I just lost my deepest and one of the most beautiful relationships I have experienced and so the emotions that bleed out of the events and eventualities are a great object for contemplation and thought to share here my innermost explorations. I particularly love that these explorations, though written to be read, can be explored independently to find the truth within. Perhaps, you could read this with the backdrop of similar memory could help you enjoy the essence of this piece.
Inside me here, what interlaces the grief and loss is a deep sense of nostalgia and a longing for the past or a constant pull to revisit the past. The thoughts are of that of restlessness, or of regret. But clearly these clouds feel heavy and dark while being clearly noticed as passing in front of the always present blue sky of awareness.
Within the dark clouds and underneath the surface of the mind, there's a deep longing to recreate the past, to go back into the past and make more meaning of it, to change it, to correct it. To even break it. What would have happened in the past would have been a dire longing to stop the streams of thoughts that beg for a different reality.
You see, most of motivational quotes and tater tots become ineffective in the face of our toughest life circumstances. “Think positively” for some reason won't work. The peddled quote attributed to Thomas Edison, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”, would seem to be just about Thomas Edison and not you. Every feel good patting at the back about yourself and situations will feel so distant. They may even feel like lies. These are strategies put in place by the mind to make the bad emotions feel good. So it tries to grasp for distractions through dooms scrolling on the phone, social media, through friends, toys, shopping etc.
This strategy seems to work until it doesn’t. Instead, it creates a distraction for something that still needs to be felt— the inner sense of separation. And so, the only logical thing to do is actually go into the eye of this hurricane. The only true option is to go into that which actually hurts. It’s to go into that excruciating pain.
There are many reasons this alternative strategy works better than the feel-good strategy. For one, it exposes one to something so gleefully obvious: without the thoughts, without the beliefs that manifest from the thoughts, YOU ARE UNTOUCHED. YOU ARE FINE. Circumstances will be what they are but you are fine. What is not fine is the thought that says I am not fine. This will ruin my life!What they said is despicable! What they did is wrong! From a keen sense of observation, even the thoughts are just a thought devoid of any power.
Secondly, in moving closer to the pain and suffering, we find they are pain and suffering that are totally harmless. We see it by truly staring at it. A bitter taste is much more than a bitter taste, it’s a reaction in the mouth to a label that says ‘bitter taste’, however, nothing is truly bitter in the way the mind summarises it to be.
In the face of loss, in the response to raving thoughts, the hands may shake, the heart may flutter in sorrow, yet the essence, Myself/Yourself are peaceful. Take a look at it!
Opened up in front of us, in these types of situations, are a beautiful opportunity to explore the nature of thoughts, where they flow from and where they flow to. There's the opportunity to see how tangible and, on the other side of the coin, intangible they are. Just like flames from a candle. Here now, gone in a second.
And so these thoughts, they grab at the past and claw at the future; somehow what's left out is the present moment, like an abandoned child looking to be noticed.
But in this very moment, there's the full pulsation of life. Above all, there's the knowing that I'm not witnessing life(as I thought I was) but I am life itself. Just like the dreamer does not witness the dream, the dreamer is not separate from the whole dream. But in truth, my True Self is not seen as an object. It also does not see the subject of experience as only an object unto itself. And so whatever situation is presented before me is also me. And so instead of rejecting it, I call it unto Myself, my sweet sweet Lover.
And in that I'm whole.
My fellow Pilgrim,
shared this piece by Rumi in our morning meditations today and I thought to share here too. It’s called The Guest House.This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
When I was in the depths of grief, there was no positivity, only a maelstrom of grief and loss and heartbreak and pain. Stick with it. You'll come through the other side eventually.
Very very needed in this moment. Loved reading through.