Truth

 

Of recent, I have been thinking, musing, meditating and reflecting,  a lot, upon truth.   I feel drawn towards what it is asking of me.   It seems that it is calling me moment by moment to a new kind of life, a new kind of adventure.  It is not one in which I understand much, but that is part of what makes it exciting and vibrant. 

 As a little boy, I always dreamed of being some kind of hero.  I dreamt of slaying dragons or flying deep into space and discovering new planets and species.   (Can we say science-fiction geek) I would be face to face with danger and fear and I would prevail.  I was thrilled by those who sacrificed themselves for all of humanity.  I admired  martyrs or savior archetypes.  I am still drawn to that kind of fiction.  Give me Frodo Baggins or Paul Atreides,   Katniss Everdeen, Commander Amelia Shepard any day.  I will always take them. What is interesting now though is that I can feel that adventure in life itself.  As truth’s voice becomes clearer not necessarily on any cosmic or grandly goal oriented scale but in the minutiae of heeding its moment to moment requests, I realize there is more than enough adventure in even the most simple of lives.  For me to align with truth in the moment requires a submission and staggering courage.  Standing  as who you are, unfettered and undaunted by the myriad ways the world tells you otherwise is thrilling.  This is the adventure.  

 It is easy to make truth a concept, a simple set of rules, prescriptions, ideas, commandments, laws, bargains, and  justifications but truth precedes them all.  Truth gives rise to them all.  They all try to capture truth, but fail because truth is ever moving even in its stillness.  It is quieter than all those concepts and yet much more powerful,  in part because it does not need anything else.  Truth is its own contentment; it is it own end.  As this silent voice is felt moment to moment to moment I recognize that I do not know anything.  I recognize that it could ask anything of me in the next moment.  It is anything but predictable.  This makes for a very exciting existence.  Anything in the world could show up and many things we have not even begun to imagine could appear too.  What could be more exciting than that?   What could be more exciting than answering that call?  The courage to truly be who I am with all my beauty and ugliness, perfection within my imperfection is mindblowing in its vibrancy. 

The call of truth to meet truth in all it manifestations in the world is exciting.  It is also terrifying.   Currently I can feel the schizophrenia.  On the one hand safety exists.  One can always do things the easy way.  One can always keep the status quo.  One does not need to rock the boat.  (And of course this is ultimately fine).   Truth has no need for judgment only our minds and ego’s do.  On the one hand it is not hard to say things like you have always said to people around you.  There is safety in saying I’m fine when really I’m really frustrated.  There is safety in telling the white lie about  someone’s outfit so as not to hurt their feelings.  There is convenience when we take the pens from the office but don’t believe  we will get caught.  There is ease in pretending  not to see that person as they approached elevator so that we could get to our floor more quickly.  There is safety in remaining  quiet and not saying hello to that person who passed us by because we were afraid they would think we were creepy.  There is safety in keeping quiet when our colleague gossips about another colleague.  There is convenience when we rapidly consume precious resources.  The path of safety always exists.  And in then end who ARE is more important than what we do.  But the calling is about embodying the perfection of our essence.   Safety becomes less appealing relative to truth.   

While there is safety as a choice,  for this body/mind currently,  the gap between truth and embodiment of it in the world is increasingly challenging.  It is becoming more painful  to act out of alignment. But its not even painful because I expect more of myself or have some idea of how I should behave exactly.  It’s painful because as I’ve realized more thoroughly  what I am, I  want to consciously be it all the time.   In the past,  I have been motivated by reward or by fear.  Believe me they still operate.  But they seem to be very juvenile forces for moving and action and it feels like they  take place in this much larger arena.  Terms like retribution, payback, reward, punishment  and even karma,  and  justice how they are sometimes used, rely upon the future.   They rely upon something being different than it is now and  depend on a notion that things are at some level wrong with this moment as a means of moving people to do act.  That feels less interesting.  How often  I have been motivated to do good for the promise of some cookie or sweet treat or to avoid something bad.   But actually there is a motivator that is beyond each of those and it is who we are in our core.  It is the essence of the world.

