The Importance of Things

When we allow something to bother us, it is because we give it more importance than it deserves. We ignore who we are and focus on a particular thing to the point where we make it our entire world. Without the light of our own being, external things seem to be very important. But if we are conscious of our true self, external things have much less effect on us. It can be likened to a candle. If there is no other light, it makes a big difference whether the candle is lit. But if there is light from another source, e.g., a light bulb or the Sun, then the candle ceases to be important.

We might observe the mountains-out-of-molehills behavior in others. For example, a child becomes upset when he loses a toy. We, from our more learned position, see how trivial this problem is. But the child cannot see that. Well, we still get caught up in mind-made drama of our own sometimes.

We are much bigger than any worldly object or event. No matter how big they might seem, we are bigger because we are the space that contains them.

The Need to Be Liked

The need to be liked stems from the ego. It is insecure and fearful, and needs others to like it in order to assuage its negative feelings. It worries that it isn’t attractive, smart, or likeable enough, so it acts or dresses in ways that it believes will garner others’ acceptance.

But even when others accept it, it remains insecure. Why? Because it knows that the ones who accept it are other egos, not true selves. Egos are by their very nature judgmental and negative. Their default mode is to reject others for being different. Acceptance must therefore be earned via actions, words, or appearance. That acceptance is never secure, because as soon as someone says or does something that egos deem unacceptable, they will reject him/her. Each of us is aware that we are interacting with other egos, not true selves, so we know that our “acceptance” can be taken away at any time. This cannot do anything but add to our insecurity.

The true self is the opposite of the ego. It always loves and accepts other true selves. Even when it is confronted with an ego, it looks past that ego and tries to find the true self behind it. If everyone were to drop their ego, then everyone would love and accept everyone all the time, so there would be no need for fear, insecurity, or putting on an act in an attempt to gain acceptance.

Object Consciousness versus Pure Awareness

The world of duality that most people focus on is one of object consciousness. Physical items, thoughts, accomplishments, and other people are seen as things to be observed, acquired, or avoided. This way of viewing the world is based on thought, and it is what causes desire and fear.

We are pure nondual awareness. We don’t have to think. We can put thoughts aside, thereby exiting object consciousness. Our beingness, awareness, true self, or whatever you want to call it, is simply aware; it does not need to think or to focus on objects.

This is a difficult concept to grasp when our entire lives have been an exercise in thinking. For example, in school, every class we took taught us to think. There was no class called Not Thinking 101. We are so used to expending effort in thinking that we don’t realize that not thinking is easier than thinking, or even that we’re doing it.

When we stop thinking and sit in pure awareness, we begin to discover who we really are.

We cannot “attain” pure awareness by trying not to think or by any sort of effort, for the following reasons:

• We are pure awareness. We cannot become what we already are!
• When we try to attain something, we are in object consciousness, so trying to attain awareness is an attempt to make awareness an object.
• We use our mind when we try to attain something, and since the mind is an object, all it can possibly understand is object consciousness. It can never fathom pure awareness, the true self, or the absence of thought.

Seeking

When we seek something, it is because we feel a sense of lack. We cannot or will not embrace what is happening now – we feel the need to obtain something in order to create a future that is better than what is going on right now.  So the very act of seeking is an attempt to escape from the Now.

Why do we feel a sense of lack?  Because we believe that we are an action figure that needs accessories such as money, adulation, beauty, etc to “complete” it. Even when we get something we sought, we know that it can be taken away or used up, so that we will “need” more of it in the future. This causes us to focus on the future instead of the Now, even though the Now is perfectly fine.

The true self needs only to recognize itself in order to feel whole. Its resources (awareness, love, peace) are infinite, always available, and not dependent on the world, so it can never run out of or fail to obtain them. It is only when we stuff ourselves into the idea of being a (false) self consisting of a body, beliefs, possessions, and social status that we believe that we need the limited things that are obtainable only in the world.

Contraction

If we really are expanded beings of conscious awareness, then why would we ever choose to take on the contracted form of a material body in a material world with all of its pains and limitations?

Contraction and expansion are things that we do. Expansion makes us everywhere and everywhen. Contraction puts us in a particular time and place. Neither is necessarily better or worse than the other.

While the expanded state is one of peace, the contracted state has much to offer. There are enjoyment and growth. Imagine meeting a friend at a nice restaurant, or making love, or reading a good book, or enjoying a sunset, as a disembodied entity. It can’t be done. Perhaps we are spirits that choose contracted incarnations so that we can have specific experiences. If so, then even though our earthly experiences are not ultimately important or all-there-is, it is still wonderful to experience them, for both the immediate enjoyment and the self-discovery that they enable.

Along with the enjoyable things in the contracted state are some unpleasant things. There are material problems such as hunger and war, and there are emotional problems such as fear and anger. These, too, can aid in self-discovery, and in fact usually reveal more about ourselves than pleasant experiences do. How ironic that the experiences we try to avoid can be the greatest help in self-discovery.

Material problems often seem random. We or loved ones become ill, natural disasters occur, we get robbed, and foreign armies invade us. This is precisely why we strive for material protection via dwellings, medicine, locks, and weapons. But material problems can threaten only the particular incarnation we are in – they cannot touch the real us. Our bodies and reputations can be harmed, but the consciousness that contains them can’t. When we believe that we are only this incarnation, and that we can therefore be harmed, we make unpleasant situations worse by creating the emotional problems of fear and anger because we believe that our entire existence is in jeopardy.

There is no proof that we are spirits in a material world. Part of the human condition is this not-knowing. But looking beyond materiality to the conscious awareness we are can help us avoid torturing ourselves with negative thoughts and emotions.

Spaciousness

When we sense who we are, without ideas about our body, nationality, wealth, social status, gender, etc, we feel very light. The burden of maintaining an image has been lifted. We feel spacious.

This sense of spaciousness is often misinterpreted as emptiness. We are conditioned to be full: our minds are full of ideas, our bellies are full of food, and our homes are full of possessions. When we let go of them we feel the opposite of full. Since we have believed for so long that fullness is a good thing, we might believe that not being full is bad. So we view our sense of lightness as negative and seek to fill ourselves once again. We do this by sustaining our old ideas, or by grabbing gratification in the form of food, alcohol, television, sex, possessions, compliments, or whatever we feel we need to “fill” us.

We are not empty. We are spacious. There’s a huge difference. Emptiness implies a lack of something. Spaciousness is a wonderful lightness of being that does not need anything to fill it. It is the pure, unburdened, unconstrained self.