Surrender to Pain to Be Free

You have to experience the pain.  Fully and completely.  If you want to be liberated, if you want to be free of suffering, if you want to be awakened, self-realized, you must be courageous enough and willing enough to experience all of the pain and fear you harbor within you. You must surrender.

If you can be brave enough to take just a small step forward into that dark abyss of shadows you’ll find something unexpected.  You won’t perish.  With each step forward the shadows will abate with you.

The reason for this is startlingly simple.  Each shadow of fear and pain you surrender to is nothing more than an illusion.  The pain and fear are nothing but artefacts of stories you’ve been telling yourself your whole life.  These are stories of who you think you are, who you think others are, things that happen to you or to others, or things you think will happen.  None of them have any basis in Reality.  They are purely subjective.  Even who you perceive yourself to be is nothing more than a tall tale.

Some of these tales can be so time-worn and so lavish they appear quite real, but they’re not.  Just as Alice and Wonderland and A Tale of Two Cities are such beautifully crafted works they seem to swallow you into another world that appears quite real, they are still just stories.  Creations of an author but, even more importantly, they are creations of the reader.

Who is the reader of your own tales?  I’m sure you can feel it there, reading every word of your sagas.  If you sit with this reader for even a moment, experience it, you’ll discover that nothing has ever affected it.  Not your emotions, not your thoughts, not your pain, not your fears.  It simply sees the stories you create.  A curious discovery, is it not?

As you walk ever farther into the darkness you fear with this new knowledge, the painful fear fades away because these things, these stories are not who you are.  The one who sees, the one who reads these epic tales, is your true self.  Pain has never touched you and fear is what has kept you from realizing it.  Who you are is unborn and cannot perish.  It was experienced when you took your first breath and will be until you take your last in this body.  And it will remain ever after.  It can’t be stained by the experiences of life.  It is always pure.

Get to know this You that you haven’t met before.  Hold it high before you like a torch as you progress through the abyss of all the pain and fear you’ve repressed and avoided.  These are only whispers of a past that never really existed.  The deeper you go, the brighter this torch will burn.  It will burn away this dark clutter, and as it does, nothing but space remains.  And this space is infinite.  It’s not empty.  Rather it’s thriving and teaming with life force.  The pain will be consumed by it until nothing remains but blissful, effortless and expansive peace.  Your heart, now unfettered with illusions, will throw its doors open to all life has to offer.  Instead of fear, you will move through your life driven by a love so effortless and fearless nothing will ever hurt you again.

But you have to be willing to surrender, and surrender totally, even if it’s just one small step at a time.

 

Confessions of an Ex-Hoarder

Yep.  That’s me.  I was a hoarder.  Not a hoarder of knick-knacks or cats.  No.  I was a hoarder of thoughts.  Sounds a bit strange, I know, but I’ll bet as you following my unburdening you will relate to it.

Ouch.  That’s uncomfortable, isn’t it?  To be likened to those horrific images of homes filled with discarded food containers, unwashed dishes, and stacks and stacks and stacks of stuff makes you squirm.  But, please don’t misunderstand.  I’m not trying to shed a judgemental light on those afflicted with hoarding.  What I am doing is identifying with how painful it is.  Stick with me here…

It’s true that I don’t fill rooms with accumulated things, but I’ve discovered that I have filled my head these past 50 years to the point where there is just no more room.  All these ideas, opinions, concepts and beliefs were practically dribbling out of my ears.  And it was more than uncomfortable.  It was painful.  Physically and emotionally painful.

It got so bad I found myself contemplating suicide often.  Now, before you shrink in horror or judgement, let me continue.  There was also something else working behind the scenes of my filled-to-bursting brain.  A magnetism, a force, that peeped over the top of and through the tiny gaps between the thoughts, and the misery, and the thoughts of misery.  Something whispering, “You’re missing something.  There’s something you’re not seeing.”

