Hi there,
So I am standing out on my own, at this point - I'm not saying "look at the Bible", I'm not saying "look at anything" - I just want to understand this fundamental point: whatever the beginning was, it was not a pretext for isolated change?
The point is that once people typically have a concept of the beginning, they then start to say "the beginning was this, that means I must do x". When the beginning, has nothing to do with "x". God does not create, lots of little x's to choose from. The result of Creation (by which I mean the instantiation of everything at once, that it may either begin or have a beginning) is holistic, it does not immediately have a trained nature, it is not "there for the taking". Laying hold of a particular beginning, does not institute a particular choice.
This is important, because when we do meditation, we are not trying to return to a point when our decision making was easy and light, rather, we are trying to put to death anything that was in objection to us: simply being what we were. If we come away from meditation saying "at last 'I' understand" we have forgotten, that the disciplined mind does not need to "have understood" its own beginning, but rather that logically no decision is required. No decision, no understanding.
So it is, that all cultures that try to grasp the beginning, are looking at it, as if it is some kind of fruit, when in fact, it is merely the stem. As the Bible says "the axe is already laid, at the foot of the tree" (from memory) in other words, the axe can bring all fruit to the ground at once, but only because it is aimed at what feeds the fruit, universally. This is the strength of patience, not that your life is sold in pursuit of a science, with a particular "fruit", but that you understand that all fruit has the weakness that it must be distinguished from the ground, before it can be called "fruit".
So going back to the beginning, the question must naturally be "why do we pursue the stem, when if we wait, we can see the fruit come to the ground, in season?" Does not the plant, know the season? And knowing the season, does it not produce the fruit? The point is: the kind of beginning we pursue, determines what we shall eat. It does not mean fruit will fall from another tree! The science of "time" does not create "space", the science of "space" does not create "meaning", the science of "meaning" does not create "difference". All these things are confusions of turning to the one tree, as if it will produce "all" fruit.
There is more that I could say, but I want a simple understanding of this. The wait we do at the beginning of our meditation, is less than the wait at its end. We must be mindful of this. Calculating that we will be able to do something about the fruit of our endeavour in time, when we do nothing but reinvent our reasons for being there, is a distraction to the purity and simplicity with which we conduct our patience before God - for who can hold us to account for our patience, than One who created "patience"? And why would we credit it to ourselves, if we wanted to truly share in His Glory?
Learn from this, consider this - it is the reason Man shares stories, and also how they undo him.
So I am standing out on my own, at this point - I'm not saying "look at the Bible", I'm not saying "look at anything" - I just want to understand this fundamental point: whatever the beginning was, it was not a pretext for isolated change?
The point is that once people typically have a concept of the beginning, they then start to say "the beginning was this, that means I must do x". When the beginning, has nothing to do with "x". God does not create, lots of little x's to choose from. The result of Creation (by which I mean the instantiation of everything at once, that it may either begin or have a beginning) is holistic, it does not immediately have a trained nature, it is not "there for the taking". Laying hold of a particular beginning, does not institute a particular choice.
This is important, because when we do meditation, we are not trying to return to a point when our decision making was easy and light, rather, we are trying to put to death anything that was in objection to us: simply being what we were. If we come away from meditation saying "at last 'I' understand" we have forgotten, that the disciplined mind does not need to "have understood" its own beginning, but rather that logically no decision is required. No decision, no understanding.
So it is, that all cultures that try to grasp the beginning, are looking at it, as if it is some kind of fruit, when in fact, it is merely the stem. As the Bible says "the axe is already laid, at the foot of the tree" (from memory) in other words, the axe can bring all fruit to the ground at once, but only because it is aimed at what feeds the fruit, universally. This is the strength of patience, not that your life is sold in pursuit of a science, with a particular "fruit", but that you understand that all fruit has the weakness that it must be distinguished from the ground, before it can be called "fruit".
So going back to the beginning, the question must naturally be "why do we pursue the stem, when if we wait, we can see the fruit come to the ground, in season?" Does not the plant, know the season? And knowing the season, does it not produce the fruit? The point is: the kind of beginning we pursue, determines what we shall eat. It does not mean fruit will fall from another tree! The science of "time" does not create "space", the science of "space" does not create "meaning", the science of "meaning" does not create "difference". All these things are confusions of turning to the one tree, as if it will produce "all" fruit.
There is more that I could say, but I want a simple understanding of this. The wait we do at the beginning of our meditation, is less than the wait at its end. We must be mindful of this. Calculating that we will be able to do something about the fruit of our endeavour in time, when we do nothing but reinvent our reasons for being there, is a distraction to the purity and simplicity with which we conduct our patience before God - for who can hold us to account for our patience, than One who created "patience"? And why would we credit it to ourselves, if we wanted to truly share in His Glory?
Learn from this, consider this - it is the reason Man shares stories, and also how they undo him.
