Truth Love Beauty Read online

  www.francislucille.com

  Truth Love Beauty

  Francis Lucille

  Compiled by Warwick Wakefield

  Truespeech Productions P.O.Box 1509 Temecula, CA 92593

  First Edition Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN-10: 1-882874-02-1

  1. Spirituality,

  2. Consciousness

  Other books by Francis Lucille:

  Eternity Now

  Perfume of Silence

  This book is dedicated to all the beautiful beings who have made this publication possible through their labor of love. Francis Lucille Temecula, California 2006

  Contents

  Foreword

  Permanent Satisfaction

  Playing Tennis with God

  Before the Big Bang

  Deathless

  Let the Moment Flow

  The Law of Surprise

  The Fundamental Equation

  Kiss the Mind Goodnight

  You Have a Choice

  Truth, Love, Beauty, and Happiness

  Foreword

  Each chapter of this book contains a conversation with Francis Lucille which took place on a particular day. The first eight chapters are conversations during a residential retreat in a rural setting near Ottawa, Canada in October 2002. The last two chapters are conversations at two public meetings in London, England in May 2002.

  Permanent Satisfaction

  What is consciousness?

  Consciousness is that which is hearing these words right now. It is that which perceives and in which the world, the body, and the mind appear. We place these phenomena, or objects, into three categories. When we hear a sound or see and touch a solid object through our senses, we put these outer perceptions into the category that we call “the world.”

  When we have inner sensations of the body, these inner percep­tions go into the category we call “the body.”

  When thoughts arise, they go into the category we call “the mind.” I never use the word “mind” in the sense of something that actually perceives; I use it to indicate just one category of our entire perceptual experience. Occasionally, however, I use the word “mind” to indicate the totality of these three categories of experience—body/mind/world. You will have to tell from the context which usage I am employing.

  The body/mind/world changes constantly: a thought is replaced by a bodily sensation, which is replaced by a sense percep­tion and so on. In the intervals, in the gaps, something endures, something that is always present. We have a deep sense of this presence. We call it “consciousness” when we refer to its internal existence, and we call it “reality” when we refer to its external existence, but in both cases what we refer to is that which is always present. Indeed, consciousness and reality are one and the same.

  Let me elaborate. We have to understand that we are part of reality, and that there is no separation. Therefore, the innermost experience we have, which is consciousness, must be the experience of reality. It is the experience of the reality of reality, if you will. External to the body there is this world, and this world is also part of reality. First, consider the essence of this external world—its core or its substratum. Next, consider our existence as a body-mind, as an object, which is also endowed with reality because we, as consciousness, are real. These are not two realities; they are two aspects of the one reality. It could be said that we live simultaneously in two dimensions, consciousness and the world, and it is possible for us to experience simultaneously the two aspects of God—God’s heart, which is consciousness, and God’s body, which is the universe.

  If, by some miracle, the body/mind/world could dissolve, fade away, and disappear, would consciousness be left to experience itself directly?

  Yes. Consciousness knows itself, with or without objects.

  ***

  We have established that which is hearing these words is consciousness. Would it be fair to say that consciousness needs the mind for interpretation? To illustrate what I mean: if the mind is diseased, if there is an organic disease, for example, what is heard will be different.

  Yes.

  That statement carries tremendous implications. I can only conclude that you need an intact mind in order to have true understanding. Something else tells me that consciousness is entirely self-sufficient, but now I hear that it needs an intact mind in order to understand properly.

  Yes, if you were deaf there would be little chance of your hearing what I’m saying. If the microphone were not functioning it would be more difficult to communicate. But that doesn’t refer to conscious­ness knowing itself; it refers to the knowing of objects.

  But it is consciousness knowing the objects.

  Yes, the mind is the instrument through which objects are known. But the distortion that affects the instrument doesn’t affect the scientist.

  And how does one know that? How can one know that?

  Because only an object can be affected.

  But that would again be a concept.

  We use concepts to convey meaning. Whatever I tell you will always be a concept, so if you say, “That’s a concept,” you will be right. But the concept is not the understanding of the concept. So let’s consider the matter again. I said that consciousness is not affected because consciousness is not an object, and that only objects can be affected. What does it mean, to be affected? It means to undergo change. For something to undergo change it has to exist in time. It needs to have shape, form, and qualities. We can then say, “It has been affected; it used to be red and now it’s blue; it used to be in one piece and now it’s in two pieces; it’s broken.” But consciousness has no form and no qualities. Since it is not in space and time, it is not conditioned by space and time, so it cannot be affected. We know this from our own inner experience. Our mind is affected at every moment, its content changing constantly. The proof that consciousness is not affected is that we have this experience of remaining conscious and being conscious of these changes. Consciousness of change is evidence of the changelessness of consciousness.

