Most of us have been invaded and shamed from birth. Our acceptance of ourselves and belief in our common instinctive core have been overshadowed. I think this is where we were first turned from the garden path, and were we can start our return.
There have always been utopians dreaming of something better, artists longing for Nirvana through their work. Some tell stories of reincarnation, implying a grander purpose to it all, and some speak of salvation implying a need to escape this life. Scientists watch the cosmos in wonder and philosophers ponder everything. Such people sense there is more, they search for God.
More ordinary people, living practical mundane lives, sometimes waking from a dream or walking in the woods or standing in the rain may feel a sudden rush. Something mysterious happens, someone from the other side is knocking. There is no data and no logic, but most have an overwhelming sense that they are not alone sometimes. It doesn't feel like a heavenly God to me, more like a timeless earthy all encompassing presence. It brings to mind my lost loved ones, my father, my wonderful uncle. I had the following experience.
I was starting home from a visit with a loving friend. It had been a wonderful few days and now I drove along the road listening to the blues. The sun was shinning and I starting singing my own song. I had recently learned to dwell on feelings of gratefulness during these moments, to extend the high, and my song expressed this feeling. An intensity came over me, a sort of sad optimism, it seems now like repentance. Tears began to flow uncontrollably and I was singing "thank God"!
I don't believe this message was from above! Like the scientist's curiosity and the philosopher's belief in logic and everyone's sudden chill while embraced by nature, the message seemed to come from inside. It was Jung's collective subconscious, it was an enchanted moment from my own childhood, it was my own soul breaking through the wall.
These poetic words are all I have to express this certain feeling. It is sad, yet optimistic like the tears of lovers who come together after a long separation. It overwhelms everyday concerns and leaves me awe struck, as if suddenly confronted with a flying saucer.
When we surrender our selves to external forces, as we must as children, self esteem becomes a product of other people. The quality of our lives depend upon the maintenance of the environment, external control, i.e. other people. Good feelings come from out there along with security, love, God! We develop a conditional confidence based upon our successful control of the outside. We become manipulators, used car salesmen, promising whatever we must, inflating our worthiness, in our lust for external reassurance. We build material monuments to ourselves, put letters after our name, drive the right car, dress for success, all in the hope of receiving a fleeting glance of admiration. But no amount of puffing or investment in the outside can fill the whole where our inner guide once resided. It is never enough, always precarious, and so we live with an undercurrent of fear. What most people call pride is little more than the temporary relief from shame. We cling to it like a drug. Ironically, the higher we exalt ourselves, the more irascible will be our shortcomings. If we could be so driven that we achieved all that we might imagine, the drain on others for their admiration would exhaust them. They would withdraw, resent our success, and leave us.
We may claim great intelligence and freedom of thought. We can be "anything we want to be"! The more success or intellect we enjoy, the more we celebrate our man made self, the more difficult it is to see our errors. It is this arrogance that led us from the garden to begin with, that made us feel superior to the animals, thereby loosing our animal selves. Arrogance caused our disdain for more natural people as primitive savages, and so we lost sight of our origins. Arrogance caused us to create a God in our image, which distracts us from the God we all are inside. And the higher we exalt ourselves externally, the more ingrained becomes our addiction.
We must continue, I believe, by recognizing the bankruptcy of petty pride, the shallowness of external success, and turn our attention inward with a new faith in ourselves. This change can not occur as an act of will! Not through intellect or success. Another irony -- we can only gain true confidence by giving up the pretense of it, by letting go of pride, by humbly surrendering to a higher power. It is our will and our ego that must surrender, and it is the innocent child within that will come to our rescue.
We must be on guard for denial in our journey, denial that masks the painful truth and keeps us following the path to nowhere.
We must find courage, to face adversity and build character and genuine confidence.
We must be aware of the distractions that cloud our thinking or help us hide from ourselves.
But we need something more specific! It will not do to wait for touchy feelies to rescue us. My plan is to continue reading writing discussing in order to find more truth and unveil more lies. Things do begin to show through once the cloud of civilization settles. We can work through "creative visualizations", relive what we find "Digging in the Dirt", try a counselor, pound away on the keys with the whole Internet there for us. Our belief in the road home grows as we succeed.
A small cadre of seekers are on the edge of a tremendous revolution. This is no longer the atomic age or the information age. This is the age of self enlightenment. It may have started with Shakespeare or Freud or Neiche, but this is the time for massive social change which will overshadow the renaissance.
Self understanding and acceptance and freedom are now for those who see it. For some, the first step is knowledge. We must see how we have been diverted by entrusting truth to others, to institutions. We must listen more intently to the unorthodox, to our inner voices, and seek out our mistakes. To avoid a problem is the surest way to strengthen it. Facing adversity may bring shame and tears, but such will fade into laughter, all will becomes silly, and we will get younger and lighter as we accept into consciousness, that which we already know inside. The truth shall set us free.
Truth comes to us on multiple levels. Intellectual understanding is a word game, a verbal matrix that tries to embody life. It can be powerful and well disciplined and logically reviewed. Intellect has been overemphasized however, and other powerful sources have been suppressed.
Emotions form a critical channel of information. Our feelings form immediate innate judgments, and they are aligned with our nature and our innate purpose. In this society, they are distrusted, but they decide wheither we sleep tonight or enjoy tomorrow or go on living the rest of our life! The price of continued discipline (or suppression) of our emotions is not always apparent, but it is always high.
We can be intellectually sure of the safety of an airplane yet fear flying. On the other hand, we may be sure of the danger of driving without a seat belt, but may do so fearlessly. We are familiar with the war between emotions and intellect, but these two channels are not inherently enemies.
When a project is really right for me, I feel its rightness as much as know it. When a woman is right for me I know it as much as feel it. When emotion and intellect are together I am enthusiastic, committed, energetic, optimistic. When there is no conflict, there is no laziness, no fear, and no need for discipline.
All is wrong when in conflict. We know we should not drink, smoke, eat. Discipline and good intentions may help us toe the line for a while, but they inevitably give way to failure and self hate. It is not nature's plan that doing the right thing be so hard. It isn't hard to love someone. It isn't hard to help the kids or buy our partner a gift or take Mom to dinner. Some right things feel right as well. I am convinced that we can reach a state were what we know is right to do; we feel right doing! The trick is to understand our emotional side with the same elaborate rational as our intellectual side. Just as tolerance of others makes our life less stressful, so does tolerance of our other selves.
And there is that other channel, the other consciousness.
Remember!
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