Have you found your self? meditation for 6/6/14

Seabrook Island; SC

♪♫  “Is this the real life?

         Is this just fantasy?

         Caught in a landslide….

         No escape from reality.”  - Bohemian           Rhapsody; Queen

          Thoughts.  Feelings.  Opinions.  Attitudes.  Emotions.  Judgments.  Desires.  Accomplishments.  Failures.  These and many more things like them develop into this body of mental identity – this thing we call “self” or “ego.”  We were not born with this image of who we are.  We develop it dependent upon the times we were born into, the circumstances we are in, what others tell us is real and the events that happen about us.  We treat this body of perceptions as though it is something real – it even carries our name and we alternately indulge and punish it.  As these skewed perceptions become our reality we begin battling an imaginary foe – ourself.  We are convinced that if we can just learn enough, be enough and do enough we will be able to squeeze happiness out of life - but our efforts simply enlarge the fantasy.  And so we become the center of our universe – selfish and self-centered, ever more convinced that we can someday prove that our fantasy is reality.  When the day comes that all of our false notions fail us at the same time, we indeed feel caught in a landslide as the illusion crumbles.

     Nothing changes if nothing changes, but decades of reinforcement do not give way easily.  The good news is that the truth is already within us, and all we have to do to access it is to get rid of the false that keeps it buried.  Among the first steps are to create a relationship with the spiritual essence within so that we have both a vantage point of and a place of refuge from our “self.”  As we then learn to be the observer of the thoughts, desires and emotions rather than thinking that they are who we are they begin to lose their power over us.  We start realizing how skewed our thinking is – how our illusion creates unrealistic expectations and tainted motives so that it can convince itself it is real.  We realize why we kept ending up in the same trick-bags – we thought we were changing but in reality we were striving after new versions of the same illusion. 

    If we do the work, we ultimately we come to be quite fond of this “self” as we realize that it was convinced that it had to live or else we would cease to exist.  And as we start to love our “self,” for the first time we can clearly see others “self” – as differentiated from their spirit.  To the degree that we learn to appreciate, love and be gentle with “our self” we begin to see our “self” in others.  And thus the journey begins – as “self” withers spiritual presence begins to fill the vacated space, and we begin to glimpse the infinite possibilities in the true reality of what is.  We no longer need an “escape from reality.”

Today, may I kind to my “self.”  

Happy Friday !!

David

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