To Launch Out On Your Own


I have transcribed and edited the following message from a talk Ishvara gave on November 27, 2004. - TG.

Ishvara:

Being present with what-Is, moment by moment, takes courage and persistence. One would imagine that just being with Is-ness would be simple, and it would be simple were it not for the conditional mind, the programming and the hypnosis of the world. As you move toward presence, as you recognize moment by moment what is possible, as you recognize what your uniqueness is, the possibilities inherent within you, you can often be confused, because the outside seldom matches the inside. What do you do with your life? How will you live?

As you gain awareness and presence, you recognize certain attributes, you realize certain possibilities, you see things about yourself: how you are, how you are with the world, how you are with others. Most often, it is a mixed bag of possibilities, because you are no longer the same. Sometimes you are more of yourself, and sometimes you are less of yourself, and you are never quite sure where you are with it. It is often a dilemma.

It is easy to fall into judgment and comparison. It is easy to see reflections in others, but it is difficult to see yourself as you are, and even more difficult to be OK with what you see. I recognize the greatest dilemma for the human being is the inability to be OK with Is-ness, because the comparisons come up, the shoulds, the shouldn'ts, how others do it, how others don't do it; these things are always there. You would think that by the time you had come this far in Life, you would have realized and become OK with it, but very often that is not the case. There always seems to be something lurking, something hidden, something that suddenly appears, something you find hard to accept, something you have difficulty seeing, and then you may fall into judgment, wishing that wasn't there, thinking "How could that be there?"

It is a human enigma. There are so many contrarieties, so many opposites and paradoxes in your existence. It is no wonder that, very often, you find yourself confused. Life is not a simple process. Life is complicated, with so many possibilities, so many ways of seeing things, so many ways of being. Where do you fit? How do you fit? Can you fit?

The first thing you need to do is recognize your own uniqueness, and strive to see that as something that Life is wishing to experience. This means not seeing anything as a problem, not seeing anything as a limitation, but seeing these things as possibilities. When you really look at Life, you can see that a lot of your problems come from not being OK with the way things are. You can't be OK with the way things are if you have a perception or belief about how things are supposed to be. Those perceptions come from the outside.

It is such a strange world when you look at this composition: On the one hand, it is all one, people are all the same, but on the other hand, every individual is a unique expression of certain possibilities, and very different. To understand Life, to recognize what it is really about, you look through yourself. After you have worked and striven to get through the conditioning, the beliefs and concepts, the "supposed to's," you begin to understand what you are about. At some point, you come to a place where you begin to see the Is-ness of it. Often that process seems to take up a large part of a person's life.

You are tossed around on the sea of differences, contemplating this, contemplating that, believing you are "supposed to," believing you shouldn't. You have drives that seem to propel you into situations, you have needs that seemingly must be met. You strive, you try, and often you come up empty, because the conditioning, the beliefs, the concepts, the programs, the "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" from the past, are false. It takes great courage to launch out on your own, following your own inner awareness. The inner awareness is often confused with the outer awareness that is so loud around you, so programming, constantly bombarding you with "This is the way it's supposed to be," "This is the way it should be," "This is the way it shouldn't be."

Life is made up of all of it. If you can transcend the idea of "good and bad," "right and wrong," and start to embrace the consequences of living, realizing how things are set into motion, you can begin to recognize your uniqueness. This means realizing the consequences of things, not looking at things through the eyes of guilt, not trying to suppress or reject or hide, but always embracing Is-ness. It means not being fooled by the programming, by the "they say." It comes down to: What do you say? How are you going to say it? How are you going to be? You are free. You are free to be whoever you choose, always keeping in mind that there are consequences for every decision, every choice, always trying to be broad enough to recognize the consequences of the various choices, recognizing that every choice involves an energy exchange. The bottom line is: Are you willing to make the energy exchange? That is what it comes down to. Are you willing to put the energy into this, in order to get through it? Are you willing to expend the energy for the experience? Are you willing to face the consequences that are constantly being set into motion by your actions? All of it together is the flow of Life.

The more dislikes you eliminate, the more likes you eliminate, the less restrictions you have. Likes and dislikes work in the same way. They are like obstacles to the moment; they are obstacles to being OK with what-Is. Of course, everyone has preferences, but you want to look at the preferences and see where they have come from. Are they the consequences of belief, past experience that was not understood fully, some program or conditioning? Or are they genuine aspects of your uniqueness? I have seen that, if preferences are genuine, there is no attachment to them. There is an awareness around them, but there is no disruptive need to have them fulfilled; there is just a recognition that you have a preference for something, and it is alright if the preference is met, and alright if it is not. On the other hand, conditional preferences, preferences that come from beliefs and concepts from the past, can be very demanding, very chaotic, with a sense of "must": must have, must do, must be.

So there are subtle ways of recognizing where you are coming from each moment, ways that can be overlooked, ways that can slip by without much notice. As you continue to awaken to the uniqueness that you are, these things become more apparent. It becomes harder and harder for these things to slip by without your noticing them, without the inquiry "What is that? Where did that come from?"

You live Life in presence, in being in Is-ness, in a sense being analytical about it, weighing the pros, the cons, the causes and effects of things, realizing that you live in a dualistic world, with many paradoxes and contradictions, with contradictions even in yourself. That is normal, but it is not absolute. You can transcend contradictions. You can transcend the paradox. You can transcend the past, mainly by living in the moment. By being present with what-Is, you will recognize present possibilities, you recognize the direction of things, the way things are moving, and you can harmonize and move in sync with that, without experiencing much chaos or upheaval.

Written and transcribed by Terry Grant

(To be concluded next week).

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