A message for the bad days.
Hello everyone.
Today I'm going to address a problem within the spiritual community.
All religions and belief systems come with their inherent pitfalls.
And one of the biggest pitfalls in the spiritual community,
is a problem that we can call bypassing.
By bypassing I mean that we bypass ourselves.
We bypass our true feelings and the true state of how we are.
In favor of our spiritual beliefs.
Most of us have a clear idea of the goal that we're headed towards.
What we're headed towards is enlightenment.
We want to be absent of ego, and more than that,
we want to be free of suffering.
We have an idea in our head of what that looks like.
Our perfect image of the spiritually enlightened person.
But what most people don't know is that
this image we are holding on to, is a lie that we keep telling ourselves.
enlightenment is not like that.
enlightenment is no kind of retirement from life itself.
It is no kind of retirement from the ups and downs.
We create this idea of some sort of an enlightened retirement,
when we are resistant to the ups and downs,
and don't want to experience them anymore.
We invent the idea
that enlightenment means perfect bliss, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
When we're resistant to the contrast we're experiencing here.
When we're resistant to the ups and downs of life.
The more enlightened we become,
the more our thoughts change.
our perspective changes
to match the vibration of source perspective,
and so the meaning of our experiences changes.
The way we think about, and deal with the ups and downs,
is what changes.
and so those ups and downs are not experienced
the same way they once were.
For thousands of years the ups and downs of daily life,
have been referred to as the samsara wave.
For this reason it's beneficial to think of spiritual people,
as surfers.
Our practice is the practice of riding those waves
so that we may one day master our relationship to them.
Just like a surfer, in the beginning
we fall into the surf and get tossed and turned in it over and over and over.
But the more we practice the better we get
at finding our own alignment while we're inside those waves.
Pretty soon it becomes rare that we fall from our surfboard.
We can manage bigger and bigger waves
while still staying on the surfboard.
enlightened beings are like master surfers.
But did you notice that in no version of this story
did the waves stop coming?
The enlightened being did not become a master of riding the waves
and then turn around and push a magic button
to stop the waves from coming.
This is because the big waves, no longer cause him or her to suffer.
The enlightened being sees those waves as responsible
for the very enlightenment they now maintain.
So these waves are welcomed.
A spiritually enlightened person still experiences the full range of emotion.
All that changes is their thoughts.
They have the conscious ability to control and direct their thoughts.
And when you control and direct your thoughts,
you can control and direct your emotions.
So what they have gained is the awareness and the ability
to direct their thoughts in such a way
that they can climb up the emotional scale at will.
In other words, the true story,
which is a story we don't like telling,
is that the Buddha still had bad days.
Mara did not vanish for eternity
when Buddha faced him beneath the bodhi tree.
He kept coming back throughout Buddha's life.
What changed after enlightenment is that
Buddha recognized Mara.
He recognized the negative embodiments of his own ego,
that Mara was simply a reflection of.
And as such he was able to deliberately rise above it.
Even though he initially felt the sensation, of things like:
fear, temptation and doubt.
He was wable to not get caught by them.
In fact, in many ancient text,
Buddha befriended Mara.
He greeted Mara inviting him in for tea.
Having recognized Mara as his most precious teacher.
Because he was the one, of course,
that continually taught him the very most.
Without Mara the enlightenment would not have even taken place.
Enlightenment is only the beginning.
You still have to engage with life for years after you find enlightenment.
You still have to integrate what it has taught you.
You still have to integrate the awareness you have achieved.
Most of us who are watching this video,
are aware that we're creating our reality
based on the thoughts that we're thinking.
Based on what we're paying attention to.
For this reason it's understandable, why many of you might...
avoid wanting to focus on the emotions that you're currently feeling.
Because you might think that if you focus on what you're feeling
and the thoughts you're actually thinking,
that they will get worse.
But what we fail to understand is, avoidance is resistance.
Any time we're trying to avoid something,
we're actually focused upon it.
And anything we resist persists.
So when we're avoiding, and denying our own selves,
our own emotions, and our own current thoughts,
the space where we are, what we're really doing is creating more of it.
which is why the very best thing you can do,
is to flip around and face the way you're actually feeling
the thoughts you're actually thinking.
It is time that we admit, to the fact that these negative emotions
and negative thoughts, exist for a reason.
Negative emotion is always the red flag for something you need to learn.
It is always the potential for immense personal expansion.
But if you avoid the negative feeling, you also avoid the lesson.
As well as the expansion.
If you are driving along the road and your tire went flat,
you wouldn't ignore the flat tire and continue driving.
You'd stop the car, you'd get out and access what the problem was,
and you'd improve the state of that tire before you kept going.
But this is exactly what most of us are expecting ourselves to do.
We're expecting ourselves to drive on a flat tire.
