Tag: identity

On Activism

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I consider myself to be an activist. But I often find people are so hostile towards me and others like me. When I am only trying to help change things for the better, why is there such a negative response from people? Why is it so hard to convince them to join in on the fight?

Sincerely,

Pro Activist

Dear PA,

One important thing is you should never identify yourself as an activist. In fact, you should never identify yourself as any one particular group.

The reason I say this is because the moment you start saying “I am ____”, you immediately draw a boundary for yourself. You create walls around you and inevitably by deciding you are one thing, you close yourself off to other possibilities.

Are you capable of doing all the things an activist does without identifying as one, without needing the label? If you paint every day but don’t label yourself as a painter, does it make you any less of one?

I am not saying stop doing your activism. I am simply saying forget being an activist. Just do your activism. You will see, by dropping the identity, you allow room for others to enter your world.

But by labeling yourself as an activist, you are separating yourself from everyone else. You are declaring yourself an activist, and want others to wake up and join you. Can you really blame people for not wanting to suddenly drop everything they’ve known to join in?

Look at the amount of push back you’ve received. In many ways, it can be social suicide to take on the identity of an activist. The only people who you can associate with are other activists. But putting people in petri dishes will never change the world. It will only give you the illusion that things are better.

If you truly want people to join in, then the only way is to include them. If you try to conquer them via arguments and data and other things, it may work on a few. But if you include them, aim to understand what is in the way for them, and help them to overcome that – then you will see real progress.

It’s far easier to just vilify people. When someone doesn’t perform by your values, then they are wrong. Please see, by your standards, the entire world is failing. Not a single person has ever met your expectations. Are you really going to fix the entire world by fighting them?

It is more difficult, but more effective, to aim for individual change. Yes it takes longer. But the people who join in are not doing so out of pressure, or to please you, or out of fear, or some other negative motivation. They are doing so out of their own realization, their own compassion.

The world does not need more people with strong beliefs fighting everyone who doesn’t believe the same. History is built on the many corpses of such thinking. It doesn’t matter how morally correct your argument is. The same thinking that created this world’s problems will not fix it!

So let go of your beliefs in your righteous cause. Let go of this idea that you are in some war to fight others and win them over to your side.

First and foremost, lead by example. Share with others, include others. Practice compassion. Give people an opening into your way of thinking, don’t bludgeon them over the head with it.

Ultimately, it is true there are a lot of very serious problems facing the world today. I understand the sense of urgency and fervor with which activists fight. But it is misplaced. Put that same intensity into including others rather than fighting them. The time is dire for it!

It is important that people aim to make the world better for future generations. But you must find solutions that work in today’s world. You must find solutions that work for everyone, especially the people you see as against you. A solution that works for some and not all is no solution, it is injustice.

This world is not just for you and people who think like you. It is for everyone, even those who you don’t like. The world is full of people who don’t think the way you do. What to do with them, exile them all as wrong and work towards your solution? It is wishful thinking.

Transformation of the world won’t come through fighting. It will only come through inclusion. Don’t lose the activism spirit! Just put it in the right direction. The world needs people willing to act.

Don’t distract yourself with adversarial ideas. All that will happen is you will think you are making a difference, but you will push so many people away that one day they gather and fight back even harder.

Activism over being an activist! Inclusion over conquering! Change that, and all this hostility you feel will subside.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Identity

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

My mind is always wandering. I try to meditate or quiet the mind but it feels impossible and eventually it drifts. I’ve heard people say to just witness the thoughts but I still get dragged into them. Nothing seems to work! How can I restrain my thoughts?

Sincerely,

Too Thought To Handle

Dear TTTH,

Your mind never wanders. It doesn’t leave you and go somewhere. Your mind, just like your body, is always here, with you. You are a complete package and it all has to go together.

So the mind cannot wander; it is not something that is acting separately from you. The mind is with you, here, but it is thinking about something else. It is thinking about something that either happened or has yet to happen. That is all it can do – fantasy or memory. Both are inaccurate, always.

It is always so convenient to blame some aspect of ourselves. When we do great, we take credit “I accomplished this! Go me!”

When life gets a little tricky, then the blame starts – “It is this person’s fault, or the situation’s fault, or it is my mind, not me!”

How your experience of life is within you is only your responsibility, no one else’s. So let’s place the responsibility where it actually is. Your mind isn’t the culprit.

Your mind is simply a tool. That tool functions best when it is sharp and clear. When wielded like this, it will penetrate existence and reveal to you truth. But when it is dull and confused, it will only become one big mess.

The problem with that mess is that you will believe it’s truth. You will call that mess your psychological structure, or your personality, and will become so heavily attached to it. You will depend on it so much that you will fight to keep it there even if it means complete and utter confusion.

This is what is happening to you. You think you have an issue with your mind, but you don’t. The real issue is with all your identifications.

When you become too heavily identified with everything in life, it determines the quality of your thoughts. Your thoughts in and of themselves are not random. Are they not happening based solely and how you identify yourself?

You sit and try to meditate and the thoughts come. They will always be of your house or your work or your partner or your possessions. They will always be about something that you use to define you.

You have so  many identifications – even the way you style your hair or the clothes you wear have become your identity. But you have made this your boundary. It is not nature’s boundary for you.

You could be any way you wish in any moment. Have any hairstyle, any clothes, and personality! But no, you are too heavily identified to have freedom.

So the very nature of your thoughts is based on your identity. It is the source.

