The Last Day Before Semester 2 Starts

I've spent the past few weeks examless and a couple of weeks before that semi-examless, yet I don't feel I've gone into the mindset of being on holiday. I say mindset because while I have been aware of there being a lack of needing to go to university and to study, all that energy has just been reallocated into other thinking, and some into non-thinking, which has allowed me to realise some things. In no particular order.

1) I take things far too seriously. Somewhere along the way that I can call my life, I switched, likely unconsciously, a switch that made me take whatever happens in my life with heavier hands and more attentive eyes. I think there's two sides to this. One, the 'serious' things that happen to other people (and myself as well), cannot be avoided, and years of counselling and advice-giving has made me think twice about the way they appear. A smile can be a smile. But a smile can conceal. And often what we conceal is what we want to run away from, perhaps when we ought not to be running away from it. The possibility of there being something seriously wrong in someone's psyche has made me think twice about why people do what they do, why they say what they say. And this is where the other side of the issue is revealed, because this, when applied to the majority of situations, means both misinterpretation but also a tendency to overreact to what others do and say. Simple jokes, meaning drenched in sarcasm, become harbours for hidden agendas. A little paranoia, here. And then, bitterness, when I realise those jokes were jokes and I took them seriously. Disappointment at myself for making myself into a fool, but also anger, whether it be towards the jokers, or the jokes themselves, or myself, the butt. Thus a balance is needed, a balance that I believe now to be struck by trust. The trust that whoever has something serious to focalise on, will be assisted in their way by whoever is in the best position to help them. Consequently, I withdraw my responsibility for the actions and feelings of others. If I am needed, I will be there. If I am not, I will not. Amen.

2) There is a difference between loneliness and aloneness, one discovered and clarified by some quotes from Osho. Loneliness is always in relation to the other, and thereby focuses on a lack of the other that is felt as a lack of self. Aloneness, on the other hand, is not relying on another, and simply being aware of the self. So aloneness is not lonely, because it is with the self. And that self relationship is the well from which all things aligned arise at the right time to be met and acted upon. Loneliness is a reflection of dependency, dependency which I realised I was harbouring towards my friends and acquaintances, as well as towards my brother and parents. I'd grown up expecting things of them, and many times they met them, and many times they did not and so I felt cheated, abandoned, a victim at their feet, unseeing his responsibility, my responsibility, for my own actions. I need them. I need you. That is loneliness, and what I want from it would never be fulfilled. It is not difficult to understand, though I am seeing it is taking some time to cement itself in my consciousness, because I have not been used to thinking that aloneness and loneliness were different, and that the previous is positive while the latter negative. I got used to co-dependency, and it is only recently, through pain and surrender to that pain, that I discovered that my fulfillment and joy does not lie in someone else's hands and therefore does not depend upon anyone else's actions. Instead, it comes from within. And paradoxically, it is true to say I am never alone, but I am always alone, since the self-relationship is the only one which is always there, and the more conscious I become, the more rooted I will be, and thus, nurtured and nurturing.

3) "Be fully invested in an effort, but not attached to the outcome." The words of Marianne Williamson. I've found myself so easily carried away into thinking I must control outcomes because success or failure depended upon my efforts, but I have learned it is not so. What do I know what a success is and what a failure is, because after all, they can both happen at the same time, because they are simply different perspectives on the favorableness of an outcome? I can see that things can be seen both as 'good' and as 'bad', so somewhere along the way I must have decided that everything needs to be seen as 'good' in my eyes, and I thought the 'good' was inherent in the outcome and not in the way it is seen. So I tried to fix the outcome, instead of fixing my lenses. I think this 'control' then comes from a faulty sight, seeing untruth as the truth. Knowing, then, that the outcome is neither 'good' nor 'bad' but just is, I do not have to control it, knowing that life will play its part in using whatever outcome it may be to its best use where it is most appropriate, something I cannot judge, but something that awareness itself can. I am grateful for that. It allows me to focus on what I am doing now, instead of what will come about. This, I want to carry on. Though I may stumble, I will allow that, unconcerned about 'getting there' but simply participating on the journey.

