Letting go of the story of “me”

 I had a dream the other day, I was in a soccer competition and twice managed to steal the ball from my opponents and scored, advancing to the next level each time. The rush I experienced felt familiar. I spent my youth as a soccer player and afterwards used academics and the financial industry as an outlet to compete with the best, intellectually this time around.

That’s how the notion of the “me” gets programmed. We perceive the highs as us and want to see the lows as the outlier and wish it away. The spiritual quest is the letting go of this conditioning and the insight that life’s ups and downs don’t define us. We realize that the story of “me” was not real and we are free to let go of this story altogether.

Do you know the story of the scorpion and the holy man? A passer-by sees a man rescuing a scorpion but the moment he lifts the scorpion out of the water he gets stung and drops it in agony, only to rescue it again a moment later. When the passer-by asked him what was going on, he shrugged his shoulders and said, it’s the nature of the scorpion to sting and my nature to save!

Our nature is not written in stone—or in the dna in this case—it’s something to be mindful of as it gets activated but it doesn’t define us. The dissolution of self is the realization that body, mind and world are One; the observer is the observed. Everything that life confronts us with is a stepping stone to leave the conditioning behind as long as we acknowledge its existence.

The holy man got hung up on his holiness title that’s why life put him in a painful time-loop to encourage him to let go—of the scorpion as well as his holiness. Likewise, I acknowledge my competitive conditioning but no longer feel compelled to participate in the story of “me.” Universal Consciousness is in charge. There is a time to “win” and a time to “lose”.

#spirituality #awakening #competition 

Have you still not found what you are looking for?

 You might say unhappiness is the number of unfulfilled desires divided by desires fulfilled, and that’s what humanity focuses on. Reducing the perceived unhappiness by fulfilling as many desires as possible.

“When she becomes my wife, I will be happy.”

“When I have children I will feel fulfilled.”

“I am one promotion away from happiness.”

“This house will stay with our family for generations.”

“Retirement is like riding into the sunset.”

Life doesn’t work that way—it only appears that way. A desire creates a tension in our system and its fulfillment releases happiness hormones, but the system is only at rest for a little while, then a new desire is born. In the depth of our being is a feeling of “I still haven’t found what I am looking for!”

Naturally, spirituality has the answer to the problem statement. Buddha, and many others have solved this problem for us which was nicely summarized by David Bohm in a conversation with J. Krishnamurti, “Desire is a thought producing feelings.” Spot the root cause of this thought and the game is over.

We have two areas we can tackle in order to get to the root of our never-ending discontentment. One, notice the games we play with ourselves on the thought level and two, zoom into the pain body that creates artificial desires to voice its presence. Find it, get your arms around it and let go!

You still haven’t found what you are looking for? Work on the outer as before, but dig into the inner until the realization hits, the inner is the outer, and restlessness and unhappiness can be resolved once and for all. 

Stop doing what takes “you” away from That!

 Look through the illusion!

To keep attention on your being is not to do anything.

It is to stop doing what takes you away from it.

The sense “I am” is not a practice.

It is your original knowing before thought divides the moment.

Remain with that.

Not the words “I am”—but the silent clarity they point to.

Not a mantra. Not an idea. Not a position.

Just the felt, immediate knowing that you are.

Before body. Before mind. Before identity.

This is not concentration.

It is relaxation into what is already effortlessly present.

(Emily Snow, The I Am That Needs No Effort)

I have a love-hate relationship with non-duality. Love because every word is true. The direct method is so easy—we are a manifestor of the “Field of Infinite Possibilities” as long as we manage to leave our conditioned mind outside of it. It’s an energy that flows through us. No thought comes to the surface as we allow life as is free reign.

The drawback of the direct method is that it leads to projection. When you approach the present moment with the attitude “I am That,” you have already polluted the free energy flow. Emily Snow offers a solution though, stop doing what takes “you” away from it! We can feel, sense and see when the conditioned mind takes charge of a situation. Be mindful!

“Be still and know that I am God” is the guiding principle of life and when conditioned mind throws a wrench into the works of life as is practice there is always Viktor Frankl’s practice to fall back on: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

A conditioned mind is helpless investigating its nature, but in the presence of “I Am,” the conditioned mind surrenders to an overwhelming energy circuit. We are able to see, sense and feel when the conditioned mind is active. Our power lies in the “neti, neti” approach. Not this and not that. Take a pause. Look through the illusion and reconnect with what always is. 

Open up to the “Field of Infinite Possibilities”

 J. Krishnamurti once concluded that “Truth is a pathless land,” implying that any attempt to consciously approach the “Field of Infinite Possibilities” will be in vain. The reason for that hopeless reaching is simple enough, the entity reaching for Truth is the interference!

Spirituality is paradoxical at times. Another spiritual truism is the insight that “what you are looking for is looking for you!” We are walking magnets and all we have to do is to polish it and the limitless attraction of the “Field of Infinite Possibilities” will do the work for us.

