I have entered an entirely new realm of being, a place I have never been before, a place that makes me – in equal measure, uncom-fortable and pleased – an odd combination to be sure.
I didn’t even know what it was until I spoke with an old and very wise friend, and in attempting to tell him the feel and texture of this new place…I stumbled, literally fell over, the awareness of what has changed so dramatically.
I have stopped waiting.
After such a build up, you may be thinking…”girlfriend, that doesn’t seem like to big a deal to me.” I submit you may not fully grasp the reach, of such a potent change.
We are, all of us, waiting for something. When we are young we wait for summer, or prom, or the car keys, or that first date night kiss. When we get a bit older, we wait to get out of college, or to find prince charming, or the mother of our children. At some point we start to wait for some understanding to bloom, some method by which we can find ourselves, some form of help, some source of well being, some-one-thing-place-event or experience, to give meaning and purpose to lives, long surrendered, to the sad awareness that the outer realms with all their apparent glow have nothing of any real value to provide us.
We can, and do, wait for love, or hope, or peace, or comfort, all the days of our lives - unaware of how much damage and loss the waiting produces in our minds, and in our spirits.
Waiting is a form of evasion, a very effective, potent, and captivating one. It calls on us to “hold onto our dreams”, to “make a plan and set a goal”, to “believe”, and to “seek” but never to find.
Waiting is the illusion of a future, in which the conflicts of the present are resolved and we find ourselves in a “heaven” with no impact of the demands and difficulties, that are inherent in living in a mind created and formed from the duality that seems to exist everywhere we look.
To end waiting is to liberate the mind from the pull of the fantasy of a “better tomorrow”.
I am not suggesting that it is easy or even smooth; in fact I am experiencing what I would define as a form of grief. I feel a kind of loss and a type of drain from the end of waiting, but I have chosen freedom over illusion and I made that choice so long ago it can no longer even be recalled from memory.
Recently a conflict brewed up in my workplace, a conflict involving a coworker and me. It had all the just right components, he attacked me for not making his job easier, he blamed me for not helping him in just the right way, at just the right time…etc. and so on. It boiled over and produced a great deal of impact; both my bosses took the opportunity to tell me where and how, and in exactly the specific form in which I am disappointing them. One accused me of not being interested enough in heating and cooling, the other defined me as a perfectionist, and too black and white. From every corner and in many different ways, I was treated to the understanding that I am not measuring up.
And of course, they closed ranks around the other man – as men often do, and he was treated to commiseration because I did not serve him well enough.
In the midst of all this righting and wronging, all this blame and finger pointing, all this conflict and disturbance. I found the where-with-all to remember that nothing can take root in my mind and heart, until and unless, I allow it to.
Inside it was like watching a ping-pong match. My conditioned egoic, “sense of separate self” mind, would begin a type of singing…a lyrical way of describing the conflict in ways that painted me as entirely right. Things along this line…”the misinformation was right there on the appointment sheet – the address and map they provided didn’t match. I found my way to the appointment, corrected the mistake, took the necessary action to discover there was a problem and fixed it for myself. Why am I responsible for the fact that he didn’t do the same? Why am I to blame because he does his job poorly?” And so on, and so forth.
These lobs over the net were strong, fierce, addictive, oddly pleasurable, and deeply effective, the aim true, the follow thru powerful…and yet, from the other side of the net came a clear, soft, whisper.
When I could listen, it said things like this…”this is why my Teacher always counseled that the things we don’t like, that disturb us, that we don’t want, are our greatest opportunities.” And…”you can transcend this if you choose, there is no reason to take this personally, to experience this in any other way than as the observer. It is possible to step away from this conflict provided you are willing to give up the position of being ‘right’ in favor of being well, and whole.” And most importantly came the gentle reminder that while I was choosing to be “right”, I was living in the lie rather than honoring the What Is truth, and so, listening carefully enough, I could hear that as well. And it sounded like this…”my co-worker has an opinion that differs from my own. My bosses appear to agree with him. Neither of these appearances say anything at all about me, the inside me.”
