Life is the dancer and you are the dance.
How do you let go of attachment to things? Don't even try. It's impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them.
Instead of asking "what do I want from life?", a more powerful question is, "what does life want from me?".
-- Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth (2005)
You paint a picture with a figure in it, and the figure wants to know why you painted the picture. The only answer is that you felt like it.
You see, you take a child to the seashore, give [the child] a spade and a bucket. Promptly [the child] will begin digging sand and piling it up into a castle or a mountain. [The child] will take a lot of trouble over it for some time. But when the parent says it's time to go home, the child will kick down the castle over which it had spent a lot of trouble building. If you ask the child, "Why did you take the trouble to build it and now you have destroyed it?" the child will not understand your question. But if you insist he will say, "I built the castle because I liked to build it. I destroyed the castle because I liked to destroy it."
The whole point is that the mind-intellect, which is ego, is conditioned from the beginning that everything must have a purpose. Life must have a purpose.
The real meaning of life is that life has no meaning. It just happens.-- Ramesh S. Balsekar in Who Cares?!, pg 6
What is the purpose of a dream?
"Dreaming" likely has a purpose, but that purpose is unrelated to the characters or actions
in the dream and more likely serves a biological function for the brain and body. The "purpose"
is something that is totally outside the context of the dream itself.
-- Brian William Drisko, 30-Mar-2010 1345 bwd@advaitism.com
IT isn't about YOU becoming enlightened.
IT isn't about YOU becoming awakened.
IT isn't about YOU gaining awareness.
IT isn't about YOU being in the here and now.
IT isn't about YOU entering a state of higher consciousness.
IT isn't about YOUR consciousness.
What is IT for a bird?
What is IT for a tree?
What is IT for a rock?
What is IT for YOU?
IT is that which is.
-- Brian William Drisko, 28-May-2010 08:43 bwd@advaitism.com
Concerning yourself with ANYTHING less than EVERYTHING,
is just playing in the delusion of duality.
But there really is no need to worry yourself about EVERYTHING,
any more than the need to concern yourself with ANYTHING.
It is just a play, playing in the delusion of duality.
-- Brian William Drisko, 21-Jun-2010 1458 bwd@advaitism.com
This is it. We have found Heaven at last. And Heaven was always here, literally right here in front of us. It never left us. And so we didn't really fint it at all, because you can not find something that you never lost, can you?
-- Jeff Foster in LIFE WITHOUT A CENTRE - Awakening From the Dream of Separation, pg 142
Life is, whatever we believe or don't believe. This moment is, however much we resist it, however much we try to escape it.
But no escape is really necessary. This world is only a problem from the point of a separate individual struggling to make something out of his life before he dies, trying to stay safe, to succeed, to find meaning in a seemingly meaningless world, to find love, to avoid pain and suffering.
But as the existence of the separate and isolated individual begins to be seen through, this apparent life story begins to be seen for what it always was: a dream, no more, no less. A narrative playing out in awareness, a story, a movie, a play, a great cosmic game.
A game is only serious when you forget it's a game.
-- Jeff Foster in LIFE WITHOUT A CENTRE - Awakening From the Dream of Separation, pg 144
For everything that has a purpose there is a creator of that thing and a goal that the creator desired to achieve by creating that thing. For example, look at a bridge that spans over a river. The creator were the people that designed and built the bridge. The goal was to make it easier for people to get from one side of the river to the other side of the river. For another example, look at a bird's nest. The creator was a bird. The goal was to make a place to lay eggs and nuture the hatchlings. In both these cases there is a creator and a goal that the creation helps to achieve.
Now let's look at a rock. Who created the rock and what goal were they trying to achieve? If you have a customary view of God, you will probably immediately answer that God is the ultimate creator of everything including the rock and that the purpose for the rock is part of God's plan for all existence. But God is almost used like a placeholder, to fill in the blank, when you can not find any other creator or purpose for something.
Could it be that there are things that really have no purpose at all? Why not just be comfortable with the thought that some things have no creator and no purpose? Why do you find it necessary to believe that everything has a creator and a purpose? Is there a need for a concept like "God, the creator" if we can accept that there might be things that were not created by anyone?
