Tag: learning

On Reflection

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

As the year is ending I find myself doing a lot of reflecting on it. Replaying old memories and wondering what I would do differently. Am I just living in the past or is there value in thinking about what I could do better in the future?

Sincerely,

Looking Back

Dear LB,

You are basically asking if there is value in learning from our mistakes. Although on the surface it might seem like the obvious answer is yes, it has its limitations.

First you must understand that when we say reflecting on the past or planning for the future, you are trapped in illusion. The past does not exist. The future does not exist. Only now exists.

This isn’t particularly useful information however, because in your experience, the past and future feel very real. So how can focusing on some fortune cookie philosophy like this possibly serve you?

The past is just memory. It does not exist here and now. You can only remember it, and poorly at that. The future is also just a play of memory. You are fantasizing about something based only on your past experiences. You cannot imagine something outside of your accumulated experience.

So whether we talk about future or past, it is all essentially memory at work. Please understand, memory has tremendous benefits.

If not for your memory, you would not know how to walk. You would not know how to speak, how to eat, how to drink, how to do anything! Imagine having to learn everything new every single time you had to do it. It would be a clumsy and torturous life.

Then does replaying old memories in order to learn from them make sense? Of course. Even if you don’t consciously do it, your body has memory, your cells have memory, your very DNA is memory. Whether you choose it or not, your system is constantly reflecting and learning from the past.

Reflecting has a huge significance in your physical, mental, psychological, and social aspects of life. But it has absolutely no significance existentially.

When I say existentially, I mean what are you experiencing right now? Not in merely a physical or mental or emotional way, but what is your experience of life? Can you ever experience the past? Can you ever experience the future?

You can only ever experience this moment. And this moment, no matter what you do in it, cannot be changed. It doesn’t matter how much you reflect on this moment, nothing can change it.

Your whole life experience is in reality only happening in this individual moment. Slice to slice, you are experiencing life. The only issue is you are trapped in the allure of memory and fantasy, but it is not real.

There is no harm in looking at the past or planning for the future. But you must understand that it is not existentially relevant at all. When it comes to your life, it is happening only now. Right now you may be thinking about the past or future, but you are not a time traveler. You cannot go anywhere but where you are now.

Reflect and prepare as needed to manage your situations in life. That is the sensible thing to do. Just recognize that those situations are not life itself. They are merely accessories to life.

Life is how beautiful, meaningful, or deep and total your experience is. That’s it. The only place to live life is in each individual moment.

People take life far too seriously. They put too much importance on their past experiences, playing them over and over. They put too much worry into their future, trying to guarantee an outcome when life has no such guarantees.

That’s part of the game of life, to learn and grow. It is unavoidable. But it’s not the main event! Stop taking it so damn seriously. Just give it the minimal attention it requires for you to live properly.

Put the majority of your attention and energy into the here and now. Where else can you possibly be except here and now? Become involved in the life that is happening within you and around you in this moment!

If you just flip the ratio so that more time is spent being present rather than in your memory and fantasy, you will see how quickly your life will transform.

Just think right now how many things are happening that are truly fantastic. You are breathing, the trees are breathing, a tremendous ball of fire is giving you energy constantly, the planet is traveling at unfathomable speeds without fail…

This moment is everything. It contains everything. Eternity is always there in a single drop, moment to moment. When this moment contains literally everything, it seems a bit stupid to be obsessed with the petty memories or fantasies you have.

Whatever you create up in your head can never come close to actual creation.

Your life is not some plan to be executed or some equation to be balanced. Keep your reflecting to where it matters, to play the game that the situations of life bring. Then get back to reality.

All that is worth remembering is this: Your life is now. Not in your reflections.

This moment is your life! How deep and full do you want that moment to be?

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 Hesitation

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Is it okay to hesitate or be cautious? I understand needing to be involved or open to life, but sometimes there are situations where we need to be careful. Isn’t it foolish to never exercise caution?

Sincerely,

Easy Does It

Dear EDI,

Is it foolish? Absolutely! But perhaps it’s time for some foolishness.

One of the biggest problems with people experiencing life is how damn serious they are about it all the time. If you learned to live life without fear of suffering, you would naturally be playful with it.

It happens to everyone. One day they are playing in the dirt, laughing, dancing, singing – then slowly over time they become hurt. Physically, mentally, emotionally, they experience pain and become cautious. Before they know it, they’ve become cautious just about everything.

Truly, when it comes down to it, how often is your life in serious danger? Is there a murdered constantly hunting you down? Is there a volcano about to erupt and destroy your home? Life or death situations are rare, few and far between. Yes, they can happen, but they do not make up the majority of most people’s lives.

But because of the pain you have experienced in life, the mind runs away with things and exaggerates. Things that are merely uncomfortable suddenly become a matter of life and death for you to avoid. If you hesitate around everything that makes you even slightly uncomfortable, you will never grow. This is a true tragedy.

Whether it’s right or wrong, things grow when the correct amount of resistance is there. When we feel resistance, it is a sign we have reached a boundary. Your choice now becomes to either retreat into the safety of that boundary, or to break it and expand.

If you become hesitant whenever you feel that resistance, how the heck are you supposed to grow in this life? The resistance, the discomfort, it is not there to make you suffer. Suffering is in your mind. It is just a signal, a sign that you are ready to break the old and being something new and unknown.

I’m not saying to throw caution to the wind. You don’t have to do some daredevil stunt in order to prove something to yourself. But just simply, in your day to day life, notice all the ways you hesitate to minor discomforts. Then try involving yourself and see if you grow.

So no need to be dramatic – there are plenty of opportunities even in your ordinary life to practice this. You don’t need to do anything new, just start with what you already have.

You see, you need to bring some awareness to the game you are playing with yourself. In order to avoid suffering, you are avoiding life altogether! But one day, there is something you cannot avoid, and it will claim you! At that moment, you will wish you had lived more deeply, not more cautiously.

At the end of the day, that is all this is about. How involved you are with life equals how alive you feel. Hesitation does not make for a meaningful life. Only experiencing things will make for meaning in your life.

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 Satisfaction

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I have a hard time being satisfied with what I have. This isn’t the same as being grateful – I am very grateful for what I have, but still I keep on dreaming of more things. Is it wrong to want more? If we are satisfied with what we have won’t we just get stagnant?

Sincerely,

I Can’t Get No

Dear ICGN,

Is it wrong to want more? No. Is it wrong to want less? No. This isn’t about right or wrong. If you go on thinking that by fixing the outside the inside will somehow get fixed, then you are always going to struggle.

Have you noticed that people can make misery out of anything and everything? Whether you get more money, a partner, a better job, a better vehicle…Have you not been able to suffer those things too? So clearly, the issue is with you, not with what life gives you.

There is nothing wrong with having desires in life. Desire is life. Life is always looking to expand beyond it’s current limitations. The issue is when you start to believe that “If only ____ happens, then I will be satisfied”.

You cannot become satisfied with life by seeking to obtain some goal or ambition or possession. Such endeavors will never satisfy you. You’re not looking for the next thing and the next thing with your desire – you are looking to become infinite in nature. You get what you want, then you want something better, then something better, on and on it goes. You clearly need something boundless to satisfy your desire!

But you try to get to infinity by counting 1+1+1….you’re never going to get there. By using the limited ways you know, you can never reach something that is unlimited.

Take a look closely and see – all your desires only come from what you already know. They never come from what you don’t know. But only the unknown can offer you something beyond your current experience.

If you want something truly unique and transcendent to happen in your life, so that you can move beyond the endless carrot on a stick game of satisfaction, then you have to experience something that is boundless.

For that to happen, you need to drop the idea that achieving some goal will satisfy you. That obtaining something new in your life will fulfill you.

It’s like you’ve never eaten a carrot before, but you have eaten many cucumbers. You think if you just eat enough cucumbers, you will eventually know what a carrot is and be satisfied. Seems ridiculous right?

In the same way, you cannot fulfill your ultimate desire by asking for something a little better than what you already have. You will only ever ask for what you think is possible. That means you are limiting yourself.

So what to do? You can never be satisfied, but you shouldn’t stagnate and do nothing, you’re supposed to touch something  boundless, but have no way to do it…Seems pretty annoying and hopeless.

The thing is, life isn’t a vending machine for you to put in a quarter and receive your reward. Life is just happening the way it is, and that is no small happening. So instead of worrying about what to do in order to be satisfied, instead be satisfied with what you are doing.

