On Reflection

December 30, 2019December 30, 2019 ~ 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

December 13, 2019 ~ 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 Being Ignored

December 11, 2019December 11, 2019 ~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Lately I feel like everyone is just ignoring me. People aren’t answering me when I reach out, or seem to be inattentive or uninterested when I speak. Is this all in my head? Am I doing something wrong?

Sincerely,

Ignorance Aint Bliss

Dear IAB,

Is it all in your head? Definitely! Everything is all in your head. But that isn’t a useful answer.

Right now, you are feeling ignored. That much is true. Your feelings are genuine and real, since you are experiencing them. But just because you feel you are being ignored does not mean others are actively ignoring you.

What are the odds that everyone is undergoing some secret conspiracy to ignore you? Let me tell you, everyone is not sitting around wondering,

“How can I ignore so and so today?”

You are never the center of anyone else’s thoughts. People are always the center of their own thoughts. Anything they are doing they are simply doing because of how it makes them feel.

That said, is it possible your behaviour might be creating a certain situation where you are more likely to be ignored? Sure, it is possible. But do not waste your time dwelling on how to get people to pay attention to you. This will backfire eventually because you are enslaved to what other people think of you. You can never keep that game up indefinitely.

It’s much better to focus on how you want your experience to be. You won’t be able to force other people to stop ignoring you. But whatever way people treat you, make the most of it. That is all you can ever do with life.

Right now you have drawn certain conclusions in your mind. You have read into the situation, and rather than getting clarity through understanding, you are just assuming the worst. It’s much easier to make assumptions because it lifts all responsibility from you.

If everyone is ignoring you, then you can feel like the victim. But if you seek to understand why they are ignoring you, then you will have the information you need to decide how to proceed.

Perhaps some people are going through something difficult, and don’t even realize what they are doing. Perhaps others are ignoring you because of some way you have hurt them. Perhaps some people no matter what you say will not give you an answer. There are as many possibilities as there are people.

If you can just admit that you don’t have any clue why you feel so ignored, then you will naturally seek answers. But if you just make assumptions, you will always be handcuffed.

I’m not saying you have to go to each and every person and find out why they are acting the way they are. But you must take responsibility and recognize that you don’t know what’s actually going on. Rather than trying to jump to conclusions with no information, start by admitting you need to know more.

After you admit that you don’t know the whole story, then you can decide. Case by case, you choose whether it’s worth it to pursue dialogue with each individual.

It’s important from here you don’t become attached to the outcome. You may not be satisfied with some of the responses you get. Closure is not a guarantee in life. Some things are just out of your hands.

But if you can accept that you feeling ignored is your responsibility, then at least you can regain control over yourself. How you feel should always be up to you, never to someone else.

So are they ignoring you or not? Such a question is not really worth the attention. Does it matter to you to find the truth? That is the question that should burn you up. Don’t live for what other people think of you. It’s just a trap. Focus on what’s going on within you, and things won’t look so hopeless.

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 Commercialism

December 9, 2019December 11, 2019 ~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

It’s the holiday season but I’ve grown cynical over the years. There is so much commercialism and everything is so centered around buying as much crap as possible. I see so much selfishness as people splurge on useless items, but there are so many better uses for our money that can help others.

Why does this time of year have to be so commercial? Isn’t is supposed to be about giving?

Sincerely,

Aint Buyin It

Dear ABI,

The holidays are not the only time of year when there is commercialism. There is commercialism every day of the year. Our very society is built upon this. Is this a good or bad situation?

It’s really irrelevant either way. The reality is, the world has adopted this and is moving forward in this way. The only valuable question is, are you the kind of person that thinks by fixing the world you will be happy, or are you happy enough to work on things that you think need fixing?

If you want to dismantle capitalism and overthrow the system, that is up to you. I’m not saying this with any sort or sarcasm. If that is where you wish to put your energy, then you should do so.

If you want to join in on the capitalism, that is also up to you. Nothing wrong with that either, and you should feel free to do so.

But your judgment of others, is that really helping the situation? Is it helping you or anyone else live a better life?

Stop pointing the finger outside yourself and criticizing the world. If you want your world to change, it must come from within first. There can be no peace in society if there is no peace in individual people. Society is only an expression of who we are inside. Happy people make a happy situation. Miserable people…

If you go about trying to solve your inner emptiness by accumulating things outside of you – relationships, money, gifts, whatever – then you will find it is an endless pursuit. Everything will become stale after time, and you will keep having to raise the bar of accumulation to feel satisfied.

But when you reach your final breath in this life – you do know you have a finite amount of breaths right? It’s not coming as a shock to you? When you reach that breath, you will learn you can’t take any of this stuff with you. You can’t even take your body!

It all gets donated back to the earth. So you never truly own anything anyway. All you have is how beautiful was your experience in this short blip of time you call your life.

