Podcast # 44 – The Joy of Living

My name is Mark Stevens.  I am talking today to Allan Colston. He is the author of The Last Days of Tolemac, which is a book dealing with prophecy and other end-time events. Welcome to the Podcast Allan.

Thankyou Mark, I hope you had a happy holiday season.

Mark: Very much so, thanks. But on a more sombre note, I want to go back to our last series of Podcasts, where you talked about how what is happening in the world today lines up with Bible prophecy, and the calamitous events described in the Book of Revelation.

The question I wanted to ask you is this. Don’t you find all this discussion about death and destruction depressing? I know I do.

You raise a very good point Mark, because I know that many people feel the same way. Yet the strange thing is that most of them would rather not talk about it. But, to answer your question, no, I am not personally depressed by this, no matter how catastrophic the immediate future of the world may happen to be.

But if you found our previous discussion depressing, then I have something even more disturbing to tell you about.

You will recall how I told you that a new world would rise out of the ashes of the old, and that a saviour would emerge who would rule over the world in a golden age that would last for a thousand years. Perhaps the most depressing words in the entire Bible can be found in the first few verses of chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation, which read as follows:

“And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled”.

And then comes the kicker Mark, and I am using this word deliberately here in its informal North American sense of “an unexpected and often unpleasant discovery or turn of events”, for the Bible goes on to say: “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out and deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth”.

When I first came across these words, I was shocked, for it begs the question: what is the point of trying to keep the Biblical commandments if Satan himself has a “get out of jail free” card that he can use from time to time? I mean, what is the point of living if evil keeps on winning?

Other students of the Bible have found this equally distressing. As one reader of a forum that I follow put it:

“What I don’t understand is that if the recurring cataclysms are supposed to cleanse the earth and humanity, how well is it actually being cleansed if evil survives each destruction, only to re-gather its strength and forces to create chaos again and again? 

“I don’t doubt these cycles. It’s clear that a very dark force rules this earth at present, but the constant destruction-renewal cycle seems so sad and pointless.  Will evil ever be truly destroyed?  Will there ever be lasting peace or are we just pawns in a larger, never-ending game?”

The answer to the question posed above is simply this. No, there will never be an end to evil, and Satan and his forces will continue to manifest in our world of shape and form for as long as the world continues to turn, and the universe continues to exist.

And the reason is that we live in a world of opposites – of light and darkness, goodness and evil, heat and cold, high and low, strong and weak and so on and so on. And as Sir Isaac Newton pointed out in his third law of motion, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

So goodness will always be met by an opposing force. If we think of life as a river, then it flows between two opposing banks. On the one side there is goodness, while on the other there is evil. You can never have one without the other.

Mark: How do you know that this is a true analogy?

Well, it’s a long story Mark, and to give you a proper answer I need to refer to my own search for truth and understanding.

As you know, many years ago I wrote a book called The Cosmic Web, which was a synthesis of Eastern mysticism and Western science. In the preface to this book, I outlined why I wrote it and what I found. It included the following words:

“I am a seeker. My personal search for meaning and the answers to the fundamental questions of life began more than half a century ago, while I was a schoolboy at Michaelhouse, located in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. 

“I had little idea then that this quest would lead me on a journey that would span the globe, taking me to places like South America, India and Tibet, or that I would find myself in the company of extraordinary men and women who would both challenge and enlighten me. 

“When I first began my quest for an understanding of the mysteries of life, I approached it from the standpoint of the Western materialistic paradigm. I considered myself to be a human being with a defined culture, language and heritage. 

“My education had taught me that I was a physical being operating within a human body that functioned on a planet called earth, which itself was a tiny part of a much larger solar system, that was in turn part of a single galaxy set amongst a myriad other. 

“When my search took me to India and I began to investigate the teachings of the Hindu Vedas, I was immediately confronted by a profound enigma. According to the teachings of the Sages of the East, based on their own personal experiences, I was not a human being at all, and the world that I considered to be real was dismissed as an illusion. 

“My confusion was accompanied by an overwhelming urge to find the answer to this riddle. After all, the world could not possibly be both real and an illusion. It had to be one or the other. I had to know which of these two viewpoints was correct.  

“For if it turned out that the scientists were right, then how was it that the Sages had been misled for thousands of years? Or if the Sages were correct, then how could I possibly explain away centuries of scientific proof that our world is incontrovertibly real? 

