The most difficult thing for spiritual seekers to do is stop struggling, striving, seeking and searching. Why? Because in the absence of struggle you do not know who you are; you lose your boundaries; you lose your separateness; you lose your specialness; you lose the dream you have lived all your life. eventually you lose all your mind ever created and awaken to who you really are: the fullness of freedom unbound by any identifications, identities or boundaries.
-Adyashanti
The Words that Keep us stuck in struggle
Nothing, absolutely nothing, that happens in Life is about 'me'. I tell myself it is by over using the words 'my' and "i' and 'me'.
I describe things in my head and through my mouth as "My Life", "My problem", "My happiness [or lack of]."My story" or "Not my fault!".
I am constantly referring to my separated state with things like"I am here." "I am this and I am that." "I have this and I have that." Adyashanti encourages us to listen sometimes to a conversation someone else is having and count the number of times we hear the word 'I". Or most eye opening...listen to how many times we say it. It would probably blow us away.
And the use of the 'me' word is addictive. "You don't understand 'me". "You don't listen to me." "It is all about me". " Sometimes we will say things like "You like me, you really, really like me" but usually that 'me' has a melodramatic self pitying connotation to it. "You will never guess what it happens for me." "Poor me"
The Story Ego Writes
Man...our sense of suffering is derived from this idea that Life is about us as individuals. As long as we are spouting off the 'I',' My' or 'me' in the conversations that go on in our heads or to someone else we are caught in story. As long as we are caught in story we will suffer because ego is the writer of that story, not the Self we really are. Ego writes about struggle not the peace it is afraid of.
I mean there will be lots of good parts in our stories. The writer wants to hook us. There will be joy, adventure, romance and laughter. there will always be suspense, anticipation and a longing for more but there will also be a lot of struggle because that is what we want. We are constantly seeking for something that makes us flip through the pages of life so quickly we do not appreciate what is on each page...we will be looking for how it ends, wanting it to be 'better', more 'exciting' full of things we gain, achieve, cling to in order to make the story better. And these things will be written off again and again. We will lose just as quickly as we gain. We will have unexpected twists in plots. As long as it is "My Story", we won't find true joy and satisfaction, we will suffer.
Do we want to feel good?
Yes! we want to feel good but we also want to suffer, to struggle. We want to struggle to feel good. The 'I', the"My' and the "me' need the struggle to stay alive.
True Joy
Adyashanti, in his beautiful yet simple description of true joy explains how we do experience it from time to time. How in an unexpected moment we find ourselves feeling it, smiling or laughing for no apparent reasons. How sometimes something beautiful catches our eye and its like"Awe!" or we look at someone we love and our heart feels full, we witness an unexpected kindness and we feel warm all over. In these moments time stops...we feel satisfaction and joy. We are not suffering. Why? Because we are not thinking! We are not telling ourselves a story. We are not identified with that "My" "I" or "me". We in our tiny little egoic forms disappear.
It is, in those rare fleeting yet blessed moments that we all experience from time to time, so much more than that. What brings us true joy is the presence within us that speaks to the "us" of all things. We are experiencing Life as who we truly are.
If we could just stay there...get there and stay there, there would be no need to suffer because we will not feel personally attacked by Life in a story ego is writing and narrating. We will simply feel and Be Life! That is what experiencing the true Self is all about. It is not about me.
Our freedom comes from the thing we fear the most...the absence of the little self, from knowing and feeling: "It truly is not about me."
References
Adyashanti (1999) Why we struggle? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvJ9hrGN0UE
Adyashanti: No Self . From the Inspirational Quotes and Videos site http://inspirationalvideosandquotes.com/hp_wordpress/?p=103
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