My experience is that the never-ending list of chores is always in my awareness. I regularly feel enslaved to it, as I feel that the chores are needed to attempt to express love and caring for myself and others and maintain the system in place which helps others to do the same. Further introspection reveals that I also feel this way because I feel the need to prove myself worthy of food, shelter, pleasure and the affection of other people and beings. The situation contributes to the alternating feelings of anger and sadness. I struggle to find the appropriate balance of doing and being (active and passive creation, destruction, preservation) and exploring the manifest and unmanifest and an innumerable number of opposites like nature and civilization, solitude and socializing, pleasure and pain, self and other, doing and being, attachment and non-attachment. The appropriate balance is different for everyone and changes. Eventually, there’s no gross or subtle entity, group, or system to obey , and following what my mind tells me to do in order to experience personal pleasure or avoid personal pain no longer works, as it consistently yields bondage and unintended outcomes. Even attempting to do this for others often does the same. I see the futility of action, change, and maintenance (regardless of its nature), and yet I still must do. Action and inaction must happen; attachment to either create some form of suffering. Rajas (energy, passion), tamas (inertia, impurity, laziness) and sattva (harmony, balance, compassion) happen, and while sattva is desirable, even attachment to it is an obstacle to true spiritual maturity.
I struggle to discern appropriate action while living in the awareness that all of the causes and results of an action or circumstance can never really be known by the mind.
In many respects, there’s no escape from the karma. Even though I’ve made various choices and expended effort in the hopes of avoiding the bondage, it’s unavoidable. I’ve made my bed and in it I must lie; or maybe I’m building my cross and on it must live, endure, and die? The body mind is sure to remain in and of the world subject to karma, experiencing various physical, emotional, and mental states compromised of rajas, tamas, and sattva. The only real hope is to identify myself as beyond the body mind, which seems to take an unknown number of lifetimes, and an unlimited supply of endurance, courage, patience, acceptance of pain, non-resistance and humility. Mind will always shape itself according to its beliefs (conscious and unconscious); what is imagined and willed in accordance with those beliefs becomes manifest for a while and then dissolves in some way.
My mind has a habit of frequently finding a way to be dissatisfied with the results of actions (especially other people’s, but even my own), and actually, upon close examination, I see that consistently, it eventually finds dissatisfaction with the material world in general, both civilized and natural. The anger and sadness that result reveal the mind’s delusion, expecting permanent satisfaction from the impermanent.
Yes, my spoiled brat nature drives me crazy. Trying to love the things and people that I often don’t like drives me crazy. (This is the conflict between various desires, fears, thoughts and emotions that motivate my actions which will never be resolved on the level of my rational, logical, personal mind. Inner, outer, worldly, spiritual, gross, subtle, selfish, unselfish, healthy, unhealthy, good, evil, pleasurable, painful are just a few of the many labels that I have for them.) I try and try to resolve the conflict using “fake it till you make it”, and I can only get so far. It’s like trying to hold the same yoga pose a very long time; eventually the body gets weak and the pose must end. The Absolute (or Truth or Reality) is not found in anything that can be sensed, experienced or discussed, and preferences bind me to the false. My experience is that liking or disliking something or someone forever without interruption is not realistic. Who and/or what I like one day, I dislike the next. Attraction, enjoyment, pleasure, and pain change just like everything else, and this is why I’ve tried to live without preferences and minimize or even eliminate the personal. But a life perfectly free of preference and the personal is extreme, and doesn’t seem to be achievable nor does it seem necessary or even beneficial for my circumstance either. (And what’s really the point of that anyway, another empty win for my ego?)
