there is no richard baxter

And it came to pass that certain universal forces converged and formed a being. The being became self aware and began defining its world in pictures. It searched for timeless truth but lived within a dream. Eventually the being looked deep into its self and saw an empty limitless expanse, saw daisies falling, found the end of time and rejoiced, as it was good. The being continues to drift in and out of dreams.

I can see who you are and am satisfied I know you

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week 1  week 2  week 3  week 4  week 5  week 6  week 7

WEB LOG; (updated 20.01.06 10:00pm)

There can be no defining self portrait, as the self is a construction, continually in movement, always changing, the totality of which is continually hidden from others and even ourselves. The outer sense of self is only ever an invention, a limited part, a moment in mental time, a shell and only one perspective of an infinite amount. When you look at me, you don't see me, you see an array of quarks and electrons, a play of energy fields, and even this view is limited to your own interpretations. 'I' remain hidden and always invisible. The idea of 'self' is an illusion.

week 1: From Within

05.12.05 (division)
The box creates a division. Suddenly there is outer and inner. The box has the same function as a wall, a house, or a definition. The moment we make a definition, we create a divide, a separation. It is important to remember that the divisions we perceive are always of our own design. This is a basic function of the brain, to divide. If you are not aware that the divisions you perceive are of your own creation, then you will always be on one side of a wall, looking at the other side, or inside a box looking out. The human brain does this process so effectively, it becomes almost impossible for any human to escape it, or even know they are caught up in it. We live with a constant feeling of 'me' and 'the rest of the world'. The 'me' looks out at the rest of the world, and there is separation between the two.

One way we can become aware of the construction of this division, is to realise that 'we' are also the 'other'. By this I mean, although every human has a strong feeling of their own existence, few think about the fact that other beings have exactly the same feeling. As real as you feel you are, to somebody else you are just a passing shadow, a robot, a creature, an 'other' which they do not feel. They react with you, talk to you, but they do not 'feel' the reality of your existence like you do. Only you feel that (or this is what you think) . For example, when you close your eyes, other people disappear, but you remain. If you travel alone to the top of a mountain, all the other people in the world disappear, but you remain with yourself, inescapable. The sense of your own reality is unavoidable, but with other people, they are mere shadows. Close your eyes and they are gone. Cut your hand, you feel it, not they. See someone else in pain, you can imagine their pain, but you cant feel it because they are the other. They are not a reality, not like you are. Yes, you may feel empathy for another, you may feel great pain for another, great love, but this comes through your own experiences and your own awareness of the sameness of the other. It is not really their pain you feel, but your approximation of their pain, your re-creation of their suffering. And the greater your awareness of the sameness between you, the greater the empathy you are capable of. Yet when you are on that mountain, to me you are imaginary. I cant see you, all I feel is myself. You aren't really there at all, except as an idea in my mind. From where I stand, 'I' am the reality, you are the other. When you are in pain, as real as it seems for you, to me there is no reality in it. Any pain I feel is mine, You are the other. This is what the mind thinks.

So this presents a seeming paradox at first; how can there be two beings who both feel that they are the 'me'? Both beings feel exactly the same things. They feel that 'I am me' and everybody else is 'other'. This is the mind's mental process creating the division, the wall. But the seeming paradox is that this cant be right. Both beings cannot be 'me', and both beings cannot also be the 'other'. Can this paradox be solved? A paradox never really exists, that is why it is a paradox. It is simply a lack of understanding, it is seeing something from two or more different perspectives and feeling that both are true yet contradictory. A paradox happens because the definitions being used to assess a situation are not correct, the awareness is not broad enough. The human mind is always searching for 'truth', always searching for reality. It cant understand a situation where two realities may exist at the same time, because this precludes the idea of truth. It will always try to make one true and the other false. It divides. It is this division that is behind almost the entire amount of human misery over history. And so when it is faced with a situation in which two or more conflicting situations seem to be equally valid, it calls it a paradox and starts to think of something else. Again it has labelled, divided. This time, it has simply created a new division, and in this section it has placed an unsolvable situation and called it 'Paradox'.

So how to solve this paradox, or see beyond it. To do this, requires the mind to stop dividing, to stop categorizing, to stop trying to find the answer. There are many ways to come to an understanding, but one key to this process, is to stare into the eyes of another. This doesn't have to be another human being, it could be the eyes of any creature, as all eyes reflect consciousness, all eyes are a keyhole to what we call the soul without really understanding what we mean by that. To stare into the eyes of another, if done long enough, without the mind coming into function, will reveal something which can be felt, but not understood. At the moment one is looking into the eyes of another, something very mysterious is happening, something very beautiful, something magical. At the point of one consciousness looking into another, what is really happening? When one being is looking out through its eyes, into the eyes of another, and the other is doing the same, then what is being seen? Physically, only eyes are being seen, but it goes infinitely deeper than this. Can we say that the self is looking into the other? How can this be possible, when both beings are the self, and both are the other? But this is a paradox, and a paradox is the result of a division, a narrow lack of awareness. At this point of eye to eye contact, this is the point where we can see something completely revelatory if we are aware. The self, is simply looking into itself, simply seeing into a vastness which is beyond a physical space, beyond a time, beyond the divisions of the mind. There are no thoughts to be seen, no concepts, no divisions. Just self... At this point we feel something astonishing, we realise the other is us, we are the other, and there is no separation other than a mental division. At this moment of awareness, division disappears, paradox becomes irrelevant. It becomes known 'who' you are, and 'who' the other is also. They become one, or it becomes understood that they are one and always have been. Any separation has been imaginary, a game, a lack of understanding.

To look into the eyes of another, is simply one way to come to this understanding, it is a tool, a method. It is a highly powerful one, but just one way. The realisation is the same, whatever way it is come to by. When the realisation has occurred, then the whole universe becomes the eyes you are looking into. The whole universe becomes one with you, you become the universe. Every blade of grass is filled with the same being as you, you are the same, the same energy, the same life, the same joy. This is no cliché, no surface game of semantics, this is a powerful realisation of reality which remains hidden behind a veil for most of our lives. The veil of our divisive minds, the box we create around ourselves from the moment we are born.