 In some religions people are afraid of some grand judgment from God that will banish us from “his” presence or that we will suffer at some later time.  I say Baaah.  In truth, we suffer more than enough for anything that isn’t aligned with truth.  Love is all forgiving.  In fact, in a way, for love, forgiveness does not even exist because from love’s perspective whatever it is that would “need forgiving” is ultimately just another manifestation of love itself.  It is just love showing up in some other way.   There is no grand judgment that one fails and is punished or rewarded for.  Not being aligned with truth IS its own suffering.  It is its own hell.   And if there is the notion that something is too big or “evil” for forgiveness that is not true either.  Truth is all embracing, the end.   God is ALL forgiving the end. There is not anything anyone could do that would ever move them out of the divine’s grace.  At the same time, I don’t wonder if most, if not all of any current pain (that isn’t purely physical) doesn’t come from unresolved past moments in which we were not aligned with truth.   It’s like the shape that shows up, who I take myself to be are all the places where I am not transparent.  It is all the places where pain has latched on to some kind of framework and I am creating a somebody out of it.   Yes, the pain happens.  It is absolutely real.  Yes, it hurts.  But who hurts?   Who is it actually happening to?  In fact, exactly who am I?  Am I this body?  Am I my thoughts?  This projection into the future? Am I my past experiences?  

Increasingly I can hear and feel something that wants to be expressed and I can tell that to be true to it I must let go (even amidst uncertainty and fear). Again this letting go is not on some grand scale.  This is not splendor on display.  It is again meeting truth moment to moment to moment and who knows what it will request.  If up to this point in my life I had clear plans for what needed to be done and what needed to be saved, and what  theories of action in the world might bring about lasting change,  it feels as though they are about to be subsumed in a silence driven by the heart.  Silence animates all regardless of whether or not we have paid attention to it.   It is this silence whose drumbeat continues to  resonate more clearly.  I will keep you posted as it all develops.

 

Opening and Closing

Awakening is the process of continually opening. It is the process of love claiming all. It is paradoxically already complete and at the same time blossoming. In my own life it is interesting to see the places that I contract. It is interesting to note the places where I am not open or feel a pull to close. It is interesting to feel them in my gut or throat or shoulders. Sometimes I will try to defend a mental position as if that position were somehow imbued with a little part of myself, and I guess to my ego it is. It is also funny when I can look back and think - how odd that I took that idea or situation to be so serious. Two places that have been wonderfully illustrious to me recently have been my relationship with my sweetie and my work.


Oh, yes, I got a job. It is very intense at my new job. People's expectations of me are very high. During the day I am often knotted inside, too much afraid of the ways that I might fail. One antidote of course, is riveting myself on the actual task at hand. If I am knotted, I am likely too focused on the future and not enough in the present moment. It helps to remind myself to dwell there as often as I can. Sometimes just the sipping of a cup of tea at my desk can remind me to come home.


It is also interesting, to witness my identity dissolving. The dissolution is sometimes awkward and uncomfortable. The contraction inside, the knotted place, is oddly helpful, it shows me where my ego is still invested. My ego still finds it important to be seen as an intelligent, competent person. It still fears failing and creates a story of "but what if. . . ." But who would I be if I did not excel at my job? The contraction is the gap between the truth which my heart knows and the pull of the illusion which suggests that I need to be special through my intelligence to matter to the world. Does this mean that I should suddenly stop trying to excel at work or that something is wrong if one is smart or any other "desirable" quality. No, not at all, it simply means that to the extent I tie my identity to those qualities, when I am so much more than them, I will be closed off and suffer. Remember, you are both all and nothing.


I am glad that I no longer for the most part make an enemy out of my contractions. Instead I try to let them be or embrace them with a little love. A little empathetic curiosity goes a long way. Don't make a foe out of them. They are signals that can allow you to open further if you are willing to hear what they have to say. With my sweetie, I have discovered perhaps for the first time, the real beauty of relationship. She is a crystal mirror for me. She reflects back to me who I still believe I am. If we "fight" it is the perfect opportunity for me to discover where I am not transparent. It is the perfect chance to see where I am still invested in again creating a story of "me" or in being something special or of being right. We defend ourselves because deep down we are trying to convince 0urselves of something. One only defends, or attempts to feel special or needs to be right when one isn't aligned with the truth that they are. When we are aligned with that truth there is nothing we need to prove. My relationship with my sweetie is such a gift because it gives me such a deep opportunity to open, or to see where I still feel my limitations. Where in your life do you contract?

So what is "open"? What does it mean? Well for a definition I suggest you check in with your own heart. It is a good compass for what is open and what is not. When I am open such a sweet tenderness exists. Open is the outpouring of love. It is connection with and compassion for. It is alignment with truth. The invitation is always there but I am not always courageous enough to rest there. But even still, all is well for, love claims it all. It never goes away, even if you are not open to it and remained closed at that moment. There are always more chances to open, to love.