Tagged: transformation
If “I am right,” I will be “wrong” too.
To acknowledge things as they are, to accept people, facts, opinions, circumstances as they are, is the single most important item for any seeker to consider. Acceptance means to have no psychological barrier against it.
We could DO things to change what is happening, but that DOING with an expectation, with an outcome in mind is full of ego and thus, when the situation does not appear as we would have wish for, we suffer.
Ego wants to be “right.” There is an immense fear of being “wrong.” We cannot understand that once we embrace the idea of being “right” without the idea of being “wrong” as well, then we set ourselves up for suffering.
Embrace the duality to make it one. If we embrace only one part, we will suffer once the other part‘s turn arrives. Ego identifies with one part of the duality and will suffer when the other side arrives. It will arrive. there is no way to stop it.
We perceive different forms. We label those forms with different names. That perception makes a separation.
Forms are united through a thread of events which will make up change, that which we call Life.
If we interfere in those events because we like to follow a moral standard, a law, a tradition; we are looking for a particular outcome. That outcome may happen, but it is inevitable that at another point in time, the opposite of our wishful outcome; will occur.
To embrace the duality as one, to step away from a “black or white” vision of the Universe, takes a different kind of intelligence.
That intelligence is not “educated” through a relationship with people in a society, but it appears once you live out of that society. When you are alone.
That is why a serious seeker, sooner or later will need to face his own loneliness.
That is when transformation appears. It is no longer about changing behavior, or changing the color of clothes to look “holier than thou.”
All the DOING is no longer needed as a distraction of recognizing who we ARE.
Thus, to be alone means to be in front of that which is not allowed to BE.
That is why it becomes so important to acknowledge EVERYTHING of who we ARE without trying to change it into some ideal, into some belief no matter how sacred it may be.
Acknowledge who you ARE. Recognize it. Observe it.
We have been taught to manipulate ourselves to maintain an ideal given by someone else. “We should be this and not that.”
All of that DOING to change who we truly are is merely a distraction from observing our truth.
Many ask: “How is it possible for observation to change something in us?”
Those are the ones who are used to DOING and are not aware of BEING aware of themselves.
I could recognize what is ego if I OBSERVE that manifestation in others. It is that OBSERVATION the one capable of changing ourselves when that observation is focused on us.
What do you mean by “us”?
Feelings, mental condition, beliefs, ideals, moral standards. Be a “detached observer,” of who you ARE as you ARE.
If we could observe how attached we are to all of those things that we believe to be us… we could start letting those things go.
Without that observation, all the “knowledge” we accumulate about ourselves, will be “second class,” a “hand me down,” an “intellectual trip to nowhere.”
We cannot pretend to CHANGE BEING when the mind accumulates more information.
The mind is incapable of acknowledging that which is always changing, evolving… Life.
The mind only has memories of that which is no longer the “now.”
Moving forward by not trying
Don’t think that because you found something, someone will find it by following your way.
Everything in Life has a pattern. It is the same pattern for all but the experience of it will be different at the individual level.
A child will grow into adulthood. It is the same pattern for all. Nevertheless, the experience of growing into adulthood will be different for every individual.
A fruit growing in a tree has a pattern. The fruit will mature and go on. Eventually every material thing recycles itself in Nature: The fruit could be eaten and thus, will become part of the matter of another being, or it could decompose itself in the tree and reunite itself with the Earth.
Every human being is a fruit in different stages of growth.
Observe that wherever that fruit is located in its process of Life, that place is absolutely “good” and necessary as it “is.”
Observe that there is no destination, as recycling itself will allow for that same matter to appear again in a different form.
“Matter cannot be created, neither destroyed, but only transformed.”
Now observe any human being. Isn’t him going through a process with no destination? Isn’t his stage of growth, his location; different from someone else?
Do we need to change something in him? Isn’t change inherently in him already?
“We need to shape him up! We want for him to be “good”!
There are rules, which need to be respected; and there are consequences for following them or not following them. Those consequences are the “teachers.”
The “I” cannot shape up anyone. Not even himself.
We are agents of Life; bringing movement to Life through our activities.
Some have misinterpreted “karma” as merely “action,” and label those actions as “good” or “bad.”
There is no “action” which is inherently “good” or “bad.”
There is an intention behind the action, which will bring an experience. Whatever that experience is in your lot, it will be an opportunity to keep moving, to keep changing.
For instance, Mark was looking for something in Life. He ended up trying heavy drugs and heavy sex as a way to escape the “reality” of his Life. He may call that, “changing his state of consciousness.”
Then, in his path something appeared… he found meditation and that brought him “peace.”
Isn’t meditation another way of altering our state of consciousness?
