As I read your passionate "DMV" story, I thought about the energetics of the exchange of communication. "Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em." Like a poker game you have to play the cards dealt to you in relation to those held by others in the game.
Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Being able to cultivate a sense of the Tao of the moment, the "what is", and to instinctively align with the energy flow to achieve an effortless balance seems to be the key. You instinctively sensed that you needed to apply some assertive energy to the clerk's passive-aggressive stance and clear a path through the impasse of inertia.
Yes, it was a disruption to the prevailing cultural logjam of a natural flow of energy, but skillfully modulated, it did shatter the illusion of an immutable status quo and a release of the natural flow of energy and realistic communication. I have also used a more Yin receptive stance against an actively aggressive opponent to again balance out the energetic flow of the relationship while allowing the 'aggressor' to feel securely dominate.
Sensing "what is" is a subconscious art of awareness and balance, an intuitive "feel" for just the right energetic response in context with the swirls of energy of the moment.
"The wise are simply those who plainly see that life is as it is, and we are as we are. There simply can be no argument with what is. Reality as it unfolds is unpredictable, spontaneous and unknowable."
While reality may be unknowable, it certainly has a rhythm and a dance. I am reminded of the Hindu god Shiva appearing as Natarāja, the Lord of the Dance. The dance illustrates Shiva's role as the deity who destroys the cosmos so that it can be renewed again. Embracing reality likely will require cosmic destruction of entrenched unreality and often that might not be "nice".
R. Spira problaby wouldn't react like you in that situation because he's English 😂 not because is "enlightneted" (he never claimed that, that would be foolish and he seems like a very simple and intelligent man... to me) and then it is all in the projection we make also: to me you two have more in common that it meets the eye😉 to me... the difference in your message is in the details... (your sharing is raw meat and Rupert's is 5 o' clock tea) is a different path that you travel but both your messages are valid, depends on the validation that I'm looking for😂
Something you wrote about substack becoming another social media platform had me uninstall the app. It was your writing that had me install it in the first place.
This text almost had me install it again but I am sure that there is nothing on substack that can compete with being more present with my family and daughter.
Much love, Shiv. And as always your writing is fucking genius. Cheers!!!
The nice thing about Substack is that you never actually need to go on the app. The articles arrive right in your email inbox and you can read them there without ever opening the actual app
Thank you for this, Shiv. I discovered you through Joan Tollifson, whom I have been attracted to for her honest, and dare I say enlightened, humanity, with all the messy parts that she encourages us to recognize as “just this”.
I laughed out loud at your Japanese DMV story. Thirty plus years ago, I expressed similar outrage in Indonesia, trying to extend my tourist visa per regulations. (I don’t remember the result of my outburst, only the stunned disbelief of the many officials within earshot.)
I’m currently a free subscriber, but if I find myself regularly reading your Substack, I will sign onto paid in the first quarter of 2025.
Being as I am in an emotional place right now where I left something that gave me a sense of purpose, I have been delving into non duality again. Am reading one of Joan’s books. And I think what trips me up is that non duality promises, or we think it does, some sort of antidote from feeling terrible pain, compulsions, addictions, the desire to end it all. It gives you the peace you so desire. And it does. Or at least it says it does.
I think the biggest issue of all is having the mind try to boggle everything up and perfect it. Now the NEW thing is you have to be authentic or aware and if you’re not then shame on you! Then one loses the looseness you had once of being a child. No fussing. Just being yourself. Solutions and changes come when they may. There’s no antidote to the ocasional shittiness of life.
There’s no antidote to life. The shittiness is meant to feel shitty. No way of making it enjoyable either. That’s just creating a positive bias. Love will fulfill, heartbreak will hurt, joy will exhilarate, pain will suck, peace will relax and fear will aggravate. No one is exempt from this.
That's amazing in an truly frustrating way! Sometimes I wish I'd gone to Japan instead of China. That legendary rigidity would have been entertaining so long as it wasn't directed at me. China is a strange hybrid as you have the face-saving, old culture rules for everything, communal harmony, etc. But it all falls away so fast in the right settings. Usually with alcohol involved. At 2pm. An hour before your next class, which you point out to your boss, but he's insisting you "drink anyway, it will be fine." I can't see that happening in Japan...
It’s the same in Japan. Alcohol is the avenue through which people release all their pent up steam. I’ve watched coworkers slap their bosses while drinking and the next day all is forgiven…
Great article, Shiv! Thanks for recommending Joan’s work a while back—I’ve been reading her ever since, including the article you quoted, which I found endearingly honest.
Twenty years of living in Japan is some serious training ground for learning to accept what is or not accept what is.
