Wednesday, March 10, 2010

late night thoughts, a priceless secret

I just want to say something briefly, but I don't know what.

there are some fucked up things with ultra orthodox religions. deep suppression, a lack of joy in life and compassion and love for diversity.

there are some fucked up things with our atheistic, hedonistic cultures: emptiness and substance abuse, over sexualizing and and consuming and obsessing about how we look and what we have.

I can't abide by either viewpoint, since they are both obviously and monstrously against life and against love, truth, and joy.

is seems like I have to walk a line that is ridiculed by both: I am ridiculed my modern society for my 'goodness,' for my vehement morality and striving for god. I a scorned by religion because of my lack of conformity, lack of blind belief and distaste in telling other people what to do.

It seems I must be so moral that normal people think me a religious zealot and so self referral that religions consider me a heretic.

And of course, I always fall short of my ideals, so I may also appear a hypocrite.

This is all solved in one simple directive:

Don't bother with what other people think.


That solves all those problems, and all I'm left with is the main one, the founder of this blog; loneliness.

The title of this blog is, "it's easy being alone." and that is the answer to this emotional knot. It actually is easy being alone. What causes the problems is the struggling and trying to resist what so obviously is my reality: I am alone. Allowing that to be requires trust and requires letting go.

Surrender.

This is and has been my theme, perhaps for the year. But lets just call it letting go, or being in flow, for now. simpler, evocative terms. Accurate terms. What I am aiming for is a letting go and trusting. Like that exercise where you close your eyes and fall back and your partner catches you. Except my partner is Life, and I am constantly in a state of falling backwards, and life is constantly in a state of catching me, without stopping the falling. The image I have to go with this is standing on top of one of those bars that gymnasts use to do all sorts of tricks on. I'm balancing on top of one, and then I let myself go, falling backwards, and rather than falling down, I fall around the pole, feet remaining in contact, body falling around and around. Like being in orbit around a tiny planet.

As spiritual seekers, we are always waiting for something to change. But the only way we get what we want is when we start from right now, accepting what's happening now, realizing that this is what we've been asking for, all along. nothing more need be added, nothing need change. simply a shift in perspective, and realizing that this same ol' reality we've always been experiencing is good enough.

This is one of the great secrets of old. You could write a best seller and get rich and famous and have countless spin off's and marketing gimmicks, off of the one phrase I'm about to tell you. You could find it all over the world, in the minds and writings of the most enlightened, wise happy people in the world. This secret is worth more than any amount of money.

And I'm not going to charge a dime. Never will. Because my reward is simply having it myself, and understanding it. Because you can hear it a million times, but until you understand it, viscerally, from deep contemplation and from personal experience, it will be as useless to you as if you didn't know it.

Just saying, putting this concept to use is time very well spent. But I can't spend it for you. Unpack it.

here it is:

"In contentment is found life's greatest happiness."

3 comments:

  1. by the way, it's not a secret because some ubiquitous "they" don't want you to know it. It's a secret because you have to discover it for yourself, and most people never put in the energy necessary to do that. So it remains buried underneath those words, gold and jewels hidden under the big red x, soil undisturbed. It's one of those things that hides in plain sight. One of those secrets I can talk about openly in a crowd without anyone ever hearing it. It's part of natures inherent secret society, and you are your own gatekeeper to it.

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  2. take a deeeep breath. it's not that serious.

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  3. O.o
    it's...someone I don't know... amazing. I don't even know how you found this. I'm pretty sure I did't have it listed in the search engines, your not one of my friends from facebook...

    tried taking a deep breath, and telling myself it's not that serious. still feel like I'm being ripped apart by loneliness and raw emotional energy and the inability to control my world and fear about what's going to happen to me and shame at what I've failed to become.

    also, still know that everything is ok, even if the earth explodes tomorrow.

    Pain is pain. It's good to respect that. I've been stuffing my emotions for years and it leads to emotional numbness and depression. plus a lot of clean up work, learning how to care about yourself, when you finally decide to listen and accept the voices and feelings inside.

    I agree, life shouldn't be taken too seriously, except for finding the joy in life. That I take as a very serious thing indeed.

    And the reason I hurt so much is I'm pushing for that so hard. I could settle down into mild placation of my negative feelings, and I would feel less pain, but it would never heal, and inside would be that gnawing emptiness that eats away at one's soul.

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