The Game of Believing

Sunday, 17 July 2011 16:11 Written by Nirmala

A friend wrote me the following:

These days when I'm alone, just resting as awareness, my mind can feel so free, relaxing in not-knowing. Lets say I have spent four days like this, and then I'm with my wonderful friend. We talk together, and I feel that I become sucked back into knowing and my mind feels more rigid. I do not have a problem with this, but the conversations we have are always about what is not true.. He believes it, but I dont.

For example: We are driving a car together and my friend says, "Oh, my God, imagine if we just crashed there. That would be so horrible!" I mean, what are you going to say to something like that, when you dont believe it? And yet because I still fear rejection, I might say, "Yeah, that would be gruesome!" And then I feel that I become sucked back into that kind of knowing.

Im really wondering: What are more enlightened people talking about? There seem to be just untruths to talk about. What do you talk about with your wife and friends when you don't believe things?

I replied:

First of all, the way I talk with my wife or with my friends has not changed except that there is greater ease with all of it, including just sitting in silence. This also means I am willing and able to talk about anything including the deepest spiritual stuff and also about petty personal stuff or even silly ridiculous stuff. And it is fine with me whatever happens. It is even fine with me if I am very bored by what is being talked about. Boredom is not fatal!

Yet we have this wonderful opportunity in every moment to see how our Being responds and how our ego responds. What a gift that you can spend time alone and drop so deeply into not-knowing and resting. And what a gift that your friends can still catch you into believing with their words. As you see and understand more and more about how this all works, then you may find there are times when you can be with your friends and just stay resting in not knowing....even as you are having a normal conversation.

The key is this thing we call believing or identifying. What is that? How do you believe or not believe? What is different? How do you know that you believe something? You can say something you do not believe and know as you are saying it that you do not believe it. So just saying something is not the same as believing it. And yet when we or someone else says something, there is this natural pull to believe it also. Our awareness loves to fully experience thoughts and ideas, so it does this weird thing where it becomes them, or at least becomes fully identified with them. And so we say, I believe this or I believe that. It is like dressing up for Halloween, and yet sometimes we forget we are wearing a costume and actually hold the belief as being more real than what is happening. That is amazing! We can physically see something happening and yet not actually experience it because we don't believe it. Or we can believe something so strongly that we see it, feel it, and experience it even though it is not actually here.

And it is not black or white. When you and your friend are talking about having an accident, you can believe it a little and therefore experience some of the fear and drama of a gruesome accident. Or you can believe it a lot and have a full blown panic attack even though you are not actually having an accident. Or you can hardly believe it at all and the thought passes through your awareness like a thought about a little bump in the road. You notice the bump and then forget about it because you don't believe anything about it.

Belief is one of the ways we interact with the world. It is not a mistake, and Being itself takes great pleasure in all of the different degrees to which we believe our thoughts. However, as your awareness of this game evolves, then there may naturally be less and less interest in it. Just as you have little or no interest in the games you played as a child, you may find yourself less and less interested in your beliefs, or in believing anything. You do not need to play the game of believing to live your life, and you also do not need to give it up completely. It can be kind of fun to go see a movie and for a couple of hours believe that what you are seeing is real. Although even that can get old after a while. After all, there is a big and real and mysterious world of experience here that is not dependent on your believing anything. Why watch a movie of life when life is right here in front of you? Why watch a belief in your mind about life when real life is happening right now?

I hope this helps put things more in perspective.

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Defending Yourself Vs. Acceptance

Saturday, 16 July 2011 15:37 Written by Nirmala

Someone emailed the following questions:

How does acceptance apply when you can make a decision to act against something that could harm you? As an example: let's say a person tries to attack me with a knife. Should I accept or love this attack and not defend myself against it? After thinking through it, I thought Perhaps I should accept it (meaning not argue internally against it), but also fight or defend against it (acting according to the moment being different from arguing), and then accept whatever the result may be whether I am critically injured or successfully defended against the attack. I would love to hear your thoughts on this as it will better help me understand your philosophy's approach and how to incorporate it into my life.

Here is my response:

Your question is a good one as it highlights how there are different levels of truth. And your conclusion is a good one also. On the practical human level you need to respond to an attack in some way which definitely includes the possibility of defending yourself. And on a more subtle and yet more profound level there can be an inner acceptance of the whole experience.

These levels are not separate and they do affect each other. So as you develop more of an inner attitude of acceptance, then you may naturally respond to the attack differently. Instead of always fighting back, you might sometimes turn the other cheek (especially if there is no knife involved!), or just run away, or find a way to connect with your attacker so that he or she no longer feels moved to attack you. Acceptance can give you a wider range of responses.