The box we create around ourselves, this is the personality. It is arbitrary. It is a collection of junk, of valuables, of sticky matter, of dents, scars, stories, memories, charts and graphs. Many many people hold fast to the idea that this is who they are. They hold dearly to their personality, it is their identity, and they treat it like gold. Being human, means having a personality, a history, and for most people this is how they perceive their very being. This accumulation of stuff which becomes stuck to their being, stuck to their mind, to their bodies. We treat our personalities with great pride, or sometimes distaste, but however we view them, we feel an immense affinity with them. we ARE them. A personality is a house which has collected and accumulated over time. It is so full of objects and plans, thoughts, dreams, memories. This house of personality is what we live in, constantly using and accessing the accumulation around us, living inside it, being it. But sometimes houses burn down, sometimes people lose everything they have spent their entire lives accumulating around them. And when this happens, apart from the great pain of loss involved, they discover something interesting. They still exist, without the paraphernalia. This can be an incredibly liberating experience for some, it can be a release from great burdens, because many of the objects we have collected over time are so heavy, so difficult to maintain and look after, when they are forcibly taken away from us, there is release. If they are not forcibly taken away from us, we rarely want to let go. As difficult as it can be to maintain our accumulation, we usually want even more, we insure what we have, and continue to acquire more and more if possible. Sometimes we let something go, but in exchange for a new thing. There continues to be accumulation, hanging on, acquiring.

This is just like the human mind and personality. The mind wants more and more, it want to fortify its existence with greater and greater substance, the substance of personality. The mind acquires ideas, ideologies, concepts, thoughts, beliefs and plans. Sometimes it will trade in an old ideology for a new one, (for example, once it was religious, but now it has become athiest. Once it was labour, but now it is liberal.) It swaps ideas, sometimes thinking that finally it has found the truth this time, but it remains addicted to the purchase and ownership of thoughts and ideas. It clings, it insures, it holds fast to the house of who it believes it is. Just as people will sometimes even kill an intruder who comes to steal from their house of precious belongings, so too will a human sometimes kill if their precious house of thoughts are threatened. Just look at what happens when a religious or political mind comes into contact with someone who challenges their ideals and beliefs. It immediately rejects, can even kill, will often kill, to defend itself from losing any part of its carefully collected ideals and defences. Because to lose those precious thoughts and ideals, is to lose existence, or so the mind believes and lives in fear of. Basically to the human mind, it means death. To lose your personality, is to lose yourself, and with no self, you are nothing. This is the usually unconscious fear of most minds, spoken or not. The stronger our minds, the more real we are, the more life we have, the further from death we are. It is self protection. In a house we feel safe. The larger and stronger the house, the safer we feel. The same is with our minds. And with physical houses, most people want still more fortification. They will congregate together, millions of houses next to each other in huge cities, all the same, an army of minds all seeking fortification, strength, security. Likewise, the mind will congregate with other minds like it, and it will feel re-enforced, safe, secure. Now it is in an army, there is less chance of death. This is religion, this is the defence force, this is politics. Armies of minds which begin to work as one large mind, yet all with the same fear, of ultimate death, a fear of the 'other'. In an army, the 'other' may be another army, another country, another city, another religion, another corporation etc. But the same division is there, which has been there for the individual, the separation of the self, from the other. The large mind of many, has become exactly the same as the single mind of one. Nothing has changed, nothing at all. Only the physical size. The same fears exists, the same delusions, the same madness. Only now, the individual mind has become lost within the larger mind, and in this it feels slightly safer for the moment. Defence, division, separation.

But just as a house can physically burn down all at once, sometimes in extreme cases a person can lose their memory. They don't remember the people they knew, where they live, even their own names. All their life memory is lost in a mental or physical trauma, and yet they still exist. Something still exists, and it isn't the accumulation, it isn't the memories, it isn't the plans and dreams, it isn't the personality. What is it?

06.12.05
I'm sitting in a box. Is this normal?

07.12.05 (power)
I will continue writing about division soon, but for now a brief thought about power.
The power will come from within. Life has two power sources, one from within, one from without. Really both are the same source, yet it appears there are two. They come from different directions, without and within, and they flow through and into each other. Look at a daisy. It has power from within, the life force, the force which flows through it, makes it bloom, rises up from the earth taking moisture and nutrients with it, pulsing through its veins, exploding into a flower, the scent and pollen ejaculating into the atmosphere. This power has no beginning and no end. It has no starting point and no destination, it is a circle. But the flower has a second power coming in, the power from the sun, from the air, energy flowing in and flowing back into its body, into the earth. Really this is the same power, which is also a circle. You have to see this power is not going in one direction only. Typically we only perceive power flowing as one way, yet to where do we think it is flowing? There is no arrival point, no destination for power. It is not linear. Become aware of this circle of power in your own existence. Often, humans seek power only from without. We want more and more power to come in, less to go out if possible. This is an imbalance.

This imbalance becomes easily observable with money. Money is nothing but an abstracted version of the same power which runs through the cosmos. This is a difficult concept to grasp at first, but the same energy which flows through a flower, through a star, is the same energy of money, but money is the twisted human form, the abstracted version of it. Most people seek a power imbalance when it comes to money. It is a common observation that people dream about winning the lottery, of having huge amounts of power coming in from nowhere, without any power needing to go out. People seek more money to come in than they want to see go out. Everyone knows this, it is easily observable in almost everyone. This is a childish dream, a dream where we still believe we can be the centre of the universe, that all the power in the universe will flow toward us, into us, one way only, and that it will keep on happening. The desire for fame is the same, and of course the desire for political power. So too the desire for food, and it's easy to see what happens when food energy only flows one way. When there is imbalance in food energy, the body will either inflate to dangerous levels, or waste away. There must be a natural flow with food, as with all energy. This is why diets don't always work well. A diet is a restriction of energy, a forcing. This will work for a short time, but unless the real cause of the imbalance is seen, the original pattern will return again and again. The problem must be understood deeply. Until then the imbalance swings from one extreme to the other, from wanting too much, to denying too much. When the body is storing up too much energy, desire has become the problem. The desire for more, for greater. All is the desire for one-way power in a mistaken belief that you are separate from the universe, that you are the 'self' and everything else is the 'other'. In this state of mind, you feel separate from everything else, and feel that you must receive power from the universe to live. There is both fear and desire present at once, and both states want the same thing, for energy to flow only toward you. But the universe does not run on one way power. You are not a receptacle, power does not belong to you, does not end up in you, is not owed to you. Power is not something you receive. It is simple, you are part of the universe, one with it, not separate from it, and power must flow through you endlessly, without beginning and without end. Breath should be in, then out, endlessly and effortlessly. Holding the breath, stopping the flow will only result in death.

Not seeing this simple principle, some people do manage to construct ways to temporarily trap this power in an effort to gain more life and power for themselves, either consciously or unconsciously . They block the natural flow through them, and create huge dams of energy which build and build. Great power builds up in this blockage, and they become very large in terms of money energy, or ego energy, or body energy. All energy is neutral, it has no quality. You cannot say energy is good or bad, it is just energy. So any energy which has been blocked and stored, can be directed in any kind of way, so called 'good' or 'bad' ways. But when a river is dammed, downstream suffers. The river downstream loses energy, life dies a little because the natural flow of energy has been blocked. You can see how a country will come back to life after a powerful dictator dies. Then the power and money which have been blocked, are allowed to flow freely again. The power which has been blocked and stored is now released and flows again, and the life downstream is restored. Power should be unrestricted, should flow naturally, should not be held back. It needs to flow effortlessly, in and out, without being blocked, without being dammed up. But we cling very much to power, we are afraid we will lose it if we don't trap it, so we block it to get as much as we can, store it, hold it back if possible. This creates an energy block, energy stops flowing for the moment and there is an imbalance.