“Yes, indeed. But that is a “good change,” right?”
That is the belief.
Note that Mark is only going through the extent of the ‘rope’ of experiences, from low to high and high to low.
All of those are meant to find a balance.
Balance is the key in living Life. How do you recognize it if you haven’t gone through the extremes of the ‘rope’ of experiences?
To be harmonious is not a matter of rejecting some experiences in Life and welcoming others. That is just a belief.
Do you believe that you will go to heaven if you “practice” certain actions and forfeit others?
Do you think that God is going to “save you,” if you “do” something special? If you become “good”?
In which point of its journey a fruit becomes “good”?
Observe that all depends on the standards we give, the beliefs we follow, the ideals we keep.
If we observe the journey of an apple in a tree, can we say that because it ended up eaten by worms, and not sold in the market, that that was a “bad” experience?
To have the amplitude to observe the “big picture” is to liberate yourself from the chains of beliefs. That observation will automatically change your perception, so there is no need to judge, to control, to compare, as we could understand that wherever the fruit is in time, that is where it is supposed to be.
If we participate in the changing process of a human being, let us recognize when we have a particular interest in the outcome. It is that interest the one which will drive the action. That is how the “I” lies to himself.
“All I wanted to do is help you…” meaning, “all I wanted to do is to take you where I wanted you to be.”
The ultimate amplitude of perspective is called trust.
When we have lost our trust in Life, then we could isolate ourselves in the belief of “protecting” ourselves.
To trust Life, will give us that tranquility, that peace, for after all; there is no difference between “you” and Life.
That requires a different perspective to see, a different consciousness. 🙂
What are you looking for?
To look outside is a way to look inside… but the thing is neither outside nor inside. There is no-thing.
As many individuals gather to celebrate the “new thought” that we are all One, we could wonder if that “new thought” is not just another fashion, something that will keep us busy into a new direction to follow, to believe and to teach “others.”
Destiny is already made. That is a simple but deep axiom of knowing that we are all ONE.
One in destiny. Sharing the experience of being in relationship in the space of Life.
It is in that game how the perception of individuality arrives: “I want to do this in Life. I want to teach others about love. I want to go to the moon when I grow up.”
Nothing wrong with that.
Because that perception of “I-ness” is all pervasive, we could assume that it is the truth, even though; it is just a perception.
That is how the search for meaning in Life arrives to our minds. That is how the search for something greater than ourselves becomes paranoia, as we seek for protection, comfort and love. Something that could take away our own sense of pettiness when we separate from what it seems to be hostile; the “other,” Life itself.
Fear is born and with that, all imaginable beliefs to “save” us from ourselves.
A seeker is born.
The journey is to go away from us just to come back.
Away from us, there are so many experiences to taste and enjoy.
Religions, Gods, Devils, Angels… all waiting for your unconditional love in exchange of “conditional” love, promises, etc.
The “office world” seeks believers as well. We could get busy in so many political directions, social inequalities and economic laws. Science is a good preacher, when all we know is thought, logic and reason.
Have you tried all of those avenues in your search for meaning?
I have.
Those are part of my experiences to expand my horizons, until there is no other way but to come back…
It is said that peace, happiness, joy and all happy dictionary words are “inside.”
I tell you, there is no “inside” as there is no “outside.”
But… there is an “I” making that division, there is a perception of “inside,” because there is a “Me.”
That “Me” changes, evolves, continues on; but our static minds will not allow for that to happen. It will fight to continue “status quo,” even though destiny has defined change as the way of Life.
Transformation is change, isn’t it?
The idea of “self-transformation” is misleading. Life transforms and so are we. We are One.
Dear seeker, once your journey takes you back into “Me,” then you are a step closer to find out who you may be. Allow for Life to peel the layers off that “Me.” The “I” cannot do that to itself.
What do you find?
Nothing? Eureka! The eye of the hurricane.
What is that made of?
Nothing… and because of that, there is everything.
You found Oneness.
Fulfillment is. 🙂
The truth starts and ends in self-honesty at every moment
A Life walker, who is bored in Life; may have a narrow consciousness.
A life walker may realize that to “open up” that consciousness is of paramount importance.
How do we do that?
By simple appreciation of “what is.”
In that simple, easy to understand phrase is the “secret” to become One with Life.
To understand consciousness is the key. We could manipulate our consciousness by using beliefs, attachments and concepts. We could manipulate our consciousness by believing in something static which we could label as “truth.”
We could manipulate our consciousness by becoming attached to concepts, ideas, ideologies, scientific explanations and even to a God.
Nevertheless, rest assured that any “effort” that we make to “become better” is pointless. There is absolutely nothing that we can “do.” Because there is no “one” doing.
