The Citadel

 

Within every living creature in the Universe there is a Citadel. And in every living creature this Citadel is surrounded by an ancient and vast city swarming with layers of commerce and political expediency. In most every living creature there is no silence in the Citadel before the insistent cacophony of the city's rhythms.

The Universe has, over a period of millions of years of trial and error, come up with an organism in which the Citadel can come to its senses as it were, and rule the city.  

It is the gift of Silence,

The Lost Powers of Intuition

 

All knowledge is the product of intuition, but intuition is the fruit of Awareness and knowledge is a product of mind.

The intuitive "knowing" proper to any creature subject to awareness is in humanity subject to layers of knowledge. The obvious advantages of culture ask and in fact demand subordination of intuition to the disciplines of knowledge. The intuitive spontaneity found in children and other animals is gradually buried under a progressive burden of cultural norms and expectations to the point that for most specimens of humanity access to intuition is effectively cut off, and in leu of intuitively making one's way through life, one's life proceeds by juggling mental artifacts. These mental artifacts include such niceties as atom bombs and political parties (the benefits of civilization not withstanding).

At any rate the presence of being found in religious figures of historical note is the immediate side effect of a life founded in the cultivation of Awareness, and the restoration of mankind's native powers of intuition is a natural result of the practice of meditation.

The Weight

 

Much of the advice concerning "inner balance" is of the nature of counter-balance: cultivate pleasant memories etc. This must work for most people because this sort of thing gets a lot of ink. However that may be, it seems to me that this is a compensation that adds to the total weight one carries down the path of life.  One is unbalanced due to an unpleasant weight carried in ones right hand, so one puts a counter balancing pleasant weight in ones left hand. Some balance is achieved at the price of burden. 

The mind has formed these burdens in response to the vicissitudes and residues of existence. The ultimate nature of our existence is not the mind. The ultimate nature of our existence is Pristine Awareness. When we achieve that seismic change of identity from mechanically accepting ourselves as the waves to realizing ourselves as the water, we no longer are the tool of the mind.

It is profound relaxation. This "profound relaxation" can not be achieved by effort. Profound relaxation is discovered as the natural state of Pristine Awareness: the essence of all life. The weights that we carry are usually valid, real, visceral (I speak as a combat veteran on the wrong side). It is not about covering up or somehow compensating for the dark side of our humanity. It is about becoming a different kind of creature: a creature truly awake in the fabric of existence.

The waves are the water. When the water is awake the disturbances that are the stuff of the colorful surface of life will come and go. These agitations great and small are the stuff life feeds upon and by them the Universe finds its Self informed. The water of Awareness is enriched thereby.

Simply direct the mind to the contemplation of awareness. There is no effort in awareness for Awareness is simply aware. This practice will lead to unsuspected realms of Self discovery in anyone who will make a sincere commitment.