Explore...Discover

I recently received an email from someone who's quiet, peaceful, meditative life was completely disrupted by a new source of powerful yet inaudible subsonic noise pollution next door that has created a wide range of extreme physical and emotional challenges. He also shared that for a variety of reasons, he believes that he cannot move away from the home where this is happening. All of this has also caused an existential questioning of all of the spiritual wisdom and teachings that he has immersed himself in for years. Here is the response I offered:

I am touched by the depth of suffering you are going through and I hope and pray you find relief soon. I can share the perspective that you are eternal, and this pain and suffering is not eternal. So what you truly are will ultimately not be harmed or damaged by this experience. This does not reduce the pain that is here, but it can sometimes help to remember that this too shall pass. Here is a blog post I wrote a while back about this:

You Cannot Be Harmed

However, since eternity is such a long time from now, I would also suggest you explore any and all solutions available to you. One idea that popped into my mind was to suggest that you get a used van with a mattress and sleep each night in a nearby campground or natural area. You could also spend time each day away from home by meditating in your van. This does not require that you move away from home, but it could give your body and mind some relief in the meantime. This is just a suggestion, and perhaps there are other solutions that are "outside the box" that you have not considered yet.

I also can gently share that there seems to be a new form of spirituality being born on this planet that is more about integrating spirituality into the life of the body and the world. In the past, spirituality was often a way to escape the world and its dense and difficult challenges. That was the best option given the limits of the collective consciousness at the time. But now, there seems to be a new opportunity to include everything in an expanded consciousness of unconditional acceptance, including every aspect of our humanness. This is not even remotely easy, and is often incredibly painful, but it does allow for even more growth and expansion of consciousness in the end. From this perspective, there was nothing wrong with your peaceful and protected existence, but it also was simply not complete. Perhaps because you were so successful in removing yourself from the world, the world needed to do something dramatic to get your attention, and bring you back "down to earth".

Please understand that I am not suggesting that you did something wrong or that you are in any way to blame for your present moment circumstances. We are never to blame for what happens to us (as there are so many multi-dimensional influences that create our experiences), but in the end, we are always responsible (able to respond) to our experiences. Because of the myriad of influences, we are never in control of the results of our efforts to change and improve our circumstances. But in taking more responsibility for our experience, we can gradually grow and evolve into a place where suffering is reduced overall.

The integration of our spirituality and our humanness and physicality is only achieved when we take direct action. You do not need to immediately fix or solve your problems, but every time you do take even a simple action in response to what is here and what is happening now, this strengthens the connection between your eternal true nature and the very human body and very difficult physical world we live in. Given the inherent limitations of this physical existence, we probably never reach a place of no pain or difficulty, but as more of our true nature contacts our life and our world, this pain and difficulty can be experienced more and more from the wisest, strongest, most compassionate and loving place deep within our being. Moving from this depth can also create a relatively more functional life where our beliefs and conditioning do not limit us as much from taking effective and useful actions. But in the end, the biggest transformation of our suffering comes directly from the flow of wisdom, compassion, peace and love that is always still possible even when there is no "solution" to the problem(s) we face.

In this light, I invite you to explore and take whatever actions you can, and to question any ideas or beliefs that stop you from taking more action to solve your difficulties. In taking action and taking responsibility for what you can do here and now, you may find that this flow of inner wisdom and love can start to happen at least a little bit more with each choice you make, regardless of what the results of each action or choice is in the short term. This is the real opportunity of this human incarnation: not to have a perfect and completely peaceful life, but to discover more fully the inner capacities of our eternal true nature in direct response to the sometimes overwhelming and painful realities of being human.

Again, I hope and pray you find relief soon, and I hope some of this message is a bit helpful to you.

An online friend is suffering through one of the most long drawn out and agonizing health challenges I have ever heard tell of. She sent some questions in an email:

Q: Uh-oh, didn't anticipate that I might start having questions I'd like to ask you.  I've started reading Nothing Personal.

I am consumed and entirely identified with just wanting the agony of this illness to end.  It is nearly unrelenting.  So, I want it to stop.  Sometimes I want to be healthier in order that it might stop.  Other times I think I've had enough and want to be dead.

I find it very hard to be in the present with this magnitude of agony, and present to the desire, and present at all.  It hurts my head to even direct my attention one way or another.  So, then the mind concludes, as it has also sometimes been told practitioners, that when you have a neurological disorder of the sort I have all bets are off.  The neurology runs the show, and there is no freedom to be found truth-wise until there is some relief.  Cuz there's just no room in the agony-filled horizon for anything else. But I don't want to believe that. But the simple practices of investigation do hurt my head more.

The other thing I wonder is that you are seeking treatment for your physical health of some kind.  I guess for you that derives neither from thought, nor from feeling, nor from desire, nor from sensation, nor from an idea of a better future, but from a movement of Heart? I am so much of the time trying to "figure" it out, and I want to get it right.  I don't want to lose my life. That seems awfully normal to me!

I liked the part where you said whatever we think or do Mystery is directing it all anyway, and we aren't really making choices.  And that our thoughts and feelings aren't even ours, but come through the way antennas pick up radio signals, so we are not to be blamed even for our fear, which in my case is rampant.

But then there are pointers about making better choices from Heart rather from thoughts/emotions/desires.  And I want to make those better choices!  But wow, stillness and I seem to have parted company so long ago. So that part seemed contradictory.  Don't know if I spelled out the contradiction very well--that on the one hand Mystery is doing the choosing whatever we attribute our choices too--thought, emotion, desire.  And on the other hand, we'll make better choices if it comes from Heart or Silence or Mystery.

And I want to mention how much I get the message from all around me that thoughts cause suffering not just to the thinking mind, but directly to the body.  Epigenetics and all that.  I'm continually being told to think more uplifting thoughts, or I can't get better unless I believe I can, or it's my self-image that's the problem, or beliefs, or traumas, etc.

And I looked at one of the websites you sent, which said that all illness was caused by trauma and conditioning, except where injury and poisoning are concerned.  The latter two--poisoning and injury--are definitely major players for me.  But I certainly can imagine that trauma and conditioning are as well.  Only those are illusory, right?  That's the past.  So--and I don't mean to be challenging here... just desperate!--why would you be looking for help with those things from practitioners?

A: First of all, your questions are all very good and valid questions especially considering what you are going through. I may not answer them all in depth, but I can share a little:

My perspective has expanded somewhat since I wrote Nothing Personaland I now hold the view that all there is is truth. So everything, your fear, your desires, all of the ideas and theories about health and healing, and of course the bigger truths of our eternal essence are all 100% true. The only question is how true, and perhaps more importantly how true for you right in this moment. It is 100% true that if you buy a lottery ticket you can win, but unfortunately it is not very true :)

So your overwhelming desire to be done with the agony is completely natural, normal and true. The question is how true is it in this moment in your life. I often say that the truth is whatever opens your heart (or your awareness) and quiets your mind. Does your desire to be free of the pain open your heart and quiet your mind? Or does it close your heart and agitate your mind? There is no right or wrong answer and it is always relative. It is possible that in some moments that desire closes your heart and in other moments it opens your heart. It depends on where you are to start with when the desire arises. Are you in the depths of apathy and despair? Then a desire to  be somewhere else may be a bigger truth in that moment. Are you in a rare moment of acceptance or perhaps even just distracted by something else other than your agony? Then the desire may be a contraction of your heart, of your awareness in that moment.

The truth itself is big enough for all of the contradictions, and all of the different perspectives about who chooses and who or what you really are and how to live your life and on and on and on. Even illusions are 100% true, they just are not very big truths. My favorite definition of an illusion is it is something real that appears to be something other than what it is. The smoke and mirrors of a magic trick are real smoke and mirrors, but they create the illusion of something else that is not smoke or mirrors. Trauma and condtioning are illusions, but that does not mean we do not ever have to deal with them. Ultimately everything is an illusion, but nonetheless the illusions you are experiencing are here and happening now. Seeing their illusory nature can help you move beyond them, but the point may not even be to move beyond all illusions, but to just get to know them so well that they do not trick you any more. What are the illusions that are showing up here and now? How real or true do they seem, especially if you sense them with your heart? A good practitioner or healer can help with this uncovering or seeing through the illusion as they are naturally not as caught in the particular illusion you or I may be caught in, simply because it is not their illusion in that moment.

We do not always get to decide what truths we experience, but we can discriminate how true they are. For example I have found that the idea that our thoughts cause our illness and suffering is often used as a judgment and so is usually not very true, as I have rarely found a judgment that really opened my heart. However if the idea is not being used to reject our experience or criticize someone, then it could still be a useful and even helpful or relevant piece of the truth. However, all ideas are only at best a small part of the truth. There is so much more going on in everyone including you than just your thoughts. How could they ever be the only cause of anything?

Everything you or I know about health and healing is also just part of the truth. So much always remains a mystery. Right now you do know what you are experiencing, and it sounds like it is beyond even my worst imagination of  the worst that could happen to someone. But there is still so much that you and I both do not know. What is the ultimate effect of this much suffering on your soul? Can your soul be harmed, or does even the worst suffering eventually pass? Will your soul be much more wise and compassionate after this illness is over and long past? Is your soul much more wise and compassionate right now than when this illness started? Is it possible that even if that compassion and wisdom is blocked most of the time by the pain, that it is still here? Any conclusion even about these bigger questions that arises is just the conclusion in this moment. It is again a 100% true conclusion, but it is never the final conclusion. There is always the next conclusion and the one after that, and the conclusion after a couple hundred more lifetimes have gone by in the blink of an eye.

I am not sure that we are here to only make "better" choices. When I hold too tightly to the idea of something being "better" it tends to close my heart and sometimes even paralyzes me from making any choice. When I hold the idea of "better" lightly, then I make my choices and get on with it. Whatever comes of my choice is whatever comes of my choice, and my choice is only a very small part of what determines what comes next anyways. However, even though it is only a small part, it is still a part of what determines what comes next so I still try to make the "better" choice, I just don't worry too much about the results.

Similarly, when I have health problems which I have had my fair share of (although clearly much less than you), I just get curious about the choices that show up to be made, and do my best with them. Most of the time I experience it as something like wandering around in the dark. I try dozens of things that maybe help a little or maybe don't help at all. Then once in a blue moon, I experience something that seems to help a lot....at least for a while until the situation shifts again and suddenly it does not help anymore. In my best moments I find all of this fascinating and rich beyond words. In my worst moments I get caught in a small truth about how it should be, or what is wrong with me, or what is wrong with life that this should happen to me. The many experience of very big truths that I have had do tend to make me relatively unconcerned when I get tangled up in a small truth. It seems like my over-arching lack of concern does mean that generally the small truths pass very quickly, but any effort on my part to get rid of them makes them stay a little longer. When I just accept them as being small, they usually pass very quickly.

So I seek treatment for my health issues, I just get on with my life, I get distracted by other things, I play with my dog, I sit and feel my way into the depths of presence and love, I eat lunch, I am swept up in awe, I am swept up in desire, I am lost in confusion, I experience a shatteringly profound insight, and on and on and on. All of this is life. All of this is truth. It is not up to me how big or how small a truth appears before me or arises from within me. I can resist, hold on, let go, laugh, cry and still the movement of life unfolds with more for me to be mystified by, and again, at my best moments, inspired to embrace and savor to the utmost.

I invite you to perhaps investigate until your head hurts from it and then do something else. Do everything you can to help yourself get better and then let yourself give up and do nothing. Take it all one moment at a time, and then worry like hell about the future and resent the past. Find something else to think about and then give up on that also. If you feel overwhelmed that is natural and normal given what you are experiencing. If somehow mysteriously in the deepest moments of agony there is a glimmer of acceptance and peace, that is also natural and normal. Sometimes the deepest surrender comes when we are way past the end of any rope. And sometimes more agony comes when we cannot believe there could even be any more agony.

I do not even know if anything is ultimately a big truth or a small truth, I only know what is here and how open or spacious my awareness is or how small and contracted it is in this very moment. The only constant is that I am very often surprised by what happens next, and even by where a bigger truth is actually found. Often it shows up in the center of the smallest truths I encounter. In that spirit, in this moment I send you as much light and love as I can imagine sending anyone. It might just touch you a little or it might reach deeply into the suffering you are experiencing. I hope maybe it is the latter, but I do not know what it means ultimately even if in this moment you are touched. I just know it feels true to send the love your way in this particular and unique moment, and it touches me deeply to consider how difficult and overwhelming your situation is. I am humbled and saddened and mystified and broken open by compassion. And then to be honest and transparent about the unceasing movement of this mysterious thing called life, in a few moments, I will most likely just get on with the usual stuff and simply brush my teeth and go to sleep. But for now, you have my utmost love and compassion, as we truly are one and the same being. May you find all of the peace and ultimate healing that it is possible to find.

Q: Your newsletter/blog post "Egos Are Like Fruit Flies" prompts a question. I was raised in an environment of lovely, giving people who also thought that everyone outside of their sect would go to hell.  In the theory of Spiral Dynamics, consciousness goes through necessary stages, from basic survival, to "my tribe, my god", to "let's all get along", to "all stages are an expression of one", etc.  This implies multiple lifetimes to move all the way through.  In your experience at age 20, death didn't really change much but was just a continuation, after which I assume we'd come back and continue somewhat close to where we left off.  Meanwhile, near death experiencers (NDE) report the blinders being taken off and having access to vastly greater wisdom, all their questions being answered, etc.  On one hand, if the NDE is an accurate picture, how and why would one come back and take on a bigoted or narrow view of the world?  On the other hand, if it's more like what you describe, what a bleak picture: learning our lessons with such painful slowness, taking on an ego again which can only be seen through by means of suffering; and on a mundane level having to learn to wear diapers, walk, and go through adolescence again!  The teaching, "death is just merging back into where you came from" is supposed to remove our fear of death, but in my view it completely misses the point.  The greater fear is of having to start all this over again.

A: Thank for your very good questions. There are lots of "maps" of what happens after death. In the Tibetan tradition, it is assumed that everyone is shown the totality of Truth at the moment of death, similar to your description of the NDE. The only question is, Can you stay with that totality? If not, then you are shown a lesser truth, and then a lesser truth, and if you cannot contain any of the bigger truths, then you go back and reincarnate. It is kind of like a final exam at the end of the lifetime, and if you do not pass, then you have to reincarnate.