Of course power will never be blocked forever. People will die, energy will be returned to the earth, money will again return to society, dams will eventually break and rivers will again flow restoring life. All energy will never be blocked for long because the universe has one overriding rule which is unchanging, and that rule is movement, life. Nothing is static, nothing will ever remain the same, can never remain the same. Everything is movement and all attempts to make something remain the same will fail. This lesson is so important. If you don't learn this lesson, life will still move, but in your attempts to make it static there will be pain. Any system devised to block energy will always fail eventually, has to fail. The reason is this: Any attempt to direct power one way only will always ultimately fail, because where can that power eventually end up? It cannot end up anywhere, because there is no single place in the universe for power to stay in permanence. There is no final resting place for energy, no ultimate goal, no end point.

The human mind doesn't really like this rule very much. It doesn't want to change, it doesn't want to die, it wants to keep living and growing forever. In recent times there has been a very funny terminology arise with governments which illustrates this fear beautifully. Governments are always the best at coming up with absurdities and impossibilities: 'Sustainable Growth'. This is the jingoism of a mind and society that is deeply afraid of death, and does not understand the very life force within it. It wants to develop forever, it wants to grow forever, it wants housing estates, shopping malls and four wheel drives to multiply endlessly, never-ending. People actually take this idea seriously and somehow think that sustainable or eternal growth is possible. Let's have more, then more, then even more. Lets sustain this forever. Where do they think this energy is going to come from, and more importantly, where do they think this energy is going? Again this is a very serious imbalance and a complete lack of understanding of the nature of life itself. Can you imagine a tree that grows forever? Can you imagine a single thing in the universe that can grow forever? This is anti-life. In fact this idea is actually a kind of death in itself. Cancer is something that wishes to grow forever, but of course even it cant do this. It too dies. Not even the immense power of a star is eternal growth. It has grown naturally, is releasing the energy at the same time, and eventually will dissolve back into the universe. Galaxies themselves were born, will radiate energy, will die. And yet governments feel certain that at least with the local economy, sustainable growth is possible and we can all have a shiny car and a flat screen TV and live happily ever after. Endless one way energy, eternal growth. They hope. They are completely wrong of course. In the short term, some growth may be possible, the blockage of energy is possible for a short time. But it is not sustainable and soon the energy will flow freely again. To not change is death, yet the mind resists change out of fear of death. It is completely mistaken.

09.12.05 (the unknown)

The mind is fascinated with what it can't see. It always wants to know what is inside the box. It cannot leave a box unopened. Once it sees it becomes quickly bored and seeks another closed box. What is it looking for?

week 2: Continuing from within

13.12.05 (death)

There will be death in this box. It is happening gradually and I hope it will continue to happen. It must happen, and I kind of feel there is little choice anyway. The box is a coffin, and I would like to die from within it, not in it. But this is a big task. Few people will kill themselves successfully, it is such a hard thing to do. People will often refer to suicide as cowardly, but I feel that to kill one's self is an act of immense bravery. To decide to let go, to take that step, is enormous. Most people will wait for nature to do it for them, and nature always abides. But to actively die in advance of being forced, this is a great rarity. Part deaths are more common, where great loss occurs. Great loss, tragedy, acts that take away most of our being or our life, these happen more commonly. Like an old tree which has been cut down at the base, there is immense shock and great loss, but usually even then a tiny leaf will emerge, regrowth will begin. But real and total death whilst living, this is less common. The self cannot kill the self however. If this happens, then the self survives the process naturally. It only kills part of itself, it has divided, it is not a true death. The remainder of the self will re-sprout and before long will be the same. So how can there be a total death of the self, who or what is the murderer? If the self tries to kill itself, it is impossible to succeed. The very act of willpower is the life force which will keep it alive. Jesus said that to enter the kingdom of heaven you must die first. It is true. The self, the ego, it is always in pain, it is always in hell. Only when the self has evaporated, only when the ego is silenced can there be peace.

We can feel this process happening when we spend time in nature. If we spend long enough in a completely natural setting, amongst the beauty of waterfalls, forests, mountains, if we allow the mind to gradually silence and stop talking, stop thinking, we begin to feel a great peace. For the inexperienced this can often take a long time. Often people spend time in nature away from the noise of cities and they hate it. They only experience fear or boredom. This is normal, but what is happening? There is a great fear of silence and of isolation. The mind wants company, this is the nature of it. It wants business, it wants activity, it wants what it perceives as life. In the wilderness it is afraid, it is alone, it is even bored. There is no television, no shopping malls, no money, no walls. In nature, the soul is forced out in the open, walls are no longer there and it is forced to experience silence. In this silence, it has to become aware of itself, it has to face itself, and in the facing of itself there will be dissolution, and in that dissolution there will be peace. But not many people will allow it to happen, it never gets that far. They will return to the city, and the extraordinary bustle of life will again enter their heads, and any kind of silence and peace they may have begun to feel will evaporate, but in that renewed activity they will feel more secure. This is the same process as meditation, no different. Meditation is only a tool devised to turn off the mind, allowing true being to shine through unobstructed. In meditation, relaxation is not the goal as many people think. Relaxation is just a by-product. The real aim of true meditation is aliveness, alertness. This is a different kind of alertness to the alertness of the mind. When the mind is alert there is tension, good or bad. But the kind of alertness meditation uncovers carries a great peace, a most beautiful feeling of calm. This is the peace of no-mind, when the mind is silent and the being is alive and buoyant, fresh and alert.

Really, there is no silence in nature though, it is full of life and noise, but the noise of nature is different to the noise of the mind. At first the human mind perceives it as silence, but if people would stay long enough with nature, not run away from it, they would find a different energy, a different life, which was also alive, buoyant and effervescent, like a symphony of birdsongs before dawn, the sound of the wind in a pine tree, or running water. This is a different language, not the language of the mind, this is the noise of life itself and it is incredibly beautiful. When this noise is listened to, not with the mind, but felt with the being, the inner connects with the outer, walls come down, and your being is felt as one with the world, not as a separate identity. Division ends. As the sun rises, you feel a part of the world, you feel its warmth penetrate you, a great joy of energy comes though you in many different directions. You are not just receiving, you are radiating also. This is the energy which will flow from within and without, in both directions, a circle. So to feel this energy, this peace, this lack of separation, how can we silence the mind which is always so busy chattering, defining itself, separating and causing divisions? This mind is always living in two states, desire and fear, and in these states the peace of one-ness cannot be felt. Fear and desire are actually the same state, two sides of the same coin, it must be recognised. If you want to lose your fears, you have to also lose your desires, there is no other way. For as long as you have desires, you will have fear that you will lose them or not attain them.

