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Thread: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

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    Default The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Irrespective of whatever temporary states, views, emotions, experiences, imaginations, or subtle perceptions arise in the course of life, I have never been able to separate myself from that mystical condition of being essentially clueless in regard to any and all of them.

    This took a while to sink in, but it is frankly undeniable. Oh sure, I could usually grab a handy concept in retrospect and superimpose it on the field of chaos that passes for experience, and it might have even made some eccentric sense.

    I might have even fallen down in awe at the bright clarity that mind conjures up from its limitless storehouse of holy self-confirming interpretations on what no longer exists -- the “me” that just was, before the current model replaced it (the one that also just got away).

    Where did they come from, where do they go – these vanishing faces that leave no traces, moment to moment to moment?

    Regardless, and to the point: the famously perpetual search for meaning -- who said we actually needed such a thing? Did it do any of them any enduring good – the meaning makers -- to have some reassuring meaning?

    Were they able to re-direct the preposterous fluids swishing about in their neural viaducts in such a way that simply taking another breath amounted to something more significant than a reflexive impersonal automaticity?

    And what’s the harvest from that great endeavor, that noble quest for meaning – an endless circus of competing personal, religious, and political belief systems, rife with war and conflict. Who needs that?

    Taking it all the way, is there really even any meaning to “Saturday Night”? Perhaps there is no Saturday Night, except by some consensus agreement, and speaking of which, why do we still have so much difficulty just getting along?

    Maybe it's because we think we know something. Those who seem to think that they know something usually tend to be contentious, haven’t you noticed?

    The truly humble ones don't ordinarily find themselves in conflict, because they understand right from the get-go that they don't know, so what's the beef?

    It's only when we think we know something -- that we are in possession of some particular meaning that appears in need of protecting and defending -- that the waters get a bit choppy (even though the “meaning” itself was supposed to calm and pacify the turbulence of everyday life challenges).

    We can even get pretty reactive when that meaning is challenged, is it not so? After all, our meanings are often essential to our self-images, and despite our grafted-on spiritual idealism to the contrary, those valiant stories of fascinating "me" won't go down without a fight (or flight)!

    Granting our personal story some sense of fanciful meaning often leads to a humorless sense of self-importance, which in turn requires protection and defense. Defense implies taking offense at anyone who might challenge our cherished meaning, and so we set ourselves up for a life of being offended by this, that, or the other.

    If somebody is moved to bicker and fuss about whether the ego is an illusion or not, whether we are going to be annihilated or ascended or not, whether this religion is superior to that one or not, or whether enlightenment is a many splendored thing or not, let them knock themselves out. What’s the big problem?

    Nevertheless, most of us habitually go about the business of manufacturing and modifying meanings perpetually, like little cranial factories that never shut down for the week-end so that everyone can rest, and maybe have some meaningless fun on Saturday Night.

    After years of effort to figure it out, I myself have evolved/devolved to the point where finishing sentences requires more attention to pointless continuity than I care to summon any longer, and so I find that I’d rather just hum nonsense ditties and dance about like a fool with two happy feet.

    Just so, imagine if somebody was getting a blood transfusion in one arm and bleeding it out through a hole in their chest. These days, there’s a big hole where my rib cage was. The wind blows through me, the sky breathes through me, sun and rain pour through me, without my encouragement or resistance, and certainly without any enduring meaning.

    Really, there’s no need for some grand ultimate meaning, and who is there who could explain it all anyway? Maybe after all is said and done, that's what’s great about Saturday Night, and why everybody loves it!



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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Another Bob, I just have to tell you, you are a wonderful writer. You have a talent. Also I want to wish you a Happy weekend. The allusion about getting a blood transfusion and having it bleed out of their chest sounds like the story of my life actually. I feel pretty empty these days, and nothing seems to affect me much. Hopefully I will pull out of my trance soon. I no longer know who I am, where I am going, or where I will end up. I relate with what you have written, and what I think you are saying, lol. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Quote Posted by marique3652 (here)
    I no longer know who I am, where I am going, or where I will end up.
    My Friend, this is actually an advantageous situation for you! Why? Because it is filled with the potential of the whole universe.