I can relate in different contexts but a similar one very soon. I am going to get my Japanese license early next year.
“In a world that is perpetually pressuring you to conform to its expectations, simply being oneself is the greatest act of rebellion.” A new take on rebellion. Thank you.
Twenty years of living in Japan is some serious training ground for learning to be with what is, or not.
I can relate in different contexts but a similar one very soon. I am going to get my Japanese license early next year.
“In a world that is perpetually pressuring you to conform to its expectations, simply being oneself is the greatest act of rebellion.” A new take on rebellion. Thank you.
Sooner or later the guru floating on thin air, falls to earth in a yard-sale type crash. Those surrounding him (or her) either try to pick him, and the pieces of the illusion, back up, denying the fall entirely, or turn their backs and run, calling him a fake. The idea of having overcome the vagaries of life walks hand in hand with the fall from grace. I used to think so many things ... all of them wrong. We all just doing the best we can, working with what we've got. One man's fake is another man's Jesus. It's so much easier to simply be as we are.
For a long time and even now, I have struggled with this perspective: "For, this is all we are here to do. To exist. To be. That’s it."
In some ways, it's a memetic virus from inner space.
In other ways, I feel like the pursuit of this equanimous acceptance of whatever situationship is going on, whatever collaborations we're engaged in with other living beings, whether it be having our license application denied (for my part, I had to understand Spanish spoken to me to get my drivers' license. I did get it, but only after my partner yelled at the guy "he's deaf, you expect him to _hear_ you?), rushing through traffic on a single-speed bike, getting milk from the corner.
But at this point, living life unfiltered. What then? What next? What to do with that?
I struggle with it because sometimes it feels like these human collaborations, these interactions, situationships, neutral chaos agents, it seems like being alive is just caroming off each other in the pinball game that is our late-stage capitalist spirituality, where even our so-called tools and smart devices entrap our attention.
That's it. That's existence.
But does it have to be that way? Can't we change it? Imagine new futures. Only haunt the shadows of the soul? Or can we stand in the sunlight of these four dimensions and dare to change the world? That's work.
To exist. To be. That's living. Is it gonna pay the rent? Is it gonna change the world? Does it change the world when you change how you see it? Of course, my friend would say, "just tell someone about it. Inspire them as it inspired you."
Peter - perceiving life as it is does not in any way imply that one assumes what it will be in the next moment. Take my DMV example. When I was first stonewalled by the agent, I accepted my lot and left the building. But the spontaneous urge to do something about it arose out of nowhere and spurred me to yell the guy’s head off.
Yes, we are here to simply exist. But simply existing has nothing to do with being inactive. Fighting a war, winning a marathon, protesting an injustice, saving a life - these are all forms of existing.
The point here is not whether one should surrender all motivation to act. But rather, when one’s actions are not being contrived by the prejudice of one’s own expectations then one is free to act authentically.
« …when one’s actions are not being contrived by the prejudice of one’s own expectations then one is free to act authentically. ». I have absolutely lived under the kosh of my own (aka family-conditioned) expectations and it is crippling, fruitless and fucking exhausting. There’s something weirdly synchronous about this article as I’d just this morning seen to lay off editing myself and just surf right now. Stuff will still get done presumably but it won’t have the whole ‘how am I doing?’ analysis along with it; or it will and then I’ll remember this thread. Thanks, Shiv.
That's the thing though, the memetic brainworm is like, just do, don't look to the results, just do your do. Whatever happens, will happen regardless of whatever input you put into it.
Yes, I understood that just being isn't about being passive or not acting, but the trap is that people start sitting, staring at the wall (in Zen), or just sitting with their eyes closed, expecting something magical to happen beyond observing themselves.
There we are, sitting. There we are, doing. There we are, being. It's a nice way to pass time, but that's the only thing passing. There we are, hastening to our ends.
That's why I struggle with this "just be" because it promises some kind of freedom from life, but as you note, life doesn't let up its grasp on us.
I used to meditate, thinking that I would get inspiration from sitting, that I would suddenly imagine solutions to the barriers that faced me. All I got was a stronger back, a stronger ability to focus with one-pointed attention on what I was doing. Maybe that was the ADHD reinforcing itself into hyperfocus.
"Just be. This is all that there is."
Where's the spiritual deparasite pill for that? lol
Yeah, I still struggle between that demotivation to act on my goals, because what's the point, and acting on my goals, because I want to build something that will live forever, long after I pass.
