Riding the Crest of the Unknown

You know little about yourself -– the hidden motives and blind spots, where thought actually takes its shape, where desire is subtly formed. You are not aware of the origin of thought. You recognize thought only when it comes out with its thrust in readiness for action. You know how to choose between thoughts. But you never know the real nature and basic structure of thought.

[…]

You will have to look within to find out and understand that mechanism which chooses and discriminates. How do you choose, and why do you choose? Who and what is the thing that chooses? And what is the basis for choice?

Can you take a close look at this mechanism of choice, which is based on wishful thinking, on habits, tradition and fear?

When you perceive the limitations of desires, choices, and habits, and thus come back within, you suddenly discover in your inner sanctuary a new pulse of sensitivity: uncommitted aloof energy.

What will happen if there is no choice, if this energy is allowed to function freely? Perhaps this energy, when free and on its own, will discover a new spontaneity, an expression of choiceless action, of natural internal intelligence. In that spontaneity you have no thought, no choice. It is a positive movement of inner sensitivity, which is feelingly attentive to everything around.

When you are intensely sensitive and watchful to everything within and without, you begin to see, sense and hear more sharply and closely, without thought.

This means you become alert. You become awake, sensitive and alive. You see and feel without any will of thought. Such a state of alert watchfulness, that state of choiceless perception, which is mere attention and anonymous existence, is meditation.

[…]

In meditation, there is freedom from time. Such timelessness is an invitation to the supreme, to the immaculate that resides beyond the mind.

There one remains in the present, merged with the flow of the timeless, riding the crest of the unknown, where all the seekings and choices of the mind come to an end.

--Dada