It is true, most people are just buying things this time of year. Whether for others or for themselves, that short burst of joy they receive is not going to make them happy in the long run.

If you use shopping for anyone as a way to feel better about yourself, then you will always be headed for disappointment.

If you want this to change in people, you must embody how you want the world to be. The change you are seeking is not in the so called commercially enslaved people – it is in you and with your judgment.

How many things can you do right now to help? You can donate your time, your money, your skills, your energy, your mind…any or all of these you can give to any project you feel is worth it.

When people see the way you are changing, you will find naturally that you attract new opportunities. More people that value what you are doing will appear, more ways to change the community around you will become apparent.

If you want the entire human civilization to change, it is going to take time. That is because you cannot change society with one sweeping brushstroke. You can only change individual people. But it only takes a few dedicated people to provide the opportunities for countless people to make those changes.

You also have no control over what people do. You can rant at them on social media, you can yell at them in the supermarket, you can tell them how and what they should or shouldn’t be buying, but no one will listen to you. People don’t want to be managed, they want to be included. How can you include them in this new world you envision if you judge them?

The only thing you can transform is yourself! So work on what matters to you. If commercialism truly bothers you that much, eliminate it from your life as much as possible, and see what happens in that space you create.

But don’t waste your time on all this judgment. Bah humbug is for fairy tales. You are living in the real world. You can actually make things happen, if you just understand the source and solution to all the problems you see is not out there, it is in 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 Simply Being

December 4, 2019December 4, 2019 ~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I used to be so confused about my life: was I wasting my life working, then coming home, watching TV and crafting? Was my work worthwhile? Was crafting worthwhile? What was the point of my life? And I didn’t really have friends that I hung out with outside of work, and felt like this reflected on my friendable-ness (def: the ability to make friendships). I used to worry that I didn’t know my purpose in life, and would drive myself crazy thinking about how I had to find it, even though I didn’t have any particular desire I wanted to fulfill. Eventually I turned towards spiritual teaching, and my mindset changed a lot. Over the last few years, I’ve found that even though many elements in my life haven’t changed (I still work the same job, craft when I come home, and haven’t gone out with friends for a long time), but my questions about self worth and purpose has died down. I find myself really enjoying my day-to-day life, and just get involved in whatever projects or activities that peak my interest at the time.
But every once in a while, I read something, or watch a video, that speaks to how the whole universe is contained within yourself, or how some people can access a different dimension of life. Like Buddha, Jesus, Osho… the list goes on. Then I wonder for a short period: am I just living the good life? Is it enough to notice what emotions or reactions occur when external situations happen, and see how I’m creating my own experience of the situation? Or is there more to this whole “universe contained within yourself” and I’m not even looking in the right direction to ever access these other dimensions? And what are these dimensions anyway?
And after having thought them, I go back to a quieter mind, which questions less and just makes the best of what happens during my day.

Hoping It’s Enough

Dear HIE,

Do not underestimate the value of living a good life. Is this not what every single life form on the planet is trying to do? It is a huge blessing.

It sounds like you have found a way to be content with whatever life brings you. You have not changed the external situation much, but inside, you are practicing being fine just the way things are.

Still, you are speaking to a longing within you for something else. “Is this all there is to life” you ask, merely managing the various dramas that come from our work and relationships?

This longing is life. Do not mistake it for anything less. Life is always pushing past what is comfortable, trying to transform into the next possibility. No matter how content you become with the external situation, still something will always long for more within you.

You have learned a very valuable lesson, in that no matter how much you change the external situation, it won’t matter unless you turn inward. And you are doing it! It is only because of this that you feel content, even after bouts of confusion or questioning.

Continue to enjoy your life. You are not in some trap of thinking “If only I get ____ , then I will be happy!” You are happy of your own nature. You are establishing simply being. Because of this foundation, whatever happens, you make growth out of it. Most people do not learn this their whole lives.

Many people think that first they must figure out the external. First, I will get financially stable. Then, I will get a stable relationship. Then, I will get some stable skills. On and on like this they keep going, all in the pursuit of simply being able to be here and be happy.

You must establish yourself first. Being comes before activity, not the other way around. Activity is a means for you to learn how to simply be. This is all there is to life: Can you simply be here, and whether something happens or nothing happens, are you perfectly fine?

If you can keep on the trajectory you are on, then nothing can be denied to you. All those questions about accessing different dimensions of experience…that will only come when you are receptive. If you are simply able to sit here and accept and use whatever life brings you, for sure you are receptive.

If something like that is to happen for you, just keep doing what you are doing. Without thought of reward or experiencing something different, simply just be here, content with what life brings.

So don’t worry about all these stories of different dimensions of life. That is all they are to you anyway, stories. Right now, if I tell you that the true nature of the universe is 12 god with 23 heads each smiling unimaginable colored beams of eternal radiance on you, what use is that to you?