Throw yourself into whatever is going on right now. Be totally connected with what you currently are experiencing. Whatever way life happens, it should be more than fine for you! That is the only way to transcend this endless game of dissatisfaction.

What happens externally may determine the quality of your relationships, your work, and other matters. But what happens within you is solely determined by you. Don’t let what happens outside determine how satisfied you are inside.

Seeking things to satisfy you is an endless job. It is just a cycle you keep on repeating. What you acquire may change, but it is the same cyclical game until death. Don’t be fooled by it.

You are alive and here, and can experience life however you wish. You have ultimate freedom to explore each moment. Each moment is full of possibility. Connect with that, break the cycle. Satisfaction? It won’t even be a question anymore.

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 Communication

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

How can I better communicate with people? I find myself often being misunderstood or misinterpreted.

Sincerely,

Communication Breakdown

Dear CB,

See you are asking about two separate things and thinking they are related. You being misunderstood or misinterpreted is not about communication. I know that may seem incorrect at first glance, but I want you to look closely at it.

Communication and understanding are different issues fundamentally. I want you to ask yourself, when speaking with another, what is within your control and what isn’t?

The way you communicate is within your control. But they way they communicate, that is not within your control. The way you understand, that is also in your control. But whether they understand you or not, that can never be in your control.

You may be an expert communicator. You may have a PhD in communication and another PhD in language, but it doesn’t matter. Even if you say something as clearly as possible, how it is interpreted is never in your hands.

People carry a volume of memory with them wherever they go. Based on that, they interpret everything. So you may say the word “flower” with love, but to them it conjures an image of past heartbreak. There is no way to control how they will hear what you say.

One person may understand what you meant, another may not. That is the way it goes. Because if it went any other way, then things would truly be a disaster. I want you to imagine a world where you could say or do something in a particular way and it guaranteed the result you wanted.

Initially that may sound fantastic. But the truth is, it is the very definition of manipulation. So when you communicate with the expectation of the other person responding a specific way, even if that specific way is a response of understanding, you are being manipulative.

So does that mean you should not even bother, or who cares how you communicate? Not exactly, no. All I am saying is that you cannot operate in life based on fulfilling expectations. That will always lead to disaster. Just live life as involved and fully as you can, and see what happens.

So yes, you should strive to communicate as best as possible. Not because you desire understanding, but simply because communicating well will be better for you. Being clear in how you express yourself will mean better well being for you, won’t it? Or in other words, if you go on communicating in confusing ways, confusion within is inevitable.

Communicate well – do everything well! Why would you want to live any other way? Do the best you can in whatever moment, because then your life and the lives of others around you will be more pleasant.

You cannot approach life with a one size fits all policy. There is no one way to communicate that will work for everyone. If you are speaking with a large group of people, then you must assess what is the optimal way for the most people and communicate accordingly. If it is one to one, then you must speak according to that situation’s specific criteria.

Let go of this idea of how to best communicate or be a better communicator. All that will happen is you will stand there while the other person speaks and already you will be making up what to say next before they have finished. You won’t really hear what they are saying.

Instead, approach each instance as fresh. If you start a conversation with someone, don’t premeditate what to say. Simply listen. Truly listen. Then, respond to what they just said. This is the way life functions. Based on this moment, everything is responding.

You must do the same. Based on how this moment is, so too you must respond accordingly. Maybe in one moment it is appropriate to speak passionately. Maybe in another it is appropriate to say nothing at all.

But both are ways of communicating. However, unless you learn to be present and listen to what is happening in each moment, communication will not happen. And then you have guaranteed misunderstanding.

Take some time to devote more attention to the moment. Truly seek to understand the moment as it is before you communicate. Don’t communicate and then hope to be understood.

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 Control

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Sometimes I tend to get too worked up and excited about things. How can I better control myself?

Sincerely,

Losing Control

Dear LC,

If god appeared before you right now and granted you a wish, would you wish for more control or would you wish to have more excitement about life?

I want you to understand only people who are afraid of suffering ask to restrict and limit things. Those who want to live should seek to expand their life.

Now perhaps when you get excited, later on you have a mood swing. You go from excited to burnt out or happy to sad. That’s different. That is because you are living with unawareness. Whenever you do things unconsciously, things become cyclical.

You shouldn’t seek to limit your experience of life. How involved you are, how enthusiastic you are – that determines how alive you feel, doesn’t it? Or put differently, the more uninvolved and reserved you approach life, the less meaningful the experience.

Rather than seek ways to control yourself, seek ways to enhance your capability. Seek ways to make your thought and emotion more balanced. If you improve your capability, then you can be as enthusiastic as you wish. But if you work on control, you will just wind yourself up tight.

Have you ever noticed the more you try to control your excitement, the more it builds up pressure? If you don’t express it in that moment, it will come out in some other way, perhaps as anger or sadness. So control isn’t even a solution because you still will have the same issue you are trying to avoid. It just adds to the problem.

Did you come here to this earth to live or not? That is the real question. If you came here to live, then you must live. You must explore life fully and totally.

Yes, that may mean taking risks. It may mean that you burn out here and there. But trying to control your whole life and living piece by piece is truly a tragedy. It will be a wasted life that you will regret in the end.

Better to live enthusiastically and suffer those consequences here and there than to live reserved. You can always be observant and pay attention to your own life. You can learn to look within.

So what, you were enthusiastic today but tomorrow you were sensitive and in tears! At least now you know you went past your capability and can expand that. But if you never push to that boundary, you will never learn and will regress.

Control is an absolute and utter illusion. You cannot control anything! The more you try to control yourself, the more out of control you will become.

Do not be so afraid to live your life. It doesn’t matter what other people think. It doesn’t matter if you get hurt here or there. I am saying that anyway if you do get hurt, control will not help. It will make your hurt even worse.

Conscious involvement, your enthusiasm – it needs to grow! It needs to flourish and face it’s frictions and become deeper and more resilient. So seek ways to make yourself more capable and balanced within, and not at the expense of your involvement and enthusiasm. You need not shut off your enthusiasm to do it.

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 Willingness

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

How important is it to stand up for yourself and your convictions? In my life I feel like I’ve let people walk all over me but now I’m starting to change that.

Sincerely,

Taking a Stand

Dear TAS,

Whenever you are deprived of something in life, that becomes the most important thing to you. Please take a close look and you will see that is the case with just about everyone.

Let’s take your electricity in your home for example. You don’t think about it at all really – only when the bill comes! But everyday you are turning so many things on and off and you depend on it. Let’s say even for 5 minutes the power goes off. Isn’t it suddenly the most important thing in your life?

It is like this with just about everything in your life – it doesn’t have to be even things you need for survival. It could be your big toe or your eyebrows, the same is true.

So in your life you have lived a certain way, which has been too skewed to one side of the coin. For too much of it you lacked self worth, confidence, esteem, whatever you wish to call it. So now after so long without it, of course you crave it. It is like thirst when you have not drank for 3 days. All you think of is water.

Most people have not truly been thirsty. If you had to go even one day without water you would suffer immensely, believe me. If you are so thirsty that you are willing to kill for it, then when water does come, you tend to overdo it. You will gorge yourself and choke and struggle. Then after you have been quenched for some time, if you didn’t learn anything, water will be meaningless to you again.

Don’t put too much emphasis on these kind of urges that come from deprivation. The issue is not that you lack conviction – the issue is that you decided to make rules for yourself on how you must be.

At some point, you decided it is better or safer for you to let people walk all over you. You became attached to this identity. There was no rule written in the stars that said you must be this way.

I’m sure many opportunities have come in your life where conviction was the appropriate response. I’m sure there are many others also where perhaps conceding was more appropriate. You cannot make up a rule and expect it to work for you all the time. In each moment, thus you must act accordingly.

There’s no point in you swinging like a pendulum from being a pushover to pushing people over. It is a destructive way to be and will take it’s toll on you. Just simply be present in the moment and behave according to what it demands. If you are unsure what to do, best to move gently then until you do!

But how to be present and in the moment? You see, you cannot force being present. If you sit here saying “I am present and here in this moment” all that will happen is you will be repeating words to yourself and for sure you will miss the moment.

If you want to be present, then you must be willing. Willingness is the most important quality for you to have in your life. Without it, everything becomes torture.

