The World Inside

Believe it or not there is nothing that you experience that is without your consent. All of the circumstances, the events, the joys and the pains that you experience are being chosen by you on some level of your consciousness whether you are aware of it or not.

The world "out there" is not as separate from you as you might imagine. In fact, you are influencing and shaping its evolution from moment to moment in more ways than you can imagine. And everything you perceive is right or wrong with the world out there is a reflection of some aspect of yourself that you are in fact relating to. And very often the things you tend to judge the most about people or events in your world around you are aspects of your own self that you are most in denial about or afraid to acknowledge.

As a society we have built intitutions, laws and religion in an attempt to do exactly this - to compartmentalize humanity into different versions - a worthy version, an unworthy version, a conscientious version, a perverse version - so that we may witness that same division in our world that we experience everyday within our own beings, where we pit our good self versus the evil, where we reward the repenter in us and chastise the sinner, where we idolize our generous nature while shaming that part of us that is greedy and covetous.
Its all a game. And the game you play with yourself is the game you will see in the world you live in. The world is a direct reflection of your inner state.

The point is not to reach some state of peaceful, joyful liberation. Rather true liberation is the liberation from having to reach any particular kind of state at all. True liberation exists only in the present moment and exactly within the content of this moment.

The entire Universe exists as a result of opposing forces. Every being constitutes positive aspects and negative aspects. It is the acceptance and deeper understanding of the necessity for both of these sides to exist that will lead you to a greater appreciation of who you really are.

Pain and pleasure are two necessary aspects of each and every single life experience you have had, are having or will ever have. Every coin must, by the limitations of our physical reality, have another side. It is impossible to experience only positive experiences. When we pursue happiness, this is what we in effect are telling ourselves. That there is such a place where I can feel good all the time.

There isn't and nor is it set up that way. The point isn't to try and setup a life in which you are impervious to heartbreak, to grief, to disaster, chaos or sorrow. Rather the point is to see that the pleasure and the pain, the joy and the sorrow are twins that worl in tandem, each feeding off the other, each strengthening the other.

You cannot truly understand the meaning of success without having faced failure, of confidence without doubt, of the true appreciation of family without loss, of the meaning of love without heartbreak. These dualities serve each other in allowing you the benefit of experiencing Life in a multitude of flavors.

Even in our societies, without war and genocide we would never have evolved to a point as a civilization where we collectively value human life and cherish it as we do. Without disease, we may never have evolved our understanding and creativity of medicine and anatomy, without nuclear holocaust we might never have developed a true respect of the awesome power and havoc we hold at our fingertips and the frailty of human life.

Every tragic event while tragic in circumstance, in the bigger picture provides catalyst for great positive change. It may be that the catalyst needs to be provided a number of times over and over until the lesson is learned. But without challenge, without chaos and without limitation there would be no such thing as success, harmony and liberation. The negative, the evil, the tragic, the destructive gives context to the positive, the good, the heroic and the creative. You cannot have one without the other.

This is the world you live in and this is the world that lives in you. The moment you stop dividing your inner world is the moment you begin to live in a world undivided. That means bringing the light of wisdom and love to ALL aspects of yourselves: the worthy aspects including the good, the generous, the kind, the selfless but even more vitally all those forgotten aspects of yourself that lurk in the shadows : the dark, the envious, the cruel and the selfish - these are just as worthy of your love and compassion as the others. They are all your inner selves and they are all deserving.

The Positive-Negative Relationship

Positive and negative are the two basic aspects of everything that exists in nature - from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Everything exists as a polarity of the two. And it is the interaction between the two that manifests as movement, as energy, as flux and as life.

A Universe in which everything is only positive would be devoid of any experience. Because there would be nothing to contrast against, nothing to relate with. There would be no way to even be aware of anything. This would be the case in a purely negative Universe, as well. Yet, when both positive and negative are present, the contrast between the two allows the current of reality to flow.

A photograph that is only white would show no image, nor would one that was only black. It is when the two coexist in relationship and balance that the image becomes clear and discernible. When positive and negative exist in balance, life can exist in harmony. However, when the balance begins to shift into bias in either direction the photograph soon becomes over exposed or under exposed compromising the image.   

