HAPPINESS IS INSIDE1. AT THE SPRING OF ETERNITYIn July 1976, I was browsing the Tao Tei King (treatise about Principle and its action), book by Lao-Tseu, written 25 centuries ago, which speaks about the Origin Principle and its productive virtue, Tei, mother of the world. This thinking was so new to me that I lost all my inner repairs and was thrown, empty, on the river bank of the unknowable. I put the book down, and, through the window, stared at the monotonous rain flowing over Saint-Mathew's church in Quimper (Brittany), when, suddenly, awakening engulfed me. Thought was left. Inner immobility was total. In this silence, I had disappeared. There was only a consciousness and love transparent flow which impregnated everything in the field of view. One felt no limit, no measure, no separation. Atemporality absolute instant. Fullness, beatitude, freedom, nothing was lacking. A few minutes later, I wrote a letter in order to give example about this ecstasy. It's still colored with duality in words, but, already impersonality was infusing its breath. Here it is :"I cry of an immense joy : the rock is touched. Believing swimming for the salvation rock, now I am this rock. The beatitude ocean has poured a nectar drop inside my consciousness, as a sun beam enlightens a black cave. In this search, I was running to Being. Peace is Unbeing. Thus one is motionless, keeping immobility through run ; act without acting, love without loving, so much true ! Nightmare is gone. A the present time, here, there, ugly or beautiful, rich or poor, all is the same. The way is too simple, too evident to be perceived. It springs by itself in the consciousness field when it is fertile, when one is ready to let go. Here is rain. Sun and rain. It's uncolored, uncolored
state. Nor beneath, nor below, without relative. What a dream, this universe ! God is so near, "behind". Nevertheless, not close, not far, nor yonder, nor beneath. Oh, what happiness ! Your way is mine ; there 's only one. Go this way, go that way. I am here from the dawn and before. This rain is like God joy tears meeting his child who has come back after a long travel. All is here. All is finished. Time is stopped. Words are sprinkles in front of Reality Sun. How could they describe it, even if they are all gathered ? When the man falls down, tired with his vanishing quest, he's close to Reality. O my brothers, o my sisters ! Fall ! If that enlightens your soul ! All that I'm looking is new. Little divine child who is staring at his birth environment, ravished ! When you looking for truth, you cannot find it. When you understand the fault of intention, you are caught by God Mercy. Past behaviors have to die, in every fields of life. back May I stay in that new and so old state ! A smile is drawn on Gael's lips, complicity smile with the Untouchable and His children. My heart is burning at this contact. Thank Thee, "my" God, Thou art the most loving Father. Thou art The Father. Thank Thee, my God, Thou art the Mother that sustains everything and everybody. Be blessed, divine child who is snoozing in each one. Only one nectar drop from the Spring wakes you up ! And you sleep back no more. All is perfect. This nectar drop in my heart will become the Ocean if I keep equilibrium in God. It keeps raining love on everybody's heart, but how much of them see the lotus open ?" Quimper, France. July 1976. back Here is the mercy I knew twenty years ago. But actually, we do not "know" the Principle, we feel it, we live it. Strolling along books, meditations and illuminated dreams, I sought this way that had caught me without telling its name. The Tao-Tei-King had turned me towards East, so I look for a teaching near to my experience in this direction. In Vedanta, in Yoga, in Buddhism, especially in Mahayana, which preaches immediate awakening, I found explanations to my experience. In Zen also, I recognize what I learn to name "nonduality". I exulted in reading " Revolution of Silence" by Krishnamurti. Later, I discovered Arnaud Desjardins, in France, who is a true spiritual master, in my opinion, as much as Jean Klein, who speaks so clearly about non duality. Many people have seen their life metamorphosed by their teachings... But can one feel unconditioned by something else but Mercy
? Is knowledge helpful in this essential quest ? I had well understood
that Truth is not in the webs that men weave around divine experiences
offered freely by Nature. So, I avoided to follow well intentioned guru
as well as defined ways. We cannot paint which is wise man's consciousness,
or what means "right living", but only give indications about behaviors
that drive surely out of "nonduality ", as a finger pointing "that"; thus,
who could really conduct us by his teaching to the uncreated bank, if
we were not already arrived ?... 2. IS THERE A WAY TO GOD ? backReligious organizations have lost their soul ; they are dead letters, cul-de-sac for Infinite searchers, when they don't feed integrist hornet nests. Growing spiritual ways of modern times are made heavier by tradition, by meditative techniques instead of promoting the "substantial marrow", the pure and simple essence. Certain organizations are sects. It's hard to find an authentic spiritual way in congested streets of knowledge, where we can become lost before distinguishing a glimpse of the numinous (essential) clothes of the Creator.In the middle of this hank, in this materialist commercial age, a flower has budded, coming from far past, all hallooed with pureness : nonduality. It is the essence of all the living religions, above all in Asia. Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, Ch'an and Zen represent the branches of which nonduality is the trunk. It is not really a way : one doesn't go anywhere. It's rather an attitude, in the same time mental, affective and physical attitude in front of life. This inner position may be defined as overtaking duality pairs, not by willing, but by understanding. It brings about abrupt awakening, discovery of one's supreme nature, and the end of moral suffering of being separated from the world and other human beings. Non Duality is not unknown of western mystics. For instance, Jean de la Croix (Saint John of the Cross) talked with covered words : "We have to exhaust mind from mundane things, sure, but also from spiritual "things"." He meant that most spiritual practitioners are attached to spiritual things more than others are bound to having material possessions. Of course, attachment, both spiritual or material is opposite to nonduality. back Looking for God outside, observing universe, life, reveals the creative divine hand, but doesn't permit hand-shake. We stay in duality. On the other side, peering inside offers the answer : Self evidence, Self presence. But we are clinched to outer perceptions, drowned in phenomena, forgetting Essence. A profound change in the way we consider the world and
ourselves can reintegrate ourselves in our spring. Let's see how. Instead
of considering the object of consciousness, we have to turn towards subject,
the observer, who is not more real than object. We act as if there was
a stable observer, an "I", ego, that which is untrue, actually. Look for
the ego : you'll never find it ! On the contrary, you become aware that
the subject is another kind of object : mental, affective objects. Desires
and repulsions. Nowhere, you can find a personal ego, but impersonal lake.
Personal opinions are seen as they are : objects. Volatile objects, like
clouds in front of the blue sky of the Impersonal Self. Impersonal Being.
More than that : impersonal non being. Impersonal Consciousness. Our true
nature. |