It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment or the courage, to pay the price. . .One has to abandon altogether and embrace the search for security, and reach out to the risk of loving with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.
The courage he speaks of does not come easy for anyone. It has been said that life is not for the faint of heart. So many want and dream of a life full of joy and contentment – usually associated with “having” all the things they sincerely believe will bring them happiness. The irony of this is that wishes unfulfilled only brings misery and woe. Creative function requires action and entails risk – the risk of failing and to be found wanting. The roots of this deep fear is that when we are found wanting we will be disapproved of. We are very vulnerable to the withdrawal of love. This need for others’ approval is often a two-edged sword. When they approve we feel valued. When they don’t approve we feel anxious or angry. As a species we are the only ones I know of that are so dependent on the attitudes and beliefs of those outside of us to determine our contentment. We have created billion dollar industries to make us look better, smell better, and behave better so that we might be acceptable. I believe we do this because we are hard wired to be loved and accepted by someone outside ourselves. Long before we have a conscious sense of self we are dependent on others for our very survival. We humans are the most dependent of all creatures on our like kind to determine our value. We are so very vulnerable for approval and disapproval for others. The irony of vulnerable-ness is that while it allows us to love and be loved, it also creates a deep instinctive fear of abandonment and fear of disapproval. In the last writing, I talked about how we are hard wired to connect to others and to be loved by them.
I was raised in a culture of tradition that taught me that I existed before I came into mortality. In that pre-mortal state I experienced unconditional love just because I was. There were no conditions for “my story” which is really not my story, but someone else’s story about me. I simply adopted their story at the expense of losing my own sense of perfection. We take on the identity of the world which I believe is the ego self. Does the original imprint of that unconditional love ever leave us? I think not! It may be reflected in that deep need for connection, it may be reflected in our vulnerable-ness to not being loved and valued. That deep sense manifests itself many times over in people’s need to be nurtured and loved.
It is possible to “remember” or “sense” this loving perfection when we can still the ego mind and challenge the “old story” and see it as an illusion. In the Gospel of Thomas, it is written,
“. . . When you know yourself, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the Living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.” C. Scholar’s translation of the gospel of Thomas vs 3 by Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer.
I find it interesting that we first “know” ourselves then we are “known”. The transformation process requires that we put off the “old story”, the story of our domestication process, and chose the new story that allows us to be the “full human being.” The human being that is both vulnerable and strong, the human being that is always growing and becoming enlightened as to the truth of who we are. Enlightenment is that awareness that all things are connected in a meaningful way, that all things have purpose, that everything matters and that nothing will be lost.
Enlightenment requires that we be willing to change. We must examine paradigms that have out lived their usefulness. We must adopt paradigms that foster cooperation rather than competitiveness. There is too much knowledge available to us that warns of the dangers of a win/lose paradigm. We are going to find it more difficult to justify hurting someone else for our gain. We serve ourselves by serving others.
In the beginning quote the person he talks about is not defined by others – she is defined by her passions to take on life and live every aspect of it.
Today I sat with a dear friend who is in the process of dying. She shared with me her fears, not for herself but for others she loves, especially her vulnerable grandchildren. She has finally embraced her life and her death, while she expressed some regrets mostly for the things she didn’t do. She said she may have “played it safe” and that at times she was afraid of the disapproval of others – that sometimes she didn’t dance or sing as “wildly” as she would have liked. She told me she regretted allowing herself to be defined by others. The irony now is that I have rarely encountered such courage and integrity in a person. She is embracing all of life and she is defining her own experience.