“It took me many years to resolve this conundrum. The answers that I found, and the insights that I gained along the way, form the content of this book. While I have taken care to present the knowledge entrusted to me with the utmost fidelity, I bear full responsibility for the exposition of this thesis. Any shortcomings are mine and mine alone. 

“In the course of my investigation, I chose to follow the evidence wherever it led, regardless of whether this happened to agree with accepted thinking at the time. My path ultimately led me to the realisation that the world is nothing like I had previously imagined, and that life holds out the possibility of greater avenues of expression than science has hitherto allowed. 

“Now, looking back, I can say that the long years dedicated to this search have yielded a bountiful return. The questing mind has been stilled. But while the distant shore still beckons, the fruits of this endeavour now lie revealed on the pages of this book”. 

So there you have it Mark. That in a nutshell explains what I was looking for, and what I found. And having found the answers to my search, my “questing mind has been stilled”. Since that time, I find that I am no longer concerned about the future of the universe, or whether it will unfold in a way that conforms to my own expectations.

Mark: So that leads me to the obvious question. What exactly did you find? 

I found the same truth that was taught by the Buddha over two and a half thousand years ago, and which he described in the following way. The basic inescapable fact about the world is suffering. Everyone who is born in this world suffers. However, it is possible to overcome this suffering, and the Buddha laid out his eight-fold path for doing so.

Although I happened to be drawn to a different path from the Buddha, the answers that I found were primarily the same. They can be summarised as follows: Although we live in a world of opposites, it is possible to escape from this limited world of space and time. Not only is this path of escape available to all, but anyone is free to escape at any time.

Once you know this to be true in every fibre of your being, you find that it not only brings about an outward transformation, but an inner peace as well. Not only is there an end to fear, but all doubt ceases to exist as well. In fact, you come to laugh at the very idea of fate.

So although I continue to investigate what is happening in the world on a daily basis, to see if the events that are unfolding do indeed match the prophecies outlined in the Bible and other works, I am personally untroubled by what I find. The same inner peace that I found in India continues to remain with me to this day.

This sense of equanimity within is not generated by outward circumstances, which means that it is not dependent on, nor is it at risk from, anything that may happen to me or to the world. Although I may end up suffering like everyone else, and my body may die, I am not concerned. And that is because I know the ultimate Truth, which is that I am not a person, and never have been.

Mark: Well you’ve got me there Allan. Not only am I a person, but everyone I know knows me as a person. What do you have to say to that? 

I understand what you are saying Mark, but once you begin to investigate the true nature of life, you realise that what we take to be our day-to-day reality is actually an illusion. Just as a dream turns out to be an illusion when we wake up, so it is possible to “wake up” from our so-called “real” world of space and time. 

Once we do that, our individual personality disappears. I know this may sound strange. It certainly seemed strange to me when I first began my search. The difference is that I had an inner experience that transformed my life. It not only changed the way I thought about the world. It changed the way I thought about myself.

So if you will bear with me Mark, I will try to describe this transformation to you as simply as I can.

The source of all experience in consciousness begins with the sense of “I am”. Before anything can be experienced or known in life, whether it be in the waking state or any other projected state of consciousness, there is always this foundation of the “I am” – the source of our identity.

This “I am”, according to the teaching of the Sages, is rooted in the Supreme Reality. This sense of being not only permeates all experience and form, it also transcends them. This “I am” can never be subdivided. It is always solid, uniform and indivisible.

With the dawning of experience, the images that appear in consciousness become linked together in memory. Through the faculty of memory, the individual personality is formed. Each personality can have no existence without the faculty of memory.

As the individual personality begins to link images together in memory, so it begins to initiate desires, which are derived from the memories of past pleasures. These desires are attempts by the personality to order experiences in pre-selected ways.

The growing child begins to select experiences according to the dictates of desire. It is the desire to experience which lies at the root of all conscious life. Desire is the attempt to attract those experiences which are meaningful or pleasurable to that individual personality. There can be no desire that is independent of personality.

There are no universal desires. Desires are personal expressions which reflect personal motivations. Each personality is thus an embodiment of those desires which form around the central experience of the “I am”. We are all products of our desires, and our experiences in life are determined by the nature of these desires.

Being ourselves the true creators of experience, there is no God who can be commended or blamed for what transpires. Each one of us is personally responsible for what happens in our lives.

The nature of our thoughts determines the character of our experiences. As our thoughts become ingrained in the form of rigid beliefs, so our universe appears to function according to these rigid rules.