The nondual teachings tend to point to the possibility of experiencing the biggest truths before you die, but in some respects the same principle still applies. After a full awakening or even just a glimpse of a very complete perspective, the question becomes, Can you stay with or integrate that degree of reality?

In either case, our worldly life is the schoolhouse and an opportunity to practice for the big exam whenever it might come. This human life is itself an incredibly intense experience and of course is not really separate from the ultimate reality. The way you master the "lessons" of life is to accept and even embrace them totally. If you get in the habit of loving every little experience that comes along, then the big glimpses are just one more opportunity to open and allow everything. If you cannot accept and embrace what is happening, then in that moment you are in a place of suffering and the "lesson" is delayed and has to be repeated.

At every twist and turn, the most important question is can I accept and even embrace this experience as it is? If the answer is no, that is not really a problem as then the question becomes more subtle: Can I accept and embrace that I cannot accept and embrace this moment? If you are in resistance or judgement, then you are in resistance and judgement. If you can see this clearly and fully accept and embrace that you are suffering from your resistance and judgement in that moment, then paradoxically, you are back in a place of acceptance and can even learn from your experience of resistance. Strangely, suffering is no longer suffering when we embrace it. And once you are in a place of acceptance, then it sometimes becomes more possible to also accept the thing you were resisting in the first place

Our conditioning is strong to further resist any suffering, so it can take a while to get the hang of embracing your suffering. We tend to suffer over the fact that we are suffering! But the reward for accepting your resistance is that you no longer are suffering at any moment when you turn towards what is here right this very instant, even if the experience right now is one of resistance and suffering. Even the fear of having to come back and experience this human life is no longer a problem if you can simply accept fully that you are afraid. Is fear really a bad experience? What are the sensations we call fear? Are they bad sensations or just particular sensations? Is there any part of you that is actually enjoying the drama and intensity of fear while it is happening? And if you cannot embrace your fear as it is happening, can you embrace your resistance or judgement of fear? Is there any part of you that is already enjoying the resistance and judgements you may have about even your deepest fears?

It truly is all grist for the mill. And paradoxically when you can enjoy and accept every moment of fear, doubt, resistance, worry, judgement, desire, stuckness, shame, contraction, overwhelm, confusion, loss, despair, pain, and ultimately even physical death and also every moment of joy, pleasure, bliss, satisfaction, clarity, love, peace, expansion, acceptance, NDE, surrender, awakening, and liberation, then it no longer matters if you come back for a million more lifetimes. It is all fundamentally the same, and it is all rich and worthwhile.

Of course, the ultimate paradox is that when it is completely OK to come back a million more times, then you probably won't. But the freedom is when it does not matter either way. Then if by chance you are meant to be a kind of bodhisattva and stick around a while longer, so be it. And if you are simply meant to move onto the next adventure in consciousness, so be it. Slow is just slow and fast is just fast. The biggest freedom never looks like we expect it to, but it is totally free.

I hope this is helpful.

Q: Can you tell me how can I finish my journey in life without my most favourite person? What should be my destiny now?

A: The most important thing when you have lost someone or something that you love is to treat yourself with a lot of gentle tenderness and compassion. The pain of loss is real, and you can meet it by being very kind and loving to yourself. This will start the process of healing the pain, and eventually allow you to move forward to find and meet your destiny. But first things first, and first of all you need to be gentle and easy on yourself while the healing happens.

Once you have discovered that the ability to love yourself is still available to you, then you might discover that it is still possible to love others and the world in general. It is even possible to still experience fully the love you have for  the person you have lost. You can give love to someone even when they are not present physically, and in giving them lots of love, you will be filled with love also.

There is an article here on this website about how we are filled with loved when we give love to others here:

Love Is For Giving

And there are two earlier blog posts that explore how we can give love even when another person is not present or loving us in return:

• Love is Both the Destination and the Guide
• Never Too Much Love

I hope this is helpful, and please know that you are always held in the deepest embrace of divine essence. All of the love you could ever wish for is here inside your own loving heart.

Q: I have been reading your title 'Nothing Personal'. It is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. I have a M.A. in psychology. I find your observations of human psyche and basic nature valid; they support my clinical observations, too. There is still one big question that troubles me: As I see it, one cannot change or choose anything in his/her life. To become free from all suffering, one has to learn to get curious and to desire the complete truth at hand. To really live is to want this moment and this moment only. But doesn't this desiring also belong to the classic domain of free will?

If there is no free will, how can one really choose to navigate/focus to this moment and learn to love it? I think it is a matter of 'chance' if someone learns to live & love in this moment, and a matter of chance if one happens to read, understand and  impelement the wisdom you present in your book. How can a creature with no free will choose to surrender to the Mystery? My view is that surrendering is not up to us: if it happens to some one, it is a merciful coincidence. If this is true, then there will always be group of people who can never be 'saved' despite of how good a spiritual teacher, or psychotherapist tries to help them. What is your point of view in this matter?

A: Your questions are really good ones. They point to the mysterious dilemma of the dance between our true nature as infinite Being and our individual nature as a particular human being.

The biggest truth is that we do not choose and it is the totality of Being that decides what will happen, and yet within that biggest truth, there is also a relative truth which is that we still do make choices. It is hard for the mind to hold these two seemingly opposite truths, but they are not really opposite, but rather complementary. And yet the bigger truth is the truth that everything unfolds according to Divine will. So our choices as individuals can interfere with the Divine will, but only for a short time. Or we can cooperate with the Divine will and possibly also thereby experience it more fully. Either way, the will of the Divine will still predominate.

It is my sense that this dance between our individual will and Divine will is itself a part of Divine will. Being is so complete and infinite that it can deeply enjoy the apparent difficulties and dramas created by it's own creations. It loves seeing what we as individuals will do next, similar to the way my wife and I love watching our dogs just to see what predictable or surprising thing they will do next.

Regarding your question about the impossibility of choosing to surrender, you are correct that ultimately surrender or awakening are both movements of the bigger Divine will, and so we as individuals do not choose surrender. Or it may be more correct to say that even when we do choose surrender, that alone is not enough to bring about a total surrender. Choosing to surrender is similar to how we may have a preference for today to be a sunny day, but we do not choose the weather.

However, choosing to surrender does have a more subtle effect: it means that we are paying attention to the movement of Divine will. And this means that if by chance the Divine reveals more of the truth to us in the moment we are choosing to surrender to its impulses, we will thereby be more likely to notice the bigger truth of our situation that is being shown to us. Surrender itself is not a prescription for something we need to do, it is more of a description of our true circumstances. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are "surrendered" to Divine will. It is this bigger intelligence of Being that is making everything happen. But when we "choose" to surrender, we are more likely to notice the truth of our situation.

This is where our individual will has its greatest power: in directing our attention. When we direct our attention to the mystery of how little control we actually have, we are more likely to notice the Presence that is unfolding our life. We cannot change the direction of the Divine's will, but we can become more curious about its direction and its deeper nature.

As to your observation that there are some people that can never be "saved" no matter what they or a therapist or spiritual teacher does, I would also suggest that this may only be true in a relative sense. Everyone is already "saved" as we are all already under the control of the Divine will. However, it is possible that this drama of the individual will dancing in opposition to this bigger truth can unfold over more than one lifetime, in which case we cannot say for certain that someone will never discover the true nature of their predicament. All the apparent individual expressions of eternal Being are also eternal. And eternity is a very long time! Will I be saved today, tomorrow or a thousand years from now? Who can ever say for sure? But what a wonderful and dramatic story this dilemma creates. When we are the one living it, it is better than any TV show or movie ever made!

I hope this is helpful. 

Q: I have recently come to realize that we must be grateful for everything, including all situations and circumstances that are presented to us, and not just those experiences that we find pleasant and somehow self-benefiting. I am just now coming into this new awareness and have not, as yet determined how to also, deliver relief for something that causes pain and suffering, while at the same time giving thanks for it-for arising in our life experience​? I say this because I have been taught that; on one level expressing gratitude for having something in your life communicates to the Universe that I want more of this item that I am now expressing gratitude for receiving; and yet, this expression of gratitude for pain and suffering, even though I sense that it is appropriate, appears on the surface to border on self-abuse at the very least. ​

I suspect that I am hoping that I can discover the answer to this seemingly unanswerable life generated-Koan sooner than later: How does one bring to an end suffering and pain; even as one is expressing gratitude for this same suffering and pain being present in one's life experience? It seems that I am continuing to create more questions than answers in my life. I wonder if this ratio of questions to answers ever shifts the other way?

A: Thanks for your thoughtful observations and questions. I would say it is a very good sign when questions outnumber answers!

As for your question about suffering, I would simply suggest that there are many levels to the truth of every situation. When it comes to suffering, on the practical human level, we can do whatever works to reduce the actual pain and limitations that appear in life. Just as if you had a broken bone, you would see a doctor and get a cast, if there is something practical and direct that you can do to reduce pain and discomfort, then it makes complete sense to do it.

At the same time, there is another equally valid level of truth or reality where there can at the same time be immense gratitude for the difficulties and limitations that are part of every life, or at least there can be deep acceptance of the situation. This acceptance or gratitude can actually reduce or eliminate the actual suffering even if the pain or limitation is not resolved, as most suffering is actually caused by a mental activity of resistance and rejection. The thought that something is wrong or should not be happening often produces more pain and suffering than the actual sensations or situation.

Approaching difficulty with gratitude can be profoundly transformative on many levels, and surprisingly can even allow a clearer seeing of the difficulty that may make a practical solution easier to discover and/or carry out. If there is less subtle suffering, then we can be more present and curious and perhaps see a simple solution. And if there truly is no solution, then the gratitude and acceptance can't hurt! It feels good to be open and accepting, so why not feel as good as you can given the circumstances.

The different levels of every situation exist simultaneously and are complimentary, not contradictory. Why not do everything you can to make a situation better and at the same time approach it with as much acceptance and gratitude as you can. And even when it is hard or impossible in a particular moment to accept or feel grateful, then it is still possible to accept that you cannot accept. This is the trick to accepting when it is hard, just start with what you can accept or feel grateful for. Often if you accept that you are not feeling any gratitude or acceptance, this "primes the pump" and gives some momentum to acceptance. It might be easier then to start the process of accepting the bigger situation.

The mind tends to see opposites as contradictory: "If I am truly accepting, then I can't fix the problem." But actually these opposites are all part of the whole truth. We can both accept and fix, feel gratitude and make improvements.

Note: I wrote some blog posts a while back about how opposites can both be true, especially when they are true at different levels of experience.  You can find the blog posts here:

• The Sun Still Shines Behind the Clouds
• Is the Sky Really Blue?

 I hope this is helpful.

I shared with some friends some information about the Croatian healer Braco, who helps many people by simply gazing silently at a large audience. I mentioned that I was going to Hawaii to see him, and I received the following question in reply:

Q: I’m wondering if any brief interaction with someone such as Braco is as useful as the permanent, deep healing that comes from an honest and consistent inquiry into one’s own true nature. Braco, after all, is not possessed of anything his devotees do not also possess, nor does he claim it. But looking at the faces in the video of him, it is clear to me that those who come to him are seeking healing outside of themselves in Braco’s gaze. Seeking is hell is it not? I am curious, is there something you feel you might gain from gazing with Braco? Are you not already at peace? I very strongly felt you were at peace when I met you.

A: I don’t see what Braco does as contradictory to inquiry, and it can even be complementary. Let me share the experience of a friend. He had a severe infection leading to a month long coma when he was a young boy fifty years ago, and he has been severely disabled ever since. He recently started gazing with Braco both online and on DVD. He has noticed a dramatic improvement in his breathing, his energy, and most dramatically in his ability to swallow. It used to take him 3-5 minutes to swallow each bite of food. Now it takes him 1-2 seconds. I used to only be able to understand him 10% of the time, and now his voice is so much stronger that I understand him 75% of the time. Interestingly, he is also a lifelong spiritual seeker and has found that it is much easier for him to drop into his Heart since he started seeing Braco. If anything, all of these results will make it easier for him to inquire and contact his inner source of Presence. This is what I mean by the truths being complementary.

My own sense and experience is that there are many levels to the truth, including the deepest truths of pure Presence and Being as well as the practical levels of living in this world. I’ve had a number of health problems, which Braco has helped me with. In addition to physical healings, Braco evokes a sense of peace and contact with Presence in those who are in his audience. Even though I’m already very much at peace in this life, there is always room for more! I’m open to help or inspiration wherever I find it. Inside and outside are all one thing, so it doesn’t matter if I recognize peace within myself or peace in another. Braco is my own Self in a different disguise.

I’m curious where you draw the line? Would you also find it contradictory with a practice of inquiry to seek help from a doctor or dentist? That is also seeking outside yourself for healing. How about hiring a therapist, plumber, or electrician? Would you never call the fire department or the police for help? And is it really never appropriate to seek understanding and inspiration from a spiritual teacher or mentor? I’m being a bit extreme to make a point, and I doubt you hold any such extreme views. Even though seeking and looking outside yourself may be limiting and is often a place of suffering, holding some idea that there’s nothing you can find outside yourself could be just as limiting.

As I explore and live in deeper and deeper levels of essence and Being, I find that my sense of what is spiritual gets bigger and bigger and includes more and more. Braco is quite a mysterious phenomenon, and I look forward to finding out what possibilities may come from my contact with him that I haven’t yet imagined.

Q: Thanks for your thorough response to my question. I didn’t ask it from an attitude of being sure of myself, but rather to possibly dissolve my own possible ignorance. In that vein, I continue with a few questions/observations:

If what’s happening is that Braco somehow transmits something to others through his gazing  as opposed to others being the instruments of their own healing via the faith that they bring to Braco, then the Braco gazing phenomena is a justification for seeking, is it not? Rather than seeing that all is divine, characterized by equality of vision, always a  gathering of equals, those gathered around are reinforced with the idea that the guru/gazer is something special and has something to give them. If we are one, what can be given?

Some of the sages on a radio program I offer have said that the satisfying of a desire is not what brings pleasure. What brings pleasure is the underlying happiness shining through because of the temporary absence of neediness. I would submit that Braco’s gazing is akin to satisfying a desire—to be healed—and that underlying happiness and wellness shine through for a period of time. However, without the seeing through of the illusion of the separate self, the one so healed is likely to need another fix and yet another, which is the hell of seeking. I have a lot invested in the absolute equality of all beings and also in the realization of oneness as the ultimate medicine. Tell me where I may be off here. I would appreciate it.

