discipleship 3 of 3

   
     what if we were able to live without attachment.  what if we were able to hear our thoughts as thoughts and past experience didn't so often color our perspective of what is here and now.  what if we were able to have an experience so profound it shifts our entire reality?  what if we actually have constant opportunity and ignore the subtle nudging of our inner voice, intuition, gut instinct whatever you want to call it.. (that doesn't mater.. not the point) that is constantly our true north trying to direct us in the way of our hearts.  the point is what if we stopped being in fear and felt connected to ourselves, to life, to love, to .. dare i say it.. "God". * i use the word God for simplicity it has no association with religion to me at all.*
     it is so easy to get caught up in the five senses... it's so easy to allow ourselves to operate on an "autopilot' that is a build up of fear, thoughts, feelings created from fear, past experiences, people and familiarity.  what if we could experience life as if no experience was happening to us.. like we view a sunset, sunrise, sky, a flower, a plant, a tree, a creature, a critter, an animal in nature, we are merely experiencing it.  what if everything that happens even acts from humans was a neutral experience and that we attach all meaning to it for ourselves.  we either see hope, pain, hurt, love or we experience fear.  fear.. this grief so deep within us that the thoughts attached to it we actually believe are real.  we attach ourselves to anything or anyone that makes us feel good and usually at some point conscious or unconscious we decide we like this so much we need it to remain that exact way to find happiness in it, always.
     so there is this idea that we are searching for some wholeness, connection, peace, joy that is outside of ourselves.  when in truth we are born in a state of innocent neutrality and it becomes distorted and how do we find our way back to the present moment where we are as connected to life all by ourselves as we will ever be.  we have all been born and... we will all die and no matter the connection to any human being or possessions or success we will experience it alone.  so why not confront the fear associated with dying so we can really live.  why not confront the underlying belief we have about that part of this life?  we will die alone.. no one gets to go with us.  so what then are we?  are we our physical bodies?  are we this reality we experience with our five sense?  or are we something more... if we are something more then why place so much importance on the fear that physical distractions and attachments can create? 
      i have personally been subject to a reality in which i needed, wanted, enjoyed.. people, events, situations in my life so much so as to let them define my happiness and unhappiness.  i have allowed family, friends and strangers, events and situations, possession and "position" in life to affect my sense of well being and happiness.  i've been living in large by having my external reality dictate my happiness.  learning to go within and let go of needing anything to be any certain way for me to be happy.  seems so simple yet has been a huge start of transformation that involved lots of pain felt by confronting and tracing thoughts and fears back to the origin within myself... to see it and then let it go. 
     i love my family and my friends and i am grateful for all the love we share together it's just that today i am learning how to detach myself from needing them or our relationships to look any particular way.  i am learning how to love people, allow them their own experience, and me my own.. keep an open hand, open mind, and open heart.  to allow myself to continue to know and share in love whether they are in my life or not or whatever capacity happens naturally.  i will not allow myself to people please anymore.. you don't like what i say or do?... well that's about you and i love you, do what you need to do and know the love we share is always real. 

discipleship 3 of 3 

"So spend some time seeing each of the things you cling to for what it really is, a nightmare that causes you excitement and pleasure on the one hand but also worry, insecurity, tension, anxiety, fear, unhappiness on the other.
     Father and mother: nightmare.  Wife and children, brothers and sisters: nightmare.  All your possessions: nightmare.  Your life as it is now: nightmare.  Every single thing you can cling to and have convinced yourself you cannot be happy without: nightmare.  Then you will hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters and even your own life.  And you will so easily take leave of all your possessions, that is, you will stop clinging and thus have destroyed their capacity to hurt you.  Then at last you will experience that mysterious state that cannot be described or uttered-the state of abiding happiness and peace.  And you will understand how true it is that everyone who stops clinging to brothers and sisters, father, mother or children, land or houses... is repaid a hundred times over and gains eternal life." ~ The Way To Love