Wake me up!
“Please stop this suffering.
I’m feeling blue. Depressed. Sad. Disappointed. Downcast. I’m losing hope. I’m starved of oxygen.”
The all-too familiar cry for help.
Has it happened to you before – or someone close to you?
I am certain if it hasn’t already happened, it will happen. For me, it doesn’t all come at once, it can come and go – as in life there are always disappointments. It’s impossible for there not to be peaks and troughs, for the process not to be pure ascension, yet more like the Rocky mountains, ups and downs, valleys and peaks.
What is important is to find a sense of hope and courage to face obstacles and when fears come up, to be able to process them in a healthy way so we may find our equilibrium quickly.
How do we face our suffering and feel it without removing ourselves in drugs (alcohol, television or other entertainment, mind-numbing foods, etc.)? There is an array of options available to help us escape.
When we look at it, examine it closely, allow ourselves to feel without judgement, it is just like a little child that asks us to hug it, not question it, not condemn it, and certainly not judge it.
Our suffering is like a child.
If we are unkind to it, it only gets worse.
The mind is an illusion. It is not real. Our thoughts and feelings feel real to us. We must be patient with our minds, and have compassion for ourselves. Compassion is the kind space that lets us feel – let’s us cry, scream, curse – without questioning.
The mind is directly or indirectly always causing and manifesting our suffering. Hence the importance of an inward practice, where we can access at least for a short while, the no-mind. It is usually the reactive mind or thought-response to phenomena that bring forth a type of dissonance, where we are disconnected from our source. This disconnection can bring a profound disharmony and suffering, as we struggle to accept what is happening or what happened around us. It is not what happened – it is the time-lag to accept and integrate whatever the event/s.
Then for so many of us, it is the STORY that makes us suffer. If something happened, it is gone without the story. It is nothing. The story keeps our suffering alive.
It is the “whole” of becoming human that is often neglected, where the inner meets the outer. This “whole’ is in embracing all aspects to the self without running away from feeling by embracing numbness. Carl Jung writes, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”
The polarity parts of our nature call for attention. If light is the opposite of dark and we reject our darkness or wounds, we are not whole, we are merely numbing the truth of who we are. Our polarities call for liberation into the lightness of who we are, our consciousness. When we make a part ourselves conscious, we bring awareness to it, we bring it out into the open. It no longer hides away in a secret crevice of our mind, crouching in a tunnel of rejection, pain, humiliation, sadness. When out in the open, we can look at the cave from the outside with our harmony in tact. We can visit it and bring it flowers, make peace with it.
We walk through into the light knowing where we come from, and accepting and integrating those parts of ourselves we rejected before.
Beyond the separation of parts of our being, is unity consciousness or non-duality. Before we can ascend to greater wisdom and peace, we must first accept both lightness and dark. If we miss out on this step, then we are merely repressing or cutting off our true nature.
Is there a short-cut to harmony?
The best short-cut is a run on the beach as it releases any built-up or stagnant energy and pushes the mind into flux. Then when we are physically tired, we have less energy to distort, less energy to be troubled. The less frenetic our mind, the more calm. It will happen naturally, effortlessly, there is no need to force the mind.
When our body is healthy, our mind follows.
The levels we can reach via the inner process will be more profound as the foundation is natural and healthy. Not to say that we cannot reach deep states in an unhealthy body, as definitely this is possible. It is just easier when the body is healthy. This is why the Buddha sat comfortable under the shade of the Bodhi tree. He did not torture himself, starve himself or place his body in discomfort.
Then we can consider the silent knower, the ‘sAkShin’ that is beyond transformation, just stillness, that can simply witness all of consciousness without interference, with use acceptance. This ‘sAkShin’is truly our gateway to inner peace.
The Bhagavad Gita conceives of an immortal, unchangeable reality beyond what we consciously experience. We can tune into this eternal nature as a witness, and hence transmute momentarily our suffering. Within us is the capacity to access an eternal observer consciousness that is simply presence.
The ego is behind the STORY WE TELL OURSELVES (and others). The ego wants control and wants to know. The ego wants to possess. The ego is unbending will, glued to experiencing duality selfishly. It always wants to cling on to experience and experiencing as the experiencer. We are a slave to this master if we allow our unbending nature to control us.
Speak with kindness to your suffering. Say I LOVE YOU – I ACCEPT YOU. If you ignore suffering, it doesn’t go away, it just becomes sad, lonely and depressed (suppressed feelings).
Move in the body, through the body. The feeling-body needs to move, run, jump, laugh, swim, walk. Whatever you do, keep moving.
Stuck emotions can be like mud, they need sunshine (love), and tender care. They also need to move.
Nisargadatta: “Remember yourself – ‘I AM’ is enough to heal your mind and take you beyond. If you want to know your true nature, you must have yourself in mind all the time, until the secret of your being stands revealed.”
We have created a mechanical system that the more we partake in it, the more we go to sleep, forget our multi-dimensional self, and ignore aspects of who we are. How we talk to ourselves (self-talk) is the ground from which we create our lives. When you start a sentence by “I AM” – you are creating this reality of who you say you are. For instance, “I am fit, I am athletic, I am excited, I am lazy, I am stupid, I am clever, I am creative, I am boring, I am a good meditator, I am a bad meditator.”
All these examples are incredibly powerful in saying who you would like to be, in claiming your identity.
“The words you speak become the house you live in.”~ Hafiz
May you awaken a million times from your slumber and create a million dreams from your “I AM” statements.
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Main Image via pxhere.com
Small text image “Wake up” via WikiCommons
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