How will any of that help you if you cannot experience it? What you know for sure right now is that the path you are on is working – your life is going well, and from an inside out way. Just keep that spirit alive, nurture it. Live your best life!

The whole idea that your experience of life can happen externally is a fallacy. Your experience is only happening within you. Forget what happens outside. Manage it however you wish, but paying attention to how you respond is everything. How you respond to life determines your experience of life, doesn’t it?

So when it comes down to it, the only direction you can ever go to access anything is within. Even if you do something external, like a prayer or a practice or whatever, the feelings and experiences only happen within you. Never forget this: Your entire life is only happening within you.

Take a look at who you were before – repetitively living life, not seeing any meaning to it all. Take a look at who you are now – same repetitive stuff, only now you are suddenly okay with it! Clearly, it was you who changed, not the outside. Once in a while, you long for something deeper, that is good. It means you won’t stagnate.

The point of your life is just to be. You are here, be whichever way you wish. Establish who you are, like a rich soil. Then you will see, things will grow when it is their time. That is all that is meant by these different dimensions of experience.

Don’t concern yourself with how to force a flower to grow. Just continue to establish the best conditions for growth. Establish yourself. Simply be okay, no matter what. You are on the right track.

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 Escape

December 2, 2019December 2, 2019 ~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I’m starting to feel really cynical about people and the world. I’m getting tired of the rat race. People seem to be so superficial and complain about everything. Sometimes I feel like it would be better to go escape somewhere and live alone in the woods in order for me to be happy. Is it worth it being in society? Or am I right to want to leave it all behind?

Sincerely,

Out of the Woods

Dear OOTW,

Did someone force you into the career you have? Into the relationships you have?

First off, you must stop pointing the finger outside of yourself. Blaming others, your career, anything external for how you feel inside is a fallacy. Worse than that, it’s is unproductive and gets you nowhere.

All that happens when you blame the outside for how you are inside is that you will complain a lot and romanticize better scenarios. But if you get those better scenarios, will that cure your cynicism? Will it suddenly make you at ease and content?

Whether you go live in the forest alone or whether you stay in your life surrounded by others, you will take your nonsense with you. It doesn’t get left behind. That is because your nonsense is within you. You can’t escape it by going somewhere else.

Let’s say you go live that dream scenario out in the woods. After how long will you suddenly become bored? Dissatisfied? How long will it take before you create drama with whatever is around you?

You see, if you cannot be happy with the way things are now, then what makes you think suddenly you will be happy with some other thing? You can make a misery or a ecstasy out of any situation in life.

Your career could be the most amazing thing in your life if you wished. The people you know, no matter how annoying they may seem to you, they could help create the maximum growth in you. When you conclude that you don’t want to be where you are because it isn’t ideal, you will miss every opportunity.

You may not be able to have some perfect fantasy life right in this moment. External things always take a lot of cooperation to happen the way you wish. But inside yourself, any situation can be wonderful, if you only change your perspective.

Am I saying you should stay at some job you hate, forcing yourself to love it? Am I saying you should stay around toxic or abusive people? No, all I am saying is that you cannot control what happens to you in this life, only what you make of it.

Which way would you rather be: That you need everything around you to be perfect in order to be happy, or no matter what is around you, you are always perfectly fine?

So trying to escape from whatever situation you are in may provide some temporary relief. But over time, that luster will wear off.

That said, there are many benefits to being alone and being in nature. That longing within you is not merely about escape. There is substantial medical evidence to show you that sitting alone in stillness and being around nature is healthy for your body and mind.

However, you must make yourself in such a way that you can channel that sort of balance wherever you are. Think about how ridiculous it is to spend 99% of your time in stressful situations and then spend 1% of your time in situations that are good for you, using that as some sort of recharge. It won’t be effective in the long run and you will always burn out in the end.

So if you decide to take that step into the woods for some time or spend more time alone, don’t just treat it as a one off and don’t resign yourself to it forever as though it will solve your problems. Learn to bring that peace that you feel into every moment of your life.

Focus on all that nonsense within you that prevents you from being at ease at work or with people. Instead of blaming them, start to look within at how you compulsively react. You will see just shifting the responsibility back to yourself will open up possibilities you never saw before.

Escape is not a solution. It is just a temporary fix. That vacation mentality of recharging will not work for you in this life. Make every day you are alive the most it can be. Don’t live for an escape from life! Live to live 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 Planning

November 29, 2019November 29, 2019 ~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

How can I plan better for my life, both in short term and long term? I find myself making a lot of mistakes and feel like I’m taking steps backwards.

Sincerely,

Man With No Plan

Dear MWNP,

Planning is one of the greatest illusions of security that we cling to. We think that by planning properly, we can either guarantee an outcome or avoid unwanted outcomes. But the reality is, there are no guarantees, and there is no such thing as security in life.

