I received a telephone call from my friend this morning requesting me to read the lessons at her dad’s funeral.  I get emotional hearing her describing her dad describing me when he was alive and how he’d complimented on my readings every time.     

The church sent out a funeral check list that have the name, date, time, and size of the service for my friend’s dad.  As I read this check list, it forces me to inquire the truth of my death.   Questions run through the mind.  What is the experience of life when there is no “me” left?  What is the experience of “problems” when “problems” are not my problems?  What remains when everything is gone?  What is it that died when the body dies?  Who is asking these questions? 

The death of my friend’s dad allows for a deeper opportunity to recognize my attachment to my forms and to inquire their death.  There is a sense of freedom in this inquiry.  It allows me to be who I am (love) without fear of being annihilated.  It gives me the courage to live and to love without defending “me”, without selling out my integrity and my soul.  I live, I love.   

I am inviting you to inquire over these questions, especially the last question:  If all is finished and all is over, what is left? What is it that died when the body dies?   Are you aware of your fear of being a nobody?  Who are you?  What has your life been about? How have you been using your existence (experiences, knowledge) at work and at home up to this point of your life?  In other words, what is your life experience use in service of? 

Gratitude

Life is so precious. Our lives could end sooner than we expected.  We get so caught up with the habits of acknowledging what goes wrong and fixing the wrong that we forget to acknowledge the right.  We have a lot to be grateful for.  I mean really so much.  What we have here in America is a precious privilege.  For those that have lived in the third world countries, you know what I am talking about. 

In this instance, I am grateful that I am alive.  I am grateful for the freedom to express myself, freedom to investigate my life, freedom to be able to spend my time the way I choose.  I am grateful for a roof under my head, good health, a comfortable bed.  I am grateful for families and friends.   I am grateful for all the spiritual teachers and their teachings.  I am grateful for world technologies, good tap water, hot teas (especially Green, Jasmine, and Black), safe roadways, flushed toilets, sinks, and shower.  The list can go on. 

At this instance, what is it that you are grateful for?  I’m not asking you to impose gratitude onto your stage of mind, but I am asking you to just tell the truth about what it is that you have that you are grateful for.

If who you truly are can not be expressed in words and the self is forever the unknown, what then is the realized in the self-realization?

You spend some times looking within.  You discover that you are quite complex and no exact words can accurately describe what or who you truly are. You discover that you know more of what you are not than what you are.  And every single finding reveals newer dimensions about you that you never knew before and would like to know more.  You discover the unknown has no limit.  You see that reality is paradoxical, that you are no thing, and yet you are everything.    

You feel liberated in the knowing that the known cannot be me or mine.  You discover that all lives flow from the one deep Source, from Oneness with being.  You feel that you are no longer living life but life is living you; that the world is living in you instead of you are living in the world. 

You realize that self-realization is not an experience, but the discovery of the timeless factor in every single experience through your awareness.  You feel liberated in knowing that you are a prisoner in your mind, that you live in an imaginary world of your creation.   You realize that you are always on the road, embarking on a journey, not to reach a destination but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom.  Your journey is in itself a destination and life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple.  You realize that you are on the road to nowhere. 

One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.

MAHATMA GANDHI

Some say the world is full of love.  Others say the world is full of sadness, pain, and suffering.  Is the perception of the world based on the identification of the perceiver?  Is joy-and-suffering a man-made thing? 

We tend to preoccupy ourselves with the bad conditions of the world. We have an urgent need for settling things right.  We have no patience for people who preach inner personal improvement as a preconditioned for the improvement of the world.  We want to help now.  We want to solve others’ sadness and suffering right now, so that we may satisfy our own egoic needs to help. 

Someone asked me of my opinion on the latest preacher’s scandal.  The result of the preacher scandal is a classic example of the “quick-fixed” culture of the world today.  We want beautiful sweet fruits and fragance flowers but we do not take the time to cultivate our garden.  The preacher jumped directly into improving the outer world first and skipped the important process of improving his inner world.  He skipped the painful process of grappling with own identity, attempting to avoid pain and seek pleasure.  He did not attend to his own business and clean his own house first.  He is only interested in attending others business, neglected his own, and now he’s back to square one, forced to grapple with his own doing.  This is what happen when we put the carriage in front of the horse.  When we put the horse in front of the carriage (inner improvements before outer improvements), the journey is alot smoother and faster.  We can avoid unnecessary pain and suffering if we do things in order, that we temporarily sacrifice our egoic needs or desires to please, to help, to be approved, and to be loved by the outer world.   

Striving for improvement for others is the most praiseworthy occupation.  It clarifies the mind and purifies the heart when done selflessly.  If not done selflessly, it would add more to the suffering of the world.  But to be in the state of selflessness, one must be free from desire and fear.    After all, desire what is wrong and fear what is right is what create chaos and despair for this world; it is what cause human to inflict pain upon each other.  But how can we tell what is right and what is wrong?  For me, what brings me back to reality is right and what dims reality is wrong. 

