Whenever I invest in a self image that is not wholly true, I suffer. What is wholly true, embraces the absolute and relative realms of our directly experienced reality.
It may be relatively true that I feel fear and doubt at times but those feelings are not ultimately who I am.
It may be relatively true that I suffer or you suffer but suffering is not ultimately who we are.
It may be relatively true that I have failed at some things but failure is not who I am. It may be relatively true that I sometimes feel anxious, or angry or sad… or happy, blissful or joyful. All of those relative feelings or thoughts or sensations come and go.
What I am ultimately, does not.
Ultimately, we are free, unconditionally open, pure creative potential – the formless taking form as the relative forms of who and what we appear to be.
Knowing this, I cannot stay attached to false images of myself for very long at all. I cannot persist in a self image that no longer serves me or the world around me. And even though I cannot attach to any image, that does not mean that I run from feelings of fear, anxiety, sadness or anger.
Because what we ultimately are is free consciousness AND unconditional love. Unconditional love, or unconditional openness EMBRACES all the relative, fleeting appearances of emotions, thoughts and sensations. It doesn’t hide from them in an intellectual idea that ‘I am not what arises’. It holds all of what comes up within you like a mother holding its distressed child.
When we look again, with fresh eyes we may see that it is not actually our darkness that we are afraid of but our light… our capacity for love. Our primal identity of pure being:
unconditional, open hearted, infinite creative potential.
The cosmic capacity that gives birth to universes. The capacity that allows what is, to be.
Our power and potential is what is beyond belief. We have no problem believing in our limitations – most of us have gone through many years of conditioning that has made our beliefs in our smallness more familiar than trusting our natural courage, creativity and power.
You are not what you feel or think – seeing this, is the beginning of freedom. And yet, what you think and feel has a temporary, relative reality. We can be free IN the thoughts, feelings and sensations we wish to escape from. Because we are not those thoughts, feelings and sensations ALONE. We are not merely what arises within us, we are ALSO the capacity that holds it.
What you are is unconditional love. And it has room to hold and heal all of those experiences we instinctively move to escape from.
Blog Post Images by Phillip Schumacher
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