The past can never predict the future. It doesn’t matter how many models and data you have, it is not a guarantee. Even if you bounce a ball 10,000 times, and each time it hits the floor and comes back to you, it doesn’t mean the next time it will do the same. It could go sideways, to the moon, turn into a snake and slither away…! You have no way of truly knowing.

Now of course, all this sounds far fetched. You’re not going to go jump off a rooftop thinking there’s a chance of flight based on this logic. Odds are overwhelmingly that you will fall to your demise.

So why am I talking such nonsense? I am merely attempting to point out to you the limitations of planning. If you think planning is somehow a guarantee in life, you have forgotten it’s limitations. When you forget the limitations of something and act as though it’s a sure thing, you are headed for suffering.

Never fool yourself into believing that you can pin down life and make it behave the way you want. When it comes to the external, you need the cooperation of so many variables to make things happen. Plan all you want, but in the end, things will land where they land. Life will not let you get away with forcing your ideas upon it.

If you rely too much on your planning, you will become extremely narrow minded. Constantly trying to jam the square peg into the round hole, unable to see the stupidity in it. If you make up your mind before something even happens, how will you ever be able to adapt?

You must always act as the situation demands. The situation is always changing, different moment to moment. If you have some 10 point plan and just try to barrel through executing it regardless of the cost, you will wind up causing a lot of damage in the process. In the end you still may fail miserably!

But if you instead learn to look at each situation on it’s own and act sensibly, you will see there are always countless opportunities. With a one track mind, you will see only obstacles – with an open one, you will see possibilities.

So don’t let planning overtake your sense. Don’t let it narrow your mind and your scope. The plan isn’t what’s important. What’s important is your trajectory.

Stay on target. If you cling too hard to your plans, even when they aren’t working, you will miss. If you throw away your plans at the first sign of trouble, you will never get there either.

It is important to have a steady focus and work towards it however the situation demands. You want a plan that will work in all situations – no such plan exists, for anything.

Whether it’s short term or long term, whatever your vision is, you must work intelligently, or at the very least, with intelligent people!

So maybe you’re confused. Should I have a plan or not?!

First, you must stay absolutely focused on where you are going. Keep your heading straight and true.

Then, be willing to get there however unexpected the journey becomes. As long as you keep focused on where you are going, no matter what life throws at you, you will use it for your vision.

Lastly, go in with some semblance of a plan if you wish – the more complex the vision, the more planning will be necessary. Just don’t be too attached to it. Be willing to rewrite it constantly, shift it, throw it out even!

What I am saying is, the only plan you need in life is this: whatever life gives me, I will use it.

If you make that the foundation of your action, then it doesn’t matter what you do. Plan or no plan, whatever happens you will make the most of 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 Pleasure

November 27, 2019November 27, 2019 ~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I know that it’s more important to love what you are doing than do only things you love. But is it wrong to put our attention on things that are enjoyable? We only have this one life, isn’t it better to only do the things we enjoy?

Sincerely,

Doing What I Love

Dear DWIL,

Is it wrong? It’s not about right or wrong, it’s only about what works for your life. If you can go about life only doing the things you prefer doing, and it works for you, then who is anyone to tell you otherwise?

The issue is that you know that it does not work. There is nothing wrong with pleasure seeking, the only issue is that it is fleeting. Pleasure won’t make your life, it won’t break your life. It is all in how you use it.

Every moment of your life, anything you do or don’t do, everything is a possibility. Whether you sit silently or are dancing like a madman, each is capable of transforming you. Existence is such that no matter what you do, you can use it to break past your current limitations. Nothing is kept from you.

But still, we can make a heaven out of hell and a hell out of heaven. That is the power of your mind. It doesn’t matter what is happening around you or what you are doing – within you, you can make the experience however you wish.

So it does not matter if you seek pleasure or not. The only issue is that if you believe that something external will somehow fix your internal, you are fooling yourself. Such a mentality will only cause you to avoid life.

Why can you not find pleasure in just about anything? It can be the most pleasurable experience to even sit and do nothing! You are built in such a way that you can go through any experience however you wish. Would you not always choose pleasure within? Forget the external!

Perhaps right now you don’t have the capability, the talent, to find pleasure in life in every moment. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

If you go about life thinking one thing is more pleasurable and another thing is less pleasurable, you are always headed for struggle. Don’t divide your life in two all the time. This is your life. You are right, you only have one to live.

So just move past that dualistic thinking. You have this moment, enjoy it, whatever it is! Do not compare it to another moment, do not wish it were different. Don’t lose yourself in memory or fantasy.

The moment you start comparing and fantasizing, suffering is inevitable. It takes consciousness to be able to sit in any moment and simply be okay with whatever is happening. Then life becomes insanely pleasurable.

You see, your pleasure isn’t coming because you found something enjoyable to do. Pleasure is a consequence of having no preference. This moment, unedited, is more than enough for you.

Short term joy may come from pleasure seeking. But eventually, you grow tired and need to chase something else to give you your fix. Avoiding life and trying to only do what makes you feel good is the very nature of addiction. Do not confuse it for pleasure.

However, pleasure should absolutely be seeped into your experience. Just don’t hinge your pleasure on what the experience is. When you live life pleasurably, it becomes much easier, much more beautiful, much more magical.

You don’t always have to rake yourself over the hot coals to realize truth or be conscious in life. You can always do it enjoyably. But I assure you, no matter how many ways you try to convince yourself otherwise, there is no external way to go to make you happy. The only way out is in.

Pleasure, pain – it is all up to you. That is total freedom. It is not in any one else’s hands unless you put it there. Take it back into yours, and practice living each moment as is, without preference. That is all pleasure truly is.

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

November 22, 2019November 22, 2019 ~ 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 Working Hard

November 15, 2019 ~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

How important is it to work hard in life? I feel like a lot of us are toiling away but we don’t often see the rewards from it. More and more emphasis is put on working hard in society lately.

Sincerely,

Working Hard or Hardly Working

Dear WHOHW,

It seems like the more successful you are in this world, the more stressed you must seem. If the boss of a company is not completely overworked and exhausted, they are not doing a good job! We wear our stress like a badge of honour.

Working hard is not necessary in life. There is nothing wrong with working hard, but if you are doing the wrong things, will it work out for you?

Let’s say you and I both decide to bike 10 km. You get on your bike and don’t bother to check the gear, and find yourself struggling. But you just keep on putting more and more hard work into it, and with great difficulty, you finish your 10km. You look at me see I have not broken a sweat, and now you feel resentful.

In life, no matter what you choose to do, you can get there any way you wish. But the ride will be a lot more enjoyable if you do things as efficiently as possible. There is no requirement of working hard.

All things in this universe are functioning like this. They follow the path of least resistance. I’m not saying you should avoid things that make you uncomfortable, I am simply saying that especially when life brings you something challenging, you don’t need to make it worse by doing it a difficult way.

Your life is brief and you have a finite amount of energy. If you had an infinite amount of energy and lived for longer then maybe you could waste time doing things inefficiently. But it is important that in your life, you do things with as much grace and ease as possible.

There is copious scientific evidence today that says when you are at ease or joyful, your system at all levels functions at its best. Conversely, the more stressed you are the worse everything becomes. If you are stressed and have diabetes, the diabetes is worse. If you are stressed and have a headache, the headache is worse.

Don’t be fooled and sucked into the game of working hard. First, establish a certain level of ease and joy within you, so that you navigate life well. Then when it comes time to do the work, it’s more important to be focused, consistent, and efficient, than it is to work hard. So work on those qualities instead.

If all you do is work hard, you will just burn yourself out. You work hard for what? For money, for a promotion, for your family? Essentially, the only reason you work at all is towards your well-being. Sacrificing your well being to gain well being makes no sense. It’s like draining a well and expecting the act of draining it to somehow fill it.

When well-being is all you are after, don’t make it into an afterthought. Establish it first within yourself, then act in the world. Don’t act first and expect it to come later as a reward – life does not behave that way.

The only danger is in becoming stagnant and lazy – don’t use what I have said as an excuse to do nothing. You must be absolutely unwavering in your involvement in life. How involved you are is how alive you are. This is just about using your involvement the right way, so that you are not wasting your energy and instead are feeling more fulfilled in every moment.

So don’t work hard. But whatever you work at, do it joyfully, with ease, and do it well. Hard work is not a requirement for any of that.

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 Simplicity

November 11, 2019 ~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I find life to be so complicated sometimes. People can be so difficult, earning a living is challenging, being healthy…it’s like life is just one big mess I have to handle constantly! Why isn’t life more easy or simple? Why is life so difficult?

Sincerely,

Hard Knock Life

Dear HKL,

First of all, who told you life is complicated and difficult? Was that decreed from the heavens when you popped out of your mother’s womb?

It is important for you to remember that all the rules you have about life in your head, you made them up. They did not come from outside you.

Nature has it’s own rules. Rules like gravity for example. But all the rules you have about your life – they are not nature’s rules. You created them, live by them, and are frustrated because they are unfair rules. It’s a bit stupid, isn’t it? If you made them, just unmake them!

When you were a child, you did this constantly. Life was one big playground, and you made up rules all the time. But when one game was over, you dropped those rules and moved onto the next.

But now as an adult, you have forgotten that you are still playing a game. This game you have decided is the only game you want to play. The game of survival – relationships, work, health, whatever. You think the rules are set and have come from elsewhere, but I assure you, they are all inside you.

Nothing wrong with playing the survival game. But if you play it, at least play it well! Play it joyfully!