Don’t worry too much about what life brings you. Instead be willing to explore whatever it brings you. For sure it will bring you something. A wise person will take a challenging moment and turn it into growth at least. But if you are unwilling, is there any hope of this? All that will happen is you will suffer and complain.

Now, similarly to being present, you cannot just sit there and say “I am willing!” It doesn’t work like that. To be willing, you must open yourself up to whatever is happening. Admit that this moment is neither good or bad, it just is. Then be willing to see it as it is.

Like that you must break down all the stupid little conclusions you have drawn for yourself. When you drop them, willingness is just inevitable. When you accept that this cosmos is a much bigger happening that whatever interpretation you can make in your mind, then your walls just collapse.

When you stop interpreting you start experiencing. But if you are unwilling to drop all these stupid conclusions you draw, what can anyone do with you?

Have you ever seen a doctor try to heal an unwilling patient? Like that, you are going through life! No matter how good the treatment is, if you are unwilling, there is no hope.

So don’t get distracted flipping between your extremes. Work on crumbling all your silly rules and becoming willing.

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 Perfection

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I consider myself to be a perfectionist. Everything I do I endeavour for it to be done as perfectly as possible. Some people say I am obsessive or too nit picky. Is it wrong to want to do things as best as possible?

Sincerely,

Pop Goes Perfection

Dear PGP,

Let me tell you an old Zen story:

There was a monk who lived at a monastery and was placed in charge of the gardens. Because he loved the plants so much, he meticulously performed his job for hours.

There was another temple across from this monastery where an old Zen Master lived. One day, he watched this monk perform his duties with great attention from across the way.

When the monk had finished that day, he remarked to the old master how beautiful everything was now. The master replied,

“Yes, but there is something missing. Please carry me to that tree.”

The monk helped the old master to the tree. The master then proceeded to shake the tree, showering leaves all over the garden. “There” he said, “You can put me back down now.”

What is perfection? It is simply by your limited definition isn’t it? What may be perfectly heaven for you could be someone else’s ultimate hell, couldn’t it?

If you feel a deep compulsion or addiction towards perfection, then that is not well-being, it is sickness. To consciously perform your duties is fine – but you must not be attached to the outcome.

Being dedicated to the process is all that matters. Enjoy every step along the way of whatever action you perform. Do it fully, consciously, with the utmost involvement. That is the only thing that truly matters. But this idea that if you do X, Y, and Z, then it equals perfection, is just a psychological game.

You have created rules for how you live. In those rules, you have decided that things need to be a particular way for you to be comfortable. Now, all these rules have become so important for you that you think that anything that follows them is perfection and anything that doesn’t needs to be fixed.

All that has happened is you have gone from seeing the splendor and beauty in the way things are and instead see everything as a problem that needs solving. Do not flatter yourself. Even if the entire universe was broken, are you somehow the most qualified to fix it?

You can tend to a garden your whole life, and it is not a wasted life. Tending a garden takes tremendous care. You have to manage so many factors, but if you do, there is potential for many great results.

But if you don’t manage those factors even for 1 or 2 days, the whole garden becomes at risk, doesn’t it? This is your plan, your design, your efforts – constant meticulous effort for minuscule fragile reward.

Now take a look at a forest. Even if you leave it alone for ten million years, will it not thrive insatiably? It does not need your interference. In fact, if you want it to not thrive, for sure your interference is the culprit!

That is nature’s way. It is wild, doesn’t care about your personal rules or agendas, and it flourishes in the most effective way. It may not give you the particular result you want, but it will for sure yield far more results than you ever will.

I don’t say all this so that you suddenly become some unkempt lazy person who just thinks that life will somehow take care of you magically. I am saying that you must be as devoted to the process as that forest is.

Every single seed and sapling and tree in that forest is focused on it’s growth. It doesn’t have some desire to grow in a particular way or shape or style. Simply it is devoted to the processes it needs to be – to absorb sunlight, nutrients, etc.

Like this, you must forget about being results focused. Forget about perfection. Instead be as involved as possible in your process. Every day that goes by, no matter what life gives you, make the most of it and dive in!

Perfection is not a target to be reached. Life is not perfect because it follows some made up rules. Life is perfect because in every moment, it pushes forward, with absolute attention and totality. You must do the same.

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 Being Flexible

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I have a hard time being flexible to things I don’t enjoy in life. I get caught up in my preferences and become unhappy. How can I become more flexible?

Sincerely,

Infuriated and Inflexible

Dear IAI,

Let’s say your body is stiff. How did it become that way? You took certain actions and the result is stiffness, no?

Similarly, in the mind rigidity can happen. It to is just a consequence of certain actions.

A flexible mind will make for a flexible life. But you cannot force the mind to be flexible. You must create the right conditions, then, flexibility is inevitable.

Have you ever noticed that when you are joyful, you are very flexible? You are willing to do just about anything. But when you are unhappy, you will draw a line in the sand and put up a wall. This is all that is happening.

You can’t do anything to become flexible to things you don’t enjoy. It is impossible. Flexibility requires your joy. Simply, you must enjoy life, whatever it brings. But right now you have made yourself such a way that your happiness depends on everything except you.

Take a deep look – you become happy only if something external goes the way you want. You got the job you wanted, you got a compliment, the person you like gave you attention. Only then are you happy. This is ultimate slavery, isn’t it?

When your happiness is manufactured within you, why are you seeking it outside of yourself? When you have a bank account with millions of dollars in it, why would you suddenly start looking for pennies on the street?

This is all that has happened to you. You think that happiness comes from the outside. So you have made preferences – I like this situation, so I am flexible. I don’t like this situation, so I am rigid. Your preferences are the very basis of your enslavement.

Am I saying you must become some kind of freak, loving torture and misery? No, I am simply saying that whatever life brings you, no matter how challenging it is, you must learn to be happy of your own nature.

Your happiness should be independent of the circumstance. You see, if you have a difficult situation, it is already bad enough. But now you become unhappy about it, so you are rigid. What was one problem has now multiplied.

You cannot control what life gives you, but how you carry what it gives you is entirely up to you. Will you carry it joyfully? Or will you resist it, fight it, suppress it? The deeper you bury it, the more it will grow.

Become open to life. No matter what it throws at you, simply be happy with it. Don’t mind whether it’s good or bad or easy or difficult. Just be happy to be here, alive, breathing. It is simply a matter of perspective.

If you truly care about your well being, then just change your outlook. When life is good you can enjoy it. When life is difficult, you can strive to grow and learn and enjoy that also. What’s the big issue?

When is there ever a good reason not to be pleasant and joyful about life? In easy times, definitely you want to be joyful. In difficult times, you need it even more don’t you?

You multiply your problems in life and exaggerate them when you become unhappy. This is why I say to practice being joyful. I’m not saying walk around smiling like a grinning idiot at everything, just that there is always something worth celebrating in every moment.

Joy too is just a consequence. Accepting life as it is is the practice. You cannot force joy by saying to yourself “I am joyful, I am joyful!!!!”

When you learn to not have preferences, to simply take whatever life gives you and go with it, ease becomes inevitable. When ease is there, the system will be joyful, be it body or mind. When you are joyful being flexible is natural.

So don’t try to force flexibility. If you force a muscle to become flexible when it is rigid, all that will happen is you will damage it. So you cannot become flexible in the mind when you are unhappy. You will just torture yourself.

Instead, simply learn to accept the moment as is, appreciating it. The rest will follow.

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 Questions

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I have so many questions burning in my mind all the time. I try to meditate, try to read teachings, but always I have a million questions. What will it take to get the answer?

Sincerely,

Question Everything

Dear QE,

Questions…you must understand the limitations.

A question is a good place to start for one who is seeking their ultimate well being. When you are wanting to improve your life in some way, you seek answers somewhere. You have some question in your mind that you feel must be answered.

But have you found, every time you find and answer and think “this is it!” eventually it is not enough and you have more questions?

You see, your questions should move you in such a way that they provide clarity and direction. They should aim for truth, not conclusions.

Thousands of answers can be given to even a single question. Depending on your perspective, you can argue something from any direction. I’m sure you have seen politicians take the exact same data and somehow make it fit their reasoning, even when the other party uses it to achieve the opposite.

Conclusions are a waste of your time since they are interpretive. What is interpreted is not reality, it is just your psychological nonsense. Truth works on all levels of life.

Conclusions will not bring you truth or clarity. They will only narrow your experience of life. They will fix boundaries around your existence that do not exist. Then you will naturally want to break free of them. This is why there is no answer that will satisfy you, and questions will keep on coming.

