Thoughts | Page 3 of 3

16 May 2016

Cycling…
It all started very innocently.
I had a very natural love for the bicycle.
I think it truly was my first love.
I’ll never forget the absolute wonder and desire I had for these two-wheeled machines.
I’m 47 now and nothing has changed. I still take pleasure in standing back and absorbing all of it. Their clean lines, the colors, the mind blowing simplicity and complexity of its function. I have a race bike that’s 20 years old that is just as beautiful today as it was the day I bought it. In fact, now that I think about it, it’s even more beautiful. Every aspect of that bike I have gone over thousands of times. It should be destroyed with the thousands of hours I spent trying to annihilate myself with it. And yet, both it and I, stand arguably stronger than ever. It now hangs retired in my garage. And I still continue to spin the wheels and admire its form.
It took years for that innocent, uncomplicated love that I had for my bike as a child to evolve into what it was to become. Riding so hard and so long that the rhythm and pain exported me into the ether realm. A realm so alluring and powerful that I spent seven years crushing myself with distances that were once unfathomable. All to understand and maintain this mystical state where the flesh didn’t hold me, where I was free from its pain and limitations.
Was this a form of prayer or sacrifice?
Fledgeling myself before the gods hoping for the secrets of painless bliss to be bestowed upon me.
The ether realm maintained its elusivity.
Although, the prayer was heard.
The countless hours and deeply meditative rhythmic breathing cracked my cosmic egg.
It was in my failure to obtain the mastery of this ether realm that was the key.
The key was letting go.
Letting go of my purpose and desires.
I didn’t intend to hang up my bike all those years ago.
But when I found that I was what I was looking for, the cilice I wore in the form of a two-wheeled machine lost its purpose.
I was free.
Today the distances I once rode are a thing of the past. A form of hysterical prayer that I no longer desire.
My prayers are short today.
The love is still as vibrant as ever.
Riding with my new baby boy in tow.
It’s funny, I see the same utter amazement in his eyes and body when he sees my new gigantically beautiful bike roll up beside him.
His entire body screams with glee.
I see aspects of myself in him.
Bright blue eyes, unencumbered and filled with innocence and simplicity.

11 May 2016

Would you dare unlearn everything you know?
What would that mean?
Our beliefs are based solely on our perspective. Everything that we’ve ever experienced has come to us only through our own sensory mechanisms. And all of these sensory experiences were interpreted and learned by…? You; only you. This means all of the experiential data is intrinsically biased, doesn’t it? How could it not be? Fundamentally, this leaves everything that could possibly be known to be circumspect. Biased by the perceivers’ perspective and beliefs.
Is there anything that you can emphatically state, which intrinsically lies outside of your experience of it?
Everything is a sum of its parts. Of which those parts are also a sum of its parts.
So one thing is actually a compilation of many things.
Just as many things may be viewed as one thing.
The perception of matter is perceived by the perceiver. You and I cannot have the same experience. We cannot experience the same sunset. My perception is based solely on my perspective and experiences.
Are yours and my experiences similar? Who is to say?
Can we experience the same table? Some would say yes; some would say no.
So what is the point of all of this?
Our life decisions are based on judgments made through our personal subjective truths.
All of these judgments and truths are biased by your personal singular experience.
Is there something to learn from this?
Knowledge is intrinsically biased, or to put it another way, flawed. What you know to be true isn’t necessarily true for me.
To bring all of this together there is another question that needs to be answered. What is experiencing?
You are two things.
You’re a spiritual being having a biological experience and a biological being having a spiritual experience. Both of these are true. Both are happening simultaneously. Your biology is also simultaneously two things. You are a biological singularity which is also intrinsically connected and dependent on all biology and matter. Matter that is perpetually consuming itself. Birth to death, we survive off of the consumption of our biological essence. We all take a turn. Sometimes we are the meat; sometimes the carnivore. Sometimes the omnivore; sometimes the plants and soil. A perpetual cycle.
Although we all have a singular experience with its own intrinsic truth, we are also a larger absolute truth. You are a fundamental and vital component of all matter. At this level, without you, everything would cease to be. This could be further reduced to absolute oneness. This could be, and has been referred to, by many names and ideas, which are all correct. The words don’t matter. It’s the recognition of what you are, it’s indivisibility, and oneness that never changes.
What would happen if we made decisions detached from our individual personal perspective? This perspective is threatening because within this perspective, we let go of what we believe to be intrinsically true about ourselves and the world we live in. We lose ourselves. But do we really?
The larger truth is when you begin to make decisions from your larger self, you come into alignment with your root essence. This is the place where effort subsides and you encounter the miraculous.
Isn’t that what we are looking for?