You can make up any rules you want for the way you live life. That is the beauty of it. Life is incredibly simple when you realize that what goes on in your head is entirely up to you. You can create whatever life you wish!

But when you insist that no, these are the rules, they are immutable, and they are unfair – well that is a recipe for frustration and misery for sure.

You see the biggest obstacle people have in their lives is not that life is challenging. It’s just that they take their own made up rules far too seriously.

You ever heard the saying keep it simple stupid? Good words to live by!

Just understand that you cannot control what life brings you – it may even give you something really crazy! But how you use what it gives you, how you approach it – that is up to you. Keep it simple! Enjoy it and have fun with it!

Another way to say this is, if life gives you something easy and pleasant, then best to approach it joyfully. But if life gives you something challenging, then tell me, should you approach it gravely and with no joy? You need joy and simplicity even more then, don’t you?

The truth is life is not giving you boons or curses. It is just giving you what it gives you. If you observe life, it is always following the path of least resistance. If something has come to you, it came there not because of some divine or devilish plan. It came because that was the best and simplest course for it to follow.

Similarly, you must approach life with as little resistance as possible. The simplest course for you to take in your life is a pleasant one. There is substantial evidence today to show you that approaching life joyfully and playfully is better for you – both internally and in terms of outward success.

In order for you to be pleasant about what life brings, you must be open to whatever it brings. How closed off you are determines how difficult the situation is.

So quit being so damn serious. What is so complex about earning a living or starting a family? Every single creature on this planet does it! Even an insect! You should be able to do it extremely joyfully and easily since you are a human – the most sophisticated creature here.

So play more. Drop your silly rules. Make up new ones. Smile!

No one has put a gun to your head and forced you to live your life the way you are living it. Trust me, everyone is too preoccupied with their own nonsense to give you such attention!

You are free – always remember this. You are free to live as you wish. Take responsibility for that. If life is hard, it’s because of you. If life is easy, it’s because of you. This is not about blame or credit, it’s about total freedom. Your life is entirely your making. Best to make the most of it!

Sincerely,

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 Altruism

October 30, 2019October 30, 2019 ~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

What is better, altruism or selfishness? You are always talking about focusing on one’s own self, but isn’t that the reason the world is in such tatters?

Sincerely,

All True Isms

Dear ATI,

First of all, you have pitted altruism and selfishness as though they are absolute opposites. Life is not built in such polarizing ways. What you see as opposites are just in an internal dance with each other, inseparable and unified.

Let us first define these terms – altruism and selfishness. Because you will have your own ideas and society has it’s own definition of these, we are dealing with a lot of conclusions in your mind.

Today we look at selfishness as thinking only of one’s self especially at the expense of everyone and everything else. We then look at altruism as putting everyone and everything else as more important than you. I am not for or against either of these.

If you are insecure, have all kids of psychological games going on in your head, then even if on the surface you appear selfish or altruistic, inside you could be the opposite, couldn’t you?

For example, are there not many so called altruistic people that are self righteous? Are there not people who use there altruism as a way of feeling superior to others? So suddenly even being altruistic can be selfish!

So being altruistic isn’t better. I’m sure there are people who even if they gave you a gift you wouldn’t want to touch it because you would get tangled up in all the strings attached to it.

Similarly, there are many people who solely focus on themselves – but they are not doing it at the expense of anyone or anything. They are simply trying to be the best version of themselves they can be – that is the best gift you can contribute to the world, isn’t it? In that sense, they are absolutely altruistic! Most people are one big problem in this world. But a selfish person in this definition is one of the few who isn’t.

Don’t look at life in such black and white terms. What you label yourself as has no basis in reality. You can wear a costume and be totally different underneath. You can act selfish but be altruistic and you can act altruistic and be selfish.

You must take a look at yourself. If it is your path, your way to contribute and give to others, and that helps you come in touch with your inner nature, then use it. If simply sitting and not involving yourself or compromising yourself to others is your way, then use that.

What I am saying is that the quality with which you do things is what matters, not how you categorize yourself.

If you truly wish to be altruistic, then you must learn to become the quality of giving. Your very life must be a contribution. In your job, in your relationships, in your family – whatever sphere you are in, are you not contributing to other people?

You must make that contribution one that betters all. If you simply learn to be joyful of your own nature, without needing the external to make you happy, then for sure you will contribute well to everything.

But if you truly wish to be selfish, then you must also not get caught in the trap of “I can do whatever I what because my life is all that matters!” Yes, you must do your journey your way. There is no other way. But do not delude yourself into thinking you are the most important thing in this cosmos.

You are just one small minuscule speck of life. There is a much larger existence happening all around you. You don’t need to contribute to it as an altruist. But if you decide not to involve yourself with others, then you must be willing to be by yourself, unattached to the outside but totally involved with your own process.

This isn’t about right or wrong. This is just that if you think you can walk around with arrogance and confidence that you only have to look out for number 1, you will get entangled and enslaved by everything. Humility is of the utmost importance whether you are an altruist or selfish.

