Month: May 2019

The effects of a simple choice

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There was one moment in my childhood that seemed insignificant at the time, but it has come to my awareness many times in my adult life. Maybe because it symbolizes a very specific kind of experience and choice.

I was on the third grade in primary school and we had a sports competition day where everybody was supposed to participate on a chosen event. Mine was 1000m running. It was something I felt pretty comfortable with, but on the way to school I felt I could not go and participate at all. I drove my bike around for some hours just to spend the time somehow. Later I had to make up excuses why I was not there and effectively lie about the situation and even try to get my mom involved with signing a paper that I was sick although she knew I had not been sick.

That decision to turn away and escape from the uncomfortability of a competition turned into an experience of shame, manipulation and deceit. Instead of momentary uncomfortability I created an experience that I carried with me for a long time. At challenging times the egoic thoughts of limitation brought that memory back reminding me that turning away from challlenge is ok and that I have done that in the past.

The inner dialogue in all of us is filled with such events from the past. Some more conscious than others. Our choices build the inner structure of the mind that we rely upon. Many times those little things that we judge to be insignificant and small and where we think that making a compromise won´t hurt are the ones that leave a very definite impression in our nervoussystems. One that begins to define us creating a clear boundary on the inside that we then call our personality.

In hindsight I felt that it would have been a smarter choice to just face the challenge. But if I am to use that experience to my benefit there is no point in judging it or wishing I did something different. It can be used as a reminder of the importance of choice. Integrity creates cohesion and stability. The more that we are able to make choices from inner awareness and clarity, the easier it is to navigate in life. There is only this moment to make those choices.

Practising Ascension has been an integral part of creating a more cohesive inner landscape. A more objective awareness that can be a witness to the experience of life at all levels. Even the experiences of the past come to be perceived in a new light as the stresses are removed. The ability to learn from every experience, whether it was originally judged good or bad, increases with the growing inner awareness of consciousness.

Nataraja

Speaking the truth

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In our everyday communications there are endless opportunities to be truthful about our feelings, thoughts and experiences. And many times, maybe most of the time, we end up choosing the seemingly easier path where we just don’t go there at all or soften things up thinking that it will make things easier for everybody.

That, anyway, is what I keep facing and seeing places where honesty and directness are absolutely fantastic tools to apply. Fear is what keeps us from moving into that direction because when there is a stronger flow in a situation there is also less control over what happens. Of course the idea of being in control is a mere fantasy, but one that most people cling onto for dear life. And ironically, perhaps, that is how we loose the ability to be truly alive, because of the desire to be in control.

When we think of children it is easy to see how innocent and truthful they can be in their expression. The conditioning and filters of various kinds are not yet effectively in place and for a short period the child is able to express very truthful things in a simple and direct way. Returning to a similar state of innocence as adults is what creates the opportunity for honest expression. 

How to be innocent when our minds are cluttered with past experiences and beliefs and thoughts about ourselves and the world? How to express anything clearly when it has to move through so much of inner landscape that is in turmoil?

If innocence is at the center of our own being then in order to experience it one must go where it is – inwards. We are at this point masters of the outward movement of the mind which has to do with everything in our worlds of sensory experience. But so much of the inner is left unconscious because we are not there to pay attention to it.

So to move inwards there has to be a path and a way to do it and of course there is. Those who have mastered consciousness and are beyond the confines of the limited experience of the waking state self have given us something to work with to reverse this flow of continual outward movement back inside toward the innocence of Being.

As we gain more access to that innocence that is present in us, and has been at all times, we naturally become more truthful and more expressive of what is real in our lives and what we see around us. Then every day we see more and more opportunities to pay attention to what is real and be present. 

Nataraja