The way, in general, we approach the issue of suffering is completely wrong. In general, you believe that the external world is the cause of suffering, and everything will make you believe that. This is because you always see yourself as “someone” present.
So, it’s as if the external world, life out there, owes you something. So, you are the central figure in the experience of life, you are the central figure in the experience of society, the world, the collectivity, the world around you. Everything around you owes you something.
Thus, your relationship with people, for example, is a relationship of seeking acceptance, appreciation, recognition, notoriety.
It’s always the idea that you are an important figure in the context of your relationships. In fact, it is not a very important figure; you are the most important figure! That’s basically what the sense of “I” is.
The expression “ego” refers to exactly that, the idea of someone present within an experience, in which this experience is happening to this “someone.” So, your contact with the issue of suffering is based on this mistaken view, this error, this illusion. The whole detail is that you will always expect from society, from the collectivity, from the world and from the other, love, peace, freedom, happiness; This is the first point. The second point is that this will never happen, no matter how much you expect, how much you wish, how much you believe that life will give you this one day.
For example, you will always search for a perfect marriage. Let me put it another way, something familiar to us, okay? Everyone expects to have the perfect wedding, everyone looks for the perfect marriage, and when they get married for the first time, they realize that they still haven't found the perfect marriage, because they might have married the person who is not the right person. You always see the world not right for someone as right as you are; you see the world imperfect for someone as perfect as you are; you see the world incomplete for someone as complete as you are.
So, if you're married and still not happy, and your idea of happiness consists of being accepted in an intimate, close relationship, like that of marriage... if this is present and didn't happen in that first marriage, then you try a second one, try a third, a fourth, and a fifth marriage, since in the first, second, third, fourth and fifth, that person was not perfect; he or she wasn't the perfect person for you.
People love imagination. And everything that favors these inner frames of imagination, they are very fond of. If they didn't find it in the first marriage, it’s because it’s not the soul mate, so the soul mate is still out there, the second part is still out there. So, one has this expectation, expects this to happen.
So, let me repeat this again: the world will not give it to you, no experience external to you will give you that, at any level – at the sentimental level, at the emotional level, at the financial level, at the level of family relationships… no external experience at the level of collectivity, society, experience of the world – no external experience will give you Love, Peace, Freedom, Happiness.
There is a way to approach the Truth of This, that direct Realization. The way to approach the Truth about This is within a clear Understanding of yourself. You need to understand who you are. Once this Understanding is present, and the basis of that Understanding is Self-awareness…
Without Self-awareness it is impossible to Understand the Truth about yourself.
Without this Self-Understanding, you will never know where the problem is, you will always put this situation outside, which, in reality, is all internal. I refer to this inner situation of unhappiness.
No matter what one has already apparently accomplished and how much one is admired for it by others who wish to have what one already has, how much one is still envied... no matter how much one is envied for everything one apparently has. One still continues to feel that something is missing, that the world did not complete him. Yes, it will never complete you!
What you need is to have an approach of yourself through Self-awareness. Self-awareness will show you that the present unhappiness is not due to something incomplete on the outside, but the present unhappiness is due to this model of seeing yourself within a conflicting, distressing, painful internal duality.
The last part of the Vedas is called Vedanta. And in Vedanta there is the heart of Vedanta – I would call it the heart of Vedanta: it is the subject of Advaita Vedanta. It is important that you have an approach of the Truth about who You are, then you will have a Revelation of what is recorded there in Advaita Vedanta.
I refer to your Natural State of Being, free from that internal, psychological state of internalized duality, within that idea that is the central idea of separateness between you and Reality, which is the idea of “I.”
The human being feels that he exists. He does not live Existence, he feels that he exists. This sense of existing gives you an illusion: the illusion of an “I.” This “I” is there because of this illusory internalized sense of duality. What I am saying is that your perception of reality is not Reality as It is; it is the mistaken and particular view of this internalized sense of duality being perceived. So, it’s not the world that makes you suffer...
The subject here is for us to see the possibility here, together, of going beyond suffering, because the subject is the end of suffering.
Approaching yourself with Truth, through Self-awareness, will make you realize that this internalized duality, from this particular view of this “I” ... that is the problem!
It’s the only problem! Putting it this way... also closer to you: someone always hurts you, someone always hurts you, there is always someone who hurts you emotionally, who generates emotional disturbance and makes you hurt, makes you hurt internally. This seems to be a fact, a reality within this mistaken perspective of this duality, of this “I.”
What you don't realize is what I called internalized duality. And why? Because the problem is not out there. It is not that “someone” who always offends you, hurts you, annoys you, saddens you, being the primary cause of it.
The primary cause of this, the primary cause of this sense of an offended “someone,” of a “someone” hurt, of a “someone” sad… the primary cause is in this condition, in this internal, internalized state of “me and the offense,” having as the basis of this offense, in this illusion, someone on the outside.
The point is that the sense of an “I” will always be the sense of “someone” who can be offended, hurt, subject to sadness, suffering.
Your problem is not the other as he is. He has his mode of external representation in this relationship. He must have several reasons to enjoy offending you, hurting you, saddening you, upsetting you. There is a satisfaction or there is some form of fulfillment within this frame – which is general – of insanity common to all, within him, for him to continue to be who he is.
That’s how he feels good, but that has nothing to do with What You are. But, if you identify yourself with this false idea, with this belief, with this illusion, you keep this situation always inside.
The work of Self-awareness is the realization that what gets hurt inside you, offended or injured is an idea you have about who you are and about what the world should represent to you, about what the other should be in a contact, in a relationship with you.
This demand is within this principle of psychological duality, of the illusion of separateness between you and life, between you and him or her, between you and the other, between you and the world. This demand is purely egoic, dualistic, separatist, subject to suffering for the rest of your days.
So, it will always be inevitable. Inevitable! There is no way to avoid society, collectivity, the world, the other, creating suffering for the illusion of a present identity, which is always reacting with this false basis of demand that we all know: the demand of the ego, of that “me,” of this “I,” projecting onto the world a problem that, in fact, is his alone.
There is nobody offending you, nobody hurting you, there is nobody making you sad, there is nothing in the world causing you, for example, anxiety; the disease of the century: anxiety. It is not the world that causes anxiety, or depressive frames, or depression, or anguish. The pain of loneliness is not the absence of someone. It is not the presence of someone that annoys you when he arrives. When he arrives, you say, “I was so fine and here he comes, here she comes again.” It’s not someone who annoys you. It’s not someone causing that pain. There’s nothing out there causing anxiety, depression, loneliness, anguish, fear, anger. This is inside, in this sense of internal duality, where there is “I and what is shown,” “I and what is presented.”
But we don't approach that, because, since we were children, we were trained to have this perspective, to have this particular view... particular view of the world. It’s curious to say that! It is a particular view of the world and, at the same time, a collective one, because that is everyone’s view! But it is the view from a false center, from a false identity, of this “me,” this “I.” So, this training since childhood put you in that condition, in that programming, in that conditioning. All right there?
An approach to Advaita Vedanta, an approach to Non-Duality, will show you the Vision of the Reality of Life as It is. Life contains everything: it contains justice and injustice, it contains beauty and ugliness... It contains everything! All! But there is this external aspect of Life as It is and there is this illusion of this rejection of Life as It is, because psychologically this sense of duality, of separateness between you and It, is present.
Staying with Life as It is, means welcoming Yourself as You actually are! The thing is, all this programming, all this conditioning, makes you have beliefs about how life should be, how life should be for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment