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Sunday Morning (28)
Last Friday was Bailey’s birthday. She put forward a few questions relating to the feeling of age. Let me ponder on that a bit.
Everyone of course “knows” an answer if questioned about his/her age. Knowing is the operative verb here. It is the result of the process in the mind, that tried to measure reality by counting some apparent repetitive natural processes it observes. Then, a number comes out. But this is only a dead and abstract concept, stripped from the aliveness of the reality that it tries to describe. This is how the concept of time is created in the mind. It has practical advantages like when you make an appointment, but not more than that. It does not really exist, it is only a concept, a measure. Use it when you must, then forget it because it is illusory.
So, if asked how old do you “feel”, immediately the mind is confused, because feelings are harder to measure in numbers and the question seems to refer to an inner intuition and the wisdom of the body. Most adults then, wanting to produce a number anyway, give a number that they feel comfortable with for some unknown reason. The answer is still vaguely based on thoughts and stories of the mind.
Answering from no-mind (intuition, pure being) I would say: I am Zero and Ancient at the same time. Zero: meaning I am Now. Every moment is new and fresh and first. And it is reborn again and again without adding to the previous one, so counting does not come into it. If counted, it would say: zero-zero-zero (etc.). Ancient: meaning I am timeless. I never was not, and I will ever be. I am not created nor un-created. This is the timeless aliveness speaking, that all of us are. The aliveness that animates the forms for a while (forms like the body, but also matter, radiation etc., all manifested and un-manifested) and does not depend on the natural lifespan of that form. The form is not a separate part of aliveness, but an intrinsic feature of it, that comes into being when it gets endowed with a space-time component. When that component ends (we say: the form dies), the aliveness still is and goes on both unmanifested and in the manifestation of all of its countless features. When a wave hits the shore and flattens, we don’t say: the ocean died. And we don’t count the age of the ocean by the number of waves that arose from it. We know better. We are waves like that, endowed by the energy of the ocean that is the timeless cosmic force of creation and uncreation.
Without mind, there is the intuitive knowing that this is my true being. Many philosophies and religions point to this. “Tat tvam asi”, the Upanishads say. Or in Christian terms we can quote Jesus: “Before Abraham was, I am”, and: “The kingdom of God is within you”. The Aboriginals have a very beautiful word for this timeless continuum of creation and uncreation, they also call Everywhen: “Dreamings”.
Happy Dreamings!
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