The way that different minds react to spiritual truths is endlessly fascinating to me.
First up, I’ve got one of my own that is sometimes restful and at other times fights life; is occasionally quiet enough to let insight land but mostly is just chattering away to itself.
I remember years ago a first conversation with a potential client, where they were so affronted at me suggesting that “it’s all made up,” I never saw them again! (If a mind doesn't want to hear it, it'll skedaddle.)
And then there are times when I get schooled by a client, as happened the other day.
We’d been talking about moods and behaviour and other people and as I was reflecting my own experience, I said something like,
“I’ve just noticed that when I’m not caught up in a bunch of expectations—when I’m not really attached to my thinking—I just do better.”
“What’s ‘better?’ Better for whom?” they asked, innocently enough, and I was completely stumped.
It’s funny, because I entered the kind of state that my clients often find themselves in, when I ask innocent questions of them.
It threw me so utterly in that moment that it was impossible to answer, intellectually.
KTHUNK! … 😶
I was unceremoniously dumped off my current train of thought and sat there in nothingness for a bit.
“Oh. Hang on,” I said, basking in the space of insight with a slight grin on my face.
It feels so good to be wrong!!
And it slowly occurred to me that this was a case of:
- Mountain vs. No Mountain ⛰️
- Different floors of the Great Glass Consciousness Elevator ↕️
- Walking the invisible line between formless and form
Because of course there is no ‘better’ and ‘worse’ – those are just dualistic concepts, created by the mind.
What is, is.
I don’t get to choose my reactions, they were forged in the 14 billion year old chain of actions and consequences that started with the big bang (maybe before, for all we know).
There is only THIS.
🧘🏻♂️
And at the same time, that’s a load of old bollocks, isn’t it, when I’m busy yelling at my daughter ’cos I’ve had a crappy day and I no longer have the ‘luxury’ of self-medicating with alcohol to numb myself from ego’s needy bleating and endless rules.
No, we inhabit a world of form, with other people in it (even though we only ever actually experience our selves through them) and I’d be the first to admit that ‘it’s nice to be nice’!
Anything else is just using spirituality to bypass the human experience.
This is the beautiful paradox of this existence we lead: two seemingly opposing things can be true, at once.
Maybe getting comfortable with that is the key. It brings to mind some words from Alan Watts (my emphasis):
“What I would call a
‘Really swinging human being’
Is a person who lives on two levels at once.
He’s able to live on the level
Of being his ordinary ego
His everyday personality
And play his role in life
And to observe all the rules and so on
But if he’s only on that level
And thinks that’s all there is
It becomes a drag.
If we can … know also underneath this,
That we are the whole works,
You get a very marvellous and agreeable arrangement,
A most remarkable harmoniousness.
I mean it gives one’s life
A great sense of joy and exuberance
If you can carry on these two things at once.
If you, in other words,
You know that all the serious
Predicaments of life
Are a game.”
We are Human ➕ Being.
Humans, being.
The game's there to be enjoyed – remember to have fun!
😄
Giles
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Giles P Croft
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