Sitting in meditation, I think, what's the point. Riding at speed in traffic, I think, this is living! Both use the same process of just doing, without the meta-analysis of the mind telling me what it is that is happening. In traffic, I can't have that extra layer of perception, in meditation, I can't have that extra layer of perception either. That level of perception is for the shower, for washing the dishes.
Thanks for your response, Shiv. Much appreciated, as ever.
I struggle with this, too. Plus, there was never an issue "just sitting" or "just be-ing" until spiritual culture came along and promised an escape from "just be-ing angry or sad or suffering" if you "just sit" in a particular way.
Maybe the challenge is to bring that full engagement into sitting? Maybe noticing the meta-analysis is the point? Noticing the dialogue and chronic grasping towards something whenever we're not fully engaged, as with driving and other tasks. A dialogue and grasping that was inflamed BY the initial promises of the practice, but, whatever...
Maybe the enlightened "masters" who come up with this shit purposely meant to wear out that aspect of our mind by giving us all kinds of golden promises to chase. What if the brainworm was intentional? But after a few centuries of religion, it all becomes "Truth" rather than the game of tail-chasing it was meant to be..?
Obviously, I have no idea. But I, too, feel compelled to sit in meditation while thinking "what's the point?"
In Sahaj Marg, where I learned to meditate, there was a concept called "constant remembrance," which means to bring the absorption during meditation into daily life. Therefore, you no longer need to sit to receive that transmission. The flow is constant, all through your daily activities, through your sittings, through your bickering and conflicts. Just have to turn your minds' eye to your heart to see the effulgence within, that centers you in your actionless action. So yeah, the pointers point to that, but without awareness of that effulgence, people just make their characteristics stronger through their increased focus. So, a criminal becomes a better criminal, etc.
Good story. I avoid listening spira, but when I have to I find myself falling over from boredom, exhaustion, who knows what. Same feeling I get when listening to someone who I know is... Lying.
I enjoy watching his act. An audience member poses a question, Spira, sitting on a sparse stage just above the audience, with a table next to him and usually with a glass of water and flower, takes in the question, pauses for a length of time as if tapping into something from a much higher plane than the audience member can tap into and follows up with an answer that for the life of me boggles the mind.
As I read your passionate "DMV" story, I thought about the energetics of the exchange of communication. "Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em." Like a poker game you have to play the cards dealt to you in relation to those held by others in the game.
Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Being able to cultivate a sense of the Tao of the moment, the "what is", and to instinctively align with the energy flow to achieve an effortless balance seems to be the key. You instinctively sensed that you needed to apply some assertive energy to the clerk's passive-aggressive stance and clear a path through the impasse of inertia.
Yes, it was a disruption to the prevailing cultural logjam of a natural flow of energy, but skillfully modulated, it did shatter the illusion of an immutable status quo and a release of the natural flow of energy and realistic communication. I have also used a more Yin receptive stance against an actively aggressive opponent to again balance out the energetic flow of the relationship while allowing the 'aggressor' to feel securely dominate.
Sensing "what is" is a subconscious art of awareness and balance, an intuitive "feel" for just the right energetic response in context with the swirls of energy of the moment.
"The wise are simply those who plainly see that life is as it is, and we are as we are. There simply can be no argument with what is. Reality as it unfolds is unpredictable, spontaneous and unknowable."
While reality may be unknowable, it certainly has a rhythm and a dance. I am reminded of the Hindu god Shiva appearing as Natarāja, the Lord of the Dance. The dance illustrates Shiva's role as the deity who destroys the cosmos so that it can be renewed again. Embracing reality likely will require cosmic destruction of entrenched unreality and often that might not be "nice".
R. Spira problaby wouldn't react like you in that situation because he's English 😂 not because is "enlightneted" (he never claimed that, that would be foolish and he seems like a very simple and intelligent man... to me) and then it is all in the projection we make also: to me you two have more in common that it meets the eye😉 to me... the difference in your message is in the details... (your sharing is raw meat and Rupert's is 5 o' clock tea) is a different path that you travel but both your messages are valid, depends on the validation that I'm looking for😂
Fucking right!
Something you wrote about substack becoming another social media platform had me uninstall the app. It was your writing that had me install it in the first place.
This text almost had me install it again but I am sure that there is nothing on substack that can compete with being more present with my family and daughter.
Much love, Shiv. And as always your writing is fucking genius. Cheers!!!
The nice thing about Substack is that you never actually need to go on the app. The articles arrive right in your email inbox and you can read them there without ever opening the actual app
Not a single “Sumimasen” was uttered that day. 😆
I find myself nodding along to every word you write. Every time. Every article.
Great post Shiv. Thanks again.