Tell me, can you restrain the mind? Try it right now – try not to think. All that will happen is you will think even more about trying not to think. That is the nature of the mind. It always is multiplying whatever you give it. Restraint will never work.

But if you simply start dropping your identifications – or even better, stop creating new ones all the time – you will see, clarity will come.

It’s like you ate some really spicy food and now you have diarrhea. Tell me, can you restrain it? Is that the solution? It’s not going to work. All that will happen is that mess will explode in your shorts. Just like this, you have mental diarrhea, and when you restrain it builds up pressure. You can’t hold it back. It is impossible.

If you want to stop the diarrhea you have to eat better food, or at the very least stop eating the bad food. Stop identifying so heavily with everything and just experience it the way it is. You will see the mind will just take a backseat.

Thoughts are always there so long as you have identity. But there is a world of difference between thinking and thoughts. When you sit and try to meditate, thoughts will come passively. But when you start actively feeding them by thinking about them, that’s when they get out of control.

You do not need to think, even if your thoughts are there. For now, this is all that is meant by being the witness to your thoughts. It’s not about restraint or control. Just don’t feed them as much and they won’t grow.

But the real solution is just to stop identifying with every little thing. Any identity you have made for yourself is a lie anyway. It is something that you made up, it only exists in your head. In reality, all you are is a lump of this earth, and believe me, she will reclaim her lump. It doesn’t matter what fanciful identity you made.

A lie always needs your constant intervention in order to stay up. If you just stop, it will crumble on it’s own. So when new situations occur, pay attention to how you are identifying with them, and practice dropping them before they stick to you.

All you need to do for your identity to crumble is stop making new identifications. Then without any effort, even the old ones will fall off. Once that happens, thoughts will not be an issue.

In life we must learn that if we want a particular result, we have to deal with the cause, not the effect. You want to deal with your thoughts, then you deal with your identity.

If you try to deal with your thoughts by stopping your thoughts, it will be like pulling weeds. They will always grow back because you are always nurturing them, and you’ll be endlessly pulling.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise

On Illusion

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Is life really an illusion? We’ve all read masters who have said life is a dream or maya. Is it true? What is the point of all this if life isn’t real?

Sincerely,

Life is But a Dream

Dear LIBAD,

Right now you only know life one way: through the filter of your mind. Overwhelmingly, well over 99% of your day is just an interpretation of your thoughts. You project all you think onto each moment.

You see, people read too many scriptures and stories and hear things like “All existence is an illusion, a dream, a maya!” But this is not meant to define existence, it is meant to destroy your projection so you can see things clearly.

Do not become so attached to this question “Is life real or not?” It’s real for you, isn’t it? If it doesn’t feel real, shall I come and poke you with a blade? You won’t be asking such a foolish question then for sure.

This is not about whether existence is real or not. It is real or it isn’t real is irrelevant. It is happening for you, in this moment. That is all that is important. The only question is, are you experiencing it as it is, or as a projection through your own filters?

Thinking about life is not life. Your thoughts have nothing to do with reality. Right now, you can think anything you want, but it is always limited. Your thoughts are like this, constantly trying to draw lines where there aren’t any. You are drawing conclusions when none exist.

Tell me, can you have a single thought that isn’t a conclusion? Even if you have the thought “I will not make conclusions” that in and of itself is a conclusion! The mind is a useful tool for your survival, but when it comes to experiencing life for what it is, it can never work.

The truth is, existence has no boundaries. There are no conclusions to be made. Only your mind makes them. A person is not good or bad because you decide it. A tree is not big or small, a river is not fast or slow – these are all just conclusions you drew for your convenience.

A person just is. A tree just is. A river too, just is. There is nothing to define about it. Even naming these things separately has no basis in reality. You have decided “That is a tree, and this is me. We are separate.”

You have a respiratory system yes? Well, without the tree, does your respiratory system exist? In many ways, the tree is the other half of your respiratory system. So are you really that separate?

Like this, everything in existence is connected. Constantly entwined with everything else. Not a single atom is spared. Fundamentally, all the physical existence we see is just the same energy. Science has shown you that matter is simply energy arranged in a certain way. In short, everything is energy. Everything is the same.

I don’t say all this to give you more to fantasize about. I don’t want you to imagine we are all one and heavenly and start drifting into more thought! You must experience it to know it; otherwise it is just a story.

I say this because I want you to understand that your experience of life right now is not real. It is only through the filter of your mind, and your mind always draws conclusions where none exist.

It’s like wearing a pair of red-tinted glasses. You will think existence is red. You will proclaim it loudly. You will be so certain and definitive about it! But if you take off the glasses, clearly you will see, existence is not red.

If you can learn to move from your psychological experience to an existential experience of life, it’s like taking off those glasses. Suddenly, everything is so obvious and clear. Existence is not the dream or illusion. Your psychological structure is.

Perhaps those masters should have said “Psychological structure is an illusion!” But that doesn’t have the same ring to it!

Life is real. Existence is real. There is a way that it is unfurling in each moment that is total, inclusive, united. All this is happening as individual manifestations, but all fundamentally the same energy, just playing out eternally.

Your thoughts are the dream. Your identity is the illusion. Your psychological structure is the maya. You have spent too long wearing those glasses and you have forgotten what life really is.

This is why all this constant talk of being conscious, being present. If you can learn to just put down those glasses, even for just a millisecond, you will finally see things clearly. Once that happens, you will strive for you own liberation from your dream.

