Category: Uncategorized

I have put myself here in an environment that requires a good bit of effort and sacrifice which at some point I may not be able to do.

This time-place, at its essence, is not different than everything before and everything after. Individuals, bodies, systems, entities, groups, civilizations appear, evolve, and disappear in the past present and future. The person Thomas Collier at its essence is not really anything special or unique, nor is the story he calls his own. Neither are the thoughts, emotions and pain-pleasure that sometimes disturb his personal peace dramatically. Who I am at my essence has no attributes and owns absolutely nothing.

I often feel like I am living out a story of trying to prove my worthiness. I participate in systems and relationships that require that I do things to prove that I am worthy of food, shelter, social acceptance, pleasure, and affection. I can’t escape the feeling of unworthiness permanently, no matter what I do or where I go. A significant factor that contributes to the situation is that I won’t just accept things (or myself) as they are. The personal, communal, mental and physical habits that I continue to indulge leave me very far from being able to live happily in a cave, existing on air or subtle cosmic energy, or perhaps just eating things that I find around me that occur spontaneously in nature, so I must participate. I am aware that I may find myself without the ability to do things that prove that I am worthy of support, pleasure and security for some amount of time before I die. Saying that this scares me is an understatement, especially as I know that I often fail to help others in that situation. I see other people around me and notice that I can even lose the mental and/or physical ability to do the most basic things in order to take care of myself and others. Terrifying.

I notice a system that has always been around in one form or another in varying levels of complexity, with various characteristics, requiring varying levels of sacrifice, allowing varying levels of individual expression. It seems to occupy a considerable amount of human experience and attention. When I imagine a world without a system, it is very frightening, as I am aware of how we depend on it for food, shelter, protection, and ease of cohabitation. As far as I can tell, its destruction would come with a considerable amount of chaos, pain, and suffering. Herein lies another reason to participate. At the same time, I am aware of how I use it as a distraction and way to avoid dealing with things (people, duties, commitments, pain, relationships, emotions, circumstances) that I don’t want to deal with. I am afraid of how reliant I am on it and how addicted I am to it. At this point I feel like separation or escape from it will only happen when I die. Like everything else, there are many characteristics of a system, some that even seem diametrically opposed to each other. Sometimes a system is useful, sometimes it is a hindrance. I am aware of how it obscures a clear experience of reality and how it helps me co create and maintain a false sense of self.

I often come back to the urge to apologize for living my life and trying to explore the question “Who am I?”. I feel this urge so often that it feels like an inseparable part of me. I experience the urge to apologize to others for not being able to manifest and maintain a world that they are happy with, even though I know that I am not the only person or thing responsible and neither is any single other person or thing.

More and more lately, I know that my personal story of being born on July 31, 1967, living and dying as Thomas Collier is false. I devote time and effort searching for a way to prove that I exist beyond that to myself and the world, but I feel like I always fail, just like I fail at proving or living any attribute, characteristic, or austerity in absolute terms. This is exactly as it should be (always has and always will); manifestation is a relative realm of temporary experiences and objects. All I can do is know the falseness of the personal story and the mind-ego and use the tools that I have come upon through study and practice of yoga to attempt to consistently operate from that place, even when doing so isn’t pleasant, easy, or logical. I will not always be successful in that. Despite many years of sustained effort, strong personal emotions, the fear of death and pain, and the desire for pleasure that I experience still influence my actions and thoughts. This tells me that I am not fully established beyond the personal story and preferences of mind ego.

I am sorry that I have difficulty in enjoying the chores and work and expressing a cheerful attitude towards them. My mind has been conditioned to work towards a paradise state in the future where sacrifice and maintenance will no longer be necessary, and focusing on that end state contributes to my inability to stay aware of the eternal bliss in whatever work I happen to be doing or pain that I happen to be experiencing. To be honest, I just plainly don’t like a lot of it and I am consistently aware of the futility of it all. I often feel overwhelmed and discouraged by the to do list that never goes away and instead grows in length and/or complexity. The truth is, I usually find more pleasure in just experimenting with breath, posture, contemplation, attempting meditation, and just being. I feel fortunate for the times when I have been able to do so. I am thankful for being able to find practice in all sorts of varied environments and circumstances. I am particularly grateful for the time that I spend in a somewhat natural environment, as the experience feels restorative and pleasant in a way that overly man-made environments do not. Experimenting with breath, posture, contemplation, attempting meditation, and just being doesn’t plant and harvest food or provide or maintain shelter and protection and so I must also engage in action. Decisions and actions are absolutely required; consequences, results and karma absolutely unavoidable.