Within western technological society, science represents a concerted attempt to reduce all experience to common rules of behaviour that are applicable to all. The rules which science finds, however, are the rules which it alone ordains. Science fashions life into a specific mould of experience which is self-serving and self-validating.

Because science merely deals with permutations of the web and is an attempt to reduce all webs to a common pattern, it can never transcend the web. As such, science can never reveal Reality, or the Truth which lies behind the manifestation of the web. The limitations of science are the limitations of our minds.

Science is free to roam within the vast expanse of mind and is successful in enabling us to spin ever more amazing patterns. But the patterns which science reveals are those patterns which are the reflections of scientific thinking.

By moulding the world into an image of its own belief, science imagines that it has revealed the universe “as it really is”. Yet our worlds are never fixed, and no amount of scientific endeavour can ever restrict the universe to inviolable laws.

The driving force of life is the motivation of desire. Life is nothing more or less than the desire for experience, and the search for ever-new ways in which to experience. Desire stirs the waters of consciousness.

The central Sun of Awareness (which reveals itself as the “I-am” sensation within), shines on this surface and is reflected in a host of tiny ripples, each of which represents an individual personality. Yet the appearance of each separate sun is illusory. Each reflection is a product of the movement of the water. When this disturbance ceases, each wavelet disappears, and with it the image of a separate sun.

The way to transcend the limits of our personal experience is by renouncing the desire to experience. Since it is desire which stirs the waters of consciousness, it is the absence of desire which stills them. So the rediscovery of the central Sun of Awareness is not the fruit of desire, but of the absence of desire.

It is by voluntarily relinquishing the desire for individual expression that the personality becomes absorbed in the universe, just as the individual raindrop is absorbed into the amorphous sea. By sacrificing individual existence, the personality rediscovers its universal nature.

The price for surpassing all human limitation has always been to surrender individual existence and the desire for individual experience in life. For as long as the personality marches to the beat of an individual drum it can never experience its universal nature.

It is only by voluntarily surrendering the desire to be a person that the personality merges with the Infinite. Individual identity is lost forever, but Universal Awareness is regained.

It was this message of redemption through the death of the personality that was the central feature of the teachings of Jesus. Perhaps I could quote some verses from the Bible to explain.

“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life will lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 16: 24-25) “He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” (John 12: 25)

The cross which Jesus bade his disciples take up was not mere death of the physical body. It was the ultimate sacrifice of the personality – the voluntary relinquishment of individual existence. It was this self-sacrifice which opened the doors of redemption by resurrecting the soul in eternal life.

As Jesus himself proclaimed, he was the way to eternal life, and his life was the pathway to everlasting Truth.

The soul that strives for personal expression is bound to the cycle of rebirth. The individual appears to undergo a series of incarnations which always end in death. It is only when the soul voluntarily surrenders its individual existence that it transcends the power of death and is born no more. It takes off its mortal garb to don the cloak of immortality.

This was the same message that was taught by the Buddha, as recorded in the Dhammapada.

“Go beyond the stream, Brahmin, go with all your soul: leave desires behind. When you have crossed the stream of Samsara (the endless cycle of births and deaths) you will reach the land of Nirvana (extinction of the flame of individual life).” (Verse 383)

“Leave the past behind; leave the future the present behind. Thou art then ready to go to the other shore. Never shalt thou return to a life that ends in death.” (Verse 348)

“He who has gone beyond the illusion of Samsara, the muddy road of transmigration so difficult to pass; who has crossed to the other shore and, free from doubts and temporal desires, has reached in his deep contemplation the joy of Nirvana – him I call a Brahmin.” (Verse 414)

“Empty the boat of your life, 0 man; when empty it will swiftly sail. When empty of passions and harmful desires you are bound for the land of Nirvana.” (Verse 369)

“The traveller has reached the end of the journey! In the freedom of the Infinite he is free from all sorrows, the fetters that bound him are thrown away, and the burning fever of life is no more.” (Verse 90)

The purpose of Jesus’ life was to reveal the good news of the joy of living that lay beyond all mental thinking and intellectual understanding. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) Well Mark, I don’t know if any of this makes sense to you. 

Mark: What you have described might seem appealing to you Allan, but I must say that it sounds like death to me. 

That’s exactly what I am describing here Mark. I am talking here about the death of the individual personality. Everyone fears the death of their personality, because they believe that it will lead to their extinction and the loss of everything that they value most in life. Instead, it leads to something more wonderful than anything they can possibly imagine.