What we term as “being positive” or “positivity” in our society is really a positive bias. And what we term as “being negative” or “negativity” is really a negative bias. As a culture we have come to fear the negative aspect of ourselves and have labelled it as undesirable and the positive as desirable. This is the very attitude that skews us.

The pursuit for Happiness is rarely a pursuit for balance and more often a pursuit for some state of pure and unconditional positivity. And this is where we tend to miss the mark in a big way. Because in skewing our perspective to value all that is worthy and positive in us and suppressing, denying and reprimanding all that is negative what we are really doing is fragmenting ourselves even further. We are creating an even greater divide between the two poles, a divide that energizes the conflict between the two and allows for misunderstanding and a lack of compassion.

In effect this is what we are witnessing in the word around us. Humanity itself functions very much like a single entity. We value those who represent all that is positive, all that is good, all that is in service of others. But also devalue those who represent the negative, all that is evil, all those who are in service of only their own perversions. The effect this has is in creating a further gulf, a greater void between the two and thus enhances the fear, the mistrust and the violence. The greater the polarization, the greater the conflict. Watch the dynamic at play within yourself.

When you are ready and willing to come out of denial and recognize that there is not one, but two, essential and equally vital aspects to yourself, then you may choose to approach it from a very different perspective. In recognizing that neither the positive nor the negative is of more value but that it is the harmony between the two that is your greatest responsibility, you immediately begin to see things from a new perspective. You see your body and mind as a weighing scale (a balance with positive on one side and negative on the other). Too much bias in either direction causes the scale to tip.

Ultimately, it is the dynamic between positive and negative that allows for growth and evolution. And in every case both positive and negative are of benefit. When the dynamic within you is a harmonious one, the flow of your life becomes more effortless and you embrace the whole of your being.

The Dynamics of Inner Conflict

This is an excerpt of a response I wrote to someone who asked me a query about inner conflict:

Hi (name omitted),

In your life you will find that there are certain motivations which are highly attractive to you and there will be some that cause a strong sense of repulsion in you. These motivations which manifest in various forms as thoughts, feelings, events, circumstances are essentially the course-syllabus of your life lesson. Each one's syllabus is unique to them. What is a strong attracting influence or repelling influence in one may have absolutely no effect, either positive or negative, on another person i.e. they are neutral in their response. But it is these attracting/repelling urges which set up the polarizations that then feed the energies of your ego.

For example, you may not be a very materially motivated person by nature and so material success and acquiring things may not be something that particularly interests you. In other words, you may have a naturally neutral attitude towards it, whereas for someone else it may be an aspect of their lives that consumes them and defines how their life will progress. On these so called neutral issues, you will find that there is not much ego momentum that can build up around it because there is no magnetic pull towards the issue. On the other hand, you may be someone who cares very deeply about the state of the world's affairs, about injustice and attrocity. On these issues you may find yourself having strong opinions, judgments and identities about things. And here your attractions and repulsions will be palpable - and this is the kind of arena in which the ego loves to play.

However, the point is not to be completely neutral. The point is to get a deeper understanding of what polarizes you.

Think of yourself as a battery, where the positive pole corresponds to all the light-natured aspects of yourself and the negative pole corresponds to all the dark-natured aspects. As long as these two poles exist the current of life will continue to flow, animating your body-mind.

Now I'll extend this analogy one step further. In physics, the voltage of a battery is defined as the potential distance between the two poles. As you polarize more and more strongly towards your attractions and against your repulsions, the voltage (polarization) of your self increases. From your school physics you may recall the formula for Ohm's Law V=IR where V is the voltage, I the current and R the resistance. If the current (ie the life energy stays the same) an increase in voltage implies an increase in the resistance you experience. There is a quote that goes "Ego is the resistance to what is." This resistance is essentially what the ego feeds on.

In other words, the more identified you are with your mental positions, the more polarized you are, the more resistance you will experience. And vice versa, any resistance you feel from external sources will polarize you further. It is also true that every electrical current generates a magnetic field around it. This is what attracts/repels other egos around you and you to them.