A: I enjoy this kind of conversation, and I also hold everything lightly and enjoy watching my own perspective shift, grow, and evolve. And especially since I’m probably one of the folks on your show who said that satisfying desires is not the true source of happiness, let me just say that I agree with everything you say.

What I would add is the possibility that all there is, is truth. So since that is all there is, every perspective has some truth or has a contextual truth. And yet no perspective contains the whole truth. Even the idea “The sky is blue” is incomplete. Today the sky is grey here, and at night the sky is black. There can also be different levels of truth that are simultaneously true. From where I stand, the sky today is grey. Up above the clouds, the sky is simultaneously blue. And even higher up, above the atmosphere, the sky is black even during the day. All three statements are true at the same time.

So what you say about seeking being a place of suffering is true, and often it is the most relevant truth. However, it is also true that for some of the people in Braco’s audience, that’s not the most relevant truth or not their truth. At a certain “altitude” someone could be there seeking physical healing and not really suffer from the experience at all, especially if it works for them. It may be, as you point out, a temporary experience of satisfaction, but it still isn’t an experience of suffering. At another altitude (or maybe depth), the whole phenomenon of Braco could be a place of intense suffering, as someone might be wanting so much and either not getting it at all or just getting enough to fuel their addiction to seeking. At still another level, the seeking (and any suffering it entails) is just where they need to be, and the impulse to seek is coming from their essence. At certain points in our unfoldment we need to seek in order go beyond seeking.

And, of course, there is a place where it is all fine and there is no suffering because there’s a clear seeing of the bigger truth that everything that matters is found in Presence itself. From that perspective, one can enjoy the experience of being with Braco and also enjoy it just as much when sitting at home alone. As you point out, at that level, we are all equally endowed with this Grace and Presence, and there is nothing to get from Braco and also no problem with getting something from him. As you also point out, at this level there is only one Being, and everyone else, including Braco, is seen as our equal and even as our own Self.

These different levels of the experience are all “true” and are all happening simultaneously within any particular audience and can even happen simultaneously in the same person. We can walk and chew gum at the same time, and we can hold more than one perspective at the same time.

Just for fun, we can also explore the meaning or truth of this idea called suffering or even “hell.” Within any experience that we call suffering, there are also levels of truth. Suffering experienced from the inside is a kind of hell, and yet ultimately, there is no actual thing called suffering. It is just a thought or concept we are believing. If suffering were a thing, we would all just have it surgically removed! At the same time that we are thinking that we are suffering, our essence, or Being, is deeply enjoying the experience. The simplest way to cure your suffering is to notice that you are also enjoying your experience and therefore not really suffering that much.

One kind of freedom is to avoid suffering and/or avoid seeking. That provides a certain degree of freedom, and when you are successful, there is no suffering. However, it is still a limited freedom, as it depends on your avoiding seeking. Yet seeking is a natural capacity of the movement of thought, and no one loses the ability to seek and even to suffer. So the freedom that depends on not seeking is still a limited freedom, and there is still a subtle effort (or you could say seeking) in avoiding seeking and even in just holding the idea that I need to not seek. I was struck by how you say you have “a lot invested in the absolute equality of all beings and also in the realization of oneness as the ultimate medicine.” That investment could be a subtle form of this efforting and suffering for an idea, even if it is an idea about the end of suffering!

An even bigger freedom is when you have fully experienced the nature of seeking and suffering and found out that there is nothing wrong with either of them. They are both just movements of thought, and there is no lasting harm done by either of them. At the deepest level, our Being enjoys everything immensely, including thoughts and desires. Then you can spend all morning seeking, all afternoon purely inquiring, and all evening resting as awareness, and it’s all great! That is a very big freedom, and that freedom doesn’t depend on what you do or don’t do or even on what you want or don’t want. I had a teacher years ago who shared that since he discovered the true source of happiness within, he wants ten times as much stuff as before. Since his happiness doesn’t depend on any of it, he just wants it all!

The difference between the sky being grey or blue or black can be a very slight difference in perspective. You can drive up a mountain and all of a sudden come out of the clouds and into the sunshine. There are also endless degrees or shades of any experience. Where does the sky stop being blue and start being black when you are going up in a rocket? Similarly, the distinction between suffering and freedom can be very slight and/or very gradual. Sometimes with the slightest adjustment to our view, the suffering just falls away and is seen to have just been an experience triggered by a thought. Sometimes there is a capacity to hold onto shades of suffering and enjoy the tension between the depth of our essence and the illusion of our ego. I think maybe it was Ramakrishna who used to say that he always held back from the final merging with his Beloved because he enjoyed the longing for her so much.

This bigger freedom isn’t something you can achieve. It is ever present as a characteristic of your true nature as Being. In fact, our Being is too damn free sometimes, because it is even free to suffer! But of course, it is also free to let go of suffering and just enjoy the sky, whatever color it is right now.

A friend who is dealing with an extremely limiting and difficult illness recently used some of her very limited energy to contact me:

Q: I just started reading your newest book, Everything Is Included. I would like to share something with you and ask a question already! You have always been so generous over the years with your support and energy. You know my situation. I don't think I've shared much about the nature of my illness, and I won't say much now other than that it's neurological, and just directing my awareness can be a strain. Reading itself has become problematic.

Your first essay got me crying because I had the felt experience of oneness so spontaneously and often as a child, and then again as an adult... but very seldom since ill. Your second essay is the one I feel most drawn to so far and it has already hinted at how I can relate to my present scenario differently, and I have felt some expansion.

However, I got really tripped up on the essay "You might as well Enjoy Enjoying yourself!" Very distressing thoughts came up with this sentence: "Whatever is happening is what you are creating right now, and that is what your being is enjoying immensely." First I have the thought that there're billions of us co-creating, and it all seems more mysterious to me than that. I didn't personally or solely create what's going on in Syria, or Trump as a presidential candidate, nor can I see how victims of genocide created those realities. Nor can I see how my friend's son who was born with a congenital heart defect created that for himself, nor the victims of Chernobyl, nor the Native American decimation from chicken pox, nor how the four teenagers killed by a drunk driver down the road from my house created that. You can see where this is heading. I could really get "into" self-flagellation if I go with the thought that "my" being created this illness. Did my caregiving parents also create their daughter's illness? Gangaji used to say some bodies are just stronger than others. And it also brings to mind Eckhart Tolle's (or was it Adya?) saying our first biggest mistake is to think of this as "my" life. To me, it's always felt more like a collective Beingness is creating the whole show.

Not that it's so black and white either. Obviously, there are aspects of my experience that I am creating. Ok, I think you can see the hole I tumbled down. And I'm undoubtedly writing to you before giving myself enough time with it! Thank you, as always, Nirmala, for your presence and compassion.

A: Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I am always touched when someone has a strong response to my books, as that means they are really considering the words I have written. And it is even more moving to me that you took some of your precious and limited ability to focus to check in with me.

As for the sentence that triggered you, I can completely understand why...especially if the sentence is considered all by itself. I agree with everything you said in response to that sentence, especially the idea that it is incorrect and lacking in compassion to take a statement about creating our reality and use it in any way to blame someone who is experiencing illness or tragedy. I did not mean it in that way and would not want to suggest anything like that.

My sense of this idea of how we create our reality is that it is a small part of the truth, and really just a very small part. All there is is truth, as truth is everything that exists. So small truths are still true and real. Even the illusion of a separate self has some reality...just not very much reality. As the essay you refer to put it:

My favorite definition of illusion is that it is something real that appears to be something other than what it really is. The smoke and mirrors that a magician uses to create an illusion are real smoke and real mirrors.So this illusion that appears as "you" and "your life" is not what it appears to be, but it is still real. Yes, it is a magic trick being done by the Being that you are, and yet the illusion is also made of that same Being. So the illusion is as real as the Being creating it.

So the you that appears to create your experiences is itself an illusion, but it does still exist. And so it does have some effect. As you said yourself, "Not that it's so black and white either. Obviously, there are aspects of my experience that I am creating." 

Anytime we put something into words, we unavoidably limit or reduce the truth. You just can't write or speak the whole truth.... especially not in a single sentence or even in an entire book. However, written or spoken words can serve when they point to a part of the truth that was not yet being seen. Then, even though the words are a small truth, they can still expand our experience of the truth overall. But if that small truth is then seen in isolation, it can once more limit our experience of the truth. And especially if a small truth is used to blame someone for their difficulties, that is an unfortunate use of the small truth. And if a big truth is used to deny that a small truth exists or can be a source of difficulty, then that is an unfortunate use of the bigger truth.

I also want to stress that my main point in this section of the book was to point to a very big truth: that Being itself really enjoys everything. This is a deep current of truth that underlies all human experience. However, it is also true that lots of experiences really suck and that in the moment it can be incredibly difficult to sense that deeper joy that is part of Being. In moments of pain, illness, and tragedies of all sorts, it is also more likely that a different aspect of our true nature would arise in response and that aspect is compassion. Compassion is a deep tenderness and space that can hold even extreme pain and suffering.

Now there is some joy in compassion and some compassion in a more direct experience of joy. They are two aspects of the same Being and so to some extent they are both always present, but again in an extremely difficult experience, it is more likely that compassion would arise. Emotional sadness and even despair are a limited egoic form of compassion, but they still have some of the essence of compassion in them. As we allow the hurt and pain, then sometimes the essential compassion will expand and contain more of the hurt. In a moment like that it becomes a lot easier to also sense the joy that is present in our Being, even in a moment of deep despair or pain.

But it is also true that the smaller truth of the pain and sadness is still true. It can be quite a shock when awareness opens more fully in a spiritual awakening to discover that you actually feel pain and sadness more than before. When there is no resistance to experience, then every level of truth is felt more fully, including the horrors and tragedies of human life. The different levels of truth are all true and they all are here to be experienced. There is no need to seek out painful experiences or perpetuate them in any way, but when they do arise, it can't hurt to also sense into your Being for any compassion and even joy that is also here. If there is any healing, or at least a more complete perspective that can allow and possibly even embrace the pain, is to be found, it will be found in the depths of our Essence. So why not include as much of the deeper truth as your heart can hold in this moment?

As always my friend, I send you immense love and tenderness. I cannot imagine all that you are experiencing, but I do know that it touches me deeply whenever I sense your spirit shining through in your words and your passion.

Someone wrote me:

I think that control is bad and that wanting to control everything in one's life is bad. Wanting to make things happen a certain way is cause for suffering and is an attachment. I got this from my dad who is a control freak and wants everything to work his way and he is constantly fighting for it and efforting his way at whatever endeavor he takes up. And he makes a lot of headway but at the end of it, things get screwed up and I guess I always saw his need to control the conditions in his life as cause for suffering.

However, I want to control things in my life. I want to control myself and break my bad habits. I want to make certain things happen a certain way. but there is resistance as I don't want to have to go through the suffering that comes with that need to control that I saw in my dad. I guess I feel that loss and suffering always follows that drive to make things happen and to control one's conditions in life.

I was hoping that you could help me reconcile one's ability to make things happen and to be the cause and effect of one's life without being afraid of the potential loss and suffering that may come from that.

And I responded:

Your question is a good one. It would be easier if there were a simple answer to the whole question of control. If trying to control was really just a bad thing, then we all would have given it up a long time ago!

But trying to control is a natural impulse because it works sometimes. It turns out that something only has to work sometimes in order for a behavior to be reinforced. In psychology, they call this an intermittent reward, and it is a more powerful reinforcement than a constant reward. So it is natural that we try to control things, even though it only occasionally works and therefore more often leads to wasted effort and even suffering.

The whole truth of control includes both the times it works and the times it doesn't. It includes the experiences of relative success and failure. We are both in control and out of control. That is the nature of duality on this level of reality. However, that is still not the whole truth about the experience of control.

If we are not completely in control, then what is? Is life really just a bunch of random events including the random interactions of a bunch of apparent beings with some free will all trying to control things, but only succeeding sometimes? Or is there also a bigger, wiser Presence that affects what happens? What if there is a Divine Intelligence that is unfolding life? Are we in control or out of control then?

There is a deeper wisdom that is behind all of the events of life. It knows what really needs to happen, and mostly manages to succeed. I say mostly because it is an aspect of our infinite, eternal nature and so it is not really in a hurry to get anywhere. It likes the surprises and twists and turns that apparent egos bring to the drama of life, so it lets them interfere to a degree. This is because it knows that no harm can really be done and also because it eventually finds a way to get where it is going anyways.

A friend of mine had one of those navigation systems in his car that spoke out loud and told you where to turn. I asked him what happens if you don't turn when it tells you to. He said that for a while it would try to get you to turn around and then turn where you should have. However, he also said that if you don't even do that, it would then calculate a whole new route to where you were headed and start giving you directions based on your having not turned. This deeper intelligence is like that. It lets you succeed or fail at trying to control things, and then it picks up from there and makes what really needs to happen happen.

So there is a dynamic interplay between the capacity of our ego to control things and the capacity of Being to control things. What a formula for surprises and mystery and drama! And then there are all of the other apparent people trying to control things also! What a crazy dance!

In seeing the bigger truth of our efforts to control, there can be a natural loosening of our grip on the steering wheel of life. Why try so hard to control everything when there are so many forces at play? You may not give up entirely, but it can put your efforts in perspective. They are natural, but they are not that important. You still can steer to the best of your ability, but then you let go of the results. Sometimes you get where you wanted to go and sometimes you don't. Sometimes you even end up somewhere better than where you wanted to go!

There is one more level to this question of control. In efforting, we sometimes succeed and sometimes fail, but we always develop our capacity for effort. If you think about it, weight lifters always ultimately fail: the weights always end up back where they started. But in lifting the weights up only to have gravity return them to the starting position again and again, they develop their muscle's capacity to lift weight.

Maybe the ego and all of its efforts at control are just a necessary developmental stage. Once it has gone as far as it can with its own efforts, it reaches a point where it can only go further by surrendering. And yet that is not something it can do. The ego can only experience the dilemma of its impulse to effort and its seeing of the futility of effort until something else moves that we call surrender. The development of our capacity to effort does not cause the surrender to happen, but it can allow us to stay with the experience until surrender happens.

