[QUOTE=AmirMourad;62926]High Wolf,
“Finding myself questioning many things, waking up in the midst of night: failing to become a professional musician, being unable to having a relationship with the girl I loved, having a dysfunctional relationship with my parents whose insecurities traumatized me in the past, and still haunting; falling from grace, albeit from an intuitive lifestyle as soon as the struggle to make a living kicked in… in my dreams, I’m having such moments that one theme is actually a continuation of another dream I had a year ago or”
First, it is important for you to recognize something which is absolutely essential. If you can see into this - then it may warp your whole understanding of the situation. Though you may not like what is happening - the reality is that what is effective or ineffective for your expansion has very little to do with your likes and dislikes. But because we are prejudiced - we fail to realize this. When we are experience pain or suffering, we think that it is a great misfortune. And it can become one if that is your attitude towards the situation. But it can also become a great opportunity to heighten your understanding into yourself. Because if you are suffering, it is not just accidental. There are definite root causes. And if you have been repeating the same sufferings again and again, it just means that certain things have remained outside of your awareness. Because there is an element of unconsciousness which is just like a blind spot - you have failed to come to an understanding of them. The moment those root causes enter into the light of your awareness - then they simply disappear, that is the alchemical effect of awareness. You have said that you were disappointed because of the failure of not becoming a professional musician, but even if you were successful at this - you would have found quickly that it was not capable of providing anything more than temporary satisfaction. To try and fail, is one thing. But to succeed, and still fail, is a far greater tragedy than anything else. But in order to realize this, first you have to succeed. If you had been successful - finding yourself back at the same place where you had started, perhaps it would have offered a totally different understanding.
So perhaps you do not realize, that all of these sufferings, are indications that you have not yet severed the various weeds in your mind which are preventing you from blossoming into a garden - it simply means your attention is not moving in the right direction. But you need not continue on this course, if you come to an understanding of your situation - then the same situation which has been binding you has become an opportunity to move beyond it.
Even during the spiritual process, such experiences are very common. Because as you continue along the path, your system and personality goes through a massive re-organization. This will cause some imbalances and turbulence within you which may be unpleasant - but it is just a transition, a passing phase. By some it has been known as the “Dark Night Of the Soul”, in Zen it is known as the “Great Death”. It is called the “Great Death”, because it is a kind of death which is not of the body, but of everything that your ego has been clinging to for survival. The ego wants to struggle, and has been struggling hard, to have things its own way - it wants the whole existence to fit into its own view as to how things should be. So this “Great Death” is none other than the dispelling of your own delusions right down from the very roots. If you can pass through this Great Death, then it is not different than entering into the Great Life - to come to eternal life, you must first go through a kind of death. The old has to die and die completely, only then can there be a resurrection which is the dawn of a new life, a life of awareness. But if you try to escape from this death, out of fear, then you have in a split moment also denied yourself of transformation - they cannot be separated. Death is destructive, definitely. But what most fail to realize is that death is also a tremendously purifying process, it simply means letting go of the old. This will require enormous courage, because one will have to abandon everything which you have been using to preserve your personality. All of ones beliefs, ideas, philosophies, attachments, likes and dislikes, assumptions, conclusions, all will be reduced to dust. But what will arise in its place will be a clarity which is beyond a doubt. And the strange thing is that, the same thing which was capable of liberating you - has become a source of fear and bondage. So one has created a prison around oneself to prevent one from the only thing which is capable of bringing you to freedom. Because the ego knows very well that if such things are abandoned, then it cannot remain as a central authority in your being anymore.
Do not be discouraged. If you are truly experiencing such a Great Death, then dont turn back, pass through it with least resistance. Eventually - it will lead to a breakthrough.[/QUOTE]
I do acknowledge that the old has to die. New is always for the good but also frightening due to its unknown nature. And yet attachments keep you where you are. Particularly, family poses a challenge. My mom still believes that I like discussing politics, and I can’t convince her otherwise no matter what I say. Because, she and me discussing politics is part of my old habit, and in this case, it is her who doesn’t want to let this thing go. It’s particularly difficult to cast the family aside, especially if they’re your financial and emotional benefactors.
Amir, you probably must have experienced that the people around us aren’t often welcoming about changes. And this may pose great difficulties for the one who’s gotten rid of the old and embraced the new. And no matter what kind of change happens, it seems the gravity of society finds some way to lure the old you out. Then the past keeps haunting even tho’ you don’t want it so. That’s pure karmic manifestation in my understanding. So, being unable to get rid of the old has lot to do with environmental circumstances.
A lot of my personal failures has to do with environmental circumstances which inflicted pain and altered the condition of my physical and mental health greatly as time went by. For me, there are certain conditions to be met in order to achieve what I feel like I am supposed to. But I take Lao Tzu’s words on this matter: that is, certain things cannot be achieved unless conditions are met. If conditions aren’t met, it means that it is not appropriate to pursue a particular interest, leastways, in this particular time frame. Rather than pushing for the odds, be at ease with life - yet the desire is a bitch, as we all know.
I haven’t truly looked at the death in the eye, tho’ I’ve seen a glimpse of it, have been overwhelmed by it. But I am having something close to a kind of Great Death. Could see dark tinglings in my soul - an aching soul, like a cramped muscle. It’s all about attachments. Attachments that are imposed upon you, and that cannot be severed so easily. Like language, the place you were born in, the family, and so on. And embracing them inflicts more pain than before. I lived it. 'Tis often worse than death: the feeling of ultimate placelessness. Transcendental homelessness.