There is this problem in most people that they believe they can pin down life into one sentence or one question or answer and it will complete their existence. Life doesn’t work like that. It cannot be pinned down.

Even the tiniest objects in this universe can be examined infinitely. That is the depth of this universe, of this life. There is no single answer. There is only the experience of that boundlessness.

The very place where you are asking questions from (your mind) is incapable of experiencing anything in it’s entirety. By it’s very nature it wants to dissect everything. It will never allow you to experience the whole picture, because it can’t.

So you ask a question from your mind, and any answer you receive will be of the mind too. Your mind cannot get you there any more than a boat can get you to the moon. It is simply impossible. That is the limitation of your mind.

But in the experiential dimension of life, the answer, so to speak, is there. It is pulsing and thriving in every moment of this existence. When you can move beyond the need for conclusions and simply be here with things as they are, questions and answers become meaningless.

What is the use of answering your questions when instead we can burn up all the questions? What use will an answer be if you are sitting here in tears and ecstasy experiencing the true nature of this existence?

So do not ask questions expecting an answer. Ask questions in such a way that you become part of a process. The way a seed moves from sapling to flower to fruit, you too must burn those questions as fuel to grow.

If you are willing to be a process, then you are willing to be life. That is all life is. Life in every moment is an ever unfolding process. It is constantly growing and constantly flowering. You cannot conclude anything about it.

It’s like this: When that tree is growing, is the ultimate result the flower? Why aren’t its putting down roots just as phenomenal? Or it branching, or sprouting, or shedding? You see, all of those things are results in their own right, just as the flower is.

If you can see all life like this, one big process where growth and flowering are inseparable, indistinguishable – what use are your questions? Conclusions can never take you to this perception. Your mind can never provide you with the answer you seek.

If you have questions that is fine. But do not become obsessed with answers. You will just keep on drawing conclusions and imprisoning yourself.

Instead, work on yourself. In the myriad questions that have been asked here, am I not always hammering away at you that you must turn inward? That your experience of life is entirely within you?

Be devoted to the process that is your life. There are no answers; you just simply have to explore the fullness of what it means to be alive.

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 Choosing Sides

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

There are so many issues that seem to divide us all. Political issues, religious issues, moral issues – people can’t even agree on reversing our climate issues! When the world is so divided, is there any hope for our future? Why are some people so stuck in their ways?

Sincerely,

Divided We Fall

Dear DWF,

The issue is people are so damn identified with everything. Including you.

You wear your clothes a certain way, someone else wears different clothes that seem ugly to you, immediately you have stopped including them, haven’t you? You’ve pitted yourself against them over something so trivial.

I’m not saying you’re doing it consciously. And that’s the problem. Unconsciously you are constantly dividing your life into camps based on an all the ways you accidentally identify with everything.

Forget all the different ways you are categorizing this. Political, moral, whatever – essentially, you have formed your identity around some boundary that you created or you let society impose on you. It’s that simple.

Tell me, where do all these boundaries you have drawn exist? Do they exist in the outside naturally? Did nature draw lines everywhere saying “left wing on this side, right wing on that side”? No, nature has only fixed one boundary for you, and that you will understand when you take your last breath. Otherwise it has given you absolute freedom.

So these boundaries don’t exist independently of you. They exist only within you. You made them up!

It’s true, people will never agree on anything collectively. You cannot name a single topic where 100% of the people agree. And that is okay. That is part of the diversity of life, and not you or anyone else is ever going to change it.

But because you have come with all your identifications, you arrive to every situation with a closed mind. You enter with a glass filled to the brim – tell me, can it fit any more into it?

So with your mind already made up you go into each situation. Is this a wise way to be? Can anything new happen here? No, this is the way of fools. Only a fool acts based on things that aren’t real.

What’s not real you ask? The past is just memory. The future is just an imagining. Neither exist here and now. Here and now, you must be open, otherwise you are not living in reality!

If you are not open in this moment the way it is and have already picked a side, then you are doomed to suffer. It doesn’t matter if the side you picked is right morally or scientifically or whatever. You must approach each moment with openness and humility.

You choose a side and it’s already daunting enough to work on what you want to change.  Now you also have to fight everyone who you have deemed to be on the other side. Why are you dividing everyone into camps?

Why are you focusing so much on all the problems? Essentially it boils down to this: Are you part of the problem or part of the solution? Don’t dress it up anymore than that.

No matter what the situation, you make the most of it. You work towards your vision. If you truly believe it is right, then even if it means it will never be accomplished in your lifetime, you work towards it anyway. A person who plants a tree does not get to benefit from it’s shade. But others will, and they won’t care what side you were on, only that the tree is there!

The world is a large place. Though there may be many who seem like they are on the other side of you, there are countless that are willing to work with you on what you feel matters. Very few people stand in your way actively sabotaging. You’re not that special!

But isn’t it convenient to have an opinion on everything and do nothing? You are on the left side and yell at the right, they are on the right and yell at the left, but nobody is lifting a finger.

My point is all this endless divisive thinking is just a distraction for you. If you truly care about something, then you use whatever means you can to make it happen. You don’t get to decide what the state of this moment is. But you get to decide how you are in the moment.

It’s up to you – keep looking at the world as divided, and that is all you will see. You will become negative and cynical and take very little meaningful action. Or you can see where there is opening, and and plant some seeds there and tend to them. The world needs more of the latter.

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 Helping Others

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I have grown a lot and worked on myself a great deal. I feel now when I look at people that I have a genuine desire to help them, but I find people do not seem to really want to change. What can I do to get through to them?

Sincerely,

Helping Handicapped

Dear HH,

You help someone where they are at. Not where you wish them to be.

If that one simple thing sinks into you, then helping others is not a complex endeavour. According to your capability and their willingness, you help them. What is so hard about that?

The issue right now is you see someone and see problems. You decide that you are the only one who can fix it. They must be fixed the way you see them. This is not coming from a place of compassion, but from a place of competitiveness. Your insecurity makes you want to be the one to “get through to them”.

I want you to sincerely look at where you are in your life right now. You claim to have grown a lot; this is fantastic! Now tell me, to get to this place now, how many stupid, idiotic, and problematic things did you do? Was your journey perfect?

What authority or experience do you have to decide what somebody’s potential is? Do you have any way of determining that what they are going through right now is good or bad for their growth?

If you are truly in the business of helping others, then whatever way people are, you will use it for their growth. It is that simple.

It’s so easy to say to someone “You must be like this. You must change in the way I see as best“. This puts you in a superior position and removes all accountability from you. They fail and you avoid the blame, they succeed and you take the credit. Good deal for you, isn’t it?

If you do not have the skill to help someone no matter what state they are in, then best to simply leave them to live their life. You just exist in such a way that people are better for having encountered you. Be an exuberant, joyful life. That alone will help, without you having to do anything specific.

You being critical of others and forcing your way on them is not going to help anyone, least of all you. People do not want to be told what to do. They want to get there by their own hand. To help someone is an art, a dance, and skill does not come simply because you have “grown more than them”.

So that’s the first bit – you. Your capability to help must be honed, or barring that, you must be a blessing to all you encounter. Without that, you have no business helping.

The second bit is their willingness, their receptivity. But still, this requires your keen perception.

Helping someone is not about forcing them to a realization or an action. Helping someone is planting a seed.

People come to you with all kinds of boundaries and excuses and barriers set up. They want a beautiful flower to grow, but they have paved over everything with concrete. Where to plant the seed?

You can grab a hammer and force the pavement open, plop the seed down, then leave. But this is a destructive approach, and what’s more, you do it without their consent. Even if the flower grows, they have no appreciation for it and will pave over it again, simply because it was born without their consent.

But if you just be with them, and guide them towards cracking their own pavement – breaking down their own excuses in other words – then the soil is exposed, but they were the ones to expose it. Do not underestimate the importance of their involvement.

Then, you can plant the seed. Even better if you give them the seed and they plant it themselves!

All of this is metaphor, but it also isn’t. Every conversation you have is functioning in this way, isn’t it? To help is just this very process of dissolving excuses and boundaries and exposing the soil. It is about freedom and growth.

When they are the ones to break down their own nonsense, their growth is much faster and lasts. They are capable of transformation. If you want to help,  you guide them through this, provide them with the tools, support them whatever way they need in that moment.

