If I am what I am, then what's the point?

I am still laughing from that last PupetJi video. It's so funny and so true. If you have not watched it, go ahead and see it now.

At one point in the video, he talks about how we are unable to know what we truly are because it is unknowable. In the terminology of this blog, you cannot know the thing that is Conscious. Consciousness is there, and it has a source, but that source is unknowable in much the same way that you can't know your own eye color without looking into a mirror or having someone tell you about it. Furthermore, since that source is the source of everything, and it already has everything and is everything, there really isn't anything to do. There is no grand plan to fulfill. There is no advancement that can take us somewhere. Everything just is as it is: perfectly expressed the way it is expressed by Consciousness. Thoughts to the contrary are made by the ego in an attempt to preserve itself.

So the video then goes on with some common responses to these ideas:

If we are already there, what's the point of doing anything at all?

Why do we get out of bed every day?

Why don't we just grab a gun and start shooting people?

And so on...

The point is there is no point to anything at all. Answering these questions is not the point either, because the questions are coming from the ego in yet another attempt at self preservation. If there is even remotely a point to anything, the point would be to observe the questions without feeling obligated to answer them. Allow the questions to float there unanswered. Doing that will really piss your ego off. Try it. Observe the pissy-ness. Be the space around the struggle, and realize that this space is You.

I can put this another way.

My father is friends with a high level Zen Buddhist monk, Sensei Sejaku. If you know anything about their practice, you will know that they get up every single day at around 3am to do their meditations and devotions. Day in day out, without fail, these monks are doing this. One day my father asked Sensei Sejaku, "You know as well as I do that there really is no point to actions when seen in relation to the Oneness of all things. So why do you do what you do? Why do you get up every morning at oppressively early hours and do the same thing over and over again, even though it has no point?"

Sensei's answer was enlightening. He said, "Because that's what monks do."

So there you have it! The answer to why you should do what you do is "just because". Any other reason signifies some intervention of the ego. There can certainly be feelings behind this "just because". In other words, "I do this just because, and I happen to be enthusiastic about it." or "I do this just because, and it really sucks." Note how that is different than, "I do this because I will get promoted over that other sonofabitch." or "I do this because I will get laid." Those are driven by ego.

So the next time you are doing something, whatever it is, pay attention to it. (There we go with paying attention again. Lesson 1 is the most important.) Do it for its own sake, and do it as well as you can from start to finish.