To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
Unknown
I want to know "Everything" in the True knowledge way, that goes beyond conceptualization and intellectualization. I do!
I am fully aware that is a very big and life (s) long process to get to that level of truth. In the meantime, I have a very active intellectual mind and I am pretty addicted to words and concepts. I use it and them to "explain" "my" verson of reality. So, I also like to be able to understand on an intellectual level and to be able to explain with words why life is so challenging for this human I call "me".
I want to dwell on the question of "Why me?" from a more objective and zoomed out view.
From this wide lens perspective, I am fully aware this human is one tiny weeny speck in a sea of 8.5 billion specks, floating around on a little salty, watery rock in a small universe, in a massive galaxy which just happens to be one of trillions. I understand all that from the zoomed out view.
I have, however, been given one small sliver of Life to experience intimately. That requires a more zoome din focus. I am seeing this sliver of Life as it unfolds in front of me through the eyes on this head and I am experiencing it all through this one insignificant, aging, and sometimes ailing body. Though I now can have a zoomed out perspective, I still have an ego and personality conditioned by what this human was given (or chose) to experience. The focus gets pulled in and down. What I am perceiving in front of "me" in the slice of living I am here to experience...is often so "challenging" and I want to know why? I ask the question, "Why me?"
This question is not a whiney..."Oh Woe As Me " question. It is a curious one asked by the same mind that asks why the body functions the way it does. Though I ask why "me"...I am not focusing on the me as "me" but as that which so many identify with at the exclusion of realizing who we truly are. Not too many earthlings identify themsleves as being souls or consciousness having a human experience, do they? Do you? Though I truly see myself as awareness getting to know Itself...I still forget and find myself flat down in the muck of human drama much, much too often.
Don't get me wrong ...I perceive and experience great beauty around me and I appreciate that beauty. I am completely astounded by the natural world. I am surrounded by amazing people and so much love. I appreciate that love. I have my basic needs met for the most part. I am grateful for that. I have grandchildren whom I adore. I love observing and participating in their yet -to- be -conformed-conditioned- and- confined -by -dogma perspective of the world. So,so thankful for that. I partake in little things I enjoy like knitting, photography, studying, whatever, yoga, walking and I get to write!! I am so grateful for these things.
I was standing in the shower last evening reviewing glimpses of the precious life I experienced over the last few days: Running around with my grandkids, nestled in the vibrant orange and gold hues of Autumn foliage and sunshine, laying on the grass after my yoga practice looking up at the sky with my pets around me, reaching and pulling an apple from a tree that produces such beautiful abundant fruit and being able to pass this fruit onto others, using my hands to move needles around beautiful coloured yarns to create something for someone else, just sipping my tea, reading books about quantum physics ( my go to these days), holding a book I wrote -for God only knows why- in my hand...visiting with my sister on her deck...laughing the few times I laughed. It was all so clear and beautiful in my my mind. I felt great appreciation for Life. I know that It is an amazing adventure. I appreciate. I appreciate. I appreciate!
...but...
I also often find what I am given to look at in this tiny slice very, very challenging. I am down, just as much as I am up. This experience of Life has been very challenging ever since this human was small...and because I, as she, has endured so much conditioning, made sense of it with so many Self-negating beliefs, built up so many layers of defenses in order to "get by"...Life is now seen through this dark and heavy veil. On top of that...there really are a lot of challenges!That's not made up or exaggerated. It is hard to focus on the sunshine and laughter when there is so much suffering calling me from the inside, and calling me from the outside to do something about it. So many challengess are thrown in front of the blurry, dark filtered lens in which I snapshot the world. It is really heavy.
I look over away from my lens view to others and I see some suffering for sure...yes...but this much? No. I mean...for sure...there are many suffering so much more than me outside my visual field, I know that ...but in this slice I am given to perceive...there are not many. I am not denying them the right to their experiences...not at all. I truly, truly want others to experience joy of Life. I do! I just want to be able to experience a bit more myself, as well. I don't know why it is so hard fo this me to do that. Why has this human been given so many challenges? Why does she keep getting challenges back to back ? Why are there so few breaks of relief and abundance to compensate? I figure...if I knew why...then I would be okay with it all. That's why I am trying to figure out this suffering thing. I am okay with Life not being easy as long as I know why it isn't easy for this human...that this challenge serves a purpose.
That is why I like learning about this "soul contract" stuff and this "we evolve through challenge" mentally etc. If I begin to see that as my Truth, I happily own and accept my challenges then.
But what if I am manifesting my own reality through my consciousness veils? Is my unhealed brokenness being reflected onto the world I live in through the circumstances I encounter? Why do I feel so bound by this suffering mind, if it is the cause for my suffering experience and the suffering world I see?
If you think you are free, free you are this moment, and if you think you are bound, bound you will be. Vivekananda
Are my negative, samskara induced thoughts creating my world? That would be okay if it was just me suffering but my experience of suffering is built around having to watch others suffer, being expected to fix it, and not being able to. Sigh! I have a hard time handling the guilt, even remotely believing that is true.
Sigh! It is a conundrum lol
That brings me to yoga and purification. I want all this stuff out of me that is clouding my vision and keeping me bound in a physical world of suffering. I don't need the circumstances to change for this human I call "me" (though it would be nice if they did ...a bit...anyway...for the better lol) . I just need the samskaras gone. Part of the reason, I feel so heavy and challenged now is because these samskaras (at least the emotional energy if not the memories they attached themselves to) are coming up. I asked that of the Universe, the world, this Self I know I am beyond the me- this Objective Observer of the Zoomed out focus- to help me to rattle and shake up my samskaras so they come up and out. My challenging Life circumstances may actually be a kind answer in response to my prayers. Do you think?
Anyway, right now I feel heavy and pulled down...with these beautiful insights coming in and out of my consciousness about how amazing this world is, how amazing Life is.
I read this today as I was waiting for my daughter:
...the human soul, whatever it be, or whatever its relation to God, is essentially pure and perfect, whether expressed in the language of mythology, allegory, or philosophy. Its real nature is blessedness and power, not weakness and misery. Somehow or other the misery comes. The crude systems may call it a personified evil, a devil, or an Ahriman, to explain how this misery came. Other systems may try to make a God and a devil in one, who makes some people miserable and others happy, without any reason whatever. Others again, more thoughtful, bring in the theory of Maya and so forth. But one fact stands out clearly, and it is with this that we have to deal. After all, these philosophical ideas and systems are but gymanastics of the mind, intellectual exercises.
The one great idea that to me seems to be clear, and comes out through the masses of superstition every country and in every religion, is the one luminous idea that man is divine, that divinity is our nature.
In other words if we continue to see our selves as puny bodies and personalities randomly at the mercy of life circumstance...bound by this limited fate the mind creates...we will suffer. If we chose instead, though, to go beyond mind to see the divinity within, suffering will end.
Anyway, how I rambled. Taking my daughter to an appointment shortly ...Got to go!
All is well
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