My mind also has a habit of ruminating on the past and finding dissatisfaction with the present. Anger comes up, sadness comes up. The experience of those emotions wakes me up to the realization that I spend a considerable amount of my time fighting ghosts (thoughts/memories/ emotions) and creating a paradise which ends up being too complex and burdensome to enjoy maintaining.

For me, there is no paradise state in the future where sacrifice and maintenance will no longer be needed. Acquiring more possessions, relationships, and luxury means more commitment and maintenance. Perhaps this is not true for someone else; it is not my place to say, and everyone must come to their own truth through their own experience. I try not to get in the way of anyone’s attempt at paradise; I am not always successful at that, and I realize that my attempts at helping people to achieve even one aspect of their paradise eventually fails or fades. From my perspective, my version of paradise often seems dramatically incompatible with people around me, and that is what it is. Contrary to how it may appear in the situation, this is not a problem, as that experience changes just like everything else. The only real problem is that I take the mind’s limited view for truth and follow it, believing that it will lead to a final ending called heaven. My mind lies to me that it is or will be completely content with simplicity when usually it is not. It also says that it will finally find permanent contentment and security after just the right experience or combination of circumstances and that ends up being a lie too. It is extremely helpful in life to remember that the mind’s contentment is small and always only temporary (if it happens at all). Its perspective is merely one of an infinite number.

(I surrender. I am sorry that) I am unable to achieve and maintain an energetic and joyous heart and express it. I am often more occupied with anger, sadness, unworthiness, addiction, and bondage. I hide these things from other people and spend a considerable amount of time and effort looking for and attempting lasting happiness where it will never be found.

(I surrender. I am sorry that) I don’t find as much pleasure in modern civilized life as most people. I usually choose to stay aware of the burden and falseness of it as part of an effort to maintain my commitment to the desire for what is Real and True. How effective this really is, the mind can never know. I admit that there’s part of me that experiences pleasure from the comfort, convenience and aesthetically pleasing surroundings, pictures, people, and objects. There’s also a part of me that is afraid of my dependence and finds the cost of these things unappealing, yet I can’t seem to end my body-mind’s fascination and addiction to them once and for all; nor can I free the body mind from action and bondage once and for all.

I am sorry for the times in the past present and future when I treat people, circumstances, or things that I am attracted to like objects to be achieved or acquired.

I am sorry for the times in the past present and future when I treat people, circumstances, or things that I am not attracted to like obstacles to be overcome or avoided.

I am sorry that I am not beyond Hatha yoga.

Truth is, I find enjoyment in exploring the body mind ego in ways that are generally not appropriate for me to put on public display or share with most people. I get lost in it sometimes and fail to follow through with my other commitments. I know that I am supposed to grow up and move beyond Hatha yoga, but I do still enjoy her, and it may always be the case in this lifetime and an unknown number of future ones too. I also admit that part (maybe a lot) of what I call Hatha yoga other people would call selfish, indulgent, addictive, dirty, and sexual; sometimes (maybe a lot of the time) I judge myself for these things and feel guilty about it. If the guilt is part of the experience, so be it.

I am sorry that I enjoy getting rid of things and simplifying more than acquiring, that I enjoy silence more than conversation, empty space more than full, and being moderately busy or not busy more than overly busy.

I generally enjoy just having an erection with another man more than full blown sex or ejaculating. (And actually even that may be changing to an even more subtle experience for an unknown period of time. This scares me because I feel like it’s just another thing that will contribute to my feeling of isolation, and also I admit that I sometimes miss the experience of care-free erotic pleasure and youthful embodiment. It is no surprise that this desire (along with many other desires that I nurture and maintain) brings me to many more births. I am even aware of the part of me that desires to return to the delusion of working towards a state of never ending pleasure, self realization, and liberation through sensual experience and goal achievement. Knowing the mind as I experience it, I can say that only an infinite number of births and deaths will cure me of that one.

I try to suppress, manage, divert or hide these tendencies in order to please others; doing that eventually leads to resentment that causes me to lose patience.

Please, feel free to call me by a more appropriate name: christian hatha yogi faggot freak closet over-eater shitter cheater vow-breaker narcissist hypocrite porn addict.

