Worldly Stuff

Getting distracted by the world is a big factor in losing our true selves. We desire and chase everything from possessions to money to relationships to fame to accomplishments. We then become addicted to getting them, and feel hurt or empty when we don’t get them. The more addicted we become, the weaker we are. We might complain that “life is not going my way”.  We are reduced to whining crybabies who can’t stand to be without instant gratification. Something as simple as a scratch on our car, or not owning the latest technology, can rattle us. Meanwhile there are people all over the world living without electricity or water or transportation. They are more in touch with their true selves and hence more at peace.

Consumerism is rampant. People rush to buy things they don’t need in order to feed their inner emptiness. Soon after getting a possession, the emptiness returns, so they buy something else. The same is done with food, alcohol, and drugs (including legal ones such as antidepressants and mood stabilizers). The hunger will never go away as long as the true self remains abandoned.

As long as we anesthetize our inner emptiness with worldly stuff, it will persist. We need to stop gaining the world while losing our soul. It is time to cease this frantic activity and get in touch with who we are. This is the only way to inner peace. When we start to get in touch with who we are, we will find that our desire for externals will diminish.

Whenever you go through any kind of suffering, remember that suffering is not an obstacle along your journey; your suffering is part of your journey. There is no growth when you get everything you want and never suffer. It feels good for the time being, but it leaves you spiritually small and weak. It keeps you addicted to everything going your way, and you then suffer when even the slightest thing happens differently from the way you want it to. That suffering is your wake-up call. That is why it is part of your journey.

The Big Lie

Why is there so much dishonesty in the world?  Because the ego, which almost everyone carries, is nothing more than a mental construct, and since it is not real, we have to constantly lie in order to keep it up.

We erroneously believe that we are male or female or black or white or American or Iraqi, when in fact we are nothing more than the conscious entity that has temporarily adopted these attributes. We could have been born a different gender or color or in a different part of the world. Would we then be a different entity? Of course not – we would be exactly the same being, only with different temporary attributes.

The ego is a show we put on for ourselves and/or others.  We pretend to be stronger or smarter than we are, we compete against others for recognition, we feel proud about our accomplishments or heritage, and we fear losing or not getting temporary possessions and accolades.  It is all an act, and because it is only an act, it is a lie.  Thus as long as we maintain our ego, we lie.  We feel that we have to lie, because if we don’t, the ego cannot exist.

All the drama in the world is based on lies. People claim that they are “better” than others of a different skin color or nationality. They defend a crooked politician if he is a member of their own political party. They claim that the random religion they were brought up with just so happens to be the one and only correct one. They hoard possessions as though material goods somehow add to who they are. They hate or kill others simply because they have a different belief system. It all boils down to one thing: the ego lying in order to preserve itself.

When we are honest we see quite clearly that underneath all the worldly stuff, we are all the same. We all want love, acceptance, peace, and material comfort. None of us want to be hated, persecuted, cold or hungry. The time and place we were born, our physical bodies, and the belief systems we have been taught are nothing more than arbitrary, temporary situations. Each being has a different permutation of these external things, but they do not change who we really are, just as putting on a suit or a dress doesn’t make us a different being from the one we are when we wear a T‑shirt and jeans.

The ego is the biggest lie ever told. It’s the one that claims that our temporary externals define us, that they make us different from the conscious entities we are beneath, and that they make others “wrong” or “inferior”. This is such an enormous, absurd fabrication that one might think that no one would ever fall for it. So why do we? Because the physical world is very easy to see, hear and touch. It is tangible and noticeable. We can easily see all the different skin colors and hear all the different beliefs people talk about. Our consciousness, on the other hand, cannot be seen directly, because it is not a physical thing. We can look outward and see what is not us, but we cannot see us. We can see our bodies, clothing and possessions, but we cannot see our true selves. This is why we cannot find ourselves; we can only find out what we are not.

To strip away our externals is frightening to the ego, because it believes that our externals are all we are, so if we were to get rid of them, we would disappear. Also, since the ego is a thought/belief system, it needs a sense of certainty because its tenuous identity depends on an unchanging belief structure. If its belief that its nationality, skin color, religion, political belief, social status, and financial situation define it (and perhaps make it “better” than others with different attributes) turns out not to be true, then the ego that is based on that belief will vanish. It will thus stop at nothing to keep up the façade, because it is fighting for its very existence. This is why people argue, lie, steal, and kill.

This thought system keeps us from fully enjoying life. Remember how wonderful it was to play with toys and run in a meadow when you were a child? What happened to us? We developed thought systems, and we use them as an interface between us and the world. Rather than experiencing things directly, we run everything we perceive though our thought filter. A beautiful meadow is no longer directly perceived and enjoyed. Now we think, “This is beautiful.” “I want to keep enjoying this.” “I don’t do this often enough.” “Where else can I go to get this kind of beauty?” “I can’t stay long because I need to run some errands.” If we could only cease all this thinking, we could see reality a lot more clearly and have more poignant experiences.

This does not mean that we should never think again. We need to work, run errands, balance our checkbook, and maintain relationships. But we can use our power of thought wisely. Is it wise to use it to create negativity, drama, fear, resentment, anger, and violence?

When we simply perceive, without distracting ourselves with thoughts, life becomes simpler, less stressful, more relaxing, and more enjoyable. The one thing that stands in the way of peace and happiness is our ego.