Then what is going to allow this beautiful silence to happen, because if the self is the entity which instigates the death, the self will continue to have life. There are roots left, and those roots will sprout leaves and re-grow. One way, probably the most common way, is great pain, and great loss. Nobody wants this to happen, but inevitably it will happen in some form, sometime. When great loss occurs, there is always left a gap, a hole and in this hole there is emptiness. The mind is so shocked, it cannot replace this emptiness initially, and it remains gaping and painful like a wound. This is a forcing of silence, a forced taking away. In the shock, there is nothing to replace what has been taken away initially, and there is only emptiness. Part of the self is left, but part has been taken away, and it lies there bleeding, suffering in its loss. Now sometimes at this point, the self will try to kill the remaining part of itself, its pain has become so unbearable. People may actually take their own physical life, so much has been taken away from them, they feel there is not enough left to go on, and so they forcibly remove the final parts. It is an extraordinary step, but many take it. Others, even though they are in unbearable pain, wait, and in time there is a re-growth, and the self begins to heal, begins to enlarge again. It can take a long time. But during the time of pain, most people will experience a greater depth to their selves, a greater searching, a greater awareness. This happens because of the hole, and it is through that hole, that our inner being can be free of the noise of the mind for a short time. When that hole closes, the mind has again constructed a web of thoughts which close it over, and the mind has healed, begins to function again as before. Then that portal to being is lost again. It is a painful way, but it is the most common way, almost the only way. Most people who experience great loss, although at the time it feels unbearable, later they may express an appreciation for a greater awareness of themselves and life which arrived through that experience, through that hole. If we were to keep that emptiness alive, to keep that portal open, to not let the mind heal it over with new thoughts, a new life, then by what process can we achieve this? Because to try to make it happen, is more mind activity, more work of the self, a renewed weaving of the web.

Usually, after some time of great pain, we heal, and although we feel less pain, we also feel less depth. The hole of emptiness is filled again, the pain goes, but so does the awareness. We have learnt something perhaps, we have gone a little deeper, but we have also come back to the mind, back to the world, back to the noise and bustle.

Coming soon: HOT BREAD AND JAM fresh from the box.

Few human made things are as beautiful as bread. Bread has remained basically unchanged for thousands of years, because it is such a goodness, such a beauty, such a simplicity. Bread is so basic and life giving, that is has become analogous with life. The idea of daily bread is even mentioned in the Christian Lord's Prayer, be it interpreted literally or as an analogy for life and love itself; 'Give us this day, our daily bread'. Its smell, its texture, its goodness, its warm colours always invite. Few people can resist fresh oven baked bread. When Christ himself was about to die, it was bread and wine he chose to share with his friends, the most basic and life giving food and warmth.

15.12.05 (hot fresh bread and jam today)

The dancer is the dance

A gallery is a mausoleum. It is a place of death, repetition and no movement. So quiet in here, nothing is alive. When I become the art, then the art I have made becomes dead. Lifeless paintings, lifeless photos, lifeless installations and sculptures. I am the only living thing in here, everything else is dead. What do people want to find when they stare into a painting, into a photograph? Is not the fullness of life itself a miracle enough? So I abandon art, and become the art itself. But then it is no longer art, is just life itself, movement itself. There is no introspection, no viewer looking at the viewed. The observer then becomes the observed. A tree does not make art, it is the art, it is life itself. This is why I am making bread. Art is useless, but bread gives life. I sit here alive, being, life flows through me, and I make bread which will give life, be a part of life, will flow through people as energy.

People will say that art gives life in a different way, but this is introspection, and introspection leads only inwards. Art Galleries are museums, and museums only house the past, the dead. People talk about the life and energy of a painting, of an artwork, but there is no life in itself, an artwork can only speak about life. When it ceases to speak about life, and becomes life itself, then it is no longer art. As I sit here, I am not art, I am life itself. I bake bread, not as a reflection on life, but as an act of life. When the bread is eaten, when the cakes have been given out and eaten, the act has passed, movement continues. An art object remains inanimate, it decays, it remains static and dead, collecting dust, a thing of the past. People spoke of the amazing life in the impressionist paintings, but it is not life. The paintings merely spoke of life, referred to it, and the life they spoke of is infinitely more beautiful and alive than the paintings can ever be. The paintings themselves are fading and cracking. People say that art can teach, but the dead cannot teach. When you learn from the dead, you only learn about the dead, not about the living. Who did the impressionists learn from? From living nature of course.

Why do crowds flock around the Mona Lisa, around Michelangelo's David? Have they never seen a human being? A real human being, one of the millions we pass daily, is vastly more beautiful than any dead art object can be, and we can learn from a real person. About David, we can only learn of stone, and the process of decay. Who did Michelangelo learn from? From the living body. Yes he examined dead bodies, but only to learn about the living because it was the only means. The living body was his greatest motivation, the attempt to capture it and hold that life. When an artist learns only from another artist, they are only an echo, a repetition. Then they are not feeling real life at all. So too when an observer observes an artwork, they are only experiencing a repetition of an idea or experience.

Sit in a field, feel the wind on your skin, see the grass flowing like water, see the complexity and ever changing nature of it, see the clouds ever changing above you, and the millions of insects and animals around you. This is not a repetition or an echo, this is actual life in the moment, this is beauty, this is movement as experienced within and without your own being, this is change and reality. Can you see any of this in an artwork? The art will be ugly in comparison, it will be dead. You are looking at a once removed story about life, how can you find anything other than the past? Unless you are living in the dream world of the artwork in which case all dream images seem real to the dreamer, or unless you understand the reality to which the artwork is refering, but if that is the case, then you do not need the art anyway. You simply look at the art and say to yourself, "I understand the beauty to which it refers, but I know the beauty is not in the art itself." The artist has felt a certain life force, a certain joy of life, or even pain, or they are inquiring. But then the artist has looked at that moment, thought about it, tried to analyse, capture it, secure it, understand it.

Once this process happens, the moment and idea is already long dead. Then the observer, the gallery visitor looks at the creation, tries to understand and feel the ideas and emotions the artist has felt in the past, tries to feel the excitement, but in this they are no longer looking at life as it happens, no longer experiencing movement and life through their own eyes. Now they try to feel life from the lifeless, not even through the eyes of another which is impossible, but through another's lifeless re-creation of the past. The understanding and appreciation of a work of art is only ever exactly equal to the observer's already understood observations of the artist's inquiry. So there is no learning, no movement. We only understand art that we have experienced ourselves already.