I probably will never get beyond the need for mantra repetition. I see the value of always coming back to it, as I am aware of the mind’s tricks, and that following the delusional thinking associated with its desires and fears is ultimately the cause of a lot (if not all) of my problems and unhappiness. Mantra japa (repetition) helps to break the obsession with delusional thinking. My mind is a stubborn one and won’t let go of its delusions easily. Some would call me lazy, stubborn, and/or stupid for staying with it, I don’t care.

Experience tells me that all of the practice doesn’t free the body mind from sadness, anger, addiction, illness, or pain, nor does it free me from doing mundane work, but it is the primary thing that I see as worthwhile. At the same time, it is important to perform my duties, some of the duties I like, some not. Sometimes I feel resentment for the bondage and pain. Sometimes the feeling of resentment is strong and I feel like breaking things and fighting. Sometimes I do those things.

It’s easy to experience that an exalted state is spiritual in nature. My experience is that it’s more difficult to maintain spiritual awareness (divine oneness) in the midst of mundane daily life, pleasure and pain, desire and fear. This is the path that we have all been given, whether we are aware of it or not, like it or not.

The best that I can do is devote time to “practice” and also devote time engaged in daily activity and commitments, attempting a realistic and healthy balance. I do not and will not always maintain that balance.

I keep coming back to attempting compassion and the faith that all of creation strives for compassionate love. Ultimately, I have no choice but to place the entirety of my successes and failures, all of the action, inaction, austerities, indulgences, intentions and emotions in this belief.

Then the questions come up:
Who is the receiver of this compassion? Only good or innocent people? People in need? Animals that we like? Animals we don’t like? Nature? Civilization? Only certain groups? Only friends? Only family? Only people who think a certain way? Only people who follow certain rules? Only the poor? Only the rich? Only citizens of a certain nation? Only people who look a certain way? Only people who pay us? Only people who perform or abstain from certain actions? Only people of a certain religion? Only people who “play the game”? Who or what has the authority to decide and who or what is the giver? And what defines a compassionate existence, what does it look like?

There doesn’t seem to be a logical resolution. Compassion says that everyone, regardless of their abilities, actions or characteristics deserves food and shelter, yet receiving without any effort to reciprocate and participate is not really beneficial to the system nor the individual as it often puts them in a state of dependence, unrealistic expectations, and/or delusion. I confess that I have been lazy at times (actually many times) in giving in such a way as to create dependence, while feeling pleased with my supposedly giving and compassionate nature.

I look closely and discover that the personal experience that I describe is universal and unique as well as neither unique nor universal.

The evidence points to a pervasive illusion of progress towards perfect paradise as well as the illusion of degeneration to utter and never ending chaos.

All of us say “I didn’t sign up for this” at some point.

Yes, I wanted to have the pleasure without the pain, but they are actually two sides of the same coin called experience and I can’t have one without the other.

Yes, there’s a part of me operating subconsciously that wants to be the exception, even though I know that I am not.

It is absolutely vital that I put forth effort in the quest for Om, and to attempt to help myself and others in some kind of lasting way that truly benefits.

Can I ever break my mind’s addiction to the false? How does one get beyond the ego with its addiction to problems and its obsession with time (past and future), planning to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, regretting or reveling in the past? The ego mind cannot get beyond itself on its own level. It can only be seen for what it is. Uninterrupted discriminative discernment between mind and atman is the only remedy.

What I am looking for is nowhere to be found in things, relationships, or experiences regardless of how intensely or minimally pleasurable or painful they happen to be to the body mind ego. It appears that one addiction just replaces another. I try to make the addictions more and more subtle.

I have been looking everywhere and anywhere for permission and validation. I’ve looked outside, inside, and I just never seem to find it.

Contentment is always tested. When I am aware of how my mind operates, I see that its very nature is rajasic and thus not content.

Summarizing my life experience, I see the foolishness of my mind. Wisdom eventually sees that all of the mind’s ideas to achieve unending and continuous security and sensual pleasure ultimately fail. How it sees the mind body ego that it calls its own is often (usually) not accurate. How it sees other people, beings, things and experiences is not complete and often inaccurate. What the mind takes for truth and reality are not really truth and reality. The mind is only an effective tool on the relative plane. I endeavor to move beyond letting it run my life. I start by attempting temporary breaks from it.

I am truly and completely stunned at my mind’s propensity to hide its desire to be an exception to the universal laws. It judges myself and other things and people incessantly. It always has an opinion and labels things as either good or evil, pleasurable or painful, and thus cannot see things as they really are. In this way, it is an obstacle to Reality.