Life has always been real. Your mind will always be an illusion. Your mind can never get you from illusion to truth in the same way those red-tinted glasses can never show you anything except red. Your glasses can’t liberate you from your glasses! So your question isn’t the issue. Just do this one thing:

Move from interpretation and projection to involvement and experience. This is the key to waking up from the dream. Learn to just be in the moment as is. Involve yourself totally in whatever is happening. No matter what life brings, include it and experience it.

It’s time to wake up from the dream. Do not put so much importance on your thoughts. They can never show you the total picture.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise

On Walls

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I feel as I am becoming more conscious in my life, I want to do more things to help people in this world. There are so many problems everywhere and it feels criminal to do nothing. But I am struggling as every time I try to help or take action, I am met with so many walls, both in the world and within people. How can I get past these walls and accomplish what I envision?

Sincerely,

Another Brick in the Wall

Dear ABITW,

I want you to understand that though your desire to help others may feel like you are doing the right thing, it is not coming from the right source. Right now, it is deeply rooted in your sense of identity, which is very limited.

Currently your identity sees you as the solution and everything else as the problem. You are the one to fix everything? There are no walls where you are seeing them. You have placed a wall between you and everything and are one side. Now you wonder why everywhere you look there is a wall.

When you see things like this and what’s worse you empower it with some belief that you are truly doing something that’s best for everyone, you are only going to cause a lot of trouble for the people and world around you. Why this is, is simply because you made your whole approach exclusive instead of inclusive.

Exclusivity means declaring “These are my boundaries. This is what I will include, this is what I won’t”. It is only putting up walls. Inclusivity means you have dropped your boundaries and will include whatever comes as it is. How are you to help people or this world if you won’t include them? How when you are behind a wall where no one can reach you?

So one thing is for you to start becoming more inclusive. No matter what way the world is or people are, you just include them. You don’t have to take any action. This is about the quality of inclusiveness you carry within.

Whatever life brings you, accept it, include it, and make the most of it. This is all you can ever do. Anything else you think you can do through exclusivity is just an illusion and will waste your time and energy.

It’s like this:

You wake up and find yourself in a totally enclosed square room. In front of you are two doors. The one on the left is open. The one and the right is locked and barred and nailed shut. But you wanna go through the door on the right for some reason.

So you put so much time and energy into opening it. You don’t have the keys, you don’t have a cutter, you don’t have a hammer – but somehow you think you’re going to open that door. Even if you did open the door, you would have to destroy it. It would be a destructive process, and it’s not even your door! It doesn’t belong to you!

Then, when you inevitably fail, you wonder “Why was this door so difficult to open, it may as well be a wall, it should be easier…”

Or you could just go through the open door.

Why would anyone choose to trouble themselves with a hopeless situation? You only keep finding walls in everyone and everything because you have something you are trying to figure out or prove within yourself. It’s not necessary or compassionate to use other people destructively as a means for your own growth.

This is why I say it’s all about your entanglement with your limited identity.

It is extremely important in life that you understand that results are not your concern. Your concern is only with the process. The process is the open door. The result is a closed door.

The result may or may not happen – that depends on how devoted you are to the process. But whether it happens or not is irrelevant because if you are totally involved in the process, something will result for sure.

You want the fruit but you don’t want the tree. Life doesn’t work that way.

But a process is always there, always available. Sure, you may not be able to solve all the worlds problems today or even tomorrow. But for sure, you are capable of doing something right now. If you aren’t so entangled with your walls, you will see what can be done and do it.

All we can do is what is possible in this moment. Existence have given you countless possibilities in every moment. But you find the one or two things that you cannot do and become obsessed with them and complain when they don’t work out.

There infinite open doors if you’d only look. Be sensible and go through open doors. Don’t try to break down what you see as walls. It is all a psychological game that is keeping you from seeing things the way they are.

Other people and society may have walls. That’s not your business. Look where there are openings. That is the only place where any results can happen. You don’t plant a seed in the concrete, you plant in the soil.

You don’t walk through walls, you walk through openings. Let go of your attachments to solving problems. Just find an opening and pour yourself into the process. You will see, more change will happen more quickly than when you were busting down walls.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise

On Intelligence

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I feel like I am an intelligent person. I look around and people are similar to me. They seem to have received similar education, have similar intelligence. But people everywhere are doing incredible unintelligent things to themselves, others, this planet…

If we’re so smart then why can’t we all come together and make this world a better place? What is wrong with our intelligence?

Sincerely,

Smart But Not Smart

Dear SBNS,

There is nothing wrong with your intelligence, or anyone’s intelligence. Your intelligence is a tool. Any tool is only as good as the person who is using it, no?

First I want you to understand there are different kinds of intelligence. You may have a degree, someone else may be a dancer, another may know how to grow tomatoes. Each of these takes an incredible amount of intelligence. If we measure everyone by the same academic standards, we will miss out on a person’s true genius.

Each person is unique in this existence. Every moment, every atom, every damn last thing in this existence is unique. Each one has it’s own unique potential. Unfortunately, today’s standard of intelligence has merely become about how much information you can puree and pour into someone’s skull.

Some people may be suited for this and excel. But if you try a one size fits all approach, you will stifle and stagnant the vast majority. Each person needs to be taught how to explore their own genius.

You see, the very nature of intelligence is that it is only as good as your perception. The more you can perceive, the more you have available to you. It would be better to work on enhancing your perception of life than it would be to see how much information you can regurgitate.

