I Do Not Feel Abandoned

Mike, because I learn so much from you and trust and respect you so much I am always surprised that our parallel experiences occasionally twist and turn in a way where I do not understand you at all.  I don’t think I feel abandoned by you, even on my worst days.  I know what you mean when you say Jane saved your life by helping you find the courage to leave.  I imagine you feeling terribly trapped in a home that felt like it was suffocating you, every day.  And you stayed for a while, out of guilt?  Obligation?  Fear?  I have been there before; Loren calls it “giving in”; When you sit in someone else’s sickness, although it torments you every moment, in order to take care of them.  It drives you not only into pain but into unconsciousness.  How can that be good?  Of what use are you to anyone if you are as confused by your aching as the person you are loyally trying to help?  I am not asking you to have “given in”, to have stayed and worked things out.  I don’t want that, but I want you to know that taking care of each other doesn’t have to cost us anything.  For people that are looking to know themselves, the allure of martyrdom can wrestle with the inexperienced.  But this behavior is an incorrect shadowing (or a misinterpretation) of those great people who found themselves before us.  I still do not know what you meant when you said that honesty is not of the highest value.  I will tell you what I mean when I say that it is:  When we move through the world, operating from the deepest, most genuine parts of ourselves (or in other words when we live honestly) ‘taking care’ of the people around us is a natural consequence.  It does not take effort.  It is the only thing that makes sense for us to do and it actually gives us energy because it strengthens our submission to the flow of things.  “To give is better than to receive” is not a moral saying.  It describes the state where there is no wanting for the self.  Why is there no wanting?  Because you realize that you already have everything you need.  You are whole on your own.  And you see, all around you, how people keep themselves from this very simple, very natural state.  You see how people hold themselves down.  It becomes very clear and it’s a very natural thing to do to point them in a direction that may help them climb out of it.  You may know what I mean and feel that you cannot ‘achieve’ (as you might put it, haha) this state, which I am assuming still looks to you like goodness, like the opposite of selfishness.  It is selflessness in a very literal sense.  It is to be without self.  Or to be without believing in self.  And it has nothing to do with a choice to be good.  At some point the choice to be good becomes a barrier to your connection with ‘god’.   

I know I said things boldly to you on the phone and I hope that my own softness did not escape you.  And believe me when I say that I think of you and feel soft.  Your pain is my pain and whether I would wish that or not, it always will be.  When I appear to be impatient with you it is only because it is clear to me that you are off course.  It is still hard for me to understand why you or anyone would find avoidance to be the least painful solution to your losses.  As I said before, the avoidance of these issues has created a murky mess, far more painful than the truth could ever be.  But choosing to face things is not about feeling better (although that is coming).  It is about choosing life over staleness.  I am so happy that you “abandoned” your family.  I am so happy that you found yourself, even when it meant somehow letting me go. You are mistaken if you think that I am being brave; No I am only being honest. This is my only wish for you; that you will stay close to your soul.  Which is why I ask you now, why you would go through all of that pain only to turn your back on yourself again?  When you feel pain, smile at it.  Are you sure that it hurts?  Mike, you do not have to fear it;  Honesty is the least frightening of places.  I am here for you, whether in your mind you have abandoned me or not; and not in order to be good or to take the high road over your low (and I do not believe that things are this way) but because this is the way that the moments are unraveling.  The moment is where my loyalties lye.  And for that reason you can feel confident that you will always have me.  

Quotes

”Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much. Language consists of five basic sounds produced by the vocal cords. They are the vowels a, e, i, o, u. The other sounds are consonants produced by air pressure: s, f, g, and so forth. Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are, or the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even what a tree or stone is in its depth?” –Eckhart Tolle

Draw near to your heart and words can only point to it.  Below is a compilation of just a few of the many wise words that have been spoken throughout history by just a few of the many wise people.  These men and women have been saying the same thing.  Void of rules and explanation they are speaking the unutterable. 

Ideology:

“People kill and are killed because they cling too tightly to their own beliefs and ideologies. When we believe that ours is the only faith that contains the truth, violence and suffering will surely be the result.” –Thich Nhat Hanh

“Dogmas--religious, political, scientific--arise out of erroneous belief that thought can encapsulate reality or truth. Dogmas are collective conceptual prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because they give them a sense of security and a false sense of "I know." –Eckhart Tolle

"People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don't suffer anymore." –Thich Nhat Hanh

 “For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.” 
― Thich Nhat Hanh

"Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and
healthy and happy."-- Kurt Vonnegut

“The secret of Buddhism is to remove all ideas, all concepts, in order for the truth to have a chance to penetrate, to reveal itself.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh

“Attachment to views is the greatest impediment to the spiritual path.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh

"Unconscious people – and many remain unconscious, trapped in their egos throughout their lives – will quickly tell you who they are: their name, their occupation, their personal history, the shape or state of their body, and whatever else they identify with. Others may appear to be more evolved because they think of themselves as an immortal soul or living spirit. But do they really know themselves, or have they just added some spiritual sounding concepts to the content of their mind? Knowing yourself goes far deeper than the adoption of a set of ideas or beliefs. Spiritual ideas and beliefs may at best be helpful pointers, but in themselves they rarely have the power to dislodge the more firmly established core concepts of who you think you are, which are part of the conditioning of the human mind. Knowing yourself deeply has nothing to do with whatever ideas are floating around in your mind. Knowing yourself is to be rooted in Being, instead of lost in your mind." – Eckhart Tolle