Why does the artist always convert the direct experience into a medium? If true communication is the goal, then why didn't the impressionists simply take people out into the country and show them the beauty first hand? It would have been a far greater experience, more direct. But even then, it would not be possible to really show anyone your own direct experience. This is yours alone, you cant share it. But still we try.

Today, no-one seems to want either art, nor bread.

19.12.05 celebration

For most people, the word celebration refers to an act of observation which involves looking backwards. There is an event, an achievement, something happens, there is something joyful, and then we want to celebrate it. But the moment is already past. The celebration is after the event, outside of it, remembers it, looks backwards. Or we want to celebrate a plan for the future like a marriage, or the beginning of a journey, in which case we celebrate the future which hasn't happened and we cant know how it will turn out. This celebration of the future is also an act of observance, a marking, an attempt at creating or holding a moment. But in love, the love itself is the celebration. In joy, the joy itself is the celebration. Celebration is as it happens, it is life itself, it is not an act of observance. There can be no greater celebration than being in the moment, feeling the moment, feeling the life within. No other creature on earth celebrates, only humans and this is because humans are the only creatures which try to capture the moment, try to safeguard themselves against change. All other life is the celebration constantly. The flower is the celebration, the newborn moth at dusk is the celebration. These things need not reflect, need not capture any moment. There is too much life happening to stop and reflect, to stop and mark the occasion. The feeling of the fullness of life flowing through you, is the celebration. Eating, sleeping, making love, walking, it is all a beautiful celebration as it happens. There is no need to constantly refer back to it. Once you are referring back to it, you cannot be living in the moment can you? If you are busy with the dream of the past, then the current moment of reality escapes you. Of course eating and drinking joyfully with friends, this is a wonderful thing, but this act is a celebration, not the event to which it refers, for the event to which it refers is either already past, or is an imaginary future state. Neither state is reality, neither state is life. And there is no need to celebrate anything, because life is so full, so constantly full. Every moment is it's own celebration, every moment is life, if you are not living in the past or dreaming of the future. Celebration is a very subtle form of fear. Sounds extreme to say so, but any kind of movement away from the present, either toward the past or the future, is based in fear. It's very subtle, but to notice it, is to become suddenly alive.

20.12.05

It might seem quite sour to talk about a celebration as being fear in another form, but to really understand the subtlety here is important, because this principle is the same principle which will make people celebrate their national pride, and kill other humans who are not of the same nationality or religion etc. It is an extremity, but it is exactly the same principle. If you don't understand it, then you live in the same states of mind across all situations, and what seems harmless on one level, causes world wars on another. The principle is the same, if you are not living in the moment, then you are either dreaming about the past or the future and your being becomes enamoured with these dreams, you become them, think you are them. It is always an act of stepping outside of the moment and reflecting on either the past or the future. Seemingly harmless on a small level, (though it is often not) but it has to be seen clearly that the same principle causes devastation, when the mind attaches to ideas and ideologies and is constantly living for another time. Religions are always living both in the past and in the future. Religions are also known for their celebrations. There is always some celebration of a past event, possibly something that happened thousands of years ago. Then there is also the looking forward to the future. Heaven is coming, the saviour is coming, something important is always either coming, or happened in the past. In this process, the present, life in the moment, the true miracle is always lost and ignored. And so in religion celebration is a process of never being in the reality of life as it happens, rather it is a process of living in the past and dreaming of the future.

21.12.05 (4 Wheel Drives and conquest)

Open any glossy magazine for the wealthy, you are likely to see an advertisement for a four wheel drive vehicle. Typically the picture will be of a car sitting atop a mountain in a pristine environment, covered in dirt, a man sitting inside or next to it with a proud and heroic look, the horizon stretching out before him. In Australia, the four wheel drive has become the car of choice in suburbia, being more popular than other types. The deep reason is because the predominant paradigm of human thought is still to separate ourselves from nature. We still have not learnt any lessons, we still feel the need to separate, to divide, to conquer. This is a very deep rooted feeling in the heart of humans which comes from many thousands of years of fighting against nature, trying to rise above it. One hundred thousand years ago, our ancestors were content to live within nature, as a part of it, not separate. Since then has been a very gradual evolution against this one-ness, toward a feeling of separation and difference. The mind has developed, ego has developed, and we have begun to feel separate from the very ground which produced us. The ground to which we still return to this day. But to this day, we are not different, have not separated except in our imaginations. I wont write much about four wheel drives, other than to note how beautifully these advertisements illustrate the way the human mind divides itself between the self, and everything else. The ego against the world which gave birth to it. When the ego dissolves, it is like an angry child finally coming home to their loving parents, and not until that moment can there be peace. The tree will not set itself apart from the forest which gave birth to it, to do so would be death. It is part of that forest, needs it. The four wheel drive represents the death of the earth's wilderness, and when humans eventually conquer that which gave birth to them, they too will die in the process. To conquer that which gives you life, is to commit suicide.

23.12.05 The future will be better, (one day).

The entire world is striving for the future. We all want to get somewhere. We always have a goal in mind, a better place than where we are now, more money, a better car, more sex, more security, or even a greater spirituality. Even religious people want to get to heaven, want to reach God or want their God's approval, want to be better people, want something more in the future. Even people who renounce the physical world in search of the spiritual, they too are searching for something better which is in the future. Nobody is content where they are, either physically or mentally. The whole movement of the human mind over the whole earth, is one of seeking the future, of seeking something other than what is. It happens on so many levels, from the personal, to the corporate, to the national. Television programs have evolved which constantly seek to show the future, and almost always the future is portrayed as a time when things will be better. Technology will be faster, cheaper, smaller, and it will make us happier. Cars will be faster, cheaper. Films are obsessed with the future, and always life is more amazing in the future than it is in the present. The future is always a glorious promise, and the beauty of the future is that it can never be proven wrong, because you can never reach it. For every day closer you come to the future, it steps ahead of you one day at a time in perfect unison.

So even if something didn't turn out as you thought it might, it could still happen tomorrow, or the next day, or something better could happen soon. Or perhaps you tell yourself that in the future you will no longer care, you will be over the relationship one day, you will be wiser one day, or you will give up trying someday in the future, but the future remains. The future always holds a promise which cant be proven wrong ever, and so its allure is everlasting. The future is eternal for as long as the mind continues to pursue it. You can even hope that one day in the future, you will cease looking to the future...

Now you cant have future without the past. For the future to exist, there must have been a past. So as well as looking to the future for comfort, we also often look longingly to the past because we believe it was better in some way. Either a relationship was better, or a way of life, or music was better when we were young, or in the renaissance etc. God came in the past and will come again in the future, aliens came in the past, and will come again in the future etc... There are a billion variations of the seeking of past and future, some subtle, some all consuming. Some as common as waiting for the weekend to come.

