Seeking a favorable outcome for our problems seems perfectly valid because one just needs to look about, and one can only acknowledge that there are many so-called “issues” in the world, a lot of complicated stuff indeed, playing on many levels.
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Now, if — as so often is claimed in nonduality teachings — we would only imagine “the problems of the world,” and suffer from those accordingly, than we could readily assume that imagination is the problem.
And the latter would mean that we should at least solve “the problem of our imagination.” Subsequently, the key problem, and I do feel it is a problem, becomes “the problem of how to solve the problem.”
The first thing we must understand here is that we cannot solve other people’s misunderstandings and imaginations. I say this, but that’s just a matter of personal experience. We cannot even judge or be sure about other people’s “mis-takes” because maybe they don’t err at all, but we are.
If there’s anything to solve, I suppose we can only try to first solve our own misunderstanding. That is, I think, the only “material” we may have. So when I see that my imagination might be “the problem,” it means that I myself might be able to overcome that, and “find” the so-called “solution.”
My first reaction at the time was telling the whole world around me about this thing I had seemingly “discovered.” I wanted others to know, to acknowledge, to see how important this “self-realization” thing was, how crucial it was to get rid of our imagination and misunderstanding.
But gradually I understood that most people didn’t grasp or wanted to grasp what I was trying to point out. It’s a real intense sort of process you go through. It’s tough. Furthermore, as years passed by, I repeatedly needed to confess to myself that I had only seen the moon from afar, so to say, but still hadn’t set foot on it.
Gradually, I spoke less of it, I started to “separate” this from my “social functioning.” Over time, it started in some mysterious way to integrate, settle down, and crystallize. And you see — we do meet other people now and again with whom we “talk,” and slowly but surely things get another “form.”
Still, we always need to be careful with what we accept as true, valid, or reasonable from others. Because this is not at all a “learning from others” thing.
I feel that when “this thing” finally touches down, comes in, or really affects — you won’t know it. You won’t know it, because I understand it as the disappearance of the knower and thinker. Or let’s say this differently: the disappearance of imagination.
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This whole quest will somehow vanish out of “our system.” That is, we’ll lose all our acquired knowledge and certainty about the “state” of ourselves or the world. And I think that’s the reason why one who has deeply realized the actual state of affairs can never claim being self-realized or spiritually awakened, or even the opposite.
The “person” who’s self-realized actually won’t know a thing about it. In fact, one cannot sincerely talk about it because there’s really nothing to talk about.
With this, there are long periods of silence, and then again intense moments of instant outbursts and intense realization. Once you’ve embarked on “the road,” it will never go away.
But that’s all just how it functions I suppose: like the sudden spring and full blossoming after a long winter.
There seems to be no end to that.