When we effort to control things, we may not succeed and yet our inner capacity to focus and effort has been developed. As some point when we start to see the whole truth about control, then we may stop trying so hard to change what happens. But we can still use the capacity we have developed to be very present and profoundly aware of what is happening, including the moments when surrender arises. We can use our capacity to effort to be more present to what is. At first, it can seem odd to try to have things just the way they already are, but there is a richness that can be revealed when we actively engage our experience without trying to change it.

What is here beyond your own effort? What is here right now that does not need to be controlled? How is it to hold these questions with the same amount of effort you might have used to control things? Not necessarily to get an answer, but just because the questions are here. In just holding the questions without trying for an answer, another dimension of experience can sometimes be revealed that is full of peace, joy and love. This is not a place of no control or a place of control. it is something that opens up beyond the whole experience of control.

It is here that the suffering from our efforts to control is truly resolved into an enjoyment of the whole dance of our life. Loss is just one more twist and turn in the dance. Effort is just done for the sake of moving and dancing. There is nowhere to go and nowhere to not go, nothing to do and nothing to not do.

I hope this helps.

A follow-up question to my post about contradictions came in:

Q: Could we simply say that there are two aspects of the same one awareness--one aspect which is always affected by experiences and one which never is?

And if so, then it seems that even if complete, abiding realization of one's true nature occurs within a particular body/mind instrument, that as soon as that vessel 'dies' (stops functioning), then suffering would simply continue in another body despite the 'enlightenment' since there's no separate individual self to become liberated from suffering. It seems that suffering would also be eternal with or without realization of one's true nature as the unaffected aware space, although you say below that the imprinting (suffering?) gets dissolved eventually. So...do you have any particular insights to share about the 'eventually' part, since our true nature is said to be beyond/without any relationship to time altogether?

A: You ask such good questions! My own sense of the "eventually" part of the story is that since our true nature is not harmed by "suffering", the eternal aspect of our being just keeps on trucking in and out of all kinds of identifications, attachments, imprintings, and yes sufferings, before and after any kind of spiritual realization. Eternity is a lot of time to fill up, and so it gets very creative at generating new and unexplored dimensions of experience to try on for size.

Suffering is just a particular movement of our consciousness and is not really a problem, or a mistake. It is just a part of the game to make it seem like a problem. Suffering is just the movement of desire or avoidance, but this can become very subtle. Is it suffering if you are enjoying desire itself? I find the closer I get to fully experiencing my own suffering, the less suffering there is. I am not sure exactly where the line is between suffering and not suffering, but lots of activity that continues after a spiritual realization may look like suffering on the outside, but not really be experienced that way on the inside.

This is a very dynamic and fluctuating experience. To me the ideal is not to reach some place of ultimate expansion and dis-identification that is completely free of all suffering and creating. Instead the ideal is a complete flexibility to identify and dis-identify, to desire and to release desires, to suffer and then to also discover the joy in suffering itself, without getting stuck anywhere. And just looking around it seems that Being as a whole is not in any rush to be completely done with anything. Given the incredible variety of experience, it seems to be enjoying its inherent flexibility to the max!

Since eternity has no beginning and no end, maybe we can see this moment, just as it is, as the fullest expression of existence possible. Maybe "eventually" does not really matter because in eternity we are always already there! This experience and this moment are just as valuable to our deepest Being as every other moment and every other experience to come. Yes, spiritual realization and shifts in our degree of suffering are different experiences, but maybe they are not really any better...just different. To a completely invlunerable Being living in an eternal universe, the only thing that matters is differences. Since nothing matters really, awareness makes it "matter" by uncovering differences. And the most dramatic differences are created by identification and dis-identification, and the desires at the root of our suffering. If you change who you experience your self as, you change everything. If you change what you want, you change almost everything. So Being plays with desiring and creating and striving and seeking and all of the infinite ways it can "suffer" and then "not suffer". Again, with so much time on its hands, why wouldn't Being try it every which way.

If the ultimate is the complete flexibility to have any identity and any possible experience, then everyone is already experiencing some aspect of this ultimate reality. Even getting stuck in some identity or place of suffering is one of the  aspects our true nature is free to explore. And again since we are speaking about eternity, no one is ever "stuck" forever.

Ultimate freedom is not somewhere we get to, it is a place we have always been exploring and are never done exploring. Ultimate freedom is dancing as the experience you are having right now.

A friend emailed me to report that after years of spiritual and psychological work that he still often becomes overwhelmed by depression and discouragement. He does have moments where it all falls away and he is in touch with a more joyful and clear perspective, but then it is as if a dark cloud reappears and hides any sense of presence or Being. He ended by asking if there is anything he might be missing that could be helpful.

I replied as follows:

I do have something to offer that may be something you have been missing. But please know that I hold what I am going to share lightly, as I believe it is a small part of the truth. Because it is metaphysical, it is easy to assume that it is something big and important, but it is really just a small thing that happens to be a part of metaphysical (non-physical) reality.

That being said, there are literally dark forces that can affect us. Some people have called them entities, as they appear as individual entities, just as you and I appear as individual entities. They just happen to not be physical. And while they can and do affect us, they are actually not very powerful. Mostly they affect us by inserting negative ideas and creating fear, but they cannot directly harm us. And since they are not very powerful, it is fairly easy to clear them from our energy field. My wife, Gina, has much more of a background in the metaphysical realms and has even written a book that includes information on how to clear these entities. You can read more about this book, The Shift: Becoming Your Best Self on her website. 

I bring this up because you mention dark forces and dark episodes yourself in your email, and the way you describe what happens is exactly how it feels when an entity is affecting you. There are two things that increase the likelihood that entities will hang around and have an effect. One is if there is a lot of emotional wounding. The wounding is like an opening in your energy field that allows the entity to attach or connect to your energy. And the second thing that attracts them, paradoxically, is if someone is very spiritually advanced and open. This attracts them, as it makes you a more valuable target, although in an actual  moment of spiritual connectedness, it also makes it harder for them to affect you. And I would suggest that both of these things are true in your case, so you are both a good target overall and at times you are an easy target because of your emotional wounding.

So check this out if you feel moved to. There is no need to make a big deal out of it, and yet it can be very helpful to know about this dimension of reality and to take the simple measures that can address it.

In a similar vein, I would also suggest you check out the Christ Consciousness Transmissions we offer, which can provide an infusion of more positive energy and connect you with higher beings. Read more info about these online gatherings. Many people have noticed definite improvements or complete healing of things like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder after joining our transmission sessions.

Let me know if any of this info is helpful, my friend, and let me know what you experience if you do join us for a transmission.

Someone shared this story with me on Facebook yesterday, and I wanted to pass it along:

An aging Hindu master grew tired of his apprentice complaining, and so, one morning, he sent him for some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.

"How does it taste?" the master asked.

"Bitter," spit the apprentice.

The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake, and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, "Now drink from the lake."

As the water dripped down the young man's chin, the master asked, "How does it taste?"

"Much fresher," remarked the apprentice.

"Do you taste the salt?" asked the master.

"No," said the young man.

At this, the master sat beside the young man who so reminded him of himself and took his hands, offering, "The pain of life is pure salt, no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things... Stop being a small glass. Become a lake."

Someone emailed me the following:

Q: I've been at this for many years and it seems those core issues have not transformed. There is more awareness of them and space around them though. I think I'm starting to see that there is no ultimate destination or goal to reach. Awareness itself is already pure and perfect as it is, and that is what we are. So what am I doing? There is a compulsion that seems to stem from a sense of lack that compels me to feel a need to become better than I am, to grow, to evolve, to reach my highest potential. Sometimes it is veiled in spirituality, but I think it is a sense of lack, a sense of insufficiency and fear that this insufficiency will cause me to be abandoned or treated badly, or to suffer. So I'm constantly trying to avoid this being what I am for fear of paying for it in a bad way. Something tells me I have to be special to survive, or to have my needs met; something tells me I have to be better than I am and better than others. This prevents me from simply relaxing and being what I am, which is effortless. What we are is effortless being. I know this, but I'm still working my ass off to become something better!

Did you ever go through something similar? I feel a sense of hopelessness, but maybe this hopelessness is also a letting go. I realize that letting go is what is ultimately needed, but don't know how to surrender. I guess what I am is surrender itself when I am relaxed enough to see it. I'm lost. What are your impressions? How do I navigate these waters?

And here is my response:

A: Thanks for so clearly sharing your experience. I would suggest it is OK to be working your ass off trying to get better. There is no harm done and it is often when we have failed utterly at trying to be better, that something else moves within us. Surrender is not something you do. It is really something that happens to you.

In the meantime, you can be very curious about this whole experience of struggle and fear. The more present you are to it just the way it is, the more awareness itself can transform the experience. Again it is not something you do. Your only job is to be as present to it all as possible, and to just be with the feelings as much as you can. This does not make you better, but it does strengthen an inner muscle of awareness that can allow you to just be with the feelings as they arise without suppressing them or expressing them.

As I mentioned, the end result is a kind of failure. However, in working so hard at all of this, you also develop this inner capacity to be with experience. Then when Presence and surrender and your true nature reveal themselves, you are able to stay with that experience also. So all of the effort is not wasted, even if the results are not what you are trying to achieve.

I would add that the process itself gets easier as you go, although then life often brings an even more challenging experience. When I was a skier years ago, the better I got at skiing, the less effort it took to ski. But then I naturally started skiing on more and more difficult trails, until they became relatively effortless also. It appears all of this effort is meant to bring us to a place where we can move or just be with the least amount of effort needed. This is what frees more and more awareness within your experience, and it is awareness itself that transforms our experience. Even then, this is not necessarily a change of the content of experience, but more a change in where you experience something from. The best cure is to find out that there is no problem. If a snake bites you and you go to the doctor, the best cure is to find out the snake is not poisonous. That knowledge is the cure!

And so all of this inner suffering is only a problem when we think it is a problem. Once we no longer see suffering as problem, then it is no longer suffering. Suffering is like a mirage: when you get closer to it you see it does not exist. All of your struggle can not help but eventually bring you closer to the suffering itself, where you will start to see its nature. Then you will find yourself more and more able to rest within the difficult patterns and to see that they are just ideas, mirages in your own mind.

Q: I understand suffering from the perspective of the soul, as suffering often brings needed change and growth. But I’m confused when suffering doesn’t appear to have a purpose, for example, when a good person suffers due to severe illness. How can one explain this to their loved ones? How can the person suffering come to terms or even overcome what he or she is going through?

A: This is a very challenging question, as it sometimes does seem from our limited perspective that suffering serves no purpose. Obviously, we can’t know for sure, as we can’t always know now the effect the suffering that someone is experiencing may have in the future. We can get a hint of the answer to why consciousness needs suffering by noticing how much suffering opens our Heart. It seems that even though consciousness is infinite, it still likes to stretch itself by opening even wider. Eventually, we learn that we don’t need to suffer in order to open the Heart. Once we learn that suffering is not necessary, we can just go directly to love and the softness of compassion. But until we learn this, life keeps reminding us to open our Heart even wider by showing us the suffering that arises when we don’t.

Even when we have surrendered and given our Heart totally to the truth, we still experience the suffering of others, so we are inspired to reach out and show them the same love that has rescued us. The pain itself can be a good hurt, like the good hurt from exercise. In the end, it turns out that the suffering was all just an idea of suffering, and what is really happening is this stretching and unfolding of our infinite Heart. There is no suffering in the depths of love, and there never has been.

It can also help to understand the true cause of suffering. Suffering actually comes from our resistance to our experience. That is what actually hurts. There is only pain or suffering when there is sensation or experience and also resistance or struggle. The sensations and experiences by themselves are not painful. The good news is that it is actually possible to not suffer even in the midst of a very difficult experience if we simply stop resisting that experience altogether. The greatest gift you can give another is to help that person see that it isn’t necessary to suffer, even when he or she experiences tremendous loss or physical difficulty.

Sometimes the best you can do is to just be there with someone who is suffering without suffering yourself. It doesn’t serve others to suffer along with them. Instead, you can be with someone who is suffering and shine love and acceptance. The power of this example is profound, especially if you can hold your Heart wide open even when someone is struggling and angry and all of the rest. Not pulling away or trying to change another person’s experience but, instead, staying right there with that person with love and acceptance can be powerfully transformative.

Suffering is not a mistake. Paradoxically, our suffering is what finally teaches us to accept every experience and so become free of suffering. We eventually find a way to be free of suffering because resistance and struggle with life hurts. But it takes a lot of discrimination to finally see that the true cause of suffering is our struggle and resistance to an experience, especially when the problem appears to be in the experience or the intense sensations. Fortunately, suffering is a patient teacher.

What does surrender look like?

What does it look like when we surrender to divine will? Does that mean that we just sit back, take our hands entirely off of the steering wheel, and let everything and anything happen as it will? Do we need to sit without moving a muscle? Does surrender always mean you let someone walk all over you like a doormat?

Or is spiritual surrender something much more subtle and actually rich? Could it be that true surrender is an inner attitude towards whatever is happening? What if you can be fully surrendered and also take appropriate action when needed to relieve suffering? What if surrendering includes both passivity and activity? Can you still protect yourself, improve your life, work to change your circumstances, do any inner healing and processing of your conditioning, and make definite choices about your life while still being in a place of total surrender? 

The three part Brain

A friend just shared a simple three part theory of the brain: The lower brain is the seat of our reactivity and resistance to life. The mid brain is where sensory experience is taken in. And the higher brain is where we experience the capacity to understand and ultimately accept, surrender to and embrace life. She then suggested that the key in every moment is whether the sensory input into the mid-brain activates the lower brain, triggering the fight or flight response and other emotional reactivity and suffering, or whether that same sensory experience is processed by the higher functions of intellect and perspective that process the sensory experience into understanding, peace, acceptance, surrender and even joy.

She then shared a simple practice for directing the present moment sensory experience into the higher functions of the brain. All that is required is speaking or thinking, "I am happy to be here." It is a surprisingly effective way to shift from resistance and suffering to surrendering spiritually and experiencing peace and joy.

What if that fundamental attitude of "I am happy to be here" is all that is required for spiritual surrender to happen? What if you could even continue just as before to actively engage with the experiences you are having, including trying to make it better or more comfortable or more whatever, as long as you also were "happy to be here"? And of course it also would be fine sometimes to stop trying to change or fix anything if the underlying attitude is that it is all fine and I am happy to be here. 