So that is the first thing: Not to judge everyone by the same standard. Intelligence is individual. Look at a person for what they are, not compared to you or someone else. Provide them with what they need to uniquely flower.

The next thing you need to understand is how intelligence works. It is not just one thing, or how you think, or your mind. Your intellect is a sharp tool, ready to dissect this existence. That tool is held and guided by your identity, and your identity is made up entirely of your accumulated experiences and genetics.

Largely, your identity has been made by accident. Then you pick up that knife and start flailing it around, trying to use it to fix everything. It’s a very dangerous way to approach life, for yourself and others. Not very graceful or safe.

When I say your intellect is a sharp tool, what I mean is you are always using it to categorize everything. You see one thing, and immediately your mind will try to dissect it and break it down, won’t it? It only functions by slicing everything in two.

For example, if it is hot right now, you only know that by comparison to cold. Just like this, you see a tree, and your intellect says “it’s big not small, it’s green not red, it’s a plant not an animal….” On and on like this it dissects everything.

And those conclusions you draw about that tree, they are not just empirical observations. You will also say “I like this tree because it’s big, and green. I don’t like small red trees.” This is the work of our identity. All your likes and dislikes decide how you use your intellect to categorize what you experience.

The only reason you decided you like big and green trees and not red small trees is because somewhere in your life, you had some experiences that shaped your identity. You decided arbitrarily to like this thing and not that thing.

These opinions you have stick to your knife like when you cut a cake. Your mind because more and more of a burden and turns against you. It’s time to recognize it’s limitations and clean it up.

What I am saying is none of this, from your data you’ve gathered to the identity, to the intellect, have any basis in reality. They are all psychological. They are not existential. In other words, they are not real. They are interpretations only, not the truth.

To enhance you perception means to see things as they are. Beyond your likes and dislikes, your opinions, your identity, all of it. Just to simply see everything as it is. Don’t raise anything on a pedestal. Don’t look down on anything either. If you can do this one thing, you will enhance your perception.

When you start seeing everything the way it is, instead of through the filter of your psychological opinions, truth is obvious and apparent. It requires very little effort. But the best direction to focus your perception is not outward, it is inward.

Try to see yourself the way you are. Drop all your likes and dislikes. See them for the bondage that they are. Then your true genius will really begin to blossom. When this happens, naturally you will see the outside for what it is also.

That is the intelligence you want to get in touch with. The non-discriminatory aspect that can see things clearly. Your intellect, identity, all the data that feeds it, these are all only good for your survival.

But when it comes to knowing the true nature of your existence, they are utterly useless. They will not get you there. No matter how much you use them, they are incapable of showing you the truth. It’s like trying to use a boat to fly in the air. It just won’t work.

All this may seem so far away. You probably strongly identify with your thoughts and emotions, your identity, all your data. But the truth is, you are not those things. You are more than just your psychological nonsense.

There is an intelligence within you that is actually running the show. It is the source of all creation in this existence. It is in everything, even the emptiness.

It is what makes sure you are breathing, metabolizing, and much more more. It does not need your intervention to do any of it. It is pure consciousness.

As always, turning in is the only way out. Otherwise, you will try to use your mind for everything. You will try to fix the world by stabbing at it with your mind. But you need to operate from a place that unifies, not something that dissects, if you truly want to make this world a better place.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise

On Projection

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I notice that I project my own issues onto others all the time. For example if I am feeling unattractive I will comment on someone else’s appearance. Or if I see someone who is not working hard at work, I am just avoiding my own lack of effort.

Is it wrong to comment on things that you know need fixing if you haven’t fixed them yourself? What if I see something they don’t see and it could help them?

Sincerely,

Projecting and Deflecting

Dear PAD,

Everything you do is a projection. You have no authority to be telling anyone to do anything.

Do you think you are seeing the world as it is? Pure, unfiltered, without any of your own ideas attached?

When you see something, you only see it the way your body interprets it, no? You are limited by your own senses in this regard always. If you were a dog you would see less but smell more. If you were a bee you could see ultraviolet light and so much would suddenly be in your perception that wasn’t before.

You are only capable of experiencing a narrow bandwith of what exists in this cosmos through your senses. Within that narrow range of perception you have, you are only experiencing a sliver of what is happening in any given moment.

What I am saying is that you know far less than you think you do. You know next to nothing. And you think you know what’s best for others?

But it goes farther than just the limitations of your senses. You have a whole psychological structure within you that you are constantly seeing the world through. For every person you know, you have a different mask. For every situation, you have a pre-planned personality you fall back to.

So not only do you know next to nothing, what you do think you know isn’t even accurate! It is always through the foggy filter of identity and personality.

You have so many agendas, so many things you are trying to get out of the other every time you are “helping” them. No, you are just avoiding yourself.

This is why everything you do is a projection. Is this meant to make you feel hopeless, or meant to excuse you from all your actions? No, it is just meant to bring you down to reality.

It’s a good thing that everything is a projection. This means that all of existence is a mirror for you, showing you what lies in you. This means existence is hiding nothing from you.

All your issues, all your obstacles, all the barriers to being happy you have within yourself, they are reflected in how you see others. Take advantage of this! In this way, everyone and everything is screaming at you telling you what’s in the way of your bliss.

Accept that you project onto others in each moment. When you feel the inclination that maybe you are not projecting, you must realize you are definitely projecting and dig deeper to find out how.

Start there, and only once you have embodied this truth should you concern yourself with what others are doing.

