The following questions and answers have all been fished directly from the Thought Pool and typed out while they were still wet and flapping about. The question will likely arise, 'Who is asking the questions? Who is answering?' A very good question! As usual, when we really look closely into it, we have no idea who is doing either.
Q: If you are not anyone, then how come your posts keep appearing on Facebook next to the name Swifty Flame-Anderson?
A: The Powers That Be at Facebook seem to have a strict policy of refusing to create accounts for non-entities. So one has to be conjured up temporarily to accord with the system. All 'accounts' (stories) are of the same nature. It didn't begin with Facebook. When anyone is asked 'Who are you?' or similar questions - what happens is that thought just churns out a few expected phrases to fit in with the current accepted system of self-definition.
Currently, most societies seem to have much the same policy as Facebook.
Name's not down, you're not coming in.
Q: So you are a fake! A phoney!
A: Yes! A total fraud. :-)
Q: Don't you feel ashamed?
A: How can I? Not really here, remember?
Q: So effectively, with no labels and definitions, there is no you?
A: Just throw away all the labels and definitions and notice what happens.
Q: So why don't you just post quotes with no name next to them?
A: Well, then people just start asking 'who said that?' etc. and sometimes they start arguing about who said it and when and whether the spelling is right and blah de blah and before you know it a religious war has started.
Q: What did the small motorcycle do when he was feeling down?
A: Moped.
Q: Aren't you just in denial? Trying to avoid the pain of life by pretending it isn't there or isn't real?
A: Aren't you just in assumption? Trying to wallow in the pain and pleasure of life by pretending that it is actually there and that it is real?
Both of these possible assumptions about 'who I am' or 'where I am' or 'what I am doing' etc. will just alternate like any other thought wave.
Sometimes a movie seems interesting and compelling. Sometimes it doesn't. Tide goes out. Tide comes in.
Q: It is that time of year again. New Year's resolutions. Get fit. Lose weight. Make all my relationships better. Start some big old project that will save the world and make me happy once and for all.
A: Mmm hmmm?
Q: Well that's just it. If I am being honest about it, I quite often can't even be bothered to clean my teeth regularly enough or tidy the house. Of course on an intellectual level I know it would probably be a good idea to do those things, but still, I just don't. My mum used to drill it into me every day and now every six months the dentist reminds me and of course I fully agree with them. But still it doesn't happen.
A: OK.
Q: So what chance is there, realistically, of accomplishing any major task like getting fit. Of course every year it comes round and every year it never happens.
A: So far, perhaps. OK.
Q: Why do you just keep saying OK?
A: You seem to be doing OK on your own so far without me. Do carry on.
Q: So if I am not in control, who the hell is?
A: I've no idea. But the evidence does seem to suggest that it is not 'you', or at least not that part of 'you' that thinks that doing these things would be a good idea. So that fellow is off the hook. He can relax and take a breather.
Q: How will that help?
A: No idea. Maybe it won't. But the 'trying' clearly doesn't help, as you have described, so may as well take another tack.
Q: But that would be a disaster, things would just get worse and worse.
A: Would they? What reason is there to suspect that? You have described how the effort of will pretty much makes no difference at all, and so it would be reasonable to assume that suspending that effort of will is not going to make any difference either. But no need to take my word for it, just give it a try for a few weeks and watch what happens. And do feel free to waddle back over here and shout at me in a drunken rage if you do indeed go completely of the rails. You will probably need someone to blame and are welcome to use me.
Q: But what you are suggesting is like giving up!
A: Like giving up something that you have admitted has never had any real effect, yes.
Q: But I will just become like a vegetable.
A: Maybe, but perhaps not. Consider a small child. Unless the child has one or more of those parents that can politely be referred to as 'pushy' (and impolitely referred to as Big Smelly Joseph Stalins), they will not be setting any to do lists or New Year's resolutions, and yet the child does not become a vegetable and sit around doing nothing at all. Quite the contrary. Most children are far more creative and free than adults who are labouring under the weight of a hundred shoulds and musts.
Fair enough, they sometimes don't want to clean their teeth either, but at least they tend to do it without much fuss when mum or dad reminds them.
