words

 I was looking for discussion groups to participate in. One of them was centered around non-duality. The topic was, "Is anyone else not interested in non-duality?" There were a lot of different replies to this. It was interesting to see how other people thought and what they felt was important to share. It gave me better perspective on how we perceive the universe through concepts, how this is lacking, and a better look at what is real. 
One of my responses to what I saw was, people really think things are a certain way. We are passionate about what we think and we often tell ourselves with a certain conviction that, "This is real. I know this is real." "I am this" From my own experience and from what I saw, it seems that in doing this we are closing down our minds and forcing ourself to come to a conclusion to meet what we perceive as needs or parameters in our consciousness. I think as long as we do this, we will be steps away from the truth. In settling into a conclusion and accepting it as real, are we entering conceptual space and losing sight? We have gotten a little bit further and we say, "Now this is what is real." We are a little more convinced so we are willing to settle, yet we are still uncertain to subtler and subtler degrees. I wonder if the solution to actually reaching truth is not continuing this process, but abandoning it entirely. Not in a dismissal of truth or in finding truth, but abandoning a process which is dependent and restricted by thinking and ideas. Or dependent and restricted by the process of coming to conceptual conclusions, the process of settling on a "good" representation of truth. It may be "good" but it may never be true. Consciousness awakens to truth and the thinking mind attempts to put it into a box. As we become more and more awake this process becomes more and more subtle. We begin to open up to the transcendental experience of reality, seeing it as it is and depend less on the thinking mind and its interpretations. As it becomes more subtle in its packaging it can be difficult to be conscious of the fact that it is still, and perhaps we are still, doing this. Our ideas, such as the idea of non-duality, seem so close to truth that we are very very convinced that they are the truth. Seeing this process of the thinking mind coming to conclusions from a variety of different perspectives regarding non-duality showed me that the process gets in the way of perceiving truth. When consciousness is tied to this process, it is trapped. Trapped in conceptualization. To see truth consciousness must be completely freed from this process. 
So what is real is not dependent on ideas and ideas may point successfully to what is, but they in no way are what is. What is is what is when consciousness completely transcends this thinking process. I think as long as this process is here, it will muddle perception.  
How do you free yourself from this process? I don't know if you can. I think consciousness naturally evolves past the thinking process and does so in an organic way. We don't need to get there, we feel we need to and we want to, but these notions are pretty immaterial. We simply are as we maybe. If we are at all. 
So what is real? It's not a matter of describing it, but seeing it, maybe in a way in which there is no seeing. Why does the truth have to be something we can understand. Why does it have to be communicable? Why does it have to include us? Why do we have to be real? Why does it have to be? Why does it have to not be? Why does it have to be something we can grasp? The beauty of it maybe that we cannot grasp it. It seems like it is our grasping that gets in the way. Our grasping is the same as conceptualizing. It feels like the truth wants to be born here within me. I think this is what I am attempting to do, perhaps what I am always attempting to do. I feel right to do so and it feels like it would be good to be in the perpetual flow of doing so. I love how fooled we are by the truth. How foolishly we approach it and it sneaks up on us and fills us with a hidden smile. How we continue the search even though it is a runaway train going nowhere. Our ego is so hungry for sustenance. So greedy. So mad and blind and out of control. Perhaps our soul as well, so hungry for truth it tramps around in madness unable to help itself. And the truth is so solitary and independent. Without need of us at all. So selfless and untainted. We cannot approach it with our uncouth groping.
I think for myself, I don't get there because of my character. I think I settle and have settled for less than what would bring fulfillment because I have been exhausted. This has created habits which may be approaching laziness. Or what was laziness before it became exhaustion. ???
I feel near to truth, very near if I compare myself to other human beings, but much is still obscured. My mind is a tangle of many things that over-complicate my life and the process of awakening. I think this is why I say if I work on my character, if I become more organized, less lazy, then I will be able to approach it, I think perfectly and directly. I think I have all the knowledge and all the tools I require. They are just often poorly cared for and very cluttered in an undersized garden shed that serves an overgrown and in need of service, but otherwise splendid manor. 
As of this moment, my mind feels sloggish and I feel tired, but I also feel compelled to come to certain conclusions in this writing. The improvement in my character concerns the ability to deal with both of these at odds feelings appropriately. By, centering myself among them. And, centering myself among the many things swirling around within me and in my life. The train continues, the conclusions pass like towns and noteworthy features in the landscape. I love traveling by rail through the Southwestern United States in the year 1884.