Wisdom says that I am nothing; love says that I am everything; life goes on and on.

I admire a genuine moment of honesty. Even if it is in a dirty and nasty place of “sin”.

if part of humility is the feeling of unworthiness and feeling sorry for things, I accept it

if part of having open eyes is seeing the futility of everything but still acting, I accept it.

I experience fear when I realize that there’s little provision for illness, inaction, failure, old age and pain (vulnerability) in the position I currently have assumed.

I am caught in the web I have made. Nothing manifest (action or inaction) really does anything to set me free on a physical level (ego-mind-body). Rajas, tamas, and sattva each create their own type of bondage. Attachment to the manifest as well as the unmanifest each carries its own type of darkness.

truth and love are needed in the appropriate balance.

manifest and unmanifest are needed in appropriate balance (and I definitely struggle with navigating this one)

Even though I am aware of the futility of it all, the attempt at love is vital, and so the practice, maintenance, and discipline must continue. There is no cheating or short cut.

I know that I will always be an aspirant of the absolute and that there is no end to the endeavor (regardless of the mind’s desire). I will always try to prove my love and “worthiness” sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing. Every manifested being is also an aspirant, regardless of their awareness, my awareness or what happens.

I am thankful for attempting love beyond my personal concerns and also for forgiveness when I lash out, scream, cry and fail.

I am thankful for not needing to be free of anger sadness or any particular emotion or experience that I don’t like.

My personal view on things (as is everyone’s personal view on things) is merely perspective and not absolute truth.

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.

I’ve always been looking for an everlasting final destination in the future, a final state of perfection, beauty, love, pleasure, wisdom, freedom, clarity, truth, peace, enlightenment, effortlessness, painlessness; but the state that I imagine will only ever exist in an imagined future. (Actually I am aware that sometimes what I really want is a complete and total end of myself (as body-mind-emotions-ego) because it seems that everything just ends up being pain of some kind, whether physical, mental-emotional, or addictive.) I’ve followed my mind ego and undertaken many actions in order to make or find that state. The recurring anger, rage and sadness that sometimes dominate my awareness indicate that following and identifying with the mind-ego doesn’t work and also shows me that contrary to what I would like to believe, I do still seek results (like freedom from pain, addiction, and karma as a result of the decades that I have spent practicing yoga, or financial freedom or security and a home that I like as a result of the work that I do). The mind’s nature as I usually experience it is to do anything and everything but be content in the present moment. In its relentless obsession with results, it mourns and/or regrets the past; it throws tantrums when its desires aren’t fulfilled; it worries or dreams about the future, scheming and planning in order to experience pleasure and avoid pain, often embarking on what’s next before completing what isn’t finished. My experience of mind includes times when I have extreme hatred about pretty much everything. I dwell on unrealistic expectations that will never be met, looking for security and stability where it will never be found, expecting the world and other people to change to fulfill my desires.

I can only continue to explore “who am I?” and attempt to find ways to abide in and share compassion that is rooted in Truth and not illusion, forgive myself and others for the times when we fail at that, in various ways, big and small. Attempting to remember that success or failure is merely a matter of perception; trying to avoid labelling things, people, experiences, and life in general in terms of the opposites (good/bad, pleasure/pain, success/failure) trying to let go of the desire for an everlasting personal bliss.

Comfort pleasure is a trap. Freedom to do what we like is a trap. Whatever I create or own is a trap.

I am frequently bothered by my failure to achieve perfection, sometimes it is like mental-emotional torture that is with me wherever I go and whatever I do which I have no power to stop. How many times must I make the same mistakes? How many times must I experience the disappointment of the manifest, looking for the ultimate Truth in the false? It’s easier to blame other people, circumstances and situations than face the truth that my mind ego and my attachments are really the source of the misery: my attachment to progress towards perfection, liberation, and goal achievement (and my mind’s habit of frustration at never achieving a goal that satisfies it in a lasting way), my attachment to my body, mind, habits, emotions, people, things, austerities, indulgences, pleasure, pain and even my so-called yoga practice. My inability to see and experience things as they really are instead of how I want or imagine them to be certainly doesn’t help the situation. In certain matters, such as the pursuit of Truth, mind (and its habit of acting on desires and fears resulting from memory) is a hindrance instead of an asset.

