How does one become transparent? Meditation for 1/22/14

Self-examination - Seagull Style

“Do I see clearly, think deeply, and – in accordance with the needs of the moment – honestly and fearlessly express what I see and think?”  -  Muni Natarajan

“Selfishness, Self-centeredness.  That we think is the root of our problem(s).  -  William Wilson

     The context of the first quote is contained in a process of evaluating one’s virtue in order to be able to remove barriers to effective meditation.  In order to be able to be freed up from distraction to the level required to tap deeply into our spiritual nature, we must bring both our internal “thought life” and our external life of actions into harmony.  This also happens to be a key component of serenity and freedom from the ego generated torture so many of us deal with.  Don’t think you torture yourself?  Try keeping a note-pad hand for a month and logging each time you were taken out of being fully present and aware in the moment.  If you have never begun to be self-aware, within a few hours you will be overwhelmed by how far from reality your thought life is.  It is difficult to allow ourselves to come to this realization and more difficult to take the steps necessary to free ourselves from the constant dialogue in our brain.  But once we are able to be “the observer” rather than “the thinker” we will have made big strides toward internal harmony.  But what about the external?

     We can only become as transparent to our fellows to the degree of self-honesty we have achieved through detachment from “our self.”   It stands to reason that if we cannot be honest with ourselves we really have no idea if we are being honest with our fellows or not – and can be assured that we are not.  But to honestly and fearlessly express what we see and think – on a regular basis?  That is a tall order indeed.

     Each time we come to a new realization about another area of life that we have been approaching on the basis of selfishness and self-centeredness we have the option to work to correct that particular behavior.  If this new standard becomes our norm of action we find more peace and harmony both internal and external – and thus the external and internal begin to match.  If we humble ourselves to atone for mistakes we have made in the past due to this particular issue we not only cement our new behavior, but we also become much more transparent in that particular area.  It takes time and effort, and the work is never quite done.  But we can make great strides toward transparency, and with each stride we make both our personal integrity and our reliability to others improve.   And we begin to say what we mean and do what we say, we find ever increasing levels of harmony both internally and externally.

Today, may I be consistent.     

    

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Thanks all, and have a great Wednesday !!

David