Awareness of “what is” without labeling, without opinions, without moral thoughts and with high doses of appreciation of the existence of “what is,” becomes that medicine for the soul. Just because something “is” it has a “reason” to be.
Any attempt to label, to put something into the “holy box” of human morality means to express a subtle contempt of “what is.” It is in that rejection how our consciousness remains stuck, paralyzed, into the realm of what is known, traditional, and safe.
Any particular action by itself is unable to change a person’s consciousness.
Want to become a saint?
Help the poor. Help your neighbor. Pray to God. Practice celibacy. Shave your head and cover your whole body with robes (black or white.) Read the Holy Scriptures, practice some penances.
Do we think that we could go to “heaven” by “doing” those things?
Let me give a concise answer.
NO.
How is that possible?
Actions mean nothing when intentions are underneath.
“Helping” someone is truly a support of our ego.
Does it mean that “I” should not help?
No. Help by all means, but take away that “I.” The “I” who remembers, the one who keeps track of “good deeds.” The one who deserves “heaven.”
Don’t do it because that is “morally right,” but because there is a passionate feeling in your heart, in your soul, in your core to act in that way.
If that inner passion is lacking, then any action in the name of “high morality” becomes self-delusion.
Empathy is not a “moral value.” It is a sense of belonging to everything that exists.
How is it possible for a world surrounded by so many religions and teachings of “moral values” to be surrounded paradoxically by so much ego ?
The answer is evident. There is no human activity able to change consciousness.
Do we want to pray 1000 times per day? Dow we want to “practice” something to “become good”?
Just observe “what is” inside you. Any attempt to change that “ which is” by force, by following a method, by manipulation, by beliefs or by rejection will create a personality, which lacks self-honesty.
Just observe, become aware. Assimilate your experiences. Change happens in that awareness.
Awareness increases as our consciousness increases. Consciousness increases through appreciation of “what is.”
Truth is to be true to yourself at every moment. Truth is not a paragraph of perceived facts or from some scripture. There is no religion or philosophy, which holds the “truth.”
The truth cannot be held. It flows, just like Life, just like consciousness, just like the River, the Ocean and the aroma of dawn. To try to hold that in our hands so it is “mine,” that is the “sin,” the illusion, the ego trip.
Appreciate its flowing beauty. That is all.
We shall not repress but transform
As more individuals are waking up to the effects of a “black or white” mentality of “good and bad,” then the observation that every process happening in our self needs to be observed without using our reason, but by going deep in our feelings to find the issue.
The ‘truth’ is not an intellectual game of words when we understand how paradoxical life is. The ‘truth’ cannot be a concept or some commandment or some philosophy for whatever is written is static and even though may be logically grounded, it is not necessarily the way life itself operates.
Life is fully paradoxical.
A paradox is to be realized but it cannot be fully explained for it escapes the way our language and mindset has been conditioned to “think” as being “true.”
Truth is then to have the capability to go deep in our feelings by putting the mind-games aside along with all beliefs and to look at what our core being is letting us know.
That which we hear is not the “truth” to be put into a commandment but it is the “truth,” “my truth” of the time, which will change, which will evolve as we evolve with life.
To be that “truthful” is not as easy as it sounds. It requires our willingness to be completely alone, completely left aside in a society where the “majority wins” and the “truth” becomes just a paragraph to cite.
Whenever we learn to repress, we have learned to rationalize and to comply with the perception of the “majority” for the sake of belonging.
The energy of anger is neither “good nor bad.” It is not a matter to catalogue it into a convenient box.
If we find that it is “bad,” we will try to repress something, which will be experienced regardless of our philosophical or political mind game of the day, then we could feel guilty, bad, in need to ask for forgiveness, etc. which are nothing else but the consequences of the way we believe the world to be. Full of “black or white” duality.
That energy of anger could be “good” if it is transformed into strength. The Mom who witnessed her kid trapped under a car, had no problems lifting it to save her kid. These cases of “hysterical strength” are increasing in number. Sports are another outlet for anger. When that energy is focused, humans could do wonders.
Nevertheless, when that energy of anger is not properly channeled it becomes suicide for the one experiencing it.
Every human energy that we could feel is there just because it has a reason to exist and it depends on how we transform it to be able to live in harmony with it.
That could be the teaching to embrace and not to repress it because it is “bad.”
The same goes with lust, with fear and with rage.
To observe how those energies come up and to be able to use them when it is proper, becomes the art of managing our own energies. It is not a matter of “reacting” like a small kid who could not contain himself before getting to the bathroom.
It is in this way of looking at things without judgmental labels but by honoring what goes on in observation, how inner mastery is a possibility.
