I can tell you to drop your story of me, but you will not do it. You are still too attached to it. I can tell you that this story is the sole and only cause of your suffering but you will not completely believe or accept this. You are still too attached to your story to really see what it does to you. When you experience suffering you seek relief by trying to improve, change, fix or heal your story. If we’re honest, this is the motivation for all spiritual practices and learning, isn’t it?Until you experience what life is like without a story, any story, you will be terrified of losing your story, of losing all you know, and you will cling to it no matter how much suffering it inevitably brings. I cannot offer you security for the mind or a better story. What I offer will always remain a mystery. It is the end of the mind’s ability to figure it out, to figure anything out. For the mind this is absolutely terrifying. I won’t sugar coat it. You are giving up all control.
I can only tell you that you never had any control. That was just an illusion, part of your story. I can also tell you that you never needed any control. Everything has always been perfectly OK, no matter what your story says. Everything has always been perfect.
I can also tell you that somehow, when all stories are gone, especially the story of a separate me, everything you ever truly searched for in your story of me is right here and you realize it always has been. I mean what you really searched for deep in your heart, freedom, peace, love, happiness, completeness, wholeness, perfection. When you believed you were a unique, limited, individual self separate from all of life, what you were separating yourself from was this wholeness, this freedom, peace, love and happiness, this unlimitedness. You were separating yourself from what you longed for. You were separating yourself from what you truly are.
I can recommend you drop your story of a separate me so you can finally find what you have been searching for “in all the wrong places”. But you will not do this. You are still too attached. The story of me takes on an almost infinite variety of disguises. As we enter the spiritual domain, it will quickly take on the story of the “spiritual me”. You will even try to dress up the story of me as enlightened as a way to avoid actually surrendering this story of me.
There are really only two ways you will finally drop the story of me. The first is when the inevitable suffering of the story of me becomes so intolerable you are on the verge of suicide. The story of me, the ego, would rather you physically die then let go of this story and wake up. That is how strong this attachment is. But you may make the choice to wake up instead of commit suicide as Eckhart Tolle and many others did. As I did.
The second way is easier and less painful. You experience the absence of the story of me through some traumatic event that strips you of all imagined control and rips the story of me from your tight grasp. Or when you are ready enough, usually due to some variation of the suffering mentioned above, you find an awakened spiritual teacher and devote yourself completely to practices that systematically strip away the illusion of control and the sense of a separate me. You enter a program of de-programming or de-conditioning. At first this freedom from the story of me is limited to short and temporary experiences. But even these short and temporary experiences are so wonderful you are drawn to want more. Even a small taste of Truth is exquisitely beautiful when you have been living in a dream.
And, as you experience Truth more and more, you naturally prefer this to the dream and a gradual process of awakening occurs.
For most of us, as it was for me, it is some combination of these two ways. Don’t underestimate the power of a story believed in and attached to. It is why so few humans ever awaken from this dream of the story of me. And it is why, once we do awaken, we devote our lives to helping others. It is an amazing revelation that what our heart truly seeks has always been here. It has only been hidden beneath the layers of a story, a dream an illusion.
I can tell you to drop your story of me, but you will not do it. You are still too attached to it. I can tell you that this story is the sole and only cause of your suffering but you will not completely believe or accept this. You are still too attached to your story to really see what it does to you. When you experience suffering you seek relief by trying to improve, change, fix or heal your story. If we’re honest, this is the motivation for all spiritual practices and learning, isn’t it?
Until you experience what life is like without a story, any story, you will be terrified of losing your story, of losing all you know, and you will cling to it no matter how much suffering it inevitably brings. I cannot offer you security for the mind or a better story. What I offer will always remain a mystery. It is the end of the mind’s ability to figure it out, to figure anything out. For the mind this is absolutely terrifying. I won’t sugar coat it. You are giving up all control.
I can only tell you that you never had any control. That was just an illusion, part of your story. I can also tell you that you never needed any control. Everything has always been perfectly OK, no matter what your story says. Everything has always been perfect.
I can also tell you that somehow, when all stories are gone, especially the story of a separate me, everything you ever truly searched for in your story of me is right here and you realize it always has been. I mean what you really searched for deep in your heart, freedom, peace, love, happiness, completeness, wholeness, perfection. When you believed you were a unique, limited, individual self separate from all of life, what you were separating yourself from was this wholeness, this freedom, peace, love and happiness, this unlimitedness. You were separating yourself from what you longed for. You were separating yourself from what you truly are.
I can recommend you drop your story of a separate me so you can finally find what you have been searching for “in all the wrong places”. But you will not do this. You are still too attached. The story of me takes on an almost infinite variety of disguises. As we enter the spiritual domain, it will quickly take on the story of the “spiritual me”. You will even try to dress up the story of me as enlightened as a way to avoid actually surrendering this story of me.
There are really only two ways you will finally drop the story of me. The first is when the inevitable suffering of the story of me becomes so intolerable you are on the verge of suicide. The story of me, the ego, would rather you physically die then let go of this story and wake up. That is how strong this attachment is. But you may make the choice to wake up instead of commit suicide as Eckhart Tolle and many others did. As I did.
The second way is easier and less painful. You experience the absence of the story of me through some traumatic event that strips you of all imagined control and rips the story of me from your tight grasp. Or when you are ready enough, usually due to some variation of the suffering mentioned above, you find an awakened spiritual teacher and devote yourself completely to practices that systematically strip away the illusion of control and the sense of a separate me. You enter a program of de-programming or de-conditioning. At first this freedom from the story of me is limited to short and temporary experiences. But even these short and temporary experiences are so wonderful you are drawn to want more. Even a small taste of Truth is exquisitely beautiful when you have been living in a dream. And, as you experience Truth more and more, you naturally prefer this to the dream and a gradual process of awakening occurs.
For most of us, as it was for me, it is some combination of these two ways. Don’t underestimate the power of a story believed in and attached to. It is why so few humans ever awaken from this dream of the story of me. And it is why, once we do awaken, we devote our lives to helping others. It is an amazing revelation that what our heart truly seeks has always been here. It has only been hidden beneath the layers of a story, a dream an illusion.
Leave a Reply