I am a person in a body, living a linear life.
Is that true? Do I have a past? Will I have a future? Is there REALLY a now?
I believe those things. I have learned in recent years that there is no past and no future. And yet I do have memories of yesterday, 10 years ago, 40 years ago. I remember those things in any given moment, but do I KNOW them?
Check that. I SEEM TO remember things. I seem to remember that I remember things. Data seems to be stored in the cloud, things that I can access when I need to. And, yet, I also remember that I sometimes forget things, things I once remembered. I also remember that I recall something I forgot a bit ago.
Memory has never been perfect. It’s as if the Internet connected to my mind is not under my control. Some memories seem crisp and easily accessible. Other memories are fleeting and/or imperfect.
Can I say with absolute certainty that ANY of it is TRUE? I cannot.
Am I a body, then? That certainly seems to be my experience. I perceive appendages and a torso. My head? Well, Harding says I don’t have one, though I can lift my arm and touch it with my hand. I can look in the mirror and see it reflected back to me.
I also can remember my body when it was 20. It seems to look somewhat different now at 56.
But how do I know that this perceived flesh that seems to have continuity IS ME? I look down at hands on a computer. They seem somehow “connected” to consciousness that seems to reside behind eyes. It’s just not provable that the mind is directing this tapping that seems to be happening on this keyboard.
I could easily be being fed a narrative by the Matrix as I lay here in a pod waiting to be harvested for energy.
These thoughts that I think I think could be being fed to me by some cosmic force of some sort, to distract me, to test me, to amuse itself.
How can I possibly take ANY of this seriously?!
And yet for most of my “life,” this insubstantial pageant has been taken QUITE seriously. Maya has me in her snare, and I’ve fallen hook, line, and sinker for the Grand Illusion. Shame on me!
I know this. I get this. And yet, like Pacino says in Godfather III, “just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in.”
How
**** tiresome! I’m Wiley Coyote, thinking I’m finally going to catch the Road Runner. But the setup simply doesn’t allow for it!
Get that. Get over getting “it.”
But wait. Is there an inherent reason that Wiley cannot catch RR? Just because he hasn’t caught him before doesn’t mean he NEVER can.
Or, look at it the OTHER way. I already have it! Dorothy never left Kansas. The Tin Man always had a heart. The Scarecrow was quite crafty. And the Cowardly Lion always was brave. None of them needed the Wizard to tell them so.
The Wizard was tricking them into believing what they already knew!
I seem to recall Ramana saying something to the effect that we are all already enlightened. ANDA is no big deal, not really. ANDA is what we are. This personality that seems to have consciousness that “tells” fingers to tap...THAT is the lie!