You see, the crux of all of your problems in life is really only stemming from this one lack of understanding. Whether it is a marital problem, a career problem, a friendship problem, a money problem – whatever it may be – it is only such a struggle because you think that fixing the external will somehow fix the internal.

Your whole existence is only happening inside of you. Even when you look at something, you are seeing it through your mind only.

In this same way, if something joyful happens to you – let’s say you win a new house – where is the joy created? Was it in the new house? Was it in the prize? No, the joy is only happening within you. You manufacture it.

If you were such that no matter what happens in life, you are pleasant, then this issue of projection won’t be an issue. What is there to project? You are pleasant, so only pleasantness!

You cannot avoid projection if you are a compulsive person. The reality is the way you keep yourself matters. If you are unconscious, and living in a reactive way, then you will expect that everything around you needs fixing. Then and only then can you be happy. This is a silly and unachievable way to live.

But if you make yourself pleasant, for no reason at all other than you want your existence to be joyful, then you will exude that around you. You don’t pick and choose who gets your joy, it just comes out of you naturally.

To exude who you are is the other side of projection. The reality is you are always exuding yourself to others, just when it is not serving you we call it projection. But it is the same thing. You cannot turn it off.

Since it cannot be turned off, you best make yourself pleasant! Not only is that what is best for you, it is what is best for others. Tell me, if you could be around a pleasant person or an unpleasant one, which would you prefer?

Unhappy people are always trying to tell other people how to be. Happy people need nothing from anyone. But if you are unhappy, you will only look at how to manipulate every situation so that you are happy.

You cannot extract happiness from your surroundings. Even if you could, would you want to live like such a leech? It is not necessary, you are capable of being blissful all by yourself, no outside help needed!

It is time you turned inward. If you are looking at your little world and see so many issues, then the issue is first and foremost with you. That you think you somehow have the answer for everyone else’s problems when you can’t even take care of your inner nature is the epitome of hubris.

First fix yourself. Take a look at who you are! There is so much beauty and potential within you. This is your only duty, your only purpose, to tap into this. If you can tap into that boundless well, helping people won’t be an issue anymore. It will be totally natural for you.

In other words: You cannot create a more peaceful, joyful, or loving world without first making yourself a more peaceful, joyful, and loving person.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise

On Selfishness

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I sometimes find myself behaving very selfishly. When I am struggling or in pain, I tend to only think of myself. How can I become less selfish?

Sincerely,

Selfish Allergy

Dear SA,

Why do you do anything that you do in life? I know, it’s a big question.

For example, your job why do you work there? Or your spouse, why are you with them? Your relationships, your career, your hobbies, your thoughts, literally anything and everything, why do any of it?

You might say I work to feed my family. I am with my spouse because I care about them and want them to be happy. I want you to get a reality check if this is what you think.

Everything you do is selfish. Everything you do is in your self interest.

Under all the surface reasons, you only do any of these things in your life because you feel they will make your experience of life more meaningful, happier, or easier. You may dress it up and mask it as altruism, but please see that it is not.

You are always selfish and behaving selfishly. This is not to chastise you or scold you. This is not to take away from any love you feel for your family, or from the genuine joyful memories you have. Those are all fine. This is just the default state people are in.

When unconscious, you are only capable of behaving selfishly.

You mentioned being in pain or struggling as a trigger for selfishness. You could not be more correct. This desire to make your life better than it currently is, to move out of the struggle and pain, that is the very basis of selfishness.

Basically what I am saying is your entire life is a struggle, therefore it has all been selfish.

When I say that your entire life is a struggle, what I mean is that you are never satisfied with the way things are. Most people have not lived even one moment and been satisfied. Not because life gave them a peaceful moment, but because it was there choice to be that way, regardless of what life threw – few people live like this.

If you are not satisfied with this moment the way it is, you will always be struggling, longing, pushing to find something better. Because you are only concerned with your experience of life becoming better, what other recourse is there but selfishness?

You won’t be able to become less selfish. It is every human being’s desire to evolve, to expand, to grow. You can never avoid this. If you achieve one milestone in life, it may satisfy you for a moment, but pretty soon the longing for the next milestone will come.

Instead, I want you to see that the basis of your entire life is selfishness. But this need not be a bad thing.

The only time when selfishness is an issue is when it is making the experience of others and the environment around you worse.

So the real question isn’t how to become less selfish. The real question is how to live in such a way that you leave this planet and all the people you encountered along the way better off than you found them?

Right now, the problem is you see yourself as an island. You have an identity, a self-image, that is deeply rooted and layered. You think that with this identity, you are special, unique, and without it, you are nothing.

So you cling to this identity, constantly making choices to deepen it, not to shed it. This separates you further and further, isolating you instead of unifying you with existence.

The reality is if I stripped away everything you call as you – all your titles, your attachment to you relationships, your preferences, all of it – you would still be 100% unique in this universe. That is because there are no two moments in this existence that have ever been identical, and there never will be.

When the source of who you are is built like this, there really is no need for such an obsession with being a unique special little snowflake. This identity you are so clinging to is the only obstacle.

Instead, if you want your life to enhance everything around you, you must learn to stop identifying with all the labels in your mind and start seeing things as they are.

If you paid close attention, you would see that you are not functioning independently. You think your respiratory system is just from your nostrils to your lungs, but the other half of it is in the trees, is it not?

