Coming out of the pause — seeing something beyond error

I am emerging from a period of doubt and misery, I am realising that the feeling which comes sometimes — with music, with love, with a wave of emotion, with the tears of sympathy, of recognition, of another intimate to our lives — is the state of being we seek.

I have been thinking of music — the power of the riff — the way a set of notes somehow infects us just as if it was a virus burying itself deep within our system. Yes, I realised that there is a link — there is a repeated theme behind it all. And this brought me to something but it was a different place. I realised that it is not repetition that we need to engage in. My thinking of music had released a negative understanding which had then brought out something positive; I had a realisation that previously had been hidden from me.

We do not need to put ourselves into a state somehow linked to the riff. We might tap out foot or nod our head as it occurs but that does not mean that tapping our foot or nodding our head, if done more regularly, will invoke the uplifting or exciting feeling we derive from hearing the riff. It is the experience of what it does to us when it does it which is what we should seek. Our aim is being aware — not searching but simply knowing when it occurs. This is the simple line — the knowing of its happening and the experience of its occurrence. This is the experience which will lift our lives. We should forget making our lives better — it is probably impossible. We should not strive to change ourselves into something we are not. It makes no difference that we are what we are — our circumstance is so enveloped in error that changes like this are pointless. We do not need to slave to become something new. We need only to come to know the experience which for a moment lights the darkness of error. Philosophy and religion together have conspired to enslave us to ethical and rational imperatives. Freedom from error is not found by these means.

What is this experience? What is it that comes with the glance, the riff, the moment of complicity that can bring with it a sudden recognition, a feeling of identity with the thing that produces the recognition. It is an experience of something intimately close — a sense of identity with self and another, or between self and the world — something within, something that defies explanation, something which seems just to occur and something which involves us in the beyond. But we cannot peel it apart. It is too close to know the contents or the mechanism of it — we cannot unravel how it works or what drives it. But the impact is too great, too singular, to dismiss. This is no coincidence, or flashback to a happy time. But although it seems coincidental, evens something which we know might have been part of us, or a subconscious recognition of something we desire, the impact of it is more like the sudden revelation of a secret for so long hidden, or the beauty of shared complicity with a new lover, or the touch of an angel’s wing. Yes, a secret, a complicity, a glance of something beyond nature, these things describe it — for it is indeed a secret revealed, a moment of complicity with something real, a sense of something beyond our normal existence, something we suddenly realise we are part of that is not erroneous. And it can be found maybe with a glance, or sometimes a fixed stare, or sometimes a momentary exchange, or a wish or the sense of a loss, or contact with an aspect of the world we had never previously noticed.

It seems so obvious. There is no system, no answer, there is no permanent way, no pattern to follow, nothing to ignite with a match. This incredible experience can happen in many different ways — we could not live long enough to know them all. And sometimes we will miss opportunities that present themselves, and sometimes we will look for it and be disappointed. But it is so easily findable. The secret of it is to know it and know that it can happen.

What can be taught of it? It is not a philosophy. Philosophy is systemisation — looking inwards — and this is looking outwards, beyond our self to what can be known within our self. What can be taught is that it is a creative act, that it can occur in different ways and that if we seek them, are open to their possibility,  we may know it, and what can be taught is that it will not last because we live in error and we can know little else. But the moment it occurs — this feeling of transcendence, of revelation, of truth, of force — we should savour it and let it go. That is the secret. It must be released as water runs through our fingers. It is not a moment which we should try and find, and foolishly extrapolate into a life of continuous ‘moments’. It is not like that. It is understanding the moment itself as it emerges, affects us and, as quickly, as it disappears. We have no need to own it, and our lives are not equipped to make it permanent, or to recognise it in a permanent way. But the thrill of its being known, and knowing that we have identified it, is the greatest thrill of life, for it brings us closer to truth than anything else, and for the time the moment takes to pass it releases us from the darkness of error and gives us a glance of the blinding light of what lies beyond.