Control¹

Control is forcing events and people into your way of doing things.  Control is the great mass of insecurity.  People who use this behavior are deathly afraid of letting others be who they are so the controller is constantly making demands that keep others off balance.  The underlying idea is “if they keep paying attention to me, they won’t run away.” 

When you find yourself making excuses for yourself and blaming others or when you feel inside that no one is showing you enough gratitude or appreciation, the fault is not with them.  You are exhibiting a need to control.  The external of this behavior comes from those who are trying to control.  They are tense and resistant.  They complaint of not being listened to.  They call you a “perfectionist” or “demanding boss.” 

Control begins to end when you admit your way isn’t automatically the right way.  You can tune in for your need to control by capturing yourself complaining, blaming, or insisting no one is right but you and coming up with one excuse after another to prove that you are without blame yourself.  Once you stop control them, the people around you begin to breath easy.  They relax and laugh.  They feel free to be who they are without looking to you for approval. 

Can you recognize this trait in you?   

1.  From The Book of Secrets by Deepak Chopra. 

Exam Result

For those who are interested in the result of my Professional Engineering exam:  I pass.  Yipeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Many many thanks for all your prayers.  It makes a difference for me.

Emotions

One of the many descriptions some people give me is ”lack of emotions.”   The description mainly come from the people who are extremely emotional in both end of the spectrum (positive and negative). 

There is some truth to this, however it is not entirely truth. Though I don’t wallow in my emotions, I do experience them.  They are deeper than the one that can be physically expressed.  My emotions can be obscured but they have no opposites.  To accuratley described, they are more of my states of being than emotions.  People who are drawn to me recognize in me what they already have in them; even in my sadness, they sense the emanation of love, joy, and peace. 

Most of us are more familiar with emotional patterns that are egoic-based.  Egoic-based emotions are emotions generated by the ego.  They have opposites. For these emotions, there is no good without bad, no high without low.  I have observed most people emotional patterns.  Sometimes, I recogize some of these patterns in me.  In my observation, I see that these emotional patterns are quite unstable.  They change in a switch of a second.   Here are just a few of my observation:

• The so called love is but possessiveness and addicted clinging that can turn into hate in a switch of a second if the the ego didn’t get what it wants. 
• People in this egoic emotional state get very happy and excited (almost comical) about an upcoming event and when the event is over they get very sad and disappointed.  And if the event doesn’t fulfill their ego’s expectation, the disappointment gets even greater. 
• They feel alive and happy when they get phrases and recognitions and feel unhappy and unworthy when someone criticizes and ignores them. 

There is nothing wrong with expressing emotions with opposites, if suffering is what people choose.  I choose to experience my emotions directly without opposites.

How do you deal with your emotions?  Do you directly experience your emotions?  Or do you express or wallow or repress your emotions? 

Alienation

I can resonate with the words below from Tolle:

People are trapped in their egoic stage.  They are alienated from themselves as well as others around them.  When you look at them you see the tension in their face, the furrow brow and the absence of staring expression in their eyes.  Most of their attention is absorbed by thinking.  And so they don’t really see you, and they are not really listening to you.  They are not presence in any situation.  Their attentions are either on the past or the future, which exist in the mind of course as thought forms.  All they relate to you is some kind of role they play and so they are not themselves.  Most people are alienated from who they are.  And some are alienated to such degree that the way they behave and interact is recognized as phony by almost everyone, except those who are equally phony, equally alienated from who they are.  Alienation means you don’t feel at ease in any situations, any place, or with any person, not even with yourself.  You’re always trying to get ‘home’, but never feel at ‘home.’

Do you believe that alienation is the universal dilemma of the human existence? 

Suffering in Children

Wouldn’t be wonderful if we could spare our children from all suffering?  Most parents I talked to would say yes.  I wouldn’t think so.  I think we must allow for children to suffer at time.  Suffer could come as the consequences of their own mistakes or from the events that happens in their lives that they cannot control.  If we don’t allow for the children to suffer, they would not evolve as human being and would remain shallow, identify only with external forms of things. 

The thought “I should not have to suffer, “projecting to “My child should not have to suffer” is itself the root of suffering. 

I think we need to teach our children not to distort the truth.   And the truth is that there is suffering and will be suffering if they are to live in this human body.  The truth is that the children need to say yes to suffering before they can transcend it.  I think that suffering has a noble purpose.   The paradox is that suffering is cause by the ego and suffering will destroy the ego.  But not until the children suffer consciously.  Resisting suffering will create more egos to burn up.  When they accept suffering, they suffer consciously. 

I am losing interest in participating judgments over others.  I don’t find it cool when people get together to gossip and complain about other people, especially their  spouses and children.  I do not find it amusing when people get together to judge and laugh over how stupid or silly other people are.  This kind of conversation gives me a feeling of separation and I find them painful.  It drains my energy and makes me tired; and it is hazardous to my relationships, my health, and my overall well beings. 

