Alright, so here’s an interesting pattern I’ve noticed: Anything I judge or comdemn in another or give someone else a hard time about I ultimately wind up doing myself, and very quickly too. Basically I can watch myself being a total hypocrite! Interesting… They say that what you resist persists and this really is true. I believe there’s even a film (I haven’t seen) about this topic called The Shadow Effect.
Anyways, anything that I invalidate I inevitably wind up (unconsciously) choosing and thus living out myself.
Validating All That Is
There’s anothing pattern that’s developing at the same time: Validate All That Is.
It’s like I begin looking at things (both whatever I deem supposedly good or bad) and say to myself, “Yes, this is a valid expression of All That Is. This is yet another way for the One to manifest itself and experience itself. This too is the One. This is ultimately just as valid a choice as any other choice and so I choose to grant life/this person/this experience/this thing the freedom to be the way it is. I choose to allow the One to express itself in this way as well.”
It’s pretty wild to see yourself making every ego mistake in the book… like what in the world!? I thought I got this already!
This seems to be part of the journey from “knowing” something (as in “yeah yeah, I know I know, I’ve read that and heard people say it a million times so I know what’s up”) to “OHHH, now I KNOW that in my own direct experience throughout the totality of my being. Now there’s no longer even a question that this works and that doesn’t.”
Learning from others is an incredibly valuable experience. Anyone who’s ever read a good book or had a great teacher knows this. Yet the thing is that we can’t ride the wave of someone else’s realization and expect it to be entirely sufficient for ourselves. Life just don’t work that way! We can’t skip around our own growth by simply internalizing the concepts. As the saying goes, you can’t just talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk.
One of the great things about this human experience is that it provides us with such incredible opportunities to EXPERIENCE all this stuff so that we finally GET IT for ourselves.
“Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”
-Oscar Wilde
Let me share a video clip with you. It’s from the movie Leap of Faith, a comedy with actor Steve Martin (Jonas, in the movie) who plays a fake faith healer who goes from town to town preaching about Jesus and giving people “healings” (stuff like giving older people who walk in with difficulty a wheelchair and then having them miraculously stand up and walk on stage, haha). Anyways, in this scene the local sheriff is trying to call him out in front of a crowd by bringing up the preacher’s tainted past. The way Jonas responds to the accusations (about 2:30 in the video) is pretty awesome.
Ultimately this is about accepting yourself FULLY as you are and no longer running from what is.
HERE I AM.
You don’t “get there” by getting to a “there” that’s somewhere other than “here.” The ironic thing is that when you fully accept the darkness within you here and now, it ceases to hold its power over you, or more accurately you cease giving your power away to it and recognize that it is actually completely powerless and always was.
It seems that what we call “saintliness” is more about loving what is and from that love arises the behavior of a saint. It’s not about running away from your darkness, but being at peace with it and bringing the light of awareness to it which is itself incredibly healing and transformative.
The other day Matt and I sat down and had another excellent session together. In this one we dove straight into a lot of my conditioning. It was pretty deep and intense, but left me feeling surprisingly light and free in the end.
One thing that really left an impression on me was his level of acceptance towards what is, his love towards ALL of life. You can see him discuss this in the following video. It’s probably one of my favorite videos I’ve seen on living life.
There could be no other exhausting activity to a spiritual ego than having to be the one that is awake in a world of other egos and having to spend all your time correcting everyone. Eventually we all wake up from that burden.
-Matt Kahn
It’s amazing the degree to which our egos will attempt to invalidate and resist various ideas and concepts.
For example, our spiritual egos may try to invalidate various ideas such as separation, illusion, duality, the reality of fear, other people’s opinions and dogmas, our emotions or innate humanness, misperceptions and misunderstandings, etc. You know, all those things that only *totally unenlightened and egoic people* would believe in…
We may come across something we perceive to be “The Truth” (whatever that is to us… or to “no one” if you wanna get into all that silliness) and invalidate various other ideas and perspectives. Why? Well they’re not the Truth! *Those ideas* are distorted, misguided, and incorrect. They arise from the ego! or the devil! or [insert your scapegoat of choice here]. We need to correct everyone! Oh boy… Talk about not accepting others and invaliding who they choose to be!
Many people do not want advice. The world will teach them the lessons they need. You don’t need to go and correct everybody. It’s not your duty. Just take care of your peace.
-Swami Satchidananda
Once we realize we are both All That Is and All That Is Not, anything or anyonewe invalidate is seen to be an invalidation of ourselves, of THE Self. This is not Love. Remember, in order to judge or invalidate another, you must first bring your energy down to the level of judgment or invalidation. Thus what you do to another you do to yourself.
Our minds may want to divide things into either/or categories. Duality. “This is a valid perspective. That is not. Thus I must find the correct perspective and adopt that as my own.”