In this way, you are connected to all of existence. Everything is constantly giving you life – not just air to breathe, but your very life essence! You also are constantly exuding your life energy in an ever reciprocating unity.

If you saw the tree as part of you rather than separate from you, tell me, would you every dare harm it?

Now in the same way, if you saw your spouse, your boss, your neighbour, the dog, whoever or whatever, as part of you, where is the question of ever making things worse?

If you start practicing being more inclusive, seeing everything as a part of you, you will naturally nurture it. It will be effortless. You have your selfish nature to thank for that.

If you are built to be selfish, then just see everything as you! You will automatically do what’s best for all.

All it takes to see others as yourself is to stop giving so much importance to what you think you are.

Every time you think you are a mother, or a brother, or an employee, or a citizen, or a warrior, or a poet, etc – just remind yourself that you are none of those things. It will take some work, but eventually you will stop identifying so strongly with all your masks.

If you constantly are labeling yourself in life, you limit yourself. This is a true crime. You are boundless potential, each moment you can choose however you want to be. Life has given you no labels, you are free to be any way you wish!

Whatever petty definition you give yourself in your mind will never be as good as that truth.

So start including all of existence within you, because you are worthy to include them. In this practice of absolute inclusion, your selfishness will no longer be an issue.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Masculinity

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear true self,

I’ve been reading your blogs for a while now and I must say your perspective is refreshing, and I enjoy reading your opinions.

I live in a world which could be defined by the term toxic masculinity. I try my best to be patient, kind, and understanding but often times I am brought to a weakened state because of the constant push back from the negative energies around me.

It gets so troublesome that sometimes I lash out and end up putting myself in situations I don’t want to be in just because of the constant tugging.

I’m trying my best to be a positive person. I want to make the world a better place. What are some ways I can go about affecting the world without the world effecting me?

Sincerely,

Mostly Positive, Sometimes Tired

Dear MPST,

First of all, we must understand that there is no such thing as toxic masculinity. Before everyone gets in a huff, there is also no such thing as toxic femininity. Toxic behaviour is toxic, it doesn’t matter what you have between your legs.

Before we dive into what you can do amidst toxicity, let’s talk about the very idea of masculine and feminine.

Society has decided for you how you should be – what size, shape, look, personality, emotions, just about everything. For the vast majority, this script is followed without question, and we think it is somehow the inherent truth.

But a script is not something you write for yourself, it’s something that someone writes for you. It is limited and worse it is incorrect.

The reality is that all things in nature have masculine and feminine aspects to them, especially people.

What we largely refer to as masculine energy is the energy of action. If the whole world runs only on masculine energy, it drives itself into the ground in unsustainable ways, as it has now. Today even women who are CEO’s must behave in masculine ways to succeed.

Before you start proclaiming that if women ran the world, things would be better, take a deeper look.

What we refer to as the feminine is receptivity. If the whole world was only passive, nothing would happen or ever get done. Sure, that may fix the current state of the world because we have ramped up the masculine too much, but in the long run it will cause stagnation.

Only through a composite union of the masculine and feminine will there be any balance.

Part of the issue is the words themselves. Masculine and feminine are too loaded.

People have so many opinions on what those terms mean because they are too attached to their identity. He is male, so he must be like this. She is female, so she must be like that.

I am saying only a skewed person is so heavily identified with what’s between their legs. So many body parts, and that’s what you fixate on? Look more at who you are, not what genital organs you have!

All masculine and feminine means is this: Tree breathes out, you breathe in. You breathe out, tree breathes in.

It is this composite union I am referring to. The blend of masculine and feminine, the in and out, the giving and the receiving. All further definitions of masculine and feminine stem from this.

You can’t be a man without the feminine within and you can’t be a woman without the masculine within. It will be no way to live.

Tell me, can you live without the tree breathing? It’s time to stop identifying with male or female anymore. You are always both.

How you keep your inner balance of this matters. And how others keep themselves matters. If it’s too far in one direction or the other, it becomes a problem.

But not everyone who is too masculine or too feminine is toxic. So to blame it on that is short sighted.

We give too much leeway to people when we tell them they are displaying toxic masculinity. Just call them for what they are: They are toxic. If they weren’t toxic about their manliness, they would be toxic about something else, believe me.

I don’t say all of this to wash over all the ways rampant masculinity has caused suffering for many people, especially women. It is an issue that definitely exists.

However, the solution isn’t to redefine masculinity or femininity. It is to hold people accountable beyond their gender. It is not the masculinity that is toxic, it is them. Don’t give them the excuse of their gender to hide behind.

This is why I am telling you over and over to drop the idea of masculine and feminine. To look past people’s surface level garbage, especially some arbitrary male/female script.

So how to hold them accountable?

If you play the game of trying to convince people their masculinity is toxic, it will become a battle of identity. When people’s identity is challenged, they will always push back. Trust me, people are way too attached to their identity. Challenging it will only cause you misery.

Instead you must see that it is an issue beyond their masculinity. They became a toxic person. With all the pain and suffering in the world, that’s who they have chosen to be. It’s truly tragic, isn’t it?

The only reason they have chosen this is because they themselves are suffering. It doesn’t excuse their behaviour, but if you want to change the toxic culture in your life, you must meet people where they are at.

So go past the masculinity. When they are being toxic, maybe it’s time to ask them if they are alright. After all, only people who are hurting inside behave like they are. Compassion will get you farther than conquering.

