Goldcup Software and Design

The Human Experience

Category: The Human Experience

The mind isn't trapped, but its identity with the body concludes it to think and feel that it is trapped.This article is similar to the 'How to Find Your Stillness' article but looks at it from the angle of finding freedom. Many people feel trapped in some way. We may feel trapped in our commitments, our life situation, a relationship, or job. We may feel trapped in the body. The body may feel sick or broken, as may the mind, and we may feel trapped in this. People end their lives because of this feeling of being trapped in a dark difficult situation. We want to be free. Freedom is the high goal that many would like to achieve.

How do we achieve freedom? Well, it can't be achieved because it's already here. You may recoil and say, "This is nonsense, I'm not free to do everything I want. I'm not free to fly into the air and take myself to somewhere peaceful away from my problems." But what I mean is that true freedom is here along, although overlooked. The mind believes, "I am this human and I am limited in what I can do. I am trapped in this." But that is just mind activity. You perceive this mind activity, but you are not limited by it.

The world appears to be a place of limited forms that have their own boundaries. There seems to be resistance and separation. The world can seem to be a hard place because of its restrictions, limitations, boundaries and resistance. These things are what hold the objects of the world together and prevent them from being merged into oneness. Without boundaries and resistance, the world would merge into a singularity. That's how it seems anyway, but let's look closer.

Consider a brick wall. It seems impervious. Humans can't walk through brick walls. If a human was surrounded in a closed room of brick walls, they would be unable to get out. But that's not the end of the story. If the human inside the closed room had a device that could send radio waves, then they could send a signal through the brick walls. Radio waves can travel through what seem to be impervious walls because of their long wavelengths. We know that what seems to be completely solid is only really relatively solid.

Now, the human in the closed room is relatively trapped because of the density of the body in relation to the density of the walls. The mind isn't trapped, but its identity with the body concludes it to think and feel that it is trapped. The mind then wants to be free. This is understandable in a room like this, but a similar thing happens with the mind in everyday life. The body may not be trapped in a room, but the mind can think and feel that it is trapped in a difficult life situation.

Really there is no true lack of freedom. The mind is always free, but it believes that it isn't. The mind takes on what it perceives as the restrictions and limitations of the world and assumes that it is trapped in these. This feeling and belief can intensify, causing the mind to continually worry about its situation, and become caught in its own mind-made web of restriction.

Let's get to the root of this, as that's the way to true freedom. The world can only appear as a world by aid of separation and restriction. The world appears as though a singularity split into opposite forces, where repulsion and attraction separate and unite, multiplying and spreading across the universe, before ultimately returning back to the singularity from which it came. As mentioned above, it is the restrictive force that keeps the universe from returning to a singularity. Or so it seems.

The reality is that the timeless, dimensionless Singularity that was before the universe is still here now. Really it is Here and Now, due to its dimensionless nature. So the Singularity doesn't really become two and spread out, multiplying. This is only a play of separation within the Singularity. As we saw with the brick wall, the restrictions that divide are only relative; they are not true restrictions. So the world of restrictions that appears is not truly restricted. There are not truly many objects in the universe. It is One Infinite Indivisible Singularity seeming to separate and divide itself, whilst remaining ever indivisible.

What this means to the human is that its freedom is in the dropping of imagined boundaries, because they are not real. The identity of the human is not its body, nor even its active mind. Its true identity is the endless Singularity. The body has no real limits and the mind has no real limits. The limits are only in the beliefs of the mental activity we call the mind. Dropping of these false beliefs brings about a clarity, an unhindered perspective of Life as Freedom itself, as One Infinite Indivisible Whole. Not a concept or idea of this, as that is still a mental picture that clouds the clarity of clear seeing. Just seeing without ideas or beliefs. Seeing Life as it is. Pure Awareness.

This isn't easy for the human, of course. But we can start by recognising the fact that the universe is endless and indivisible, and that we are not a being separate from others. At the very least, we can start living life that way and some clarity will come. We will recognise that we are not limited by the human form and the life situation. We will see that the life situation is a play of experiencing limitation. Life will seem to become freer and less serious than it was before. There is a further recognition that we are not limited by the mental activity that we perceive. This is all perceived in the Infinite Awareness that we are.