Internally, you cannot make conclusions about yourself. You may appear on the surface to be one way or the other. But no matter what way you choose to be on the surface, your life is always only happening within you.

So choose selfishness or altruism, it doesn’t matter. But inside, you must be a living contribution to this world. You are connected to everything. You could not be here without it contributing to you either.

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

October 28, 2019October 28, 2019 ~ 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 Choosing Sides

October 18, 2019October 18, 2019 ~ 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 Finding Solutions

October 16, 2019October 16, 2019 ~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

There’s a lot of problems facing the future of humanity and I have become very discouraged. Governments all seem so corrupt and unwilling to do anything but help the most wealthy and privileged. Why is it so hard for them to take action? Is it really just greed?

Sincerely,

Govern Mental

Dear GM,

It is true there are a lot of problems facing the world. Humanity has grown to such numbers and continues to grow that we have put tremendous strain on this planet, ourselves, and other creatures.

However, no matter what the situation is in life, there is always some action that can be taken. There are always solutions. What you are asking is “Why doesn’t someone else solve all these problems for us?”

Unless a solution works for all parties involved, it is not a solution. It will always create imbalance and people will always seek ways to deeply exploit those imbalances. This isn’t greed or right or wrong. It is simply how we are. Whenever a human is any situation, they always seek to break past it’s limitations. They look for openings to grow.

The only thing is, we have been going about our survival as a species with very little consciousness. It mostly happens by accident, and as a result, we see those imbalances everywhere. Now, because the world is more connected than ever and our population is so large, it is in our face much more.

So you might argue that’s why we elect our governments – so that they can create that conscious plan. But if you want true governance, then you must be involved.

Tell me, has there ever been a government that has fixes everything alone? When things were difficult, when things were easy, did they do it all? Are they ever successful?

So what makes you think all of a sudden this government is going to do it? You are living in a fantasy land because it’s convenient. If you always have someone to point the finger and blame, you never have to lift a finger.

I want you to understand that in everyone’s own mind, they have a story, and they are the hero. You are the hero of your story, and that politician or whatever is in theirs as well. Governments are not making some calculated effort to destroy the world because they want to be evil.

Yes, money is a huge factor in all of this. But that is not a bad thing. The only issue is we have structured our system in such a way that there are too few with too much and too many with too little.

This is where all the anger and resentment comes from. You can point your finger at the government or the rich man or the corporation and blame them. You may even be justified in it. But tell me, does that finger pointing in the long run solve anything?

Right now, if you live in North America, you are richer than the vast majority of people on this planet. They might look at you and wonder how you could earn even $20,000 a year and somehow still not have any to spare for people like them. To them, you are evil and not lifting a finger. But to you, you’re poor.

Blame gets us nowhere. You must work with what you have when you have it.

By setting aside differences and working together, with compassion and understanding, with willingness and openness – then only do real solutions happen.

If you truly want to help our future as a species, then you must seek win-win solutions. You must be inclusive, not exclusive.

There is no reason why ecology and economy can’t go hand in hand. I’m not talking about half-measures or compromises. I’m talking about building solutions that are sustainable and beneficial for everyone.

The solution has to work at all levels – for the companies, for the government, for the citizens, for the soil, the trees, the water, the air, the animals, the insects…all of it! Without exception.

If you want results, then you must learn to work with the governments of the day as they are. If you keep dreaming that “in 4 or 5 years when we re-elect, then our saviours will come”, you will be trapped in an endless cycle and by then in it will be too late to do anything. Anyway then you will have to work with what you have.

So take a look at the yourself. Take a look at your municipality, your community, your area, your nation, your planet! See where you are capable of creating solutions that work for all those interests. Then do the work.

You are uniquely qualified in some way, aren’t you? You can do something that helps everyone in a way that no one else can. It’s time to stop stifling your potential and capacity to help just because you are angry.

Turn that intensity into a desire to work together. Not because working together is the high ground or morally better. Simply because it is more effective at creating solutions.

It’s time now more than ever to work together, especially with those you blame. There are people right now all over the world doing just that. But more need to step beyond their anger if we truly want to change the course of humanity. Think and act win-win. Now is the time.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

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

On Identity

October 11, 2019 ~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

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

Sincerely,

Too Thought To Handle

Dear TTTH,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With gratitude,

Your True Self

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

On Consequences

October 9, 2019October 9, 2019 ~ 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

October 4, 2019October 4, 2019 ~ 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 Motivation

October 2, 2019October 2, 2019 ~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I’m finding it very difficult lately to stay motivated at work. It feels so dull and boring and like I’m dragging myself there everyday. How can I get more motivated?

Sincerely,

Feeling Unmotivated

Dear FU,

Where does your sense of dullness and boredom come from? Let’s sincerely look at it.

