What are you going to do in this miniscule time between your birth and your death?
Michael A. Singer
Hmm! I have been heavily pondering that question over the last two decades or so of my life, possibly pondering it, on a deeper level, since the moment I arrived on this planet. Even before I embarked on the journey of being a human seeking to have a spiritual experience, I think I have always known... in some strange way, that I was actually a spirit having a human experience. Does that sound a little cra- cra?
Spirit having a spiritual experience...?
As I looked around the world and the going ons throughout my years...I always felt a certain degree of unease, a sense that I didn't quite belong here, and the things we humans were doing just didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. It all felt "off" or, at least, it felt I was "off". From the very beginning, I had a hard time being human, of 'keeping up' with what was expected of me. I blamed that unease on the traumas and tribulations I encountered along the way and on my inability to deal with it all effectively.
"What is wrong with me?" was always my biggest question. I could never quite settle in this body, this mind, and this experience. I could never quite be like the others. I think that is why I started looking to develop myself personally in my earlier years, why I was so fascinated with understanding the human mind and body.
Esteem...
I thought I found the answer to my unease: Esteem. I had so much hope that I could find peace of mind here, eventually, if I worked hard and didn't give up on "me". I attempted to build up this "me" as much as I could: physically, mentally, socially, professionally etc. I went back to school for more years than it ever showed on my paycheck or in my titles...believing that the more I knew conceptually, the better assured I was of ending the unease. Education, a good job, and fulfilling my role in socially acceptable and expected relationships, I erroneously believed, would build my self esteem and the esteem by which others viewed "me". Esteem as a self, I soon began to see, however, might not be the answer.
...not the answer
At first, it was wonderful. I felt esteemed! I felt like I was finally being a successful human and that what I was doing was working. The temporal nature of the physical world, however, decided to make itself known. The body that I trained hard to be physically fit began to slow down, cough, and sputter. The social image I worked so hard to create fell apart when I started losing all those things I was clinging to in order to define who I was as a human: my marriage, my health, my career, my professional title, my income, my super-parent costume, and my knowledge. Nine years of university, and I suddenly found myself with nothing to show for it ...no career, no professional title and living below the poverty line. My family, I soon discovered, was suffering in the ways I feared the most and I had to face that I had no power to fix that either. Life was a mess and I was a mess. What was left of esteem blew out the window.
Yet, I had hope. I had hope that I could rebuild "me" and if I rebuilt "me" I would get to that ease I was longing for. After every set back...I just tried harder...I fought the systems that held me back...I went back to school and took more courses in this or in that (more education, more conceptual knowledge, the mind assured me would fix "me" or fix this mess I was in). Well, of course that just put me farther and farther into debt and whatever the education gave me was not in earning potential, let me tell ya. I struggled hard financially to the point where I honestly wondered if I would end up completely destitute.
...or human having a spiritual experience?
Throughout all of this "me" building and this "me" falling...I knew, in my heart of hearts, that what I was doing to compensate for this feeling of unease was not the answer. My compulsive doing was taking me farther away from what I was seeking, not closer to it. I had enough of an epiphany on reading some books by Wayne Dyer and Eckhart Tolle to awaken a tiny bit. Though I remained entrenched in me and its ever increasing problems and dramas for decades later, and though I continued denying my spiritual nature, I could see the path unfolding in front of me. Maybe I needed to go inward instead of outward for the solution?
Slowly, bit by bit, I started turning the gaze inward. I started to observe my mind in a whole new way. I started observing this "me" I had created and started seeing how it was causing more problems than solutions. I started opening up to this idea of there being something beyond this esteem, this "me".
There is Something Greater Beyond this "Me"
There was Something Greater lurking in the background, observing and watching without getting lost in any of my dramas. There was Something that was always there and Something that would always be there even after "me" in this body and mind passed on. There was a "spirit"(just a word), I realized, and it wasn't "woo-woo". When I started to see that, it felt so right. It felt familiar. I began to recognize (re-cognize as in know again what I always knew) something deeper. As I began to open to this renewed understanding, the teachers started showing up in books, lectures, videos and in person taking me deeper and deeper. I began to meditate and take my study of yoga deeper. I became a yoga teacher and a meditation and mindfulness teacher ( okay there was still some of that ego incentive there.when I took these courses...that looking towards education and knowledge to fulfill me kind of thing but I got past that too.) I became a spiritual seeker.
Not the Ego/ Not the Character
Though, I still slip back again and again into ego's need to run the show....I see so clearly now how I am not this ego. I am not, nor have I ever been, what Daniel Schmidt would call the "character," I have spent most of my years watching and trying to build up in hope that I would eventually find some peace and ease in doing that. It was all one big illusion and delusion, a dream. I see that this "un-ease" that I have always felt is there for a reason. Truth is, I don't fit in because though I am in this world, I am not of it. None of us are. I have this gut feeling, that I chose everything I am going through or went through, before I even incarnated in this body and mind. I chose all this so I could get to this place right where I am now.
It Took This Long Because It Did...
It sometimes feels like I wasted forty years in this maya...this illusion, this dream state, serving the "me". Why did it take this long? I counter that regret with this mantra, "It had to happen as it did cuz it did. Every event took me to where I am now and that is all that matters. It took this long because it did."
You do not have to be lost for forty years though. You do not have to serve the ego instead of the spirit for as long as I have done. You do not have to build up as much karma either. You can begin waking up right here and now.
Knowing who I am, I now ask myself on a deeper level than I have ever done before: What are you going to do in this miniscule time between your birth and your death then? I mean, I spent most of this life so far just getting lost and building up karma...now I want to know how to let go of what is left of this "self" so I can fall back into Self and be free. That is what I want to do with this time that is left. I am acutely aware there is not a lot of time left, that I am closer to death than birth, so I cannot waste a minute. My sadhana has become the most important thing in my life. I hope you make your practice, in whatever form it may come in, your priority as well.
Spend this time between your birth and your death as a spirit having a human experience, not as a human having the odd spiritual experience! Wake up!
All is well.
Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( September 28, 2023) Levels of Spiritual Growth. https://tou.org/talks/
Awaken the World Initiative ( 2023) The Awakening Mind-Part One: Know Thyself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUZJea1UnS8
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