"Open", is more important than the word "love". Just stay open . Don't seek love, seek openness, and love and joy will flow.
Michael A. Singer (somewhat paraphrased)
No mind, I won't close.
Michael A. Singer reminds us, in the below linked podcast, that our innate nature is love and joy.
Joy is an uplifting experience of energy, coming up from somewhere inside you...it raises you up, it never brings you down ...it is an inner experience of upliftment.
If that is true, why do so few of us experience this joy and love all the time? Why are so many of us pulled down into dark and heavy emotional experiences?
We don't experience it, because we close to it. We close to the "I am" that we truly are, the Source from which this joy flows. When we close to joy we feel pain. When we close to light, we experience darkness.
We close because we have built a thick filter-veil between this "I am" and the outside world. This filter layer is our psyche, the sum of our learned experiences, a thick layer of stuffed and stored emotional past experiences. We perceive and experience all sensory input through this layer and it decides if we should stay open to what life is giving us, and therefore if we should stay open to the joy within, or if we should close to life and therefore close to joy and love . This filter veil becomes the means by which we experience Life. All of life experiences that enter must pass through this filter- veil before making their way out. If we close, they do not pass through.
It is a habitual tendency for many of us to react to what we deem as life's pleasant or unpleasant experiences based on this psyche layer...this filter-veil we created inside us through which all of Life's events must pass through. If an outside event triggers our samskaras which are the building blocks of this veil-filter, we will either open to the experience (if it is pleasing) or close to the experience (if it is potentially painful). We probably do more closing in a given life time than we do opening. We therefore experience less joy and love than we do grief and hardship. Sigh.
I am discovering that it doesn't have to be that way. We do not need to react to life events in the way we are conditioned to do so. We can break the lifelong habit of stuffing and storing (pulling in what we deem as soothing to our inside wounds and pushing away what we deem as pain triggers). We can learn to let it all pass through. How?
First, we need to recognize the filter-veil we created that all this stuff is getting trapped in as it pushes through. See this psyche, for what it is. It is something the personal mind created. It is not who we are, but in the way of who we are. We spend so much time and energy focusing on this psyche, believing it to be everything we are, that we fail to see beyond it to who we really are. We are not this psyche, this "me" with all its dramas and reactivity. We are that "I am" that not only has the ability to observe the psyche in action, but to be free of it.
Next, we need to create a bit of distance from this samskara ridden drama of reactivity so we can observe it. Recognize how it doesn't work in keeping us joyful or safe. The more of life events we pull in or push away in an attempt to feel good and avoid pain, the more we repress and suppress, the thicker the layer gets. The thicker the layer gets, the farther away from joy and love we get. Joy and love ...are not out there...they are in here and all we need to do is open to the experience.
Thirdly, we need to commit to not closing . It is a choice we are all capable of making. Make the choice for true joy.
Fourthly, we need to stay mindful and aware, observing each reaction as it starts within us. We may notice how we are physically and emotionally feeling uplifted by a comment a person makes. We may notice how our face is blushing in shame, or the knot is starting to twist in the belly, or the body is tensing in reaction to something that is happening out there- recognizing how it is getting tangled up in old painful samskaras. Notice.
Lastly, don't follow the pull to close when you notice the uncomfortable feelings emerging. Do the opposite of what the mind is telling you to do. Don't resist, don't react. Relax and let go.
This is a conversation I am committed to having with my mind when I notice that tendency to close in reaction to a person or an event that normally triggers my samskaras in a less than positive way:
"No mind, I am not going to follow you into reactivity and resistance. This is simply what it is...not good or bad, not right or wrong, not 'should be' or 'shouldn't be'...just is. It happened. Let's accept it and let it go.
...I see why you are doing this that you do, encouraging me to close; why the part of you, called 'personal mind', pulls in and pushes away; why you created this thick veil or filter in the first place. You want to protect "me". But this habit tendency doesn't work for who 'I am'. The "I am" is not this "me". This psyche, this sum of learned experiences, this filter-veil created for protective purposes, is not who "I am". I am doesn't need to be protected.
I am just observing it and unfortunately being so distracted by it, I have dimmed down...I am not shining with the love and joy I am made of. Every reaction, every stored and stuff experience...every time I react, resist= close, just dims me more.
I don't want to keep doing this. I want to know I am going to be okay no matter what happens. I want to stay open!!! I am, therefore, going to stop reacting to stuff. I am going to stop storing stuff. Not closing is a process, a life long practice I have yet to master but man, I am committed to it. It is the only way to peace...to joy...to love.
So, we need to work together to dismantle the veil that everything is getting caught up in. We need to clean out and neutralize the inside...okay? And that starts with not adding more to the mess. We are not going to resist this that is happening right now nor are we going to pull it in. We are going to hold up our internal hands of will, and let it pass right through.
I am not going to listen to you when you tell me through the skip in my heart, or the tightening of my gut, the heat in my face or the tensing up of my muscles when life unfolds these things, like this one, before me...that it is time to push away or pull in. I am going to notice, breathe in, accept, do my best to relax, and observe how this event comes in and how it leaves, okay? No more closing. I am going to do my best to stay open. You can work with me but even if you don't, I am not going to close!"
Wow! Game changer.
Of course, that is a big long ramble when all you have to say in times of approaching reactivity is, "It is what it is. I can handle this. I am not closing."
All is well!
Michaela A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( December 25, 2023) Opening to Unconditional Joy. https://tou.org/talks/
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