Thank you for this, Shiv. I discovered you through Joan Tollifson, whom I have been attracted to for her honest, and dare I say enlightened, humanity, with all the messy parts that she encourages us to recognize as “just this”.
I laughed out loud at your Japanese DMV story. Thirty plus years ago, I expressed similar outrage in Indonesia, trying to extend my tourist visa per regulations. (I don’t remember the result of my outburst, only the stunned disbelief of the many officials within earshot.)
I’m currently a free subscriber, but if I find myself regularly reading your Substack, I will sign onto paid in the first quarter of 2025.
Being as I am in an emotional place right now where I left something that gave me a sense of purpose, I have been delving into non duality again. Am reading one of Joan’s books. And I think what trips me up is that non duality promises, or we think it does, some sort of antidote from feeling terrible pain, compulsions, addictions, the desire to end it all. It gives you the peace you so desire. And it does. Or at least it says it does.
I think the biggest issue of all is having the mind try to boggle everything up and perfect it. Now the NEW thing is you have to be authentic or aware and if you’re not then shame on you! Then one loses the looseness you had once of being a child. No fussing. Just being yourself. Solutions and changes come when they may. There’s no antidote to the ocasional shittiness of life.
There’s no antidote to life. The shittiness is meant to feel shitty. No way of making it enjoyable either. That’s just creating a positive bias. Love will fulfill, heartbreak will hurt, joy will exhilarate, pain will suck, peace will relax and fear will aggravate. No one is exempt from this.
Have fun, feel shit, die. Basically how it goes…
That's amazing in an truly frustrating way! Sometimes I wish I'd gone to Japan instead of China. That legendary rigidity would have been entertaining so long as it wasn't directed at me. China is a strange hybrid as you have the face-saving, old culture rules for everything, communal harmony, etc. But it all falls away so fast in the right settings. Usually with alcohol involved. At 2pm. An hour before your next class, which you point out to your boss, but he's insisting you "drink anyway, it will be fine." I can't see that happening in Japan...
It’s the same in Japan. Alcohol is the avenue through which people release all their pent up steam. I’ve watched coworkers slap their bosses while drinking and the next day all is forgiven…
Oh, that's wild! I guess they aren't so different, then.
One of my favourite pieces of yours yet. Bravo!
Thanks Simon. Looking forward to hearing the podcast!
Great article, Shiv! Thanks for recommending Joan’s work a while back—I’ve been reading her ever since, including the article you quoted, which I found endearingly honest.
Twenty years of living in Japan is some serious training ground for learning to accept what is or not accept what is.
I can relate in different contexts but a similar one very soon. I am going to get my Japanese license early next year.
“In a world that is perpetually pressuring you to conform to its expectations, simply being oneself is the greatest act of rebellion.” A new take on rebellion. Thank you.
Twenty years of living in Japan is some serious training ground for learning to be with what is, or not.
I can relate in different contexts but a similar one very soon. I am going to get my Japanese license early next year.
“In a world that is perpetually pressuring you to conform to its expectations, simply being oneself is the greatest act of rebellion.” A new take on rebellion. Thank you.
Sooner or later the guru floating on thin air, falls to earth in a yard-sale type crash. Those surrounding him (or her) either try to pick him, and the pieces of the illusion, back up, denying the fall entirely, or turn their backs and run, calling him a fake. The idea of having overcome the vagaries of life walks hand in hand with the fall from grace. I used to think so many things ... all of them wrong. We all just doing the best we can, working with what we've got. One man's fake is another man's Jesus. It's so much easier to simply be as we are.
For a long time and even now, I have struggled with this perspective: "For, this is all we are here to do. To exist. To be. That’s it."
In some ways, it's a memetic virus from inner space.
In other ways, I feel like the pursuit of this equanimous acceptance of whatever situationship is going on, whatever collaborations we're engaged in with other living beings, whether it be having our license application denied (for my part, I had to understand Spanish spoken to me to get my drivers' license. I did get it, but only after my partner yelled at the guy "he's deaf, you expect him to _hear_ you?), rushing through traffic on a single-speed bike, getting milk from the corner.
But at this point, living life unfiltered. What then? What next? What to do with that?
I struggle with it because sometimes it feels like these human collaborations, these interactions, situationships, neutral chaos agents, it seems like being alive is just caroming off each other in the pinball game that is our late-stage capitalist spirituality, where even our so-called tools and smart devices entrap our attention.
That's it. That's existence.
But does it have to be that way? Can't we change it? Imagine new futures. Only haunt the shadows of the soul? Or can we stand in the sunlight of these four dimensions and dare to change the world? That's work.
