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The Simple Truth

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Created: 2008-10-01 23:41:14

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I must have the prologue to these words, that what follows is a rather short and special talk, in my view neither good nor bad, and what matters here are not the words that are uttered, but rather our common state of mind, that of the listeners and of the speaker.
I am not going to tell you a bit of anything you don't already know, and there is no use listening to the talk as though there will be an admeasure of facts. The best way is to take it as a monologue of a single soul, not to listen to it as if someone is talking. In a harmonious group of people the walls tend to fall down. There is such a nearness between people when nothing separates, and then the one that talks can as well be a voice in the mind of anyone. If this talk bears any significance, it is the significance of the small and the natural, which we don't always notice. Perhaps it is this small and natural, which becomes the greatest mystery in life, if noticed.
I want to start with a strange statement by the Chinese Chan-Master Huang Po. When he was asked about the nature of Buddha, which by them denotes the enlightened mind, a title used for the enlightened ones, he gave the simple answer; "Buddha is the ordinary mind". It may seem strange to most of us that the enlightened mind is this ordinary mind of man, which he constantly enjoys. But this is what the great Chan-Master, Huang-Po said, about eleven centuries ago.
An enlightened mind, a state of mind which is beyond war and strive, a state which is no particular state, but simply to be, not only oneself but maybe first and foremost everything and nothing, is perhaps that which one can best approach with the word truth.
In this contemplation - for this is contemplation - let's first look at what is truth, or rather how we can approach that which is contained in the word truth. Truth cannot be put in words. This is one of the greatest misunderstanding in human life. It cannot be put in words, any more than the wind can be caught in a net. Truth is only in life. Truth cannot be told, one can't even speak truthfully. When we say that we are telling the truth, we are speaking as little lie as can be done with words. The truth is also not of the nature that it can be discovered once and for all. It's not possible to discover the truth at eight in the morning, for that day and ever after. It has to remain a steady ongoing discovery, a continuos experience, not only that day, but the coming days and every days to come. You have to live it, to be it, to have clear awareness of it moment by moment, so that there is never a break. It is not complicated but always simple, usually, or perhaps always, too simple for us to notice, who are so accustomed to sophisticated thinking. It is not a doctrine, it is an ever ongoing discovery. Or as the Nobel price winner Halldor Laxness said better than anyone else that I know, about the truth, many years ago in a book; "You won't find truth in books, not even in good books, but only in people with a righteous heart."
Why then this talk about truth over and again, if it does not fit into words? Words are wonderful phenomenon, but we sometimes claim a different role from them than they are meant to do. We can talk of everything between heaven and earth to a great help. In fact a conversation - to be able to talk together - is often the only way out of the difficulties of life. Often the only thing to do is to talk about the problems, and then there are no problems any more. Such communication is needed for good results because of the psychological constitution of the humanity today.
We have to recognize both the significance and the limitations of words, the limitations of talking together. Speech is for example a certain kind of conversation. The limitations are that talk never refers directly to that which it is actually about. We are here investigating the possibility of communicating through words. This is a second order meditation, where the potentialities of human consciousness are under consideration. You can for example say red, and then there is a reference to investigating something that is red. The flower is red, and there is a red color when I point to it, but there is nothing red in saying red. Words are never anything but pointing to an experience. The experience itself is never anything but direct living awareness. The significance of words, on the other hand, is very simple, straightforward and important. They are a bridge of communication between souls, and not only so because of their concrete meaning alone. Words need to contain strict meaning and limited content, but they also need to have rich emotional undertone. They should contain both mental purport and an emotional flow, and thirdly they should elicit presentiment, something always beyond words, some fragrance which doesn't fit into any boundaries and can in no way be collected. It must be only what it is, and manifest itself according to its nature. You can't describe the sunset for a man born blind, but you can make him feel the warmth of the sun on his cheek. Thus can we, which are spiritually half blinded, because we have been accustomed to view all experience trough words and concepts, also get a hint of the simple truth contained in being aware, this truth which is so simple, clear and natural that it cannot be explained in words, but is never the less here and now, because Buddha, the very enlightenment, is nothing but the ordinary mind of man.
When we speak of truth we mean of course that which indisputably is, and is not imagined in any way. And we don't need to reflect on it or theorize about it, because it can't be displayed in any way whatsoever, except in the naked experience alone. Because the truth is that which is, and nothing but that which is, it is always here and now and cannot be approached apart from the present moment, this hairbreadth of now which always is, if we care to notice. There will be no truth if we mean to seek for it tomorrow. Moreover there will be no truth at all if we only mean to seek for it, although we use that expression, for to mean to do something is not the same as being something.
