who's this under the mud?

Was hiking in the hills (through the mud) with some friends a day or so ago, and as friends and hikers are want to do, ended up talking about the bigger picture.  One thread led to another and, as we were heading back down the hill, I found myself asking my buddy on the muddy path in front of me,

“So do you think we can know ourselves?”

“No,” was his immediate response, as if he’d pondered this question previously.

I confess I was surprised, even taken-aback.  I mean, was Socrates just playing with our heads when he encouraged us to know ourselves?  Leading us down a blind alley?

But one of the things I like and respect about this particular hiking buddy  —  he doesn’t blindly accept the common cultural assumptions. He’s a retired lawyer, with an undergraduate degree in physics and a confessed atheist. (“I don’t believe in the God you don’t believe in either,” I like to remind him.)

I had been suggesting (as others have suggested before me) that inquiry was a method by which we might come to know ourselves. His argument was that even the questions—the form of inquiry—that we used to inquire about ourselves were culturally biased. I countered that inquiry was a means by which we might get around our cultural biases, or at least see through them.

For many of us, the Indian sage, Ramana Maharshi,  is the father, or least the Grand Uncle, the Revitalizer, re-introducer  of the technique of self-inquiry for the modern times. From him, and his teachings, a whole raft of “realizers” has been loosed upon the world, some of whom are so close we can shake their hands.

Ramana  encouraged all those who came to him to constantly inquire, who am I, who is it that is present, what is it that thinks, what is the root of this I sense?  He encouraged us to turn attention inward to look at the root of this feeling of “I”.

Are these questions—inquiries into the self—culturally biased? Perhaps.

Nevertheless,  when we do earnestly inquire in this way,  the  ”I” tends to melt, or disappear, while the sense of peaceable presence, or being remains.  Maybe my question to my buddy  might have more accurately  been stated, “Can we know ourselves as presence, as being?”

Or maybe the question could have been,  after he suggested that we can’t know ourselves,  “Can we know our false selves?”

Or, do some people experience (and thus express) from their authentic , natural selves, while  others experience (and thus express) from less authentic, less fluid structures?  And might the first be able to deal with the mud, within and without,  in perhaps more practical, un-emotional ways?

Can we know ourselves? Can we know our false selves? Such questions, I would posit, are worthy of pursuing, culturally biased, or  mud laden  though they may be.

Here is the front cover of Bear’s new book – Practicing the Presence of Peace. It’s scheduled for publication on April 22nd. Advanced review copies will be available before then. It will be available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and quality bookstores near you. Or, of course, signed copies will be available through this site. Stay tuned. (And in the meantime, practice peace!)

Back cover text

A 300 Year Old Spiritual Classic Gives Birth to a Contemporary Masterpiece!

Can we experience the presence of peace every day, all day, while washing the dishes, feeding the cat, or riding the bus on the way to work? Can we experience this presence when the kids are fighting, the boss is frustrated and the stock market is in tatters? This book says absolutely yes, and shows us how!

In the late 1600’s a small book appeared, The Practice of the Presence of God, describing the daily spiritual practices of a humble monk named Brother Lawrence. That book, never out of print, evolved into a beloved classic and textbook for “contemplative spirituality.” Now Practicing the Presence of Peace updates that beloved classic and shows how the simple practice of peace inevitably leads to

• Better health and physical healing
• Happier family relationships
• Profitable vocational advancement
• The end of the agonizing search for “more.”

Although throughout history the monastery has been identified by an enclosed, physically defined plot of land, administered by a particular sect within a particular spiritual tradition, the contemporary monastery has no walls. The contemporary monastery is a mental and emotional and spiritual perception, or structure, available to anyone, anywhere, regardless of faith, religion or spiritual maturity, though such maturity generally accompanies those drawn to the monastic path of happiness. The contemporary monastic consciousness is the “flowering” on earth of the seeds planted over a four thousand years period by holy men and women in every spiritual and religious discipline, as well as the natural result of– the next for– the obvious limitations of scientific materialism.

Those who practice the monastic discipline– recognizing the spirit of happiness and the happiness of spirit in themselves and others, and recognizing all the ground they walk upon as holy ground, and understanding all the actions they engage as simply means to enjoy the Divine Presence in the moment– those who practice such discipline inherit the highest form of power and authority available to any human on earth. Just as importantly, such practioners also inherit the grace by which to exercise such power and authority in service to others. Although the expressions of divine happiness which monks and nuns offer might have uncountable variations around the world, the spirit of happiness is the same, and it is recognizable, one to another, immediately and without fail. Although happiness itself is Absolute, Complete, and Infinitely, Eternally, Dynamically Still, Unformed yet Full, gently Blissful, the expressions of happiness are artful, with beginnings, middles and ends, progressive, unfolding, paradoxical. Happiness is life itself. Words can point, but cannot contain.

In truth, we are all monks and nuns, all brothers and sisters, here in the sacred institution of modernity. The nations are simply rooms within the same house. The different faiths are lamps which light the rooms. That we have brothers and sisters in all the rooms, seeing by different lamps, does not diminish the fact that we are one house, one family, and the house if the Lord’s, Krishna, Allah’s, Jehovah’s, the Buddha Mind, and we are His (Her) children. This is so simple, so obvious, yet to live our lives this way is a revolutionary commitment.

The revolution is at hand. The spiritual awakening across the globe is reflected in the spontaneously growing commitment to the wider view, the higher life, the joyful presence which the monastic discipline incorporates. Without a conscious connection to Heart Mountain Monastery, and yet with a conscious commitment to the heart’s great ascension, millions of people the world around have joined in the power and authority which only love can grant. We see these others as brothers and sisters, just as they recognize us, near and far, openly or not.

Happiness is awakening on the earth, and we all and each are the vessels for such awakening to occur.