I confess that the virtues that people attribute to me are not really true because I cannot always maintain them. This realization often surfaces and disturbs the false peace of mind-ego. Halle-fuckin-lujah

I’m also often bothered by the fact that I experience feelings of dislike and hatred towards myself and others and life in general. I sometimes (probably more often than I would like to admit) pretend and lie for food, shelter, and comfort (as well as maintaining the image of myself that I want other people to see and believe) hiding my selfishness, anger, sadness, addiction and pain, feeling like a slave to the personal and communal debt that I have accumulated as a result of past decisions that I have made out of my ignorance. The debt consists of both merits and demerits which yield pleasure and pain, profit and loss, often defying logic, impossible to understand and/or navigate by means of mind-ego. It is ever-present, only existing to eventually yield true nakedness. Both pleasure and pain end up being distractions and obstacles to nakedness, and desired fruits as well as undesired fruits both end up being obstacles to liberation. Both have their own message and purpose, but neither in and of themselves yield Truth. What do I do when no one is watching? Am I able to endure what I believe to be pain resulting from another being’s actions, or pain that has no apparent cause? What do I do when others are watching? How do I reconcile the person I am in private to the one I am in public? Why are shame, addiction, and ignorance so deeply ingrained in us that they seem to be part of our natural state?

I am tired of rules, boundaries and vows that I and/or other people don’t follow or enforce. What is it that I lack? The intention, wisdom, strength of will, compassion, dispassion, courage, or purity of heart, or is it just the fact that I am not really tired of it? (Or is it that the boundaries don’t really exist?) Regardless, it is important to keep trying; earnestness is essential and seems to be the only thing of any real value in life.

I am tired of the lies that I live, tell, and experience that I have no power to stop. The lie that there’s an achievement, goal or experience that will lastingly satisfy “me”. The lie of progress towards a state of perfection. The lie that the spiritual path leads to an end state of pain-free paradise. The lie of a beautiful modern life. The lie that I can own things and indulge in personhood and still live Truth. The lie that a satisfied, happy mind can be achieved by living a successful modern life. The lie that I conveniently tell myself that I am in control of and responsible for one mind-body only and perhaps some other people, beings, objects, and a certain amount of space and time around it. The lie that I am performing actions and am entitled to the fruits of those actions. The lie of the mind when it says “All I want is just this one simple, small thing ….”

Contrary to a widely held and deeply rooted belief which many of us live, we all cause and bear each other’s burden, and there are no exceptions, no matter how it may appear, no matter how strongly we may want to believe otherwise. Everything experienced through the senses is ultimately illusion, no matter how intense, pervasive, inescapable, or persistent it may seem.

I am tired of my anger, and yet it still happens. I am tired of my inability to just be content. Will I ever honor and accept these things as necessary parts of life, decipher their message beyond petty concerns of ego and act accordingly? The greatest challenge seems to be maintaining gratitude; it is not a natural tendency for the mind as I experience it.

I can’t help but be bothered that I’m not free of pain or free of the pettiness of ego after all of the time I’ve spent practicing (as well as performing various other actions or sacrifices). I realize that being bothered in this way means that I have done much of it with selfish motive, placing more importance on the result than each moment of the process itself, putting forth effort in an attempt to manipulate things to produce a future personal paradise. I also can’t help persisting in the endeavor of practice, no one can know whether or not one day I will be free of the pettiness, completely present, here, now on the eternal road asking and living the only true question, “who am I”?

I really have put myself in a big mess by deluding myself that it is possible to do it all on my own, or always keep the mind-body a certain way (self-disciplined, loving, faithful, truthful, peaceful, content, honest, responsible, loyal, mindful, productive, thankful, manifest, unmanifest, personal, impersonal, awake, conscious, unconscious, or whatever)

just living as an example of the teachings;
teaching only through example;
not sharing certain parts of my habit of practice;
and saying that it is ok.

I am afraid of being judged for the “dirty stuff” and my selfishness, my failure at letting go of greed, anger, and delusion. All too aware of my mind’s judgement of my inability to manifest a perfect home, gross and subtle bodies, a pleasant inner life, freedom from addictions, and healthy, reciprocal relationships that foster growth and freedom.

I see a frequent pattern that disturbs. When I become aware of things that don’t agree with my beliefs and ideas about how I think people, circumstances, things or myself are (or how I want them to be), I experience sadness and/or anger of varying intensity. I don’t like the experience and also feel ashamed that I feel those things. Sometimes I do things to avoid the experience like drugs, food, sex, entertainment. Sometimes I do things to try and manage the pain like various forms of yoga (Asana, pranayama, studying scriptures). Sometimes I make effort to repress; usually I just proceed through my duties while enduring the emotions.

I see my greed; I am greedy for the pleasure I find in just experiencing the beingness that happens when I stretch and breathe. I am angry and saddened by the trap that I have made and continue to make for myself. I take on duties and commitments, and the to-do list just grows.

Sacrifices are absolutely necessary in order to live life and participate in attempting love. Some will yield benefit, some won’t, but to expect them to lead to liberation or a final state of eternal pleasure or perfection is delusional. Expecting laziness to lead to liberation or a final state of eternal pleasure or perfection is also delusional. Being attached to the perfect balance of action and inaction and believing that I can always maintain that state is also delusional.

I am afraid of being vulnerable,
showing the darkness,
relying on other people, being soft, relying on systems, and yet it seems impossible for the body-person to exist without relying on some kind of system and/or other people, and regardless of how hard I try, I do create burden, bondage, and waste just like everyone else. I delude, lie, and cheat just like everyone else.

I am afraid of being powerless, vulnerable, impotent, lacking vitality and vigor, stripped of all abilities and talents (gross and subtle). I know full well that none of these things belong to me and that at some point I will experience their departure, as does every single being in existence. Contrary to a thought and desire that operates in my life consciously and subconsciously, I am not an exception.

I am afraid of people finding out that I find pleasure in sticking things up my ass and shitting.

I sometimes watch porn and masturbate in various ways during my practice time, often justifying it by considering it as part of my practice, but still feeling guilty about it.

I frequently hate the bed that I have made for myself; it often feels more like a trap than a bed.

I am afraid of showing people things that “no one really wants to see”,
things that even I don’t want to see or admit. An old, unattractive, flabby, misshapen body, a mind that judges, lies, and condemns incessantly and is never really content with anything or anyone (including, no, actually especially, “myself”)

Isn’t it part of the social rule:
don’t show or share the shit
the boring
the embarrassing
don’t show or share the unpleasant or the unattractive
don’t be a burden, add something useful that others need or want?

Why do I fail at maintaining an awareness of the spiritual and bliss in the mundane?

Who am I to say that “a” causes “b”, crediting and blaming things and people?

Just like others, I judge and dislike people (pretty much everyone at times) for the very same things that I deny in myself. There’s no avoiding it.

How can I judge ANYONE for things that I myself do? I know this, and yet somehow, the mind still judges, and I get disturbed and distracted by the emotions that result.

What I do on my own (that I think that other people don’t know) does make a difference; there is no cheating.

I admit it. I look for permanent emotional fulfillment “happiness” where it will never be found. It won’t be found in work, in relationships, in movement, in conversation, not in any type of experience. Not even in the things that I do or the austerities that I attempt which I call “the practice of yoga”. I make attempts at stillness and silence, and sometimes feel closer to it, but the stillness and silence don’t seem to really do it either, at least in any permanent way.

I consider myself a spiritual aspirant, and yet I have not completely let go of all ideas of personal achievement, haven’t really relinquished my attachment to the body/mind and habits called Thomas Collier. I attempt presence and “now” and love beyond person over and over and the mind always gets in the way. The mind and its likes and dislikes still influences my decisions to a very large degree. I still get deceived by the illusion of inner and outer, believing that the thoughts and emotions that I experience are intimate and personal (incorrectly believing that they hold the answer to the question at the core of human experience, “who am I?”)

I attempt freedom from the need for experience and the inevitable bondage that ensues. Who or what gives the permission for that type of freedom? The computer? Society? A person of authority? A teacher? A preacher? A master of yoga? A life coach? A person who has suffered and died for compassion? A spiritual group of people? A celebrity? A certain net worth? Reaching a point of exhausting all physical, energetic and mental resources? Enduring intense pain? Completing a bucket list of a wide variety of experiences and states of being? Abstaining from pleasure? Maintaining certain yoga practices or vows for a long time?

and doesn’t freedom from experience carry its own type of bondage?

I often get angry regarding my attempt at compassion. My experience is that it just gives me more crap to do and puts me deeper in debt. Someone or something pays the price, whether it’s me, someone else, society, or the planet. I confess that my attempts at compassion have often been merely trying to please people or help them avoid things that they don’t want to face or do themselves.