How to surrender Spiritually when you are suffering?

Taking this one step further, when the opposite is happening and the thought is "I am not happy to be here" or even "I hate being here" and "This totally sucks!", then the possibility exists to add on this attitude of acceptance to that experience of suffering also. When the lower brain is being activated and we are upset, worried, fearful, etc., what if in the midst of that experience, we also think "I am happy to be here"?

Could that bring an overall sense of peace and surrender in spirituality to the experience as it is? Can you surrender to suffering itself and thereby short-circuit the suffering into something else called peace or joy?

The many levels of suffering

The more I explore the nature of suffering, the more I discover the endless layers of subtlety to the experience of distress or suffering. There are many levels to our present moment experience and as long as there is also this level or layer of an affirmed acceptance, then the other layers do not need to be gotten rid of. You can still struggle, effort, give up, try harder, take a break, wish it was different, try to get rid of something, try to hang onto something, explore the conditioning that is operating, and anything else that is either active or passive, effortful or collapsing from all effort, as long as there is also an overarching attitude of "I am happy to be here". It is not necessary to choose one level or the other of our experience, but to simply add in this "attitude of gratitude", as we sometimes call it. We sometimes hold back from the admission or affirmation of happiness because we think we have to get rid of the unhappiness first. But what if you can just add a heaping layer of happiness and spiritual surrender on top of whatever else is happening? 

The key to Surrender and Happiness

Surrender and happiness could be much simpler than we have believed. Instead of spiritual surrender and happiness being something else that requires a super-human degree of passivity and total allowing of everything just as it is, and instead of being something that we have to do in place of whatever we are already doing, surrendering spiritually and happiness could be something we simply add to whatever is already happening or whatever we are already doing. This simply adds to the experience an inner movement towards whatever is present, whatever is actually here in sensory experience, including any inner "sensations" of thought, emotion, desire or judgment. Even our suffering or movement away from what is becomes one more thing that we can also move towards as described in a blog post on here entitled,  "Surrendering Our Way Out of Suffering". And no matter how many layers of suffering, effort, activity, striving, struggle and just plain everyday doing or activity are currently activated in our mind and body, we can always also add a layer of true surrender and happiness to the mix.

The key to spiritual surrender and happiness may not be a difficult sacrifice of all we know and already trust in life including our striving and effort, but simply an invitation to add in a deeper attitude of trust, acceptance, and gratitude to everything that is already here and already functioning in our inner and outer experience. You can even be very busy and also be totally surrendered! All it takes is "I am happy to be here."

The deepest surrender is always already here

Someone emailed me with a question about hopelessness and surrender:

Q: I experience a looming hopelessness in ever truly fulfilling this yearning of totally surrendering to the Beloved. There is a resignation or a sense of, “What’s the use?” Since I am not this body, what’s the use of taking care of it, when llife involves so much suffering?

A: Everything is unfolding naturally and normally. Within this unfolding, hopelessness can sometimes seem to be a somewhat valid perspective. However, I invite you to check if there is truly an absence of any hope or expectation, or if there is a negative expectation or negative hope that things will not unfold completely. True hopelessness is a recognition that there is no need for hope or expectation of any sort, since life itself brings every experience just as it is needed. It can seem hopeless for you to surrender only because you have already lost the struggle; life is already surrendering to itself. Everything is happening perfectly whether you are suffering or not. At most, struggling delays things a bit and causes you to suffer, but it all works out anyway. So there’s nothing you can do, nothing you need to do, and nothing you need to not do in order for surrender to happen. Any instructions on how to surrender spiritually are not actually a prescription for you to follow, but a description of your true situation, of what is already happening.

As for taking care of your body, while from an absolute perspective it ultimately doesn’t matter if you don’t take care of your body, it also doesn’t matter if you take very good care of it. If you are meant to experience health and well-being, then life will bring these experiences to you. And if your soul chooses to experience physical challenges or diseases in this lifetime, then these will arise. Whatever experience is needed will naturally arise. Part of this natural arising is all that you do or don’t do to take care of your body. If it truly doesn’t matter, then it doesn’t matter if you eat well, exercise, and get healing support for your body or if you don’t. Seeing both sides of this issue and holding the question this lightly allows deeper impulses and intuitions to guide you. It will simply feel truer in each and every moment to take care of the body or not to take care of the body. And this will change moment to moment as life unfolds. Sometimes you will be moved to take very good care of your body, and sometimes you will be moved to just let it be.

Sometimes, when we experience true hopelessness and the depths of knowing that there is nothing we can do to fully surrender to Being, we fall into the trap of thinking that therefore we should do nothing. But there is also no "non-doing" or inaction that we can do to make surrender happen. It turns out that all of our doings and all of our non-doings are actually a part of the natural unfolding of life that already is coming from the surrendered depth of our soul.

How to surrender by Asking the right questions

In a scene in a Woody Allen movie, a UFO suddenly lands in front of him and little green men come out. Woody’s character runs up to them and says, “Thank God you’re here! What is the meaning of life? Is there a God? Why are we here?” And the little green men reply, “These are the wrong questions” and fly away again in their UFO, as Woody runs after them yelling, “Wait! What are the right questions?”

Sometimes the right question is not so much what should I do, but what is happening right now? What is this like? How do I know what I am thinking, feeling, or experiencing right now?” For instance, you might ask: “What’s it like to have no hope or expectation either way? How do I know I am hopeless? What’s it like to have a body right now? How do I know that this is my body? What is true right now? What am I spontaneously doing already? What is already surrendered to Being right now?”

This kind of inquiry is in between doing and non-doing. It isn’t totally passive, but it isn’t very active or effortful. It is giving space and curiosity to the unfolding of life that is already happening through you, around you, and within you. You can do this as hope comes and goes and as taking care of your body comes and goes. The real gift of this kind of questioning is not that it answers the more practical questions, but rather that it means you are paying attention when a bigger truth arises. If you are always asking, “What is happening right now?” then when a deep experience of Being arises, you’ll notice. What a treasure it is to be home when the Beloved comes for a visit! Such questions don’t make surrender happen, but they can show you that surrender is always here. Surrender is what is.

Q:I enjoyed talking with you on the phone, it was really nice to check in. I’d like to share something that happened after our conversation. I noticed that the sweet feeling of surrendering and being in love with my life here is turning into suffering from waiting for the next shoe to drop.

It has to do with the emphasis that some teachings place on suffering as our motivator and guide towards awakening. I have a pretty harsh superego which adds to this emphasis. So that I sometimes feel like I can’t surrender and just enjoy my life. I “should” be efforting towards enlightenment and being Present at all costs! I should be exercising my self control. And if I don’t, life will serve me up some suffering to get me motivated. Then I start to wonder what it will do to me next to teach me whatever I am supposed to learn. It actually creates more fear than trust in Life. And my superego gets in the mix with motivating me by scaring me into thinking I have to create this self control 24/7.

A: First, I would suggest that suffering is created by our mind, not by life. It still is painful, but the pain comes from what our mind is telling us. Life is not sending us problems to teach us, but the suffering we create with our mind is meant to show us that our mind created problems are not real or true. i wrote some more about this in these articles on my website:

1. 1. Real Cause of Suffering
   2. The Gap in Awareness
   3. Suffering is a Patient Teacher

So our fears, desires, doubts and worries generate suffering to show us that the fears, desires, doubt and worries are not very real or true. Again, life does not necessarily bring difficulties into our experience to teach us, but when difficult experiences arise, they are an especially good opportunity to discover that suffering does not come from our experiences. And when we do not resist or deny, but instead surrender to and even become curious about our experience, then any suffering that was present even in a very difficult experience goes away.

This is an incredibly subtle phenomenon, and so it takes a lot of careful inquiry to see the true nature of suffering, especially when there is a more profound or intense experience of physical or emotional pain. The difference when there is a lot of sensation or emotion is that it is much easier to also suffer. It is harder to suffer when things are pretty calm and easy, but it is still possible to suffer and to suffer a lot when life is actually pretty good.

Because it is possible to suffer over almost anything, it is also possible to suffer over suffering itself! Worrying that you might suffer is in essence suffering over the future possibility of suffering. It is sort of like premature suffering! When it is pointed out like this, it can appear kind of foolish. But when it is our own mind (and especially our own superego) that is generating these worries, they are very convincing. I have compared the thoughts in our mind to an IMAX movie:

The IMAX Movie in your Head(video)

The good news is that we do have something else besides our mind that is able to discriminate how true or not very true our fears and worries are. Our heart shows us how not very true they are by contracting, whereas to the mind they appear very big and important. The contraction in our being is showing us how big and important they really are. If you feel very contracted when you are worried or fearful, that is the right way to feel. The smaller and more contracted you feel, the smaller the truth or reality of what you are thinking/feeling.

The kicker in all of this is that we were taught to respond to contraction/suffering with more contraction/suffering. We try to contract our way out of contraction, or suffer our way out of suffering instead of surrendering our way out of suffering! It is not our fault as we were taught to do this by all of the people around us who were doing it. And since contraction of our awareness expands our unawareness, it actually does work in a strange way to reduce our awareness of the initial pain or suffering. Unfortunately, it does this by creating some new pain and suffering! And the original problem that we are suffering over does not go away just because we are less aware of it.

As always, the way out is the way in. If we can just stop and experience the fear, doubt, worry, desire, contraction and suffering just as it is, that can stop the cycle of further contraction/suffering in response to the initial contraction/suffering. It turns out that contraction is just a particular sensation in our being and that it does not harm us in any way. You can go even further and surrender to and trust your own contractions. They are always showing you exactly how true your fears and worries really are. It can be a surprising discovery to just go ahead and trust your being's response to suffering. That is how it teaches you, by showing you viscerally how untrue your fears really are. When you accept the feeling of suffering/contraction it is no longer experienced as suffering or contraction. Seeing that something is not very true is itself an experience of a bigger truth, and when we shift into a bigger truth, our heart/being opens and expands. And of course, you can also trust your being when it softens and expands, as it is correctly showing you that something is more true.

Again, this is surprising to discover that instead of fearing your suffering, you can learn to trust it (and also trust the absence of suffering when that is happening). It is meant to show you here and now how true something is, and it turns out that suffering, fear, doubt, worry and desire are almost never very true. Surrendering and trusting in this way is like a new habit you need to learn. And we learn it by going ahead and trusting even when we are contracted. Every time you surrender in this way, it creates more momentum to the trusting response that embraces what we call suffering or pain, and discovers that they are actually very compassionate teachers. And even better, to discover that there is no pain or suffering when we trust and meet our pain and suffering fully.

I hope this helps.

P.S. A good clue that something is not very true is when it is any kind of "should," even very spiritually motivated shoulds. The super-ego loves "shoulds" because they are so effective at scaring and contracting us. They just are not very true. 

(Here is an excerpt from my book, That Is That.)

We usually think that suffering is caused by bad experiences, but it's actually caused by our attention flowing towards something that's not really there-towards something that's not very true in that moment, such as an idea or a fantasy, which are very small truths. Suffering ends when our attention is flowing towards what's actually happening, what's true in the moment. Suffering is the distance-the gap-between what you're oriented towards and what is. However large the gap is between what's actually happening and what you're putting your attention on is how much you will suffer. If there's no gap, then there's no suffering.

That gap can be present regardless of whether something good or bad is happening. For example, if someone close to you is dying, your awareness may be so fully focused on what's happening in that moment that the experience lacks the suffering you would expect, although suffering may appear later if thoughts creep in about how things should have or could have been. In contrast, there are times when things are going really well and you're suffering, often because you're afraid of things changing. If this truth is understood-that it doesn't matter what happens-it can change your life. It may or may not change what's happening, but it will change your experience of what's happening...

Our hopes, dreams, desires, fears, doubts, and worries aren't really happening so they are very small truths. When we give our attention to something that isn't actually happening, we suffer. When our attention is focused on these things, we never feel satisfied because they don't nourish us. But when we give our passion and curiosity to more of what's true in the moment, we don't suffer. What are you giving your awareness, your passion, your curiosity to?

It's very simple: Our suffering is a matter of how much of our attention is flowing towards what's not actually present, such as hopes, dreams, desires, fears, doubts, worries, ideals, and fantasies. What we're desiring isn't present or we wouldn't be desiring it. Nor is what we fear. Our fears are just as much of a figment of our imaginations as our desires. None of these things are real, and turning our attention towards the unreal brings us out of contact with the real, where the aliveness of Being can be experienced.

Rejection and desire are the mechanisms with which we resist what is, which results in our suffering. They operate in a cycle: We go back and forth from rejection to desire. We think, "This isn't good. Maybe if I got this or maybe if I meditated more or if only I had a better lover or more money or more freedom, it could be better." Then we go about trying to fulfill that desire and, regardless of whether we succeed or not, we come back to the point where we still reject whatever is present now. Even when we get what we think we want, we may find that it's not that great, so we dream up something else we believe will make things better.

This activity of desiring what isn't present and rejecting what is creates and sustains the sense of a small self. If things are lousy, they're lousy for whom? For me. And if things could be better, better for whom? Better for me. We're often not even conscious of rejecting and desiring because we're caught up in the content of our desires and fantasies. We get so hypnotized by our fantasies that we're not even aware they're contracting our sense of self and making us feel very small, incomplete, deficient, and unsatisfied.

Nevertheless, that sense of incompleteness can be trusted. It's telling you how true it is that your fantasy will make you feel better. The sense of incompleteness and smallness in the experience of fantasizing shows you just how little truth there is in your fantasy. Fantasies aren't very true. They only exist in our minds. There isn't much substance or reality to them.

You can also trust when your heart feels very full and complete. The simple alternative to rejection and desire is to give all of your attention to what is here right now. The only trick is to include all of what is present right now. Every sensation can be included. There is no suffering in any sensation that you give all of your attention to. The suffering comes in when we have an idea about the sensation that pulls us away from it.

And the biggest surprise is that ultimately there is no suffering even in our suffering! When you give all of your attention to the actual experience of rejection and desire, the suffering inherent in it dissolves. When we become curious and attentive to the process of rejection, it no longer has any sting. If you simply become fully present to the movement of thought, it can be recognized for what it really is: just a thought! Suffering is like a mirage that you never actually reach. It dissolves whenever you get close to it.