Worldly Riches Don’t Matter:

“What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?” –Jesus

“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven” -Jesus

“Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money, power, and influence.” -Henry Chester

“Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke

“My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.” -William Shakespeare

“Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.” -William Shakespeare

“All the things that truly matter — beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace — arise from beyond the mind” –Eckhart Tolle

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

Enemies:

“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.” -African Proverb

“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles.” –Buddha

“A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.” -William Shakespeare

“Perhaps everything terrible is, in its deepest being, something that needs our love.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke

“But I tell you this: Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” –Jesus

“For what you do to others, you do to yourself” -Eckhart Tolle. 

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” -Jesus

“If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else?” -Jesus

“Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.” -Buddha

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

“When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight.” 
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Love:

“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

“A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its image-making and self-seeking. In a genuine relationship, there is an outward flow of open, alert attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting whatsoever.” 
― Eckhart Tolle

Silence:

“Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.” –Eckhart Tolle

“Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.” -Buddha

“I am the rest between two notes.” -Rilke

“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.” -William Shakespeare

“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.” -Mother Teresa

"Silence is an empty space, space is the home of the awakened mind." - Buddha

"When you don't cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life" –Eckhart Tolle

The Difficult:

“Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.” -William Shakespeare

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” –Jesus

“So you mustn't be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety - like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in the palm of its hand and will not let you fall.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

“It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

“Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.” -William Shakespeare

"Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego." –Eckhart Tolle

Looking Within:

 “To end the misery that has afflicted the human condition for thousands of years, you have to start with yourself and take responsibility for your inner state at any given moment. That means now.” –Eckhart Tolle

“The only journey is the one within.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” –Jesus

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” -Buddha

“... keep growing quietly and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely than by looking outward and expecting from outside replies to questions that only your inmost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.”  -Rainer Maria Rilke

Presence:

“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” –Jesus

"Life is available only in the present. That is why we should walk in such a way that every step can bring us to the here and the now." –Thich Nhat Hanh

“Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.” -William Shakespeare

“It is better to travel well than to arrive.” -Buddha

“Forget about your life situation and pay attention to your life. Your life situation exists in time. Your life is now. Your life situation is mind-stuff. Your life is real”  -Eckart Tolle.

“Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment” –Eckhart Tolle.

"Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be" –Eckhart Tolle

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” 
― Rainer Maria Rilke

Pursuing Happiness:

“Happiness is like a butterfly, which, when pursue, is always just beyond your grasp.  But which, if you sit down quietly, might alight upon you.”  -Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Don't Seek Happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness”  -Eckhart Tolle

“Don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, don’t knock, don’t demand – relax. If you relax, it comes. If you relax, it is there. If you relax, you start vibrating with it.” ~Osho

Presence Through Example:

“Look at the birds above your head.  They neither plant nor reap, they neither store nor hoard, yet day by day they are provided with food.” –Jesus

“You must be a lotus, unfolding its petals when the sun rises in the sky, unaffected by the slush it was born in or even the water that sustains it.” -Sai Baba

“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke

“Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness.” –Eckhart Tolle

The Death of the Ego:

“If no one else, the dying must notice how unreal, how full of pretense, is all that we accomplish here, where nothing is allowed to be itself.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

“Death is a stripping away of all that is not you.  The secret of life is to “die before you die” — and find that there is no death” –Eckhart Tolle


“ His disciples asked him, "When will the rest for the dead take place, and when will the new world come?" He said to them, "What you are looking forward to has come, but you don't know it." –Jesus

 “There is no birth, there is no death; there is no coming, there is no going; there is no same, there is no different; there is no permanent self, there is no annihilation. We only think there is.” –Thich Nhat Hanh

"Until you die .. it's all life."- Kurt Vonnegut

“Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.” ― Eckhart Tolle

“The kingdom of heaven is spread out across the earth, only people don't see it.” –Jesus

“The kingdom of God is available to you in the here and the now. But the question is whether you are available to the kingdom. Our practice is to make ourselves ready for the kingdom so that it can manifest in the here and the now. You don't need to die in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. In fact, you have to be truly alive in order to do so.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” -William Shakespeare

“Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being.” –Eckhart Tolle

 “Even the least among you can do all that I have done, and greater things.” –Jesus

“When you reach the heart of life, you will find beauty in all things.” -Kahil Gibran

"...the ultimate purpose of the world lies not within the world but in the transcendence of the world" –Eckhart Tolle

"My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world." –Jesus

"There is the dream, and there is the dreamer of the dream. The dream is a short-lived play of forms. It is the world – relatively real but not absolutely real. Then there is the dreamer, the absolute reality in which the forms come and go. The dreamer is not the person. The person is part of the dream. The dreamer is the substratum in which the dream appears, that which makes the dream possible. It is the absolute behind the relative, the timeless behind time, the consciousness in and behind form. The dreamer is consciousness itself – who you are." –Eckhart Tolle

“The path of dying to self and being reborn leads to life abundant.” –Jesus