“PROJECT” Etymology: “throwing something in front”. Like
throwing a marker in the sand.
The
idea is setting a goal and working towards it. Animals don’t normally do this
consciously. Humans do.
- To do it, you need to have a
goal. And you need to know what it is.
- You also need to follow steps which lead to that goal and not away from
it to somewhere else.
And
if you don’t (or maybe can’t) choose destinations, you may be drawn
along by the whims of ever-changing desires. Or blown along by the winds of
karma or the will of others.
The
“train journey” is a metaphor. The destination is the goal. The stations you
pass through are the necessary route to your goal.
Winning the Lottery is a good
example of trains and stations. “If you’re not in, you can’t win”, is the
slogan.
That is, you have to buy a
ticket to get on the train. But you have to buy the winning ticket to get on
the right train and win.
You
can have many, many on-going goals, short term and long term. Tea at three. A
week-end in Paris. Getting a degree. Getting married. Having a family. Retiring
to Chiengmai. Becoming a millionaire. Winning Wimbledon.
But
you won’t win Wimbledon by watching tennis from an armchair. It’s the wrong
ticket. Think of all those hours of practise, the winners put in.
But
for humans, all our many goals are temporary. They are not destinations in
their own right. Achieve them or not, they, too, are stations we pass through.
These
“destinations” all turn out to be stations on the real train journey for
all of us. Our journey through Life. So “What train are you on?”
This
journey does have its destination, irrespective of the intermediary stations.
If you get on the train at Birth, all stations lead to Death.
If
you can read this, you did get on that train. This time round.
Actually,
it is possible to choose not to get on at Birth. But, having got on, it
is not possible to choose not to end up at Death.
This
time round.
This
is where our Projects came in. This Week’s
Project began for us, it seems, on the 12th of February 1986. It
was Communication.
The
intention was to encourage a happy, harmless and profitable Life, which would
unravel real Truth and not end up just in Death.
There
have been quite a few sharers in our Projects over the years and some seem have
fallen by the wayside. They chug along, in various degrees of dissatisfaction,
to the unavoidable loss of all those things that they have accumulated by
intention or default. Death.
But
there is an alternative and there has always been. The Pursuit of Truth,
honestly practiced, reveals the existence of a train running parallel to the
train of Life and Death.
The
Train to the Deathless.
There
are stations too on the track from Life to Death, which interconnect with the
track to the Deathless. If one is aware of these, one can cross the platform
and change trains at those stations.
The
most important one is Seeing the whole and real Truth and the unsatisfactoriness
of the conventional train one has been travelling on for so very long. If Seeing
is 100%, one can spontaneously change trains forever.
Such
a sudden realisation and total change of direction is very rare.
Subsidiary
stations offer, as it were, short-term tickets to ride on Deathlessness and
experience a more gradual acclimatisation.
The
key one is Ethics.
Since
Ethics is in tune with the Centre out of which all beings came, it means that
thoughts, words and actions based on Ethics are not hostile towards any of
those beings. And they are in harmony with Nature, in which all beings have
their existence.
One
can also obtain a temporary ticket on the basis of keeping Precepts or
Commandments. But these depend on learning and knowledge and determination.
They are therefore second-hand. They may be erroneous. Whereas Seeing is
immediate, first-hand and effortless.
What
is on your plate? Even language itself is unnecessary. Just look!
What
train are you on? Intentionally or otherwise. Just look.