Do some people at your job feel as you do? Do others feel the opposite, extremely motivated and productive?

Like this, look at anything in your life. Are you not capable of turning just about anything dull? Similarly, are there not other things you do that others may find dull that excite you?

People are capable of suffering just about anything. They can suffer both boons and curses. What I am getting at is that the source of your lack of motivation does not come from the outside. If different people can take the same situation and have such different experiences, clearly it has nothing to do with the situation. It has only to do with how you are.

You are manufacturing everything in your life. Every way you think, feel, and experience is all determined by you. The external situation is merely a play, it happens as it happens. But how you experience it is up to you entirely.

So it’s not your work that has become dull. It is not your work’s fault that you are unmotivated. In fact, motivation is a really useless thing to pour your energy into.

Motivation is for people who can’t be bothered to stay on a trajectory. They need constant injections of energy from the outside in order to stay on any one task. Some people even call coffee their motivation, you know?

If you constantly need something external in order to function, is that motivation or addiction?

So drop this idea that you need to be motivated. You do not. This has nothing to do with motivation. Motivation is fleeting and will come and go. It should not determine the quality of your experience.

There is a natural part of you that wants to expand. Life is like this, always looking to evolve. This part of you can never be silenced. It is in essence what it means to be a life in this cosmos.

When you are in a constant state of expansion, every time you hit a boundary, you want to break it. But at your job, you aren’t always capable of changing everything to suit your needs, and neither should that be in your power.

So you hit that boundary, and because of your survival mechanism, you sit there begrudgingly. Monotonously you do your job day in day out, finding no sense of joy. You are too afraid to lose what you have made.

It’s like you used a boat to get you across a river, but now you don’t want to get rid of the boat. But there is a mountain to climb, so you carry the boat with you on your back. What a burden this will be.

Tell me, when you first got that job, weren’t you excited? Applying for different positions and finally getting into your career must have been quite an experience. But now, that same job is not a source of joy. The job is the same as when you started. It is not the jobs fault. It is only you that is unhappy.

This constant desire within you to expand, no matter what you achieve, you will always find the next boundary. Even if you get everything you could wish for right now, will you be satisfied? Of course you will not be, and will look to something else.

Instead of letting this desire run compulsively in you, if you brought it into your conscious wakeful experience, your life would suddenly become wondrous. Do I mean some kind of miraculous or magical change will happen?

No, what I am saying is that if you bring this desire to constantly expand and evolve into each moment, what else can happen except a sense of wonder? If you approach life like this, you will constantly seek opportunity for growth instead of settling for security.

Settling for security will not work anyway. You are right now experiencing this. You want more, but don’t want to give up your comfort. So you keep doing the same thing every day expecting motivation or a vacation or some other external thing to fix your problem. This is insanity. Nothing will change if you keep doing things the same.

So how to suddenly bring this sense of wonder into your being? What is the trick or technique? First, you need to understand that you are a completely ignorant and minuscule part of this cosmos.

Many enlightened and spiritual teachers have said throughout the ages that you are insignificant. Nowadays, self esteem is such a big deal for people because they have none, so if you tell them they are nothing, they get upset.

The point of reminding you of your insignificance is not to make you feel bad. When you understand that you are just a small part of a much larger happening, you will naturally realize that you have no idea about just about anything in this damn existence.

Even with all the knowledge and experience you have, tell me, is there more that you do know or more that you don’t know? Obviously what you don’t know is infinitely larger than what you do know. Yet, you choose to so heavily attach yourself to your knowledge.

You go into every situation looking to draw conclusions based on your knowledge about it. As soon as you do that, you eliminate all possibility of any growth. Like this, you have drawn many conclusions about your work. That you must perform it a certain way, at a certain level, that you must do it the same way you’ve been doing it.

When you were a child, you didn’t have such conclusions. Everything was your playground. You would find a rock and be amazed by it’s shape and size and texture. Now, you see rocks and they are just rocks. Like this, you have traded you wonder for drawing conclusions.

New things will always be exciting. But eventually, that will fade. Don’t become a thrill seeker, endlessly trying to find new things. It will not satisfy you. Instead, be satisfied with what is here right now in front of you. But instead of going through it with dullness, stop your conclusions and approach it playfully.

Life is what you make of it. There is no rule that says you must be bored. Don’t look at this in terms of being motivated at a boring job. The job is not boring. Nothing is boring. Therefore you don’t need motivation.

Instead, simply take that job, or any other moment in your life, and approach it with a sense of playfulness. Drop the serious conclusions you have about everything. Become more playful and curious about life. Motivation is unnecessary.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

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

On Walls

September 30, 2019September 30, 2019 ~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

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

Sincerely,

Another Brick in the Wall

Dear ABITW,

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s like this:

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

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

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

Or you could just go through the open door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With gratitude,

Your True Self

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

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: