I Have Decided to Stop Trying to BE
03/26/2006 03:49 p.m.

March 24th, 2006


I have decided to stop trying to intellectually understand the word-meaning/form/way and outcome of the exercises and practices that I attempt each day. I am going to just experience whatever I know as
the experience of stopping internal dialoging and not worry about what I am "meant to experience" by it. I am going to just experience whatever I know as the experience of holding my attention in
continuity, and not worry about what I am "meant to experience" by it. The frustration, I find, is in trying to practice an exercise which one doesn't truly recognize as a practice. In the beginning, the
practice, as well as the outcome, exist only in the form of words, and not in the form of experiences, and this not only makes the destination intellectually indefinable, but also the path! The problem seems to lie in the fact that the destination itself is beyond the realm of intellectual, emotional, or mechanical habits and their isolated subjective realities, and this means that any reality or realm beyond these (or even their combination) has no tangible way of presenting itself to the conditioned mind which is the only so called tool most of us use to perceive and understand our surroundings. What you have then is a kind of catch 22 that is not actually required to achieve a goal, but that the mind seems to demand a resolution to or go riding away on its emotional roller coaster. It's something like someone saying that you have to float before you can fly. "Well," a man with experience will say, "first you must believe that you can fly, and then only can you begin to practice the motions that will eventually lead you to floating and then flying." But even when you believe that a man can fly if he wants to, you're not aware of its true meaning without experience, and so you can't fathom the experience of it's predecessor, floating, either, though you can intellectually understand the concept! "Don't struggle, and don't think. Just BE and the realization will come to you," says the experienced man. But it's a struggle not to struggle, it's a struggle not to think and it's a struggle to remain alert and attentive in continuity, without any jumps. It's a struggle to be aware and present and to see yourself as if you are watching silently all your own mechanical motions and thoughts. All these thoughts are what have me so "stuck up," so frustrated, and feeling so helpless without acceptance. How can I not struggle to be silent when I've never been silent before in my life?

When one first begins to learn any discipline not for itself, but as a path and process to a larger and more profound realization, one can never be sure if the discipline that has been explained to him in
words, is the actual discipline that is meant to progress him to that intended destination. After all, no realization has ever stemmed from a path that one has never before taken, nor has a path never before
taken appeared before you simply because you wished to realize its destination! Hahahaha I know that this statement seems to be so obvious, so self evident. Still, this very obvious and self evident
reasoning has been the source of much anxiety and frustration on my part and I do wonder why? Why is it so easy for my mind to intellectually understand this rationale, and yet so difficult to
accept it at the same time? The reason must be because the mind can't really extract a "starting point" from such reasoning. In my memory lies a distant recollection of having once understood something of significance through an experience resulting from such practices. But now that I am expending so many emotional energies by projecting negatively so many of my thoughts into assumed realities, those
realizations and small wins now lie broken in barely visible fragments somewhere in the realm of my faint remembrance.

Well, let's start again then. Though everything seems so difficult and so meaningless right now, and so much effort is needed for such little compensation, it's interesting to realize that here I am
writing about it in an effort to relieve the pain and to regain my composure. Isn't it odd that despite all the frustration of failure I am still making an effort to attempt what I am failing to accomplish?
Hahahaha Well I suppose this means that I've not given up after all, but that I'm more resolved than ever despite the feelings of alienation, isolation, loneliness, fear, sadness, and frustration. It means that there is something more powerful than all of these negative forces, and I must admit, there is. That is the force of LIFE. What I mean to say is, the WILL TO SURVIVE is still somehow stronger than all of these other forces put together. The intensity of this living DEATH makes one so desperate to LIVE. It must be, or else I wouldn't be here writing this and trying what I can't seem to fathom, explain, or accomplish in this very moment I am NOT. You see, wins are always present realizations, while memories are just recollections or reflections of realizations that have become dormant without our presence. The experience or idea reverts backwards into a thought.

Here is what LIFE, my only continuous source of energy, whispers to me:

"Start practicing from stopping internal dialoging and see where this leads to. Try to experience this actively in continuity."

"For example, normally when you shift your attention, even intentionally from one object to another, you experience this shift in jumps where as your attention does move in space and time. You must experience it going from one object to the other, and from this other object to where ever it goes. all in continuity"

"You are just a witness. Witnessing without words, but in continuity. You are not focusing, you are just aware. Start with where ever your attention moves but in continuity. Watch your attention in
continuity."

"Remember your presence. You cannot remember your presence without your attention intact. Remember I AM all the time, not the words but PRESENCE."

"Can you experience the passage of time as we experience time in continuity? Because when you move in space you also move in time. Can you just be in space in continuity? Let's say there’s no time, just space. Just be in space in continuity. This means there is no past, but then this also means that there is no future, no projection of the past. We experience the passage of time in jumps, lets experience it in continuity, every fraction you don't miss any moment, and you must remain ware that you are not missing this passage."

"Just BE Rula. Aware and alert in silence watching, as though you are sitting by a running river watching the flow of your own thoughts, but not getting dragged away. That's all."

Okay. I'm determined.