'Unlocated': Distresses and exasperates the thinking mind.

St Paul's Cathedral shrouded in thick (pea soup) fog one Saturday 6.15am, originally uploaded by Irish friend of Bill.

Unlocated.
That's my favorite word of the day. Something that defies ? Location. Cannot specify its boundaries. Does not have a 'postcode'. Like no beginning and no end. Doesn't start 'here' and end 'there'.
Cant be grasped by the mind. Cannot be held. Cannot be possessed. Defies being 'pinned down' to a specific meaning or place in the world.
Feels slippery in the mind. And makes the mind flail around getting more and more upset as its limited range of function cannot 'get' it. Very upsetting for the mind. Very frustrating.
Cannot be encapsulated by a neat mental code or description. Just when you think you've got it you haven't. Like trying to capture a butterfly in your hand. The moment you exert yourself to contain it, the moment vanishes and the butterfly is squashed by the act of grasping.
Its like walking a rope but forcing yourself not to look down. You deprive yourself of the opportunity to get a 'fix' on your location. And you STAY that way. Free floating unlocated undefined experience. Scary!

I think the first time AA's get this type of experience is when they try to define a higher power. ..Well once they have settled into AA and start trying to think about what an HP actually is.
When people are new they tend to be very !!! confident about whatever their belief happens to be. That there IS a god, or there is NO god, or that they are an ATHEIST. Basically its all very neat and tidy. All sorted. Even if they are undecided they are very confident about the fact that they are undecided. Full of confidence in their beliefs basically.

The 'HP' defies definition. And so the act of mentally trying to define it will exasperate the mind, and always have an unfinished quality. Something lacking. Something not yet located.
This is what Amaro calls unlocated, and he often refers to this term when he talks about things.
I have the same experience when I (!) try to understand monastics or the like. I get the same slippery exasperating, unfinished quality of mind in their presence.

The pathetic hankering of the mind to satisfy it's need to DEFINE everything and create boundaries for every experience makes me laugh. Its pathetic really. Such an inadequate attempt to nail down some thing that cannot be nailed down. Reminds me of a cat pathetically pawing at the door trying to get in. kind of feeble. Gets the mind nowhere. Just an instinctive ITCH (what Amaro would call the grasping mind) to get an answer. To define and categorize everything.

Being around unlocated people is weird too. I get that feeling around monks and nuns and the like. They are neither one thing nor the other. They are neither here nor there. You cannot nail em down. They !!!!! confuse the brain. Thankfully they also create something whilst in their presence that reassures sufficiently so as to not create a sense of !! total flailing. There is a parallel experience of 'all is well' in addition to the unlocated presence they emanate.

Every now and again I (stupidly) think I can second guess these kinds of people. I try really hard to guess what they will reply to questions and answers sessions for instance. What I LOVE about them, is that they never say what I anticipate. Which is great.

An example of just how valuable this quality is, is to examine its polar opposite. (This is just an idea and may be worthless BTW). But we all have got to know a troll who posts abusive hate speech about AA in defiance of the regulations Blogger and google imposes upon such acts.
But that's beside the point. What's very interesting is how 'located' his thought forms are. There is nothing inherent in his statements that renders uncertainty in any form. All is certain. All is 'placed'. All is nailed down.
Well I don't think you can nail the universe down. Or any of its constituent elements. There are many clues in his speech which point to greed hatred and delusion, so I'm not claiming to have stumbled upon anything particularly clever here. I'm just saying that the 'fixed position' is the opposite of 'unlocated'.
And that I do not trust any kind of fixed position. I see the exception to the rule, splintering the validity of the 'rule'.
But there you go. Open minded versus fixed closed positions on the world. Nothing new there. But yeah I am in love with the word 'unlocated' at the moment. It is helping me see where I would like my mind to be, and to teach me to learn how to endure the distress in the mind when all attempts to categories and name 'it', fail.
But there you go.

Hehe. Anyway. That's today's pointless meanderings. Like I always say. Amaro say it much, much better than I ever could, and manages mot to sound like a pompous fool when he says them. So if any of this piques your curiosity, then listen to how he explains it in his mp3's. He's very, very good. Well I think so..

And I hope you americans manage to do the 'next right thing' when you vote today. Which I hope you will. I am sure I need not remind you of the voting conditions that led to the last US president being voted in. Basically ALL the votes would appear to count after all, if the last election is anything to go by.
My favorite old timer used to say "Ask yourself.. Which is the most COMPASSIONATE person/party? ..when deciding who to vote for" which I found useful.
We may not have an ideal person or party to vote for, but the least we can do is vote for the lousy best out there and see what happens. If we wait for ideal conditions, we will be waiting a Loooonnng!!!! time! So please follow your conscience and express your right to choose the lousy best out there. It may help or it may not, but you just never !!!!! know. No harm in trying.
So yes, good luck to all you ! anxious americans out there. Hope your nerves are not too shattered. :) Good luck!
Anyway. I'm off. I have essays to write :) as usual! Have yourselves a grand old Tuesday.