There must be an unconditional relationship between you and the truth, totally unconditional here and now, not even a word or an idea between you and it. But because our working mode of mind is bewildered and twisted by incessant use of words and concepts, a certain adroitness is needed to find the truth. And then this discovery of the truth is neither easy nor difficult. It is only a natural thing, something so natural, that some start laughing, some start crying, some are filled up with an ecstasy and some wonder how they could overlook this simplest and most natural of all things, which never had abandoned them from the day they first remembered themselves.
The simple truth must cover everything, but it is meaningless to exclaim that it is everything. That may well be a great truth, but to say that something is everything has no meaning. In such circumstances one may as well drop the words and take up the way of the Buddha, which showed forth a flower when asked about the truth. That is why we have to take a little sideway to find it. The sideway is not made for the truth, it never needs any sideways. The sideway is for you. Everything we call a way to the inner, higher experience is always a sideway, and this tiny sideway, which should be minimal, but which is necessary and natural, is unavoidable, because we have to loose sight for a moment of what we look at, in order to see what it is. Probably you don't notice something that has been before your eyes all your life, something which never has changed and always has been the same. At least you don't see its value unless you loose sight of it for a moment. When it again reappears in the field of your vision you probably discover, all of a sudden, what it is.
Let's therefore join hands together, each one in his own conscious activity, and trace out what we are. I don't speak of each ones awareness, for the awareness is one. This is not so difficult. If there is something preventing you in this observation it is because you find it so unimportant and straightforward that you need not take notice. When we analyze ourselves, we find that we are such a strangely simple and uncomplicated thing. We can analyze the body and find a number of elements, but we will never get to the man by that. But each individual can analyze his own conscious activity and find actually how few the actors are. Let's begin with the senses and go really slowly about it. You must not think that I am going to tell some wisdom, because wisdom prevents us from getting to it. You should not even have the idea that I am talking, rather pretend that you are thinking.
The senses, what are they? Now I will use the infinitive, to see, f.ex. a glass, to hear, f.ex. the voice of the speaker, to touch, and also if there is something to smell or to taste, but that is insignificant in this context. From these three main attributes, three main modes of cognition or modes of experiencing, the whole of our outer existence is made. And I am almost convinced that the mystery of the life is the same in them all and that it can emerge everywhere. Besides this, there is an inner activity, also utterly simple, which we can analyze in order to know what we are. What is meant by the Chan doctrine when talking about the Buddha being the ordinary mind? We have f. ex. thoughts and emotions which can be very varied, just as what is heard and seen can be extremely varied. But the act, to see, to hear, to feel, that which we are when we are aware, is by itself very simple phenomenon. And now I want you to pay attention to this difference between the thing that you see and the act to see, and transfer it to all the other sensations and inner activity. If we now look at all these faculties separately and all together, we see before us almost all the actors of the human life. The various components, the senses and the inner faculties, thoughts, feelings, desires etc. can have various names, but in reality it is always the same thing. And it is possible to be aware of it all at the same time. If you practiced certain forms of yoga, Mahamudra in particular, you would be taught to be aware of it all at once, so that all the actors and components of the human life would be in the light of the awareness at the same time.
And now I would like to ask one question, for you and for me. Is it possible to analyze these faculties of consciousness still further, without theorizing, just look at them momentarily while they work in us, for that is what matters? Yes, it is possible, and in fact very easy. And as I am the one that is speaking and you are listening, I can't but mention what you probably have noticed yourself, if you have looked at these faculties one by one and then all together. You simply notice that there is only one nature in all these sense functions. It is like the same liquid in different containers or the same water flowing in different courses. In it all there is the mysterious phenomenon of being aware. To see, to hear, to feel, to think, in it all there is the same awareness. We have to name it because we have to use words for conversations. It is the same awareness in all our sense-perceptions. You can play with listening to the sound of a brook and at the same time to awaken thought or emotion in the mind and you will see that exactly the same awareness is in them all. Only the form that the awareness takes is different.
And now we are going into such simple and natural things, that we usually don't look at them, take no notice of them, and give them none of our attention. Not that we don't know them, we do perfectly, but we overlook their importance. If we now take the awareness once again - this act to be aware, which is included in all thinkable acts of the consciousness - and analyze it a little further, we notice that also it has some characteristics, which can be somewhat described, although the description is not that which matters, but that which we are trying to describe.
