Thursday, May 5, 2016

Blue Sky & Clouds Metaphor

Question
     How does it feel, from moment to moment, that you are consciousness, and that consciousness is universal?

Francis Lucille
     It feels like peace. It feels like the emotional state we were talking about yesterday - this sense of lack in the background that lingers, a sense of something is not right in the background, that something is missing, this sense of impending doom in the background - has been replaced with peace, but happy peace, content peace, exciting peace in that sense eager peace, enthusiastic peace, life-loving peace, absolute safety or security peace. 

Question
     And is it possible for that to be unwavering, despite circumstances?

Francis Lucille
     Yes, because it's the real background of our experience anyway. By essence, by design if you will, by nature, it is always present. So it never really disappears. It can only apparently disappear by being hidden by the emotional state that comes in front. The same way that the blue sky can be hidden by the clouds. But the clouds don't put an end to the sky. 
     Let's assume that someone has been born in Shropshire (UK), where it's always cloudy, and has never seen the blue sky. Then one day, by some extraordinary miracle, there is a tiny patch of blue in the sky that appears. And this Shropshire lad exclaims 'What a beautiful blue cloud!' And he's very happy about the 'blue cloud'. So this 'blue cloud' is happiness to him. However, he's still in ignorance of the sky - right? Because he's not understood that the sky was always there, whether the clouds were there or not. 
     So this is the position of the ignorant experiencing a moment of happiness. The experience of happiness is a true experience of happiness. However, it is not attributed to it's real cause - the blue sky, but to an alleged cause, which comes and goes. Because this hole (in the clouds), especially in Shropshire, is not going to last for too long. So at some point, especially if this Shropshire lad chooses to move to the south of France, the episodes of blue sky will become more and more frequent. And one day, he will realize that the picture has been replaced with one in which you have a sky which is mostly blue, with a few clouds there just to make the blue of the sky feel more blue. ... At some point he will realize - 'Jee, the sky is always there, behind the clouds.' Now, and perhaps that's where the metaphor comes to an end, because this metaphor cannot account for the fact that I am the blue sky. 
     Then the moment I realize that I am the blue sky, then the presence or absence of the clouds becomes irrelevant you see. Because I am in fact beyond the clouds always. Because I'm not a cloud. I'm not a blue cloud - blue cloud is a limited consciousness. The unlimited consciousness is the sky beyond. The moment I realize that I'm always, always the blue sky, I am the happiness itself, and I cannot loose it. Because the blue sky is permanent, it is the clouds that are impermanent. 
     The metaphor has its limits. Because I am both that which sees the blue sky and the blue sky which is seen. 



No comments:

Post a Comment