Towards the Silent Heart

kitchen table philosophy

Tag Archives: enlightened living


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The heart whispers

Kitchen Table Philosopher Joseph Raffa asks if you will listen to the whispers of the heart or stay anchored in mind misery.

Ever got to a stage in life where you feel jaded, drained of energy, without any enjoyment to lighten up your life?  Then face it friend, you are on a treadmill where the daily grind has taken over.  And who or what is responsible?  You are.  You’ve allowed the mind to take over with its demands and desires, its over-riding ideas to do this and that, its drive for more and more – security, comfort, nicknacks, gadgets.  Oh, there is no end to the demands of the mind.

So, we listen to the mind, going where it tells us, doing what it demands.  We ignore how we feel deep down, ignore the need for rest and relaxation, to be lighthearted.  There comes a time where we get to the end of the line, when we’ve had enough, when we are so saturated with the mind and its persistent endeavours to completely control the course of our life that we want to throw it all away and feel fresh and brand new again.

Some opt for an outer change, a holiday, change jobs or homes, rearrange routines to try to unload some of the burden.  You may have tried some or all of this.  But take a look at what is going on.  It’s the same old tired troublemaker in charge, in control, trying to jazz up a life that has gone stale.  The wear and tear mind, fed up with the results of what it has created, is off in a different direction in the search for a pick me up, for a return to the fun it had long ago when life was young and new and a great adventure.

Outer change serves for a while.  We feel somewhat rested and interest is renewed.  Then that same old bugbear takes over again, the wear and tear mind, the know-all mind, the source and cause of all our troubles is back to lead us down the same weary pathway.  And why?  Because it doesn’t know any better.  Concern drives the mind.  Self protection drives the mind.  It’s always busy looking after all the demands of the self.  There is no peace, no joy and little rest while little mind is in charge.  Mind is the ruthless overseer, cracking the whip of pressure, driving the body onwards, subduing any feelings to be otherwise than on the go, go, go.

Until from within, the cry goes out, “Enough of this.”  Tears that act as a temporary release may flow,  then a tug of war may follow. The inner insists on a change of direction but old man mind, knowing nothing else urges onwards in the usual way and clings to everything it is familiar with in spite of the pain. There must come a time when we tire of mind, of the thinking, the doing, the acting, all the busy stuff the mind does in defence of and to expand the self. This is an indication that the heart is beginning to stir, that it wants to be listened to.  The heart speaks not in the language of thoughts and words but with feelings, with longings for an expansive life uncluttered  by the rubbish left by the mind.

Will we listen then, to the whispers of the heart or, will we stay anchored in the mind and the misery it creates?  In life we need both mind as the doer, the action side and the heart as the source of renewal. From the heart comes gentle, caring living, the appreciation of the wonder, the beauty of life, of all the magic moments that unfold from day to day. It’s not that the mind means to mess things up. It’s just lost its way. Like a child lost in the wonderland of time, it runs here, there, everywhere, eager to have everything, to taste what it can – quickly. The heart acts as a counterbalance to all this driving action.  It’s like a rider who pulls on the reins to check the erratic breakaway gallop of a horse.

The trouble is, the mind has been in control for so long.  It gets itself into trouble then when it has had enough it wants to get itself out. Fair enough. But the mind is the troublemaker. Wherever it applies itself, sooner or later it comes to a situation where it is confronted with the results of its own actions.  When it acts from a deep understanding of its own behaviour, all is well.  Understanding then, is the key to right living. This follows from listening, from paying attention to the ways of the mind, to the flow of thinking and feeling, to everything thrown up by the mind.

Not from constant thinking about it, reading and memorising which keeps the mind endlessly preoccupied. The listening that yields understanding cannot be described. It happens when there is natural interest. That is what is so beautiful about it. Mind with its thinking, its pressure and pushing for results doesn’t bring it about. It’s a response from within, when the heart stirs to give a helping hand to a mind caught up in turmoil, torment and confusion.

When the mind has truly had enough, when it sees that it cannot continue along the same channels that lead nowhere special, it yields and comes to a complete standstill.  Not even a thought interferes – then in that moment the heart has a chance to act and help the mind understand.  Should this happen, you’ll know what it is to feel new again, to be young and carefree, lighthearted – all the qualities we long for that somehow we have denied in our intensive efforts to look after the self according to self disposition.

Joseph’s spiritual writing is now available from Amazon.com and other online retailers.

 

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There is another side

Kitchen Table Philosopher Joseph Raffa reminds us there is a gentle side of human nature behind the darkness being reflected in today’s world.

 

In the silence of being we discover that which stills every sound –  the sound of breathing, of the heart beating, even the sound of thinking.

The atmosphere of killing fields, of charnel houses, of cities devastated by bombs is something we can do without.  The odour of violent death is not a pleasant one.  There is something

deeply repulsive about it.

Animals being led to slaughter show the fear in their eyes and in the frenzied behaviour of their bodies.  Hasn’t this planet had enough yet?  Must we go on living with such behaviour, reflecting

the violence, the aggressiveness, the selfishness that has been part of our makeup for so long?