To exist. To be. That's living. Is it gonna pay the rent? Is it gonna change the world? Does it change the world when you change how you see it? Of course, my friend would say, "just tell someone about it. Inspire them as it inspired you."
Admiral Ackbar exclaims, "It's a trap!"
Peter - perceiving life as it is does not in any way imply that one assumes what it will be in the next moment. Take my DMV example. When I was first stonewalled by the agent, I accepted my lot and left the building. But the spontaneous urge to do something about it arose out of nowhere and spurred me to yell the guy’s head off.
Yes, we are here to simply exist. But simply existing has nothing to do with being inactive. Fighting a war, winning a marathon, protesting an injustice, saving a life - these are all forms of existing.
The point here is not whether one should surrender all motivation to act. But rather, when one’s actions are not being contrived by the prejudice of one’s own expectations then one is free to act authentically.
« …when one’s actions are not being contrived by the prejudice of one’s own expectations then one is free to act authentically. ». I have absolutely lived under the kosh of my own (aka family-conditioned) expectations and it is crippling, fruitless and fucking exhausting. There’s something weirdly synchronous about this article as I’d just this morning seen to lay off editing myself and just surf right now. Stuff will still get done presumably but it won’t have the whole ‘how am I doing?’ analysis along with it; or it will and then I’ll remember this thread. Thanks, Shiv.
Essentially, stop reacting, start acting.
That's the thing though, the memetic brainworm is like, just do, don't look to the results, just do your do. Whatever happens, will happen regardless of whatever input you put into it.
Yes, I understood that just being isn't about being passive or not acting, but the trap is that people start sitting, staring at the wall (in Zen), or just sitting with their eyes closed, expecting something magical to happen beyond observing themselves.
There we are, sitting. There we are, doing. There we are, being. It's a nice way to pass time, but that's the only thing passing. There we are, hastening to our ends.
That's why I struggle with this "just be" because it promises some kind of freedom from life, but as you note, life doesn't let up its grasp on us.
I used to meditate, thinking that I would get inspiration from sitting, that I would suddenly imagine solutions to the barriers that faced me. All I got was a stronger back, a stronger ability to focus with one-pointed attention on what I was doing. Maybe that was the ADHD reinforcing itself into hyperfocus.
"Just be. This is all that there is."
Where's the spiritual deparasite pill for that? lol
Yeah, I still struggle between that demotivation to act on my goals, because what's the point, and acting on my goals, because I want to build something that will live forever, long after I pass.
Sitting in meditation, I think, what's the point. Riding at speed in traffic, I think, this is living! Both use the same process of just doing, without the meta-analysis of the mind telling me what it is that is happening. In traffic, I can't have that extra layer of perception, in meditation, I can't have that extra layer of perception either. That level of perception is for the shower, for washing the dishes.
Thanks for your response, Shiv. Much appreciated, as ever.
I struggle with this, too. Plus, there was never an issue "just sitting" or "just be-ing" until spiritual culture came along and promised an escape from "just be-ing angry or sad or suffering" if you "just sit" in a particular way.
Maybe the challenge is to bring that full engagement into sitting? Maybe noticing the meta-analysis is the point? Noticing the dialogue and chronic grasping towards something whenever we're not fully engaged, as with driving and other tasks. A dialogue and grasping that was inflamed BY the initial promises of the practice, but, whatever...
Maybe the enlightened "masters" who come up with this shit purposely meant to wear out that aspect of our mind by giving us all kinds of golden promises to chase. What if the brainworm was intentional? But after a few centuries of religion, it all becomes "Truth" rather than the game of tail-chasing it was meant to be..?
Obviously, I have no idea. But I, too, feel compelled to sit in meditation while thinking "what's the point?"
In Sahaj Marg, where I learned to meditate, there was a concept called "constant remembrance," which means to bring the absorption during meditation into daily life. Therefore, you no longer need to sit to receive that transmission. The flow is constant, all through your daily activities, through your sittings, through your bickering and conflicts. Just have to turn your minds' eye to your heart to see the effulgence within, that centers you in your actionless action. So yeah, the pointers point to that, but without awareness of that effulgence, people just make their characteristics stronger through their increased focus. So, a criminal becomes a better criminal, etc.
Good story. I avoid listening spira, but when I have to I find myself falling over from boredom, exhaustion, who knows what. Same feeling I get when listening to someone who I know is... Lying.
I enjoy watching his act. An audience member poses a question, Spira, sitting on a sparse stage just above the audience, with a table next to him and usually with a glass of water and flower, takes in the question, pauses for a length of time as if tapping into something from a much higher plane than the audience member can tap into and follows up with an answer that for the life of me boggles the mind.