Every moment is different. Whether a person is making poor choices or good choices is irrelevant. No one can say for sure what can grow from the actions we take today. So deal with each person as they are in that moment.

Don’t see people the way you wish they were. You will be incapable of helping. Who knows what they will flower into! They may do something no one else has ever dreamed!

You want to help, then simply meet them where they are at. Drop this notion that they are not receptive. Something is always reachable and possible in each moment. You are the fool for acting as though you know best and it’s their issue.

Help or don’t help, either is fine. But if you must help, then help them as they are. That is the only way.

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 Consequences

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Whenever a question is asked you often speak about going inward, not outward. That’s all fine, but what about managing the external? How does one create a pleasant atmosphere for themselves, one where they can thrive? Surely the external matters to some extent.

Sincerely,

Inside Looking Out

Dear ILO,

People feel like managing their external situation is some big undertaking. Is your life truly so complex?

What is it you are trying to manage – work, a relationship, a family, a home? Every other insect, bird, fish, or animal on this planet does the same damn things without nearly as much fuss. It’s not actually such a big deal.

Perhaps you want a certain level of these things. You have set some standards for these things – but that is your business. Your standard of these things could be anywhere, but you fixed them in such a way that they are difficult.

But let’s just humour you for a moment. Let’s say you get a genie and he grants you wishes. You wish for what? Money, promotion, bigger house, better car, better marriage…? He grants you all these wishes and more.

For how long will you be satisfied? A day? A week? A month? At some point, will you not become dissatisfied?

You keep thinking that by fixing the outside you’re going to fix the inside. This has never worked for anyone and will never work for anyone. Just take a look at the world. Haven’t we tried solving almost every problem by fixing the outside. If we fix the outside anymore than we already have there won’t be a planet left pretty soon!

You want pleasant surroundings you say. Your external experience is simply a reflection of your inner experience, isn’t it? Perhaps you disagree, that it is only because of something someone else did that you are the way you are. Let’s take a look at this. Are you a victim or are you in charge?

Have you ever been in a situation where everyone was happy and joyful but you were miserable? The external situation was perfect, but it doesn’t matter because you were feeling cranky that day.

Or perhaps a day where you were feeling fantastic, and all of your friends and family were having problems. You were able to continue feeling great and unaffected by their nonsense.

My point is that if you do not have peace in yourself, you will not have peace in your surroundings. It doesn’t matter how conducive the situation is to your growth, if you are not receptive, it doesn’t matter.

Letting the outside situation dictate how you are inside is absolute enslavement. If you had a remote control that controlled your experience of life, but then you hand it over to me, isn’t that slavery? Now I am in total control over how you are within. I decide if you are happy or sad or whatever. Anxiety and stress is natural in such a situation.

You cannot decide how the external goes. It is always out of your control. Only according to your intelligence and capability can you manage it to some extent. You can even manage it well. But never exactly the way you want 100% of the time.

At least the inside must be 100% in your control. Why give other people the power over you that they can decide how you feel inside? Why are you giving the remote that is in your hands to every last stranger you encounter?

Individual people must manage themselves. It is the only thing that they can manage. If this one thing sinks into you, that you are responsible for your own experience, then you will see your surroundings will get better.

Let’s say for example you are at work and someone is particularly miserable that day. Tell me, do you want to be around this person? Please understand that everyone else feels the exact same way about you.

Focus on making yourself into the highest expression of your life that you can. Be such a way that everyone that meets you is better for encountering you. Then your situation will transform. But if you think that by fixing someone or something else that you will transform, think again.

You said that to some extent the external matters. Yes, it does. To some extent it does matter. But not in the way you think. It’s not that you will be happy if only the outside was different.

This is all you need to know about perfectly managing any situation you are in:

Do whatever you want. It doesn’t even matter if it is something “good” or something “bad”. But you must do it fully, involved in it totally. No matter what the consequences of those actions, be willing to accept them and include them absolutely.

It’s simple, but not easy. Every action has an effect. That is the way of this cosmos. Nothing is exempt from it. So your actions have consequences. If you are willing to accept the consequences and not be in denial or run from them, then truly, you can do whatever you want.

But if you want to do whatever you want but then cry or get angry when it doesn’t give you exactly what you imagined, you will suffer.

A wise person will understand that when they don’t know the full depth and breath of the consequences of an action they may take, it is best to walk a little bit more gently.

So don’t fixate too much on the outside – act, accept the consequences whatever they are. The real solution to the outside is inside. You waste your life by thinking it can ever be the other way around.

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 Education

~ SE ~ 1 Comment

Dear True Self,

I am a bit worried about the way our education system works. I feel like my kids are all being bombarded enough already by overstimulating media, but then at school they are just being forced to memorize endless knowledge. They even ask me what the point of all this memorization is when they can google everything. Is there a better way for them to learn or is the education system fine?

Sincerely,

Too Cool For School

Dear TCFS,

There must be an important distinction made between information, knowledge, and wisdom. Information is simply data. Knowledge is a certain accumulation and access of that data. Wisdom is the ability to apply all of this in a meaningful way. Very few people are wise.

Unfortunately today we equate intelligence with information. The more information you have, the smarter you are. But it is all nonsense.

You go to school and get your PhD, stand next to a farmer and feel good. You can ask them if they know the square root of pi, and when they say no you can feel smart. You can tell them the dates of famous events in history. On and on you can spout information. But the farmer has intelligence too and do things you cannot. In fact, it takes far more intelligence to do what he does.

The reality is the time has already come where information is obsolete. You can ask any question and find the answer in ten seconds with your smart phone. What are you going to do with all this information you’ve been gathering?

In the same way that factory production took physical labour out of the hands of people and into the hands of machines, accumulation and access of information will go to the machines.

Every time machines come and make life less laborious for humans, the unions and workers will protest. But please see, they are not protesting that the technology is bad. They are protesting because they are worried about their livelihood, their survival.

It is definitely much better for a human being to not have to do tons of backbreaking labour all day. If a machine can do it, it means the person is freed up to explore something beyond their survival.

Unfortunately, humanity has never got out of this mentality, that we need to struggle to survive. So now physical labour isn’t seen as the requirement for work, but how much information you carry is.

So the burden of carrying all this information also takes its toll. If you did not have to waste so many years memorizing endless information, but instead could explore the deepest aspects of your own individual genius, wouldn’t this be a good thing?

The nice thing is that we are sitting on a threshold. When finally we reach a point where how much data you have gathered is redundant, people are going to have no choice but to explore something else. Now more than ever, people must learn to turn inward.

Education started as a means of creating a skilled work force. Back when this happened, it was about factory line labour. We are still very much in this mode. A young mind should not be burdened and stressed by dumping copious data into it. This will not make the child smarter, only more enslaved.

Why take a human being who has their own potential and try to form them into some pre-molded shape? It is an absolute crime to their humanity.

Every single human being naturally explores their inner genius. It is not a big complex endeavour to discover this. If you simply leave a child alone, they will anyway explore it. Even before the child can speak, you can observe this. Put two children of the same age together and give them the same toys. They will both play with them in a completely unique way, won’t they?

This is what I mean by their inner genius being natural. It should not be the role of our schools to bombard them with as much information as possible. It should be to make them more capable of exploring what they know and manifesting it into something new. After all, your children should do something you never dreamed of, not the same nonsense as you.

Perhaps this desire to dump as much data into our children as possible comes from some deep fear of them missing out. Children today have more data crammed at them than ever, but tell me, are they any happier? Every child today seems to have some form of mental issue or health issue, especially in the west.

Enhancing the tools of an individual’s perception is really what the core of education should be. If you help someone become more perceptive, then they will naturally find a way no matter the situation. If you only give them data, which by its very nature is limited, then they can only draw from that. And they will find, just as you have time and time again that no matter how much information they have, it alone has not made them any more capable.

Rather than focus education so much on the limited – which is data – why not focus instead on the limitless – their potential? Whichever way it goes, help them go that way.

What would you rather have – your head crammed full of information, or to be more perceptive and capable? It makes absolutely no sense to focus so much on information when it is becoming so obsolete.

When a person is liberated of burden, whether it’s physical or mental or emotional or whatever, they become free to explore what matters. This is the whole point of creating a life isn’t it? That you want that life to thrive and to live beautifully? But every day out of fear of their survival, we are destroying that capacity to thrive.