But of course nothing will change until all of this seeking ends, completely and truly ends. It has to completely and utterly die, this never ending search for the promise of something better. The seed of the future must completely die, or it will regrow, and you will end up seeking something other than reality, eternally. What is this seed, and how can we be free of this endless chasing of the past and future? Because if we begin to make a conscious effort to stop chasing, then already we are back at the start, we are already chasing the future again, by making an effort to stop chasing it. We are still seeking something better. We may see that the seeking is endless, desires are endless, and yet how can we be free of them? Because to be free of them, at first it appears that we must become lifeless, and we don't want to be lifeless. If we don't have desire and its fulfilment, then what fun is that? If we cease seeking to fulfil the future, then wont we just be sitting there like lumps of clay, motionless?

This is in fact what some people do, in their efforts to attain this state of desirelessness. They try to become emotionless, they try to cease all movement, they meditate like rocks, and try to suppress all strivings and desires. But just as future and past are two sides of the same coin, so too is desire and repression. If you are repressing something, it is still alive within you, as strong as it ever was, even stronger. If you repress your sexuality for example, you have not ended it, you have actually focused your attention on it, tried to isolate it from your being, and made it stronger in the process. If you repress your anger, you have not stopped anger, you have continued to be angry, and you boil on the inside, whilst the outside shows a facade. Suppression does not remove things, it simply shifts them. If you suppress your desire for food, the desire is not going to go away, you just get hungrier. Suppression can not dissolve anything, suppression can only shift things at best, and at worst make them stronger.

But repression or suppression, is just another way of seeking the future, of seeking to be somewhere other than you are. You see something about yourself you don't like, and you repress it, so that in the future this quality does not exist, does not show. Repression is part of the endless seeking also. So you cant repress your seeking, you cant decide to stop seeking. Now it seems to be an impossible game; How can I stop seeking the future, when every effort I make, is a continuation of the same process? And from this way of looking at the problem, you can't stop, its impossible, and this is the very problem itself. The human mind, its very way of existing, can only exist in past and future. To think, is to be in a process of moving from the past to the future. Thought is a product of memory, of ideas being learned and stored up. Thought also projects into the future, it tries to imagine how the future will turn out. Thought itself, is a product of past and future, it moves from one to the other, it needs the illusion of time to exist. Without this movement, it cannot be.

03.01.06 disintegration and dissolution

Today, the box has begun to disintegrate. It is painful.

04.01.06 Death = Birth

Death is Birth, Birth is Death. How can they be separated? Each is painful, it seems, as they are one and the same thing. Whenever there is the death of any thing, place, moment, or person in the universe, something else is created in it's place. Has to be, it happens automatically, there is no choice. When we are born physically, we are separated from the womb, from our mother, who has been our body also. This is an immense separation, and it produces pain for both mother and child. One entity is born, and a state of oneness and connection is lost at the same time. Birth and death are constant, never ending. It is going on all around us at all moments, but we notice only a very small amount of it. Mostly we think we are seeing things in a relatively static state. This is an illusion of the mind. There is no static state, there is no solidity in the universe, nor in ourselves. We wish it were so, when we operate from our mind's desire for security. In fact when you look deeper into it, you see that there is only birth and death at once, there is nothing else. The one state of birth and death exists at once, and any image we have of something that is solid, or something that is lasting, is completely an illusion of the mind. Birth contains the seed of death already it, and death contains the seed of birth.

05.01.06 Hard to believe?

Today we commonly acknowledge the eternal nature of energy and matter, in that no energy ever really disappears, it just changes form or goes somewhere else. This idea although very old, has resurfaced in modern science as a simple observation. Although science has recently introduced new ideas into the observance of energy, which although making it far more complex to understand, has only increased the complete mystery of existence. Ideas like an energy 'particle' (quark) being able to be in two or more places at once, or the idea that the mere observance of such an object, alters or defines it's place in the universe.

These observations makes no rational sense in the way we usually think about things, but have been observable scientific 'facts'. These scientific observations seem to validate what religions have been saying in different way for a long time. For example, Buddhists have been saying for thousands of years that the observer creates their own world, and Christians have been saying that God is able to be in all places at once. It's easy to slip into fuzzy semantics here, drawing all kinds of parallels, but what is undeniable is that the world that science presents to us today, is even more mysterious than anything we have pondered so far in history. Science seems only to reveal more and more layers of mystery, the deeper it delves in it's quest to understand life. As science sets out to understand and neatly package life, the exact opposite seems to happen, and paradigms we once thought of as rock solid, dissolve like morning fog in the sun.

So when we ponder about death, we readily acknowledge that the energy involved in our physical bodies simply dissipates and transfers elsewhere, back into the earth, back into the universe, and in this way we see ourselves as separate from the universe in the first place, but that's another question. So we readily accept this first idea about the transference and continuation of energy in the body, and yet when it comes to the soul, or to consciousness, (our sense of existence) most people are not so sure about it's continuity. Many people fear its total annihilation because they believe that consciousness is the sum total of their biology, or they have a belief system which assures them of the soul's continuance.

And yet why should consciousness, which nobody has ever yet been able to measure or discover 'where' it exists, why should we believe that it is subject to different laws? Even if consciousness were proved to be locatable and to function as matter or energy, should not consciousness also simply move, transfer, change form? Where could it go? The more I think about it, it seems irrational that we accept the idea of the eternal nature of energy so readily, and yet live in constant fear of death and the loss of the most mysterious and undefinable element of all, consciousness. If though, consciousness proves to be only the sub total of human material physiology, then its dispersing at death would be expected.

06.01.06 Why must the ego be risen above?

Why is ego such a bad thing? In the 1970's was a popular song by the Skyhooks with the chorus "ego is not a dirty word". It basically argues for the ego and recommends the strengthening of the ego, the self, as way to become strong, a way to get what you want. Why would this be such a bad thing, to become strong and get what you want? The reason that the strengthening of the self is such a negative thing, is that to fortify the self, is to separate it from the rest of life. When you create a self, that self can only exist if it is separate from the world. If there was no separation, then there would be no self, that is self evident. And the paradox is, that the more you fortify and strengthen your sense of self, the greater your isolation from the rest of the universe becomes. This has to happen, there is no choice. The stronger you are, the more solid you become, the more separate you have to become from everything else, to maintain that separate identity and existence. The more solid you become, the heavier you become, the less you are able to move, to change, to be flexible, to be free.

