Desire for Grace

 Grace is not something outside you.  Infact your very desire for grace is due to grace already working in you.

Ramana Maharshi 

I want to share these words with someone in particular. I want to remind myself of them, as well. 

I am heavy with someone else's suffering.  I see it, feel it and am, among others,  very often the target for its release. This person, at times,  can  also be a very bright and shining star  radiating lots of beautiful light out onto the world. Amazing really!  Yet, I sometimes feel very, very heavy when I leave our interactions even though  I love them dearly.  I go there with the intention of simply being present, open, loving unconditionally. I want to be free of  any sense of "ego", identity, "little me" and be open for them as I "listen".   Sometimes, I am very successful at doing that.  Other times I am not. 

I am okay with suffering, I am.  I am okay with those deep dark emotions and the expression of them. Infact, I appreciate the expression...I see it as release and a step towards healing.  To be there for that is no problem. 

What frustrates me...is the mental resistance  to feeling better, I often encounter; the outward blaming and persecution, a lack of accountability, the pushing away ...very aggressively...with the hidden notation that I am somehow meant to be totally aware of,  that says, "Going and leaving me after I more or less push you out the door with a trail of curse words...is a very bad and insensitive thing to do. It will make me worse. You will make me worse if you attempt to protect yourself from me." 

Don't get me wrong, I truely understand to a fairly complex degree...mental illness. Suffering comes in many forms and I respect it, in whatever form it is expressed. But I don't appreciate how complicated "ego" can make it.  What frustrates me in this case, is not so much the condition but the ego.  Ego has claimed an identity with this diagnosis and is running with it. It is clinging to it as a self righteous rationalization  for the aggressive expression of anger and blame. It is collecting greivances and building story. It keeps the focus on the "litle me" of this person as a "victim"  at the expense of all those around. It "demands" help and solutions and at the same time it ourwardly and often very aggressively  resists every suggestion, every bit of help offered. 

The person below ego genuinely wants to get better. Ego, however, doesn't want to get better.  Ego is getting something from the illness and the situation. 

It is, I beleive,  threatened by the "natural" suffering this person is experiencing because it somehow knows that that suffering can lead to transcendence.  This person, at certain times, seems so close to waking up, to healing in the Ultimate way ...it is almost palpable.  They take a step in this direction, find a certain peace, attain a certain realization so few have  and boom...ego steps in again and pulls them away. Ego is brutal in its attempts to keep this person from "waking up". 

The person will come to me and say, "I want to have faith.  I want to believe.  I want to end suffering once and for all...show me how!" And I will  say, "I have a different way of seeing things ...you may or may not be ready.  Do you still want me to share, what I have learned?"  And they will say yes.  I will then give them pointers...sometimes they take them and seem to leap and bound toward recovery, toward Ultimate Healing ..They are grateful and peaceful...but just like that ego steps in and pulls them back.  Then they throw the pointers back in my face as if I pushed them on them. The resistance to any advice I give from then on...even if it is as simple as "splash some water on your face" or "just take a breath" is ten fold. 

Sigh!  I need grace in dealing with this person in the most helpful way possible and this person  needs grace in freeing self from ego's hold.  Without the ego's interference, the condition will be so much easier to manage.

All is well