Simply put, how much information you have does not lead to well being. It never can. Only by enhancing who you are can that happen. To enhance a child or anyone else, you don’t need to add anything extra. You don’t need to give them as much information as possible. This makes them less capable.

If we can shift from information to perception, education would takes leaps and bounds forward and we would see geniuses blossom all over the place. Intelligence is not about data. If we can understand that for our children, we can set them up for success.

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 Doing Things Naturally

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Can you please explain the difference between doing something naturally and doing something compulsively? Sometimes I think I am doing something naturally, but then I wonder if it is compulsive.

Compulsively Natural

Dear CN,

The issue is words often carry too much baggage. We use words like “natural” and what does that mean? Tell me, is there any way to exist other than naturally? Are you a plastic life form, an imitation?

No matter what you do, you are naturally doing it. It’s like the term “be in the moment”. Where the hell else can you be? So let’s rephrase this question.

How do you define aliveness? How alive you are is just a matter of how awake and how involved you are. If you are asleep, as far as you’re concerned, until you wake up nothing exists.

Or lets say you are daydreaming while doing something, like washing the dishes. You are totally uninvolved in what you are doing and drifting off into some thought. Similarly, lack of involvement makes that moment feel like a waste.

There is this nagging idea within you that somehow by involving yourself in the mundane that life will be boring. So you drift into memories or fantasies, neither of which exist. But in actuality, life is not so boring or serious. There is so much pleasure to be had simply by involving yourself in whatever is happening, no matter how seemingly boring it is.

So, when you are awake and involved, you feel the most alive. Being awake alone is not enough, you must be involved as well. The deeper your involvement, the more alive you will feel.

Essentially, your experience of life is only as rich and meaningful as your conscious involvement.

Now, when you are daydreaming or drifting into some thought, totally uninvolved, your system relies on it’s default programming. You can call this your compulsion. Your compulsion is always based on your tendencies.

It’s a good thing we have compulsion. If we didn’t, then it would be like you were asleep! But it’s just a survival mechanism. As a human being, survival will never satisfy you. This is why the whole question of “natural” vs “compulsive”. You want more than just to compulsively go about things. You want more than just a life of surviving.

Now you are asking how to know when you are doing something naturally vs compulsively. This is simply a matter of involvement. Be totally involved. Bring your conscious attention to the task at hand, and deepen the experience.

How to involve yourself? Start with your body. Involve the senses. If you are doing those dishes, feel the water on your hands. Bring this level of involvement into as many activities as you can. Compulsion disappears the more involved you become.

Perhaps you have some notion that there is just some natural way to be doing things, where you don’t need to be conscious at all. Somehow, the life within you just takes the wheel and everything magically works out.

It’s true, the source of creation throbs within you. But when it comes to the physical world we live in, there is no substitute for conscious involvement. In any case, one way to touch that source is through ever deepening involvement.

Become a big “YES” to each moment in life. No matter what is thrown at you, do it as  deeply you can. That will of course take your involvement and attention, won’t it? There won’t be any issue of compulsion if you simply approach life like this: How involved I am is how alive I am.

You see, there are two existences happening. There is the creation that is here not because of anything you did. It was here before you and will be here after you. Then there is the creation you have in your mind. The whole point of involvement is you step out of the illusion in your head and into the reality all around in each moment.

Your mind is just a mess of psychological conclusions. They help make sense of the world for your survival, but they have absolutely no basis in reality. Your thoughts are an interpretation, they can never be the real thing.

When you are in your head and uninvolved, you are a spectator to your own life. When you are involved, you are a participant. That is the difference.

Stop being involved in your head and spectating your life. Instead, flip it and just be a witness to the thoughts and involve yourself in life.

So all this talk of natural or compulsive is simply moving from the dimension of the illusion of the mind to the presentness of the moment. See life the way it is. Involvement is the way.

One last thing: Doing things naturally does not mean trying to be perfect or doing things correctly. You don’t have to try to wash the dishes, just be present with what is happening while you wash them.

It’s about experiencing the journey to it’s fullest depth. For that, more involvement equals being more natural.

Just involve yourself more and more in each little moment. That is all it takes to do things naturally.

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 Transformation

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I have been trying to work on my personal growth for some time now. I practice being more present, more at ease, more grateful, so many things, but it is always fleeting. Nothing seems to be sticking. I feel like I am slowly changing in some ways but it’s not very satisfying. Am I wasting my time?

Sincerely,

Working Hard is Hardly Working

Dear WHIHW,

First I want you to understand that practicing a quality does not mean you will become that quality. You may feel confused as I know I have spoken much about practicing joy, forgiveness, gratitude, so many things. But it will not work.

The practice cannot be done in order to achieve a result. If you go on faking a smile all day all that will happen is your jaw will hurt and people will wonder what the hell is wrong with you.

You see, it’s like trying to force a bush to grow it’s flower right now, simply because you want to enjoy it’s fragrance. The best you will be able to do is put some perfume on a plastic flower and fake it. Tell me, is this satisfying?

The whole point of the practice is not in the direction of “I want this to happen”. Practice itself is a quality. Practice is about being unwavering, disciplined, focused, to stay in one direction. Just be devoted to the process, not the result.

No matter what you practice, whether it is a sport or an instrument or a meditation, the real important thing is not that you get better at this one individual aspect. That will only take you so far, and it will never satisfy you.

The important thing is that you are learning how to be present with something and pour your life into it absolutely. In this way, you break past the barriers of who you are, which is of utmost importance when trying to grow, isn’t it?

So if you go on practicing one quality at a time, hoping that quality will somehow stick and will be enough, you will only have plastic flowers in your garden. Incremental change is good enough for day to day situations. Even plastic flowers have a use. But when it comes to your experience of life, only transformation will suffice.

What I am saying is that there is a huge difference between change and transformation. Change means you can always change back. It is unstable.

Transformation means something old must die, and something new is born. It’s like shedding a skin, or like the caterpillar becoming a butterfly. Either way, there is no going back.

Do you want personal growth? Or do you want total transformation? You see, you will never be content with growth. Let’s look at an example:

If you get the job you want today, in a few weeks or months, you will look for a better position. If you get that, you will look to run the company. If you get that, you will want to again expand. There is never a point where you are done. It is like this with every aspect of your life.

Obviously something inside you is longing for something boundless. It is impossible to get there the way you are going.

It’s like this: When you were a child did anyone ever ask you how high you could count? Maybe you said 100, or 1000, or 1,000,000. But even then you knew, you could always add 1 to it.

This is what you are trying to do right now. By counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5….you are hoping to reach infinity. By practicing smiling everyday, you are hoping to become happy. By saying thank you every day, you are hoping to become grateful.

You have to flip this around. This isn’t about pursuit. To pursue infinity, or the boundless nature within you, you can never reach it. It will always be one step away.

This is about making your very expression of life joy, or gratitude, or whatever. In the same way the flower isn’t trying to give off it’s fragrance, you must simply express your life effortlessly, without prejudice, to everything.

“But how the hell do I do that?”

It’s like asking “How do I be?” You simply are, there is no other way to it. A fish isn’t wet because it tries to be wet, it is wet because it is in the ocean.

It is not a logical or rational step, it is simply a free fall. It’s like falling in love – you didn’t sit down one day and logically map out why you should love someone. No, you just fell.

This is why all the practice you are doing. To practice joy or being grateful is not about gaining those qualities. It is about dismantling all the barriers you have made for yourself that are preventing you from simply being here. Because once you are just simply present, there is nothing to be done. You just fall, and you are there. It is a natural consequence. You have transformed.

It may seem strange, to practice being grateful but not expect to become grateful. Just think of all the practices like a tool to break down your limitations. Just get good at using the tool. The gratitude is helping break down your nonsense. Just like the joy or anything else you practice.

You have so many illusions, prejudices, preferences, traumas, hurt, expectations, excuses…so many things in the way of simply being here. But when you just are willing to drop all those things and set them aside, life floods into you. The very nature of your existence cannot be denied to you.

When the source of creation touches you like this, you are forever transformed. Your business isn’t with trying to grow into something. Your business is just diving into the process of growth, no matter where it takes you.

When the time comes, the flower will blossom within, and not because you made it blossom. No, you will bloom and transform simply because you made the right soil, and there is not other way it could go.

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 Integrity

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I have a really hard time following through on things. People will ask me to do something and I will forget or just procrastinate. I will try to stick with a goal or a project but I have so many I’ve quit early or are half finished. What can I do?

