is limited.  We know that eventually all species become extinct and so, we can discern, that the time of humanity will eventually pass. 

This existential truth is eventually discovered by all individuals - “My individuality will cease to exist.”  With this knowledge arises a biological and psychological crisis called Death - the end of context, reference and meaning.  This is what we refer to a Suffering: the awareness of limitations in existence and the ultimately redundant attempts to hold on certain aspects of experience and resist the death of that which is by its very nature is temporary. 

We generally suppress this knowledge by simply ignoring it.  We don’t talk about these things and if someone does we generally dismiss their words or if that’s not a possibility we alienate them or try to assimilate them by getting them to think and talk about other, more positive things.  But I’d like to suggest that the arousal of this crisis is, in fact, a necessary meeting in the process of going beyond human suffering.   for some this may sounds preposterous, for others it may be confusing.  For some, there is a deep,  intuitive knowing that there is something profound to be discovered in the direct meeting with the fear of death, a possibility of going beyond fear to the essence of Self.

From here, I will endeavor to offer words that use context and reference in such a way as to thin the veil between life and death, words that take you beyond context and show you directly and naturally who and what you are.  The expression of words with meaning is not the point here.  The point is the immediate and spontaneous apprehension of your infinite and indefinable nature, which has  taken on a universal costume sewn from it’s own creative conscious intelligence. 

If you’ve made it this far, then you are likely willing to suspend the need for immediate understanding for the sake of trusting what is unknown but intuited.  If you are willing to read further, then you are probably ready to dive deeper into the heart of what you already, always are.  In doing so, may you enjoy the breath of your peaceful presence and let yourself drop down, fall up and rest deeply into You.

Namaste.