Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog

In great humility, there is an emptiness that exists beyond the “me” and “mine.”  That emptiness is, in actuality, the absence (i.e., the non-existence) of the “me.”  “Mostpeople” would feel frightened about the psychological absence of the “me,” or even about the possibility of the psychological absence of the “me.”  To “mostpeople,” it would seem to be an “insecurity” to go beyond the “me” or beyond the supposedly “controlling center.”   However, for the (truly) wise man, mere security is not a factor… truth is a factor.  To the wise man (or woman), it is truth that is where the real beauty, the real treasure, exists.  

Many years ago, in the early ’70s, when i was in my 4th year of college, i read an article about split-brain operations and how these surgical operations resulted in two totally separate fields of consciousness in one human being.  Reading about how the corpus callosum could be surgically severed, resulting in two distinct, separate fields of consciousness — with each not knowing what the other was doing — pulled one even further away from the ancient orthodoxy that so many of us were indoctrinated by.  It was back then that my insatiable quest for truth began (in the deepest sense), though even when one was much younger one still saw through a lot of the madness and falsities in the things that they tried to indoctrinate into us.  Real humility occurs when the mind intelligently doubts and asks profound questions without relying on what one’s family or culture provides as the truth.  If one largely relies on what one’s family or one’s culture has provided, it reflects a form of arrogance (which is far from true humility); one’s family and culture can, indeed, be a component or facet of oneself and, for sure, being certain of their validity is — in a big way — just a form of self-admiration and arrogance.  Intelligent doubt goes beyond all this.  Such intelligent doubt reflects the way Albert Einstein discovered things, by wisely questioning many things that were taken for granted as facts. Albert Einstein understood what it meant to “stand alone.”   To really inquire into that which is truly sacred, immeasurable, timeless and uncontaminated, one must, of course, do it with an instrument (i.e., a mind) that is itself uncontaminated.  It absolutely must be untainted, healthy, uncorrupt… that instrument (i.e., that true mind of inquiry).  That, then, means no belief, no arrogant assumptions about the validity of one’s own faith, religion, culture, family creeds, and spiritual blueprints; so it means no beliefs or presumptions.  However, “mostpeople” are totally unwilling to be that way.  They want the comfort and security of “knowing.”  It can be the “knowing” of others that they absorb and take on for themselves… it doesn’t matter.  However, it may be that the real quest for truth lies beyond security and “knowing.”  That is why so few ever come upon that real treasure. 

Standing alone (without depending on others), going beyond the crowd, understanding the mind, going beyond mere images of the “me” and “I” — and mere images and learned concepts is all that they really are — may seem like abandoning security.  However, a truly wise mind, that transcends beyond beliefs, realizes things that involve the only real treasure.  That treasure has an essence of real eternity, immensity, and bliss in it (that “mostpeople,” unfortunately, have no clue about whatsoever).  The scientists were, as it turns out, likely right about one thing; they said:  Reality is probably radically different (i.e., far different) from what most of us assume it to be.

Crab Spider blending in (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Crab Spider blending in (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017