In response to you regarding my comment about "immersing yourself in the illusion" - this is the natural progression of life. At first, it is only through experiencing great resistance within ourselves that we become aware of how polarized we are and more importantly about the need to understand that polarity. This can only be done through a process of allowing the experience of these polarities. As we begin to understand, our understanding has a sort of balancing effect, a bringing together in a sense of the positive and the negative. This decreases the potential difference (the voltage) between the poles and hence so does the resistance. As the resistance frees up, the current flows more freely, the poles come into a balance and the magnetic field around the wire no longer magnetizes other egos in the way it once did.

There is no way around this process. any attempt to be only postive by avoidance of negative only polarizes further. Any over indulgence in the negative while losing perspective of the positive only polarizes further. If you shift your focus from attempting to contrive a more positive/negative scenario towards reconnecting with that current that animates you in every moment, you will have a stronger and stronger sense of the wholeness that is essentially at the root of all of it.

The Flow of Life

Nothing lasts. Everything passes, changes and transforms. To live is to be in movement. Flux is the foundation of all experience.

Whether the experience of this moment is pleasant or painful, whether your current situation is stagnant or evolving, your life flows at a pace that is independent of your perception of it.

Picture yourself in a canoe being carried down a river at a steady pace. This river is the current of your life, ever moving, never stagnating. As you cruise with the river you are aware of the changing scenery along the river banks. This scenery is much like the content of your life, the events, moods and milestones that illustrate it. Sometimes the scenery is bare, bleak and boring. Sometimes it is fascinating, exotic and exciting.
Sitting in the canoe you may become preoccupied with the scenery on the riverbank. Your mind may begin to fixate on the more pleasant landscapes and tend to fear the duller and bleaker ones. And you may turn your head desperately from this way to that, holding on to a specific point in the landscape as it receeds into the distance or waiting in anticipation for it to come again. But you have no control. The river keeps moving and with it so do you.

There comes a point when the frustration of trying to hang on to the good experiences and wishing away the negative ones begins to overwhelm you to the point where you give up on the whole game. It is at this point that you may feel the current of this river more strongly than ever. It is at this point that a new reality may dawn on you :

That experiences come and experiences go, but experience isn't the point of this whole process that we call life. Experience is only the background landscape against which life is lived. Rather the deeper purpose is to connect with the flow beneath your feet that is guiding your canoe. And in connecting with this infinitely powerful energy, learning how to navigate its currents.

Then, you are no longer guided by what you see on the riverbanks. No longer do you paddle desperately upstream to reclaim what you once had. Nor do you paddle furiously ahead hoping to encounter something you desperately crave. Rather you follow along with the flow of the river, listening to is, learning from it, using your paddle as a rudder to guide you.

In this way, the current of the river becomes as familiar to you as the beating of your own heart. Grounded in this faith, you become unshakeable. 

Understanding Pain

Whatever you are feeling right now is ok. Whatever the experience of this moment, no matter how harsh, no matter how painful, allow it to be there. Allow it to coexist alongside you, for as long as it will, for as long as it has to.

You may feel the urge to resist it, to wish it away, to ignore it, to overpower it, to deny it. But your avoidance and your resistance will only serve to enhance it, to magnify it. The pain that you feel is nothing more than a cry for help. It is an aspect of your own nature that you are refusing to acknowledge, to recognize. It is an aspect of your own self that you disown each time you recoil from it in fear. And its cries of desperation get louder and louder every time you do.

Your pain, your suffering is not some demonic entity that you need to protect yourself from. It is your own inner child, it is innocent, it is crying out for you to acknowledge it. Be kind to it, be gentle. When grief, when heartache, when frustration beset you, in this moment more than in any other is compassion the only required response. Compassion for that aspect of your self that wants to heal. That is all the pain is ever really about, an opportunity to heal.

Be kind to your suffering, be generous in your acceptance. With healing comes a deeper grounding in that core of peace that is within all of us, which is always available. Grounded in peace, even experiences of great sorrow are seen as the lessons of love that they truly are.