Perhaps they don’t listen to you. Perhaps many of these toxic people don’t want to change. It doesn’t matter if you help them or not. In your heart, you must always remember that the only people that cause harm in this world are those that are suffering themselves.

This distinction is paramount. You will stop seeing them as your enemy and start seeing them as someone who needs help.

With this shift in your core to help them rather than convince them, you will naturally seek real solutions.

Sometimes those solutions might mean cutting these people out of the environment because they refuse to change. Sometimes it might mean removing yourself even. Sometimes, the person will see how their hurt is hurting others and want to change.

The solution will always vary based on willingness – theirs to change and yours to help. How others are is out of your control 100%.

I cannot give you some catch all rules to manipulate people into being less toxic. The reality is they need help and often don’t even see it. There is no shortcut to helping people. Again the only real solution is to help, not convince.

Toxicity in this world will not change if we just create more rules and nonsense to force people to behave properly. The toxicity will merely shift into some other area. Stupid boundaries of gender have gotten us into this mess, more boundaries and rules will not clean it up, only transfer it.

We need consciousness to shift in people. That starts with you. Stop getting distracted by identifications of male and female and start seeing the root of the toxicity: their pain.

From there, how you act is up to you.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Ego

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I try to do a lot of work on myself and spiritual growth is important to me. But I find that even though I know I should do things like be honest, gentle, kind, etc, my ego comes in and I start acting selfishly. The ego is always sabotaging me! How do I work on ridding myself of it?

Sincerely,

Leggo my Ego

Dear LME,

How the hell are you going to get rid of something that doesn’t exist?

People like to talk about ego on the spiritual path. It often feels like there is a true self underneath all that you are, and the ego is in the way of it. Your true self is there for sure, but this idea of the ego is something that you have invented.

Tell me, when something in your life goes the way you want, where is this ego? Is it there to receive credit for the good?

No, only when something doesn’t go the way you want, then suddenly the ego appears! Now you have a convenient target to dump unto. Ego is there so you can have someone to blame.

You see, what you call as ego is just a scapegoat. Why can’t you just be honest with yourself and take responsibility? It is you that is responsible for your life. That includes the good and bad, the ups and downs, all of it.

When you name all the bads and downs as “my ego”, then you’re just shirking responsibility. When you shirk responsibility, you remove any power you had to change it.

Take a look at this example – Let’s say you are walking down the street and see a piece of garbage on the ground. If you find a scapegoat for this garbage, you will never pick it up. You can blame the problem on people who litter, on the government, on just about damn near anyone. You take no responsibility, therefore you don’t have to do anything.

But let’s say instead you look at that garbage and say “this is my doing, I am responsible”. Now you have options. It’s not about blaming yourself; obviously you didn’t drop it there. But you are responsible in that moment for it being there. If you do nothing, it will still be there won’t it? You are complicit.

The litter is your responsibility the moment it came into your experience. Everything that happens in your experience is like this. Everything in your life is your responsibility.

Because the external world has easy targets to blame, scapegoating is simple. But inside, there’s just you, so you had to create some other person called the ego to put the blame on. Please see how you are just avoiding taking responsibility for your life.

I emphasize responsibility because you must understand that it is the first most basic step towards making life the way you want it. You should take responsibility for everything in this existence, only then will you work towards improving life for everyone.

But more important than that is taking responsibility for your internal world. No more bullshitting yourself with the ego. If you are in a bad mood, it’s your responsibility. If you’re feeling challenged, it’s your responsibility. No matter what, your life is your responsibility and yours alone.

If you really must give a name to what is inside you, just call it your identity. But your identity includes everything that you call as you: your relationships, your titles, your roles, your job, your hobbies. It isn’t like the convenient ego that is only the bad stuff.

If you want to get to the truth of who you are, you must drop your identity. This doesn’t mean just the challenging stuff that you don’t like. It means your whole identity. All of it, even the “good stuff”.

When you strip away every last bit of your identity, what is left will be something that requires nothing of you. The source of who you are. It is total, it is complete.

Don’t go on endlessly categorizing yourself. Putting things in the pro and con bucket, calling the con bucket the ego, then trying to destroy the ego. What a waste of time and a silly game.

The game of the ego is just a trap for you to feel like you are spiritually growing but in reality you’re just avoiding the real work of dropping it all.

If you want to be your true self, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. It’s a fire sale: everything must go!

Let’s start by dropping the ego. There’s only you in there. If there’s two people inside you, then it’s time to see the psychiatrist isn’t it? Trust me, one person is enough to deal with, you don’t need two!

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Lying

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I have a bad habit of lying. They are little lies here and there, mostly harmless. But I have found that sometimes I will lie even though the truth would not have been that difficult to share. I just lie to avoid any potentially uncomfortable situation and now I feel like I can’t stop. Help!

Sincerely,

Sweet Little Lies

Dear SLL,

If you are someone who has managed to frequently lie and receive no consequence, it only makes sense to do so. After all, often lies can get us many things in life. If the lies hadn’t worked for you at some level, you wouldn’t be telling them at all.

This is part of the problem – often times, lying works. But it will never satisfy you.

You have three main ways you can express yourself – through thoughts, words, or actions. If your thoughts, words, and actions are not in alignment, you are not living a harmonious life.

When I say harmonious, I’m not talking about some esoteric abstract concept. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically, you will feel imbalanced if you do not have harmony in thought, word, and action.

Don’t practice lying. That is what is happening every time you tell a lie. Practice thinking, speaking, and acting in truth.

What is truth?

