Honoring the mystery that is me (and you)

In 1977 I spent two weeks in India with a guru, Charan Singh. At that time visitors could spend up to three months at Dera Baba Jaimal Singh in the Punjab, soaking up the mystico-spiritual vibes gratis.

Flying off from the Amritsar airport to return home, via Delhi, I remember looking out of my window seat at the majestic Himalaya mountains, saying to myself, "I don't want my thoughts to be mine anymore, but yours."

I was a devoted disciple back then. I still am. What's changed is the meaning I give to yours. Thirty years ago it meant the guru; today it points to mystery.

This, actually, is entirely in accord with Charan Singh's teaching, for he said, "May your love of the form culminate in the love of the formless." It's a natural progression. Really, an inevitable one.

For what we know, no matter how much, is so much less than what there is.

Here each of us is, one of six billion people on an insignificant planet circling an average star that comprises just one of two hundred billion or so stars in the Milky Way galaxy, which is one of a hundred billion or so galaxies in a universe that extends far beyond what can be observed, and could well be just one of countless universes in a cosmos that has no end.

And yet many (if not most) think they've got it all figured out, because the Bible, Koran, Torah, Adi Granth, Vedas, or whatever, tells them so.

They don't know what life is, what consciousness is, what matter/energy is, or what anything is at the root of its really real reality, not to mention what any possible metaphysical existence may consist of. Worse, they don't know that they don't know—or at least aren't willing to admit it to themselves.

I am. Now. That's why the sentiment of my Amritsar airport takeoff moment is still with me. I've just extended yours to encompass the mystery of what I, and you, and everything else in existence is.

Of which I'm clueless. Happily so.

I no longer feel that I have to fly halfway around the world to honor a sacred impulse. The mystery that is me provides worshipful opportunities aplenty.

In my previous three posts I've been equating meaninglessness with mystery. Makes sense, doesn't it? If I knew the Meaning of It All, there wouldn't be any mystery to the cosmos. And there's a lot. So, how to honor meaninglessness?

By not being meaningful. Usually this is considered to be undesirable. I say something to a companion and am told, "I have no idea what you mean." Communication failure! I try again, hoping to make sense this time.

However, if I'm facing in the direction of ultimate Mystery, my communication with what is uncommunicable should be as non-sensical as possible.

I may be speaking with myself. Or, not. Who knows? It's a Mystery. Either way, meaninglessness tunes me in, to some degree, with what lies beyond the meaning of the little I'm aware of now.

My meditation periods used to be deeply meaningful. Now my goal is different. I still enjoy mantra meditation—repeating a word (or words) to still my thought-stream. The mantra used to have a meaning for me. Mystery, though, deserves to be honored with meaninglessness.

D.T. Suzuki speaks of Buddhist mantra meditation as using a name ("Namu Amida Butsu") whose meaning consists in having no meaning. Essentially, the mantra becomes a koan.

Meditation, or "coming into the presence of the Buddha," thus gave way to the constant reiteration of the phrase as not always or necessarily referring to any definite objective reality, but merely as a name somehow beyond comprehension, or rather as a symbol standing for something indescribable, unpredictable, altogether transcending the intellect, and therefore suggesting a meaning beyond meaning.

In other words, meaninglessness.

Wu, Wu, Wu. Woo-woo. Wuuuuuuuuuuu. Whew!

Comments

[Tucson Bob]

When the individual "I" sense drops or is seen through, many questions/issues fall away and become unnecessary. What remains is a mystery, but there is no one to be concerned about it. There is a matrix present which some call "love", but that word is a little sappy for my mindset at this moment. Still, it's as good as any. Perhaps this love is the purpose/non-purpose of it all. Whatever you want to call it, it always seems to be there whether you are looking at a blooming flower by a mountain stream or having your kneecap ripped off by a pitbull. Maybe we should call it the "force". In the case of a pitbull bite, the force is felt in full measure.

[Robert Paul Howard]

Dear Brian,

I find it difficult to accept that the birth of little Evelyn is just
"meaningless."

Robert Paul Howard

[Brian]

Robert, I've tried to make the distinction (but obviously not too clearly) between relative and ultimate reality.

Meanings, by definition, involve relationships. One thing is connected with another thing. A flag connects with feelings of patriotism, or the memory of a deceased soldier relative, and so becomes meaningful.

