Friday, 14 May 2010 17:44
Written by Nirmala
Someone emailed and asked me the following:
What I am wanting to achieve is a continued immersion of love, but it doesn’t always happen. I tend to write about very positive ideas and thoughts, but in my mind reality shows up and all the problems of the day are in my mind. It is separate from the very enlightened time when I am writing. How do I enmesh them? That is what I am working with. What are your views on that. Thank you.
Here is how I responded:
Your question is a good one. I would suggest that the big truths and the small truths of your life are all true. The difference is in how important and meaningful they are. So if a small truth or problem arises in your mind, the right way to feel is contracted so that you know it is not very important. Again it is still true and you may need to address it in some way, although sometimes when a truth is very small, it also means there is nothing you really need to do about it. Especially if there is a bigger truth or experience that is also happening. Ultimately, you do not need to enmesh the small truths and the big truths, but just see them for what they are. They all already fit perfectly in the infinite space of your awareness.
Paradoxically, it is by allowing the small truths and recognizing their smallness that we are freed from any suffering they may cause. In fact it is our struggle to change them or get rid of them that causes us to suffer, or at least to feel less immersed in love. In trying to change them we get temporarily stuck in them. In allowing them, our awareness is freed to move outside of the smaller truth they contain. Also, it is often from the outside of our problems that the solutions are obvious.
This is backwards from how we think it should work. It even is also true that trying to get more of the expanded loving feeling can also contract us. Wanting to be expanded contracts us! This is simply because it it not ultimately very true that it is better to be expanded. The ideal is to experience each moment the way it really is. A small truth should feel small so you can accurately discriminate how important it is.
Of course you can still enjoy the expanded loving moments. However, the bigger freedom is when it does not matter anymore whether you are expanded or contracted. Contracting does not mean you have lost the capacity to expand, it just means in this moment something is shaping and limiting your awareness. In allowing and embracing the full range of your awareness you are able to respond to each moment just as it is, without needing to feel any way in particular.
It turns out that this accepting, allowing way of being does actually lead to more expanded experiences. The default is for our awareness to expand and our heart to open. By letting everything unfold just as it does, you naturally fall into this default position more often. But the expansion just happens. You never actually do it, and anything you do to make it happen tends to have the opposite effect.
I will add a small tip: If you find yourself struggling with a problem, then the first step is to allow your struggling and the contraction it causes. That is what allows you to then move into allowing the problem itself. You can only start with what is happening right now even if what is happening right now is that you don't like what is happening right now. In simply meeting any resistance that is here right now, you also open the door for the bigger truths of love, compassion, and understanding to flow into your experiences of struggle and difficulty.
I hope this helps.
