Running from Reality?

You can't conquer reality by running away from it.

Og Mandino

Should I run and hide from challenging Life circumstances? 

Did you ever get to the point where you felt like you were smothering under the weight of your external circumstances...and choking on a very visceral internal reaction to them? Did you ever get to the point where you felt that if you staid  where you were you would be crushed?  Have you ever seriously considered just running away from it all, using your spiritual inclination as an excuse to join an ashram or a monastery, just so you could focus on peaceful things all day instead of this?

I have had a literal knot in my gut for three months. It feels like I swallowed a pumpkin sized rock or something and it is just sitting there.  When the noisey warnings around me get really loud or when I find myself tripping over the external circumstances that are popping up  from this dusty old rug that is constantly unfolding in front of me, this knot starts to roll around inside me. It is painful! I also have this deep sense of heaviness all around me. It takes my oompf away and my natural tendency is to react or "do" something about it, to fix it. 

I mean, I have practiced enough to know I must counter these tendencies.  I start by reminding myself...that dealing with this that is unfolding in front of me and my reaction to it is my practice. I do my best to center myself so I can be open to all of it...so I can allow all of it in.(But I still  choke on the dust!)  I do my best to meditate and do kriya.  I do my best to relax into the face of this noise, this chaos  and this unravelling of more and more challenging events, but the weight of this knot in me and this heavy cloud over "me"  seems to be pulling me down! 

Run, crazy lady! Run!

I hear this internal warning system going off, "Run!" I really, really, really want to run but I don't run. I still myself when the bells go off. I observe what is happening around and in this form.  I do my best to accept what is showing up in front of "me"and in me, to understand it, to embrace and honor each challenge and each reaction to the challenge.  It isn't easy and I screw up royally from time to time, but I do my best. I am also  studying everything I can about karma...because I know in my gut that this is "my" karma...something I have created  along the way and something I can possibly undo.  I want to understand it better. Yet, everything is so dark and exhausting, confusing...I feel so overwhelmed at times...and the physicality of this just weighs me down more. It is like WTFork? The temptation to heed the "Run!" warning comes again and again but here I am. 

Hmm! Have you ever felt like that? 

The thing that makes this so confusing, I guess, is that I see how this form and mind I identify as  is taking quite the bopping from Life in terms of circumstances ( not that Life has a personal vendetta against me or anything...just happening either because of a million lead up events that have nothing to do with me  or because of some karmic influence arising from this "me").  Most psychologists would tell me that Life is hard and the "me" is at risk. They would instruct that it is of upmost  importance to look after this "me", stand up for it, protect it,  make sure it gets its needs met during these challenging times so it remains strong and healthy. And that makes sense, right, to this notion of self-love we grow up with? 

Should I protect this "me"? 

Yet, the more I practice what I am practicing, and the more I see beyond psychological conditioning the more I see and understand that I should not be protecting this "me." In fact, I should be letting Life take it out like it seems to want to do. I could  even speed things up by kicking it out.  The "me" is the problem, not a victim to what Life or karma is doing here.   The problem is that I still identify as this seperate , little  "me", (with all its mixed up preferences and needs),  that is dealing with these Life circumstances. In doing so I suffer and miss out on experiencing the joy that exists beyond this notion of "me, my and mine". So why should I do what I can to protect "me"? I don't want a healthy sense of  me...I want a dead sense of  me. Must die to be reborn. 

I  ask myself these questions in the face of all this : 

Who is this "me" that is having such a hard time?  Who is this "me" you are told  you need to protect from life? Who is this "me" that created this karma you are experiencing?  Is this "me" who you really are? Is it worth protecting, defending, feeding or saving? This me is just something you created in your mind, right? Your psyche, your self-concept...is just that a concept, an idea, right?  It isn't real!

Who is  really hurting here?  Just "me", right? Is there a part of you  watching what is happening outside you and inside you? Who is this that is watching? Does it hurt? No, right?  It is just objectively observes what is happening and how "me" is reacting to it. What does it feel like to observe the drama of me from this objective, clear minded space? As long as you are observing the drama of me, even from a slight distance, you are not tangled up in me's tale of woe, are you? There is no need to react to or resist any of it. You can be at peace regardless of what is happening around your form, can't you?

What does that realization mean?  It means you are not that drama and neither are you that "me"? Could it be that "me" and the life experiences unfolding in front of it, and the reactions to them that follows, are not who you are? If you can watch them, you are the observer, the witness, the awareness of them but not them, right? Why don't you focus more on the observer that is watching this drama of me, rather than the drama and the "me"? 

So who would be doing the running away, if you were to run? This made up sense of "me" would be running and who you really are as the watcher, would just be watching it run. It is  "me" that is encouraging the run...isn't it? What is left of this me, that which you are still clinging to, is pretty desperate in your waking up. It wants to survive...doesn't want you Self-realized...doesn't want you to take your internal eyes off it, does it? It knows that if your consciousness is not focused on it, it does not exist. So, is it not funny, that the closer you get to leaving this "me" behind, the karmic drama increases to get your attention focused back on it? 

Hmmm! Yeah I question all this, I see all this.  I understand all this. 

There is still some clinging to this idea of "me" though that keeps pulling me down.  I need to let it go.  Right now, I think Life is doing me a favour, answering my prayers...I ask for freedom from suffering.  Freedom from suffering is not about freeing one's self from challenging experiences, it is all about freeing one's self from attachment to  "me". If we are suffering, we are still clinging to me. Life can help us remove it, if instead of resisting realty when it unfolds in front of us, we open up and allow it all in.  Life will then  blow what is left of "me" right out the window. We just need to let her do that. Sigh.

All is well in my world.