So when we talk about helping others, what do we mean?  Do we mean to alliviate their suffering?  Can we truly end suffering for good by merely providing them with money, foods, and other basic needs?  Have you ever helped, really truly helped a person?  Try putting this person beyond the need of further help.  If I am serious about the suffering of mankind, I must perfect the only means of help I’ve got–me.  And same with you.  So try helping yourself by spending sometimes looking within.  By helping yourself, you help everyone else.  When you do not know what is good for yourself how can you know what is good for everyone else?

The mirror and its image

At the root of all desire and fear is the feeling of not being what you are.

SRI MAHARAJ

If I am on the search for self-realization, it seems to make sense that I should have relationships with others to help me to come to know myself.  Relationships with things, situations, and people reflect back what I like or don’t like about me; like a mirror reflects the image.  But for this to work, I must know what I represent: the mirror or the image?  But how do I know if I am the mirror or the image since I don’t really know who or what I am to start with?  How do I know if the mirror is not defected and gives false images of who I am? 

So am I the image or the mirror or both or neither?  The mirror reflects the image, but the image does not improve the mirror nor does the mirror improve the image.  Am I not what I see?  Am I neither the image nor the mirror, but a seer of the reflection in the mirror?  Or am I both the image and the mirror?  

Who or what am I then?  How can I separate myself in the mirror and stand completely alone, all by myself?  There are so many things I am doing without knowing how to do it.  I regulate my digestions, blood circulations, muscle reflection, feel, see, think without knowing why or how.  I am myself without knowing.   I am what make perception possible.  Who I am cannot be answer in the words.   Even uttering the phrase ‘I am’ is false. 

So now what?  Having seen that I am neither the image (outer world of perceivable) nor the mirror (inner world of thinkable), that I am neither body nor mind, what am I expected to do?  Should I continue to waste my time and energy on a search to find myself (self-realization) in my relationships with others or just be myself?   But I can not ‘be myself’ because I do not know myself. 

I am settling for just ‘be’ at this time. 

For those who claim to be on the search for truth, all you have to do is discard every self-seeking motive as soon as it is seen; when you stop being selfish, when you abandon all self-interest and self-concern, when your actions cease to be about Me and Mine, when you set yourself free of self-identification, when you live in tune with things as they are, when you are being you—intelligence and love in action— then you do not need to find truth for truth will find you. 

You informed your spouse about your knowing of his or her meeting with an opposite sex.  You kindly asked her or him if there is anything here you should be concerned with.  Your spouse response was that there is nothing here for you to be concerned with.  In addition, his or her explaination was that “I just have a fascination for others’ lives.  I just like to meet people.   Beside, it is none of your business,” s/he said.   S/he is unable to explain to you the reason for this fascination nor where s/he taking this relationship. 

What do you take of this response?  Do you have a theory on why s/he spending so much time attending to other’s live and fail to attend to his or her own life?  

Have you ever had a desire to put an end to all your desires? Or had a fear of being afraid?  Why do you think most of us are refusing the feeling of lack, rejection, incompleteness, imperfection, or emptiness?

Your spouse was meeting an opposite sex that he or she met on Xanga without telling you. You found out of this meeting from a friend who saw them together.  How do you take to this situation?  

Up to my mid twenties, I would classify myself as being shy.  Being raised in a Vietnamese culture, I was not supposed to talk back nor asserted myself in any way.  College years were the time I learned to break off the shyness and hardened with boldness.  Having an opportunity to discover both spectrums of shyness and boldness, I can say that there is no difference between a shy unassertive person and a bold assertive person. 

Have you ever observed your shyness or another’s shyness?  Try and observe and tell me if you see the symptoms that I described here.  A shy person is easily frightened.  She is quite timid and unassertive.  Her behavior can be easily misunderstood for other characteristics including gentleness, kindness, loving, and understanding (not to say that she doesn’t have them, but quite ambivalent in exhibiting them.)   

Being shy or being bold is one of the many faces of the ego; some are more ambivalence than the others.  A shy person has an ambivalence ego that both wants and fear attention from others.  The fear is that the attention may take the forms of disapproval or criticism.  That is to say something that diminishes the sense of self rather than enhances it.  So the shy person’s fear for attention is greater than her needs of attention.  

Seeing myself as this or that is ego, whether positive or negative. Behind every positive self concept, there is a hidden fear of not being good enough.  Behind every negative self concept, there is a hidden desire of being the greatest or better than others.  Behind the confidence’s ego feeling of superiority is the fear of being inferiority.  So the shy inadequate ego that feels inferior has a strong hidden desire for superiority.  Many people fluctuate between the feeling of inferiority and superiority, depending on who they come into contact with. 

All you need to know and observe in yourself is this:  whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that’s the ego in you.