Maurice Fullard-Smith - This is It: The Art of Happily Going Nowhere

First published in 2007 by

Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd

1 Spencer Court

140142 Wandsworth High Street

London SW18 4JJ

Maurice Fullard Smith 2007

The right of Maurice Fullard Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Designed by Sandie Boccacci

Digital Edition converted and published by Andrews UK Ltd 2010

Acknowledgements

With my thanks to George Tarleton for pointing me in the right direction, Alan Haldan for continued inspiration, Bridget Boyle for unlimited helpful advice and practical assistance, and Brendan Walsh for seeing so much potential in the manuscript.

On my pilgrimage towards enlightenment I owe a great debt to my family and to many friends for their patience and understanding with my undulating mental and emotional condition. I would also like to acknowledge the considerable life-changing insights received through the writings of Anthony de Mello and Eckhart Tolle.

Introduction

The seemingly precocious title of this book This Is It is not meant to suggest that within these pages lies the complete answer to the problems of our troubled minds and our troubled world. Rather, it is another voice extolling the virtue of stillness, and it is inspired by the intriguing mystic saying, This is it; nothing happens next. It is a voice that is grateful for all the other voices like the sound of many waters swelling with one state of awareness drawing us into the present moment, which have contributed to my ability to embrace life as it is and to live at peace in the here and now.

As you read you may come across a few words or expressions that are not part of your normal vocabulary. It may be helpful to pause to let them impress you. Such words can be a valuable means of clarifying what is happening to you, or if pondered quietly, they may open doors into a deeper and fuller dimension of living. The words have been born out of experience; pausing in their presence can prevent us from adopting them as mere concepts in our minds. Letting these words sink in, slowly and consciously, often allows them to change our lives. Pausing deliberately to discover silence and space can be the beginning of living life at a different tempo.

The chapters of this book are short so that you may read just one and then leave time between that and the next to allow the words to remain with you. Each chapter is intended to make something happen within you and is probably best read slowly, leaving gaps between the sentences and, indeed, sometimes even between the words. I have become increasingly convinced that pausing is an art form that allows great changes to develop within us.

Above all, please do not struggle or try hard to understand anything; rather, relax and let everything come to you as a free gift when the time is right. Whoever you are, I wish you well and trust that the time you spend in these pages will be both enjoyable and beneficial.

Maurice Fullard Smith

Part One

Get a life!

We already have a life; the trouble is, we often dont like the life we have got. However, our life situation remains, and whatever we may think this is it. And it will not go away.

All our suffering finds its source here. Pain we may not be able to avoid, but suffering we certainly can. Our unhappiness springs from a non-acceptance of things as they are at this very moment. This can be one of the most difficult facts for us to face, or even consider; but face it we must if we are ever to cease from continual striving and enjoy contentment and peace.

Many years ago I can remember asking for directions from an elderly man in the street. You can imagine my astonishment when he scratched his head before declaring sadly, Sorry, you cant get there from here! This absurd phrase niggled away at me for many years. Where on earth did he expect me to start from, other than where I was?

Thankfully, the man was wrong. His long life had not brought him wisdom. We most certainly can get to a satisfactory destination from our present position. In fact, we cannot get there from anywhere else.

It is our failure to accept where we are, constantly wishing we were out of our present situation, projecting our minds into a past paradise or an imagined ideal future, that prevents us from living now and taking the steps forward that we often long to take.

Now can be the moment for us to stop and to realise that life is as it is. Our constant search for something or somewhere better is delaying our enjoyment of this present moment. And this present moment is all we have. Life is always now.

Many might contend that this present moment is not always enjoyable; but we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into mere semantics, for what I mean by enjoyment is not a constant ecstatic experience, but a deep-seated sense of contentment and peace, whatever our circumstances.

Going nowhere

The irony of our journey through life is that there really is nowhere to go. There is no destination that is not where we already are. As many a sage has commented, The journey is the goal.

What I am saying is that everything we need is already within us and that our journey is really a discovery of who we are and what we already have. In that sense we are going nowhere. There is no physical place called the Kingdom of Heaven, Nirvana or the Promised Land for us to find. They are in another dimension they are a condition, not a destination and they are within us awaiting our discovery.

Imagine for a second what it would be like to have everything we need to be perfectly content. Well, that is how it is when we are free from worries and the ambition to be better off in some way than we are now. We do not have to go anywhere or get anything to improve our condition. All our searching can only lead us to find that the treasure was at home, within us, all the time.

As we consider the way to this happy condition, we shall find that the route is not marked out clearly, step by step. More than likely we shall meander, like a river. Maybe we will even seem to be lost at times. Unlike the man-made systems of canals and reservoirs, our river refuses to be imprisoned within the confines of our expectations. Often our impatient but well-intentioned short cuts will lengthen our journey, and at other times we will make great advances seemingly without any effort at all. On our journey we will learn to live with enigma and paradox. The river will not be hurried or confined.

Stay with it, as we start to take time out to listen to the silence around us and allow ourselves to be spoken to. This means abiding in a place of unknowing, where by being weak and vulnerable enough to need strengthening from within we discover a river continually supplying all that we need to reach the goal of self-realisation. Meanwhile be quietly assured that all is well just undiscovered.

Please be still

Stillness of mind is all that is required for us to experience the wonder of living.

For most of us that continuous state does not happen in one glorious moment although it has been known by some, especially after a long, dark night of the soul, when they reach the place where life is just not worth living any more. Such folk sometimes just give up, flop back and go with the flow. They accept their lot and, surprisingly, gain an alluring twinkle in their eyes that betrays the secret of those who realise that they cannot solve or avoid their problems and those of society at large. They have left the mad pursuit of modern riches and have ceased to be obsessed with being successful. Getting on an oft-repeated expression that has robbed our generation of genuine satisfaction no longer interests them. They accept that life is not fair and do not complain about it.