Enjoyment of life does not reside in repression, but in expressing at the adequate time with the right energy.
That is the reason why discipline exists, (teaching the kid to use the toilet) so it will allow us to enjoy life to the fullest rather than repress our existence.
The guilt of the sinner is the repression of the saint
The “I” is the issue to comprehend, to understand, to experience.
When a religion or a philosophy is based on giving life to that “I,” we will experience many inconsistencies, many contradictions.
The consciousness of an “I” is like a wall in between life.
When that wall becomes strong as a brick, then the force to dissolve it, will be equally strong.
The struggle to keep that “I” alive is observed in different belief systems.
For example, we may “know” that everything is eternal, but then we are afraid of the “end of the world.” We need to observe that intellectual information is of no use when the “I” is only striving to keep itself alive.
Unless our consciousness changes through an experience of life, then our head will be full with information.
That information could be worshipped; it could take a particular form as to give us the impression that we are safe, that the “I” has obtained life insurance for the afterlife.
The issue is not the “afterlife.” It is now.
It will take lots of courage to “re-set” our minds from beliefs and traditions deemed “good” that we have learned.
It will take lots of courage to accept a life of living just to experience that “I.”
Ego is a word which denotes the answer for every question. Why is there suffering? Because of the “I.” Why is there war, famine, beliefs, taboos, separation, etc.?
Because of that “I.”
Knowing that intellectually, does not “do” a thing. It is all theory until we are willing to explore it inside ourselves, observe it without rejection.
At that point, we have gone beyond the child “spiritual state of consciousness” of blaming things on the Devil, God, Maya and everything else, without looking at that “I.”
Fear is used as a mechanism to trap someone into a particular experience. Sometimes, we do that to ourselves.
We could label the energy of fear as “bad” something which is not “good,” something to reject… however, as my friend Mathias said: “ a brave man is not the one who does not feel fear, but the one who knows how to transform that energy into strength.”
When we realize about transformation of energies, how could we deny or oppose something which is happening in us?
How could we feel guilty of that experience? Trapped in the “black or white” mentality we get trapped into the duality of the “sinner and the saint.”
The child mentality wants to be a “saint” and rejects the sinner in him. It is that rejection, that fear of being a sinner, the force which will keep that sinner alive and guilt will be the shadow on that journey.
All of our fears only strengthen that thing which we fear. When there is no rejection, then we are back into being one… The one who transforms himself.
To surrender or to bow down?
In “Spirituality” the words that we use to define certain experiences are not the experience in itself but merely a pointer to give us an idea.
I am quoting “spirituality” because that is the word which most will understand. It is a word with a “high level of acceptance” perceived as “higher than mundane.”
Nevertheless, inside my heart what I truly mean is “living life.”
Living life may sound as ordinary, something that everyone does like eating or sleeping; but to perceive the extraordinary into something ordinary is truly a different consciousness, which is not bound by terminology or concepts.
“Spirituality” is not isolated from living life.
Mathias, the wise tree said to Ananda: “ There is a difference between to bow down and to surrender.
To bow down to life means to say “Wow” to be in awe in front of something. To surrender has the flavor of giving up, to resign, to give control to someone else… sorrow.”
In “normal” Spirituality, the word “surrendering” is used.
Surrender your ego. Surrender your life. Surrender this or that… It is still the “I” in submission as if kneeling down in front of something, which is more powerful. There is separation of “I” and the other thing.
That type of attitude is the beginning of low self-esteem.
In the hierarchy of religions, a higher priest may request to a lower rank monk to surrender his ego to him.
For most that could be accomplished by belittling someone in different ways.
That is called abusive behavior and it has nothing to do with transforming “someone.”
There is no one who can transform anyone else. “True” transformation comes from inner realization.
To bow down to life is an inner gesture of acknowledgment to change. There is nothing to give up, nothing to lose, nothing to be sad about.
A palm tree bows down to the winds of a hurricane. It is that flexibility what allows the tree to survive and to find out a new skill.
“Wow… such is the wind!”
“Wow…such is death!”
The gesture of letting something go ahead, that permission does not come from losing a “battle.”
To surrender means to prostrate internally, to submit, to succumb to something, which is viewed as higher, “better than thou.”
It is that understanding which has started devotion, the guilt factor, a rebellious attitude or fear to be no more.
When we bow down to life, that gesture becomes our sign of trust, for life will provide exactly what is needed by every one of us in order to discover ourselves.
That may be “spirituality.” Thus, anything that life brings as an experience; is there for a particular length of time before going away…. If the lesson has been learned.
Bowing down to life is to be “obedient.”
To surrender is to repeat that lesson until learned.
Exploring the Depth of Living 