Sincerely,

No Follow Through

Dear NFT,

Integrity is a quality that is sorely missing in most people today. Many people are willing to talk big, but few have the necessary discipline, consistency, and will to see their words into action.

But integrity in and of itself is not just those things. Do you know someone, or perhaps you are like this, where they will become very excited when talking about a vision or skill they have? But upon closer examination, have you found these people have little to no success in these areas?

People who are truly successful have a sort of silent success about them. What I mean is whether someone is watching or not is irrelevant, they work towards their vision with the same intensity.

Integrity doesn’t work if you only have it when someone else is watching. Integrity is about how you have decided to be, regardless of the external situation.

I want you to closely observe yourself. Let’s say for example you wish your neighborhood had less litter. Do you go around picking up each piece you see? Or perhaps you simply become irritated every time you see someone litter or you see garbage on the ground.

If your vision truly mattered to you, then it wouldn’t matter who was watching, who was responsible for it, you would work towards your vision. You must be in such a way that every step you take in this life works towards your vision. That is integrity.

But you have so many excuses:

“It’s not my fault, I didn’t litter”

“I’m enabling others if I clean up after them”

“This is just a surface level solution, the city needs to do something!”

Like this you have infinite excuses. Maybe all those things you said are true. But it is irrelevant. The moment you start blaming everyone else for something that you want to see changed, you handicap yourself from being able to do anything. Convenient isn’t it? You can feel better than everyone else and judge them, and all by doing absolutely nothing.

But couldn’t you tackle all those points you made too? You would if it truly mattered to you.

Some people have a vision and just see problems. Others, see opportunities. The ones who see the opportunities are those silently successful people.

If your thoughts, words, and actions are in alignment, then you have integrity. If those three things are one and the same, then results and success are inevitable. No matter what life brings you, you will accomplish what you set out to do.

Maybe it doesn’t go exactly the way you planned – in fact, for sure it won’t. But with integrity, tell me, the only question is when you get there, isn’t it? Your results will be an inevitability simply because you have decided that you will strive no matter what. Nothing can stop you.

So few people are capable of this level of integrity – that what they say, they will do. If you had a goal of becoming healthy, perhaps you decide you will go on some fad diet for 2 or 3 months. But even though you know that you are what you eat, that this very body is just food you accumulated, you go on fooling yourself with these band-aid fixes.

Your life is something that is precious, it must be managed on a daily basis.

So what if today, you simply decided – from now on, until the day I die, I will eat healthier. Not as some statement or goal, but within yourself, you have decided to move from unhealthiness towards healthiness, no exception.

With this level of integrity, you will do what is necessary. Whatever your first step is, you will take. Whether it’s portion sizes, exercise, quit smoking, whatever – you will naturally take that first step. Then, the next one you will take also, and so on. It is not magic or wishful thinking – you just simply must have the integrity.

When you approach it like this, you only take the steps you are ready for. You don’t fool yourself by forcing everything at once. Such change will never last. It will be fleeting.

This is why diets don’t work. You must establish health by putting down roots, growing the tree, nurturing it. Then only the flower of health will blossom. This is transformation; there’s not going back.

See, this isn’t about the plan, or the journey, or the tools, or whatever. Those will come as needed or you will find them when needed. This is simply about trajectory. Integrity is unconditionally sticking to your trajectory.

You have decided that you will move in one direction, not out of stubbornness, but out of a deep sense of focus. In fact, you will be far more flexible with a steady trajectory, because you will be willing to do whatever it takes within yourself to get there.

But if every moment you change your mind, drop what you are doing, become distracted, there is no hope. If I tried to cook a meal but every two minutes I turn off the stove, dinner will never come. I will feel like I am cooking, but any fool can see that the way I am going is a waste of time.

So stop wasting your time. Integrity means simply, once and for all, being decisive. It doesn’t even matter what choice you make. What matters is you make it consciously. Set your trajectory, even in small ways. Then adhere to it and do not waver.

If you can bring integrity into your life, all the hard work you do will actually yield something. Everyone else will think it’s luck or magic, but you will know it’s really quite simple: Whatever you decide to do, you will do. That is integrity.

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 Jealousy

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I have a friend who doesn’t seem to have his life figured out. He has very little money, can never keep a steady job, isn’t married. He seems to have nothing really. Though he claims he is happy but I worry about his future. Why can’t he seem to figure out the basic things in life that the rest of have accepted and work so hard at?

Sincerely,

Friend in Need

Dear FIN,

He says he is happy. So what’s the issue?

Tell me, did you come to this planet with some sort of checklist – get a job, get money, get married, etc? Obviously not, and neither did he. On top of that, are you some kind of authority on life? Especially, are you some authority on HIS life?

You are playing a very dangerous game with yourself. You think that you know what’s best for someone else. Now, based on this inflated sense of self, you go on trying to tell someone else how to best live their own life.

The real question isn’t about him. Sure, maybe you genuinely care about him. But the reality is your worrying about him is not coming from a place of concern. It is coming because you feel threatened by his very way of being.

The real question is with you. Let’s say you have the job, the money, the spouse, all of it. But are you any happier? Did these things all guarantee your happiness? Nothing wrong with having those things. Nothing wrong not having them either.

If you go on in life thinking that you can create happiness for yourself by gathering it from your external surroundings, it not only doesn’t work that way, but you are existing like a parasite, extracting it from everyone and everything. Would anyone want to be around someone like that?

Unhappy people who seek happiness from outside themselves are extremely dangerous to be around. They constantly drain those around them. Your friend seems to have found a way to be happy by his own nature. Just within himself, regardless of what he has or doesn’t have, he has figured this one thing out – that his happiness is determined by him, not by anyone else.

See, your friend may very well be a success. He just has measured it in a much more sensible way. You cannot measure success based on what others are doing. You can only measure success by comparison to your own journey.

So maybe your friend doesn’t have all that you have, but he has decided to be a success within himself. He wants to be established in who he is in, so that his happiness is his own making.

Deep down, you understand that it is not your job, your money, or your spouse, or any other damn thing you have accumulated that is making you happy. Maybe short term, it can bring some joy. But the reality is your happiness is manufactured within you only. Even if something external happens, the happiness is inside you! Nowhere else.

But for some reason, you have gone on trying to find something that is inside you somewhere else. Why would you try to find something that is right here somewhere else? It is ridiculous isn’t it?

Now, on top of you seeking your happiness like some pursuit – it is not a pursuit, it is an expression of who you are – you now feel you are the authority on everyone else’s happiness too. Please humble yourself and see the truth.

Your friend may be more successful than you when it comes to happiness. You may be more successful in material ways, but none of those things truly matter. If you cannot do those things joyfully, then you are simply enslaved by them.

You have only two choices when you see someone who is more successful than you: Either you can be jealous, or you can grow.

Because you are working so hard to be better, but doing it outside in approach, you only want other people to be happy if they do it your way too. But your way isn’t working. So now, your friend comes along, and not only is he happier than you, but he is not doing any of the things you are struggling so hard to do. How rude of him!

Your whole way you have done your life is now threatened by him. It’s time to stop compulsively being jealous and actively trying to drag him into your nonsense. It’s time to learn and grow.

If you see someone who is doing something better than you, if you are wise, you will grow. If you are compulsive and arrogant, you will become jealous and try to change them. People are not your business to change. Your business is with yourself.

Your friend says he is happy? But maybe you are still too skeptical and jealous to buy it. Well, maybe it’s time you sat down with him, and asked him to share with you why. Maybe it’s time to experience what has worked for him. If he truly is a failing life on all levels, then you will know only by being with him with an open mind, won’t you?

But if he truly is established within himself, then you have a tremendous possibility to grow and learn how to do the same. Either way, you will have options. The way you are trying to do things now, all that will happen is you will become more self-righteous and he will want to be around you less and less.

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 Suffering

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Why is there suffering? What is the point? Why couldn’t existence have no suffering?

Sincerely,

Enough Suffering Already

Dear ESA,

Pain exists. Not suffering.

Why do I say this? Suffering is entirely something you made up. Pain exists for sure. But suffering is not real.

Obviously it feels real for you and many others. We have all experienced suffering. You might think I am just arguing semantics, but it is deeper than that.

There are some things in life that are beyond your control. Anything external, anything that happens to you, this is always a question mark. So many variables determine what life hands you.

But what you make out of it, that is always entirely up to you, is it not?

So pain is an inevitability. Sometimes, it is just going to happen. No one goes their whole life without experiencing pain. But suffering is entirely an interpretation.

Is an interpretation the truth? Is it reality? No, an interpretation is how you choose to see something. You see it through your lens, your filters, your judgments. It has no basis in reality whatsoever.

So why waste time asking such a question like what is the point of suffering? You created it! Just stop doing it!

You see, you need to learn to see life just as it is, beyond your prejudices and judgments. You see pain as bad. You think it has no use. So then, you suffer.

You are afraid of pain, so you walk more cautiously, more hesitantly, but you can never avoid pain forever. You act as though all this caution will guarantee you safety, but in the end, you wind up getting hurt sooner or later. This isn’t some sad hopeless fate, it is just reality.

When things have the proper amount of friction and struggle, they grow stronger. Too little struggle, too much struggle, both are death sentences. If life is to thrive, pain is a great tool.

Understand that pain is not as bad as you think it is. I’m not talking about taking pain and embracing it like a sadist. No, I am simply saying that pain has a function. If you didn’t feel pain, you would just pull of your whole body piece by piece. Just look at your fingernails for example. Any body part that you don’t feel pain, you are willing to drop it like a piece of clothing; it’s of no consequence to you.

So pain serves a purpose: to make you appreciate the value of your body for self preservation. It’s simply a signal. There’s nothing good or bad about it, it’s just serving a function, to help you survive.

So maybe you should ask me, why is there pain at all? Can’t we just all grow without it? Well brother, I didn’t make this universe, that’s just the way it is. You may as well ask why we breathe air instead of fire.

But at least I can say suffering is totally pointless and within your capacity to end. Suffering is just an exaggeration. It comes from a deep lack of awareness and consciousness.

If you were aware that your body is a gift, and that you are mortal, you wouldn’t need to suffer when you feel pain. But because your mortality has not sunk into yet, every moment you walk as though you have time to waste.

Tell me, did you come with some guarantee for how long you will live? Is there any sticker on you that says your expiry date?

Yet you walk around as though you will die of old age in some cushy peaceful way, as though it’s guaranteed. Now, every time pain comes, a very real and jarring reminder of your mortality sinks in. So you suffer simply because you are avoiding the truth about your life: that it is ever so brief and precious.

I don’t say this to scare you. All things die. Death is not the worst thing that can happen. It is only because of death that so many things are created in this existence. Nothing is ever wasted in this cosmos. All death is a transition point from one expression of life to another.

But imagine if you lived forever. That would truly be terrible. What would be the point? No, death is the only thing that makes you seek in this life, to make you explore your ultimate nature, to knock some sense into you! Pain? that’s just a small little reminder once in a while for you. Accept it in this way, to help you grow, and it goes from suffering to blessing.

So whatever life brings you, weather its pain or its protection, you accept it with grace and humility. It’s no small thing to be alive and here right now. If you are wise, you will take pain and grow with no hesitation. You don’t need to seek it, but when it comes, make the most of it.

But if you are wanting to avoid life, then suffering is unavoidable. If you think you can go about life endlessly seeing things through your psychological ideas of good and bad (and that includes this stupid idea of pain being bad) well, you will suffer for sure.

Try to move beyond your preferences. Try to stop labeling everything as good and bad, raising things on pedestals, looking down on other things. Just simply observe life as it is.

See the use in everything and everyone. You will see, nothing in this creation is a mistake or out of place. You will see, suffering has always been a creation of your mind. Because of your fixation on the petty creations of your mind, you have been missing out on this boundless creation happening in every moment.

So why does this existence have suffering? Quite simply it doesn’t. The existence with no suffering you wish existed already exists. You just keep creating suffering for yourself when there’s no need. Time to end that silly game, no?

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 Ambition

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

No matter what I achieve in my life, I seem to be perpetually unsatisfied. Goals and ambitions get achieved and then a few days later I feel unfulfilled again. I feel like I am just moving from one distraction to the next, trying to get by each day. Where is the joy and beauty and meaning in all this? Is life just an endless movement from one pointless goal to the next?

Sincerely,

What’s the Bloody Point

Dear WTBP,

Anything that you do repetitively if not done with the proper intensity and focus will become dull over time. Just try it now. Just sit there, and say the words “Boo Boo Boo” over and over again, without any sense of involvement. It will become dull for sure.

Your endless ambition has become like this. You set some target, then reach it, then set another, then another, then another…It becomes dull. Why? Because your focus has become entirely about the goal and what you can get out of it, not in the process.

If you do not involve yourself intensely in the process, life will just become dull for you. Thinking only of achievements, results, rewards will not give you any sort of meaning. They will only bring temporary satisfaction, which will become more and more fleeting as time goes by.

Eventually, you will keep on increasing the difficulty of your goals, but it won’t make a difference. Because the process feels repetitive, you will become dull.

What you are practicing by not paying attention to the process is dullness. You are making what should be a beautiful journey into something you want to rush through and force your way through. So in a hurry are you to get the fruits of your labour you are willing to destroy the entire tree. But the tree provides much you could enjoy.

No matter what ambition you have set for yourself in your life, the focus should not be on that ambition. It should always be on the process. The process is your very life! That’s where you meaning is!

Let’s say for example you set an ambition of getting perfect marks on your final exam for school. First of all, you must be honest with yourself. Is what you want truly better marks? Or is what you want to be more intelligent? Is what you want to be more knowledgeable, or capable?

If your whole focus is just on the result, getting 100% – what is going to happen? You will just memorize a bunch of data and forget it after the exam. But if you instead focus on increasing your capability – then every step of the way you will learn and grow.

The very nature of life is that it wants to endlessly evolve. This is not something you have decided as an individual human being. This is just the way life is. This is the way the whole creation is. The only way to satisfy it is to give it something infinite, something boundless, and the only way to that is to stop limiting yourself.

It doesn’t matter what your ambition is. Do not get distracted by the result you seek. It is a limitation. Why are you so fixated on a limitation? Or do you not think an ambition is a limit?

Nature has set no sort of limit to your potential. For each and every person on this planet, there is an inner genius. Maybe you don’t have the capacity to be the next world champion boxer. But maybe you do have the capacity to do something else as equally spectacular in a different realm.

Your potential is infinite. So why are you going on endlessly fixing some stupid and arbitrary target for yourself?  Why are you drawing a line and saying that that’s the boundary? Goals and ambition are fine as a device or as a tool. But they can never be an end in and of themselves.

You should set an ambition so wildly unattainable that you could not possibly achieve it in your life. Then you should strive to make it happen with the utmost intensity and sincerity. Why? Because only when you are not focused on results do you give results a chance to flourish.

Pursuing results are not your concern. How you express this life in each moment is your concern.

The process is all you have control over. I know people have been telling you in this society to have goals and pursue them, but life is not a pursuit. The only pursuit is you are heading to the grave. Every minute your life is ticking away!

If you realized this, then you would truly only do what mattered to you. You would not be so stupid as to set some silly goals for yourself and believe they will make you happy. Nothing you ever accomplish will make you happy. Happiness is a quality that you exude no matter what you are doing. It is not a reward for what you do.

This is why again and again I say devote yourself to the process. No matter what life brings you, it is always in your control to keep yourself the way you wish. If you want your experience of life to be pleasant, that is 100% in your hands. What life brings you however, is never up to you.

Leave the results up to life. If you devote yourself to the process, if you focus on your growth and evolution and conscious being rather than the result, then I guarantee you 100% results will happen. You won’t get to choose which results, but they will happen. Things you couldn’t even imagine may happen!

When the unimaginable is always possible, it is a very stifled way to approach life to only strive for what you can imagine.

In your life, has it ever gone the way you have imagined it? Definitely not. And thank goodness it didn’t! You should have realized by now, what you think you wanted more than anything at one time often later turns out to be a true blessing to have never received.

Ambition has become too common in today’s world and look where it is getting us. Very few are happier or more peaceful, but everyone is ambitious. It is time to shift our attention.

Focus on your life. Focus on each moment. Focus on your growth, your journey. Stop trying to extract meaning from short term results. Just simply shift your attention to what you are doing along the way.

The only ambition you truly need in this life is to grow. To flower, to become more conscious, to live joyfully and beautifully. The only motivation you need is that you are mortal, and life is precious. If that is all you remind yourself of, I promise you, life will transform exponentially for 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 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