The way from Ignorance to the Wisdom of Optimal Living passes through three stages.
In the stage of Ignorance you identify yourself with the memory of Soul. You think that you are what you remember about yourself. You are ignorant of the fact that your life is ruled by the Habitual Programmes of Perception that are formed from the network of Soul Memory.
In Ignorance you identify yourself with what you know, and your activities are based on what this knowing concludes about what is true and untrue, what is natural and what is unnatural, what you like and what you dislike.
The thinking of Mind is usually confirming these ideas. Mind is not able to make objective choices. When you live in Ignorance everything that you decide is tainted by this Ignorance. You may concoct elaborate philosophies about metaphysics, about gods, angels, messages, and traditions but while your state is in Ignorance everything that you come up with is distorted by Ignorance.
In Ignorance there is only ‘I/World’; there is only Experience. In Experience you are impermanent; nothing of Experience can be permanent as Experience. You may think about god, about living and dying, about the meaning of life and the importance of the way that you live, but it is like a house built on a swamp. Nothing of it has any lasting value.
The next stage is the stage of Questioning. You enter that stage when you start to doubt your opinions, doubt your beliefs, even the most existential ones. Some people might be touched by Questioning but they miss the point. They think it is about rejecting the old beliefs and truths and search for new beliefs and truths. This is the stage when people start to follow workshops, personal development training, meditation courses and some might end up joining different religions, sects or movements. Instead of burning candles they start to burn incense sticks. This is like switching one illusion for another one.
Of course some exercises and regular mediation can be useful but not as a goal in itself but as a means to find out what this Questioning entails. When you do not understand the Questioning you either just change your coat and swap one religion for another one, or you resort to nihilism.
The Questioning is not something that originates in the thinking Mind. The Mind questioning is like a reshuffling of the same dices. The real Questioning originates somewhere else. In order to understand that, the distinction between Awareness and Experience is so important.
All ideas about truth, ideals, ideologies and for instance about god images are of ‘I/World’. They serve the complicated interrelationship of the ‘outer’ -World-, and the ‘inner’ -I-. They are skilful means and as such they can be very important for psychological and social well-being. They can also be very destructive, corrupted and evil. It just depends on how they are being used.
The voice of Awareness that causes Questioning is entirely different. You may call it God, but because this would lead to misunderstanding because of the prevailing god-images and their opposite as atheist and satanic ones, I indicate this voice of Awareness with a sound: the sound A-B-B-A-H. It is not a name of something because there is no something. It is a sound with which I want to indicate this voice of Awareness, which in itself is unknowable because the ability of knowing is of ‘I/World’ and therefore of Experience.
Awareness is the sharing in Permanence that can also be called the Other Life. This is not the life of the hereafter but the parallel life. It is not what is sometimes called the living in Akasha; such Akasha is an image of ‘I/World’. Abbah indicates a Permanence that never ceases and that continuously causes. Permanence is the cause of Impermanence. In the images of ‘I/World’ this is seen as a creator who creates.
‘I/World’ images can be confusing and even obstructing the natural course towards Optimal Living. Optimal Living could be considered as the living as Abbah; the living as Permanence. This should not be delegated to a state after death. The living in Permanence, being permanent, is always there, it never ceases. Our Impermanence is of that Permanence.
When Questioning happens, what really happens is that the parallel life in Permanence announces itself to your state in Impermanence. Automatically you will start to search and orient yourself. Nowadays there is a supermarket of ‘spirituality’. For those whose Questioning is real and not a commercially induced excitement, they should recognise in which direction they have to orient their endeavour.
Now there emerges the most delicate matter, because it is so subtle. Because sharing in Awareness is not Experience you cannot know it an any way. You cannot glue stickers on it like ‘god’, ‘cosmos’, ‘the voice of God’, ‘divine inspiration’, or ‘mystical realisation’. You can only say: “It is Abbah”.
At this stage Abbah is an invitation. The Questioning emerges in Abbah. Impermanence emerges in Permanence like ice particles emerge in water when the temperature drops. The Questioning may seem to be questions about the world and about yourself; in reality the questioning itself is the Guidance that demonstrates the direction in which the questioning itself becomes dissolved.
I invite you to think about this, and about what this implies. First of all, the Questioning does not happen to everybody. Secondly you cannot answer the Questions. All your conscious attempt will in the end prove to be futile. Thirdly their persistence carries a message; realise that because they happen to you, you have been given the Responsibility to follow them. Fourthly relief comes when you have learned and start nurturing listening.
The total foreign; the total beyond; the unknowable Cause; in short Abbah takes over. The Sublime Realisation says that we have been given the Task of Human Living in order to serve Abbah in the most optimal manner. When we attune to that Task there is bliss, happiness, contentment and Well-Being. When we neglect that Task there is misery, discord, disease, violence and aggression.
When you have been hit by Questioning, know that you have a responsibility and that your actions, thoughts, emotions, desires, beliefs and opinions are Causes that generate Consequences. When such Attitudes and Behaviour are in Attunement in Abbah, your living is a beneficial Cause. When they are not in Attunement they are a detrimental Cause, and you are responsible for the Consequences.
Imagine Abbah as infinitely great, and all-embracing and infinitely intimate. Abbah is within every act, within every thought, within every idea, ideal, opinion and belief. The real Questioning is an evolving endeavour to bring all Attitudes and all Behaviour in Attunement in Abbah.
Ignorance does not mean here ‘being stupid’. Very intelligent people can live their entire life in Ignorance. Ignorance refers to the ignorance about the nature of living. It is rooted in failing to recognise that the living in Permanence is the essence of which the living in Impermanence is an expression. In Ignorance there is only ‘I/World’, which is usually considered as two distinct units. A separate I and a separate World.
When Questioning emerges, often suddenly and by surprise and for some even at times unwanted, Abbah starts to express itself, which means that the essence in Permanence announces itself. Taking up this Responsibility is the determining factor. Nobody can blame anybody for living in Ignorance, but maintaining living in Ignorance after Questioning has announced itself is blameworthy.
In imagination in Ignorance there is only ‘I/World’. In Questioning there is ‘I/World’ and Abbah. Ultimately in Wisdom there is only Abbah. All attention has shifted to the living in Permanence, while the ‘I/World’ of Experience entirely serves to nurture the living in Permanence; in other words, in Wisdom all living serves Abbah. The great beauty comes from the Certainty that by serving Abbah, Abbah is serving you. Abbah is guiding you to your Optimal Living, ‘I/World’ is no longer an ‘in-between’.
20 April 2024