I’m driven by curiosity.  I thrive on it.  The gauntlet had been thrown down and that strange magnetic pull lit a fire inside of me.  I began digging through the mess and tangle of my crowded “house”.  At first, and for years and years, I expended a lot of energy and attention on each thing I encountered.  Crazy, right?  I mean, who in their right mind examines the garbage they’re tossing out?  Who obsesses over rotten banana peels and used tissues?  No one in their “right” mind does.

But this is what I did with every thought, every obsession, every belief I held and all the emotions associated with them.  Over and over and over.  Decade after decade.  And it was exhausting.  I gave up many times only to amass more “junk” and then start the process of garbage fondling all over again.  Yuck.  And I can tell you without hesitating this is what drove my misery to the point of breaking me.

And I celebrate that moment.  The moment where I was so fed up with whoever this train wreck of myself was that I put down the garbage, tore open my heart, and shouted to the ethers, “I give up!  I don’t want to be me anymore.  I just QUIT!”

And that’s when that strange but magnetic force reached out and touched the core of my tired mind.  It was like a cool fragrant cloth on a fevered brow.  The smell of rain after a drought.  Pure magic.  That’s when everything began to change.

I discovered that all I had to do was return that loving magnetic touch emanating from the core of me and all that junk just started to disappear.  Imagine if house work was so easy.  But it was.  I’ve stopped caring about any of the stories I had written in my mind.  Not about who I am or what I believe or what I thought about anything.  They’re all just stories.   Well, most of the stories anyway.  The emptying out is still going on.  I occasionally succumb to the old habit of fondling the garbage on its way out the door, but I quickly put it down and send it on its way.  It’s not important.

What’s truly amazing is the amount of space the removal of all this junk has left.  I can now stretch out in my mind without bumping into anything.  I can run, leap and dance without bruising myself.  It’s like my “house” is now filled with sunshine and the sweet smell of a grace I never knew existed.  It sure beats the stench of the garbage that was there before.  And what really excites me and keeps me holding hands with that wonderful force is the intuition that one day soon, not only will my “house” be swept clean, but the walls are coming down too.  I don’t need them anymore.

I know what this magnetic force is.  It’s my true self.  My completely natural state of being.  It’s what was there before my “house” was built and will remain long after it’s gone.  This is the real me.  Not all those ideas, stories and beliefs.  And this real me is so joyously spacious and so filled with unbreakable love that I can dance my way into infinity without ever suffering a bruise again.

So, yeah, I’m an ex-hoarder.  Even this story will be swept away soon.  For I am disappearing, or at least who and what I thought I was.  I am nobody and it feels so amazing.  I am nothing, yet here I am.  And I am free.

A Gift to Realize: Freedom

Ever notice how slippery the term “freedom” is?  It’s something we all value, think we have a right to, or are fighting for.  But what is it exactly?  What are free from?  To do what?  When were we not free?

We’ve been taught from birth that we aren’t free or that we must rely on someone or something else to ensure we can become and remain free.  This, unfortunately, isn’t a fact.  It’s societal programming.  I’m not saying it’s a plot or conspiracy and I’m not saying it isn’t.  It’s actually both, but that doesn’t matter.  What matters is that we’ve bought into this idea that freedom is either something we have a right to or something we must defend.  Freedom, even the concept of free will, remains contingent upon the externally-perceived world around us.  Even when it comes to matters of the subconscious.  The term “freedom” has become synonymous to the concept of an “other” in relation to a perceived “you”.

What if I told you that we are all free, right now in this moment, and always have been?  Would you believe me?  Please do.  Not only has this freedom always been present, it’s unchanging and unalterable.  We simply aren’t aware of it and that’s the irony.  The way to have it is simply to be aware of it.  Not intellectually, but experientially and the way to experience it is not to look outward at the world of “others” but to turn within.

Ask yourself who it is that’s free or not free?  If you reply, “me, of course,” then ask yourself who is this “me”?  Don’t answer it but look for what this “me” is.  Search inside for the place where this me lives; from where this thought of “I” arises.  See if you can find it. Is it even there or does it disappear when you inspect it?

