Suffering Archives - Page 3 of 3

The Self That Seeks Awakening

September 5, 2016 by Chaitanya Leave a Comment

A recent post in praise of the ego was a wonderful reminder of something more subtle on the spiritual path. Although far more subtle, even our search for enlightenment and awakening can, and often does, have a self-serving mind state. “I want to awaken because I will be happier.” “I will have less suffering.” “I will be more special than those who are not awake.” “I can become a spiritual teacher.” There are many variations of this self serving approach. It is as if we expect the ego itself to awaken and become a better, more enlightened ego.

And there is much spiritual teaching that caters to and encourages this. We might call it “the enlightened self” or the “divine self”. And this is not bad or good. It may be a useful transition. When we realize that even the very best, most enlightened and most divine self cannot give us the peace, happiness and love we are searching for, we can begin to see through the dream completely.

It is natural for this self-serving to appear on the beginning of our journey. But, at some point, we realize this self-centered approach cannot get us very far. It is like a dog chasing its own tail. No matter how much effort we expend, we just end up going in circles.

Awakening is not for the ego; it is from the ego. It is a complete relaxation of all identification with this thought-based sense of a separate self. Because we have been so conditioned to believe this experience of a separate self is real, the undoing of this belief is not always so simple. This is what spiritual practice is for. We are not adding anything. We are simply removing conditioned illusions we have believed our entire life. We have been programmed. Spiritual practice is de-programming. It is not substituting a new and better belief. It is shedding all beliefs, so truth can be realized as itself in each moment.

There is nothing wrong with the ego or any illusionary thought. They are simply thoughts. It is only our belief in them as reality, our identification and our attachment that creates so much mischief and suffering in our lives.

To experience truth, simply relax all thoughts, all beliefs. Relax into what is always here. No thought, no belief, no ego, no separate self, no matter how “enlightened” or “divine”, can ever give you This. And when you do this, you won’t worry about the ego or the “enlightened” or “divine” self any longer. You will find something much more. And you will find that you and everything that exists have never, ever been separate from This. It is not your ego that has awakened. It it not your separate self that has come Home. It is you. And this you cannot even be imagined.

Thoughts and Emotions

September 3, 2016 by Chaitanya Leave a Comment

Normally we have three ways to deal with our thoughts and emotions.

We Indulge

We indulge in them. We let the completely take us over. If we have angry thoughts and emotions, we may shout or slam the door. If they are sad thoughts and emotions, we may cry or sulk or feel like a victim. If we have fearful thoughts and emotions, our body may tremble and our heart race. When we indulge in our thoughts and emotions, it feels like we have become the thought and emotion. We become lost in the thought or emotion and in this way thoughts and emotions rule our life.

We Resist

We may also resist thoughts and emotions that are unpleasant. We may avoid people or places that might trigger these thoughts and emotions. Or we repress the fact that we are even having this particular thought or emotion. This repression may offer limited temporary relief, but it doesn’t actually free us from these unpleasant thoughts and emotions. It simply stores the unpleasant thoughts and emotions in our body and in the unconscious part of our mind. This repression tends to have a very detrimental effect on our body, health, mind and life. You may have heard the expression, “What you resist persists.” Resistance actually only makes these unpleasant thoughts and emotions even stronger. Because we feel we need to resist them, we give them even more power over our life.

We Substitute

In New Age thought, it has become popular to substitute more pleasant thoughts and emotions for the negative ones. Create and repeat positive affirmations to change the negative affirmations that are already in place. Although this is a healthier and more pleasant way of dealing with unpleasant thoughts and emotions than repression, it still only offers limited and temporary relief. We are still avoiding the negative thoughts and emotions. When we do this we never learn the gifts these negative thoughts and emotions are bringing us. And we never really become free from their influence. No matter how many positive affirmations we repeat, these negative thoughts and emotions are still lurking around in the background.

It Takes Great Energy

Each of these three ways of dealing with thoughts and emotions takes enormous energy. And yet in spite of all the energy expended, these thoughts and emotions continue to affect our lives in negative ways. None of these three typical ways we deal with thoughts and emotions are effective.

The Fourth Way

And yet there is a fourth way to deal with thoughts and emotions that is highly effective, effortless and obvious. That is the Awakened Way.

The Awakened Way

The Awakened Way to deal with thoughts and emotions is simply to allow thoughts and emotions to be exactly as they are in each moment. We don’t repress, avoid, hide from or try to change anything. We also don’t get lost in the thoughts and emotions. We neither attach to the thoughts and emotions as we do when we indulge in them, nor do we resist them as we do in avoidance, repression and substitution. We simply be with all thoughts and emotions exactly as they are in each moment. We let them be what they are. That is the Awakened Way.