    Here's a pertinent bit of wisdom in that regard, from Adyashanti:


    "Human beings have a drive for security and safety, which is often
    what fuels the spiritual search. This very drive for security and
    safety is what causes so much misery and confusion. Freedom is a
    state of complete and absolute insecurity and not knowing. So, in
    seeking security and safety, you actually distance yourself from the
    Freedom you want. There is no security in Freedom, at least not in
    the sense that we normally think of it. This is, of course, why it is
    so free; there's nothing there to grab hold of.
    The Unknown is more vast, more open, more peaceful, and more freeing
    than you ever imagined it would be. If you don't experience it that
    way, it means you're not resting there; you're still trying to know.
    That will cause you to suffer because you're choosing security over
    Freedom.
    When you rest deeply in the Unknown without trying to escape, your
    experience becomes very vast. As the experience of the Unknown
    deepens, your boundaries begin to dissolve. You realize, not just
    intellectually but on a deep level, that you have no idea who or what
    you are. A few minutes ago, you knew who you were—you had a history
    and a personality—but from this place of not knowing, you question
    all of that. Liberated people live in the Unknown and understand that
    the only reason they know what they are is because they rest in the
    Unknown moment by moment without defining who they are with the mind.
    You can imagine how easy it is to get caught in the concept of the
    Unknown and seek that instead of the Truth. If you seek the concept
    you'll never be Free, but if you stop looking to myths and concepts
    and become more interested in the Unknown than in what you know, the
    door will be flung open. Until then, it will remain closed. I've seen
    people who have never meditated come to satsang and have a deep
    experience of the Unknown, and I've known many who remain in the
    trance because they stay with the mind's techniques and strategies.
    There is no prerequisite for experiencing the Unknown. Everyone has
    equal access to it."




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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Come off it Bob, no offence Brother but the penchant for snikkety comments in your posts belies the fact that you're still essentially swimming in the gloop just like the rest of us
    Last edited by dan i el; 24th March 2012 at 02:07.
    "Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees."
    — Arthur Schopenhauer

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Quote Posted by dan i el (here)
    Come off it Bob, your penchant for snikkety comments in your posts belies the fact that you're still essentially swimming in the gloop just like the rest of us
    You say "snikkety comments" like that's a bad thing.
    "We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains." -Li Po

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Quote Posted by Whiskey_Mystic (here)
    Quote Posted by dan i el (here)
    Come off it Bob, your penchant for snikkety comments in your posts belies the fact that you're still essentially swimming in the gloop just like the rest of us
    You say "snikkety comments" like that's a bad thing.
    lulz not at all!!
    Last edited by dan i el; 24th March 2012 at 02:10.
    "Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees."
    — Arthur Schopenhauer

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Quote Posted by another bob (here)

    I might have even fallen down in awe at the bright clarity that mind conjures up from its limitless storehouse of holy self-confirming interpretations on what no longer exists -- the “me” that just was, before the current model replaced it (the one that also just got away)...
    Regardless, and to the point: the famously perpetual search for meaning -- who said we actually needed such a thing? Did it do any of them any enduring good – the meaning makers -- to have some reassuring meaning?
    ...
    And what’s the harvest from that great endeavor, that noble quest for meaning – an endless circus of competing personal, religious, and political belief systems, rife with war and conflict. Who needs that?

    Taking it all the way, is there really even any meaning to “Saturday Night”? Perhaps there is no Saturday Night, except by some consensus agreement, and speaking of which, why do we still have so much difficulty just getting along?

    Maybe it's because we think we know something. Those who seem to think that they know something usually tend to be contentious, haven’t you noticed?