Consciousness versus Form

Most of our suffering comes from our belief that we are limited, weak, needy, separate little bodies and minds. These bodies can be injured or killed. These minds suffer when certain calamities occur, or needs or desires are not met. Life is a constant effort to juggle a lot of balls in the air. If we drop just one, we feel that things just aren’t “right”. We are thus always vulnerable to suffering. Even when things are going well for the time being, we worry that things won’t go so well in the future, so we make ourselves suffer even when there is nothing in the present moment to cause suffering.

Anything we perceive can’t be us. The perceiver and the perceived cannot be the same. Therefore we are not our bodies, nationalities, beliefs, possessions, etc, since we perceive them. Because they are temporary and subject to change, our belief that we are them, or at least that our existence depends on them, is what causes our constant sense of threat and fear.

The things of this world, including our bodies, are forms. We, on the other hand, are formless. We are consciousness itself. Forms come and go. We perceive them, and then they are gone. But we remain. We are the ultimate reality. Any form that we might assume or experience is just that – a form. It is not us.  

We are not our mind. The mind thinks, feels, and senses. We experience our mind via these thoughts, feelings, and sensations, and this might fool us into believing that we are the mind, but, as noted before, the perceiver and the perceived cannot be the same. The mind, like the body, is something we have, not something we are.

The mind exists in order to experience forms. The great consciousness that we are is way beyond forms. Since forms are small and limited, we need a small and limited perception in order to experience them. Our mind is that small and limited perception.

We might sometimes feel a sense of futility, meaninglessness, or dread. These occur because when we use our mind, we stuff our vast consciousness into it. We use something that is not the true self to think, feel, and perceive, and it is unsatisfying because our true self feels ignored or imprisoned. As long as we use our small mind to focus on the small forms around us, we will remain unaware or neglectful of our true self. And since the mind can perceive only forms, any effort by the mind to find the true self or ultimate awareness will always fail.

The only way to be fully aware and peaceful is to put the mind and body aside, because as long as we cling to the temporary and vulnerable forms around us, we will limit our awareness to those particular things, and there will always be agitation from loss and the threat of loss. Focusing on and using the mind and body require effort, and they direct our focus away from who we really are. The true self is effortless and it is always aware of the nature of its being. Therefore the only way to experience our true self is to stop struggling. The mind cannot understand this because its very nature is to struggle via thinking, planning, worrying, and resisting. This is precisely what makes us suffer every day. Only by turning away from the mind, body, and all other forms, will we find the bliss of pure consciousness.

Peace

Peace is not a thing, separate from us, that can be obtained. It is an aspect of our true self. It is always there.  When we feel agitated, it is not because we don’t have peace – it is because we don’t notice the peace. Usually we keep ourselves agitated by striving, either physically (acquiring, doing, putting up a façade) or mentally (thinking, believing, desiring, regretting, worrying, resisting). The peace that we naturally are gets obscured by the noise we create.

If we try to acquire peace, it is because we feel a sense of lack and we are resisting the moment. We then create more agitation and distraction via thoughts, activities, and relationships. Even meditation can hide our inherent peace if we do it with a striving mind. Our resistance to what is, our thinking that things should be different, and our effort to change what is, are precisely what hide peace.

The only way to be peaceful is to cease our mental and physical efforts. When we stop creating activity and noise, the peace that we naturally are will become noticeable because nothing will be drowning it out.

Identification as an Object

When you identify yourself as a particular thing – a man, a woman, an athlete, a Republican, a Caucasian, a Christian, an American – you create a prison for yourself. You are stuck in a box labeled “man”, “Christian”, etc. You then feel obligated to uphold that label. If this mental idea is challenged, e.g., someone says that you are not manly, or that Christianity is completely wrong, your ego feels attacked, which is painful. You might feel compelled to fight back with arguments or violence.

This is slavery. You chain yourself to an idea, then defend that idea as though your very life depends on it. Rather than realize that you are way beyond any worldly definition of gender, political party, race, religion, or nationality, you imprison yourself with a very limiting set of labels.

Your self-created prison prevents you from seeing truth. You filter all experiences through your belief system so as make them appear to support this belief system. This is the cause of the confirmation bias, in which people discount any information that contradicts what they already believe while grasping onto the flimsiest of evidence that seems to make their belief seem true.

Your identification also causes insecurity. No object is secure, so when you see yourself as a particular object, you must ipso facto be in jeopardy. For example, if you view yourself as a great athlete, then if you fail to achieve a particular athletic feat, the image is crushed, and since you believe yourself to be that image, you feel as though you are crushed. Or you might simply worry that you won’t be able to perform, even if you haven’t failed yet.

Rather than claim that you “are” something, it would be more truthful to say that you are in a particular life situation, for example, one in which your skin is white, you were born in the U.S., your body is male, you exercise, or you have chosen to accept a particular political or religious belief system. In this way your worldly attributes do not define you because they are things that you have, not are.

When you make yourself an object you become a fraction instead of a whole. You are limited to a set of parameters, and because you are limited, so is your life: what you allow yourself to do, how you view things, who you associate with, what you wear, what you believe, and so on. As a fraction you can see only a fraction of reality. You cannot act from the wholeness of being; you can only react from a very limited set of beliefs.

You are an expansive being. Your ego is the exact opposite: a contraction. This is because it is based on fear, which is a contracting emotion. When there is fear, notice how you tense up, i.e., contract. When you let go and relax, you open up, i.e., expand.

The bottom line is that identifying with anything other than your true self is the source of all fear and conflict.