And I will add that acceptance is not actually something you do. Acceptance is an inherent quality of what you are. You are empty aware space, and there is nothing more accepting than space. So practicing acceptance is kind of like practicing having shoulders. This does not make you have "more" shoulders, and practicing acceptance does not actually make more acceptance happen. It just allows a greater awareness of the huge amount of acceptance that is always here. This bigger acceptance of your Being even accepts all of your resistance and judgment. So often the easiest way to notice and experience this bigger acceptance is to first notice that even when you are rejecting something about your experience that you are also accepting your own rejecting thoughts. By noticing the acceptance that is always here and that totally accepts your resistance, you can then also notice that it is accepting the thing you were rejecting. Space itself allows everything you like and everything you don't like and it also allows all of your liking and not liking.

I hope this helps.

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When You Are at the Post Office, You Don't Ask for Directions to the Post Office

Friday, 15 July 2011 16:10 Written by Nirmala

Someone had trouble with the commenting system on this blog and so used the contact form on here to ask me the following question about one of my earlier posts:

Perhaps I don't understand what you mean that "desire flows from the essential joy and love within our hearts". Always? Desire, for me, feels like more of a compulsion for something that I think is missing, that I lack, and would feel more complete having. Joy and love, for me, have no neediness in them. Intrinsic in Joy is no thought of something to internalize, or to posses. It's more of an outflow than a missing 'something'. Maybe it's just semantics I'm having issue with. Can you sort this out for me? Thanks my friend.

I emailed back as follows:

Sorry you had trouble with the comment system. It is finicky sometimes, especially the system for reducing spam by requiring you to enter the words in the box.

And I am glad you mention that it might just be semantics. Every perspective that is put into words is of course just a piece of the puzzle. If a particular piece is helpful in expanding your understanding, great. And if not, then you can just notice that piece does not expand your view in this moment.

That all being said, here is how I see it. Our Being is limitless and full of infinite potential. It is like an energizer battery that truly can never run out! And as you say, Joy is an expression of that infinite potential. It is like one form of current that flows out of the battery. And desire is a thought that shapes or directs that current towards a particular outcome. So in this view, desire is a thought filled with the current of Joy. It is a limitation and distortion of the pure Joy to be flowing in the form or shape of the particular thought or desire, but the current still comes from our Essence or Being, and the current is still made of Joy.

So I point to the Joy in the desire to direct someone's awareness to this current of exuberant Essence that is already here when you are wanting something. Often we are hypnotized by our desires into focusing all of attention onto the object of our desire. We feel this inner current of Joy and think that if we get what we want we will feel it even more. And unfortunately, when we do get something we want we relax our wanting and then we do feel more of the Joy and happiness that is natural and always available. I say unfortunately because we have been taught the mistaken idea that the happiness comes from the thing we got, and do not notice that it is flowing from within our Being, and that is where all of the Joy we have ever experienced has come from. And so when we get happier after we get something we want, it can reinforce our tendency to believe that the most important thing about our desires is getting the particular thing we want. There is nothing inherently wrong with getting what you want, and there is definitely nothing wrong with the happiness you feel when you get something you want, but the mistaken belief that the happiness you feel comes from getting what you want drastically limits the amount of happiness and Joy you can experience in life. It means you tend to only notice this inner Joy when you get what you want.

Therefore, I point to the Joy that is already here when someone is wanting something to hopefully bring them to a realization that you do not need to get what you want to be happy. You just need to become more curious about the energy that is fueling your desires. If you get in touch with the energy that is fueling your desires (Joy) then it doesn't matter as much whether you get what you want or not. It is such a simpler way to be happy! And pointing to the Joy that is already here in any desires you are feeling avoids any possible internal conflict created by making desire bad or wrong, or suggesting that you have to get rid of desire to be happy, All that is needed is a more complete experience of desire as it is. The Joy is already here even when you want something a lot!

This is not the only way to point someone to their Essence and of course unfortunately it doesn't always work. And as I mentioned about the pieces of the puzzle, if someone is already experiencing their essential joy, then they do not really need this particular piece of pointing. When you are already at the post office, you do not ask people for directions to the post office! When you are already experiencing an abundance of pure Joy, then any desire or idea about desire will naturally be irrelevant. Or if desire arises, it might be such a complete desire that you desire everything just as it is. We also call this kind of desire "gratitude". Gratitude is another channel that essential Joy flows in, but it is a much wider channel than desire.

I hope this clarifies what I meant.

The Game of Believing

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Defending Yourself Vs. Acceptance

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When You Are at the Post Office, You Don't Ask for Directions to the Post Office

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