We all want to feel at home, at peace, happy and in a state of ease, yet the common mentality of [wanting] to create happiness, and this constant [looking] for fulfillment and love is often at the core of a vicious cycle of inner suffering. This looking for happiness and love from the outside in is insanely melodramatic, thick, and conditional, yet so ridiculously alluring.
It’s quickly becoming common knowledge that we have all the wisdom, love, and happiness we’ll ever need within us. It’s closer than our own breath. It’s also fairly common knowledge that most illnesses are linked to stress overload, yet we’re still a culture hooked on the ego drama, the inner war creating outer wars. If we truly want a harmonious world future, or a human future at all for that matter, we need to end the war within our own individual minds.
Holding your center and being true to your Self
There can be periods of life that feel very shaky for no apparent reason, and consequently one may feel quite lost. Of course it’s not actually shaky and you’re not lost at all. It’s only shaky to our ego, and it’s just our ego that feels lost and we’re simply finding our way home, back to the heart, back to our true nature.
Letting go of old habitual patterns, old armour around the heart, and mental and emotional toxins is rarely ever smooth, but when things get shaky for our ego and change is arising, our true nature in a way is saying, “Yes, we’re waking up, we’re evolving, hang in there. Let the stories go.” We just have to quieten the mind regularly enough to be able to feel the grace and let it flow. To the ego and thinking mind, it can seem chaotic, intense and frustrating, but that’s just one channel of the human experience. Simply tune into a different channel that is unconditionally loving, patient, courageous, and strong. These are just some of the causeless qualities of our true nature.
In any moment of mental turbulence, no matter how loud and busy it may seem externally, you can slow down internally and enjoy a breath, soften, embrace the changes that are happening, and allow any layers of fear, blame and doubt to melt away. Sometimes in order to cleanse like that you have to endure the intensity of mind and sit in the fire of mental contraction for a little while. You might need to enjoy a few breaths, sometimes many, and truly feel the heat. You hold your awareness on that inner intensity and breathe mindfully for long enough and you’ll arrive back to center. Every time you make that empowered choice you can feel yourself evolving beautifully. You’re not denying or suppressing, but instead truly appreciating, transcending and deeply learning to identify with the heart while softening the mind.
Regularly, attentively listen to the silent intelligence within, and the intensity that can be a part of life and a part of transformation all makes sense. The beauty and wisdom within you is becoming free, if you continue to let it. A very common predicament is that the rational, linear mind will just try and work it all out in very analytical, conceptual ways. It’s going to try and get it. Just be still, inhale, exhale, and let it flow. Open to the mystery. Open up to not knowing. Simplify, observe and yield to the magnificence within. If being still isn’t allowing for the release, bring all that heated energy into some movements infused with intentionality and breath.
If we’ve been carrying a bunch of un-needed thought patterns, habits, armour or baggage around with us for a while, when we start to exercise free will, and choose to let go of what no longer serves us, our ego’s sense of self may be challenged. “Who would I be without my worries, without my anxiety? Would I even be motivated to go to work, or motivated to look a certain way?” This kind of dialogue is so common. “It’s just business. One’s gotta get ahead. I have to be this way in order to make money,” are common commentaries when one consciously realizes that maybe their way of making money isn’t coming from a conscious, loving place, but their ego is trying to defend what is familiar or what they’ve been taught or learnt. These statements of defense and questions are very common predicaments, but they can be perceived as beautiful predicaments and choices to help set us free. Listen to your heart.
Embrace change, practice free will and ride the inspiring beautiful current of life. If you know that a certain change is needed in your life, meditate on it, intend, envision, and go there. You may encounter delays, bumps and detours on the journey. Even these delays, bumps and detours when viewed from a broader lens, carry in them blessings and teachings. Be true to your Self and give your intention loving attention, at the same time let go of the intention into the cosmic will power.
Too simple for thinking mind to grasp
The simplicity, the delight, the unconditional love and causeless joy that shine so bright from our true nature are big threats to the ego. When people talk about the human drama, I tend to think of it as the ‘ego drama.’ We can be embodied, awake, truly intelligent humans without the typical ‘human drama.’ The drama is all in the egoic thought patterns. “Will they? Won’t they? What do they think about me? I’ll be happy when… It’s their fault I’m not happy,” are just a few polite examples of the ego drama dialogue. Imagine if the rest of nature was like this! An apple jealous and uptight because we didn’t give it a compliment, but we gave their neighbor a compliment. It’d be insane! Yet us humans are walking around like this all the time. It is time for us to end this intense bickering and separateness, and come back home, back Aum, back to the heart. It can as simple as a shift of perception. For example, the shift from, “I’m angry,” to “Wow, look at this anger.” Can allow us to give space to the drama without getting imprisoned into the drama. This allows for insight to come pouring in.
A dilemma for the typical Western human mind is that you can’t just learn how to connect with your true nature. You can’t just go and accomplish it.
Learning certain meditative, yogic and mindful practices can definitely help. Studying the sacred literature can definitely help, but we also have to go beyond thinking mind and embrace the wisdom and simplicity of still mind, or no mind, and the compassion of the heart. It’s so simple to identify with our true nature, but it’s definitely an involved practice of being truly present. Just like you have to exercise in certain ways to maintain certain types of fitness, in order to maintain mental, emotional and spiritual health requires regular practice. Again, simplify and give your-self permission to quieten.
Every moment can be an awakening moment. Whether it’s a blissful, challenging, seemingly mundane or even a sad moment, every life situation can be a practice of becoming a more whole being.
As you heal and awaken yourself, you’re healing and awakening the world.