Growing up one of the things we learn as soon as our minds
can grasp anything is good and bad, as we grow older .The good we label as
light, godly or good and
most popularly acceptable. The
bad we label as evil, darkness or bad or simply unacceptable. We train our
minds to live in duality, we condition our minds for years and all through life
this becomes our way of life. We pass it down generations and it has survived
well since as some people want to call it Garden of Eden. There are always winners and losers, friend
or foe, positive or negative, man or woman, heaven or hell. Are they really two
opposing sides? Or are they more like land and ocean? Are they more like night and day? Sun and
stars?
The sun does not set nor rise, and most of the times the day
is equal to the night. The earth simply rotates away from the sun. When you go to the beach the water is flowing
on top of land. If you were to walk into the ocean sooner or later you lose
your touch with the ground. It does not mean the land seizes to exist below the
water. Imagine a diver or a submarine literally on the floor of the ocean on
its deepest part are they not in touch with the land covered by the massive
waters.
Just like day and night are so are we, two sides of the same
coin. Those who grew up going to church like myself were repeatedly taught to
be good. Even in our homes we were taught to be good is the only acceptable way
of life. The whole point of existence of the law is to ensure we do the right thing.
For those who cannot differentiate the two the law, rules and regulations exist
for that very purpose. So in this world duality rules and everything and
everyone has two sides. Two sides of the same coin. All our lives we have been
taught to allow only one side. Can you imagine if the night did not exist,
assume it was daylight all the time or alternatively assume it was night all
the time? I don’t know about you but one
of the most beautiful things I love about this planet is watching the stars at night. I imagine those who
discovered space and that there was more than our planet did so at night. To
gaze at the stars at night and know that earth is just one of the bodies in the
Milky Way is a mind numbing marvel. The stars, the moon, the sun are all parts
of the earth experience.
The reason for going into details about all this is to drive
the point home, both night and day exists within each and every one of us. If
your life was threatened it is the dark part of us that would make and have
made some people fight back. Some people call this self-defense, it simply is
our dark part reacting. Is fear a good thing or a bad thing? In most
communities some people attribute fear to being cowardly. Fear however causes
you to react, example if you were attacked by a wild animal fear causes flight.
In some instances however fear holds us back, in some cases it contains us in
our comfort zone. However can one be truly one hundred percent without fear of
some kind?
We think and live based on duality, we forget head and tails
are two different sides of the same coin. What happens when you realize that
there are feelings that arise from within you involuntarily yet are
unacceptable by others? For example
parts of your personality that are inborn yet you can do little to change. Some
people have embraced one side while suppressing the other. Of course this
creates an imbalance. When you suppress
that which you are naturally how can you live a holistic and authentic life? I believe what we need is a balance not to deny
or suppress either side.
Think of anger, when you last felt so angry about something
or someone. Why were you angry? Looking in my own life I realized I feel angry
when my boundaries are violated. When
people do things to us that provoke something inside of us we get angry. We do
not get angry because of someone words but what they awaken inside us. There is
an energy dormant within us that has been stirred. Anger then is helpful as it
helps in setting boundaries, what makes us angry can point us to issues within
us we need to deal with.
For example, Jealousy is an emotion we have been taught is
bad and evil. Feeling jealousy can lead to doing bad things
and maybe it does that in some cases. It is as some people would call it evil. In fact growing up going to church I can
still hear in my memory our church school teacher telling us how Cain jealousy
caused him to Kill Abel and hence was cursed forever. The first human murder
according to the bible caused by jealousy. This translated to me fearing the
feeling, hating and suppressing it for a very long time. Worse of all
pretending it did not affect me, sadly it is one emotion that seemed to arise
involuntarily like many other emotions.
One day this week I made a decision to allow myself to feel
without judging the feeling , I
gave myself permission to feel even the unacceptable. It seemed my body and
mind complied for I felt jelous of even small things. This was odd, normally I
don’t find myself feeling this way often. The truth is not only did I dislike the word, I
thought it was a weakness, it showed I had not accepted myself and who I am.
All my life I suppressed it. Suppressing an emotion does not mean the energy
that is the emotion goes away it just settles in our bodies. We carry it around
everywhere we go, it lies dormant until something happens to awaken it. Is it
possible I wonder to control the feelings that arise involuntarily from within
us? If you ever found yourself feeling jealous
what did you do? I also realized
I felt jealous of people I had no reason to feel jealous of. There was nothing
about their lives that matched with mine except above all else we are one.
However in this world of duality we were simply on different course yet why?
Once I heard a friend got a great job and was doing well and I felt jealous
.Why I wondered, I was not looking for
the promotion or to climb the social ladder they were climbing. Once I felt jealous
of how a workmate seemed capable of fitting in and doing small talk with
everyone. Why? I dislike small talk, I simply don’t know how to engage in one, not
for lack of trying .I also find them very empty. How could I engage in small
talk with someone if I can sense and feel the truth behind every word they say.
If I know how they feel at this point in time. If they are lying, if they are
pretending, kissing ass or trying too hard. My nature would simply not allow
me. I feel more than small talk allows. Then I realized there is jealous and
envy and I used both interchangeably to mean the same thing.
There is another part of me inside sieving through what am
receiving and not just making commentary but judging. To be judgmental is a bad
thing that is what I was taught .However, quite often than not how I judge what
am perceiving turns out to be true. Why feel jealousy of people who we have so
little in common, I most certainly do not want what they have. I realized these
people simply reminded me how far from achieving my dreams I felt I was. Feeling
jealous did not mean I did not want them to achieve or be where they were it
simply provoked my longing to achieve my
own desires while at the same time provoking that feeling inside of doubt and
fear of failing . What they had that I wanted was success but my own success in
my own quest was nothing like what they had achieved.
When a man or woman feels jealous of her or his lover, simply
that which is causing jealousy is
provoking something that already exists inside them. Insecurity, fear of losing
this other person. Insecurity is one thing we have all struggled with, at one
time or the other. So long as the
unknown exists then we can never truly feel totally secure in ourselves leave
alone in this world. Tomorrow represents the unknown for no one truly knows what
tomorrow will bring. Most of us humans
live almost all our lives looking and waiting for
tomorrow, doing everything for tomorrow. Interesting to note here that the sun
never sets nor rises hence tomorrow is a mind conditioning. There is only now,
a continuous ongoing now. We permit ourselves to feel the unacceptable so it
can point us onto our true selves.
Some of us live all
our lives trying to be good, believing we are good. Others have embraced their
darkness and live their lives in darkness always. Someone said there is a very
thin line between love and hate. Hence no matter how hard we try to be good and
manifest our goodness once in a while our darkness will come out. Since we
always suppress it we will have no idea what to do with it. Today if I feel a
situation is making me angry I choose to keep quiet, or walk away. Experience
has taught me when am angry I say and do things that are sometimes totally out
of line. Emotions are neither good nor
bad, they simply are alive within us . If an emotion arises no matter how hard
we try to suppress it. It arises from within us for a reason. We can either
allow ourselves to experience it or suppress it.
I once had a boss I could not stand, there was something
about him I truly disliked. I disliked how he handled things, but there was
something in the way he did things, simplicity. I disliked simplicity, I am not sure why but whenever
somebody told me I was simple, or commented on my simplicity, I hated it. I
grew to dislike it so much that I disliked people like my boss. I wanted to be sophisticated and complex, yet
naturally no matter how complex something is I always try to find a way to
simplify it. I find ways to make it easy to understand for whoever it is am explaining
it to. I try to use lay man language so to speak in simple terms I want things
to be easy to understand for everyone.
The other thing my boss had was loyalty to our employer. If you were to
choose a team would you not choose those who are loyal to you. Being loyal to a
course does not mean one cannot be fierce .It does not make you weak. I did
have a lot in common with my boss, I just refused to accept these qualities
because I interpreted them using my conditioning. They appeared to be weaknesses. Being loyal I
interpreted as ass kissing which it could have been but in this case it
actually wasn’t. Being simple I interpreted as weakness.
Imagine a thermometer, it measures both cold and warmth. It
has a zero mark which can go down to read negative or up to read hot. Now
imagine cold represents evil, while warmth represents good. Cold or warmth are
both in the same continuum that is why there is only one gadget to measure
either. So is being good or bad , there are all in the same continuum we just
tend to rotate towards one side, mostly
depending on our conditioning. When you lose weight the weighing scale goes down,
when you gain weight it goes up.
Next time you feel angry, or jealous if you can manage not
to be swallowed and controlled by the emotion, don’t fight it either observe
it. As it arises within you, close your eyes and feel it. Let it point you to
the truth inside you . It lives within you, not outside it is as real and true
as those good and acceptable feelings you allow yourself to feel. It is the
only way to bring darkness to light not by covering it.
What happens when people go to a confession, or simply tell
the truth? It is simply shining light to the dark. Shine the light of
consciousness to your darkness by permitting yourself to feel all that arises from within.
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