Category: The Human Experience
There is a Stillness that pervades the activity of the world.Life is full of activity, people busying about doing things, and if they're not doing things they're often sat watching other people on a screen busy doing things. We may take ourselves away from the busy world to somewhere tranquil, but still the mind can be busy thinking about things. Many people want to find some peace and stillness in their life.
 
The reality is, we won't find true peace and stillness 'out there'. The world is active. It never stops. The planet is continually spinning and orbiting around the sun, whilst swirling in a spiral galaxy, moving through the universe. The planet itself is full of moving life, flowing and changing, never staying still. If it seems to stay still it is either an illusion or only a relative temporary stillness. Nothing you can see is ever still. The ground beneath our feet is moving as the planet spins. Relatively speaking it seems still. Buildings seem to stand relatively still in their place but, as well as spinning through space with the planet, buildings move and shift slowly relative to the ground beneath them, which also moves extremely slowly. We don't notice the slow movement of the tectonic plates, but it's always slowly happening.
 
Stillness isn't 'out there'. It's important to recognise that when looking for peace. The peace isn't out there. If we find peace and stillness 'out there', it won't last. It may be nice to have a comfortable life, but don't expect to be tranquil right through. That's not the way of the world. But there is a Stillness that pervades the activity of the world. This is the Stillness we really need to find if we are looking for peace and contentment. I use the initial capital letter for a reason, to differentiate from the transient stillness, or fake stillness, that we usually associate with the term stillness. True Stillness is an unchanging timeless 'state' of being.
 
Where is this Stillness, and how can we find it? It's really right here, so we can't find it. This Stillness is everywhere we go, yet nowhere. The reality is that we don't really go anywhere. We don't move. We don't have arms and legs and a body. That's not who we are. We are the Stillness that perceives the activity of the world. I could say it is the core of our being, but it's not just the core, it is the whole. When looking from outside, from the world of activity, True Stillness is at the heart of where we are looking from. Yet in the heart there is no inside or outside, and there is no activity.
 
It is the still centre around which the world seems to move, like a black hole at the heart of the universe. But the black hole is a Singularity, where there is no inside or outside, no division, no space and time. Pure Stillness. The movement that is perceived from our centre of Singularity only appears to happen. The Singularity that is our true being has nowhere to go and nothing to do. It is complete unmanifest contentment. The manifest world seems to unravel for while from the Stillness, then returns to the Stillness, yet it never leaves the timeless Stillness.
 
So, in practical terms, how can we 'find' this peace, stillness and contentment? We need to let go of thinking that we are something else, and that there is indeed anything else. We need to see the activity of the world for what it is: One Infinite Unchanging Being playing at being many finite changing forms. See the world as a play. Forms, or bodies, will grow and fade away, but you are not this. You are the unchanging Stillness in which this seems to happen. Don't try to be still - know you are Stillness itself. Nothing is really far from you or close to you; that's just the play of separation. Let this understanding fill the mind and root out the errors it believes. The idea that you are separate and lacking something is an error. All ideas and concepts are inaccurate. The only real truth is an Infinite Indivisible Singularity, and we are That. But we need to eventually drop that idea as well.
 
No ideas or concepts are ultimately necessary for you to be as you are. Just be. Stillness, peace and contentment is not something you find. It's always right here.

Category: The Human Experience

There is one life force that expresses as a seeming multitude of forms.Part of human evolution has been to recognise or discover that evolution exists. It is evolution that has brought humanity to this point, and all other species to their respective points. It is a monumental discovering in the development of self awareness - to discover the source of one's being.

But there's more. If we analyse evolution, or more importantly analyse what we consider to be the limits of things, we find that really there are no limits. The limits that we have assumed are not accurate. What we describe as a specific species distinct from other species, is not the finished product. Evolution is continual. For example, what we may now label as the Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) continues to evolve, albeit slowly. At what point would we notice that this species is diverging. There are other Fox-like Canids that have diverged from an earlier source. We can't give a fixed point where an evolutionary leap takes place, because it is continual.

