Hi Love,
The depressing bit is a bit depressing isn’t it.
I think I know how you feel, and I feel for you.
Some Ramblings…
There are two ways of looking at it — and both are the same in one way:
it is the way it is.
One way is to say that it is clinical — a physical/mental/chemical imbalance —
so just take pills. In one way, that is true for you — your outbursts are like an allergy.
Something sets it off, and off you go.
The other way is more interesting.
You are the way you are because — of the way you are — the way you were born,
and the experiences thereafter, and, the physical/mental/chemicals with which
you came into the world.
You see, what you are experiencing is what almost everyone is — but you are aware of it.
Most have no idea… that they are doing what they are doing to escape the feeling of
hopelessness.
Anyone who wakes up goes through what you and a few others are going through at the
moment.Some may kill themselves — because it seems so hopeless, forever. It is called the
dark night of the soul. I hope you hang in because people like you are needed on the planet
at the moment. This is the time of a great possibility for change.
And if we don’t, no worries.
People do everything they possible can to avoid the void. You have realised that if you
are busy and engaged enough you do not notice it so much. But you know, it is always there.
The difference with you, more than most people, is that you are aware of the process
— and that makes you feel even more hopeless.
Most people do not know that they feel hopeless. They keep themselves so engaged that
they do not face it. They will marry an unsuitable person — just to have the misery — rather
than face the gap. Many feel that what they are doing is significant — art, helping others,
investigating the meaning of life, having children, meditating. Anything to avoid just
being in the moment, just as it is.
And there is no meaning. This, is it.
Nothing is more important than anything else. If you are not happy with what is, in this
moment, then you are not happy, nor are you going to be.
The gap is always there for everyone.
It is rare to find a person that can sit alone in a room on their own for any length of time,
and be happy. Most people go through hell. I used to run groups that way — after the five-day
residential event, sitting alone in a dark room with no entertainment, no contact of any sort.
For almost everyone, it is hell. With no cause or justification whatsoever, the same things
arise as in their normal lives — anger, frustration, blaming, retribution, helplessness,
hopelessness, joy, and so on. The hell is that there is no honest intellectual excuse, or
anyone to honestly blame misery upon. It all emanates from the mind. Resistance to what is.
Some people do Vipassana meditation and think it is the same as being alone.
It is not. Sitting in a room in isolation, without any point, is different.
In Vipassana the idea is that you are improving/getting more conscious —
it is a something, and you are going to be better. Nothing is very threatening.
So everyone keeps themselves busy — in order to avoid the void.
You are an interesting combination.
On one hand you are exceptionally intelligent, observant, exacting, sensitive, and generous.
At the same time, in some ways, you are also insensitive, and do not go to a certain depth.
It is the depth that is the issue.
Because of your unusual level of active intelligence you are intolerant of other’s unawareness.
You can see their shallowness, unawareness, dishonesty, and have no tolerance for it.
Or your own.
In the East the sages have called the way we live, Maya — illusion. It is.
They say there is no peace until this is realised. It is true. They also say that in order to be
free of this state you have to meditate every day, watch the mind, and thus be free of it. This
method has worked for very few, even in the East. And in the West we have much more
developed and sophisticated minds.
And something can work, but it is work.
If you really want to play the piano well then you are prepared to practice.
If you want to wake up and be free — you have to practice. A LOT!
If you make your priority, in every moment, to be aware, then you will realise that you are
already free. What does that mean? Well we are all more automatic machine than aware human
beings. We are inhuman doings.
If you make awareness your priority — look at what you do; listen to what you say; be aware
of what you think, — you get to feel even worse! Then one day there is a click. At the time
you do not realise what has happened, or if anything has happened, but later you get to see
that things are different.
Then you realise that you are always alone; and never alone.
In one way everything is the same, and in another, totally different. The body is still physical,
the mind still thinks, the emotions still do their thing, but there is a new realisation — you
are not these things. They are not the total you. They are included in what you call something —
that you would have called you, but now it is very hard to identify with something that you
can call you.
You suddenly have the realisation that you are not separate from anything, or anybody.
Everything that happens, or is said effects you. Everything effects everything and everybody
else. *If it has not been for that, then…*
Suddenly you are free. You realise that everything that takes place, you are part of, and, in a
way that you may not realise in the moment, it is for you. In fact, it is exactly what you need
to evolve. So no more fear. The body/mind emotions may still operate on past and future,
but you, whoever that is, do not. Only the here and now is.
So, it is up to you. Is it worth the effort — to catch yourself when you go into your patterns?
Are you ready to face the moment without the distractions? If not, no worries — you are putting
back more than you are taking, so the balance is retained.
I send you much love dear friend.
And if you ever want to chat….
paul