In awareness there is something which can be described with two concepts. The awareness of existence, and the awareness of being aware. Now, let's take a glass of water and look at it. By seeing the glass there is certainly an awareness of existing, to be, and also an awareness of being aware of this. This is one and the same thing, although I have to describe the same phenomenon in two ways. We are only describing the same thing from two sides. And this is where we can go with concepts. The awareness of existence and the awareness of being aware.
It is not certain that we see at once the significance of keeping solely to this experience, in stead of thinking about what we see, but not the act to see, what we love, but not the feeling of love, that which we think about, and not the act of thinking. And when you have finally found the awareness and realized its existence, it is not certain that you recognize the importance of only being aware and keeping to it by itself. But exactly this, to be able to be this awareness alone, perhaps constantly, or at least for some periods at time, which is always already on the surface of our consciousness, contains in itself an endless and immense importance. Try to be only that to be, and be aware of being aware for one hour each day, and after the first hour being this only, if you can do it, you will be totally changed human beings. No elixir of life is more powerful than this. No Lapis Philosophorum is mightier than this, because by this way the change is brought about once and for all.
This is the simplest of the simplest, and most natural of all in the human life, for this is the truth itself, the simple truth of life, which everyone contains in his consciousness from birth to death, and which no one can escape to be aware of, but which only very few heed or give significance to. This feeling has never abandoned you, because if it did, you would cease to exist. It is that which makes you exist instead of not exist, and it is unchanged and untouched from birth to death, for it is life itself. It is this simple feeling that never leaves you and you can't get rid of, even if you wanted. And if you can endure to be only this be-ness, moment by moment, in your daily life - to repeat with slightly different words what I said before - then you are always at the door of enlightenment.
All Yoga, all mystical training, is nothing but a tiny little sideway to find this most natural thing, which you noticed first of all when you woke up, whenever that was, or however you want to imagine such things. Moreover it is this, which you take with you into the moment of death in the end. Actually it is so powerful, that even in the moment of death you can't get rid of it. You are still it, as before. An old Zen-master in Japan sent to his dying friend the following message - there are many versions, but one is like this: "My friend, the center of the consciousness in neither born, nor can it die. Take refuge in it, and there will be no death."
We can use many words about that which we are talking about here. But the error that we have always done, which changes the heaven of existence - for that is what the existence really is - into a place of torment - needlessly - is to attach the attention first and foremost to the things, the objects of the perception, not to trace oneself back from the sense objects, through the senses, into the awareness, and from there to the simple feeling of being. For this feeling of being, which is everywhere, and you have not been able to get rid of, even if you have wanted to, is the very enlightenment itself. It is not changed in the enlightenment. What changes is only that this to be and to be aware - or whatever we must call it to be able to describe that which can't be put into words - acquires a significance which it did not have before.
I have not told you a single thing that you didn't already know. I have only helped you a little to think about something, to observe and pay attention to something which you always knew. But when the Zen-Buddhist says; "let go", he means that you should drop everything but this, and when Krishnamurti says; "surrender to what is", then you should surrender to this very feeling. When the Indo-Tibetan master Tilopa says; "keep your mind in a natural state", he means exactly this, and when Patanjali speaks about man being aware of what he really is, it also is this he is talking about. And when our late president, N. Sri Ram speaks about man being nothing in himself, this is also what he means.
For the tiny little sideway is nothing but this, to untie the knots and attachments of the consciousness, which we have been entangling and tying all our life, and let that which we really always are, and which we always feel the most of all, to emerge freely.
Thank you.
PS.
This is a talk by late Sigvaldi Hjalmarsson, written down almost exactly from a tape which was recorded in Akureyri sometimes back in 1974 or '75. It has not been printed until now, but will be published in the autumn issue of Gangleri this year (1993).
The talk is one of the best in a series of what may be called the mystical era of S.H. Later on he went further into the esoteric and tantric way of yoga, but always keeping the mystical element intact in his expositions of the Way.
This talk can and should be used as a meditation text in a group of dedicated students. Reading it loud for the group several times at some intervals will only deepen the mystical influence each time, if notice is taken of the way to listen, indicated in the talk itself.
S.H. came into the T.S. in Iceland at a young age and put his life to it until the passing away on the 17th. of April 1985. He was the General Secretary of the Icelandic section for more than two decades, in which time the membership rose to over 600 from a total population of less than a quarter of a million. He was considered an exceptional lecturer and a great mystic by those who knew him.

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