  You have mentioned the freedom to live in consciousness in an unlimited way. How do I make that more concrete?

  When I speak of the freedom to be knowingly consciousness, I speak of the freedom as consciousness to identify or not to identify with the body-mind. If I say that I as a limited person have the freedom to choose to be universal consciousness, it implies that our natural state, our default state, is to be a person; that in order to be universal consciousness we have to make a special effort; and that to be univer­sal consciousness is an artificial state that we have to create and superimpose. Being a state, it will have a beginning and an end. But I am saying just the opposite. Our default state, our natural state, is infinite consciousness, and upon this default state, which is freedom, we superimpose the belief of limited existence. Only consciousness has freedom and only consciousness can make a choice whether to be limited or unlimited. But limited consciousness, having no freedom, cannot choose to become unlimited consciousness. Therefore take your stand as unlimited consciousness, and from this stance stop choosing to be limited consciousness, as we do every time we again fall in love with our pet belief that we are a space-time limited entity.

  ***

  You once answered a question of mine about being with a teacher. You said that after your own awakening to a deeper sense of who you are, you continued to question your teacher. In my own case there has been an absolute understanding, which is undeniable, and also a progressive quieting. The length of this quieting is different for different people—with Ramana it was almost instantaneously complete and after it happened he just sat in silence. What I want is a confirmation of my experience. It seems to me that there is nowhere else to
search; the quest of which I was formerly so proud is now over, and yet there are times when there is a sensation of unrest.

  There is a deepening of the experience after a glimpse of truth. Over time, that which has been understood permeates every level of the body and the mind. You mentioned that I asked questions of my teacher and that is true. That was a great benefit to me because, after only two years of asking, I had completely exhausted questioning. Of course, we never stop learning; we never stop receiving the gift of grace.

  Would you translate this learning as an increase in the depth of understanding?

  There is a process through which the body-mind realigns itself with the truth if you live harmoniously inside. Things outside also become harmonious and at some point the problems and misery vanish. But the adventure and the beauty continue. Any residual suffering or feeling of inadequacy simply reflects the persistence of old habits. What counts is not an experience we may have of awakening— an experience that may be exciting at the time but which eventually fades away and leaves us dissatisfied. What counts is the permanent satisfaction in which we live as a result of our having recognized what we truly are.

  I saw my relationship with my teacher not as a relationship with someone who would give me something I didn’t have; I saw it as a relationship with someone who was, on the one hand, God manifested, and on the other hand, a dear friend who was traveling on the same path and whose experience was valuable to me. He had these two functions. Because of his openness and the way he looked at people and things as divine, it was easy for me to look at him as divine, and at the same time he was a dear friend.

  Playing Tennis with God

  What is grace?

  It is that which doesn’t come from an object. It is that which comes in the moment, from the moment, fresh from the source. Since everything comes from the source, ultimately everything is grace.

  Does that apply to ordinary experience? Can we really say that everything is grace?

  Yes. To one who lives in ignorance, nothing is grace; to one who is on the path, some things and some happenings are grace. But we shouldn’t rest there. The first step is to understand intellectually that ultimately everything is grace, as I just explained. The second step is to drop this intellectual understanding and simply to be open to the possibility that everything is grace. Then everything will turn out to be grace.

  Everything is the teacher. We have to graduate from being a part-time student only when we are in the presence of our human teacher to being a full-time student for whom life itself becomes the teacher. If we want this to happen we must live in not knowing. If we do know, we are no longer a student; we have become somebody who knows. We have to take everything that we believe in with a grain of salt—in fact two or three grains of salt.

  Being certain about things is not necessary nor is it possible. We can live in the freedom of not knowing. If you study with a teacher who explains everything to you—how reincarnation works, how predestination works, how God works, and all the rest of it—that teacher knows too much.

  ***

  For consciousness to know itself, does it need a human mind? Can it know itself through the mind of a cat or a dog?

  To know itself, it needs neither a human body, nor an animal body, nor a plant body, nor a mineral body. It knows itself before it knows things.

  I’ve never had the experience of consciousness knowing itself.

  Are you telling me that you don’t know that you’re conscious?

  I know that I am conscious.

  When you know that you’re conscious, that is consciousness knowing itself.

  Do we need a properly functioning mind to overcome the illusion of separate­ness? What if someone has a mind that is not working very well, because of Down’s syndrome or senility, for example?

  Whatever is taking place in such a mind comes from the desire to undergo that experience.

  Consciousness wants to go through this experience?