We don’t have to be like this.  There is a gentle side to human nature waiting its chance to show what it can do.  It doesn’t need the protection of force, of security screens and protective

devices, of alliances and other means devised by minds riddled by fear and uncertainty.

Behind the darkness of human living, behind the aggressive mask there is indeed another face – gentle, sensitive, caring.  All it needs is a chance to come out and, when humans experience it for

themselves, when they dwell in its nature and know it for what it is, never will they choose to dwell in the darkness of human living ever again.

 

To read more of Joseph’s spiritual writing, visit his Amazon author page.

 


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Am I or am I not?

 

Kitchen table philosopher JOSEPH RAFFA urges us to question our ideas of what we are.

Love brings the fresh, vibrant growth, the joyous outpouring of springtime. Love also brings the decay, the fading colours, the dying leaves of autumn. Without death there is no renewal.  Yet mind holds to the past, fearful of letting go and surrounds itself with images.

Look back and you can see.  A long trail of familiar memories rises to greet you. “This is me,” you say, “the core of what I am, myself, my journey.”

I was the child playing here and there – fresh as new spring growth, eager to break out and grow. Absorbed, I grew into every phase that opened out.  Small child into older child.  Older child into adolescent teenager, teenager into adult. I took all this to be what I am.

I see, I feel, I taste.  Life’s experiences are my playing field. What am I without what I see, without this long trail of memories? Am I nothing?  Look back, look now.  And what of tomorrow should I still be here? My friend, my body will still be with me, greeting me as usual.

How the idea of what I am haunts me.  Am I flesh, memories interlinked, accepted and acknowledged? Self here, self there, myself, me – what a torment. What is it in me that holds to substance, to form, to flowing experience? Am I nothing without all this.  Or do I still exist? What do I hold to?  Why do I hold on?  Is it another of thought’s creations, an urgent desire driven by a fear of coming to an end as substance, as form? So that something of what I am continues in some way?

And when I say “I am part of the All, of a Universal Oneness.”  Is this not thought reaching out to establish continuity in the Absolute? There is no home for thought in this – none whatsoever.  It abides in silent contemplation.  There is no establishment in this of thought created separation or conceived existence. Thought is a lesser state, beginning and ending.  A projection from a secret source – itself unknown, its creations known.

How then can one speak of it?  Draw back into the depths of what you are.  Be the unknown for a moment. Then, you will understand.

  • Joseph’s Kitchen Table Philosopher series of spiritual writing is available from Amazon.com and other online retailers.

 

 


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In listening, we learn

 

by Joseph Raffa

Weaving its way through history is an inspirational thread of human endeavour.  A story of humans who have reached out for the spiritual stars and touched the Divine.  They have returned, afire and astir to urge their fellow humans to do likewise and come back to the land of the spiritually alive.

They have not always been greeted with open arms.  They have been scorned, ridiculed, tortured, even murdered.  Yet, they have not yielded in their missions.  Such was the support, the strength, the love and understanding that came their way.  They were truly people of steel – spiritual steel.  Resilient and bright, like polished metal cast from a special mould – a universal One.

Corrosion and corruption are not part of their expression.  Not a trace of the self marrs the inner serenity of what they are. They are beyond all that.  They are the happy people, stirred by a great love for mankind.  Not for them the ways of a mind estranged from its source.  They live in the heart, the Silent Heart of mankind – the Universal Heart, true home of all that lives and breathes, of everything that is.

Should they pass your door, either in human form or in the writings they have left, pause from your busy work or play schedule, listen deeply to what they have to offer and in the silence that follows, join them in a holy communion.  You will be surprised at what opens out, at what you have within you.  Yet, you knew it not.  Not only surprised, but joyful too, oh so joyful.  How your spirit will lift and dance.  Like a child who delights in the world about, so you will take off, young and full of bounce.

The old will be brushed aside – dissolved.  The ways of thought, encrusted attitudes, the scales of time – out of the old skin you will step, resplendent in shining Being.  You will glow with the Sunshine of Love and marvel at the magic of it.  The methods, the ways, the preparations, the rituals and traditions of the mind do not come into it.  Mind is out.  Heart is in.  The Sunshine of Love is beyond explanations.  It IS.  You hear.  It IS.   Just BE and you will discover for yourselves.  Do not ask why, what or wherefore.  That is the mind wanting to come into it, wanting to get into the act.

Little mind with its thoughts, body, face, appearance, parading as the self in time, the knower, the troublemaker of time.  It wants to continue.  If you listen with this mind, you will stay anchored in mind, in time.  The Sunshine will pass you by.   Rather listen with your whole being, not with the ears of time.  This kind of listening cannot be practised, imagined or thought. It just happens when there is deep interest and you are deeply absorbed – just deeply absorbed.

