My sister called again this morning to ask me to sell my house, so that she might get the investment she chose to make eight years ago out of the property, now that she has gone through all the money that was left when she sold her business and before she borrowed heavily to open a restaurant that subsequently failed.
She is in dire financial straits and looking to me to fund her escape, of course my leaving my house and the 50,000 dollars I have in it would create both financial destitution and homelessness for me. A notion that she cannot understand or perhaps does not agree with, and as in so many of our conversations in the past, she cannot hear my perspective without getting enraged and today was no exception.
She hung up on me and when I called back in an attempt to reach her and help her to see the proposed solution I was offering was a reasonable one… she refused to speak with me. (I have offered that she apply some portion of the 39,000 dollars in interest that I have paid her over the life of the original 85,000 loan, toward the principal in the hope that a bank would be willing to refinance the house even without my having a job. Godaddy will no longer return my emails or my calls, and thus I must assume they have withdrawn the pledge that illness was an excusable reason for leaving training).
The internal pull to see her choices and actions as betrayal is so strong it is hard to see beyond it, and yet I will lose both my last remaining family member and myself if I am not capable of rising above the pain that my response to her phone call has engendered.
Even as I sit writing this, the desire to paint myself as her victim pulls on my psyche and waits to nourish my hurt feelings.
This like every other circumstance that has ever befallen me or any other human being is a test, a test of the commitment and will to know the truth, or live in the lie and the subsequent loss of sanity.
I, like you, cannot effect in any form the situations and circumstances that I will face. I could not have known eight years ago when I accepted her offer to act as my lender, that we would come to this place. I knew there was danger given the volatility of our childhood relationship, but I believed then that all that was necessary to protect us from what we now face was my willingness to pay my bill, which I have done without a single late or missed payment.
Who could have predicted the endless stream of poor financial choices she would make, the three great grandchildren she has chosen to raise, or the job market tossing me to the curb like so much used up refuse.
Back then, I believed in a better tomorrow…trusted that somewhere over the horizon my dream would come true and I would finally be living a life filled with admiration, approval, financial stability and professional recognition.
I could not have known then, that my willingness to know the interior depths of my own mind would take me down paths that have been populated by losses of such magnitude, that there is nothing left to rely upon save my own mind and heart.
Those of you who believe that believing is the way to prosperity and well being will not like what I am saying, will most likely be scared by it in some form…and I understand, and even empathize with that.
It is difficult indeed to deal with the truth that crucifixion precedes resurrection, it was so for the Christ and for the Buddha and for all the other Masters who have found their way past the mind that searches for some place better, for freedom in the outer and the transitory.
I have developed enough strength to stop the illusions that once populated my mind, to recognize them when they begin forming and to stop the impulse to run from myself and my internal fear based conversations.
This is the only goal I pursue now, the only outcome that still holds my attention, the only achievement worthy of the long journey through the very dark nights of my past.
My sister’s fear and pain has now cast me in the role of villain, and it is mine to accept and to make peace with…and further… to learn from.
Here is the real work of spirituality, the nuts and bolts, the load bearing truth of the path and the demands it places upon us. It is so easy to listen to the alluring songs of the sellers of spiritual promises…a heaven somewhere over there or one here, depending on who is doing the selling…and now in the fullness of time and maturity, I have finally come to see why my Teacher never in all the times I sat with him made promises of any kind, save that I must be responsible for my own salvation or find no salvation in any form. “Surprisingly, a true teacher and a true teaching will throw you, with the greatest compassion and ruthlessness, directly into the center of the wound itself.” – Gangaji
It is the great compassion and ruthlessness of my Teacher who routinely, and with great Love, through me back into the very center of my wound that living with all of these apparently negative circumstances has been both possible and life affirming.
Gangaji goes on to say,…”Healing wounds is appropriate. There is treatment for all wounds, and wounds that can be tended are to be tended. The problem only arises when truth itself is sought through healing. While the emotional, physical, or mental wounding is addressed, that which by its nature is whole, pure, free, and at peace goes overlooked. Truth is already there, regardless of the state of your body, your emotions, your mind, or your circumstances.”
The path, lit by my venerable Teacher, to which I have been committed these 27 years has not been one that leads to a problem free life, or even just to the relative good of healing…no, the path I have been guided toward and have dedicated my life to, sees beyond the relative good of mere healing, to the absolute good of coming to know that “by which its nature is whole, pure, free, and at peace”.
The Ground of Being is the destination, not the many restless and constantly changing external forms by which our sight and thus our minds become mesmerized, I want more than relative ease…I want freedom and release.
Pleasure is no longer attractive to me, only Peace will do now. The peace that recognizes no form, no content, no shifting insubstantial external realities, but rather is born and nurtured and given birth to from deep inside the Impersonal Self…the Ground of Being itself.
I will pay whatever price is required, loss of professional and personal identity, loss of friendships, loss of family, financial destitution, homelessness, disapproval, or whatever else may come up…if it will liberate my mind from finding my identity in the external ever changing non-reality of circumstances and outer events.
Again from Gangaji…” I invite you for just this moment to stop searching for relief from suffering. The invitation is neither to become oblivious to suffering, nor to give up in despair. It is an invitation to stop searching for something to rescue you from yourself.
The desire for enlightenment is not the problem. The problem is the expectation that enlightenment will give certain results, or look or feel a certain way. From that arise confusion and wondering why, if all one desires is enlightenment, there is still no abiding experience of peace.
I encourage you to really investigate your own mind and see if there is any image of truth, freedom, enlightenment, or God. If there is an image, try this experiment: Let it go. Now see if there is any expectation associated with God, such as, if you are true to God, God will give you perfect health, perfect wealth, eternal happiness, etc. Look into your mind and see if there are expectations that the realization of God or truth will give you some release from life, or some control over life. Now, for the purpose of inquiry, let those expectations go. Surrender them. Give them up. If you are hoping for a particular state of clarity, oceanic bliss, or certainty about your purpose in the world, just let that go so that you are simply here. Let everything go. When you have nothing, you have only yourself. And when you truly only have yourself, you are awake to who you truly are.
If you desire to be free, and this desire is not given any form, expectation, or thought but just allowed to be, then this true desire revels the entire known and unknown universe. Every particle is revealed as one, and that one is you. The very instant you think your desire for God, freedom, or truth should produce a particular result or look or feel a certain way, you cloud the purity of that true desire.
The challenge in any spiritual seeker’s heart, no matter how beautiful and essential the seeking may be, is to stop seeking any thing to fulfill that final desire. The challenge is to let your whole life fulfill that desire. You can offer the whole of the rest of your life to that desire without knowing what the result will be, without knowing whether there will be ruination, homelessness, riches, or fame. You can give what you have, which is your life in this moment, to truth, freedom, God.”
I am come very near to the edge…I have now, only myself…
I trust that Gangaji, The Christ, The Buddha and my beloved Teacher are all deep truth tellers and now that I have only myself, that I will begin the liberation that they have promised and that they have embodied.
If I have ever meant anything to you, through this writing or in any other form, pray for me will you? Not that I will be delivered from my travails, but rather, that I will have the courage, strength, and will to face them and to demand of them, that they provide me the strength of will necessary to overcome my fear and desire based self.
“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.” - Rabindranath Tagore
Adayre R. Miller
1/26/11
photo courtesy of ukstormchaser and flickr photo sharing www.flickr.com/photos/23240104@N02/4194275683/ follow this link to see additional images
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