    The truly humble ones don't ordinarily find themselves in conflict, because they understand right from the get-go that they don't know, so what's the beef?

    It's only when we think we know something -- that we are in possession of some particular meaning that appears in need of protecting and defending -- that the waters get a bit choppy (even though the “meaning” itself was supposed to calm and pacify the turbulence of everyday life challenges).

    We can even get pretty reactive when that meaning is challenged, is it not so? After all, our meanings are often essential to our self-images, and despite our grafted-on spiritual idealism to the contrary, those valiant stories of fascinating "me" won't go down without a fight (or flight)!

    Granting our personal story some sense of fanciful meaning often leads to a humorless sense of self-importance, which in turn requires protection and defense. Defense implies taking offense at anyone who might challenge our cherished meaning, and so we set ourselves up for a life of being offended by this, that, or the other.

    If somebody is moved to bicker and fuss about whether the ego is an illusion or not, whether we are going to be annihilated or ascended or not, whether this religion is superior to that one or not, or whether enlightenment is a many splendored thing or not, let them knock themselves out. What’s the big problem?

    Nevertheless, most of us habitually go about the business of manufacturing and modifying meanings perpetually, like little cranial factories that never shut down for the week-end so that everyone can rest, and maybe have some meaningless fun on Saturday Night.

    After years of effort to figure it out, I myself have evolved/devolved to the point where finishing sentences requires more attention to pointless continuity than I care to summon any longer, and so I find that I’d rather just hum nonsense ditties and dance about like a fool with two happy feet.

    Just so, imagine if somebody was getting a blood transfusion in one arm and bleeding it out through a hole in their chest. These days, there’s a big hole where my rib cage was. The wind blows through me, the sky breathes through me, sun and rain pour through me, without my encouragement or resistance, and certainly without any enduring meaning.

    Really, there’s no need for some grand ultimate meaning, and who is there who could explain it all anyway? Maybe after all is said and done, that's what’s great about Saturday Night, and why everybody loves it!


    *laughing, bowing* The Sui Generis in me salutes the Sui Generis in you.

    Infinite complexity and opposite perspectives, all dancing without conflict...

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    What a superb meditation, Another Bob!

    Like you, I know nothing. Except that every once in a while I imagine I might know "something", a little bit. I am undoubtedly temporarily deluded but these illusions allow me to struggle onward, step by step on my mountainous path toward truth.

    My fondest and most respectful greetings, my dear brother and companion along the way.

    Please write on. You are heard with gratitude and most respectful fondness.

    Regards,

    Selene
    Last edited by Selene; 24th March 2012 at 02:36.

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Quote Posted by dan i el (here)
    Come off it Bob, no offence Brother but the penchant for snikkety comments in your posts belies the fact that you're still essentially swimming in the gloop just like the rest of us
    [Mod-edit: comment deleted. -Paul.]
    Last edited by ThePythonicCow; 24th March 2012 at 20:23. Reason: delete rude comment

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Quote Posted by gooty64 (here)
    Quote Posted by dan i el (here)
    Come off it Bob, no offence Brother but the penchant for snikkety comments in your posts belies the fact that you're still essentially swimming in the gloop just like the rest of us
    [Mod-edit: comment deleted. -Paul.]
    Jeez, there's really no need to [Mod-edit: details of reply deleted. -Paul.]

    Last edited by ThePythonicCow; 24th March 2012 at 20:25.
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    — Arthur Schopenhauer

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    well, *that* didn't take long...

    *heads back to the Pub*

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Meaning, naaa. Never found any. Saturday nights, I remember
    experiencing those, they are gone. As are all the other nights. LOL
    Experiencing living, the feeling of being alive is nice, joyful, but I
    cant say it carries meaning. I suddenly realize, I dunno wot the word
    meaning is pointing at any longer. LOL

    All is well


    Jorr

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    "A Course in Miracles" devotes a lot of exercises to this but basically things only have the meaning we give them and that is flawed.
    One exercise is "I am determined to see things as they really are"
    Only the enlightened can do that--- they see everything fresh and anew as though for he first time.
    Nothing has any meaning or even purpose-- everything has potential though.
    When you begin to question "who I am?" progress i being made.
    Saturday nights were, at one time, freedom from this illusion by diving into another one.

