Taft on Illusions



    What are we looking for when we pursue the spiritual path? Is it a happiness that seems to be eluding us? Is our present condition such that we are motivated to change it? I've been told that people who are Jehovah's Witnesses believe that heaven will actually have its streets paved with gold. Seems rather ludicrous when you think about it, but is that belief any worse then the one we hold in which we will become supremely happy when we reach our goal, however we define it?

    We may think our path is more noble, and surely more spiritual, but is it really? They are going to get their happiness from golden streets and we are going to get ours from golden (holy) living. Both goals are merely concepts, desired by one, ridiculed by the other. If we carefully look at this situation it is not hard to see that we construe our ultimate goal to be that of making this ego, or me-self, happy.

    Am I suggesting therefore that we live in misery and make the most of it, maybe even be grateful for it? No, I am not. Strange as that may seem, that too is a conceptualized goal. What I am suggesting is that any goal is a concept and while it may distract us from the moment at hand, it has no reality. In fact, because we let it distract us it removes us from the only reality that there is, namely this moment.

    Our minds create scenarios that arouse our emotions, positively or negatively, but we must be alert to the fact that they are self created. The field of consciousness on which they play is that non substantial substance which is beyond description, beyond conceptualization. Sincere friends tell me that they are beyond all that and that they only live in the "now". Where is that "now" I ask? Is it that fractional space, too small to measure, between the past and the future? "Of course", they reply. Yet I remain skeptical. Skeptical because it seems to me that the demarcation line between past and future is so narrow that it cannot be found. Moreover, both past and future are places that reside only in this present consciousness, which on close inspection turns out to be timeless.

    It is so easy to stray into the realm of philosophical or spiritual suppositions that hold little meaning to the everyday circumstances that arise in our lives. Ultimately they are merely the stuff of which daydreams are made. Liberation of our mind from the inhibiting effects of the mesmerism of its own creation is our only real need. Or to paraphrase Krishnamurti, can our mind be free of the need to create illusion?

    Can it?



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