When we think of the Thanksgiving holiday maybe we think of turkey and dressing and pies and pilgrims. Maybe we think of historical traditions and sharing meals with Native Americans on a cold day when food was scarce. Maybe our minds have those mindful thoughts, but deeper down we have a connection to the formless that bubbles up into our form. The structure of life is a manifestation of eternal life. The formless takes form so the formless can know the formless through form. Take our families as an example. The "warm feelings" of "graciousness" and "thanksgiving" are really the formless manifesting as form as a result of how the "world works" for the human form. We have parents and siblings and extended families. The warm feelings of the season are really something that we sense from beyond form. We have "blood connections" to our families. This may seem like a physical, scientific fact of human procreation but on a deeper level it is a sharing of like energies that take the form of procreation.
Pointers to the formless: PARADOX
The mind attempts to go deeper and deeper looking for the indivisible root cause. It believes there is always a singular truth to any circumstance. It creates an absolute paradigm of "good" and "bad" so it can manipulate the next moment to bring only "good" and exclude the "bad." Seeking truth from this perspective will bring us to truth but it is an indirect path. We look through our electron microscopes to discover the indivisible and the root cause that we believe will allow us to predict every moment, but what we find is randomness. The indivisible doesn't exist. Cause and effect don't work. We even create concepts to describe what we can't understand like quantum and relativity. The indirect path brings us to paradox. The direct path is paradox. When we follow the pointers to truth, we find the end of our minds. Paradox takes us beyond our minds where truth can be experienced for what it IS. We can take the long way around the mountain by the path of the mind or take the shortcut through paradox.
The way of life
Life reveals contrast. Life brings us conflict. Life can be a struggle that we resist or an eternal life we live. We can flow with the river or be a rock eroded over time. Life is like our body when it is trying fight a virus, there is an internal struggle, a war really, that is taking place to bring harmony back to the body. The way of life is as it is so that consciousness can experience perceived separateness to know oneness. When we are presented with opportunities to flow with life we get to choose which path we will take. The path of resistance is struggle but eventually leads to surrender. Life can be a fire that burns away what is temporal, revealing what is eternal. The path of eternal life is living as a human form in harmony with life to enjoy the miracle of life. As eternal consciousness, we manifested as form to experience the formless.
Pointers to the formless: MEMORIES
Years ago I was flying an event as a test pilot evaluating and measuring the response of a new aircraft under adverse conditions. The aircraft was a F/A-18E/F Super Hornet (the Navy's newest fighter jet at the time) and the test was to simulate loosing an engine while launching off the aircraft carrier. As I slowed down in airspeed, loosing an engine was more difficult to control. On the last test point I couldn't control the aircraft anymore. The aircraft departed i.e. the aircraft rolled upside down and I wasn't in control. My starting altitude for the test maneuver was 2000 ft (pretty low). Upside down, out of control and that close to the water, my first instinct was to eject. A lot happened in just a few seconds. The details are pretty boring and technical (unless you are pilot). In the end I didn't eject but I did miss hitting the water by only a few feet. That was an extremely intense day sprinkled with moments of sheer terror. Almost crashing a jet is a pretty serious life event. Today many of the details of that day are a little foggy but the intensity of that moment is still with me.
Pointers to the formless: finding “ME”
Wonder why we like to dress up and go to costume parties? We like to pretend to be someone else. Pretending to be someone else is liberating. We have a sense of peace and freedom when we aren't trying to be ourself but instead get to be something else. We expend a tremendous amount of energy pretending to be "me." It takes a lot of work. We are constantly checking to see if the "me" we want to project is the "me" that others see. We seek confirmation and praise. We want to be noticed. We are very self-conscious. We believe the "self" is the "me" we think we are. Being "me" is so important, or is it?
alancetotheheart 