Having been engaged in a practice of discarding things that are not “me”, for quite a while now, I have come to this place, today…
It seems that as we grow up in and learn about, and from, the world we are taught many many things about our “self”. We are told and shown how to be, what to be, effectively who the world thinks we ARE. To the degree that we are accepting of this, or passive in the experience, we absorb this stuff. We begin to identify with it and actually believe it to be true. I may think I AM a computer nerd, or a Dad, or smart, or dumb, or ugly, selfish, fancy…whatever! But, I don’t think we’re any of those things. The more I look at and dismantle patterns in my life, the less I identify with that… That is, the less a part of my IDENTITY they become. I don’t think they are really of my “self”. The deeper into this practice, the more I get the ancient mystics' (and not so ancient scientists') ideas that not only are we in the universe but, it’s in us. That is, that we are It (tut tvam asi; though art that). That our we really are just awash in the worlds and we are inseparable. The more I strip away the more I can feel that. The main barrier to this experience then, is all of this other stuff that we have learned about our “self”, that is our “non-self”… We truly exist fluidly in the universes but, we’ve bolted so much shit on, we can’t even tell. We feel so separate because all the gaudy add-ons are between us and everything and everyone else… We show them ours, they show us theirs, and even as we get closer to one another, in seeming acts of vulnerability (often with the best intentions), they get in the way, these ideas about our “self”. We cannot truly connect because they don’t “fit”. Without them we’d just meld… We’d see that we could never be separate. But, with them, we experience a disconnect that we cannot explain. Because we truly, believe we ARE that crap we’ve picked up. What’s more, as we move through this life, with all of this obscuring our true being, protruding from us in every direction, jutting out from our very souls, not created by it but, affixed and tightly encasing it, we perpetuate the very thing that is keeping us in isolation. We become prickly, and shit sticks to us. The things people think, say, and do around us get hung up on us. We walk through the world like a porcupine, in a yarn factory (or some shit like that). Everything we brush up against becomes ensnared in our facade. What was once our fancy armor becomes a trap that we live in, and set for ourselves, and fall into, over and over again, every day…. But, we are NOT THAT. NONE of it!! The more we see that, the more we clearly connect with our deep self, or lack of self, the less sticky we become; the more fluid. As we live now, less and less of what is not us sticks. Less and less of the things that our senses pick up needs to be consumed into our identity. We have less and less of a need to identify as ANYTHING other than 1. 1 of us, 1 with it all. It takes real courage. We have to get vulnerable. We have to let people see us. It’s scary at first. I was terrified when I started letting it fall away, almost 10 years ago now… But, as we continue to do it, we start to notice how much lighter we feel, how much FREER! In the beginning it is a lot of work (usually) to sort through that stuff. We do inventory and sort through it (we want to keep the good stuff, right!?) LOL!! Ahhhh. Some of it we feel really cool about. But, it’s all rubbish. It gets easier to chisel off big chunks as we go… Huge parts of our old “self” fall away. We get fret less and less about letting them go. It becomes exciting! It becomes natural. I use this analogy a lot but, it's like tying your shoes... At first this shit makes NO sense! You're not sure how to hold the laces... The bunny goes through the what now? You struggle with it, and finally with great concentration and effort, you make a loose little knot, and it's a great success! But, over time, with practice, it becomes completely natural. You don't even THINK about it. You do it in the dark, drunk, and half asleep... It doesn't even cross your mind that you're doing it. There IS no bunny... ((-: It's all like this. All the learning. The practice, the structure, the repetition, until it is none of that... All of what we practice becomes integrated. So, it becomes only a question of what we practice. Lots of this stuff is useful. We don't want to unlearn how to tie our shoes, for example. But, we probably do want to unlearn how to be afraid of other people's views of us. It's good to have skills. Unlearning is a skill. Letting go is a skill. Trusting is a skill. Faith is a skill. Being present... Being vulnerable... Allowing whatever is not "us" fall away... These are the things I'm cultivating. I have forms and practices around them now, that will one day fall away as many of the forms and practice I've used to get to this point have. The paradox, of using the form to achieve the formless, is one of the great gifts. It is yin and yang. The balance of conscious evolution. We focus on it, approach it, and engage it, until we meld with it... That is, until we UNITE with It.
I just realized that this post is alot like that. Started off one way, and went another. I realize these days the the cycles are going all the ways all the time. Some areas I'm integrating/dissolving practices. Others I'm forming and cultivating new ones. So it goes, to Infinity... To Oneness...
So be it.
Peace in. Peace out!!