The best though, came when I began to unravel the dire circumstances that the egoic mind brought forward by the bushel barrel full. It said things like, “your boss hasn’t called you back for the last three messages you left him, they are punishing you for not doing what they all agreed was the right thing to do”, or, “you are going to lose this job, and you must keep this job because of the need to refinance the house”, things of that type bubbled up to the surface in mighty waves of frothy, slimy, overkill. And still the small whisper, made its way to my inner ear…
“You are telling yourself lies about a future that does not exist, and a trouble that is only in your own mind. You are scaring yourself because you still want to be liked and included and valued, things that can only truly come from inside. You are wanting, from others, what can only be had by coming to the deep interior…by rediscovering the sanity, that sits with great stillness, beneath the dancing surface… waiting for you to turn your attention away from the outer and toward the depth of Being.
Listening to the lie, attempting to prove its rightness is the only sin that has ever existed, or will ever exist. It is the only hell that is possible, the only harm that can ever come your way, and the only way you can lose, is in its unconscious embrace. Turn away from the siren call, turn your attention to unraveling the mind with which you learned to become a victim, and set yourself free forever.”
I have come, finally, to see that there is no need to wait for some better circumstance, some better life, some better experience. That the very best that can be, or has ever been, offered any human being is waiting for me with open arms. The choice to live in sanity, rather than the hell of right and wrong, has at some point in the last one, three, five (?) years become available to me. (Am I capable of always choosing the sane thing? No I am not. But now, finally, the choice is at least available to me).
Some how and in some way, my Teacher’s great wisdom is becoming mine…to live wholly inside oneself, to give up the need to be right, to stop having “opinions” about how the world “should” work and instead, interacting honestly and truthfully with how the world actually is. To never expect more than what is directly in front of me, to end my searching so that I might discover what has been underneath my heart and within my grasp, all the long days of my life, to liberate myself from the bondage and horror of the conditioned mind…these are the things, worth living for…and they can be found every minute of every day, and in every circumstance in which we find ourselves, nothing needs to be added or subtracted from the life we are all leading at this very moment, for liberation to be ours.
I have very nearly succeeded in ridding my mind and heart of the hope, wish, and expectancy of a better tomorrow. I have almost reached the place where I am willing to live in the truth, rather than the fantasy of a heaven somewhere off in the clear blue future. I am almost an adult, with the strengths, capacities, abilities, potency, power, honor and humility that adulthood brings with it. I am almost beyond the sticky reach of things like approval, and fun, and pleasure, and gratification. (No, there is nothing “wrong” with these things, it is that they provide no real value. You and I do not take any gains away from the illusory difference between the pleasurable and the painful sides of the same coin, and we can and do, very often turn “pleasures” into additions.)
I can no longer recall the author of this quote, but I leave you with his/her, sane and reasoned words…”Each of us must choose between two ways of facing life: We must (1) live in direct, spontaneous contact with the emerging now, or (2) live fearfully on the deferred payment plan as an alien from reality in a world of wishful thinking, ideal expectancy, and endless searching.”
To wish, to have idealized expectations (hope), to endlessly search…is the wheelhouse of the egoic, conditioned mind…it is a hamster wheel cage, from which there is no release, no respite, no reprieve, and worst of all no authentic power, a long and painful childhood that ends in defeat, despair, and eventually physical death.
The Course in Miracles defines the ego in this manner, “The ego’s dictum is to seek, but never to find”, to seek but not find is the very foundation of the waiting place. To end waiting is to end the desire to be released from the truth of the current moment, to end resistance and come to find the beauty and value of acceptance.
Adayre R. Miller
5/29/11
photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing and Kevin Bond, to see more of this artist’s work please follow this link… www.flickr.com/photos/bondomania/482223348/
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