A friend on facebook wrote me the following;

The pain I feel is not going to go anywhere anyway..so why not to write to you. It might change nothing, yet it won't do any harm. Moreover, I am always happy to write to you, because you are so warm, gentle and kind.

The thing is now I am completely sure, now I know that my friend, of whom I wrote to you a few months ago, does not love me. This one line may sound so superficial, so silly to you, yet I felt a part of me has died.

Again as it always happens, I feel calm writing you. But these last days, whatever I tried ---looking for the sufferer, or not looking, trying to impose absolute hopelessness on me, repeating always in mind "who am I?"---nothing could ease the enormous pain in my chest. I felt like jumping out of my body, out of that all.

And this is my response:

Loss is like that. It just hurts. Even when there is nothing you can do to relieve the pain, you still might want to explore the experience you are having. Specifically, I would invite you to explore the part of you that feels like it has died. What is that like? If for just a moment, you completely allow it to feel dead, is it actually a bad sensation, or just a dead sensation? Our suffering always comes from our movement away from our sensations, not from the sensations themselves, even the most intense and enormous feelings. 

It can help to allow the pain to be bigger than your body. There is no need to contain it within your chest. Just let it be as big as it needs to be.

And then you can maybe also be curious. What is the pain like? Where exactly do you feel it? How big is it? What else is present besides the pain? If there is a feeling of deadness or emptiness, what is that like? What is present in the empty space? What is here inside the deadness?

The point of these questions is not really to get rid of the pain. It is to help you discover that it is OK to feel pain. The deepest healing is always to find out that there is nothing here that needs to be healed. Pain is natural and normal after a loss, and yet you do not need to suffer from it. Just let it be here, and you may find you are OK even if your heart is broken. Your heart can be broken wide open without actually damaging anything, because your true Heart cannot be broken. It is big enough to hold all of the pain and loss.

I hope this helps.

An excerpt from the nondual book, Nothing Personal, Seeing Beyond the Illusion of a Separate Self  by Nirmala.

Our suffering doesn’t come from any experience but from our resistance to the experience. Likewise, our joy doesn’t come from any experience; it comes from our deeper nature. It is an innate quality of our Being.

There’s a book out there with a great title: The Life We Are Given by George Leonard and Michael Murphy. So much of the time we don’t show up for the life we’re given but for the life we think we should have been given. This effort to have a different life is actually the cause of our suffering. It turns out that our joy doesn’t stem from circumstances either. It comes from just being with the life we’re given.

In hearing this, we naturally conclude that the way to end our suffering is to stop resisting. However, trying to do anything about your resistance is just another attempt to change the way things are. The only thing to do about this dilemma is to simply be willing to experience it.

A good metaphor for being with your experience in this way is trying to grow something. If you’re trying to grow a plant, you don’t go out in the yard every day and tug on it to get it to grow faster. Instead, you’re just present to the plant, to its natural unfolding. You provide the environment for that growth to take place. You water the plant and fertilize it, but you don’t actually do anything to the plant. Doing something to the plant itself could actually harm it.

The flow of conditioning is not a mistake. Part of this conditioning is the feeling that something is wrong with an experience and it needs fixing. As a result, it’s counterintuitive to approach the cause of our suffering with other than the attitude of trying to fix it. We have to learn to let it have its natural rhythm and evolution and yet be very much in contact with it.

So, I’m inviting you to do some inquiry—to inquire into everything that’s in the life you are given and not to change it in anyway. Because the suffering in our lives is caused by our attempts to change things, the inquiry I’m suggesting is an inquiry into whether or not that is happening, without doing anything about it. Inquiry into what is here right now is like picking the fruit that’s ripe: Instead of going to the apple tree in the spring and being disappointed because there are no apples, you go to the strawberry patch and enjoy the strawberries—because strawberries are what is here.

All of our suffering is just our conditioning, and that’s part of the life we are given. No one grows up without conditioning. The surprise is that there’s just as much joy in being with conditioning as in being with a transcendent experience or profound realization. Because this joy is more obvious in a spiritual experience, we often make the mistake of thinking that it comes from a spiritual experience, when actually it comes from just meeting that experience, which is easy to do in the case of a spiritual experience. There can be just as much joy in meeting our conditioning, but we have to be willing to do this even if our conditioning doesn’t change. We have to be willing to let it change in its own season. Some fruit ripens in the spring and some in the fall.

Regardless of what is arising, liberation is here right now. The invitation is to inquire into what is arising—just because it’s here and not for any other reason. If conditioning is arising in you right now, even if there’s conditioning to try to fix or change things, that’s the life you are given right now. There is no better life. There is no better service than to fully experience your life and find out the truth of it. Inquire into it without trying to get rid of any part of it; it may not be the season for that part of life to ripen and be done. And yet, even when it’s not the season for apples, you still water the apple tree. So, even if it is not the time for your conditioning to end, you can still give it this gift of simply seeing it, truly looking at what’s here. That will help it ripen. 

Q: I have experienced a long lasting struggle to come to terms with my suffering. I want to let go, but how?

A: Suffering is simply the effort to change, fix, or keep our experience. When we are suffering, our attention, or really our love, is flowing to an idea in our mind about what should be happening instead of what is happening. This is the source of all our discomfort and pain. Sensation by itself is not painful. Only when we think about or tell a story about how we want to change, fix, or keep a sensation does a sensation becomes painful.

However, because there is great momentum to our thinking and storytelling, there is great momentum to our suffering. It is the mother of all habits. So even though suffering is so painful, the tendency to strive to change, fix, or keep our experience can continue to arise in both obvious and subtle ways. This is simply the nature of habits—they tend to continue.

Now here is a dilemma: Anything we do to change our suffering is just more suffering. It is one more attempt to change or fix our experience. The antidote to suffering is to see the underlying truth about suffering. In this way, the end of suffering is similar to the realization of our true nature. They are both a matter of seeing what is true more clearly and completely. They aren’t the result of something we do, but the result of something we recognize.

Recognizing something isn’t something we really do. It’s more like something that happens within us. When you look at a photo in the newspaper and suddenly recognize your friend in the picture, it isn’t something you do. You don’t decide to recognize the person in the picture and then go about making that happen. The recognition just happens within you. It’s a potential you already have, since you already know what your friend looks like, and that knowledge is simply triggered by the photograph.

So what is it we need to recognize about suffering? We need to recognize that suffering is only a thought! It is just an experience created by an idea or thought. If the thought falls away, there’s no longer any suffering. Suffering ends when we see that the source of our suffering is simply the thought that things should be different than they are.

Q: If someone has low self-esteem, confidence, and self-love, and has not awakened to True Nature, what can be done?

From a non-dual perspective, I know the answer is to wake up. But from a day-to-day perspective, even if we have had tastes of Presence, it is not much use if we are suffering deeply and are caught badly in the snare of mind - where we are barely functional and there is no sign of any significant spiritual shift in the cards. Should we then put aside what we know to be Truth in order to shore up the ego and restore balance in our mind/body/persona - whatever that may look like? To work on self-love, self-acceptance, little steps to re-engage with ourselves and the world around us? This is a fuzzy/confusing area I find - must we have a healthy/functional ego/mind before we can hope to be free of that false identity?

I have heard some teachers insinuate or flat-out declare that so-called mental illness need not be an obstacle to awakening - and others that it is. And similar comments regarding anti-depressant/anxiety meds for example. Also, that we the seekers should not expect spiritual pursuit to address mental/emotional/life issues. Even if it may end up helping in these areas to one degree or another.

I have heard some teachers (and critics) say that the spiritual package (teachers, books, practices, sites, community) can be used as an escape from the things that hound us in our lives. That we can cherry-pick aspects of teachings, and also interpret teachings, in such a way that suits our neuroses (for example remaining single, or celibate, or only associating with like-minded/interested people, or clinging to a teacher as a parental/God replacement, etc).

It would be very helpful if you can speak on these things.

A: Thanks for these very thoughtful and practical questions. My perspective is that there are many different sizes and levels of truth. These different levels of truth can seem contradictory when in fact they are complimentary, and often the smaller truth is contained within the bigger truth. A simple example of this is how when you are standing outdoors on a rainy day, the sky is cloudy and grey. But if you fly in an airplane over that same spot, the sky is clear and blue. Both things are true at the same time. The clear sky at the level of 35,000 feet is the bigger truth as it encompasses the entire planet, while the clouds and rain are only happening over a smaller area.

So when it comes to questions of how emotional and mental issues relate to bigger spiritual questions, the emotions and mental patterns are like the clouds within the larger expanse of our true nature as the limitless sky. How this practically works itself out seems to be completely unique for every person I have ever explored these questions with. So within the very big truth of the totality of existence, there are people whose spiritual life benefits from psychotherapy and even medication, and others who seem to be able to just wake up even while suffering from very painful and difficult conditioning. Conversely, some people are freed by spiritual teachings and practices and other people are caught by the same words and methods in a net of the ego.

There is no formula that works for everyone. And yet every formula also works for someone. This is why you can hear such seemingly contradictory statements about what matters and what does not matter from different teachers....or sometimes from the same teacher! They may be speaking generally from their own experience, or they may be speaking very specifically to what they see happening in the student or seeker right in front of them. All there is, is truth. Every perspective has at least a small part of truth to it, but there is no perspective that can be put into words that contains all of the truth, or even all of the truth about just this one question of how to approach our neurosis with a spiritual outcome in mind.

This is why I point to a more experiential way of discriminating the truth using your own heart. The truth is whatever in this moment opens your heart (or your sense of your self) and quiets your mind. And something that is less true tends to contract your heart and your sense of being while making your mind busier. This is a completely dynamic, ever-changing equation that is different for every person at each new moment of their lives. And it is also always relative: for one person a process that heals and clears emotions may be a wonderful expansion of their perspective and capacity to feel Presence, while for another person the same process is a contraction into a smaller truth. (Note: you can read more about this way of discriminating the truth using your heart in part two of my book, Living from the Heart, available as a free download).

Therefore, the important question is: what is true for you right here and right now, and at this particular point in your own spiritual unfoldment? Do the practices, therapeutic approaches and teachings you are involved with now generally open your heart, expand your sense of being, and quiet your mind? Or do they generally have the opposite effect? It helps to notice the general overall effect as every practice or therapy will have moments that are more or less expansive, in part because any practice or therapy will also trigger conditioned reactions to the process. But the best question is what is the overall trajectory or overall climate of your involvement with a particular teaching or therapeutic approach? Does psychotherapy with a particular therapist open you up even more to big truths, or does it wrap you up even tighter in your pain? Does a particular anti-depressant free you from an oppressive neuro-chemical imbalance to therefore be able to do spiritual inquiry and exploration, or does the medicine cause a contraction of your awareness that makes you less aware of everything including both your pain and your deeper nature?

It is also possible that the biggest truth is a combination of different truths. There is a tendency when a big truth is seen to use it to discount or ignore the smaller truths. This can lead to a situation where the smaller truth suddenly becomes unavoidable because it has been neglected. I often ask people who say that since there is no separate self that there is no need whatsoever for healing, where they would draw the line? If there is no need to actively address an emotional wound, does that mean there is no need to address a physical wound also? You can see the limitation of using a big truth to negate a smaller truth if you take an exaggerated example: would it make sense to just let someone bleed to death because after all, "There is no one that dies"?

Conversely, it is also obviously limiting to ignore or negate a bigger truth. I have found it a more effective and balanced approach to work with psychological issues within a bigger spiritual perspective. It is often when we are shifting in and out of the different levels of truth that the most profound transformations happen. If we have both feet in our traumatic conditioning, then reliving or exploring the pain often just re-traumatizes us. And if we have both feet in a vast empty experience of the absolute, the experience is profound, but does not usually effectively release or heal our conditioning. It is when we have one foot in both dimensions, or when we are shifting in and out of both perspectives, that the potential for lasting healing and transcendence is the greatest.

It does not make sense to think the world is coming to an end when there are dark clouds overhead, and it does not make sense to carry an open umbrella on a sunny day, just in case the weather might change. The truth that matters most is the weather that is happening now, and if we pay attention to that, we can also learn more about the climate overall. Why limit yourself to only exploring and enjoying one type of weather? Why not explore and enjoy it all, and learn the importance and significance of every size of truth that shows up? Ultimately, your own heart and its direct sense of how true things are can be the only weatherman you need. It is a trustworthy guide when there are so many levels and shapes and sizes of truth out there.

Note: Nirmala invites questions for this blog.

A friend wrote me an email sharing how after a period grooving along in a place of gratitude and acceptance, he experienced an extremely painful and debilitating cerebral hemorrage that has left him unable to do almost all activities even after six months of rehab. He shared that he lives in fear everyday of the hemorrage reoccurring, and asked if I had any wisdom to share. Here is what I wrote in reply:

I am so sorry to hear about your health problems. They can be one of the most challenging experiences that we as humans face.

I will suggest that the real cause of all of our suffering is simply the gap between what is happening and what we think should be happening, what we are afraid might happen, or more simply, what we are paying attention to. I wrote a bit more about this here:

The Gap in Awareness

The most important question is: Are we paying attention to our direct experience here and now, or are we paying attention to the desires, hopes, dreams, worries, doubts and fears running through our thoughts?

However, it is "easier" to suffer when we are having a very intense experience whether that intensity comes from extreme sensations from illness or injury, or from extreme experiences of loss or limitation, or both. When the experience is extreme, then the slightest gap between the experience and what we are paying attention to can cause extreme suffering. In contrast, during more ordinary experiences the gap needs to be larger for the suffering to increase. In these ordinary moments your attention can wander a fair amount before the suffering becomes noticeable. And it will have to wander a long ways into a mental story about how things could or should be different before the suffering becomes intense.

This explains why some people who have everything they could ever want are still suffering. They are just so lost in their stories about what should or shouldn't be happening that they can be suffering horribly even in the midst of external plenty and relatively good health.

But it also points to the possibility of not suffering at all when there is great difficulty, limitation, loss and/or pain. The key is to give 1000% of your attention to the experience just as it is. If there is extreme pain, then notice everything you can about the actual sensations in your body in this very instant. And then notice how it has changed or shifted in the very next instant. Any time you can do this, you will find the suffering quickly dissipates, even if the sensations do not.

