She's one of many, one of many many....Who I come in contact with and know there is something utterly amazing behind her experiences and perception. However, this clog, this inner repulsion pushes me away. Like the same sides on a pair of magnets I reach out to others and find this invisible force pushing me away. I'm running to the ends of the Earth and finding this magnetic field follows me the whole way...Frustration...I stutter and stumble wondering why I keep messing this up...What more can I do about this? My face and palms are the closest of friends at this point in the game...
But sitting in a bicycle rickshaw it all made sense...In order for me to conceptualize it I need to disregard cyclic time and have faith in the linear, left side, right hand of things...I keep finding that thing to connect to, even if its momentary, and it keeps kicking me in the teeth saying, "No! You can look but you can't touch." It mocks me. I just want this to be an ego trip but I keep getting my face shoved into the mud.
The biggest problem about all this though isn't the actuality of whats going on--I want to connect to you but something inside me won't open up--The problem is how I'm looking at it. And like I said, my perspective shifted in the rickshaw...It will shift back and I'll find my hands supporting my face once more but at least I caught a glimpse on the mental direction to take...I think...
What did I learn: This wasn't meant to be. As much as I want it to be it just wasn't...Or in other words, it had to happen just as it did....why? well, because I'm here and now and this is the life situation I'm dealing with...Acceptance of this. Acceptance of inner humiliation. So its like, if I did get what I wanted and I connected to this woman, or that dude from Finland at Breakfast this morning, or the Indian guy at the cafe, or the other 1.3 billion people inhabitants of this country that I'm too afraid to approach then I would get sucked into something instead of being hurled through a hellstorm of psychological suppression. And the only way out of the Mandala I voluntarily chose to enter into is..through...And I had a choice, I decided to do this. I don't mean India, I mean deal with what I'm dealing with. I could have left the box shut but I opened it, so fine, I'll deal with it. It could be worse, a lot worse.
Its funny though. You wind up connecting with people anyway. There is this lyric in this Korn song, "I need to feel the sickness in you..." I like that. I notice that I keep finding myself drawn towards those who have something similar going on inside them. Like the girl at the counter at the Roots Institute, I just crossed paths with her at the Thai Restaurant. Its like we each have this contorted way of relating to others and so when we interact, we connect in a funny way as if we've been friends for a long time--its not real though, well, it could be, and it even is real in a way...because the more dishonest you are, the more you can slip truth in...The less dishonest you are the more you start believing you're an honest and good person...You know, go to church, pay taxes, and support the state's killing machine with that striped piece of cloth made in China you hang off the front door to win the approval of strangers...That philosophy that looks so serene on the surface and hides so much hell and suffering behind it....But you wear your bullshit up front and you can occasionally manage to speak honestly...Or at least speak about being honest...If you think you're living the honest life you probably aren't, i guess..
Yogi mike told me he was full of shit. Right. That's a step in the right direction. The ability to laugh at ourselves need not be overlooked...This morning I was looking at the society of Bodh Gaya go by and I thought to myself, the fuck is the point of all this with a squinty eye confusion...Are we getting anywhere or running in circles and just re-shuffling the line up...
But in terms of dealing with inner honesty and emotional truthfulness...
Carl Jung has this quote that I don't feel like digging up about when an inner situation/conflict of the self is left unresolved it manifests in the outside world as a situation....So thats what I'm saying, its okay that I'm trying to reach out and tripping on my laces because even if my head won't turn the way I want it to, my experience of the outside world will assemble itself in a way which is going to force me "to put myself out there"...This isn't a mystical thing or spiritual thing, its just a really good observation of Jung's part. For example, you leave an internal issue unresolved and keep living your life and then all of the sudden you find your behavior is getting you arrested, fired, and divorced...Thats extreme but you get the idea....But I think this is all for the better if it doesn't kill you...The meaning of life, if you ask me, not the ultimate goal, but the meaning, is to transcend yourself and learn to grow...Malcolm X is a great example of this... farm kid becomes city gangster drug dealer finds himself in prison, teaches himself to read and write, then begins to lead a movement with the nation of Islam but then sees through the bullshit of all that--goes to Mecca, sees the different races intermixing and unifying under love of God leading him to see past his own racist/violent views...He died saying something along the lines of, "brothers lets be peaceful" (not sure thats accurate totally but around that) this, coming from a man who has an iconic image of him with an AR-15 peeking paranoid behind a curtain with "any means necessary" written down...So growth, transcendence...is the meaning of difficulty....or life...something like that...I hope...
You think you can run but you can't and if you accept that then a new patience and hope grows inside you...A lotus flower grows in the scum of ponds which is why it is such a great metaphor for Buddhist philosophy....Mindfulness is a painful thing but it leads to salvation I'm told...