I keep on with the practice
and it looks like I will always do so (successfully and unsuccessfully, alone and with others, in conventional and unconventional ways, in public and private, on gross and subtle levels)
even as I see the vast expanse of lies and self-delusion
which seems to have no end
and belongs to “me” and all of us
but no one in particular

Does anyone have the remedy for the addiction trap
that we live called life
that we create
maintain
and destroy
create, maintain, destroy
create, maintain, destroy?

If I found it, would I take it?

Am I just attempting to avoid the pain through my so-called yoga practice and attempts at meditation?

Am I avoiding taking responsibility for my actions and decisions?

Did I really just eat bitter chocolate in hopes of having that feeling that I had last time?
Did I really just take an aspirin and turn on the TV in hopes of numbing the recurring sadness and anger?
Did I really spend a few hours doing yoga instead of facing the mess I have made and working on my to-do list?

When will I really surrender all of my petty bullshit selfish desires?

Is that even possible here and now
in New York City
in 2022?

Is it even possible to perform a truly compassionate act of sacrifice, and if I achieved it, what then? So many have achieved already, and much more is always to be done.

Am I living to attempt Om, Truth, Love, or merely deluding myself?

One Fucking True Thing
beyond likes dislikes pleasure pain desires fears
(my own and other’s)

We’re all “being false” to a certain extent, and that is apparently an essential part of a social contract that we all navigate and come to terms with in our own way, reconciling how we want things to be to how they actually are. What we set out to manifest to what we actually have manifested. What we think we are to what we actually are. What we think we see to what actually is. Balancing the personal and the social. The manifest and the unmanifest.

I can’t honestly say that I really like what I see when I look around externally and internally, and that’s exactly how it should be. I can only attempt love by acknowledging that it is all me and attempting to truly accept, sometimes acting to change, sometimes sustain, sometimes endure, sometimes just stay aware of the illusion of success and failure, ownership, cause and effect.

“Who am I?” never ends
the practice never ends
the self-discipline, sacrifice, maintenance, creation, destruction
the doing
the being
the longing for Om never goes away
the desire for the end of pain (so unrealistic);
the end only lasts for a while

Can I let go of the desire for the end of the pain and craving, a final state of peace and bliss?

My mind plays tricks —
it’s always convinced that the next achievement or experience or possession will yield “the goal” or the “final state” or Truth. I am thankful for being aware of it and its lies, even as I am often powerless to stop being deluded by it and acting on its desires and fears.

And I conclude that I can’t know the true essence of a thing or person (even, and often especially, myself) through the senses or the intellect. This is the truth that I attempt and this is where I fail.

What I have materially and spiritually is sufficient for today and at all times, regardless of what other people, society, the computer, my internal mind-ego voice, my body-mind-senses, my ancestors, my partner, my teachers (past present and future), and even animals say, believe and/or indicate. There are enough materials, time, space, permission, solitude, community, personal and impersonal love. I AM enough, and I do not need to do or not do anything to prove it to myself or others or God, regardless of the unworthy feeling that never goes away completely, yet I must live life and perform actions and duties.

I don’t mind trying to develop a better attitude towards the endless chores and duties that maintain the modern way of life. I do not expect to be exempted from the need to learn through action and experience, sowing and reaping, but I do need to balance it with the “pleasure” that I feel just being in the park or woods, or going on a hike, or going to a yoga class, or standing in “T” in Times Square, or practicing and experimenting with body and breath alone or with others.

I am most thankful for my health and awareness of the unhappy nature of my mind. I am thankful for a partner, family, teachers and friends who allow me time, space, and freedom to explore the question “Who am I”. I am thankful for participating in a system that attempts compassion, forgiveness, and justice and allows freedom of expression, investigation and exploration of “Who am I”. I am thankful for being able to endure both its success and its failure, my success and failure, our success and failure.

I am thankful for access to divine wisdom, which allows me to see the futility of all of the planning, effort, and goals. I am thankful for putting forth the effort even though I know its futility. I am thankful for knowing that absolutely nothing belongs to me. I am thankful for seeing the obsessions of my mind, how I seek perfection and security and happiness where it will not be found in any lasting way. I am thankful for knowing that neither achievement nor perfection nor success nor failure bring me to reality.

I am thankful for knowing that it is impossible for the body-mind not to be affected by the karma of myself as well as other people and beings in painful as well as pleasant ways, expected and unexpected. I am thankful for whatever access I have to the awareness of knowing that who I truly am is not affected by these experiences of karma, no matter how it appears to myself or others.

