The Game of Believing

Sunday, 17 July 2011 16:11 Written by Nirmala

Q: When I’m alone, just resting as awareness, my mind can feel so free, relaxing in not-knowing. Let’s say I’ve spent four days like this, and then I’m with my friend. We talk and I become sucked back into knowing, and my mind feels more rigid. The conversations we have are always about what is not true. He believes something, but I don’t. For example: We’re driving in a car, and my friend says, “Oh, my God, imagine if we just crashed there. That would be so horrible!” What do you say to something like that when you don’t believe it? And yet, because I still fear rejection, I might say, “Yeah, that would be gruesome!” Then I feel I was sucked back into that kind of knowing. I’m wondering what spiritual teachers talk about. Nothing you can talk about seems to be true. What do you talk about with your wife and friends when you don’t believe things?

A: The way I talk with my wife or friends hasn’t changed except that there is greater ease with everything, including just sitting in silence. This means I’m willing and able to talk about anything, including the deepest spiritual stuff and also petty, personal stuff or even silly, ridiculous stuff. Whatever happens is fine with me. Even being bored by what is being talked about is fine with me. Boredom is not fatal!

Every moment is a wonderful opportunity to see how our being responds and how our ego responds. What a gift it is that you can spend time alone and drop so deeply into not-knowing and resting. And what a gift it is that your friends can still catch you up in believing something with their words. As you understand more and more about how this all works, you may find that you can be with your friends and continue to rest 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’s different? How do you know you believe something? You can say something you don’t believe and know that you don’t believe it as you are saying it, so just saying something is not the same as believing it. And yet when we or someone else says something, there’s a natural pull to believe it also. Our awareness loves to fully experience thoughts and ideas, so awareness does this weird thing—it becomes those thoughts, or becomes identified with them. So we say we believe this or that. Identification is like dressing up for Halloween and forgetting we are wearing a costume. We hold the belief—which is just a costume—to be real. Isn’t it amazing how we can see something happening but not actually experience it because we don’t believe it? Or how we can believe something so strongly that we see it, feel it, and experience it even though it isn’t actually here?

Believing is not black or white. When you and your friend are talking about having an accident, you can believe it a little and experience some of the fear and drama of an accident, or you can believe it a lot and have a full-blown panic attack. Or you can hardly believe it, and the thought passes through your awareness without making a ripple.

Belief is one of the ways we interact with the world. It is not a mistake, and being takes great pleasure in all the different degrees to which we believe our thoughts. However, as your awareness of this game evolves, you may naturally be less and less interested in beliefs. 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 don’t need to play the game of believing to live your life, and you also don’t need to give it up completely. It can be fun to go to a movie for a couple of hours and believe what you are seeing, although even that can get old. 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?

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Defending Yourself Vs. Acceptance

Saturday, 16 July 2011 15:37 Written by Nirmala

Q: How does acceptance apply when you can make a decision to act against something that could harm you? For example, if a person tries to attack me with a knife, should I accept or love this attack and not defend myself against it? After thinking this through, I think maybe I should accept it, meaning not argue internally against it, but also fight or defend against it and then accept whatever the result may be. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

A: Your question highlights the fact that there are different levels of truth, and your conclusion is a good one. On the practical human level, you need to respond to an attack in some way, which may include defending yourself. On a more subtle and yet more profound level, you can also accept the whole experience.

These levels are not separate and they do affect each other. After an inner attitude of acceptance becomes more established in you, you may respond to an attack differently than you would have before. Instead of fighting back, you might turn the other cheek (especially if no knife is involved!) or simply run away or even find a way to connect with your attacker so that he or she no longer feels moved to attack you. This inner acceptance and equanimity allows for a wider range of responses.

I’d like to add that acceptance isn’t actually something you do but an inherent quality of what you are. You are empty, aware space, and nothing is more accepting than space. So practicing acceptance is kind of like practicing having shoulders. Just as practicing having shoulders doesn’t make you have shoulders, so practicing acceptance doesn’t make acceptance happen. It just allows you to be more aware of the enormous amount of acceptance that is always here. This acceptance, which belongs to your Being, even accepts all your resistance and judgment.

Often the easiest way to notice and experience the acceptance that Being has for everything is to first notice that even when you are rejecting something about your experience, you are also accepting your thoughts about rejecting it. Being, or space, allows everything you like and everything you don’t like, and it also allows all of your liking and not liking.

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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

Q: Perhaps I don’t understand what you mean by “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 possess. 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?

A: Every perspective that is put into words is just a piece of the puzzle. If a particular piece is helpful in expanding your understanding, great. If not, then just notice that that piece doesn’t expand your view in this moment.

That being said, here is how I see it: Our Being is limitless and full of infinite potential. It is like an energizer battery that can never run out! Joy is an expression of that infinite potential. It is like one form of current that flows out of the battery. Desire is a thought that shapes or directs that current toward 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.

I point to the joy in a desire in order to direct someone’s awareness to this current of exuberant essence that is already here even when you are desiring something. Often we are hypnotized by our desires into focusing all our 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. When we do get something we want, our wanting relaxes, and that allows us to feel more of the natural joy and happiness that is always available. Feeling happier after we get something we want reinforces our tendency to believe that getting what we want is what is most important to our happiness. There’s nothing wrong with getting what you want, and there’s 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.

I point to the joy that is already here when someone is wanting something to hopefully bring that person to a realization that you don’t 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 so much whether you get what you want or not. It is such a simpler way to be happy! Pointing to the joy that is already here in your desires avoids any possible internal conflict created by making desire bad or wrong, or by 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. If someone is already experiencing their essential joy, then they don’t need this particular kind of pointing. When you are already at the post office, you don’t 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 call this kind of desire “gratitude.” Gratitude is another channel that essential joy flows in, but it is a much wider channel than a specific desire.

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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