Eternal life in the prevailing mode of existence as I currently experience it — you can keep it. The perfectly beautiful happy ever after — which we continually strive for (that many people on Instagram seem to have achieved)– you can keep that too. Part of me that I can no longer deny doesn’t want these things for myself; they only add to my mind’s delusion. I can only keep on with my practice (succeeding and failing at my attempts at renunciation and freedom from addiction which seems impossible to achieve and maintain) as we search endlessly for our goal, and engage in conversation and a way of life which seems to comfort people but often annoys or disturbs me. (Who am I to think that I am exempt from the search for the goal and the itchy rash known as consciousness? I am merely aware of something that I call “divine desire” which actually seems to be the constant awareness of desire that can never be satisfied). The only thing that seems to be eternal is the road and the invisible power that creates destroys and recreates. I admit that I truly only love the road, even though I don’t always like it; persistent contemplation and investigation reveal that I fear and desire it at the same time. I admit that I am not always successful in loving and being surrendered to the invisible power; sometimes it is scary and unpleasant and it can also be extremely boring, repetitive, humbling, and mundane, and during both of those times it is often challenging to remain surrendered with open eyes remembering and knowing that it is all divine. It is even more challenging to attempt to maintain an open heart, and for me, it seems that an energetically joyful and playful one is usually not happening.
Underneath my calm and happy facade lurks an unpleasant mix of sadness, anger, and discontent. Underneath my spiritually evolved and impartial demeanor lurks a lust for beauty and sensual pleasure fueled by my belief in the illusion of separation. Sometimes circumstances and my mind stir up some very strong emotions, desires and fears which lead to a loss of sanity and peace. Even though I forget, everything is actually a part of the road, and we’re all always on it. I am grateful for the times when I operate with awareness of that, and am thankful for forgiveness when I fail.
I try to earn divine mercy and grace through action and sacrifice. These things cannot really be earned, but duties must still be performed and self discipline must still be attempted and maintained. I must get up after I fail at losing balance and self discipline and try again, an infinite number of times, privately and publicly.
I’ve gone from having erections with pretty much anyone regardless of gender or attraction, (basically just due to feeling naked and alive), to not having them with pretty much anyone regardless of attraction. Hooray. Boo-hoo. So what. Is this just another casualty on the path or yet another thing that I have ruined through my ignorance, over handling, and private belief that I am an exception, knowing how to live life and manage the life force, desire, and fear better than everyone else? I have attempted to escape the sadness, anger, shame and pain by managing and manipulating the life force, desire and fear, but they never go away permanently. I have called it healing, but the only real healing happens when I am really with them, devoting time and awareness to staying aware of the mind’s delusion and my petty and selfish motives.
Yes, sometimes things turn to shit, but no matter how bad it seems, it is never the end of the story. The experience may be pleasant or unpleasant in varying degrees of intensity, but it always transforms into something else.
I thought that I could live life in a way where my mind could be focused inwardly and outwardly at the same time. It doesn’t work that way, no matter how much I tell (and try to convince) myself otherwise. At some point I must choose between the gross and subtle, and decide what is truth for me. At this point my mind has not completely let go of its delusion and obsession with its surroundings, goals, belongings, relationships, systems, personality, emotional fulfillment, and body ego personality called Thomas Collier. I confess that in many ways I still believe and live the story of being born, living and dying Thomas Collier even though I know on another level that it isn’t true. This is probably as close to the truth that I hold close to my heart that I can experience as Thomas Collier. Priorities change, as does the answer to the question “who am I”, but still, delusion and the patterns of thought and action associated with it are difficult habits to break, particularly when egoism, delusion, and addiction seem to pervade so much of experience here and now. Why does it seem that we don’t really help and support each other on the path? Why do I sabotage myself and continue to forge the chains that bind me to mental and physical patterns and thus a false sense of self? There are many true answers to these questions and none at all. I am aware of the addictions, but am incapable of stopping all of them in a lasting way through self-effort. I am addicted to the incessant narrative that plays in my head and all around. It often keeps me in bondage.
Who am I?
Sometimes I feel the desire to leave it all so strongly. I hope that it’s compassion that makes me stay, but the mind will never really know for sure; I admit that it is also the fear, desire, and attachment associated with my “little self.”
Feeling ungrateful for my life situation drives me crazy. Wanting to renounce it all but not doing it drives me crazy.
Exploring the extremes and attempting perfection in them is interesting and gratifying for ego, but the middle path of success and failure is the one that endures. I can’t have one without the other, believing anything else is delusional.
Divine oneness, vibration, correspondence, attraction, inspired action, perpetual transmutation of energy, cause and effect, compensation, relativity, law of polarity, rhythm, gender.
All of creation strives for compassionate love. Here is where I place my faith and offer the entirety of my successes and failures.