Thursday, March 19, 9970

"Disaster"

Sometimes a calamitous event can be the best thing that ever happened to us.
When we live via the false self, life is a constant struggle to manipulate things and people in order to achieve our little goals. We have frequent pains such as stress, worry, anger, and regret, but the pain is not great enough to make us stop selfing because the “rewards” we get outweigh the pain. At least that’s what we believe.

Then something huge happens. A long-term relationship ends. We get cancer. Our house burns down. A loved one dies. We lose our job. Now we sit in a situation that we have always feared and maybe tried to prevent. There is no getting out of it. It has happened. We are helpless.

Now we see that the false self isn’t the provider and protector we thought it was. It has failed. Miserably.

This is a great opportunity to assess our outlook. Is jumping through all our daily hoops really the best way to live? Are we getting a good return on our investment? Has it prevented this calamity? Maybe our life will be just as good or better if we stop this silly game of trading our freedom and dignity for small desires. Maybe those little things we thought we wanted or needed aren’t important after all.

We won’t necessarily see things this way. We might cling to our old ways and be frustrated because this event “shouldn’t have happened”. If so then we will have learned nothing.

But we might see this event as a revelation. It might show us the folly of the false self. We might see that difficult situations are not obstacles on our path, but that they are the path – the path to self-discovery and growth – because losing something we used to cling to can release us from the burden of maintaining and worrying about losing it. If so then this “disaster” will have helped us wake up. Had it not happened, we would have continued believing that the best way to live is via selfishness and fear. We can now step out of the dream, drop the burden of ego, and live as the free spirits we are.

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