Are you "Okay"?

When a thing can no longer offend, it ceases to exist in the old way...3rd Zen patriarch

When people ask me if I am okay, I will often respond with, "Define okay." 

And they usually look at me as if I have two heads before answering.  Then they might say, "Is Life treating you good?  Are things working out? Are you getting by financially? Are the kids doing okay?  Is he, or your job, or this thing you have or are doing  making you happy?" 

When I say "No," they look at me again in a state of shock and disbelief.  

"Well, I don't understand.  You look good.  You look like you are doing okay." 

And I just nod my head, "I am!"  

I can almost hear the silent words in their heads as they look closer at me with wrinkled brow and hand on chin. What the fork? 

Say what crazy lady? 

"Okay," to most of us refers to a state of being able to avoid what we fear and being able to get what we want from the external world.  So in that way...I am far, far from okay lol. I seem to be having trouble getting what is needed for survival, let alone comfort.  I am facing almost every parenting, financial,  and social fear a person can have. My exterior world seems to be nothing but challenge.  It is as messy as my psyche. Well, that isn't true. Thanks to the challenging events that Life is handing me, my psyche is actually going through a forced clean up.  It is probably less messy now than my external world seems to be.  That is why I am more okay than I ever was, at least inside. 

The Learning

I have learned, you see, that this state of conditional okayness most of us operate with is not going to sustain me or anyone else. I have stopped spending all my energy attempting to run and hide from my fears, attempting to get what I could from the "out there" so I would feel somewhat more comfortable in here. I see, now after so many decades, how that doesn't work. It really doesn't. I don't want "okay" to come to me through escaping fear and  improved life situations. I want to go, instead, to where "okay" is regardless of what I have, who I am with and what I am doing.   So, I focus my attention inward now and put my energy towards a spiritual practice or sadhana. 

Success is Failure

In society's eyes it may seem that I failed on the "okayness" test. I have failed as a successful career person,  I have failed as a financially independent retiree.  I have failed health wise.  I have failed as a parent.  I have failed as a writer.  I have failed as a social being.  And I have, I suppose, according to that criteria for "okayness".  But Singer reminds us that "Success is actually failure!" So, according to him, I have been very successful because of these failures. :)

An Inner State

I have learned through all that has unfolded in front of me, partly due to uncontrollable forces and partly do to my choices, that true success is an inner state of okayness that is not disturbed by what is happening "out there".  True success is in realizing who we  truly are at the deeper level and being able to experience the world- absolutely all of it- from there. It is about living a higher life than conditioned mind tells us we can. Sitting in the Seat of the Soul allows for a higher life, while mind keeps us in a low life state.

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if you spend your life avoiding your fears and trying to get what you want you are going to live a very low life

Experiencing Life in the Seat of Consciousness

When we can, instead of averting and grasping, simply experience life from the seat of consciousness as the mind does what it does, the heart does what it does and the world does what it does, and be "okay" with all of it, not needing it to be anything but what it is....then we succeeded in the real way.  We have done what we are here to do.  We can then remove this powerful and amazing light of consciousness from the "me" and all its fearful and desiring dramas and place it on what is really important. Our most important purpose here is to let go of the power our minds, hearts and the world have over our consciousness so we can shine it on what is real.  Singer tells us we can connect to ecstasy when we do that.  For now, I would be content with peace. 

Spirituality holds the secret to the mystery of Life and the meaning of Life.

As long as we choose the higher practice for the higher Life, we are  bound to be okay. and maybe even, much more than just okay.

All is well. 

Michael A. Singer/ Sounds True ( October, 2023) Experiencing Love and Joy Instead of Fear and Desire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95HnLcWDpHA