Dear Pogue,

I have not written for a few days as I have been allowing my curiosity free rein this week, and who could blame me? Here in lockdown I need to find some room for exploration. My curiosity has moved out from the last two posts I wrote and was seen to have a tinge of Zen about it when it set forth. You know me, seated before the smorgasbord of world religion and philosophical beliefs, I am never going to come away with just one flavour on my plate.

Remember how I told you in the last letter that Shibumi, like enlightenment, was not something that we could learn but rather it was something that we became, a becoming of the thing we were always intended to be. Well, this weeks reading has spoken of the simple truth that we are all from God, from Source, the Universe and as such we are all at one with the same. This can all become overly complicated if one isn’t careful. Remember that someone once said that if you cannot teach your subject so that a child will understand then you really don’t understand your subject as well as you think you do. Everything is about simplicity.

So I’ve read from the Bible, the Tao De Ching, the Gita, various Zen texts and in each I’m finding the same truth about the being of God, that this is the source of our being. I’ve even read some science where everything is described as energy, the whole Universe is energy in one state or another. You and I are energy. We come from the same stuff (I love that most scientific of terms, stuff). And if in the beginning there was only God or Source, where did we come from? What is it the Bible declares? “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God”. That’s it. Nothing else but God. No extra material to create from, nada. So where did we come from if not from God?

The Taoist Master wrote in the Chuang Tzu: “Heaven and earth were born at the same time I was, and the ten thousand things are one with me”. In Hindu teaching it is said that everything comes from different parts of the Lord Brahma’s body who himself is part of the Supreme One.

So there appears to be a consensus among thinkers that there is a single source that gives rise to all and is the origin of all being. I know that this leads to many questions in a healthy enquiring mind such as yours, the normal ones being about good and evil or how people can choose to not believe in God. But shelve those for a while. We may revisit them.

My thoughts originate from our last post on Shibumi and the idea that it is not a learnt quality but something that we can become, as I said, like enlightenment. Allow me to recall my thoughts for a moment. Enlightenment is a surrendering of what or who we perceive ourselves to be, of ego, to become all that we can be which is infinitely more. Why? Well, as I see it, it is a returning to our truest state of being. It’s trying, and trying is the wrong word, to become one with God. Trying is wrong because we can’t try to be one with God. Not possible. But we can surrender all and become one, allowing ourselves to recognise our truest essence, the source of our origin.

And some would say “why would I give up being me? Why would I lose my identity? My rights?” Whatever.

Sometimes surrender means giving up from trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing.

Elkhart Tolle

But the truth is you do not lose anything of value or worth but, rather, gain everything of value. It is a “what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul” scenario, to use imagery you are comfortable with.

So once again we would want to say that it is all about becoming. Remember, Shibumi was something that we became. And as we surrender the things we are, our rights to voice or opinion for example, we begin to create space for that which, in the last post, we described as eloquent silence. A voice that has clarity without words.

You do not lose your identity but rather regain it, as you have already traded it once at the point you assumed individuality. The day you choose to identify with a name, to declare “I” or “me” or “mine”. The day you declared you were something other than one with Source and you tasted independence, striking off into life insisting on your rights and your entitlements. In that day you began to forget your true identity as a spiritual being and started to strive to be something else.

I think Shibumi, or enlightenment, will only truly commence with a re-identifying, a remembering of where we have come from. More, a realisation of who or what we truly are, of the same stuff as God, because that’s where we came from and as such, should seek to return there. People talk about Heaven, Nirvana, Paradise but would the return not take us exactly there?

Surrender is not a weakness it is a strength. It takes tremendous strength to surrender life to the supreme – to the cosmic unfolding.

Mooji

That’s where I’m at. I’m thinking that the truth is not about what we must become, not what we must possess or experience but is actually about what we need to give up. Basically, we’re heading in the wrong direction as we seek fulfilment, that we’ve been lied to when we were told that we needed this or that to find satisfaction. Then when we got it the experience was short lived.

Does that have any truth to it? Do you feel any of this resonating with your thoughts? Let’s leave things there and return to this theme when we’ve had time to consider it more.

Yours, listening for eloquent silence,

Wic