Does it not seem reasonable to you to affirm that whatever may be the ultimate reality, the truth, is not within the realm of human experience and knowledge and, hence, it is unreachable by thought? Being necessarily the product of limited sensory perception and the cognition that may arise from this perception, whatever thought refers to or tries to reach is always limited and, therefore, never the totality. Thought is like a body of water made up of six and a half billion bubbles each convinced of its own separate individuality based on knowledge, each suffering its own sorrows and fears, and all straining in different and conflicting ways to find a fairly exclusive way to a better state of consciousness.

Could these bubbles, one by one, turn themselves inside out as it were, thus emptying themselves of their own experience and craving and, in that very act realizing, not only the fragmentation of self-centered thought, but its extraordinary shallowness? What usually prevents us from challenging our submission to our own personal and cultural convictions is, of course, the feeling that there may be nothing beyond separation and thought-full self-projection. But is that true?

You may not know anything more than anybody else regarding these matters, but let us just say that if you are still reading this your discontent may be greater than the average. Not discontent in the sense of rebellion to the facts of the world and your own mental and social circumstances, but rather as a reluctance to accept any of the explanations and pseudo solutions given to human problems by different persons (including of course the one writing this) and different traditions . You have a strong sense that human life and life in general could not possibly be as absurdly broken up and as shallow as they seem. You feel that there might be something extraordinary beyond all this, but also have a clear understanding that whatever that may be, it is not something within the reach of thought or the imagination (which is but one of the tenants of thought). So, you live in this impasse, in this seemingly impossible circumstance in which action in the direction of social, psychological or spiritual development has been discarded. You are who you are and know better than to move away from it, but that very stance—the negation of becoming—constitutes a profound change in the mind; a change that brings about space and silence. And it is only from that space and silence that comes a profound understanding of human suffering as the outcome of conflictive separation and divergent, contradictory processes of personal and cultural becoming. The paradox of this breakthrough lies in that it emerges, not as a result of effort and merit, certainly not as the result of “better” thought, but at the point where striving for self-fulfillment in any direction is no ;onger an option. You no longer live in mental time, and yet life flows on. It is just your petty little life that has ended.

When you dare look deeply at yourself and at the way we live, you also come to the realization that what we personally know, want and do, who we are, also constitutes the particular modality of escape from our real situation, call it the human condition. And we all seem to escape through myriad fantasies of personal fulfillment more often than not taking place within greater but also particular schemes of tribal progress. For most people this critical look at actual personal and social reality, let alone divesting oneself radically of this mechanical drive to make one's circumstances and oneself better, is impossible simply because it seems that one would pay for it with one's identity and very existence. We are generally conditioned to think that without the competitive effort implicit in being right and moving ahead of others, the mind would come to ruin and life would become utterly meaningless. We hold on for dear life to our particular beliefs and ideals regardless of how impractical or patently false they might be. Again, identity is to a great extent commitment to one or more chosen forms of consensual secular or religious projects promising some form of self-realization. No one is anything in oneself, we only exist in reference to something else that can continue to be improved till death do us part, and sometimes beyond. Since the frame of reference of these causes or projects is social (we do not exist or strut in isolation), they are all deemed to be greater than oneself, and they all demand compliance with a long sequence of predetermined incremental steps to yield their reward.

When it comes to the consequences, it does not make any difference then how you define yourself and how you might define the “ultimate”purpose of your life. The acquisition of exceptional wealth and any of the many available forms of salvation, power and social status that anyone may struggle to achieve are all equally responsible for our general egotistical separation from one another, for the conflictive fragmentation of humanity along cultural lines, and for the endless conflict and suffering these two generate. Total awareness that our personal sense of separation with its built-in drive to find particular fulfillment is at the very root of conflict and suffering (not just in oneself but in history and the world at large), marks then the end of both separate being and the mechanical process of becoming that characterizes it. In other words, the aware mind ends conflict within itself and with others in that very instant in which it refuses to continue pursuing wealth, status and honor to sustain what it may think it is or to reach what it may want to become. And as a natural result of this instantaneous perception/action, this mind is quiet and spacious.

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