Yet what happens when we see that ultimately ALL perspectives are valid given that they are all equally aspects of the One. They are all simply perspectives of mind arising within the singular consciousness. Now I’m not saying that some perspectives aren’t more in alignment with Oneness or whatever else than others. I am simply suggesting that given the understanding that everything is an expression of the One, invalidation of any thing may not be the best strategy. Every thing and non-thing is an integral component of All That Is, for without every single thing in existence, All That Is would not be ALL That Is.
You must experience negative emotions, right? If so, how do you deal with them when they arise?
Thanks,
M.
My Response:
Yep, I’m just as human as anyone else. We are human beings. Even when we are “being,” there is still the human side of us happening as well.
Perhaps when we are fully enlightened and have completely healed all our unbeneficial energies, we will no longer experience any negative emotions, but until then, there’s still more healing and transformation work to be done to reconnect fully back to our light, our essence.
Now, with respect to dealing with negative emotions, there are soooo many ways of dealing with them. There’s therapy, journaling, exercising, thinking more positive thoughts, drugs, and so on. I’m sure you’ve tried many methods as well. We all have.
Here’s what I have found works best for me at this point in my life:
I recently found out (this time through facebook status updates since I don’t watch the news) that California voted to uphold Proposition 8, banning gay marriages.
It’s a pretty hot topic, with lots of polarized debate, and it’s not something that I normally talk about since politics just flat out doesn’t interest me.
That said, this whole situation is like a thermometer. It’s simply showing us the level of consciousness of the collective at the time of the vote, as well as allowing people to see who they’re choosing to be in relationship to it, just like everything else in life.
The collective hasn’t shifted totally to unconditional allowance in one fell swoop, but it is shifting, piece by piece.
It used to be that a decision such as allowing gay marriage was completely unthinkable. The fact that it’s even up for discussion is already a wonderful step in the direction of equality. No we’re not there yet, but the momentum is still flowing in that direction, as it has been for quite some time...
It’s like the civil rights movement with black people. Racial equality didn’t happen all at once overnight, but as a process of evolution, step by step.
Recognizing and appreciating the shift in the direction of equality, and standing for equality and unconditional acceptance ourselves, we can choose to accept those who don’t accept full equality yet, seeing them as equal in value to us.
Those with another perspective are simply unique facets of life expressing another aspect of itself. Everything is the One in expression. Other people may certainly have different beliefs, different programming, and a different upbringing, but that in no way invalidates them as beings worthy of love and acceptance.
This situation gives us the opportunity to be the change we wish to see in the world.
No matter what decisions people make, how they vote, or who they choose to be, we can accept them fully as they are.
Most of us have qualities about ourselves that society would judge as less than “ideal”… whatever that is. Maybe we’re not really really ridiculously good looking, maybe we’re overweight, maybe we’re gay, maybe we’ve got ADD, maybe we’re not the smartest cookie in the batch… whatever. Everyone’s got something..
The thing is though, in this lifetime, you’re not meant to be anything other than who and what you really are. You’re here to BE YOURSELF, the unique expression of the infinite you.
You don’t have to box yourself in to some arbitrary idealized standard in order to be lovable, acceptable, and worthy. Nope!
The idea of being a “good person” is just another false sense of self that we can buy into. Being a good person is not the point of spirituality, interestingly enough. It is not the goal. It’s not about being some superloving and compassionate saint. It’s about realizing who you really are. With this realization, you may find that you naturally become very loving and compassionate, just like the many others who have done so before throughout history, but that’s secondary. It’s not the primary focus. It’s a superficial change that tends to occur in the presence of the deeper inner realization.
One identity that I’ve been playing for a long time is being “a good person.” I was a good student in school, avoided getting in trouble, was a law-abiding citizen in life, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with any of this at all. It’s simply that none of these define who you are.
self-definition
If you stopped being “a good person,” would you cease to exist?
Well no, of course not. Then it’s not who you really are.
You are not a good person.
But what does the mind do when it hears the phrase, “You are not a good person?”
That’s right. It goes straight to its opposite. “If I’m not a good person, then that means I must be a bad person.”
But is that true? If you stopped playing the part of “bad person,” would you cease to exist?
Again, no. You are neither a good person nor a bad person. You are not definable along any part of the made-up spectrum between good and bad. In fact, you are not definable at all. You exist beyond duality.
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It’s pretty wild to see yourself making every ego mistake in the book… like what in the world!? I thought I got this already!
We can’t skip around our own growth by simply internalizing the concepts. As the saying goes, you can’t just talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk.
I recently found out (this time through 
The idea of being a “good person” is just another false sense of self that we can buy into. Being a good person is not the point of spirituality, interestingly enough. It is not the goal. It’s not about being some superloving and compassionate saint. It’s about realizing who you really are. With this realization, you may find that you naturally become very loving and compassionate, just like the many others who have done so before throughout history, but that’s secondary. It’s not the primary focus. It’s a superficial change that tends to occur in the presence of the deeper inner realization.