And there's more. Just as the apparent limits of a species can't conclusively be defined (because a species is always in a state of change), it can be questioned whether there are any limits at all. So the species Red Fox isn't fixed and limited, and is likely to continue evolving, and each apparently individual fox may not be as fixed and limited as is assumed. What I mean is that each animal form isn't a closed circuit. There are no real closed circuits. Foxes breathe and assimilate air, eat and assimilate food, drink and assimilate water. Although the fox appears to have a defined shape that we can say, "It's a fox!" and not something else, the fox does not really have a fixed stability in its form. What we call a fox is a form developed within the overall evolution of the planet, as the planet expresses through a seeming multiplicity of forms within its own form.

What this means is that there is a 'surface' appearance of many separate animals, but the reality is one life force appearing as if it is many. There is one life force that expresses as a seeming multitude of forms, that are assumed to be separate, but on closer inspection it can be seen that they are not truly divided. There are no clear divisions of these life forms. The air that seems to separate them actually flows through them, is assimilated and expelled, in a continual flow of change and interaction.

Why is this important to point out? Because there is a general assumption that when we describe something it is distinct from something else. Although this has its uses, it should be recognised that it is not wholly accurate. Ultimately the unlimited indivisible nature of reality should be recognised, as human evolution continues.

Recognising the infinite indivisible nature of reality breaks down the barriers that hold us back. It leads to a recognition that there aren't many life forms, there is just one, an infinite one. What has seemed to be other is no longer other. And what we assumed was our identity as a human being is not that. The human body itself is not as distinct and separate as the mind thinks it is. The mind also is not separate from the one infinite indivisible life force.

Category: The Human Experience

Pain and suffering can be understood as part of the apparent interplay of opposites within the infinite singularity of Being-Consciousness-Bliss.We generally all experience pain and suffering, whether it's psychological or physical. We may suffer the psychological pain of loss, rejection, loneliness, abuse, anxiety or depression. Physical suffering can be experienced with body aches, injuries and illnesses of many kinds. It may be questioned why a benevolent God allows us to suffer. Let's explore this from the Non-Duality viewpoint.

In Non-Duality pain and suffering can be understood as part of the apparent interplay of opposites within the infinite singularity of Being-Consciousness-Bliss. It goes like this. Infinite Being is formless and unexpressed. For Being to be expressed contrast is necessary, so this apparent world of interplaying opposites appears to show what is like Being/God and what is not like Being/God.

Let's break that down. There is One Infinite Being. We can call this God, Being, What Is, Isness, Consciousness, The Great Spirit, The Self of selves, and so on. The nature of Being is timeless, formless, stillness, peace, completeness. It is an unmanifest singularity. For it to become manifest (as the world we now perceive) there needs to be a contrast, an opposite, so that What Is stands out from what it is not. This apparent division of What Is into 'what is like it' and 'what is not like it' can be considered the creation of the universe. The division into opposites interacts and multiplies creating the world that we now perceive. In Non-Duality tradition it is described as the apparent interplay of opposites. I call it the World of Opposites.

From Being's Oneness there appears separation and distance. From Being's timeless Stillness and Peace, there appears movement and conflict. From Being's Contentment there appears pain and suffering. And so on, with Good and evil, Right and wrong, Love and hate, Harmony and disharmony, Freedom and limitation etc. The extreme opposite of the Oneness of Being is the hardened isolated selfish ego that focuses on itself against the Whole. We call its actions evil. It is seemingly so far from the love, peace and contentment of Being-Consciousness-Bliss that the ego appears as a reversed reflection of Wholeness.

There is no-one to blame for this apparent interplay of opposites. Rather it is for the seemingly separate ego to come to the realisation that there is only ever Being-Consciousness-Bliss, and the play of opposites and separation is not what it seems. Being can never divide itself into Being and 'not being', and nothing can ever be separate from the Whole. So the separation that gives rise to the world never really happens. It only seems to happen.

The individual that seems to go out into the world as the ego and becomes hardened and far from Being/God, faces pain and suffering in the clashing world of duality. It then rejects this and turns back to the oneness of the Whole, the Heart from which it came. Though truly it never left. It only felt like it had become hardened and separate and distant from the Whole. The Wholeness and Content Completeness of Being-Consciousness-Bliss is timelessly here all along.

  1. Freedom from the Difficulties of Human Life
  2. What is Love?
  3. The Novel Analogy
  4. The Never-ending Story