Any time we're ignoring the way we actually feel.
Any time we're trying to shut out eyes to what is.
And focus instead on avoiding that problem,
so that we can focus on something that we think we should be focussing on.
A better way of saying this is,
that we are continuing to drive on a flat tire,
when we are expecting ourselves to avoid the way we really feel
and what we are really thinking,
in favor of how we think we should feel.
And the way we think we should be thinking about something.
In the spiritual community it's become a kind of unwritten cultural expectation,
That we ignore where we are, in favor of where we think we should be.
That we act like a spiritually enlightened person,
even if it's not true to how we really feel,
or the way we're really thinking.
The result is that most of us feel
as though the only acceptable emotion to feel is happy.
And if we don't feel happy, we've somehow failed.
This gives rise to shame and embarrassment
when we experience struggle in our lives.
And we go out of our way to keep up appearances
and not tell anyone if we're having a bad day.
Because of the shame relative to struggling,
we do not want to own up to the depth of our suffering in the current moment.
So the words that come out of our mouth are not true to us.
they are rehearsed principles that we are beating ourselves over the back with.
For example, the truth of where you are right now,
may be that you're in a lot of pain.
Your life may not be going well for you.
You may have no idea of what to do about it.
Now, if you gloss over the truth of those emotions that you're experiencing,
with thoughts like:
"Oh, so many other things are going ok in my life,
I know something good is gonna come out of this."
Than what you're doing, is you're regurgitating a spiritual principle.
The principle that good things come out of negative things.
When it's not actually how you feel.
Right now you have no idea that things are gonna go well.
Right now you have no idea what is gonna come out of this experience.
And it's difficult for you to focus on what is going well,
because, frankly, it's very overwhelming, the things that are negative.
Basically you're regurgitating the idea, of the spiritual principle,
that something good is gonna come out of all of this,
because it's the way you've been taught
that spiritually ascended people see struggles.
But it is very true that in this moment,
you may not know that at all.
By saying that, instead of it being true to you personally,
it is a very real possibility that you are glossing over
and denying yourself.
You're bypassing the truth of yourself in this moment.
You're bypassing your true emotions and your true feelings.
And it is very important to understand that our emotional selves are children.
They're children that never grow up.
Our emotional selves never grow up.
We just learn how to parent them better.
If you deny the way you actually feel,
you are invalidating the small crying child within you.
Who is desperately trying to express the way that he or she feels.
If you deny the way you actually feel,
you cannot ever get to a better feeling space.
You have to know where you are,
as well as where you want to go,
if you want to know what direction to start walking.
Could you imagine trying to use a map to find out what direction to walk
if you were unwilling to admit to where you were?
Could you imagine a doctor trying to help you feel better,
but being unwilling to assess your current state
to discover what is causing you to feel bad?
One of the best things you could do for yourself
is to own up to where you are
and then to say: "I am where I am."
This does not mean that you've failed.
This does not mean that you've given up and surrendered to feeling crappy.
What this means is that you've released resistance to where you are.
And when you release resistance to something,
You're allowing yourself to flow in the direction
of what you would prefer.
And because of this, ironically,
once we own up to where we are,
and release resistance to where we are,
you will no longer be where you are.
So you're allowing yourself to get unstuck,
by admitting to where you are.
And by releasing resistance to where you are.
There is no shame in struggling.
You have not failed if you have a bad day.
Buddha had bad days.
Jesus had bad days.
Muhammad had bad days.
You will not meet, a single physically manifested being,
ascended master or not,
That is exempt from the contrast.
And so you will not meet a single physically manifested being,
who is in alignment 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
To expect this from yourself is cruelty.
To feel embarrassment or shame if you are out of alignment, is cruelty.
To be disappointed in someone else if they are out of alignment, is cruelty.
To expect someone to be in alignment 24 hours a day 7 days a week, is cruelty.
And it is time that we stop perpetuating cruelty in ourselves,
as well as within the spiritual community that we ourselves create.
Spiritual practice is just that.
It's a practice.
It's a practice even for those who are deemed spiritual masters.
Alignment is always something that we maintain.
Alignment and enlightenment is not something that is done to you.
It's not something that is granted and is given,
once you prove yourself worthy.
It is something that you continually maintain.
We choose to come into alignment every moment.
And every moment there exists the option
for us to choose to think a thought, speak a word or carry out an action,
which is in alignment or not.
Regardless of whether you achieve enlightenment or not in this lifetime.
That is always a choice that is in your hands,
to be in alignment or not.
And denial is no kind of alignment that I've ever seen.
So the question to ask yourself is:
"Am I truly able to focus positively in this moment?"
"Or am I using positivity as an excuse to bypass myself?"
Have a good week.
Transcribed by: Tanya Duarte