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What have you got to lose?

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We spend so much time and energy desperately trying to make everything safe, secure and certain, but inevitably something comes along in life, to mess up our plans, dreams or ideas of how things are. It seems that the very nature of life is uncertain and insecure, and we really have no way of knowing how to live like that. This can leave us feeling lost and afraid in our daily life. We hold back from love, from expression of feelings, from grabbing opportunities, from taking risks, because we are terrified of losing safety and security. However, if we are willing to dive into our fear, and deeply acknowledge the true nature of life as uncertain and insecure, to acknowledge that we don’t ever have or own anything secure, this can actually free us up to play ‘as if’. We can go on making plans, promises and commitments, always knowing that it is only ever a play ‘as if’, but in the meantime why not play fully? Why not give yourself totally to life without holding back? You have nothing left to lose.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

What is Truth?

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Everyone has got a different idea of what the truth is, according to their philosophy, religion, culture, politics, and other opinions. People speak ‘their truth’ in order to defend a position, or to maintain an identity based in opinions. Thought can even say all the right non-dual words and concepts. But to really acknowledge the truth of who you are in your own direct knowing, is beyond thought. It is where thought reaches it’s limit. Only you know, and this knowing can never really be shared.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

You can never control what people think about you

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Today in the meeting, a bright young woman courageously raised the issue of how to navigate in life when you can never control what other people will think about you. You always risk losing the approval, acceptance and love that you think you can get from someone else. Every step you take you potentially risk being ostracized from society, and essentially even risk your very survival. The pressure to make the ‘right’ decision, and to avoid ‘wrong’ actions or words, is so strong that it can even paralyze us.
At some point we have to see that there is no way of controlling other people’s perspectives. They too are looking for approval and acceptance. They, just like us, simply don’t know. There is no authority ‘out there’ that can tell us how to live or whether we are ok. We can never rely on anyone else, and we will never get the final stamp of approval from anyone else, because they are all just as lost as we are. At some point we have to come to see that our own not-knowing, is the only authority to really know.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

Thought tries to hijack everything

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When you understand the nature of thought, that it can only fit whatever is heard, recognised or experienced into what has been previously understood or labelled, you can see that it can not do anything else. It will always try to hijack everything, but who you are is always free, no matter what.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

Two Strands to ‘Waking Up’

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There are two strands to waking up in this life: recognising who you really are as Life itself, and then the living of that in the human experience. If you try to find a position in one strand more than the other, then there will be an imbalance, that will eventually have to come to balance somehow. You can not rest in the Absolute and escape the human experience forever. And you can not endlessly try to fix the human experience, and overlook that it is all only a play in the Absolute. Either way you will feel that something is missing and out of balance.

‘Being Triggered’

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argumentSometimes things get triggered or touched, and then it all feels so overwhelmingly important. You notice that you are being drawn into a certain familiar energetic dance that feels tense or painful, and yet has a certain exciting flavour to it. It is all so mesmerising and trance-like…
You watch yourself play out the childish games to try to get what you think you want, or need. The need to be right, or to maintain a certain position becomes more important than what is real. You watch yourself react from pain or fear, but the cover-up-games mask the desperate longing for a resolution to that pain or fear.

And at some point there is a break in the clouds. A moment when you realise that there will never be a satisfactory resolution to the story being told. A moment when it is suddenly possible to risk being honest about what is really felt or longed for. The pain is acknowledged. The embarrassment or humiliation is felt. The body shakes, cries or laughs. There is a seeing of the whole dance.

Nothing wrong has happened. None of it meant anything about you. It was simply an old friend that came to visit for a while, and then left. Don’t worry, they will be back again some day. There is no need to, or no point in punishing yourself for being entranced or reacting like that. In that moment you couldn’t do anything else. The possibility for honesty was simply not there at that moment. When it was, it was.

As you see in more and more situations that it is hopeless to try to find a resolution in a thought-story or belief, the more there is possibility for honesty with what is actually being touched. There is the endless discovery that there is never any real satisfying nourishment from being ‘right’ or from proving a point. Although it can be uncomfortable, the only real nourishment is in acknowledging what is really here.

Unmani, 13th April, 2014
www.die-to-love.com

Freedom despite it all

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We are often searching for so-called ‘Freedom’. But more often than not, it is freedom from something that we believe is keeping us imprisoned. The Freedom I am interested in is not any kind of ‘freedom from…’ – it is ‘Freedom despite…’ It is the Freedom that doesn’t depend on the any particular experience. It is the Freedom that doesn’t wait for a change in circumstances, that doesn’t depend on a certain mood, or state of mind. This is the radical Freedom in knowing that there is no escape from the experience just as it is.