    C
    Be kind to all life, including your own, no matter what!!

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    I created a useful exercise a while back called "favorite days". Although more to it than what I'm offering here, this helps me "feel" free.

    List your favorite days --- maybe two or three. Don't think and rationalize, just write down what comes to mind. Ok, now you have a few of your favorite days listed, so now describe EVERYTHING about those days -- all the ingredients that were in that day. Do this for each one.

    Now look across your list and find the common ingredients.

    Whatever you find that is common to all or most of your favorite days, add to your day whenever you can.

    For me, I add a warm gentle breeze, very blue sky, driving/walking around lots of trees. That always resets me.

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    I would beg to differ with some opinions on this thread. Life does have a meaning and it's all about Love. It's about exploring what that may be in all of It's aspects, what it is and what it is not. It's as simple and profound as that. It's about taking the "idea" of love to its profoundest depths in as many ways and aspects as can be imagined. I have found no other purpose for Life as it exists through out all of creation. The best place to start is with yourself! There are many who talk about Love but how many really, really walk the talk?

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Quote Posted by another bob (here)
    Quote Posted by marique3652 (here)
    I no longer know who I am, where I am going, or where I will end up.
    My Friend, this is actually an advantageous situation for you! Why? Because it is filled with the potential of the whole universe.


    Here's a pertinent bit of wisdom in that regard, from Adyashanti:


    "Human beings have a drive for security and safety, which is often
    what fuels the spiritual search. This very drive for security and
    safety is what causes so much misery and confusion. Freedom is a
    state of complete and absolute insecurity and not knowing. So, in
    seeking security and safety, you actually distance yourself from the
    Freedom you want. There is no security in Freedom, at least not in
    the sense that we normally think of it. This is, of course, why it is
    so free; there's nothing there to grab hold of.
    The Unknown is more vast, more open, more peaceful, and more freeing
    than you ever imagined it would be. If you don't experience it that
    way, it means you're not resting there; you're still trying to know.
    That will cause you to suffer because you're choosing security over
    Freedom.
    When you rest deeply in the Unknown without trying to escape, your
    experience becomes very vast. As the experience of the Unknown
    deepens, your boundaries begin to dissolve. You realize, not just
    intellectually but on a deep level, that you have no idea who or what
    you are. A few minutes ago, you knew who you were—you had a history
    and a personality—but from this place of not knowing, you question
    all of that. Liberated people live in the Unknown and understand that
    the only reason they know what they are is because they rest in the
    Unknown moment by moment without defining who they are with the mind.
    You can imagine how easy it is to get caught in the concept of the
    Unknown and seek that instead of the Truth. If you seek the concept
    you'll never be Free, but if you stop looking to myths and concepts
    and become more interested in the Unknown than in what you know, the
    door will be flung open. Until then, it will remain closed. I've seen
    people who have never meditated come to satsang and have a deep
    experience of the Unknown, and I've known many who remain in the
    trance because they stay with the mind's techniques and strategies.
    There is no prerequisite for experiencing the Unknown. Everyone has
    equal access to it."



