There is no purpose, only love
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I was just reading U.G. Krishnamurti and he found that “everything in his thoughts came from other people.” That the body was ultimately at peace, and was interested just in survival and reproduction. But all the questions in his mind were either invalid, from made-up suppositions, or they had answered themselves. On reading this, it seemed to me he was right.
I once described what set me on the spiritual journey, see my post on Atisha a few years ago. I think I’ve found an answer in U.G. and he also answered my fundamental question. When you follow Atisha’s recommendation to follow the spiritual path, you are still following the imperative of thoughts to find a continuation beyond death. And that is just the mind, finite and fleeting. No more questions, no more need for mind, beyond the basics of survival.
A voice said to me on waking up a few days ago “you love life”, and I realised it was true. That is why I love nature documentaries, why I feel good about rewilding projects, why I’m proud of nature reserves, why I’m sad about the decline of insects, why I love forests and mountaintops. In a way it means more to me than the spiritual journey, it’s why I don’t have kids or a wife, why I travel by public transport, it is the reason why I’ve lived the life I have. The heart of my life. Bit of a wow moment.
So I’m finished with Atisha and death. Maybe with the spiritual path as well.
Comments
@Jeroen In one form or another, spirituality seems to permeate every aspects of our lives ...Life. Living. & Genuine Love is a spiritual path....
Be well, be safe & be mindful @Jeroen 🙏🙏🙏
Thanks @shoshin1 you are not wrong…
Once Osho was asked “do we live on beyond death?” He replied, “Perhaps you should try living this life first.” It makes good sense to focus on living deeply first, if you haven’t really been alive why worry about death?
Another one of my uncles is currently dying of cancer, the doctors have told him they can’t do anything further for him. His wife is very upset, he may just have weeks or at most a few months to live. She had hoped that he might recover. Once he dies I’m all out of uncles, I will be the oldest surviving male member of the clan…
Sorry to hear about your uncle @Jeroen....
When love ones are dying, at death's door, this can bring to life/awaken the impermanent nature of all things...A reminder of how precious life is and to live and appreciate life....
Stay mindful @Jeroen
It has been said that one can not love others if unable to love one's self.
Thus the love of self entails a love which emits from within to envelope, to bath other in that love. Such love enables compassion and mercy - two aspects of such love. Such love radiates, brightly, bringing light to the darkness, turning tears of pain and disrepair into tears of joy, of hope.
Such love is the architect of True Peace - Peace within and Peace without.
Peace to all
Thank you. I think that was Osho’s message as well, to be in the present, in the here and now.
Good advice, to live in the moment.
Maybe there is no purpose, only love.
"Then spoke Yajnavalkya:
In truth, it is not for the love of a husband that a husband is dear;
but for the love of the Soul in the husband that a husband is dear.
In truth, it is not for the love of a wife that a wife is dear;
but for the love of the Soul in the wife that a wife is dear.
In truth, it is not for the love of children that children are dear;
but for the love of the Soul in children that children are dear.
In truth, it is not for the love of riches that riches are dear;
but for the love of the Soul in riches that riches are dear.
In truth, it is not for the love of religion that religion is dear;
but for the love of the Soul in religion that religion is dear.
In truth, it is not for the love of power that power is dear;
but for the love of the Soul in power that power is dear.
In truth, it is not for the love of the heavens that the heavens are dear;
but for the love of the Soul in the heavens that the heavens are dear.
In truth, it is not for the love of the gods that the gods are dear;
but for the love of the Soul in the gods that the gods are dear.
In truth, it is not for the love of creatures that creatures are dear;
but for the love of the Soul in creatures that creatures are dear.
In truth, it is not for the love of the all that the all is dear;
but for the love of the Soul in the all that the all is dear." — Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad
"Searching all directions
with your awareness,
you find no one dearer
than yourself.
In the same way, others
are thickly dear to themselves.
So you shouldn’t hurt others
if you love yourself." — SN 3.8
"Cultivate an all-embracing mind of love For all throughout the universe, In all its height, depth and breadth — Love that is untroubled And beyond hatred or enmity. As you stand, walk, sit or lie, So long as you are awake, Pursue this awareness with your might: It is deemed the Divine State here." — Khp 9
"Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.— Romans 13.8
"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love." —John 4:7-8.
"I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." — John 13:34-35
"Love, and do what you will: whether you hold your peace, through love hold your peace; whether you cry out, through love cry out; whether you correct, through love correct; whether you spare, through love do you spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good." — Augustine's Homilies on the Gospel of John
"You will not enter Paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another. Shall I inform you of something which, if you do, you will love one another? give greetings (peace) amongst yourselves." — Sahih Muslim 54
"Love is the law, love under will." – Book of the Law 1.57
"When we commit to love in our daily life, habits are shattered. We are necessarily working to end domination. Because we no longer are playing by the safe rules of the status quo, rules that if we obey guarantee us a specific outcome, love moves us to a new ground of being. This movement is what most people fear. If we are to galvanize the collective longing for spiritual well-being that is found in the practice of love, we must be more willing to identify the forms that longing will take in daily life. Folks need to know the ways we change and are changed when we love. It is only by bearing concrete witness to love’s transformative power in our daily lives that we can assure those who are fearful that commitment to love will be redemptive, a way to experience salvation.
...