It disappears.  The truth is, we can never find it.  Try it.  “I” is just an idea and a story we’ve been telling ourselves from the moment of birth.  Part of this story is that we are not innately free unless it’s given to us, taken, or allowed to us; that it’s something out there.  But if we continue searching inwardly for this me-idea, we’ll discover something quite amazing, something we’re so familiar with we forgot it was there:  our natural nature, our state of being.  Pure, peaceful, unadulterated awareness.

When this real “me” is discovered and experienced, an incredible liberation begins.  This natural state is immense, boundless.  Nothing disturbs it.  If we can be in this space it becomes easy to observe how our mind has entrapped us.  Thoughts and resulting emotions swirl around this unmoving peaceful place begging to be noticed, to be purchased, to be believed, but because this place of pure awareness is only the witness to all this, it’s unconcerned.  Unconcerned until we allow our attention to chase after these thoughts and grab onto them and allow ourselves to be dragged along behind to be shaken and bruised and beaten into believing they’re real again.  When we buy back into that, we suffer.  We lose clarity.  We blunder and stumble along through life.  We begin believing in and writing that story again and forget we’re really that which watches it all.

So, if it’s true freedom we desire, then the only way it can be had is to realize our true nature is freedom and nothing external to us can change that.  Try it.  It’s the single greatest gift we give ourselves.  It’s a gift that keeps on giving.  Revisit it every day, several times and as much as you can.  Eventually the light of this truth burns away the pages of your illusory story and the real you can live truly and irrevocably free.

The Illumination of Fear

Fear is the total illumination of the *I* or echoic self.  Fear is the reaction of its nakedness and its frailty.  Fear is the moment the *I* is fully disclosed.  Find the presence to realize it, in that moment, and the *I* becomes as false as the fear.  Both are not actualities, both are created by nothing more fictitious than thoughts.  Turn to that which observes the fear, the nakedness of the *I*, and they dissolve.  When that happens, you are free to live life fully.

The Wisdom of “I Don’t Know”

It takes a very wise person to say those three little words, “I don’t know*.”  Only 3 syllables but the implications to the ego can be bigger and taller than Mount Everest and just as insurmountable.  You know how it is.  When confronted with a question to which you don’t know the answer it’s like pulling the starter cord of the ole ego-lawn mower.  It starts shredding away at your inner peace and better sensibilities.  The mind-babble starts:

“Oh no.  I have no clue what the answer is.  I’m going to look foolish.  People will think I’m stupid.  What do I do?  What do I know that I can bend around to sound like something when all I have is nothing?  I’m going to sound like a complete idiot.”

And then we do it.  We compromise and fake it.  I’ve done it.  I’ve looked and sounded like a complete jack ass as a result.  I’ve even convinced myself I pulled it off, but that glow didn’t last very long.  All I did was lose credibility outwardly and inwardly I was strangling my own self confidence and self esteem.  It wasn’t worth it.

Over time, the realization that I wasn’t being true to myself sunk in.  I don’t honestly know why I didn’t see it all along.; the more I tried to appear like I did know, the less I felt I knew.   But my liberation was at hand.  This is what had to be.  The ego needed to burn itself out.  That’s when I realized the wisdom behind “I don’t know.”

I since have developed a deep respect for those who can say it with ownership and confidence.  It’s a beautiful thing to behold.  They know the secret; they hold the wisdom of the 3 little words.

“I don’t know” is the proverbial golden key.  The moment you realize you don’t know and you admit it at ease with honesty, your credibility receives a well-deserved polish and the door of opportunity to learn is unlocked.  Uttering those 3 words gives you the total freedom to learn anything and everything you choose to.  The possibilities are without end.  The universe is your oyster from the material to the spiritual and beyond!

So let go and be confident.  Shout from the roof tops, “I don’t know!”  A cup can’t be filled until it’s empty.  So dump out that stale ego and fill your cup with some rich and steamy information OR be content in the fact you have a nice clean empty cup ready to be filled when you choose to fill it.

 

*Note:  For the purposes of this article, “I don’t know” means I don’t have the information.  This is not to be confused with “I dunno” meaning I don’t want to deal with it.  The first one is honest, the second is not.