    Thank you so much for this response, it is just what I needed to hear. I think I want to go in the direction mentioned. I am coming out of a real bad year where a lot of loved ones passed away. I found in the past I defined myself a lot by the role I played in peoples' lives and that gave me security and identity. I lost my two parents in two months time, Mom in November 2011 and my Dad in Jan, 2012, and I lost my son in February 2011. It has been a really rough emotional time for me. All of a sudden I could not define myself as being the loving and devoted daughter, nor can I now define myself as my son Markie's parent, he was murdered and now gone. It was as if all of a sudden everyting I thought about who I am and why I am here got yanked out from under me, and I felt myself drowning and very very afraid about the future, it looked so bleak and empty to me. I am disabled and cannot work any longer and I defined myself a lot by my job, which has always been public service helping people less fortunate than myself which I took a great deal of satisfaction with, I am divorced, which is another role I defined myself by, being the best wife I could be, and that role is shot to hell too. Kids are grown and one is dead, so no active role there to fulfill my time and energies anymore. I am not sharing this information to get sympathy or hold a pity party, lol, just trying to clarify why I said I do not know who I am anymore, or where I am going in life, or why I even exist.

    I am now going to try to shed all the preconcieved thoughts about who I am and why I am on the planet earth. Time for a whole new me, as your sharing helped me to see. The quote "That will cause you to suffer because you're choosing security over Freedom." is so true and accurate. I always felt secure in all the roles I played and defined myself by. I feel insecure now, very very insecure. So now is the time to stop looking back and take the "Eckhard Tolle" approach and begin to live totally in the now, with no looking back and no projecting worry forward. Just revel in the now of things and explore the unknown as you said. Guess now I am an empty basket just waiting to be filled. I will try to look at it that way, it should help immeasurably. Adyashanti's wisdom has really helped me to look at things differently. Kind of the like the cup being half full or half empty comes to mind.

    Thank you so much for your response, it has really resonated with me, and helped to snap me out of my trance. Love to you.

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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Quote Posted by dan i el (here)
    Come off it Bob, no offence Brother but the penchant for snikkety comments in your posts belies the fact that you're still essentially swimming in the gloop just like the rest of us

    Hiya Dan!

    It seems that you believe yourself to be a someone who's "swimming in gloop" -- good luck with that self-image!


    Quote Posted by songsfortheotherkind (here)
    *laughing, bowing* The Sui Generis in me salutes the Sui Generis in you.

    Infinite complexity and opposite perspectives, all dancing without conflict...

    Songs, what can I say? Your continual brilliance is breath-taking! This forum was lucky/blessed when you signed on!


    Quote Posted by Selene (here)
    Like you, I know nothing. Except that every once in a while I imagine I might know "something", a little bit. I am undoubtedly temporarily deluded but these illusions allow me to struggle onward, step by step on my mountainous path toward truth.
    Selene, Dear Sister, your kind regard is deeply appreciated!

    Two guides who've helped me:

    "To know that you do not know -- that is true knowledge." - Sri Nsargadatta
     
    "The joy of the saints is a joy of incomprehension; they understand that they cannot understand." - Angela Foligna




    Quote Posted by songsfortheotherkind (here)
    well, *that* didn't take long...

    *heads back to the Pub*

    Hey, take Dave with you . . .








    Quote Posted by jorr lundstrom (here)
    I suddenly realize, I dunno wot the word
    meaning is pointing at any longer. LOL

    My Dear Friend, for you (and Maria):

    "I set myself in a corner, and there had my work with me, but could scarcely do anything by reason of the force of the attraction which
    made the work fall out of my hands. I passed whole hours this way, without being able either to open my eyes or know what passed; but I
    had nothing to wish for, nor yet to be afraid of. Everywhere I found my proper center, because everywhere I found God. My heart could then desire nothing but what it had. This disposition extinguished all its desires; and I sometimes said to myself, "What wantest thou? What fearest thou?" I was surprised to find upon trial that I had nothing to fear. Every place I was in was my proper place.”

    ~Jeanne-Marie de la Motte-Guyon


    "The soul, then, experiences and possesses God's sweetness more from what it does not comprehend than from what it comprehends, more from what it does not see than from what it sees, more from what it does not feel than from what it feels, more finally, from what it does not know than from what it knows. It seems to me that this is the reason that no matter how perfect the soul, even if it is as perfect as that of the Blessed Virgin, it comprehends nothing of God, the ordainer, uncreated and infinite. From looking at what it sees, feels and knows, it sees, feels, and knows that it cannot see, feel, and know".

