The Simplicity of Wisdom

Content

1. Introduction 

1. Conscious Living 

2. Decision

3. Intention

4. Fundamental Goodness

2. Investigation of Thoughts and Reality

5. Thoughts and Reality 

6. Thoughts are not the reality 

7. The Conceptualisation of reality

8. Thinking is a bodily function 

9. Thoughts create the thinker

10. The Identity of the Thinker, the Personal Self 

11. We are not what we think

3. The Art of Questioning 

12. The Questions (The Young Mind)

13. Who ask?

14. The Young Mind

4. Evolve or suffer

15. Suffering Is the Beginning of a Creative and Deep Understanding of Life

16. Suffering Is a Thought and It Is Not a Reality

17. Investigate Suffering

18. Suffering Is Not Pain

19. Suffering Is Not Personal 

20. The Addiction to Suffering

21. The Neuronal Loop

22. The End of Suffering 

5. Understanding (Mind Training)

23. The Training of the Mind

24. Searching Implies the Lack

25. The Search Implies Time

26. All is Always Now

27. 3D - Discipline, Duality and Drama

28. Thinking Is One Thing, Being Conscious Is Something Completely Different

29. To Be Conscious Is Not to Think Positive

30. Thoughts Focus the Emotions, and Their Respective Feelings Create Reality

31. The Creative and Conscious Process of the Creation of Our Reality

32. How Can We Create Reality Within Ourselves? 

33. Accepting the Subconscious and Unconscious

34. Acceptance of What Is, Is the Beginning of Peace

35. Resistance Is Futile

36. Who Resists?

37. What or Who Are We Resisting?

38. We Have No Control

39. Life Is in Charge

6. Witness Life

40. Everything Is Perfect Just as It Is

41. Attention Is Life

42. Re-Structuring Our Attention

43. Joy of Being 

44. Humility Makes Perfection Visible

45. Humility Leads to Freedom

7. The Four Pillars of Wisdom’s Simplicity

46. Surrender Is Not an Option

47. Gratitude Means Being Conscious

48. Serving Is the Conscious Connection With Life

49. Compassion Arises With the Understanding of Interconnectedness

50. Compassion Is Not Sharing Suffering

8. Stillness of the World

51. In Stillness, Our Search Comes to an End

52. What Is and Beingness

53. The Art of Witnessing

54. There Is No Peace in Condemnation

55. Flow. Change. Motion

56. The Eternal Moment

9. I Am

57. Who I Am? 

58. I Am

59. I Am Exercise

10. The Preparation

60. The Preparation 

61. The Path

11. The Contemplation of Life

62. Contemplation is the gateway to the real world

63. Two Levels of Contemplation

64. The Contemplation of Life

Introduction

"Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the "veils" which have to be dissolved in the mind." ~ Idries Shah [1]

Conscious Living

Living consciously and finding inner peace is not a question of believing in something, performing magical rituals, or having an ideal of a way of life. Much less is it a question of “good luck,” nor does it depend on positive or favorable circumstances. It is the result of our thinking, feelings, and actions.

Freeing ourselves from mental slavery and becoming truly conscious is a natural process in human development. Consisting in a chain of simple and practical steps that lead us to our authentic nature. Each of us, without exception, can learn these steps that put an end to suffering and teach us to live a conscious life. This is the path of wisdom. From the ancient times of Buddha [2], Lao-Tse [3], and Plotinus [4] to the present day, we find teachers, sages and spiritual masters in all cultures who impart the knowledge of how to connect with wisdom. This knowledge becomes known as the Perennial Wisdom or Perennial Philosophy [5].

They all came to the same conclusion: We must look within; there and only there will we discover what we are looking for. Once we have discovered it, we have to put knowledge into practice, because wisdom without action is like a garden without water. Living a conscious life is not an unattainable goal, not a theory, not a philosophy, not a religious belief, and certainly not a dogma. 

The point is that everyone has to prove for themselves, with their own experience, what is true and what is not. Buddha said, “Believe nothing, test yourself and make your own experience”. Wisdom cannot be passed on; the only thing that can be passed on is the path to it. Everyone has to walk the path on their own. The question is not what we can do to take the next step in our evolution, but what we are waiting for in order to put knowledge and wisdom into practice. This is the Simplicity of Wisdom.

The knowledge is there; we can practice it in any circumstance and in any situation. We don't need any preparation; Each of us must ask ourselves what we want in life: do we want to live in a kind world where wisdom guides us and beauty and goodness express themselves through us, or do we want to live in a hostile world where every day is a struggle for survival?

It is our decision. 

Decision

Everything begins with a decision.

Just as no one can breathe for us, no one can decide the life we want to live. Only we can decide to change our lives. When we make the decision to become conscious human beings, we are taking the first step on the path of wisdom.

We have take responsibility for our lives. As long as this does not happen, we live as victims of circumstances, depending on whether reality fits our desires or not. This is not a solid foundation for a fulfilled life; It is the best recipe for being unhappy.

Conscious living is not something we do when we have a little free time and a gap in our timetable. Nor is it something we take care of when life’s commitments allow it. If transforming our consciousness is just another check box on our to-do list, we have missed the point. We will not progress on the path of wisdom, and we will always find reasons to justify why we can’t be wise now.