But what relation can there be between me, or you, and the ultimate? I don't know about you, but I'm not in contact with ultimate reality. (If I were, I suspect I wouldn't be writing about not being in contact with it).

My granddaughter Evelyn isn't meaningless. Nor is anything or anyone else with whom I'm in direct contact. I just ate some baby carrots. They had meaning to my taste buds and partly empty stomach.

I've been equating "mystery" and "meaninglessness." If something or someone is known, even partially, that isn't a real mystery.

God is a mystery. Boundless existence is a mystery. What lies beyond the observable universe is a mystery. These mysteries have meaning for me only in a very subjective sense. I think "Wow!" and relate to my own Wow-ness.

That isn't a real relation. Which is why I say that genuine Mystery is meaningless, because we have no relation with it.

[Edward]

You gave away your thoughts, (and in 1977, I was actively seeking random thoughts, so I probably have some of yours in my memory.)

You gave away a lot of relationships and connections.

Loss like growing older, like putting away the things of childhood.

You gave up needing meaning in meditation. The person who taught me meditation was in the zen school of thought, so that was my "Intro to Meaninglessness 101".

So why are you holding so tightly to mystery? The relationship between meaning and meaninglessness has the same weight as any dichotomy.

Robert comment is remarkably acute: Any Evelyn you may know you will know as completely as you know anything. The very next creation, (this one! this one!) is delightfully surprised. There is now only mystery.

You don't really have meaning, let it go.

[WayOutWesley]

Brian,

I recently posted something similar to this in RS Studies..

" What is more wondrous....

A human-centric universe with a known 'non-dual' state as its
penultimate...

OR....

A VAST Mystery that all human thought can't even conceive of?

We are one small specie of life among billions....on one tiny planet
circling one small star among millions in one spiral arm of one
galaxy among billions.......in this Universe/Multiverse?

To think that anyone here on this speck has figured the whole thing
out goes way beyond hubris into something so far beyond absurd that
there isn't even a word for it.

What makes us think that our ideas of states of being....non-
duality....'beingness'....'awareness'....God....Heaven...Sach Khand..
Light... Sound.....Oneness........any of this even scratches the
surface of that mystery?

For that matter....

What makes us think that any of our scientific models even scratch
the surface of that vastness?

What's before us in MUCH more than what is behind.

Our ideas of life after life...
spirituality....reality....materialism...... technology...etc... may
not even measure up to the crudest of implements of our first tool
using ancestors..... compared to what we may one day know about the
universe and ourselves.....

And even that 'exalted state' may be comparatively as far away as we
are right now.

That mystery may be racing away faster than we can advance toward it.

But I also think..

WOW!

How awesome.

[Ashwin]

Dear Brian,

How does one meditate on meaninglessness? Do you simply let your thoughts wander without attempting to stop them?

[Brian]

Ashwin, my wandering thoughts probably would wander forever. I find that a simply meaningless one syllable mantra is more effective for me than the "let thoughts wander" approach.

It isn't possible to have absolutely no contents of consciousness. Or at least, its very difficult. So I lean toward keeping the contents as simple and meaning-free as possible.

Meaning involves relationships. If I don't let my mind make connections with the mantra--and that's fairly easy to do if it doesn't have an intrinsic meaning--then thoughts tend to settle down.

[Helen]

From your description Brian it would seem that mental/emotional agitation stems from meaning. Whenever my mind wanders during meditation (or indeed at any other time) I always end up being invested in my thoughts: I am endowing my thoughts with substance, meaning, and therefore "I" react to them as real phenomena. (Or the sense of "I" is the reaction?)

[elizabeth]

Ah, meaninglessness, marvellous state to wander in coupled with its sibling absurdity.
My insight into meaninglessness (what a darn long word) came by its own volition into my mind or perhaps via my little toenail (uninvited). I worked and travelled the world when younger, calamities,
tragedies, witnessing appalling sufferings, and also experienced times of joy. This all co-mingled into a huge formula for the birth of the absurd. With this came complete misunderstanding within marriage, later lovers, children and friends. I was forced to act in meaningful ways, a charade.
This was the downside. On the upside, within me, lies liberation. This brief posting does not really clarify exactly what I mean but it doesn't matter - I can't resist a comment.