    ~Angela of Foligno



    Quote Posted by greybeard (here)
    ...basically things only have the meaning we give them....
    Hiya Chris!

    Echoing your thought:

    "All you need to understand is you are the source of reality, you give reality instead of getting it, you need no support and no confirmation."

    ~Sri Nisargadatta



    Quote Posted by Alie (here)
    I created a useful exercise a while back called "favorite days". Although more to it than what I'm offering here, this helps me "feel" free.
    Hiya Alie!

    Something for you:

    Every day you play with the light of the universe.
    Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
    You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
    as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

    You are like nobody since I love you.
    Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
    Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
    Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

    Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
    The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
    Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
    The rain takes off her clothes.

    The birds go by, fleeing.
    The wind. The wind.
    I can contend only against the power of men.
    The storm whirls dark leaves
    and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

    You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
    You will answer me to the last cry.
    Cling to me as though you were frightened.
    Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

    Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
    and even your breasts smell of it.
    While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
    I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

    How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
    my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
    So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
    and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.

    My words rained over you, stroking you.
    A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
    I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
    I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
    dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
    I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

    Pablo Neruda



    Quote Posted by Sebastion (here)
    It's about taking the "idea" of love to its profoundest depths in as many ways and aspects as can be imagined.

    Hiya Sebastion!

    Sometimes it's our *idea* of love that paradoxically stands in the way of love's full realization.

    Here's something you might enjoy:


    Twelve Hours

    The nature from which true love springs has twelve hours which drive love out of herself and bring her back in herself. And when love comes back in herself she brings with her all that makes the unspeakable hours drive her out of herself: a mind that seeks to know, a heart full of desire, and a soul full of love. And when love brings these back she throws them into the abyss of the mighty nature in which she was born and nurtured. Then the unspeakable hours enter nature unknown. Then love has come to herself and rejoices in her nature, below, above, and around. And all those who stay below this knowledge shudder at those who have fallen into the abyss and work there and live and die. For such is love's command and her nature.

    In the first unspeakable hour of the twelve that draw the soul into love's nature, love reveals herself and touches the soul unexpected and uninvited when her nobility leads us to least suspect it. No matter how strong-natured, the soul fails to understand, for this is truly an unspeakable hour.

    The second unspeakable hour love makes the heart taste a violent death, and the heart goes through death, but it does not die. And yet the soul has not known love for long, and has barely moved from the first to the second hour.

    In the third unspeakable hour love shows how one may die and live in her, and how one cannot love without great suffering.

    In the fourth unspeakable hour love makes the soul taste her hidden designs, which are deep and darker than the abyss. Then love reveals how miserable the soul is without love. But the soul does not yet partake of love's nature. This hour is truly unspeakable, for the beloved is made to accept love's designs before he possesses love.

    In the fifth unspeakable hour love seduces the heart and the soul, and the soul is driven out of herself and out of love's nature and back into love's nature. The soul has then ceased to wonder about the power and darkness of love's designs, and has forgotten the pains of love. Then the soul knows love only through love herself, which may seem lower but is not. For where knowledge is most intimate the beloved knows least.

    In the sixth unspeakable hour love despises reason and all that lies within reason and above it and below. Whatever belongs to reason stands against the blessed state of love. For reason cannot take away anything from love or bring anything to love, for love's true reason is a flood that rises forever and knows no peace.

    In the seventh unspeakable hour nothing can dwell in love or touch her except desire. And touch is love 's most secret name, and touch springs from love herself. For love is always touch and desire and feasts on herself forever. Yet love is perfect in herself.

    The eighth unspeakable hour brings bewilderment when the beloved learns that he cannot know love's nature from her face. Yet the face is held to reveal the inmost nature, and that is most hidden in love. For that she is herself in herself. Love's other limbs and her works are easier to know and understand.