The Awakened Way neither attaches to nor resists anything. It lets everything come and go exactly as it is. In this way all thoughts and emotions become a great gift, teaching us the truth of what they are. By simply allowing all thoughts and emotions to be as they are in each moment, we realize that all thoughts and emotions are created from the exact same energy and cannot be separate from this energy that is their very substance. We may interpret this energy in many ways, such as fear, anger, sadness, joy or love. But the true substance of these emotions is always the same. It is none other than the infinite expanse of Pure Consciousness itself. Use any word you like for what I am calling Pure Consciousness. It is beyond all words. And yet it is the truth of what we and all beings are.

When we allow all thoughts and emotions to simply be exactly as they are in each moment without attaching or resisting, this relaxed allowing and seeing itself leads us back to the Pure Consciousness that we are. This is why all thoughts and emotions are a gift entirely for our benefit. If we get lost in thoughts and emotions or attempt to resist them, we can’t see this. None of them are anything but the pure infinite energy of Pure Consciousness. It is only our interpretation that makes them appear so different and sometimes very unpleasant.

The other great benefit of simply allowing all thoughts and emotions to be as they are is we clearly see there is no need to be attached to them or resist them. They come and go naturally as everything in nature does. In this way thoughts and emotions, which may have troubled us for years, no longer do. They simply come and go in each moment as all nature does. And their substance is none other than Pure Consciousness which is what everything that exists is. Thoughts and emotions can lead us back to this realization of Oneness. Instead of a burden, they are now seen as a gift.

Because we are neither attached nor resisting, we realize we are always free. Because we can never be separate from anything, including thoughts and feelings, we live in love with all of life.

Living an Awakened Life

September 2, 2016 by Chaitanya Leave a Comment

Living an awakened life is the simplest and most obvious thing in the world. It is brain-dead simple. What is incredibly difficult and complicated is not living an awakened life.

There are few essential, fundamental differences between living an awakened life and not living an awakened life.

Accept Life As It Is

Living an awakened life means you accept every moment of life exactly as it is. You don’t fight and struggle against life wishing it were different. Fighting and struggling with life and wishing it were different makes no sense at all. It is extremely difficult, complicated and creates enormous suffering. Life is always going to be exactly as it is in each moment. When you accept this completely, you don’t suffer. It couldn’t be more simple or obvious.

You Are Not Separate From Life

You don’t believe you are separate from life. You don’t imagine or feel that you are a separate being encased in a body, that you are here inside this body and the rest of life is outside. This is also simple and obvious. How could any person or anything be separate from life?

You Are Much Greater Than A Separate You

You recognize and experience that there is something much greater, infinite and eternal, beyond all thoughts, beyond space and time, without beginning or end and that neither you nor anything or anyone else is separate from this. And, although you could never describe it, you experience this as what you and everything else fundamentally are.

This may not seem as simple and obvious as the first two. But if you try to discover what is aware of seeing these words, what is aware of the sounds in your room, what is aware of everything, and you don’t rely on thoughts, because you won’t find it there, then, in this space between thoughts, you will discover this. And you will realize that this is the simplest and most obvious thing of all.

There are many practices on this website that can help guide you to the direct realization of these most simple and obvious truths. Because awakening is so fundamental to what we are, nothing is added. The practices simply strip away what obscures this obvious truth. Although the Journey to Awakening has a great deal of information, advice, practices and links, all of it is pointing to these three simple truths.

Map of Consciousness – Journey to Awakening

Living Awake

Simple Advice for a Happy Life

September 2, 2016 by Chaitanya 12 Comments

Accept life in each moment exactly as it is. That’s it. That will guarantee you a happy life. Simple, right? What most of us want is for life to accept our preferences and behave as we want it to. And if it doesn’t, we’re disappointed. If we really look objectively at this approach, we realize it is quite insane and can only lead to suffering.

In every moment, life is always simply what it is. This can never change. Life doesn’t care and will never care what we want it to be. So get on board. Join the winning team. Leave those preferences, shoulds and wish-it-were-differents behind. You are not a victim. You have never been a victim. Life is neither fair nor unfair. That’s just another thought that creates suffering.

Your judgments about what is good and what is bad are also just judgments. They have nothing to do with life or reality. Life is simply what it is in each moment and it cannot be other than that except in our fantasies.

When we don’t accept life as it is in each moment, we’re swimming up stream and the current of life is not only strong it always wins. So relax. Flow with it. If life were wrong or bad, or occasionally wrong or bad, or ever wrong or bad, or even not always working for your absolute and ultimate benefit, then you would not even be alive to read this right now. It was not your enormous skill, talent and brilliance that enabled you to live long enough to read these words. It was life itself, always entirely for your benefit. Your being alive in this moment is proof of this. If you stop resisting, I think you can discover a lot more proof if you simply look.