  Yes. The fact is, we see problems where there are no problems. We see problems because we think that it is real to be a separate individual and we believe that liberation is a change during which this individual, who was separate, becomes a non-separate individual. We imagine that, for this process to take place, there are prerequisites such as a sharp mind. But all of that is based upon the notion of the individual, which never existed except as this very notion. What can be said is that if there is a sharp mind, with ignorance, there will be a shrewd ignorance; if there is a not-so­sharp mind, ignorance will be less convoluted. But there can be a sharp mind without ignorance and there can also be a not-so-sharp mind, without ignorance.

  Do animals have to deal with the illusion of being separate? I’m thinking about my dogs.

  That’s a good question. You should ask them.

  They won’t answer.

  Ramana Maharshi used to say that certain animals would reach this level of selflessness. I notice differences in behavior among animals. I have a dog who behaves like a realized dog. I have never asked him the question. And even if he were realized I’m not sure that he would make that claim. The problem with this sort of question is that, if we were to come up with an answer, we would know something, and since this world is in fact an illusion it is difficult to know something about nothing. I think that the best way to behave towards animals is to assume they are realized beings. And the same applies to human beings. If you approach beings, based upon this assumption, they will open their hearts to you; they will become, and they will be, the way you see them, the way you compel them to be. They will show their true colors.

  ***

  One day I asked you about ignorance and how it came about and you said, “Is it here now?” Since the answer to that is, “No, it isn’t here now,” I’ve been wondering whether it exists at all. I just thought I’d run that by you again. It’s pretty hard to believe but it seems that it doesn’t exist at all.

  Then stick to it.

  I have a related question. You spoke about higher reasoning and with me, what is happening in the field of higher reasoning is that I’m letting go of the illusion of ignorance.

  You can also drop the illusion of its opposite: the illusion of enlightenment. If we hold on to the illusion of enlightenment we haven’t really let go of the illusion of ignorance. Enlightenment is the ending of ignorance. If we are still attached to the notion of enlightenment, by the same token, we are still attached to the idea of ignorance. You cannot dissociate enlightenment from ignorance. The interesting place to be is where you’re neither ignorant nor enlightened.

  It feels very uncomfortable in some ways. I’m noticing that all kinds of emotions come up because there’s no control.

  And the mind wants to know! But the mind that knows, knows nothing. The mind wants to know in order to become somebody. So it’s best to keep it simple.

  I think so!

  ***

  I’m trying to understand the notion, “Is there ignorance here and now.” If you were to ask me, “Is there ignorance now?” I would say, “In my case, yes.” But what does ignorance mean? Does it mean the impression of being a separate entity?

  If you make the claim that there is ignorance now, it is for you to define it.

  My understanding was that ignorance meant the illusion of being a separate entity. If that’s what it means, I would say that, in my case, there is ignorance. I still have the feeling that I am separate.

  To whom or to what does this feeling appear?

  It exists on its own.

  But it appears to you.

  Yes.

  So that which appears is the feeling of separation and at that very moment there is consciousness being aware of a feeling of separation, would you agree?

  Yes.

  At that moment are you separate from the feeling of separation?

  No.

  Exactly. In the now there is never separation; never the duality of a subject and an object. Even in the presence of a feeling of separation
, you are not separated from this feeling. Ignorance, or separation, appears to you like a dream, but it doesn’t have a reality of its own.

  At this very moment, what gives rise to my belief that I am separate is the feeling—and this feeling seems to be ever-present—of contraction in the body.

  This sensation of contraction appears in you. It’s only if you identify with the sensation and say, “That’s all there is to me,” that you can be a separate object, separate from the consciousness in which it appears. But the truth is that you are consciousness, not the contraction. This sensation is not ever-present; it arises and it falls away, soon followed by a new appearance. I would like to expand on my statement that in the now there is never a duality of a subject and an object. Consciousness and its objects—thoughts, bodily sensations, sense perceptions—are always one. There is never a duality in our actual experience. Duality is the rewriting of history: an interpretation of our experience after the fact.

  We arrive at the understanding of non-duality through a three-step process. In the first step, the student is made aware of himself, or herself, as “witnessing consciousness” and not the body-mind.

  When a seeker first approaches a teacher, he or she believes, “I am this body-mind and not the rest of the world. If I am ‘this’ I can­not be ‘that.’” He is told, “You say I am ‘this’ and not ‘that.’ Well then, as far as the mind and the body are concerned, are you ‘this,’ the witnessing consciousness which perceives the body and the mind, or are you ‘that,’ the accumulation of perceived objects which make up the body-mind?” Faced with this choice, he replies, “I am the witnessing consciousness.”

  He has been caught in his own logic. He had been accustomed to seeing everything through the screen of a this/that dichotomy where he was always the “this,” never the “that.” Now consciousness has become “this.” Therefore the body and the mind must be “that.”