Hi Matt,

Truth, that something that so many spiritual masters have tried to convey to others in the past like the Buddha, Jesus, etc, etc, cannot be given to others. You can only point the way to it. You can’t arrive at truth through logic, if it was that simple then anybody with a reasonable IQ would quickly learn how to be another Buddha. One of the main purposes of meditation is to get you out of your thinking mind (with all it’s conditioning, beliefs, opinions, logical arguments) to access something else. I’m certainly not enlightened, but I’ve had glimpses of what Jesus, Buddha and others have tried to express, and it’s only through these glimpses that I’ve really begun to comprehend what they were saying. The Buddha recognised this difficulty, and so always made the point that the teachings themselves are not the truth, I cannot show you the truth, I can only help point you in the direction of it.

Anyway, I was just trying to lay a foundation for saying what I’m about to say. I can see that you have a very firmly fixed opinion on what life is about. You make a good argument for it. But I am quite sure that there is something beyond that, far beyond it, such that if you were to see it, you would let go of this idea which you seem to be prepared to let you pull you into the depths before you will let go of it, or even question letting go of. You see, if you are fortunate enough (and open enough) to come across things written by those who are awakened, they will tell you that the path to truth is synonymous with letting go, letting go of our views, beliefs, opinions, ideas, all of it.

I recently came across a quote which said that, “the ‘clever’ are fools”. There’s a lot of truth to that statement. You see, it’s very easy when you’re intelligent to let the mind be the master and believe you are correct because you know you are intelligent and you are able to create good arguments to uphold your beliefs. Your cleverness is what is keeping you stuck. It is the old Zen proverb, your cup is completely full so nothing else can enter, you WILL NOT let it enter, I sense it strongly in your conviction. I’m not saying you have to change your belief or that it’s wrong, but what if you have only part of the answer? I’d invite you to keep questioning, to look further, to be open to other things and ideas. It’s funny, for myself, certain things that I said an absolute NO to in the past, saying it was all a load of complete nonsense, I eventually was open enough to give it the benefit of the doubt and all of my previously held super strong conviction that I was correct was embarrassingly blown out of the water. Mark my words however, this is very difficult, many people will not bare to really have their deeply held beliefs questioned.

I want to say one last thing about Jesus just to highlight what I’m saying about truth, beliefs, etc (I’m not actually religious you might be surprised to hear but I’m just using it to make a point). When he would give his teachings, he was accused by the religious authorities at the time of committing blasphemy. These men thought that things that Jesus did were wrong, that he went again religious ideas. They were fuming about it in many instances, why do you think they crucified him. You see, everyone suffers from the same problems, they have their own fixed ideas on the way things are. These men of the religious authorities at the time, the vast majority would not have been in any way awakened, would not have been able to see truth. They were only going off their own opinions and beliefs and what they had learned from their religious texts. If you listen to people talk who have genuinely experienced an awakening, they say they have no views on anything, they seem to have a peaceful presence about them that just knows, if you are ever fortunate enough to be around such a person. They have let go of any ideas about what life should be like, etc.

I invite you to watch a few videos by Adyashanti on YouTube, there are many so find a few titles that catch your eye and watch those. It might be that you won’t be able to stand him, which is fine, he’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it might be interesting to you.