It doesn’t mean we can’t act, can’t improve our situation or the situation of others. Of course we can. But we will be far more effective if we stop resisting life and flow with it. Life is always working for the benefit of all. Joining life in this endeavor creates not only great effectiveness, but effortlessness. We call this being in the flow, flowing with life rather than struggling against it. Struggling against life, we can’t win … ever. It may be our conditioned habit to do this, to complain, to wish things were different. Has this ever worked? Has this ever made us or anyone else happy? Of course not. How could it? We’re simply fighting reality.

Recognize that life is really on your side, totally on your side. It always has been, no matter how it may seem to you. As you relax your resistance, your fear, your fighting and struggling, this will become more and more clear to you. And your life will become increasingly more effective and happy.

The End of All Suffering

August 25, 2016 by Chaitanya 4 Comments

Buddha taught that there was suffering and liberation from suffering. This video shows you exactly what that liberation is. All of our lives it has been staring us in the face. Life has never hidden this from us. May this video bring you the clarity you need to finally be free from suffering.

Why You Suffer

February 18, 2016 by Chaitanya 7 Comments

Here is a Persian carpet. Now you are looking at the whole carpet. You see the overall design and how it all fits together. But imagine your face was pressed up against the carpet and you could only see a small isolated part of it. Imagine further that you have taken a magnifying glass out or your pocket and you are looking at the small section you now see through the magnifying glass. Now image further that you are looking at that smaller section through a microscope. You are looking only at a section of one individual thread of this entire carpet.

Imagine further that you had never seen the entire carpet as is shown in this picture. Imagine you had only seen this single section of thread. Do you think you could describe the entire carpet and its design from looking only at this single thread? Of course not.

And this is exactly the view we have of life when we are lost in the dream. We have narrowed our focus so greatly that we can no longer see the big picture. We don’t even know the big picture exists except in our imaginations. We use words like God or All That Is or Enlightenment or the Cosmos to describe the big picture. But we don’t see it. All we see is a single thread. And this single thread we call our life, we call reality, we call all that is.

So awakening is simply seeing the whole carpet. We see the single thread. We see all the other threads. We see how the threads all work together to create the whole tapestry. We see all of this. We have a wide perspective. We have taken the blinders off or they have simply fallen off, which is much more likely. And now the entire carpet is available. We recognize what we had previously believed was all of life as only this single little section of thread. Yes, the thread is here too. But in the whole picture it is not nearly as important as we had thought. And also not disconnected from the whole carpet. That little section of thread is intimately linked to the whole thread and all the other threads.

When we experience our life as only this one isolated section of thread of course we suffer. Try as we have, it still really makes no sense. We don’t see the overall design so we can’t see our place in the design either. We don’t admit it to ourselves, but we really feel life is meaningless or we don’t know the meaning of it. We try through reading spiritual books to find some meaning. We even call it the “meaning of life” as if we need to find some Guru to explain it to us. Because it is all we can see, this single section of thread becomes extremely important. We do everything we can to protect it and keep it safe. In doing this we resist the rest of the thread in favor of this one tiny section and we resist the other threads connected to it. We end up terrified of and resisting the carpet itself. You can imagine how well one tiny section of thread of the entire carpet will fare when it resists the very carpet it is part of and one with. Not very well.

And this where suffering comes in. Suffering is the carpet’s way of pointing out the error of this extreme near-sightedness, this extremely narrow and limited view. That’s all it really is. It doesn’t matter what it appears to be to our limited view. Of course that will be distorted. We still can’t see the big picture. If instead of running away and resisting our suffering, we use it to point us back to the bigger picture, to expand our limited view, then we are using it correctly. The point of suffering is not to suffer. What would be the point of that? The point of suffering is to allow it to teach us, to open us, to expand our narrow and limited of view of life and what we are. When we feel we are only a tiny section of a single thread, we will inevitably suffer until we find out what we really are. Notice how the word “thread” and “threat” are only one letter apart. Interesting. What we really are is the whole carpet. The whole complete thing. And if we follow the pointers that suffering is always giving us, we will discover this too.

The carpet is made of threads. Threads like you. Threads like animals, trees and rocks. Threads like planets and solar systems. Threads like energy. Threads that are both form and formless. Nothing is left out of this carpet. And each thread both serves its individual purpose and is the whole entire thing at the same time. You cannot remove a single thread from this carpet and have it be the same carpet. This is why in reality nothing actually dies. But that may be a subject for another time.