Thoughts on the nature of life

The teachings of a frog.

Chris Nunan Photography

Life is really quite simple when you listen to the nature of it.

Typical Western science would cut this frog to pieces analyse it and electrocute it under microscopic deduction. This would produce a lot of statistics and Latin names in the name of science and in service of the intellect.

Now there is nothing wrong with classification and deduction, but the problem, as I see it, is that it very often ends up “killing” the very thing it wants to understand.

The Taoists where much more to the point I think, they would learn about nature by observation – they would say, if you want to understand a frog it can only be understood where it actually is in it’s waterhole.

Everything is relational and connected and life is like that, and we “the observer” and the “observed” are the same.

Both ways of seeing life and frogs are “right” – it’s a matter of perspective.

What I experience through The Three Principles is that there is a very logical and straightforward way of understanding the principles behind our experience of this frog.(nature)

Mind or Nature knows how to give us frogs in waterholes, and consciousness makes us notice life …gives it a flavour and a feel to it.

Thought, as a principle is what gives us our experience of the frog in the waterhole – and thoughts are linked to feeling. We feel our thinking.

The point is that the frog and waterhole is just what it is, doing what it does.

Our experience and feeling about it always come through our own thinking – that’s the way we are – thinking it up all the time.

So the good news is, that when you realise that life, is as it is, and that it’s not the outside world that creates your feelings, but your own ongoing construction – thought in the moment – you are actually free to experience the frog and waterhole as it is in a purer way and just be with it.

Being aware is enough – we don’t have to trust our own limited construction – all we need is to be open to life without a analytical and conceptual idea about it.

“The power of Thought is one of the most primal force functions of all
human beings.Without it, there is no way we could experience life”
Sydney Banks from The Enlightened Gardener  page 93.

When great discoveries are made – like the one Sydney Bank’s experienced – we often don’t “get it”, because we are looking at life through our conceptual glasses.

But when we take them of we just might glimpse the awesomeness of it all, that life has nothing to do with our presupposed notions, but instead points to a more fluid source of ever flowing grace, not in a religious sense but in a spiritual sense that per se is formless and wordless.

So thank you, dear frog for jumping up and making me stop in surprise and experience this otherness in a split second where time stood still and life was at it’s fullest.

I don’t know if this makes sense to others, but it did to me. It’s nice to get out of the illusion of my own thinking and into a state of peace and love.

I will end this frog talk with a quote from a great teacher:

“Sydney Banks’ tremendous gift to the world was to bring simple principles along that would help people understand what Buddha was talking about, what Jesus was talking about—everyone!—Maslow, Carl Rogers and William James. The Principles, if you look at them deeply, are behind what everyone is talking about. Everyone is saying that Thought is what creates your reality, and that we are all a part of something much, much greater .” – Ami Chen

Let’s enjoy that we already are at home with ourselves – and that we actually don’t have to make life complicated and enjoy these moments of peace and love that we tend to forget when we look in the wrong direction blaming and scrutinizing or over thinking.

Time to go for a walk, leaving our Ego’s at bay for a moment and just being open to listening to the miracle of it all.

This night I had a dream

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Chris Nunan Photography ©
I was shown a book with images of my self

and a text caption – I don’t remember the exact words, but something like this:

“Why don’t you show yourself as you are to the world?”

And I woke up – thinking – this is “ME” whatever that means – a message from the unknown.

Is this a unknown “me” or is this a deeper “me”?

The thing is that it was a feminine figure – a Muse

Maybe Mnemosyne – the mother of the nine Muses is trying to give me a gift?

The gift of remembering – this is what a Muse is – a spiritual influence that points you to a knowing

Then this insight popped up;

There is no past and there is no future – it’s quite simple –  there is only NOW – the reason is that we will only
ever be in this now even when we think of the past we are in the now as we were in the “past” we were also in the
now or as we will be in the “future” thinking of the “past” – which is an illusion because we always are exactly where we are
NOW.

This is the truth.

The whole notion of linear time is a construct we make up.

I remember an article I once read about the Aymara people in Chile, they don’t face the future – they face the past. So in their language the whole idea of chronological time is reversed and different.

Speaking of the future is considered nonsense – maybe because nothing makes sense but now? – Being where you are right now…

And now the scientists are suggesting that even the “Big Bang” theory will be be proven wrong – the was no “Big Bang” and there goes one more theory of time.

What if it’s all NOW anyway?

Anyway this is the feeling in my dream – it’s all connected – my life – my past – to this one breath – this one thought

Sydney Bank’s is pointing to that Mind, Consciousness and Thought are just that. One.

As I understand it – my life experience is inside “me” – the whole experience of life is what I think it is. I am feeling my thinking – all ways!

Our feelings come from thought – not from the “outside” – that also implies, that we are not governed by our past experiences – but by our own thinking!

The fear’s in our head are truly in the our thinking and our biology beautifully responds to whatever we think – right now!

This night I had a dream – or should I say – This thought of mine is pointing to the truth of who I am – “I’m” the same as everyone a drop in the ocean of love.

I will be this wave – I already am – and wow this feels good!

The universe is infinite and we all are a part of this wisdom – the principles that live through “us” are “us”.

I do show myself to the world – it’s what I think that shows me my world – it’s not what I show on the outside that counts – there is no “outside” of my thinking in the moment..

Falling into no-thingness

Now

Wow…