The journey of self-exploration being difficult, is the least I can say. I was in a similar journey six years ago. So, I know the feeling of some external force taking over my internal house and re-arranging the furniture (that I have so lovingly gathered) inside me. Still, knowing of a similar 'feeling' of a difficult path years ago, is no respite in walking it right now. If anything at all, it just adds to the weariness.
When this time arrived in my life six years ago, I resolved to one thing - that I want to live each day happily, and if someone cannot add to that 'happy day' then I don't want to interact with them. I also believed that sharing my viewpoint is important because 'if I change, the world around me changes'. I would have this image that 'I want to be like a room without walls'. But, now I feel sharing is a double-edged sword. If there is no response, it hurts. If there is a response, I am overwhelmed with this weight of spreading negativity.
So, here I am challenged by my own resolves. And it is shaking the very pillars that have helped me get through life - the judgements. The judgements that anger is bad, spreading negativity by sharing your anger is bad, that if you cannot add to the positivity in someone's life, then just live in your own personal cell and deal with it. So much anger right there. Why is being happy so important? Why walls or no-walls is an important theoram that I need to derive to live my life? Why do I need to have a few unchanging, absolute theorams that can be applied to every equation of my life? How else to live; without any railing as a guide?
Many spiritual teachers say that 'non-attachment' or 'letting-go' is the right way. I thought I had devised my own 'letting-go' mechanism - which essentially meant to shut it out (whatever is bothering me) and watch it. Now, I am unsure. This is also challenging my old understanding. Because, watching it means that I cannot engage. Without engaging, how shall I ever 'deal' with it? Like the Laughing Buddha said - drop the baggage and then pick it up and engage. But, how can you engage without getting involved in it? It is after all 'your' baggage. I find these polarities difficult to resolve. Always. What is the 'correct' way - assuming that there is just one correct way?
With this sagar-manthan, if anything there is just one respite that it will bring out the things that I have stuffed for years, decades, or perhaps even lifetimes. Whether the amrit will arrive, I am not sure. But the poison has come out and I need to find a way for not to get consumed by it. Like Shakti held it in Shiva's throat before it reached his heart.
Shakti is the life force, and Shiva is 'Shav - dead body' without it. So, if I am the body, I need to hold this poison with the life force within me. What does that mean now - even if it does mean something? How to bring this understanding in the mortal life that I live?
The questions are many. Until there are answers or a resolve for no-answers, the sagar manthan is in progress. And beware of all the wanted/unwanted things that it spews out.
Sharing a quote by a poet/writer/thinker that I keep going to when such questions ail me. I cannot fully live the words here, but it is good to read it and good to remind myself.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
When this time arrived in my life six years ago, I resolved to one thing - that I want to live each day happily, and if someone cannot add to that 'happy day' then I don't want to interact with them. I also believed that sharing my viewpoint is important because 'if I change, the world around me changes'. I would have this image that 'I want to be like a room without walls'. But, now I feel sharing is a double-edged sword. If there is no response, it hurts. If there is a response, I am overwhelmed with this weight of spreading negativity.
So, here I am challenged by my own resolves. And it is shaking the very pillars that have helped me get through life - the judgements. The judgements that anger is bad, spreading negativity by sharing your anger is bad, that if you cannot add to the positivity in someone's life, then just live in your own personal cell and deal with it. So much anger right there. Why is being happy so important? Why walls or no-walls is an important theoram that I need to derive to live my life? Why do I need to have a few unchanging, absolute theorams that can be applied to every equation of my life? How else to live; without any railing as a guide?
Many spiritual teachers say that 'non-attachment' or 'letting-go' is the right way. I thought I had devised my own 'letting-go' mechanism - which essentially meant to shut it out (whatever is bothering me) and watch it. Now, I am unsure. This is also challenging my old understanding. Because, watching it means that I cannot engage. Without engaging, how shall I ever 'deal' with it? Like the Laughing Buddha said - drop the baggage and then pick it up and engage. But, how can you engage without getting involved in it? It is after all 'your' baggage. I find these polarities difficult to resolve. Always. What is the 'correct' way - assuming that there is just one correct way?
With this sagar-manthan, if anything there is just one respite that it will bring out the things that I have stuffed for years, decades, or perhaps even lifetimes. Whether the amrit will arrive, I am not sure. But the poison has come out and I need to find a way for not to get consumed by it. Like Shakti held it in Shiva's throat before it reached his heart.
Shakti is the life force, and Shiva is 'Shav - dead body' without it. So, if I am the body, I need to hold this poison with the life force within me. What does that mean now - even if it does mean something? How to bring this understanding in the mortal life that I live?
The questions are many. Until there are answers or a resolve for no-answers, the sagar manthan is in progress. And beware of all the wanted/unwanted things that it spews out.
_______________________________
Sharing a quote by a poet/writer/thinker that I keep going to when such questions ail me. I cannot fully live the words here, but it is good to read it and good to remind myself.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
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