This is like an angry guard dog in a yard that protects its territory viciously and wont let anyone in. It wants to maintain its space, it wants to be the ruler of its territory, it wants in effect, to be king, and the ego always wants to be king. The dog is tense in its anger, in its distrust, in its paranoia. It is inflexible. But it successfully maintains its territory and will even kill to do so, which is exactly how the human ego works. There is a very good reason that humans call dogs their best friend. They are extremely similar creatures. Both are social, yet both are dominated by fear and aggression, or ego.

So even though the dog may be successful in creating and keeping its own small and limited space, what has been lost in the process? The dog is now alone, totally alone in its defensiveness, and trapped within its tiny walls. I may come along from the limitless outside and wish to give the dog food, wish to pat it, wish to do good for it and be friendly, but the dog is angry, vicious, and will not let anyone in. It angrily pushes all away to maintain its little position in life. It is no longer able to receive anything from the outside, and it certainly cant give anything either. It has become its own worst enemy.

This is precisely how the ego works, and is the tragedy of it. The greater we make ourselves through ego, the more we isolate ourselves and others, the more we have to reject the world, the more we have to make judgements, separate, reject, isolate ourselves behind the walls of our own making.

To be born again, ego must be stepped outside of, understood for what it is, not operated from. In its place love, love must be given. Give up all ego separation and judgements, because the ego is tiny, limited. Love is boundless and unrestricted, open to all things. Being selfless is love, it is openness, it allows all in, it creates no walls.

12.01.06 The opening...

Today the box finally disintegrated. The box of course represented the ego, the mind, and the mind's attachment to the body. It is the shell that surrounds our consciousness, and the shell is made up of both body and mind. It is a construction which is limited and fixed.

What is left when this shell disintegrates? Simply stated, it is love. Love is openness, it cannot exist behind walls, it must be free. It is the mind which creates the walls, which stops love flowing. This love is very different to being in love. When you are in love, you are wanting something, you are needing something, you are attached to an idea or an object. But the openness which survives the destruction of walls, chases nothing. It simply exists, it simply flows, it simply is.

Being substanceless, it is the most powerful and all pervading force of all. Love is just a word, which humans have many connotations for, but pure love, or openness, is the energy which flows through all the universe. It is nameless and formless but forms and names all.

In my installation, I have represented this force with living flowers. Living flowers embody the life force beautifully, they bloom with life, they hold no memory of yesterday, they have no fear of tomorrow, they have no anger, no desires except for life itself. They simply are. This is the ultimate desire. Not the desires of the ego, which are limited, small, and selfish. The ultimate desire really desires nothing as such, but pure joy, pure energy, pure existence.

So now where there used to be a large, heavy and sealed wooden box that had a living soul inside, now there are flowers blooming amidst a very small pile of wood. It felt very good to dismantle that heavy box. It feels free now, I feel free. Being in the box was fun in a way, but it was very limiting. People could not really see me, I could not really see them, and communication was difficult and cramped. It was fun trying to work things out for both me, and the people outside. They all wanted to know who I was.

But if they really understood the nature of consciousness, they needed only to look within themselves, for that same consciousness, that same love and openness is within them also. If they are busy looking at the shell of the box, or looking at the shell of their own box, then there will only be comparisons and judgements. We all have a different shell which surrounds us. Each shell, or personality, has been created by many and varying forces. Its fun to look at this variety, and it makes for a beautiful and richly varied world, but only if we know that it is just a shell. If we don't know that, then this lack of knowledge can only lead to separation. This separation in turn ultimately leads to greater separations like wars and killing. All this happens, because we have come to believe that the shell of our bodies and minds, is who we really are.

And who are we, really....? The answer, is contained in the silent blossoming of a daisy in the morning sunlight.

18.01.06 Talking to yourself about diffs

This morning I was talking to motor mechanics on the phone getting quotes to fix my car. Usually I dread this process because I feel have nothing in common with mechanics, I know nothing about cars, I feel I will get ripped off, and so I automatically create a sense of 'me' versus 'them' when I am getting quotes. You see how the ego operates like this. It establishes its own territory, gets defensive, looks for problems and automatically makes the other person into an outsider from the start.

But this morning something different happened, a shift in perception. As I was phoning around today, when speaking to the 'other' person, instead of seeing them as separate to myself, I was seeing them as just another part of the universe, of which I was an equally integrated part. In this way, both beings are integral to the whole and cannot be separated, either from the whole, or consequentially from each other.

You see, any idea of separation is entirely fictional, it has to be. You cannot be separate from the rest of the universe, if you were, you could not exist. To try and separate yourself from either another being, or from the whole would be like one part of a human body deciding it was separate, and trying to go it alone. It cant happen, the body needs all its parts, and all the parts need the whole body. They are one and the same. And just as the parts of one body make the whole, all the bodies together, make a whole also, they also cannot be separated

So this time when speaking to another person, I realised that I was talking to the same sense of life that exists inside myself. I was essentially, talking to myself. Not my ego self, but the true self, which is perhaps what some people call God. Instead of fearing being ripped off by another being, this time I felt I was essentially dealing with the eternal life force which flows through everything. I was simply talking to myself. Simply being aware of the energy circulating around the world without boundary or definition, around the universe, not dividing it into 'me' and 'others'.

Are you the air? Most people would say that they are not the air, but that they breathe the air. However, breath is 100% essential to the body's existence. If you didn't have the air you would die quite quickly. So how can you say that the air is not a part of you? Clearly any essential part of your being that results in your death if taken away, must be a part of you. Can the air exist without the earth? Clearly it cannot, so how can you say that the earth is not also a part of you? If the entire earth is part of you, then everything it contains is part of you, in a completely essential way. There is no edge or boundary to anything, except those that the human mind projects and invents. There is no separation at all, except in your mind. This is just imagination, that is all. It holds no reality. The earth cannot exist without the rest of the galaxy, which in turn cannot exist without the entire universe.

If you walk around a city, then you can see the projections of the human mind and the ego. Then you can learn all about definitions, about separation, about division. See how every house is divided with a fence. See how all cars and houses are locked for fear of other beings stealing from them. Notice the overwhelming proliferation of signs which all scream demands for attention. See the many rules, definitions and laws, which all create a rigid system of patterned behaviour and conformism. All these systems, even if superficially seen as 'good' or constructive to the running of a society, are nonetheless all ways of breaking down wholeness and separating it all into division and isolation, which only breeds fear. All these systems, simply further the ego's separation of 'me' versus 'them'. The self versus the rest of the world, which is total fiction in reality. It is only a reality when viewed from the standpoint of the mind and ego.

So you can see that when you observe all this clearly enough, without the subjectivity of the self making definitions and creating divisions and separations, then you will understand that 'you' do not exist as a separate part of the universe. You are simply integral with it, one with it, one with all things. To be one with all things, this is not a new age warm and fuzzy slogan, it is not an intellectual concept belonging to esoteric religions and Buddhism. To be one with all things, is simply the only reality there is.

