Back on track

Seseh, Bali, Indonesia.

Ha! I am back again. I don’t know for whom it is harder to believe, for you as the reader or for myself. I don’t now if it is entertaining to see somebody bounce back and forth but for me it was not funny. Let’s hope I recognize it sooner when the storm comes next time. Ideally I become identified with the depths of the ocean instead of being toyed around by the waves.

One of the things that helped me shift was talking to Satya. She embodies what I am still learning: unshakable trust. As I learned from her last week: everything is perfect and everything happens exactly as it should happen. She is not afraid of losing her house or her business or even her life. There is complete flexibility and no attachments. In her world it is truly all good. Today I could see and feel some of those things again.

It is such a mystery (to me): how our experience of life changes from moment to moment. We go from dull to very alive, from happy to angry and from sad to enchanted. The trick is – of course – to not have preferences. When our inner being can flow freely, without our interference or judgments, we are at peace and fully alive.

I thought about taking a casual stroll to the beach and since the beach was nearby I put my thoughts into action. As I was walking barefoot on the asphalt minding my own business I realized that the road was a lot hotter than expected and so was the black sand of the beach. So my casual stroll turned into a sprint for cold seawater and resulted in burned soles.

As I laid on the wet sand and looked at the sky I started thinking about what I learned. I definitely fell into the trap of expectations again. I really want the great experiences of enlightenment and when people tell me I have potential or am close to a new level or have predictive dreams about me I believe them. Then I get excited, then nothing seems to happen and I become (heavily) disappointed. To encounter life without expectations and also without skepticism is an art.

Another thing that became very clear is how my favorite negative convictions “I am not good enough” and “I won’t succeed” are still part of my inner reality. And these two like to stick themselves to every topic of my life. And when Pandora’s box is opened they tend to amplify each other.

But being caught up in negative thoughts is truly a form of blindness. What I think I am seeing is not what the others are seeing and I don’t see what others do see. It was very heartwarming to experience how many people came to my rescue and now I realize that my suffering invoked kindness. And it was humbling to be thanked for my honesty because for some people my struggles encourage them to not give up their battle for truth.

My friend Pausha commented: “(…) the traditional spiritual path, as well as the way of psychology, is to heal the pain, clear the trauma over years and years of practice until the noise goes down enough, and the space is clear enough, for us to see who we are: god, creator, designer, the artist of our life. (…)”. This is where I am at: in the middle of the practice. I will have years and years to come but this last week certainly made me a bit humbler towards others and hopefully a bit kinder towards myself.

I follow a human path. But something inside of me wants to escape that and hopes for a superhuman and more glorious path. My ego would love to skip the suffering, triumph spectacularly and regain his feelings of superiority. But as much as my ego wants to come home, I want to come home too. And we have a different place in mind. Or more precise: he wants to live in the mind; I want to live in the heart. There will be no shortcuts this time.

I feel like I am back on the path but I actually never was off the path. It is strange how easy it is now to see that these difficult experiences are necessary to grow, to soften and to open. Please remind me when I forget again.