What you do, who you are, how others see you, what you achieve or fail at, what you imagine to be ahead. None of it is what matters about your (fleeting) human life. What matters is (1) that you notice you’re doing it all, and (2) what happens once you’ve noticed.
Normally what a self-aware person does is back up (in a manner of speaking), scrutinize it all, and make a determination to “do better.” But guess what? The person who does all of that is as sound asleep as they were before they became more self-aware.
I can almost hear you sigh here. Hang in there with me, love.
* * *
The miracle occurs when something in you backs up from all of that — including retreating from the one doing the watching. You’re standing at a kind of a benign distance from it all. Just looking, in an utterly neutral way. Not wishing for anything to change.
Right about now you wonder Okay, so who’s doing the looking? It’s natural to be curious about that. Let it go (or the next thing you know, your pesky mind has kicked back into its familiar high gear). When the part of you that can simply be aware is musing outside the whole familiar mess, merely registering what the regular you is doing, notice what the “larger you” is feeling like.
Peaceful, maybe?
You may find it helpful about now to pick up a pen or a pencil and make a drawing of what I’m trying so hard, in clunky words, to describe.
* * *
Yes, there IS a farther-back from it all where the truest you exists. Can you feel how restful it is? Can you imagine dwelling there all your days?
You cannot put something down if it’s actually part of you. The farther-back awareness that you most profoundly are is not troubled by the wish to change. It doesn’t take seriously any of the regular-person stuff (including the part of you that considers itself a seeker).
You can’t decide to set a thing down — like the desire to change. It falls off when the time is ripe for your eyes to open. To grow lighter. It can be irritating that these things happen on their own schedule (but the usefulness of irritation is that it draws your attention to the you that hardly matters).
* * *
Life is profoundly wise in this matter. The order and the timing of lessons, as we move along in our adventures, is driven by something that knows a whole lot better than we do what will serve us, and when. The thing to do is simply pay attention while each moment, each “period,” is under way. Just don’t try to take hold of the steering wheel. Remember that our school is going on constantly, whether or not we’re paying attention at the time.
It took me forever to understand this. Be patient, my friend. And no, you do not have forever. How about this very day? At the very least, invite your dear self to entertain the possibility that there could be fresh, lovely ways of orienting to your day-to-day.
Really. I would not lie to you.
* * *
You probably received a message from me awhile ago saying I’m moving toward more simplicity wherever I can in. As part of that, I’m no longer selling books from my home. All of them are available on Bookshop and elsewhere. See the Purchase page on my website.
Thank you so much for your kind donations, no matter the size. Each time I receive notification that one has arrived, I give my heartfelt thanks to the person. My cat must think me crazy by now, because I’m saying Thank you, love to somebody who isn’t even here.