4) Having said what I have said about dependency and its affecting my mentality by giving me expectations of others that they need not be burdened with, I am learning to become more independent. Aloneness is sheer independence, according to Osho. I am not saying I do not need to depend on anyone ever again - I need not wall myself in and just meditate for the rest of my existence as this form. What I mean, instead, is that I can relate to others without being attached to them, or what they might do (the outcome). This way, I am not possessive. When I am alone, conscious of myself as myself, independent and thus aware that I do not need anyone else for fulfillment, I can fully invest myself in an activity, whether it is solitary or whether it involves another person. And what will come of that is then of its own accord, perhaps using me as a vessel, but not of me as a form. Amazing things can happen when life flows through. It performs miracles, it permits everything, and guides what needs to be guided back towards itself. Being a vessel for that, is, I believe, the point of this all. It is peace, it is joy. And it does not rely on the serious, unstable, inconsistent, uncertain, me. I am grateful to be.

Growing Up, In

When we were outside, we'd find ourselves face to face with a gravity-defiant sea of space, pushing us down into the surface of the earth. We'd call that lying down, ears touching the blades of grass that still managed to tickle us while their neighbours were flattened by the weight of our burgeoning craniums. That was our affectionate relationship with nature, our childish imprint upon the ground, it allowing us to be like children. And now, we seem to have grown into something different, older, aware of what we've done by how we see that our surroundings have bent to our wills.

They have allowed our whimsies to shape them, without strife. At times we were hurt, yes, when we pushed too far. Nature would be on its way, though, regardless of what we thought our fortress-building or sculptural selves could achieve. And I think, close to the ground, then, we were being reminded that we, too, are on that same course. We call it life. Nature doesn't call anything anything. And in the realisation is a joining of wills.

We learn to allow, ourselves. That's growth. Then the sea is our yonder. Miracles glow from its depths, our depths.

Crossing Over

Faith, that little miracle,
Carried off the shelf
I don't know where I'm holding it
But, ye hover, permeate.
I am dead.
Ye know, ye recognise,
Rejoice that it's today,
That I died yesterday.

Faith, hold on to these reins
As I sit back in the chariot.
I promise,
I'll go where you take me.

Ominous Wish

I want to bring water from the source in my cupped palms to those who are stranded on the shore, gasping for a mouthful of that all-restoring substance. I don't care if some of it drips out through the thenar gap or the spaces between my fingers, there will still be enough to quench the thirst of those who are dying, impaled in place by the spear of their senseless habits, or those who are still looking for the stream, not knowing that it runs just beside them. I want them to drink so that I can share the solution of life with them and finally wash our problems away like dirt off our skin. I want us to be clean, not dirtied by the dust we make when we fight amongst ourselves on the land. I want the children that line up to take a swim in the stream to all just dive into the flow and be taken away to wherever the current heads. I can imagine swimming elsewhere, encountering drought sooner or later, hitting the dam I would build in front of myself so I would have some obstacle to overcome. I would not perish there while I can still drink and bathe in that which life deems most precious, its miracle panacea. I want to cure the ailments of those who cannot find breath in the oxygen that surrounds their weakened bodies. I want to follow the course where it leads, pulling those marooned ashore into the river where they may drown and become part of it. I want to give the gift that was given me, that I would receive it myself by seeing the seedlings grow into saplings, and the parts become whole.

Viens

This lack, this lack I feel is like nothing that is real. It wants me to be free to be enslaved. It wants something? How does it want something when it isn't something real? Twist not, knots. Preen some feathers further away from distraction, into solitude. Crayons, landslide, epitome, sustenance, spelling mistakes with the arrows of ink. Emotion.

Compris? Moi, non plus. Le point? Aucun. Surprise!

I have said before, there is no gap here. I have continued to perceive one, for I have thought it served me, but it is increasingly dawning on me that there is no gap and there is no need for a gap. A gap is a void, and a void is empty. Why would we need such an illusion when what we would have it filled with is here all along, untouched? I don't have an answer because there is none, as there isn't supposed to be - remember, it is a void. Voids are empty, therefore as unwelcome as they might be, they are still barren and desolate. And I am not. So I do not belong there, but where love is.

So love, I invite you. You are shining your light and I am beginning more and more to see it. I want this miracle, and I have it. Love, come.

Viens. Mes bras sont ouverts, et mon coeur est le tien.