Your expectation of something unique and dramatic, of some wonderful explosion, is merely hindering and delaying your Self Realization. You are not to expect an explosion, for the explosion has already happened – at the moment when you were born, when you realized yourself as Being-Knowing-Feeling. There is only one mistake you are making: you take the inner for the outer and the outer for the inner. What is in you, you take to be outside you and what is outside, you take to be in you. The mind and feelings are external, but you take them to be intimate. You believe the world to be objective, while it is entirely a projection of your psyche. That is the basic confusion and no new explosion will set it right! You have to think yourself out of it. There is no other way.
(- Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Striving for absolute

Absolute love

Absolute courage

Absolute ahimsa

Absolute authenticity

To be the same alone and in presence of other people and beings, no matter who they appear to be nor who I think they are, no matter what I do for them nor what they do for me. To be free of being affected by circumstance, environment, time, space (illusion).

My inability to achieve this will always bother me.

My hypocrisy will always bother me. I cheat, lie, and fail at self discipline in various ways, big and small, just like everyone else.

I am often successful at hiding it from others, and especially myself, but I am not able to avoid it.

Ultimately, nothing that I can do or not do proves any of the ideals (the yamas and niyamas) for which I strive once and for all. They must be maintained just like everything else. When I take time to stop and examine my habits and behavior, I am humbled and pray for forgiveness for my shortfalls, giving thanks for the mercy of om, divine mother and father, which truly sustains the world, universe, myself, which are in reality one and the same (even though I can’t claim to be successful in truly realizing it and always living that way.)

My attempt at love is to try to find the essence in all things and love that. I fail because I get distracted by my senses and the illusion of bodies and my personal emotions, desires and fears. The urge to experience sensual pleasure of the objects that I desire is all but impossible to resist, as is being hypnotized by the manifested world all around me. I forget that the essence that I seek is beyond the realm of the senses. In this, I worship and love the false and not the true.

I confess that for me, erections and various other manifestations of testosterone are very powerful temptations among an infinite number of other temptations which I indulge and resist. Rajas (passion) and tamas (inertia) are also temptations which I indulge and resist; I try to manage these things on my own partly because I am ashamed, partly because it is easier than involving others, partly because I don’t want to get trapped in karma with them (which is actually very much out of my control), and partly because I don’t want to disturb, or bother, or possibly hurt people around me. (And let’s face it, some of what I do to manage these things neither I nor other people really understand or really want to know about.) I attempt sattva (compassion) and sometimes feel like I fail and sometimes like I succeed. All of this comprises the habits which I and other people call a person Thomas Collier born, living, and dying in the world, which I have come to know is ultimately an illusion.

I also confess that I have been unable to stop my habit of scheming and planning and even practicing yoga to achieve small and petty goals and results. I realize that I probably won’t achieve complete freedom from that habit. Actually complete freedom from it would not really be desirable, as it would also engender a selfish type of laziness. I don’t know if Thomas Collier is meant to live in a completely spontaneous way until maybe the last moments of his current life. I may never feel or be spiritually mature enough to be able to live that way.

Experience, no matter how pleasant or unpleasant, or incessant or gross or subtle does not by itself yield a final state of “OM”.

I surrender; I will never be perfectly virtuous enough for Truth. (But do I really surrender?)

What I see and what my experience has shown me is that every desire that I have acted upon has been tainted with selfishness in some way. I know that I may never be really sure of my motives beforehand, never completely free of ignorance and selfishness; regardless, ready or not, life goes on, and I must participate.

The beauty of the gross and subtle has tempted me and prompted me to explore sex, erotic things, and sensuality. I felt scared and ashamed of that. My erotic and sexual and sensual ability as well as my experience of desire and fear is changing, perhaps due to the practices that I perform, perhaps simply due to the process of aging and enduring life, perhaps due to the mercy and grace of om. Some of the patterns of desire and fear and sensuality will remain, some won’t.

I have felt and continue to feel unworthy of the beautiful things and beings; I would rather leave them in their beautiful, undisturbed state free of me and my ignorance and dirty unworthiness.

The more I examine and look at the intentions and motives behind the actions that I perform and the decisions that I make, the more I realize that it is all tainted by my selfishness. I don’t see an end to it.

Must I give up even the pleasure of sharing and experiencing breath and nakedness alone and/or with others in order to enter the realm of Truth?