I also don’t find it amusing to engage in debates over religion, Truth, God or any other topics that would eventually separate and ultimately pollute my environment with judgment and negativity.    I feel that I could never win anyway, no matter how hard the defensive shield is being erected and how large the ego is being puffed up.  The appearance of what seem to be tough and puffed is just the many forms of nothingness. 

I like what Gangaji said about the meaning of life.  I am sharing it with you. It may not be the exact quote but close enough:

The meaning of your life depends on which ideas you permit to use you.  Who you think you are determines where you put your attention.  Where you put your attention creates your life experiences, and brings a new course of events into being.  Where you habitually put your attention is what you worship.  What do you worship in this mindstream called your life? 

The “I” thought

When examining my suffering, I realized that I spent most of my waking moment trying to preserve the “I” thought. For examples, when someone at work blames me for an unfavorable result, I see that I get defensive and feel that I have a need to explain myself.  I fear that my reputation is at risk and my job is on the line.  I took the blaming as “You are incompetent.” Who I have imagined myself to be is competent, on the ball, and an asset for the organization.  I have the need to explain in defense of this “I” thought because of my fear of being useless and ultimately being terminated.   When my husband criticizes me, I took the criticism as “I am not a good wife.”   Who I have imagine myself to be is “a good wife” which basically translates as “I am useful, still worth keeping.”  I feel the need to attack him back to defend this “I” image because of the fear of being abandoned and rejected.  When my kids complaint about me for their incomplete tasks, I feel the need to defend myself by reverting the responsibility back upon them.  Basically, I took the complaint as “you are a bad mother” and this is not who I have imagined myself to be; of course who I’ve imagined myself to be is “a supermom.”

I see that everything I do is for the protections of my thoughts, my reputations, and how others think of me.  My defensiveness (aggressive or submissive) and incessant activities are a few strategies used for the daily maintenance of who I think I am.  I experienced my self worth fluctuating depending how others think of me.  I lived with a constant fear that “I” can be pulled by anyone and anything at any moment.   I experienced an enormous amount of suffering living under this fear. 

I am forced to examine my suffering, particularly to the authority of this “I” thought, to why my self worth or who I think I am is based on this image of me being a good employee, good wife, and good mother?  When examining deeper, I see that I experienced suffering because who I think I am is still at the level of forms.  I operate under the thought of “I am my body”.  Yes, this is a revelation!  I see myself as the body only.  When I say the body, I don’t just mean the physical body alone, but I also mean thoughts, knowledge, reputations, materials, titles, and so on.  I see that I seek outside of myself.  I see that I rely on others to complete me.     

I invite you to see how your mind defends this “I” thought. 

Open Heart

An open mind reveals an open heart; an open heart reveals…..well, Gangaji put it best: 

It is not that people won’t betray you.  It is not that your heart won’t break  again and again.  Opening to whatever is present can be a heartbreaking business.  But, let the heart break, for your breaking heart only reveals a core of love unbroken.

-Gangaji, The Diamond in Your Pocket

More on “Love”

Standing outside of my office, he gives me a sweet look and says, “I just want to stop by and tell you that I love you.”  I smile and respond, “all the time, you and I have been saying this to everyone we meet, except with many layers of conditions.”  He adds, “and expectations and the attachments to that expectations too.”  Then he left.  Isn’t that so true? 

The word ‘love’ has been so corrupted and polluted with a desire to get something rather than a desire to give everything.  I love you if I get to do what I want.  I love you if you don’t try to control me.  I love you if you continue to fit the concepts of who I think your are.  I love you if you are kind, generous, and loving.  I love you if you listen to me. I love you if you don’t love another person.  I love you if you love me unconditionally.    

Because our hearts have been broken so many times by those we trust, we spend so much time trying to get love and unable to give love. We’re trying to get love while being protected from giving love as if the getting of the love will take care of the ache to love.  But nothing will take care of that but loving.  I know I am not the person to speak to you about love but I know that love is answer for everything.  There will be broken hearts.  There will be pain.  To love is to surrender to the broken heart.   If our lives is about protection from pain, then our lives is about suffering. Anytime we are protecting ourselves from love, we are protecting ourselves from God.  When we are trying to control love, we are trying to control God.   When we are surrendering to love, we are surrendering to God.  When we are feeling love, we are feeling God.  Why?  Because love is God. 

Love is freedom.  Freedom from what?  Freedom here is not in surrendering to our egoic needs of love; it is not about doing whatever the hell we pleased.  Freedom here is in surrendering to the bondage of love, be a slave to love.  This is the paradox.  Love has nothing to do with any person or any thing.   It does not mean that we are staying with a partner even if this person is unfaithful, abusive, disrespectful, and horrible to us.  We may walk out the door and never see this person again. Relationships change and end.   But in this change, the love does not change.  It doesn’t go anywhere.  It does not end.   It is alive.   Like impermanence, love meets itself again and again and again and clings to no particular things, penetrating to impermanence relationships, to what is. 

When you say I love you to someone next time, see if you really love this person for who this person is or you love your concepts of who this person is.  Also see if you can recognize any similarities in the word Love and the words What Is, Truth, Reality, God, Impermanence.