Its funny though as I look at myself and where I am. Walking through the courtyard of a monastic community blasting heavy metal with a paranoid grimace on my face. But I'm friendly and smile when I need to, I wonder if I should though...
The goal is that internal liberation, where I can tell you my life story simply by saying, "Hello"...Speak through your heart rather than hiding it out of irrational fear...Patterns need to break...change needs to come....Salvation, liberation, condemnation, revolution, partition the partitioner and break the glass spilling your inner truth across the fields of awareness that could see right through you to begin with. Stop hiding from yourself..The golden ticket to promise land is this feeling I have a grip on right now...It will pass...I will collapse, I'll get it again, and we run around---merry go around.
Pride comes before fall. Thankfully I have little of that--or so much it consumes me to the point I live in the dirt...Not sure which...Get back to me on that one..
Its rare we touch on a truth and whenever I do I just want to spit it for the world but its pointless because no one can hear it. They just look at you like, "there is something wrong with you" Its something you need to feel in yourself. Because thats the truth--its a feeling. Its a presence, its a shift in experience. It isn't something you can write down, it isn't something you can tell someone, its inside you and you need to reach it. So this has been pointless in explaining...right...
People try and reach it everyday through a various selection of extracurricular activities...They touch it and they go on labeling the clouds good and bad. But clouds are just clouds. The sky remains unaffected despite the clouds...Even if its raining, snowing, or dropping global warming's lovechild caustic acid with the capacity to melt the mother of peal in the taj mahal...
When you stop connecting to the truth you see clouds are just clouds no matter what color, shape, size, or contents. The fuel feeding that fire of judgement is your own damage. Your own personal carnage. Keep projecting the shadow to the beyond and you will fight a war that never ends. Forgiveness is what creates peace. Not stomping out the insects. But that doesn't put the bonfire out. In fact, it probably flares it up and you hold it and never for once overlook the benefits of alchemy...ahhhmmm a slave man, I am a master...
"can I scream?"
Elaborate on your thoughts about "inner humiliation," what needs to be accepted? And I agree that reaching out and tripping is better than not reaching at all.. but I think it's important to recognize how far you've come at this point... i.e. In August could you have sustained the personal relationships you've made on this trip? would you have reached out to such people as yogi mike, or even the other kids in your program?
ReplyDeleteOn Jung's quote: the real world manifestations of such internal strife are illustrated with his concepts of "the archetype" which feed into "complexes" .. I'm sure you've checked it out but I'm currently in a class about him and the shit is worth re-reading.
Finally, "Forgiveness is what creates peace"... I'd like you to think about replacing forgiveness with empathy. To me at least forgiveness indicates some sort of wrong-doing whereas empathy is much broader and (to me ) is much more helpful in identifying and understanding other people's strife rather than simply accepting and moving on - tenants of forgiveness..
long winded... hopefully not wastefully so
I keep progress in the back of my head. The reason I can speak openly about this and at the same time not kill myself up over it is because ive made enough progress where its like, whatever happens, ill survive, im cool. if i was still insane then i wouldn't say anything out of fear of being institutionalized haha.
ReplyDeleteaccepting inner humiliation is just an acceptance of what i feel but at the same time not fighting yourself and letting things be. last night i came up with an analogy i liked. the mind is like a chinese finger trap. if you fight it, you get more stuck and more insane. but if you just let it be, all problems fade away..bad stuff comes up for everyone, the key is to just let it go and not attach yourself to it.
what do i have to be humiliated about? well, nothing. but the mind isn't rational and it tends to beat itself up over reasons that don't even exist in reality. so accept whats going on, don't fight it and it goes away eventually. if you do fight it, it creates resistance, tension, and more conflict.
forgiveness needs to come before empathy. if someone kicked your ass and you just empathized with them it would be bullshit because chances are you would still be feeling pissed off. you need to forgive before you can genuinely feel yourself or another person in a positive light..at least, thats what ive personally discovered. forgiveness is how you truly let go of negativity. the dude talks about how forgiveness is what makes us human in shantaram. he says its what prevents us from obliterating ourselves in endless revenge cycles..
"they're telling me forgiveness is the key to every door" -grateful dead
I had alot of catching up to do, but I finished reading all of it and I loved every word. You are one interesting dude. You made me laugh, think, and some another feelings I don't know what to label as. All in all it was a very good read. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteAlso this might be a little off, but I can't get past it. I remember a wise man once said that Buddha is everyone and everything. Well everytime I read about the things that happen to you or the people you meet(man with messed up leg, transvestites, etc.) im always reminded of that very saying. It's as if buddha himself was testing you, teaching you, with experience itself. It might sound a bit crazy, but it is what it is through my eyes, mind, or heart?
Anyway, please keep writing man. I love reading your blog.