Spiritual living is the feat to connect with the “Field of Infinite Possibilities” before the body, the mind and the event is. It’s a natural state that is our birthright, and if the conditioning kicks in just as the clouds cover the sun, we can spot them, get to their roots, and watch them pass.

The “Field of Infinite Possibilities” is intelligent beyond comprehension. Every interference that appears in our life has its destruction already built in. Viewed from the perspective of the “pathless land” it was the interference that brought us here. We are That! Realize this fact and the quest is over!

The Screen

 I had a dream in which I was crossing the street. A car stopped and tried circumventing another car that was parallel parking. I figured I had plenty of time to cross the road, but the incoming car accelerated with incredible speed after it had passed the parking car, heading straight towards me. That’s when it happened. Something inside me pulled the emergency brakes. I froze. It wasn’t me. The car accelerated way too fast for me to do anything consciously.

You may say, so what, you were dreaming of an instinctive reaction, but that’s not how I perceived it. At that moment, I saw that we are being lived by a different  energy. We are merely screens on which the movie life is being played. Let the movie plot unfold as it may. We are before body, mind and the unfolding event. 

You probably have heard the story of the farmer who first lost a horse; then it came back with wild horses; then the son broke a leg trying to tame a wild horse; then all young men were summoned for war but his son was spared because of an accident. Other folks would have oscillated between “good” and “bad” outcomes but not this farmer. When his neighbors celebrated or lamented with him all he could say, “Is that so?” 

If you live your life with a stoic mindset to get to that stage of inner equanimity you do not accomplish anything because the experiencing “I” is still around. You are just telling yourself a convenient story that you are more spiritual than others and numb your feelings in the attempt to be a cut above life’s happenings or protect yourself from suffering. Stoic living just adds another layer of distortion on top of the distortion our perceived self-identity brings. 

What can be done to return to the screen that cannot be defiled by anything life has to offer? Who wants to return? Be still for a moment. Does the screen appear?

A lot more free

 I’m a little bit hurt but a lot more free.

I ain’t saying that you never took a toll on me.

For what it’s worth, I can finally see

that I am a little bit hurt but a lot more free.

(Max McNown, A lot more free)

I let those who feel that they can create Heaven on earth speak for themselves. I am certainly rooting for you! My personal observation has been that besides enjoying the pleasures of the blue planet that we are privileged to experience, earth is a playground that encourages and allows us to break free from the “me-energy”.

I am 60 now and have much deeper insights about myself than when I was 50 or 40. As just one example, when you are 20, you run head over heels to the wonderful woman you meet. These days you are walking. Not because you can’t run anymore but because you know what it takes to make a relationship work. The good comes with the bad in every aspect of our life.

Maybe we can free ourselves from some professional compulsions or material desires, but we always will feel the good, the bad and the ugly that life confronts us with. The Lincoln Lawyer Mickey Haller said in one episode, “Being a parent is watching your heart walk outside of your body forever.” That’s true. If you are a parent, you will never be completely free.

The psychologist E. Graham Howe said in “The Druid of Harley Street” that for everyone of us when we die there is a standing ovation up there in the Heavens. That’s a nice conjecture. Everyone who lives tastes the pleasures of the blue planet while doing their thing to break a little bit more free from the compulsions that come with it. 

Heart-centered living

 A man drove on the highway when a message appeared on the radio, “attention, attention, on the A 9 a driver is headed in the wrong direction. Please reduce your speed and watch out for incoming traffic!” The man looked up and screamed in frustration, “what do you mean one, there are dozens, dozens of them!”

How do we know what we see and feel is what is real and not a figment of our conditioned mind? A friend said the other day that she is beyond politics and I said to her, “You don’t have an equanimous mind, you are indifferent. That’s different!” Who gave me the authority to say that? Was I perhaps headed in the wrong direction?

I cannot tell you how enlightened folks perceive the world but I can tell you a thing or two about mind games. I experience them daily. The mind needs control and is happy to override feelings in order to get it. Our mind’s notion of enlightenment is that we will never experience suffering again. What a lovely concept that is!

A measure of spiritual advancement is our ability to face what is with an open heart. We experience the trigger life confronts us with, take the full force of the impact, and let it run through our system without putting up any resistance. After the initial hit there are some ripple effects, but the amplitude of the hit is fading. Our conditioned mind doesn’t jump on it!

I have experienced a change over the last year. I discovered the feat of heart-centered living. It is as if there is an entirely different energy system emanating from the heart region. We can literally feel how the system jumps from mind to heart-centered living. The heart doesn’t protect us from pain but it burns conditioned reaction functions like a furnace.

We feel life’s ups and downs—the good, bad and ugly—perhaps stronger than anyone but our conditioned reaction functions are unable to build on the initial hit to the system. Conditioning burns in the presence of universal love and we stay with life as it is, and not as we want it to be or fear it to be. Give heart-centered living a shot. Life is different when the heart rules.