    The ninth unspeakable hour brings love's fiercest storm, harshest touch, and deepest desires. The face is sweetest there, at peace, and most winsome. And the deeper love wounds the one she assails, the sweeter she drowns him in herself with the soft splendor of her face. And there she shows herself in her loveliness.

    The tenth unspeakable hour is that when no one judges love, but when love judges all things. From God she takes the power to judge all she loves. Love does not yield to saints or men, or angels, heaven or earth, and she enfolds the divine in her nature. To love she calls the hearts who love, in a voice that is loud and untiring. The voice has great power and it tells of things more terrible than thunder. This word is the rope love uses to bind her prisoners, this is the sword she turns on those whom she touches, it is the rod she uses to chastise her children, this is the craft she teaches her companions.

    In the eleventh unspeakable hour love possesses the beloved by force. For not a moment can he stray from her, or his heart desire or his soul love. And love makes the memory shrink and the beloved cannot think of saints or men, or angels, heaven or earth, God or himself, but of love alone who has possessed him in a present ever new.

    In the twelfth unspeakable hour love is the likeness of her uppermost nature. Only now she breaks out of herself and she works with herself and sinks deep in herself, utterly satisfied with her nature.
    She fully rejoices in herself, and even if no one loved her, the name of love would give her enough loveliness in the nature of her splendid self. Her name which is her nature inside her, her name which is her works outside her, her name which is her crown above her, her name which is the soil under her.

    These are the twelve unspeakable hours of love. For in none of the twelve can love be understood, except by those I mentioned, those who have been thrown into the abyss of love's mighty nature and those who belong there, and they believe in love more than they understand her.

    ~Hadewijch of Antwerp


    Quote Posted by marique3652 (here)
    I am now going to try to shed all the preconcieved thoughts about who I am and why I am on the planet earth. Time for a whole new me, as your sharing helped me to see.
    Dear Marique,

    Thank you for your generosity in sharing, as well as your resolve and determination to rise above the past! I can relate to your life experience to some extent. I too lost both parents within a few months of each other, at the same time I was going through a divorce and a big career change and transcontinetal relocation. I now consider those difficult experiences to be gifts of true blessing, despite how they seemed then, since I was forced to dig much deeper than I had been willing to go, prior to that time. In doing so, I discovered a treasure for which my gratitude has no limit, so all I can say is, persevere with your inner exploration, and realize that you have been given an opportunity to mature in real wisdom and understanding.

    Here's something more for you that might be useful:


    When Marpa, the great Tibetan meditation master and teacher of Milarepa, lost his son he wept bitterly. One of his pupils came up to him and asked: "Master, why are you weeping? You teach us that death is an illusion." And Marpa said: "Death is an illusion. And the death of a child is an even greater illusion."

    Marpa showed his disciple that while he could understand the truth about the conditioned nature of everything and the emptiness of forms, he could still be a human being. He could feel what he was feeling; he could open to his grief. He could be completely present to feel that loss.

    There is nothing incongruous about feeling our feelings, touching our pain, and, at the same time understanding the truth of the way things are. Pain is pain; grief is grief; loss is loss - we can accept those things. Suffering is what we add onto them when we push away, when we say, "No, I can't."

    ...So the difference between pain and suffering is the difference between freedom and bondage. If we're able to be with our pain, then we can accept, investigate and heal. But if it's not okay to grieve, to be angry, or to feel frightened or lonely then it's not okay to look at what we are feeling, and it's not okay to hold it in our hearts and to find our peace with it. When we can't feel what must be felt, when we resist or try to run from life, then we are enslaved. Where we cling is where we suffer, but when we simply feel the naked pain on its own, our suffering dies... That's the death we need to die.