If you can accept the concept that things may exist that were not created by anyone, then you can begin to classify everything into two categories: those that have a purpose, and those that do not have a purpose. Those things which had a creator and were created to accomplish a goal have a purpose. Those things which have no creator, were not created to accomplish a goal, have no purpose.
Looking at this a bit further we can see that inannimate objects are divided into those with purpose like bridges and bird's nests, and those without purpose like rocks. But what about living creatures themselves? What about the men that created the bridge and the bird that built the nest? Do they have a creator and a purpose? Does a flower have a purpose?
Living creatures are born from other living creatures and grow by themselves. Nobody creates living creatures, including ourselves. Living creatures are not created by anyone to accomplish a goal. Thus, it seems that living creatures themselves, including us, have no purpose!
-- Brian William Drisko, 10-Apr-2009 0848 bwd@advaitism.com
Most people want their lives to be the most important thing in the world. But life is without purpose. That is its beauty.
-- Tony Parsons in All There Is, pg 121
This appearance that we see - the world and our apparent lives - is not going anywhere and has absolutely no purpose or meaning. It only appers to be important and purposeful and meaningful and on a journey towards somewhere. It's a parable. We live in a parable. The world and our life is a metaphor.
-- Tony Parsons in All There Is, pg 6
Questioner: This purposelessness the mind is finding troublesome. Are you saying
the totality is purposeless?
Tony: Yes. It's not going anywhere - in my terms, purpose has a
direction towards somewhere; there's no purpose for this or that
which leads you somewhere. What I'm saying is there isn't
anywhere to go.
-- Tony Parsons in All There Is, pg 13
... the treasure that we seek is to be discovered not in where we are going, but within the simple nature of the very footsteps that we take. In our rush to find a better situation in time, we trample over the flowers of beingness that presents itself in every moment.
It seems to me that our attachment to purpose is born from the need to prove something to ourselves. But life is simply life, and is not trying to prove anything at all. This springtime will not try to be better than last springtime, and neither will an ash tree try to become an oak.
By letting go our fascination with the extraordinary and spectacular, we can allow ourselves to recognize the simple wonder that lies within the ordinary.
For life is its own purpose and doesn't need a reason to be. That is its beauty.
-- Tony Parsons in As It Is - The Open Secret of Spiritual Awakening, pg 28
In presence there is no becoming, no attachment to a goal. I see that I no longer have to achieve any standard or behave in a certain way in order to become worthy.
In presence, the self is no more and there is simply "that which is".
-- Tony Parsons in As It Is - The Open Secret of Spiritual Awakening, pg 61
... "who" is asking about what consciousness wants and where it is going? Is it that you want to know all the rules of the club before you join? Do you want to see if it is right and proper before you say yes? You can't do anything about it.
You are life and that is all you are.
-- Tony Parsons in As It Is - The Open Secret of Spiritual Awakening, pg 96
Drop asking "why" and simply become totally involved in the absolutely wonderful miracle of life just as it is, right here, right now.
Give up control and live in chaos. Fall in love with this, right here, right now. Be totally in love with "what is" and drop the supposed story that seems to bind together this imaginary someone and makes him or her seem real. It seems all so important and meaningful, and yet it signifies absolutely nothing at all.
-- Tony Parsons in As It Is - The Open Secret of Spiritual Awakening, pg 97
But if there is nowhere to go, there is no purpose, it seems, in anything.
And this realization is the beginning of liberation. We are so locked into the belief that our
lives have some sort of purpose we have to fulfill. We go on struggling to fulfill ideas we have
of something we need to do, or somewhere that we need to reach in order to be worthy for
enlightenment. Of course we never get there, because we are trying to satisfy some idea that is
only imaginary anyway. ... All of this activity reinforces the sense of iindividual striving,
and so the game goes on. Any sense of there being no point to any of this activity is a threat
to the mind, but when there is an acceptance and a resting in there being no purpose, a new
wonder can arise.
