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.

Love hurts. Hate hurts.  Hurt hurts. 

The very unwillingness for the heart to be broken is the broken heart.

GANGAJI

We often experience hurt in close relationships, especially with our partners, lovers, and children.  There is hurt which generated by fear, exhibit in the human emotions to include jealousy, anger, and sadness.  Some of us are willing to endure this hurt because we know that it is worth it.  We know that the degree of hurt is measured by the degree of love, and that the more we are willing to be hurt, the more we are willing to love, be loved, and be taught by love. However, most of us are afraid of having our feelings hurt.  Yet without the willingness to be hurt, there is no willingness to love, to live.  We spend an enormous amount of energy trying to protect ourselves from being hurt and yet in the end we still get hurt.  The very unwillingness to experience the hurt is the hurt itself.   Love hurts, hate hurts, hurt hurts.  What do we do?   

What if we are willing to trust love rather than trust our mind’s protection from hurt?  What if we simply open to it all?  What is the worst that could happen if we love?  What if we let love destroys us?  If love is to hurt, then why not let it hurt fully?  Hurt is just hurt.  So what?  What if we let the world break our hearts and let the hearts be broken again and again and again into a zillion pieces until it stays open, until true love is reveal?  I recommend hurting and loving. It does not means that you stay in abusive relationships.  It is to stay true to that which is always true to you, and that is love.  You can leave and still love. 

An open mind reveals an open heart.  An open heart is a vulnerable heart. And the willingness to be vulnerable is the willingness to be hurt.  The willingness to be hurt is the willingness to enter the sacred path of the warrior.  To be a warrior is to welcome what ever happens without any demands that it should be different than it is.  To be a warrior is to live life in the service of love.   

I invite you to be a warrior, to enter the sacred path, the inward path to self-inquiry which examine your life and see for yourself your pattern of running away from hurt.  See what hurt are you unwilling to experience? 

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.