We will continue to find reasons to justify our “right” to suffer, and from that viewpoint, we blame others for our drama. It is also not a decision that is made lightly because it seems like a good idea, and we have nothing better to do.

We must feel the inner need to end the vicious cycle of suffering; it is the anticipation of something beyond a life of struggle and trouble. Of course, this does not mean that we have to choose between wisdom and worldly life; it means that we should live life with the understanding of the wise.

Only when wisdom is the most important thing in our lives, do we develop the motivation to change our conditioning. Motivation gives us the inspiration we need for the creative process of transformation, and it generates the determination that drives us to overcome the obstacles and resistance we will encounter along the way.

Intention 

Intention is the force that rises directly from pure being, it is the one that gives the "magic breath" so that matter is born out of nothingness to become sentient and conscious life. Stones cannot become plants by their own will, just as plants cannot become animals, and animals cannot become human beings by their own will.

It is the intention that works in everything that gives life direction. 

The world is directed by the intention that generates cause and effect. 

Before every manifestation, there is the intention that makes evolution possible. Life unfolds within a certain order, and this order is the basic principle of all life. 

Pure Being - intention (decision) - cause - effect - reality. 

We can consciously "use" this principle in the process of transforming our consciousness; it is the awareness of the force that works within us. This has nothing to do with control (our favorite toy), but with the realization that we cannot do anything by ourselves. 

A part cannot be responsible for its own development. It is the cosmic intelligence that always acts through intention. It is this creative-self-organizing principle that acts. 

The same principle provides us, in the first nine months of our existence, with everything we need to become a complete human being. When we are born, this force does not say to us, "Now it's your turn; you're yourself", but it continues to act. This force is always in and with us. It is the one that breathes, that takes care of the vital functions of our body, that thinks, that acts, and that writes this book.

When we become aware of this fundamental fact, fear disappears, and suffering becomes learning. In our decision to walk the path of wisdom, we synchronize with intention. This reveals the creative potential, and in this way, we become creators of reality, i.e., the spontaneous expression of the creative power of life. In this way, our consciousness is transformed.

Fundamental Goodness of Life

Life is a process in constant motion, within a network of the permanent exchange of information, energy and light. The intention gives direction to the process.

The Fundamental Goodness provides the structure to ensure continuity of life. 

Life is about what works, not the other way around.

We can only become sick because there is health; we can only hate because there is love; and our brief existence can come to an end because we are alive now, and not the other way around.

Everything that moves away from this quality ceases to exist; that is why we find love, even in the most terrible places and circumstances. We are connected to the Fundamental Goodness of Life, so we desire peace and happiness and try to avoid pain and suffering. Becoming aware of this is the basis for a peaceful and fulfilling life.

As long as we continue to judge and condemn and seeing life from a negative perspective, we cannot develop wisdom.

When we look behind the appearances and go beyond the mind, the basic goodness that works in everything becomes visible.

When we enter the fields of stillness, we can feel it. In the direct contact with this fundamental structure of reality, we align ourselves with the force that sustains the whole cosmos.

This will reduce our attachment to our personal identity, and this is essential to cultivating the Simplicity of Wisdom.

Investigation of Thoughts and Reality

"What we think, we become." ~ Gautama Buddha

Thoughts and Reality

The cause of suffering is that we ignore reality and live in confusion, believing that thoughts are reality. To develop consciousness, it is necessary to understand the difference between thought and reality and the reciprocal influence between the two. 

Through the investigation of thoughts, this confusion is clarified and makes us see the erroneous treatment we have had with ourselves and with the world, by having been identified with our way of thinking. 

As long as we do not go beyond our mental projections about reality, we will lose our lives in constant struggles, and we will continue to be full of worries. 

When we understand this basic error, our true nature unfolds spontaneously, and we begin to use thoughts instead of being used by them.

Thoughts are not the reality

That what we think is not reality is something that deeply confuses us, since we act as if it were. Most of us are trapped in this confusion simply because we have not learned to distinguish. We have been educated for many things, but not for something as essential as distinguishing between reality and thoughts. 

Our society is built on this tremendous confusion, and this is why there is so much resistance to change. We are so hypnotized by our desires (thoughts of how reality should be) that we usually have no idea of the reality in which we live. We are literally lost in our thoughts. 

Thoughts are abstractions of reality, with the goal of simplifying multidimensional reality to a linear mental concept. This helps us to orient ourselves, and thus we can effectively handle practical matters, but when it comes to the experience, thoughts are useless.

For example, one thing is to say I love you, and something very different is to feel that love. We can make many conjectures about how love is, but we will only know what it is when it is experienced. The conflict lies in making thoughts a reality; the fact of thinking in itself is something real, but thoughts are only a creation of the mind. 

This mental creation will always be conditioned by the subjective structure of the mind. We reduce reality to mere thoughts and then try to fit it into our mental structures. This behavior is a form of violence towards oneself and the world. 

This interpretation of the facts gets in the way of life itself, and for this reason, we are almost constantly in conflict with reality. Another example, we go to war with the concept "my country". This is an abstract thought with no real substance, and yet it becomes more important than life itself. The concept "my country" becomes more important than the people who inhabit it; we get to kill each other for simple mental concepts, and this is the madness of our world. This is only an extreme example of declaring our thought's reality; on a smaller scale is the anger in the traffic jam when we are in a hurry, the bad feeling before an unexpected bill, the child that does not want to study, etc.