Dominator thinking and practice relies for its maintenance on the constant production of a feeling of lack, of the need to grasp. Giving love offers us a way to end this suffering—loving ourselves, extending that love to everything beyond the self, we experience wholeness. We are healed. The Buddha taught that we can create a love so strong that, as Salzberg states, our 'minds become like a pure, flowing river that cannot be burned.' Such love is the foundation of spiritual awakening." — Toward a Worldwide Culture of Love
So it seems that my spiritual journey is not yet over. I found a trove of Advaita Vedanta books on the internet, a big pile of pdf’s and I couldn’t resist reading through some of them. Among the books were some of Tony Parsons’ volumes and after trying a few other authors I decided to try him next.
Tony Parsons teaching has been called uncompromising. He had an experience of unity in which his ‘I’ disappeared, and since then he has been speaking from nonduality, the oneness of all that is. He holds that since there is only That Which Is, the body and mind are part of this, and so there is no such thing as separateness or free will. That the doer is running on a predetermined track and the I is an illusion.
But he also says that the thing that moves us is love, that death, life, desire and fear are all about love. It made sense to me, I found it a powerful insight because it suddenly became clear that a lot of the things I desired and feared were about love or losing love. I feared being a cripple because I would no longer be loveable or capable of looking after myself. I desired having more money because I thought it would make me more loveable.
Behind this is an image of what we see as what we would like to love, and what we would have to be in order to be loveable. This is formed by what we tell ourselves, what our lives lead us to conclude. In a way your lovers form your image of the ideal man, of what they respect and find attractive in a partner.
You try to conform to that, until you no longer can. It’s a form of giving.
It seems he will be leaving us today or tomorrow, what’s usual here is that with terminal cancer patients the choice is left to them whether to ask for euthanasia when life becomes unbearable. It’s better than spending weeks or months in terminal care in a hospice. And so my uncle has asked.
He has now passed, the cremation will be on Monday. The family will gather at their house afterwards for a meal.
I find it a useful contemplation to come back to, every so often. To think of what are other people’s thoughts, what they are doing in your mind. Ultimately I find I have no questions, and when someone else hands me one I examine it and in the end set it aside as a curiosity. I have a few special curiosities which I sometimes return to, such as “what is the world?” and “who am I?”
U.G. says there is nothing to be free from, so there is no need to search for freedom. The mind is like a hamster wheel, with thought ever pursuing its charge forwards but never really going anywhere. It just seems to get pleasure from running.
Condolences on the moving on of your Uncle.
My mother - on her 91st birthday, of all days - completed the arrangements for the disposal of her remains, via a Cremation Company, in the UK. So now she has complete peace of mind. She has made a will, I and some extremely good, long-term friends, have Power of Attorney, and they are also the Will Executors. All is taken care of.
All we need to do now, is to ensure that however many years she has left, are happy, serene and peaceful. And that's all anyone can ask.
Daily, she goes through ritual of reading a passage from the Bible, of saying prayers, and observing certain traditions within the Religion to which she belongs. She does not fear death - in fact, she almost embraces the prospect - so things are all inplace, and as they should be....
We prepare so attentively for dying, and all the associated factors.
If only we paid as much attention to Love, Compassion and kindness.
Thanks, Fede. The cremation service was lovely, and the snacks and drinks that were served were exactly the kind he would have loved — raw herring and deep-fried tidbits.
Very true…
RAW HERRING? 😋
I was there in spirit if not in the open sandwiches …
Glad to hear of @federica and her mums peace of being. Last year my mother died, she forgot how to eat, drink, be a person (alzhiemers). Her children were with her, not me of course, I try and avoid being deep fried, around death etc. 🤗🍽️☯️
This has turned out to be an odd topic, about death, life, spirituality and love. But I find much here to come back to. That death would be about love I can understand, it is about leaving loved ones behind even more than about maybe ceasing to exist. That life and birth and continuing along our daily paths are about love also makes perfect sense — love is why you do what you do.
It’s interesting to me because early on in my reading through Buddhism I encountered Atisha and this kind of set me on the path of looking at death, and now I find I am looking at life, and beyond that I find it is about love. It’s like all of these things we love, romantic and otherwise, are all projections of the One Love we carry inside.
It seems to me that if life is about love and living it, one shouldn’t bother to try to look beyond death, to postulate a future lifetime there. What we have is this life, a mind suited to living it, a body in the here and now.
In a way if we are not ready to die now, every moment, all we have proved is that we haven’t truly lived. One moment in one day, it could be perfectly ordinary, but drunk in with totality, is enough to fill one’s cup to the brim. It is about not being divided into a hundred different thoughts, but instead focussing oneself totally on the now.
It just seems such a waste. Everything I've done, and learned, and experienced; and then it all just disappears and is gone. What is it for if there is nothing that it is leading up to? You can say it is in what we leave behind, or what we teach other people along the way, but I am not a teacher and I have no children, so don't see any lasting impact that my life will have. So what is it for?
Reality is like a mathematical fractal, everything that happens is an expression of What Is, and it wouldn’t be complete without even the smallest detail. The mind tends to look for a lasting impact, something it can point to and say, that is mine and will survive me, but that is just the mind, it always looks to make things last. In a way, everything that you’ve touched, even in a small way, is your legacy.
The mind is concerned with the future, with survival, and identification with the mind convinces you that this is very important. So we start searching for that which we leave behind. It could be a collection of beautiful photographs, or pottery that we’ve made.
Even children come through you, but are not of you. I don’t have children either, but I have found that to express my love I do small things. Living is about Being, it is joy in the here and now, bringing awareness to what you are doing in the present moment. If all you make is a few lines of rhyme which you send to a loved one via text, that is enough.