But to keep saying that 'you' are part of everything, is to continue making the definition of 'you' which is further separation. Even this mental concept of being one with all, has to be lost. This cannot be done within intellectual concepts or words. It is a deep realisation, that is beyond time and words. It is meditation, which is not a meditation that is done for 20 minutes with incense and relaxing music, and then stopped. It is an un-ending realisation, that exists outside of time and mind, but which includes time and mind.

20.01.06 A great effort is limitation.

A great effort is always small, limited, difficult. The effortless, the uncontrived, is always limitless, available to all possibilities. When you are trying very very hard to achieve something, the results will always be small, limited and fixed. When you are letting go of all efforts, and allowing something to flow effortlessly, you are allowing space for the infinite, for the opening of oceans and galaxies. When you work hard toward a specific result, you may succeed totally, yet you narrow the mental field, tie up energy in one place, and close off to possibility and freedom. When you relax into allowing everything to be, the world opens to you, you open to the world, the two become one, the two disappear.

But 'relaxing into allowing everything to be', does not mean abandoning all effort, and this is a difficult thing to put into practise. To be effortless, is not to act without thought, is not to cease caring about others, is not to abandon work, and it does not mean to no longer make any efforts and that chaos will result. It simply means a change in the way the mind is working. Zen tradition says to 'seek without seeking'. To the logical mind this seems impossible, how can you seek without seeking? How can you make effort and be effortless at the same time? It doesn't make sense. But a shift in perception is required to get this.

I have often wondered why cities are not relaxing places, when after all, they simply constitute the same matter that the rest of the universe is made of. They are also reality, they are also part of life. But many people will feel more relaxed in what we traditionally call a 'natural' environment. i.e., one not designed by people. Why is this? Trees are just matter, rivers are just matter, mountains are just physics, just like skyscrapers. Why is it 'peaceful' to sit next to a mountain stream in the mountains, and not to sit along side a 6 lane freeway in the heart of an industrial wasteland? People rarely put up tents and easy chairs at the base of plastic extrusion factories, but will make pilgrimages to the beach or mountains to spend a relaxing day. Why is this?

The reason is about mental effort and projection. Cities are a projection of the human mind. They are thought which has manifested as reality. Every traffic light, every road sign, every car, has come from the human mind specifically. All human made objects were first a thought. As such, coming from the limited human mind, all these projections are extremely limited, highly contrived, and conceived and produced with enormous effort and work. It is this very effort and work toward a goal, combined with a goal which is completely narrow and subjective, which has produced the underlying discomfort and ugliness which all cities manifest. How could it be otherwise? The goals in cities are primarily about work, making money, gaining comfort and supporting human life at the expense of all other living things. This is a very narrow state of mind, and thus the projection of this state of mind becomes manifest in the physical surroundings of the city.

The human mind is always wanting to escape itself, either consciously, or unconsciously. It tries to do this in so many ways, either through fantasy, through drugs, through different activities, television, religions, a million ways. The mind with it's thoughts, is ever in a constant state of escape from itself, which it never manages to do because it cannot run from itself. Wherever it runs, it will always be there.

The many ways in which the human mind tries to escape its own thoughts are limitless, and likewise, the human mind also seeks to escape from its own projections. This is why we want to 'escape' to the mountains, to the beach, to the wilderness, to a tropical island etc. We are trying to escape from our own tiny, narrow, ugly mental projections. In the outside world, we can do this, still. There are still untouched physical places (though they are fast dwindling) which our bodies can escape to, to relieve ourselves of living inside of our projections. These places embody a state of formlessness, and mindlessness. They have not come about as the result of a specific plan, they are not an end result. Nature is an ongoing and totally free process, without form or limits or designs. It is being in an environment which reflects this state of freedom, this freedom from the mind, that relaxes us for a time, and puts us back in touch with a state of natural effortlessness, timelessness, and freedom from designs and plans. We relax, we swim, we just sit and enjoy the space around us, thoughts fall away. This works for a short time, but in time we return to the town, the city, and ultimately to the mental states we are always trying to escape. We rarely leave them.

Now take a look at an untouched wilderness. In all its sublime beauty, it has no goal. It works towards nothing. It sets no boundaries, it has no fears, no plans, no desires. From the point of view of the human mind, nature is completely directionless. It is chaos. Yet look at the astonishing beauty which this lack of effort creates! It is uncontrived, effortless and therefore limitless. When nature is untouched by the human mind, nothing that happens within it, is against it, as all movement within it is effortless and without design. But it's effortlessness, does not mean it is without movement. Nature is in constant movement, unceasingly.

The moment the human mind began to project, to think, to try, to make an effort, the birth of narrowness began, and the breakdown of nature. This has been the movement of the whole human mind over history. But it is also the movement of the single human mind in one lifetime. As an individual, we also work towards specific and narrow results, and in doing so we close off from the infinite. Almost all human endevour over history, has been a process of separation and division, on all levels. We look into the microscope and divide and classify, over and over. We look around and give everything a name, which instantly separates it from everything else. Everything we build, is an effort at division of some kind, separation of 'us' and 'them', inner and outer, good and bad, etc.

Now this is not to say that we should make no efforts. In making efforts, great things may be accomplished. But there is a trick to this process, which is very subtle and hard to understand. Basically, the effort should be effortless. How can effort be effortless? The difference between an effort which is inflexible and narrow, and an effort which is free and effortless, is state of mind. It can physically be the same effort with the same goal even, but the state of mind that lives with this effort is very different. The state of mind that applies effort with effortlessness, is not afraid of diversion, is not afraid of failure, is simply not afraid. Fear is a projection of limitation. The effort is made, but is not effort as such. It is just movement, and this movement works within its surroundings, not against them. When effort is made against things, when there is fear of failure, when there is inherent mental struggle, then there is friction and pain.

But effort and energy which flows like water in a stream, is always effortlessly prepared to be diverted to another course, does not argue with the rocks it comes to, but simply goes around them. It moves, it flows, but is completely open. No stream is fixed in its intended course. It only has one intent, and that is to flow, and flow toward the ocean. All our efforts should be like this. Yes we must work, we must move, we must make certain efforts. But it is the way we make this effort, the mental state we are in, that changes completely how this effort flows, or does not flow.

And so when we apply effort with effortlessness, something changes. What happens, is that we become open to change, and to possibility. We may well start off with a specific goal in mind and this goal may be beautiful and its results may benefit all of humanity, but with a mind that is flexible and open to all diversions, open to all changes, even open to the abandonment of all effort, this mind can be free. The mind that remains fixed, that remains committed to a goal at all costs, that applies enormous effort toward a singular outcome, this mind is not free. This mind is in torment, and any results obtained by its endeavours will always be limited by its own inflexibility, and tainted with its own torments.