Everything you appear to be, every known aspect, fades.  It is a delightful moment of discovery.  Of what?  Do not ask.  Mind cannot know.  All that matters is, that it happens.  Then you’ll see what it’s all about.  Your song will join the universal song.  The refrain will go out and out, without end.  You will be one of the happy people without a care.  Your heart will be full and overflowing.  What you have, you will give out for others to share with you.

For love is uncontainable and reaches out to embrace all.  That is the way of it.  It cannot be otherwise.  Such is its nature – to share with – to bless all until all are happy.

Love’s blessings on you.

To read more of Joseph’s spiritual writing, visit his Amazon author page. https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Raffa/

Image by Aaron Cabrera from Pixabay

 

 


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What is enlightenment?

by Joseph Raffa

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Image by samarttiw FreeDigitalPhotos

What is this enlightenment so many people are seeking? Does it indeed exist and what is its nature?  So much effort is poured into its realisation by the seeking mind.  Meditation along a chosen theme.  Self-discipline – of desire, of the emotions, of thoughts – much of it extremely difficult.

The seeking mind projecting itself into various postures, assuming roles that are expected to help on the way to enlightenment. Always backed up by belief in the outcome.  This supplies the energy to keep the mind focused on the eventual discovery.

Projecting an image while the reality is absent. And what of the image?  Where does this come from?  From the dreams of a mind that must have a target to aim at.  So, it creates effort and travel.  Avenues created by the mind to fashion and sustain the illusion of self-development towards achievement.

Mind goes from here to a problematical there for that is the way of travel that it knows.  Can it travel in this way to enlightenment, to something it doesn’t know?   Mind is so confident that with the means it puts into motion it can build a bridge from darkness to the light.  It fashions the bridges from the words passed down from the masters of long ago, from the prophets, from those considered gurus.

But surely the bridges are built from the ignorance reflected by the mind.  The cement that links the actions is that of illusion. What can come of the mind’s actions but postures cast in a timeful mould, nurtured and placed in the mind’s vision as something of greater value.  They keep the mind embedded in its own playground. They are playthings created to amuse the mind, to pad out its emptiness and offer foundational supports of psychological substance because mind needs something to lean on before it can proceed with assurance.

What will the mind discover while its vision is controlled in this way, while its attention is idea tuned, discipline tuned, focused in on its complex maze of effort?   Will it not stay amidst its postures and projections?  Where then is there enlightenment amongst all this?

All we have is the discordant music of the mind, the shadowy images, the objectives, the disciplinary endeavours that weave and twist in the forefront of the mind, covering all else. And from all this it hopes to give birth to enlightenment, to that strange arisal that surges crystal clear, like a lightning flash, sudden and surprising.

This is not born, nor ever can be from the mind’s persistent efforts to coax it out of the unknown into the perceptive net of the mind.  It arises in moments of deep stillness not fashioned by thought or reason, nor from disciplinary endeavour. This kind of stillness is its own happening.

Its offspring is the enlightenment, the insights that pour into the mind bringing new vistas, new perceptions that expose the illusions created by the mind’s desires to discover something it can relate to – use as a stepping stone of support in its day to day living.

The new comes, not over the roadways of thought or desire but over the timeless bridge.  This brings to an end the movement of time and the sense of separation involved in timeful living.   When this is dissolved enlightenment happens as a natural consequence.  All mind could do was be still.  That’s all – just be still and what enlightenment is, comes through.

 


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Right understanding

by Joseph Raffa
Understanding flows effortlessly out of enlightened beings. It is not intellectual but it uses this as a means of conveyance.

Truth is always truth – always consistent. The means of expression changes but not truth.

As the early means of mechanical conveyance and flight were one thing in the early stages, only to be superceded by later models, so the means of intellectual conveyance change to keep in tune with changing concepts of language.

The nature of what is being conveyed is eternal. It is not of the mind, not of concepts.

Encouragement is given through thought, through written and spoken expression. The intention? To awaken desire and give a focus to those who aspire.

The seeker creates the approach. Understanding guides the approach. As understanding develops and deepens so the approach changes.

When understanding is what it should be the approach ends. It is not needed any more.

The journey undertaken is created by thought, continues while given impetus by thought and ends when thought ends. It is a journey through the maze created by thought in its desire to come to a culminating point.

Thought projects a mental Mt Everest to give its movement a greater emphasis. The mountain withdraws only when thinking withdraws.

Thought and what it sets out to do go hand in hand. There is not one without the other.

Lodged in explanations, ways and means, thought stays there. It exercises itself at will, admires its own movement and reassures itself as to the importance of effort and endeavour.

Right understanding deals with all of this and cleans out the confusion thought creates.

Thought then abides in right understanding, becomes its willing servant, a pliant extension of that understanding.

teena candle softRight understanding is natural, spontaneous. It flows from moment to moment. There is no explanation for it. It is. When thought abdicates its role as master, right understanding naturally arises.

It’s like the rising of the sun. When the world of thought turns and sinks out of sight, the sun of right understanding shines through and lights up the way to clearer, saner, enlightened living.