As a child you are told to grow-up, then as an adult you are told to wake-up, but these two things are in conflict with each other. Growing-up means you fashioned an ego-mask and began to act a certain way — just like everyone has done and is doing. Then as an adult you realize you need to wake-up, but in order to do that you must remove the ego-mask. This is no easy task.
Part of waking-up is being present for others. Actually, this showing-up is primary. It means being actively engaged with life. Showing-up is waking-up, it where the rubber meets the road. It is beyond belief, and outside any concept or theory — it is Being Eternal in the here and now. It celebrates life as it unfolds without worry or concern. It is removing the ego mask and being your authentic self, no longer concerted with what other people think.
Being Eternal is a behavior that flows from a belief in self. The belief that you are an eternal being comes first, and from that belief everything you think, feel, and do is set in motion. However, Being Eternal is not merely a belief, it is better described as a series of actions, each undertaken one after the other so that it becomes your lived reality, a lifestyle. It is the metamorphosis from being a mortal concerned with morality into living ethically and Being Eternal — this a movement from death into life — and from hell to heaven.
In truth every human being is an eternal being, but not every human being has learned the knack of Being Eternal. We have all been deeply schooled to believe we are the product of evolution, that we are animals in a survival struggle and that when we die our separation will be complete. Actually, this belief in separation is what turns us into animals.
Sadly, rather than learn who we are, we have learned to be what we are not. We have lost our connection to the Source of our Being. The Light is that Source, but we choose, for a time, to live in the shadows and refuse to see the Light. We are the product of a cosmic loving force that fills the whole universe, but that Mystery cannot be seen or measured and so we refuse to believe. We fail to choose life and so we remain in poverty.
We exchange Being Eternal for social currency, often by use of economic currency. This mammon has a debasing influence on us. As we seek acceptance and validation, we also become deeply rooted in the egoic-mind with our views, our desires, and our fears. Nevertheless, the mystic dwells within, waiting to emerge.
The trouble is this mystic will not emerge if you spend all your free time seeking entertainment and chase after pleasures of one sort or another. Some people claim they are fighting for social justice, but even this is a shadow no more real than a video game or a Hollywood film. What validation or lasting acceptance does it bring to be a moral crusader?
The thing about a shadow is it doesn’t not exist. It only seems to exist because the Light is blocked or obstructed which reveals that shadow — but all you can do is point to it. The reality is this shadow does not exist, it is merely the absence of Light and not a thing in itself. Shine the Light down there and the shadow that you were pointing to is gone. Then you realize it was never there in the first place.
If you are an old soul, then you just need to wake-up to this fact. Conversely, if you are not an old soul — then getting to that stage of development is still possible, but you will need guidance. If you don’t understand the shadow is not real, then you are not ready to see the Light. Not everyone is ready to be a mystic, but you can get ready. This might take years of work, or it can come quickly. If you are not ready, that’s okay, just accept that about yourself. There is no blame, just be aware of it. Then, just by being aware the mystic is conceived, and that nascent xenobot will begin to grow.
We are faced with a choice. We can allow all the events of life to bring us down into despair and despondency or we can let go of all those negative thoughts about our circumstances and allow them to dissipate and disappear. The choice is between reciprocal narrowing or reciprocal opening; either we get defensive and contract or we relinquish grievances and expand.
Fate or Love
These are the two forces at work, both within us and outside of ourselves. The world responds to whichever force is dominant. Imagine we have two hands with which to experience the world. One hand has a grip on something that keeps us stable, grounded, and sane. The other hand is exploring the environment, searching for novelty and finding new things to touch and draw toward us.
Those objects, things, or ideas we grip with one hand allow us to let go and explore with the other. In this way we can swing from one bar to the next and cross the distance in between. Picture a child playing on monkey bars with his feet well above ground. In this analogy, the child is overcoming their fear of being groundless by laying purchase to the next bar, and the next until they safely cross the expanse of open space.
This is how our mind works, in order to flourish we need to lay hold of something new that will support our weight. Then after we obtain the optimal grip we can swing on to the new as we relinquish and let go of the old. These bars of our past were formerly our safety and security, but they can be forgotten, we need not cling to them any longer or they can become the prison bars of our virtual jail cell.
Ask yourself: are these thoughts I’m having right now useful? If the answer is no, then drop them and move on. Asking this question throughout the day and deliberately letting go of discursive thoughts is a simple form of mind training. It can switch off our deceptive intelligence and move our receptive intelligence from the background to the foreground.
Drawing out the mystic behind the ego mask that we are so enamored with is no easy task. It helps to become comfortable in a space of groundlessness, just like the child on the monkey bars. In other words, we need to be engaged in serious play. Once we do become comfortable with uncertainty, we are on our way to experiencing greater and greater peace, joy, and happiness.