In chapter thirteen of the gospel of St. Matthew, Jesus describes this state in the following words: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field”. 

Notice how Jesus likens this state to a “hidden treasure”, that once found would cause a man to sell everything he owned in order to possess it. And the reason he would do so would not be to acquire status in society or unimaginable wealth. He would do so simply for “the joy thereof”.

And that is what I have been trying to describe to you Mark. We are not talking here about a state of mind or some intellectual theory that can be challenged or denied. Instead, this is the rediscovery of one’s true nature which, once found, leaves an indelible memory that can never be erased.

Once you have come to know your true nature, even if it is only for an instant, you can never forget it, and you become willing to do whatever it takes to get it back. And that has been the motivating force behind the lives of all the great Sages in history. And what I am describing is not limited to them. Anyone of us can experience this at any time.

Mark: You say that anyone can experience this state at any time. Do you know anyone who has? Have you ever experienced it yourself? 

As a matter of fact, Mark, I have. And I am not alone in this. Numerous people throughout history have testified how they have had momentary flashes of insight into this divine state. In my Blogpost titled Plato’s Cave, I wrote how the English poet Percy Shelley described this transcendent state in his poem Ode to Liberty:

“Within a cavern of man’s trackless spirit is throned an Image, so intensely fair that the adventurous thoughts that wander near it worship, and as they kneel, tremble and wear the splendour of its presence, and the light penetrates their dreamlike frame till they become charged with the strength of flame”.

As I discussed in my Blog, my own experience happened when I was 31 years old. I was living in India at the time and was visiting a friend in the town of Varkala in Kerala, not far from the southern tip of India. As I sat down one morning, gazing idly into the water of a small pond that was part of his estate, IT happened.

Although the experience itself only lasted for perhaps a few seconds, its effect on the mind was electric! But because this state of Supreme Reality exists beyond the mind, the mind itself is incapable of describing it. Nevertheless, the experience left a residue that has been imprinted on my mind ever since.

I was left with a sense of sheer exhilaration. I knew without a shadow of doubt that I had experienced a state of freedom that lay beyond the mind. It was a state of bliss that defied description. I was not only free from the limits of space and time, but I understood at that moment exactly how the entire universe worked.

I understood also what the ancient Sages of India had said about life. They described it by the Sanskrit term Lila, which represented a form of cosmic dance, in which every part of the created universe had meaning, and that meaning was to express the joy of the Creator.

The best description that I have heard of that state is the one that has been recorded in the Vedas.  They called it Sat-Chit-Ananda, which can be translated as Being-Consciousness-Bliss. And that was my experience. I was not only aware, but I was conscious of being aware, and I was immersed in total Bliss.

The key thing to understand Mark is that this Supreme State can never be reached by the intellect. You cannot use the mind to go beyond the mind. No amount of education or speculation can take you there. In fact, those who lack a formal education are sometimes better equipped to navigate this journey of self-discovery.

An example of this was a 15^th century basket weaver from Benares (now called Varanasi) in India.

The man’s name was Kabir. Although he was a Muslim by birth and uneducated, he sought union with the Divine with a blazing passion, and it was his unyielding fervour that carried him to his goal. When he died his life was celebrated by Hindus and Muslims alike as one of India’s greatest mystical poets. This is how he described the joy of the Divine State:

“The Lord is in me, the Lord is in you, as life is in every seed.

O servant! Put false pride away, and seek for Him within you.

A million suns are ablaze with light,

The sea of blue spreads in the sky.

The fever of life is stilled, and all stains are washed away;

When I sit in the midst of that world.

Hark to the unstruck bells and drums! Take your delight in love!

Rains pour down without water, and the rivers are streams of light.

One Love it is that pervades the whole world, few there are who know it fully:

They are blind who hope to see it by the light of reason,

That reason which is the cause of separation.

The House of Reason is very far away!

How blessed is Kabir, that amidst this great joy he sings within his own vessel.

It is the music of the meeting of soul with soul;

It is the music of the forgetting of sorrows;

It is the music that transcends all coming in and all going forth.”

Mark:  Well Allan, I must say that this has been a very revealing discussion. Although most of it went over my head, I have no doubt that our listeners will find a lot to think about. I want to thank you so much for your time.

You have been listening to Allan Colston, author of the book The Last Days of Tolemac.  He can be reached by Email at tolemac@shaw.ca

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 26th, 2024 at 8:49 am and is filed under AUDIO, The Joy of Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments and pings are closed.