The truth never requires any effort. The truth exists whether you manage it or not. Take gravity. It exists whether you believe in it or not, doesn’t it?

Lies on the other hand always require effort. If you don’t keep the plates spinning for a moment, they come crashing down. Constant attention is needed only on lies.

So to put it really simply: If it takes your management, it’s a lie. If it happens whether you manage it or not, it’s truth.

If you can start thinking honestly, you can start speaking honestly. If you can start speaking honestly, you can start acting honestly. This is a much better practice.

It will be difficult at first, catching yourself when you’re lying. The hardest lies aren’t the ones we are telling to others, they are the ones we tell to ourselves. Countless ways we lie to ourselves to avoid pain and suffering.

Please see that the source of all your lies is just your fear. You are afraid to truly know yourself, because if you did you would see how much of you is based on absolute lies.

This is the crux of it all. The biggest lie is you. What you call as you is not who you are.

Most people define themselves by their relationships or their accumulations. What if we took away all your titles – father, mother, sister, brother, son, daughter, wife, husband…if we took away all your clothes, the way you style your hair, your house, your car…

Underneath all these narrow and restrictive ways you define yourself is the true you. Life never gave you any labels. When you were born, you didn’t pop out with a sticker that said you were a baby or an artist or a whatever. No, what is you cannot be labeled as any one thing.

That is because what you are is unlimited potential, always.

When your whole identity is a lie, it is only natural to lie with your thoughts, your words, your actions. But it is time to start being honest with yourself.

The truth is your life is totally your making. It always has been. You can make something beautiful out of it if you are conscious. If you are unconscious, you will just compulsively make up some lie and call that lie you.

You can be anything you want in this life. Why be a liar?

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Conclusions

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Lately I’ve been noticing that I jump to conclusions very quickly. Even though I know better than to just make assumptions, that’s where my mind immediately goes and I have a hard time dropping my conclusions once I’ve made them. How can I overcome this and see things more accurately?

Sincerely,

In Conclusion

Dear IC,

If you want to experience the full depth and breath that is your life, with absolute clarity, then inclusion is the only way. You must become vulnerable to all of life that is happening within you and around you.

However when you draw conclusions, you set boundaries. A boundary by it’s very nature excludes one thing from another. This leads you away from inclusion, away from clarity.

You say you jump to conclusions very quickly, meaning it is compulsive behaviour. Anything that is compulsively occurring within you is only working for your survival, not to make your life vibrant.

The hallmark of your survival mechanism is that it is triggered by stressful stimuli. Many things can cause this. Although we don’t really have to fear being mauled by a lion in the jungle on a day to day basis anymore, we have other systems we rely on for survival – money, social structures, relationships…the list goes on and on. Anything that threatens those types of systems will make our survival instinct kick in and start running the show.

You see, your whole identity is tied into survival. So anything that even slightly threatens what you call your identity: your opinions, your worldview, your ideologies, even the way you style your hair or dress – will trigger you into survival mode.

Unfortunately, society has become structured in such a way that our survival mechanism is constantly being triggered. In this state of perpetual stress, drawing conclusions will become a way of life.

If you can learn to see conclusions for what they are you wouldn’t dare knowingly draw them anymore.

Conclusions are just a cage you have built around yourself. It doesn’t matter how pretty you make the cage, what decorations you hang up, what justifications you have for building it – in the end, it’s always going to be a cage.

Your conclusions give you a false feeling of security. You think you are putting up some kind of safety net, but you are just building your own prison. Yes, it is safer in the prison. And just like prison, all your survival needs will be met. But no one can thrive in a cage. You will always long for the freedom of the outside, no matter how comfortable you make the cage.

Instead of drawing conclusions, just revel in how stupid you really are!

“Uh…True Self…That doesn’t sound right”

What I mean by this is that you could spend an entire lifetime looking at a single dewdrop and never know it completely. When life is built in such a complex way, how correct can any conclusion you draw be?

If you just realize that you have so much to learn, so much to experience – this moment will just unfurl for you. Right now you are just panicking and struggling. For your whole life, you are obsessed with staying safe. So at every turn you feel your identity is being threatened. And every time you feel that way, you draw more conclusions, further imprisoning yourself.

You must drop the idea that your conclusions are justified if you are right. It doesn’t matter if your conclusions are right 100% of the time or wrong 100% of the time. A prison is a prison no matter how you dress it up.

To overcome this compulsive conclusion drawing nature, you just need to pay more attention to when it happens. The next time you catch yourself drawing one, just remember conclusions equal imprisonment. Then long to understand what is happening in that moment. Be curious, bring back a sense of joy and wonder and explore.

Let’s say for example someone is complaining about their spouse to you. You draw a conclusion that they must have a bad relationship. Now, instead of diving into the abyss of that assumption, why not strive to understand their situation better? Ask them questions, find out what is really going on. Truly listen to them, making them your focus. You will be astonished by how little you actually know.

Yes, that requires a certain level of vulnerability. That’s the whole point. Life will not happen for you if you aren’t vulnerable. If you want freedom in this life, you must do two things: Step out of the cages you are in and stop putting yourself in them via your conclusions.

Be vulnerable. You’re not doing it to see if life will reward you for your vulnerability. You are doing it because it’s the only path to freedom. It doesn’t matter how the other person reacts to you or what life throws – you have not imprisoned yourself. That is all that matters.

It’s time to stop drawing conclusions so you can stop being the architect of your own imprisonment.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.