Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Friedrich Neitzsche
This quote was brought to my attention today and it stuck in my head. I am really not sure what it means. There is many different philosophical explanations out there. I choose to sit with the words myself and allow the wisdom to come to me...if it will that is. For some reason, this little gem came into my life for a reason and right away, in my egoice tendency to be narcissitic :), I related this to my own life. (Whatever "my own life" is in the big picture of things.) I am fighting some monsters and I don't want to fight.
Fighting Monsters?
What about you? Are you fighting monsters? Is there something in your life that you are regarding as evil, dangerous, threatening and are you summoning the courage, be it false or authentic, to fight...struggle against...put an end to this monster of yours for your sake or for the sake of the world?
I seem to have a few monsters, standing in front of me...some are growling and showing their teeth, some are quiet but have that look in their eye that says it all, you know? The monsters I am fighting...include the unconscious behaviour of individuals around me that somehow feels threatening to my sense of little me. Little me, in this tragic drama, is trying to be heard, fighting for space in a very subtle take over, to salvage and cling to a little bit of "self" in a space that is being overrun by others. These monsters are not necessarily out to hurt me, they are just too hungry, too big and too clumsy to see that they are trampling over me and what I have for so long believed was "mine". In my desire to love all , I don't want to fight these creatures or hurt them, I wnat to live in peace with them, but they do not seem to hear my "Shooo-shoo...careful, careful". They do not seem to see or hear me. Their need for gratification is just too great and they are blinded by that need. I feel like I am being trampled.
I am also fighting karma ...a series of life circumstances that I am perceiving as menacing and out to get me, to teach me, to redeem me. Sometimes there is just so much at once...I feel buried under it all and am fighting to get away from these monsters that pile up on top of me...just so I can breathe
I am, like many people, fighting the war against drugs and alcohol that seems to be in abundance around me, doing so much damage to those I know and those I don't know.
I am also fighting to keep myself and others from being pulled into the abyss that suffering in the form of stress, anxiety and depression seems to be pulling too many into.
I spent a great many years fighting "them" ...a collective that forms what we refer to as "the system"...not an individual persay but some collective force in shadow form....to be heard, treated, supported. I feel like I lost that one.
Most of all I am fighting my ego...that part of me that sees the monsters and feels the need to fight them. It is ego that tells me to fight and it is ego that tells me I should not be fighting. Ego that makes me angry at and resentful of these monsters for coming into my life...and ego that makes me feel such shame and guilt for not being more tolerant of them.
The Abyss
Though it seems I am surrounded by monsters inside and outside of me and that I must fight them, I know too it is all just a story in my mind.
I am understanding, as I look into this abyss, that there is only one monster and that is the untamed mind. I am understanding that this immature mind, in its fearful nature, will imagine monsters under the bed when there is nothing there but a few dust bunnies ( okay ...maybe more than a few under my bed). It will resist and struggle against and fight "them" even though there is nothing there to fight, even though fighting and resisting only makes the problem worse. Why? Because it is easier to project outward and away, to resist and fight rather than to look deeply inside and allow. The untamed mind is afraid to look at itself...it is afraid to look at its own inadeqaucies and failings...to see itself as the source of all fear....to tap into the pain it has been running from.
There is no need to "fight" any of these monsters...becasue it is only our minds that have judged them so. When we judge others or things as monsters out there...we become the monsters. Our fear and our conviction can lead us farther into fear and hate, resistance and aversion and farther away from peace that is so innate in us.
Our minds are the true creator of these monsters. It is therefore into that abyss, that cave we must go to gently slay them
Go to the source. Go to the mind and begin "shooing" the monsters away from there. Don't fight! Just gently "shoo" and they will step back and away.
All is well.
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