Freedom from Suffering

Suffering comes from confusing Self with a socially induced hallucination.
-Deepak Chopra

Life Goal

I have set 'peace' as my life goal.  Of course, to me peace is transcendence, truth, connection with Self, God. It is the ultimate experience of living. I am not looking for the perfect Life free of hardship, not looking for a high or 'a buzz, not looking for 'perfect health' ...and I am not even looking for 'happiness' as we tend to define it .  I just want to be free of suffering. 

Freedom from suffering

Freedom from suffering, doesn't mean that I  expect to never  to have physical or emotional pain again, to never  have circumstances show up in my life that are  challenging or even traumatic again.  To me, being free of suffering means being able to respond to Life and all it offers peacefully instead of reacting from a fear based ego. It means no longer thinking and feeling like I have to struggle, fight, chase after, resist, numb or retreat from Life just to get by.  It means being able to surrender to Life and all it offers in the moment.

The freedom I want is internal.  I want to be released from the chains and shackles I have snapped on myself. It is freedom of the egoic mind's control over me, that I long for.  That, I believe is peace, is transcendence...is this elusive enlightenment the spiritual masters have been speaking about for centuries. I want to wake up and realize, I am free.

Not there yet

I am not "there" yet.  I know this isn't about getting anywhere but "here" but I still think in terms of "arriving" somewhere because I am not as evolved as I hope to be. I still think in terms of duality.  I still "think" too much.  :) It is my thinking that still acts as a veil or wall to my "being here" and therefore mentally "getting there".

Because of that, I still "suffer".  Physically I feel 'unwell'.  Mentally and emotionally I feel down.  Life circumstances offered me are still challenging to deal with. Ironically, the less I think and the less I look to the outside for satisfaction and fulfillment...the more physically, emotionally and mentally down I feel.  I also seem to have quite challenging things that need to be dealt with at a time when energy levels are low. Everything exhausts me. I wonder if this is part of the waking up process, a sign that I am indeed letting go of the illusionary 'hope for something out there' that sustained me for so long.  When things got tough I would always escape from the moment, slip into my mind with all its distracting and numbing thinking  and 'wait' for things to get better in the next moment. Now, it is like going without a drug that I was physically and psychologically addicted to.  I am craving, jonesing, slipping and it is all part of the recovery process.


Recovery

I am recovering.  I am progressing.  I am evolving and I am waking up.  There is, however,  still a great deal of mental conditioning in front of who I am.  My error maybe in assuming that I need to work my way through those heavy layers, to  "dig", and "shovel' and "pick" at it all.  My mind still has the power to convince me(this me I still think I am at times)  that what is in front of me  is dense...is form ...is real. Even though the Self, hidden beneath all that rubble, calls out to me that it isn't real at all, I still slip back into believing it is. 

Slipping through the Barrier

I know the only barrier between who I really am and who I have been socially conditioned to believe I am is what my mind has created.  And "I", whoever "I" is, am  responsible for that mind. Yet, I still find myself on this side of the rubble, instead of beneath it/behind it  where I so want to be.  I am  understanding it all conceptually so beautifully but am not truly knowing it in terms of 'experiencing' it. I am not fully conscious. I still have yet to completely open up the door between who I think I am and who I truly am because I am caught up in the thinking.

Only consciousness can know consciousness, only consciousness can understand consciousness and only consciousness can experience consciousness. (Deepak Chopra)

I want to be able to fall naturally into Self. Sigh! I will.

It is all good.