    Through ignorance, not understanding who we are, we create so many prisons. We are unable to be awake, to feel true loving-kindness for ourselves, or even to love the person sitting next to us. If we can't open our hearts to the deepest wounds, if we can't cross the abyss the mind has created through its ignorance, selfishness, greed, and hatred, then we are incapable of loving, of realising our true potential. We remain unable to finish the business of this life.

    By taking responsibility for what we feel, taking responsibility for our actions and speech, we build the foundation of the path to freedom. We know the result that wholesome action brings - for ourselves and for others. When we speak or act in an unkind way - when we are dishonest, deceitful, critical or resentful - then we are the ones that really suffer. Somewhere within us, there is a residue of that posture of the mind, that attitude of the heart.

    In pain we burn but, with mindfulness, we use that pain to burn through to the ending of pain. It's not something negative. It is sublime. It is complete freedom from every kind of suffering that arises; because of a realisation - because of wisdom - not because we have rid ourselves of unpleasant experience, only holding on to the pleasant, the joyful. We still feel pain, we still get sick and we die, but we are no longer afraid, we no longer get shaken.

    When we are able to come face to face with our own direst fears and vulnerability, when we can step into the unknown with courage and openness, we touch near to the mysteries of this traverse through the human realm to an authentic self-fulfillment. We touch what we fear the most, we transform it, we see the emptiness of it. In that emptiness, all things can abide, all things come to fruition. In this very moment, we can free ourselves...

    Nibbana is not out there in the future; we have to let go of the future, let go of the past...Jelaluddin Rumi wrote: "The most secure place to hide a treasure of gold is some desolate, unnoticed place. Why would anyone hide treasure in plain sight? And so it is said: 'Joy is hidden in sorrow.'"

    The illumined master Marpa weeping over his child - does his experience of the loss of his young child diminish his wisdom? Or is it just the supreme humility of a great man, a great sage expressing the wholeness of his being, of his humanity.

    I want to encourage each one of you to keep investigating, keep letting go of your fear. Remember that fear of death is the same as fear of life. What are we afraid of? When we deeply feel and, at the same time, truly know that experience we can come to joy. It is still possible to live fully as a human being, completely accepting our pain; we can grieve and yet still rejoice at the way things are.

    - Ayya Medhanandi
    The Joy Hidden in Sorrow



    Again, Deep Thanks to all who have joined in this consideration!


  32. Link to Post #18
    Avalon Member dan i el's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Quote Posted by another bob (here)
    Quote Posted by dan i el (here)
    Come off it Bob, no offence Brother but the penchant for snikkety comments in your posts belies the fact that you're still essentially swimming in the gloop just like the rest of us

    Hiya Dan!

    It seems that you believe yourself to be a someone who's "swimming in gloop" -- good luck with that self-image!

    THE gloop, Bob. I'm describing it as a general condition.

    "If you are attached to the positive states, you'll be attached to the negative states..you can't have one without the other" - Adyashanti "Awake in the Modern World"
    "Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees."
    — Arthur Schopenhauer

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  34. Link to Post #19
    United States Avalon Member onawah's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    I am not feeling a need to add to this discussion just now, but am very grateful it is here to be read, digested and enjoyed...thanks.
    Each breath a gift...
    _____________

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    United States Avalon Member Ba-ba-Ra's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Futility of the Search for Meaning, or Why Everybody Loves Saturday Night

    Reading lengthy texts no longer has appeal for me, although I did it for many years. More often these days I randomly select a book from my shelves and then randomly open it, only to read a sentence, page or paragraph that seems to call to me.

    Today, after reading this thread I opened "The Third Millennium" by Ken Carey and here are the words that popped out at me.

    "Often the initial phase of awakening is more emotional than conceptual, but that is enough to allow the thought and sensation of Divine Intelligence to flow into them and their decision making. They may not fully understand it mentally, but they feel something, experience something. They have tapped into a new way of being. They act on it, trust it and it works. Now they are acting on intuition rather than programming."
    Blessed are the cracked, for they are the ones who let in the light!

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