If there is an emotional, practical or financial setback or loss, then again simply notice the actual experience in this moment, and the next moment and so on. The more intense or extreme the loss or sensations or emotions, the more critical it is to keep your attention completely in the present moment.

With this approach, our most difficult experiences can become our greatest opportunities to move into a direct way of being that is free of suffering or at least freer of suffering. However, suffering is caused by thought and therefore the suffering itself is just a thought. The good news is that even in the moments where we let our attention wander to a fear, hope or desire, and so start to suffer a little or even a lot, there is no actual harm done. In the very next breath we can bring our attention back to the here and now and the suffering will disappear. Recognizing this can bring a sense of holding all of life lightly as we move in and out of moments of suffering and moments of greater presence and ease. And sometimes the best we can do is invoke some compassion for ourselves and for the often overwhelming circumstances of our life, and then perhaps bring just a little more attention to the experience we are having in this moment just as it is.

It is not at all easy to do this under extreme circumstances, and again I am so sorry that life is testing you so drastically. But it is possible to not suffer under any circumstances, and it is really this simple. My teacher, Neelam, used to say that if only life was more complicated, we all would have figured it out a long time ago :)

I hope this is helpful.

Q: How do you respond if you happen to see someone molesting someone else? Is it okay to just let someone harm others? It seems that if we were enlightened, we would perceive everything as one, so we would just let someone harm others without attachment.

A: This is a common question because it’s confusing to the mind when two opposite things are both true. So while it is true that everything is one and there’s nothing that can harm consciousness, it’s also true that you can act without attachment in a situation such as the one you described.

Here’s a simple metaphor to illustrate how two opposite things can be true: On a rainy day, you experience thick clouds and some rain. And yet, above the clouds, the bigger truth is that the sun is still shining. I call it a “bigger truth” because the sun shines on the entire earth, not just on the clouds above your head, and the sun shining is more constant and longer lasting than a rainstorm. However, just because it’s true that the sun is still shining (behind the clouds) during a rainstorm doesn’t mean you go out in your bathing suit and some sunscreen to work on your tan! Your experience of clouds and rain is still real, so you may want to wear a raincoat instead.

When it comes to the hurt and violence in this world, the bigger truth is that consciousness is not harmed by the pain and suffering. Yet while this is true, the pain is still real, and it still may be possible to do something to prevent or stop the violent or hurtful act or at least to help soothe or heal a person who’s already suffered from such harm.

Knowing the bigger truth, that there is no lasting harm, can free you to respond to whatever is happening. There’s nothing to lose, so why not help someone if you can? The value of this bigger perspective is that it can allow you to see the hurt and violence but not be traumatized or overwhelmed by it. When we don’t see the bigger truth, our reaction to the pain in the world is often to avoid or deny it because the pain can seem too horrible to acknowledge. Seeing the bigger truth allows us to better respond to pain and is also likely to make us more willing to respond.

Realizing that love and peace are still present even in such situations—that they are always here “behind the clouds”—unlocks our capacity to be compassionate toward the victims of violence and even toward the perpetrators. This may allow us to stop someone from being violent in a loving and compassionate way. In contrast, responding to violence with more violence usually just breeds more violence.

When it rains, it’s not the end of the world. The sun is still shining and will eventually come out from behind the clouds. You don’t need to overreact to the rain, while you still might take appropriate actions to stay dry. And even if you do get wet, it’s often not that big a deal.

Being alive in a human form is often an experience filled with difficulties. We struggle and suffer and rarely just feel all right with the world and ourselves. What is the source of this sense of difficulty? Is it pain? What is pain and discomfort? How do we know we are experiencing the difficulty of pain or a lack of ease? Is pain a particular sensation or can a whole range of sensations be painful? What does it mean to suffer?

Every moment is full of a symphony of sensations, thoughts, feelings. Take a moment just to experience how much is happening right now, sounds, sights, tactile sensations, smells, internal sensations, thoughts, feelings, pressure, desire or longing. It is impossible to even compile a list of everything you are experiencing in this very moment because there is so much. And all of it is constantly changing into a new set of sensations, thoughts and feelings.

Along with the raw sensations and random thoughts filling the moment, there is often an internal reaction to the experience we are having. Most of the time we are internally busy with a rejection of or attempt to manage the experience we are having. This internal activity is effortful and requires a tensing and pushing, either literally against something that is present, or internally against a subtle experience. And it is this internal efforting that is the true source of all of our pain and suffering.

This is good news as it means that no sensation by itself can cause us to suffer. We have to resist or struggle with it for it to become painful. And if we simply allow awareness of the sensation we are having to be here fully, the suffering or pain is gone.

Q: I am a big fan of both your work and Gina's. It is very inspiring but also I find a conceptual conflict. This is it:  I would like to enthusiastically committ myself to awakening, by deconstructing the ego and resting in awareness. This is pretty much what most nondual approaches suggest. But this is the wall I've come up against: the reason for doing so is to escape or transcend suffering.  In other words, the nondual path has reinforced the belief that what is happening now is not good enough. The suffering is evidence the ego/I notion is still operative and so now I strive to achieve nondual oneness as a way to escape suffering. But another voice in my head says that the attempt to escape suffering is a form of resistance, such that nondualism has just become a new, more subtle and sophisticated way to deny what is.

An alternative approach might be to dive into the suffering and see where that leads. I've found such an approach fruitful but not liberative. It adds depth to my life and prevents me from being swept away by samsara, but hasn't led to transcending it. So in a nutshell- to go into, or dive into the suffering or to go for the deconstuctive approach by coming back to spacious awareness? Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

A: Your questions are very good ones that get right to the heart of the dilemmas inherent in all spiritual paths and approaches. Practically, I would answer by suggesting that you pursue both approaches. Sometimes dive into your suffering and other times deconstruct the ego by going directly to spacious awareness. My own sense is that the biggest freedom comes from a flexibility of consciousness and not from any particular state of identity or non-identity. And for the greatest degree of flexibility, both approaches can be helpful. 

Ultimately though, you come up against a bigger dilemma, which is that there is nothing you can do to actually bring about an awakening and/or freedom from suffering. Both approaches you mention are not capable of actually causing a profound release of over-identification and/or your suffering. It is because both approaches to some degree reinforce the idea that there is something wrong with what is happening, as you point out about nonduality. If you check, you may find that when you dive into your feelings, it is also because on some more subtle level you are still trying to fix them or change them. And when you deconstruct the ego, you are also reinforcing your ego identity as the one who is deconstructing the ego!

However, even though the efforts you make are completely futile in causing any shift in suffering or dis-identification from ego, these shifts still happen. And the true benefit of all of your efforts is simply that when one of these shifts happen, you are "here" to experience them. Understanding this can allow you to hold the results of your practices more lightly, since that part is not up to you. And at the same time, it can help inspire you to give even more attention to the subtle workings of your inner spiritual life, not to fix it or change it or make something happen, but simply to be as present as possible to what is happening. What is really happening when you dive into the suffering? What is it like when you deconstruct the ego, both when it seems to be working and when it seems to be making things worse? Since these practices do not actually cause any profound shifts, the experience could be different every time you do one of the practices. And what is really happening then when a shift does happen? Do you make it happen or does it happen to you?

It is the by-product or side-effect of all of these approaches that we are more present to our experience in the moment. This does not cause anything in particular to happen, but it does mean that we are "home" when a spiritual opening is happening. You might enjoy a couple of other blog posts that also explore this dilemma: Staying Awake Until Grace Comes and Sitting on the Beach Does Not Cause a Tsunami.

I hope this is helpful.

Q: I’m dealing with a severe illness. I inquired and found that I have little or no will to live, that I fear God is punishing me with this illness, and that I also feel I don’t deserve to be healed or have a passionate, full life. I sense that I need to heal my lack of a will to live before I can heal my disease.

A: I’m very impressed with the depth and honesty of your inquiry. It does seem that to heal your physical illness, you must first “heal” the issue of your will to live. In this case, the deepest healing is the recognition that there is nothing to heal. By that I mean that there’s nothing wrong or bad here, and you have done nothing wrong. It is simply not your fault that you feel this way but the fault of your conditioning, which is based on your actual life experiences. And your conditioning is not your fault.

Everything you’ve done in this life has been the best way you knew to take care of yourself. How can that be wrong? How can you judge someone for that or ever consider punishing them? (Note: I’m not saying it is never true for society to protect itself by jailing someone; it just doesn’t make sense to punish people for acts that aren’t their fault, which is probably why punishment rarely heals or rehabilitates anyone.)

If God is a halfway decent version of a god, he/she would know this. A real and worthy God is never judgmental and would never even consider punishing someone. If there is a god that does any of that, then I say it is time to get a new God and fire the old one! Fortunately, all we have to change is our belief about God, since the reality is that God, or True Being, never judges or punishes.

You deserve and have always deserved to live, love, be loved, have a passionate life with people you enjoy, and live wherever you wish. The first step is to continue exploring your beliefs. You can also send these beliefs the same healing energy you might send to others or your own body. Maybe you could put your hands on your head and send healing energy to your beliefs, your guilt, and the whole package of conditioning. You don’t have to get rid of those beliefs. Since belief is just a habitual thought and you can’t get rid of your potential to think something, all you need to do is love your beliefs, let them be here, and see that they are not very true.

The important thing is to see that your thoughts are not very true. The truth is whatever opens your Heart and quiets the mind. Any thought or belief you uncover that has the opposite effect on your Heart and mind is simply not very true. That belief isn’t wrong or bad or even false, but just a very small expression of the truth trying to act as if it were a big truth, like a little child trying to act big and strong. You can just love that belief for the truth it does have and invite it to relax and rest from trying so hard to be a big truth. There’s room in your awareness for all of the truths, no matter how big or small, for all of the thoughts and all of the fears. But you can also see these thoughts as they are and see that they are not very true. This is what heals beliefs—simply seeing them as they really are.

Seeing the whole truth of any dis-ease or difficulty is the healing of it—seeing the conditioning behind it, seeing the nature of the sensations your body is having, and also seeing your beliefs and conditioning about the difficulty. What is actually true right now? These sensations are here, but what is true about them? Are they really bad sensations. or are they just particular sensations? Are your fears about them very true? Is the love that can still flow through your hands and your heart to your own body very true?

The only trick to all of this is to start where you are. If right now you don’t want to live, then that’s what you need to explore and love and allow. You don’t have to get rid of the feeling that you don’t want to live, just explore it as it is. How true is that feeling? What happens if you just let it be here? What else do you feel? What else is true? You don’t need to change how you feel or get rid of any feeling, just find out everything you can about each and every feeling. This isn’t an attempt to get rid of anything, but an inquiry out of curiosity and love for these strange and miraculous things called feelings. These feelings are arising here in you to be seen and loved, not to be fixed or gotten rid of.

Someone emailed me asking about self blame and requesting any suggestions I might have for how to address it. Here is my response:

Self blame is an interesting dynamic. It is mostly perpetuated by what is known as the super-ego or the inner critic or judge. This is a normal and healthy development very early in life that allows us to behave and stay out of trouble even when mom or dad are not present. We internally form an image of them and behave as if they are still watching us. It is useful when we are young, but later in life it is pretty detrimental to have a voice or image inside our head always telling us what is wrong with us. One of the key signs that the super-ego is active is if you feel small or inadequate or unworthy, and there is a voice referring to you in the third person, i.e. "What's the matter with you?" or "You are so worthless."

This split off image of others criticizing us is also a ripe place for projection of our own strength, power, and discrimination. And surprisingly, the best approach to the superego is to tell it shut up! And mean it! If that does not work, then tell it shut the hell up! In essence you do whatever it takes to get that voice and image to leave you alone. Do not allow it to get a word in edgewise. Make fun of it, laugh at it, tell it to go jump in a lake. But do not try to reason with it. Logic does not work with the super-ego.

If you can collapse the projection by standing up to the super-ego, then all of the strength and power that was being projected onto that critical voice will flow back into your body and Being, and then you can decide what is true and what you need to do. Paradoxically, when we defend ourselves against the super-ego, we actually are embracing the energy of it by reclaiming it for our own. And by the way, I do not recommend telling the actual people you love or who do practically have authority over you to shut up. You can be this fierce and go to battle because it is just an image in your own mind. It is like a cartoon character and you do not have to worry that you will hurt the feelings of the imaginary voice in your head!

One bit of good news in this approach is that when we are successful at dissolving or at least quieting the critical judge in our head, the other thing that can dissolve is the ego. The ego forms at the same time as the super-ego as we need a mental image of ourselves to relate to the mental image of our parents. When there is no longer any super-ego activity, then there is no longer any need for an ego.

I wrote something similar on my blog (Tell the Super Ego to Shut Up) and there is a book available that explores this in greater depth called Soul Without Shame, available on Amazon.

I hope this helps.

Note added: My friend replied with some perspectives from her work with multiple personalities that would suggest that the super-ego is just a child-like part of us that might respond better to a gentle acceptance and some understanding of its positive intent. She was intrigued though by the idea of reclaiming the energy, strength and power that is split off in the superego. I wrote her back as follows:

There can be a surprising amount of energy and strength that flow back into the body when you stand up to the super-ego. It can also become very quiet and peaceful inside.

I do find the gentle approach you are suggesting can work also, but it often seems that the super-ego responds better to a firm and unyielding approach. Again, it can paradoxically turn into an embrace of the actual essential strength and power that is being held outside the body by the projection. And just to be clear, this approach is not appropriate for dealing with the hurt or wounded aspects of our psyche as they would only be more traumatized.

It maybe helps to remember that the superego is truly is just a projection of your own mind. There is no actual harm done to an independent being when you yell at it. I sometimes even grab it by the throat to make sure it shuts up. When I do, it becomes small and inconsequential and I feel much bigger and expanded. I actually enjoy the feeling of being like a big powerful Samurai warrior! I definitely embrace the energy when it is back inside my own body!

One other point you might encounter is that the superego can also give a comforting sense that mom and dad are always present....even to us as adults. The first time the superego falls silent, there may be a profound sense of alone-ness that has never really been encountered before. It is unfamiliar, but ultimately freeing. This approach of turning the tables on the superego maybe goes beyond the comforting and embracing of the split off projection and actually dissolves the sense of otherness altogether....which again can also dissolve the sense of a separate self or ego. You can be so alone that there is nobody here....not even you!