-- Tony Parsons in As It Is - The Open Secret of Spiritual Awakening, pg 120
I'm stuck on the idea that things need fixing. But in fact if it's perfect, it doesn't need a purpose; that which needs a purpose can't be perfect. The difference between you and me is that you see the perfection -- I don't.
-- Questioner to Tony Parsons in All There Is, pg 16
[You believe] you are an individual, you're in a world of individuals and the only way you'll succeed or fail is to try very hard. That's the whole message of this manifestation. If you look at the apparent world in which we live, it is almost entirely motivated towards individuality.
-- Tony Parsons in All There Is, pg 16
... you don't want to listen because you want to find intention; your mind wants to find intention that will move towards somewhere else. It wants to believe in purpose in order to avoid oneness.
The mind doesn't want to know about 'Stop! Let there just be the seeing of this'. The mind can't do that. Let there just be the seeing of this - just standing on the ground, or hearing the car, or laughing ... That is what is.
-- Tony Parsons in All There Is, pg 32
The reality makes a nonsense of the way we think the world is, that it has purpose and is taking us somewhere. There is nowhere to go -- there never has been. We live in a sort of madness, doing this and that, trying to do this and that, and what we are looking for is already here. What we look for is in what is, but we think we'll find it over there.
-- Tony Parsons in All There Is, pg 138
All that is happening is meaningless, but it is so beguiling and fascinating that the mind is absolutely sure it has meaning and that it will lead somewhere. It never gets there, but it always seems to be leading somewhere.
-- Tony Parsons in All There Is, pg 143
... what is even more difficult to understand is that there isn't a purpose or a journey -- there is only this. There never was a beginning and there never will be an end. ###
-- Tony Parsons in All There Is, pg 155
... what is even more difficult to understand is that there isn't a purpose or a journey -- there is only this. There never was a beginning and there never will be an end. There never was a moment where, let's say, the source rested and didn't know itself and then wanted to know itself and created this. That never happened -- nothing ever happens. There is only the eternal this.
-- Tony Parsons in All There Is, pg 155
Life is not a task. There is absolutely nothing to attain except the realisation that there is absolutely nothing to attain.
-- Tony Parsons in The Open Secret, pg 5
It seems to me that our attachment to purpose is born from our need to prove something to ourselves. But life is simply life, and is not trying to prove anything at all. This springtime will not try to be better than last springtime, and neither will an ash tree try to become an oak.
By letting go our fascination with the extra-ordinary and spectacular, we can allow ourselves to recognize the simpler wonder that lies within the ordinary.
For life is its own purpose and doesn't need a reason to be. That is its beauty.
-- Tony Parsons in The Open Secret, pg 17=18
There's no mystery to life. We just think there is. The mystery is something we make up, something we construct in our minds.
-- Steve Hagen in Buddhism, Is Not What You Think, pg 37
...what's the point of living?
There isn't one. This movie of life is the cosmic entertainment. That question stems from the viewpoint of 'me', the identified character in the movie. When there is identification as the character, then there is the constant looking for a reason for it, looking for a point. And it seems that the 'ultimate' point of living is what is commonly referred to as 'awakening' -- re-awakening into oneness.
But oneness is already the case. There is already one hundred percent awakeness, and when the thought story is no longer taken seriously, then there is presently what is.
-- Nathan Gill in Already Awake, pg 62
The focus in non-duality is to clarify what you are. It is not an inquiry into the world appearance (cosmology), the creator (theology) or the apparent person and its motives, actions and experiences (psychology). The cosmos, God and the person are subsequent appearances upon your fundamental nature.
-- John Wheeler in The Light Behind Consciousness, pg 14
Quotes About Advaitism:
The Aim Of Inquiry
/ The Inadequacy Of Words
/ Suffering
What Am I?
/ The Illusion
/ Purpose
/ Seeking
/ Awakening
/ Acceptance
Other Quotes
Alan Watts:
AlanWatts.com /
AlanWatts.org /
Audio Collection
Science & Nonduality /
Books, Video, Audio, Podcasts
A Skeptics Approach To Non-Duality /
On Being Adopted
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