Where Am I?
I think people generally hear about, or discover the concept of Enlightenment, and if interested in the philosophy, will pursue its acquisition. Consequently, they will confront and explore all aspects of themselves looking for it.
On the other hand, there are cases like mine, where a person realizes Enlightenment quite before they have any frame-of-reference to describe it. And then, a person like myself must confront and explore all aspects of themselves to deal with it. lol, Baba Ram Dass says, "All trips lead to the same destination."
We are all on a tremendous Arc of Existence! We are all people! This means we come inundated with a complex set of mammalian & social behaviors. This also means that we are equipped with the ability to perceive "I" and to pursue that fundamental. Contentedness does come in extricating oneself from one's mundanely perceived sense of self, to realize the vast act of consciousness, of which we are one.
Once I realized the Unchanging Essence for myself, I flew into a tailspin for more than a decade. So many aspects of my personality which had been shaped over the course of my childhood and adolescence were now in conflict with this larger acceptance of myself.
Making my way through that array of expectations was an adventure par excellence and tragedy. Youth is truly wasted on the young. But we get through it, and there remains a memory of something I miss very deeply, seeing it from the vantage point of age - of course it is true, you will never be younger than you are at this very moment.
While I did manage to get off the track I'd put my life, I haven't been able to illuminate for myself another path. My dreams are more deeply understood, and in their coming to be so, they have been put out-of-the-scope of one lifetime!
Additionally, time and again I have found that the greatest things, the things that revive you and give you a new lease on life, are those things whose realization you could not have dreamt or orchestrated. They are those things you did not know you needed, but came to you regardless. Everything works this way. I have found the more a person can accept the circumstances they face, the sooner those very predicaments are (often miraculously) resolved and dissolved.
A great faith begins to form after years of this kind of living. One begins to feel themselves shepherded through a wilderness that is too immense and frightening to consider.
I am still often times consumed with an anxiety of tomorrow. I still feed the desires which see myself becoming a particular fantasy version of myself. Therefore, events often have an emotional connotation, depending on whether they are in-fitting with my proposed story-of-self.
In the upcoming year (and beyond), I hope to do better with this behavior. Spending one's time in a lavish future rather than the present is a bastardly trade. Soon enough, the future comes and it is still the present...yet you are older, and the fantasies find themselves feeling a bit unrealistic and in need of a complete overhaul from the ground up. But as you are older and still attached to those old dreams, the reconstruction of new ones becomes an unbearable task.
It is for this reason I find myself, more than ever, thankful for what today has been. Privately, I think of all the people who have made this moment, for me, and the gratitude is like a tidal wave in my heart...I cannot direct it without causing the destruction of that which I seek to compliment. So my heart is exploding with each beat, sending recurrent waves of love through my body. I am in tears with joy, and I am in prayer, for I know naught.
On the other hand, there are cases like mine, where a person realizes Enlightenment quite before they have any frame-of-reference to describe it. And then, a person like myself must confront and explore all aspects of themselves to deal with it. lol, Baba Ram Dass says, "All trips lead to the same destination."
We are all on a tremendous Arc of Existence! We are all people! This means we come inundated with a complex set of mammalian & social behaviors. This also means that we are equipped with the ability to perceive "I" and to pursue that fundamental. Contentedness does come in extricating oneself from one's mundanely perceived sense of self, to realize the vast act of consciousness, of which we are one.
Once I realized the Unchanging Essence for myself, I flew into a tailspin for more than a decade. So many aspects of my personality which had been shaped over the course of my childhood and adolescence were now in conflict with this larger acceptance of myself.
Making my way through that array of expectations was an adventure par excellence and tragedy. Youth is truly wasted on the young. But we get through it, and there remains a memory of something I miss very deeply, seeing it from the vantage point of age - of course it is true, you will never be younger than you are at this very moment.
While I did manage to get off the track I'd put my life, I haven't been able to illuminate for myself another path. My dreams are more deeply understood, and in their coming to be so, they have been put out-of-the-scope of one lifetime!
Additionally, time and again I have found that the greatest things, the things that revive you and give you a new lease on life, are those things whose realization you could not have dreamt or orchestrated. They are those things you did not know you needed, but came to you regardless. Everything works this way. I have found the more a person can accept the circumstances they face, the sooner those very predicaments are (often miraculously) resolved and dissolved.
A great faith begins to form after years of this kind of living. One begins to feel themselves shepherded through a wilderness that is too immense and frightening to consider.
I am still often times consumed with an anxiety of tomorrow. I still feed the desires which see myself becoming a particular fantasy version of myself. Therefore, events often have an emotional connotation, depending on whether they are in-fitting with my proposed story-of-self.
In the upcoming year (and beyond), I hope to do better with this behavior. Spending one's time in a lavish future rather than the present is a bastardly trade. Soon enough, the future comes and it is still the present...yet you are older, and the fantasies find themselves feeling a bit unrealistic and in need of a complete overhaul from the ground up. But as you are older and still attached to those old dreams, the reconstruction of new ones becomes an unbearable task.
It is for this reason I find myself, more than ever, thankful for what today has been. Privately, I think of all the people who have made this moment, for me, and the gratitude is like a tidal wave in my heart...I cannot direct it without causing the destruction of that which I seek to compliment. So my heart is exploding with each beat, sending recurrent waves of love through my body. I am in tears with joy, and I am in prayer, for I know naught.
posted by Just Greg at Saturday, December 24, 2011
1 comments