Anyway, why not just give it a try and see. Nothing to lose, really, is there? You can always go back to the ineffective effort of will after a couple of weeks if things seem to be going in a direction you don't like.
Q: But there will be no purpose, no sense of direction.
A: Like a magical mystery tour! Groooovy, baby!
Q: So are you happy with your life?
A: Life isn't owned.
Q: I mean you, this body and all it has been through and accomplished. Does it make you happy?
A: Happiness isn't made.
Q: You are just avoiding the question!
A: You are just avoiding the answers. Shall we call it quits?
Q: I give up.
A: Ah! Welcome home.
Q: My friend told me that it is pointless to search for happiness without, as it cannot be found there.
A: Indeed?
Q: She said that one must search within.
A: Ha ha! Did she? OK. How are you getting on with that?
Q: Well, I have had some success. There are glimpses of what one might call oneness or love.
A: But were there not the same glimpses when you were searching 'without'? That wonderful night with you know who or the day your child was born .....
Q: Yes, I suppose there were. What are you getting at?
A: Well, perhaps it should be considered that happiness cannot be found either without or within. Perhaps the whole finding thing is a giknockerpod red herring. Maybe it is the searching and the drawing of this imaginary boundary between within and without that is continually preventing effortless, instant happiness.
Just a possibility, you know. Do feel free to carry on with the searching if carrying on with the searching happens to continue happening.
Q: Why is it that you always refuse to take credit for anything? Isn't this just a cop-out? Denying all responsibility? Isn't that just an easy way out?
A: Who is available to either take or not take anything? Where are these things that can be either taken or not taken? There is an interesting theme here, particularly in the light of the wordly phenomenon commonly referred to as 'The Credit Crunch'. The ideas 'giving credit' and 'taking credit' are both founded on an assumption of personal ownership, and therefore of there being at least two or more separate 'persons', each of which is capable of owning, taking and giving parts of an existence. The person idea has its foundation in the assumption 'this bit of the existence is me and the rest is not me'. Once that assumption is in place, it tends to bring with it the assumption 'if this part of the existence is me, then other parts of the existence must belong to others who are a bit like me, but separate'.
Now transpose those assumptions onto a monetary economy and there arises the whole illusion of separately owned bank accounts, haves and have nots, and a scarcity or abundance of monetary 'credit' for any particular separate entity.
Just like the separate person assumption, it is all just an elaborate fraud, a fallacy. If either the 'I am' assumption or the 'I own' assumption are looked into closely, their fraudulent nature becomes readily apparent, and the whole assumption house of cards just collapses.
Then there is no question of whether this is an 'easy way out', as it is obvious that no-one has ever been 'in'. The ideas 'in' and 'out' have no meaning in the absense of the 'me-not me' separation. Just like the classic Zen koan - the goose was never really in the bottle in the first place.
Q: I have been told that the Law of Attraction means I can create any world I want for myself, a life of wonder and luxury.
A: The Law of Attraction is just another name for the continual denial of part of an existence. It is certainly possible for there to arise a pretense that only the 'good' half of existence is happening. Any partial pretense is possible. But it will always be just a pretense. It is considerably more difficult for that particular pretense to arise if focus is centred in the middle of a refugee camp in which screaming mothers lament their dying children every hour of every day, and easier if focus is centred in a luxury apartment overlooking a golden beach. Either way, the pretense is just created by narrow focus and identification in time-space, while ignoring the rest of existence. The Totality is always in neutral balance.
Q: You seem to contradict yourself all the time.
A: While there remains the notion that there is a 'self' that is responsible for directing whatever speech or writing happens to emerge, then it may seem so. But without that notion, it is rather like saying trees contradict potatoes, or elephants contradict mountains. Each of these things is just a free expression. None of them are either 'right' or 'wrong' and there isn't anyone keeping track of whether they are consistent or not consistent. Whatever comes out comes out and that is that. There is no need to inspect one turd to make sure it is consistent with the turd that emerged 3 days ago.
Q: So there are no separate individuals?
A: That question answers itself. The word 'individual' means one, not dividable.
Q: What do you think about gun control?
A: Like all politics, it is a very amusing farce. No-one has ever been in control of anything. No-one ever will be.
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