In every moment, there are two possibilities. One possibility is to have all of our curiosity, attention, and passion focused on what is happening. The other is to have that same curiosity, attention, and passion focused on what is not happening, what is not present, or what we think should or shouldn’t be happening. In every moment, the question is: What are you giving your attention to? Are you allowing what is or going to battle with it, trying to change it in some way? 

When our focus is on what is, our experience of what is opens up and becomes bigger, richer, and more complete. But when it is on what is not (the past, the future, or any thought about what is), our experience of the moment contracts and becomes narrower and full of suffering and struggle, because inherent in a focus on what is not is a struggle with what is. 

When we look, we discover that most of the time we are in opposition to what is and oriented toward what is not. Life is mostly about how to make things better and get more pleasure or how to get rid of things that are painful. We are constantly evaluating our experience, looking to see what’s wrong with it and how it could be improved. We tend to be focused on what’s wrong with the moment or on what could be added to it to make it better. As a result, our attention becomes very narrow and our awareness limited. 

Once we see how much time we spend struggling with what is, the tendency is to go to battle with that—to try to fix that tendency to try to change everything. But that only changes the content of our struggle: Now we are struggling with our tendency to try to change things. We suffer over the fact that we are suffering. 

The other possibility is to just notice how much you suffer, without trying to do anything about it. Just allow the fact that you don’t allow much. Just recognize that that is the way it is. This struggling with what is, is just what we were conditioned to do, and this conditioning is also a part of what is.

Once we stop being in opposition to what is, it is possible to see how all our struggling comes from the idea of a me. Without the assumption that something is my experience, there wouldn’t be much point in trying to change anything about the moment. Our effort and struggle to change what is only makes sense if there is a me. It is all in service to maintaining the idea of a me. In fact, the struggle is the me. When there is no struggle, there is no me. All of our suffering is the result of having and maintaining an identity.

Once we realize this, the tendency is to try to fix this—to try to change our belief about who we are. We focus on getting rid of identification, which is focusing on what is not again. We are still suffering because we are at war with our tendency to identify. Instead of accepting what is (our tendency to identify), we are oriented toward how we think it should be: I should know better than to be caught in identification. I should know who I really am.

Another possibility is to be really present to this tendency to identify without making any effort to change it. If that’s what is happening, then that’s what is happening. You just let it be that way. You can even be amazed by it all, including the fact that there is a sense of a me. You see how unreal this me is, but you don’t struggle to be rid of it. There’s no longer an assumption that something is wrong that needs to be fixed.

When it's finally okay for the moment to be just the way it is—including the fact that we identify with a me and therefore battle with the moment—then more of our experience can be recognized and included in our awareness. If we are willing to be present to and allow our identification and whatever else is happening, then it's also possible to notice something beyond identification, something beyond our struggle and effort to maintain a me. What that something is, for lack of a better word, is Being.

Along with awareness of identification and the struggle and suffering inherent in that, is an awareness of the larger ground of Being in which everything is happening. When we see that all the me is and ever has been is a lie, but we don’t turn away from that awareness or judge ourselves for it or try to get rid of the me, then we can notice that, along with the struggling inherent in the me, there is a beautiful, rich Presence, or Being, that is allowing everything, including the experience of me. We come to see that the me’s struggle is only a tiny percentage of our entire experience and that this struggle is happening in an ocean of allowing. This allowing is Being.

When we are allowing, we include in our awareness what it is that is allowing, and that is Being, which is who we really are. This realization can be a jolting experience or a quiet one, since Being is actually very familiar. Every moment of allowing has actually been a moment of experiencing Being.

(From the book: That Is That: Essays About True Nature

(Note: I am reposting some blog posts that are included in my newest book, Everything Is Included.

Q: You talk about loving what is here, now. However, I have found I have become addicted to doing things I like and totally avoidant to doing things I don’t like. I tried letting go of desire, but that hasn’t worked because I still want the thing I am after. I am finding it really hard to love what is when I don’t like it. I'm getting stuck and spinning in my head! I have not been able to let go of wanting a relationship, so the pain worsens. I am confused and wondering if you could shed some light.

A: Your confusion is natural and not uncommon. And yet, it is possible to love something you don’t like. Certain things can make that easier to do:

First, remember that loving something you don’t like doesn’t in any way take away your ability to choose something different. If you don’t like your job, you can look for another one. If you want a satisfying relationship, you can take actions to find someone and also to learn how to be healthier and happier in your relationships. Loving what is doesn’t mean you become a doormat to unpleasant people or experiences or that you cannot move towards what you want in life. Loving what is just means that you don’t need to suffer or experience a lack of love when you aren’t getting what you want. It is part of life that sometimes we get what we want and sometimes we don't. So why not be filled with love even when you aren’t getting what you want?

Second, it can help to simplify your definition of love to its most fundamental components. We may equate love with a feeling of attraction, affection, or appreciation, and yet the core of love is simply awareness and space. The simplest way to love something or someone is to give them lots of attention, curiosity, and awareness. Just touch them with your awareness and give them lots of space and acceptance. Giving space is simply a matter of recognizing that they are the way they are right now and letting them be that way. You don’t have to like or feel good about the way they are, just be present to things as they are and let them be.

This is the essence of love, and it is the most satisfying way to be with the things you like and the things you don't like. You can give love in this way simply because it feels good to give spacious attention and acceptance to things, not because you want or need anything from them. You may still want something to be different or not like something, but in the meantime, why not allow yourself to be filled with a sense of fullness and love? Why wait for things to change to start giving this open attention to your experiences? It doesn’t cost you anything, and you will never run out of awareness, so why not experiment with just giving love away freely? You may find you enjoy being curious and accepting for its own sake, even when you aren’t getting what you want.

Last, but not least, the most helpful key to loving what is, is to include yourself in the equation, and especially to include your dislikes and dissatisfactions in this spacious awareness. If you don’t like something, the easiest way to love what is, is to give attention and acceptance to the feeling of not liking it. That is part of what is, so why leave that out? If you don’t like the feeling of not liking something, then start with giving space to not liking the feeling of not liking something!

When we start with loving our own feelings just the way they are, this can start the flow of loving acceptance and make it easier to go ahead and give space to the original thing that triggered our feelings. Even if you find that you can’t give space to something you don’t like, then at least you are experiencing some love and acceptance in the moment by loving how you don’t like it.

The key to loving what is, is including yourself and your genuine feelings. By including more and more of what is already happening, experiencing and expressing more love becomes easier. In contrast, if you feel you have to get rid of your dislike for something before you can love it, then that just creates more internal conflict. That makes loving what is seem like a chore. But if you start by loving how much you don't like something, then there is no conflict; there is just some love beginning to happen. This can lead to loving the original experience, since it is easier to love something else once you have some momentum going.

One more thing about loving how much you don't like something is that most of the time you are already loving how much you dislike or hate something. When you are busy disliking something, you are usually already paying attention to how you feel and what you think, and you aren’t trying to change the fact that you don’t like it, so you are already accepting it. So the reason why this approach of including all of your likes and dislikes, feelings, reactions, and preferences can make it so much easier to love what is, is because your awareness is already flowing to these things. Before you think about it too much, there is even a de facto acceptance of your feelings. Awareness and acceptance are actually natural qualities of your Being that are always already here. It turns out this pure simplicity of love is not really something you do but who and what you really are.

The real gift of practicing giving love to people and things and also to your own feelings and reactions is when you notice that this acceptance is always already here. Loving is more natural and automatic to your Being than breathing. In every moment, you are loving (giving awareness and space) to something. By consciously giving this attention and curiosity to whatever happens to be here, you can begin to notice the constant flow of spacious attention that is at the core of your existence.

When we really start to sense how love and acceptance are always already here, then it may even seem like the problem is that our Being is too damn accepting and aware! Our Being accepts and is aware of everything, including all the ways we suffer and struggle. Yet, it is in the conscious recognition of this deeply unconditional love that is always here that the dilemma of our desires and suffering is finally resolved. If in a moment you truly sense the depth and completeness of this loving awareness of Being, then suddenly there is room for every thing and every feeling and everybody, including you.

For a long time, we think the way out of our suffering is to more effectively manage what happens. Then when we discover spiritual teachings, we decide instead to try to more effectively manage our desires. When none of that works, the only option left is to notice the place in our Being that already enjoys everything that happens, including all of our desires. At first, this can seem like an overwhelming defeat, but once you have lost all of your defenses, all that is left is this genuine spacious aware love. What a blessing—to be defeated completely by overwhelming love!

I received a follow up response to my previous blog post about grace:

Q: I can see that experiences are neither good nor bad unless I judge them. So basically, I see experiences as neutral and not even benevolent. Things just happen, not toward any greater good. I can hold the concept that all experiences are benevolent and beneficial, but from what I see around me, I’m not sure this is true. How is starvation benevolent or beneficial? When I see horrific cruelty to animals, I can’t see any Grace or benevolence. If Grace acts through experiences, it sure chooses some pretty horrific ways to get its point across, and this has hardly led to the mass flowering of enlightenment. If starvation and cruelty were beneficial tools, surely millions would be awakened and awakening by now. To me, life looks more like a mixed bag of tricks and treats without any purpose or meaning.

A: Everything you share is true, and there is still the question of how true. Is it the whole truth? Is it the biggest truth? Is it possible that while all of the hurt, pain, and suffering in this world are real, there is still a bigger truth to this existence? This doesn’t mean denying or ignoring suffering or not acting in ways that would relieve or reduce the horror and tragedy that are part of life. But while acknowledging and attempting to alleviate the suffering, you can look for and question the possibility of a greater intelligence and Presence that is also operating in this world and beyond it. A bigger truth than the pain and suffering is the truth that consciousness isn’t harmed by anything. Bodies can be harmed and even die, but can consciousness be damaged? I’m inviting you to hold this as an open question, something to be discovered as life unfolds here on earth and also beyond your time here on earth.

Here and now, you can directly discover for yourself the bigger truths. The truth is what opens your Heart and quiets your mind, while a smaller truth contracts your Heart and makes your mind very busy. So check this out for yourself: Does believing that life is a mixed bag with no purpose open your Heart? And what effect does it have on your Heart to hold the possibility that consciousness can’t be harmed, and that it has a deeper purpose in life? Which idea gives your Heart more room to breathe and just be? I invite you to explore this capacity of your own Heart to discriminate how true every idea, hope, dream, fear, worry, and intuition is. Truth comes in many different sizes from extremely small to infinitely big, so discrimination is needed to determine how true things are.

In my view, we are both right, and the truths I share and the truths you shared are not contradictory, but complementary. Even if we can’t see how these truths fit together, we can at least recognize that there is room for both of them. A bigger truth is not better, just bigger. A smaller truth is not worse, just smaller. You can respond to and include all sizes of truth in your awareness: You can feed the starving, feel intense grief and sadness over unnecessary cruelty and destruction, and also discover the limitless peace and love that are also here in every moment. You can also discover for yourself the depth of your soul that has never been and never will be harmed. And you can see that same depth in the eyes of a starving child if you look deeply enough.

Q: Does the ego have the power to create what it wants to be, have, and do? Does the ego have the power to block the natural flow of life through me? Or can the ego only create psychological suffering or happiness, but it doesn’t have the power to block the flow of life or to create what it wants?

A: The ego has a small degree of power to create what it wants and, at times, to block the flow of life temporarily. However, the ego does have a lot of power to cause us to suffer, although suffering itself is just an experience in thought—a mental state. There is no actual thing called suffering. It only exists as a mental experience. Mental suffering can trigger feelings and physical sensations, but the source of those feelings and sensations is thoughts.

For example, there is probably some furniture in the room where you are right now. You can think about the furniture, but the furniture is also a physical reality. Compare that to imagining a baby elephant in the room where you are right now. You can think about the baby elephant and imagine it in great detail, but the baby elephant is still not really there in the room with you. So suffering is all imagined, like the baby elephant. That is why the ego has so much power to cause us to suffer—because it doesn’t take much to imagine something. We only have to exercise our imagination to suffer; we don’t have to do anything else.

In the midst of this potential for suffering, there are also the events in your life and the actions you take. The ego has a small degree of power to affect these. And when it does, we often learn much more about how limited the viewpoint of the ego is. Oscar Wilde once wrote that there are two great tragedies in life: One is when we don’t get what we want, and the other is when we do. When the ego gets what it wants, we often discover the limitations, problems, and difficulties we hadn’t foreseen when we were lost in the perspective of our ego’s desire. The ego acts out of a very narrow range of impulses that are focused on its own needs and preferences. When these get satisfied, we discover the limitations of our understanding and foresight. A friend of mine always wanted a house in the country with a big yard. When she finally got one, she spent the entire summer mowing the lawn! Spending all her time riding a lawn mower wasn’t in her ego’s picture of the joy of having a place in the country, and it also wasn’t her deepest desire.

So the ego can create distractions and detours that interfere with the unfolding of our life’s purpose, but fortunately the underlying wisdom and discrimination of our Being is still also working. So we eventually feel a truer impulse and adjust course and end up back in the flow. Or our ego’s creations fall apart and then essence, or Being, picks up the pieces and puts us back on track. Our life is a dance between all these forces. Ego has some capacity to affect what happens, but that capacity is much less than the capacity of our Being to unfold life in truer directions.

A friend just emailed and reported that even in the midst of a profound opening to the experience of oneness with everything, she is still saddened by the suffering in the world, and she wonders why consciousness seems to need to suffer so much. Here is the response I wrote:

The question of why does consciousness need suffering is a difficult question to answer, but we can get a hint of the answer by noticing how much suffering opens our Heart. It seems that even though consciousness is infinite, it still likes to stretch itself by opening even wider. Eventually we as individuals learn that we do not need to suffer in order to open the Heart, and when we do there is a great sigh of relief to know that we can just go directly to the love and the softness. But until we learn this, life keeps reminding us to open our Heart even wider by showing us the suffering that arises when we do not.

And even when we have surrendered and given our Heart totally to the truth, we still experience the suffering of others so that we are inspired to reach out and show them the same love that has rescued us. And the pain itself is a good hurt like the good hurt from exercise, as you described. In the end it turns out that the suffering was all just an idea of suffering and what is really happening is this stretching and unfolding of our infinite Heart. There is no suffering in the depths of love, and there never has been.