It was mid-morning, there was a clear crystal blue sky and the sun was vibrant and the air was fresh. As one looked around and took a deep breath, as if to swallow the whole earth, in that breath filled my heart with a deep delight. A childlike feeling came over me, here I was just a creature of the earth like all the other creatures no more harm, no less significant than anything else. It’s funny how thinking is already perched ready to catch a hold of anything that is honest and genuine and good! All of my senses were active, there was nowhere to be, nowhere to go but just to take it all in.
I do not know how long I was standing there, until one of my large St. Bernard dogs, Duncan sat on my feet to let me know he was ready for his walk. The other dog Effie ran towards us pounding in the warmth of the sun and the softness of the snow. I walked towards the truck open the gate and both dogs quickly jumped in. Even my hand on the back of the truck could feel the heat of the sun absorbed in the middle of the truck. How I longed for the quietness of the summer sitting under the maple tree, the dogs laid out in the grass and watching the world go by. Watching the birds and the squirrels play around the three Chestnut trees, attentive yet playful. The dogs often lift up their heads to take notice of what the squirrels are doing but did not pay that much attention because catching them was futile they were too clever for the dogs. I remember sitting in the cool shade of the tree but felt such a deeper blessing for just being alive and holding the beauty of the earth with a deep appreciation.
I drove to my friend, John‘s place and walked in the snow before reaching the trail. Most of the snow had come off the trees but many of the evergreens contained large drops at the end of their branches that resembled liquid crystal. They were so beautiful, and it was one of those perfect walks where thinking and preoccupation with myself was nowhere to be found. There was just taking in and letting go of. There was a tremendous sense of life but also a tremendous sense of death, how everything comes into existence and everything goes out of existence and that was OK with me. The biggest part of those moments is this deep sense of friendship, how lucky l am to have a group of friends that are serious about their life and seek release from the same burden of the ego self. That spirit of friendliness is not the friendliness that happens for instinctive reasons to use or exploit or to be associated. Friendship that call you in to your humanity. To call you in to how your consciousness and your daily goings-on, successes and failures don’t define you. Friends that see your emotional “stuckness” and preoccupation with yourself is the same self, generated in every brain pretending that we’re individuals. How can we be individuals when we all suffer from exactly the same thing and also think that our suffering is worse than someone else’s? Friendship sees that when someone is hurt that they are hurt because they have built an image through their thinking process and someone has come along and stuck a pin in that image. That friendship sees that the anger that comes out of hurt is the insecurity that the image is just trying to cover up as a clever trick played by thinking. Friendship sees that all our human problems are the same in everyone and that is why one cannot judge another. It is so funny how we all contain the same sufferings psychologically but pretend we don’t.
Friendship understands that at any moment we can turn anything into our personal problem caused by our subjective thinking. And then judge other people for freaking out with their personal problems created by their thinking. Friendship judges no one, as everything in nature is not loaded with judgement only human beings, as we are the only ones who have a consciousness created by thinking. There is a far deeper richer movement beyond than the consciousness of thought!
This consciousness is a reality independent of thinking and has its own order not tied to the consciousness of humankind. Yet, we have an ability to destroy this thing called nature, and yet worship it at the same time. This ability we have is to worship and destroy is the story of humankind which, is really our disability. Thinking has invented all the religions and thinking his also designed and built all the beautiful churches, mosques, temples chapels etc.
People do not see or care that their religion or their philosophy creates division and separation in the world and adds to the global chaos. If people have stepped away from the chaos of religion, nationality, race etc. They then create their own personal belief system, creed, religion, philosophy and bring about separation and division there - But they won’t admit it. When thinking invents a belief system for psychological security, it then creates fog around it and anyone who imposes any kind of threat to us or challenges us to see in the falseness of our ways, the fog thickens so that we don’t question or inquire, to protect the new movement of the ego self. No one really wants to sort out life, we love our blame and the obsession with trying to control other people. We live for all the drama that goes with thinking and the nature of thought when we are upset! How we love to blame, criticize and tell other people what to think or do as if we know what’s best for them. No one is interested in discovering what is false in oneself. That discovery would free one from the illusion one is caught in. The etymological meaning of friendliness, the word friend is to love. If there is love, there is a necessity to get out of the way everything that prevents one from loving another. The content of our consciousness, our beliefs, opinions, images, identifications is in the way. When the totality of consciousness is understood, one discovers that the illusions that one is and how one lives into these love killers. Then perhaps friendliness can come into existence.