Art, Meaning, Green Living & Health

PRINT

Recently I woke up with an insight I’d like to share, one that may be helpful as we all negotiate the strange time we are in with all its polarization and confusion, incited by all the restrictions that came into our lives in 2020 which some of us are pushing back against as we try to understand the truth of what is really going on at a global scale.

All this has deeply polarized humanity. Many people have lost friendships and even contact with family members. It has been quite a challenge. It seems almost as though we are going through a process of de-evolution and moving away from unity, harmony and all we think best for ourselves and society. What is the answer?

What I’m seeing is that most of it boils down to how we get stuck in mental identities. Here’s what I mean: The human mind has a tendency to identify with things, understandably with our name and our body, but we extend it wider to our family, our tribe,  the like-minded. For example, this last year, it may be  people who wear masks or those who don’t. Republicans. Democrats, Christians. New agers. 

And this process grows to include almost everything. If we can put the words  “I am…” in front of any concept, then it is creating an identity. It can be a trait like, I am a good person, I am rational, I follow the science. I am a professional. Or, I am a rebel, an artist, a Patriot. I am stupid, smart, disciplined, lazy. You name it. I am a good person, and therefore I must mask or get the shots. Or I'm a good person and therefore I don't mask because I'm concerned about our freedoms or I see health dangers with the shots. Everything we can say or think with the phrase “I am”  creates a limited and often polarizing identity.

 And yet it is almost impossible to live in this world, in this body, with this name and with role in life, without having such identities to some degree. 

So the key to happiness and freedom, if that’s what we want most, is simply to not get stuck in our identities, even the desirable ones. To do that, we gently notice where we are identifying too much as some small piece of the puzzle. We observe how that separates us from each other and from our innate well-being. We note how it creates judgement, fear, strife and division. And right now, collectively, it is having huge emotional, divisive effects on our society. It could even lead to Civil War. 

Most of all, it’s not true. Identifying with particulars falsely trims us down to a little box of ideas and thoughts, and that is simply not who we really are. What we really are is Life, life being all of this. Awareness expressing as this. Consciousness. The energy behind life. Call it God, Source or the Great Spirit, but, really, it is a felt sense of spaciousness, of a freedom and a joy beyond words and thoughts.

Ironically, however, the silence and vastness of that mysterious spaciousness is the ONE thing that the mind cannot begin to grasp. That’s because it is not a thing. How do you describe or confine the formless? You can’t.

But we try anyway, and we create conclusions. Often, we decide that this formless spirit/space stuff is odd, boring or useless. 

Or else, we look deeper and we think we get it. (Often a sign we don’t.) So then we vow that we must live that way from now on. But we forget it all rather quickly, because the river of Mind is ever moving on. One day we realize we lost sight of the whole thing and, rather than smiling at that, we can create a new identity: we are… a failure.

So, even imposing an idea upon oneself that one should try to live without a self or should be anything other than what we are is a kind of violence. What is, is.

So what can we do? How do we get out of this trap?

In “my” experience, the key seems to be this: just observe without judgment , in an impersonal way, the movement and effects of thoughts, beliefs, attachments, identities— especially when we feel stuck, depressed, estranged, arrogant, isolated, afraid, or just have a subtle feeling of unease. The chance are that we have been creating images of ourself and others, attaching to ideas.  Is that really all we are? Is this a trap? Are we putting ourselves in a little box? Are we putting the infinite universe in a little box? 
Can we just “Be the Field”?

So, how about, right now, just taking a deep breath? Just being here, here in this body, with the sounds heard, the sensations felt.  Putting no limit on it, not even the body. It’s not who you are and it’s always changing. Just loving it as it is now and allowing a sense of spaciousness to emerge. Feel it, see it. Merging with the sky, just being the field. 

As we become more comfortable with all this, we are likely to see more subtle forms of identification. For example, identifying as someone who is more evolved, who is ascending, who is saved, who is enlightened, who is awake, who gets it. Others sense our arrogance and withdraw. Or we identify now as a positive thinker: “My thing is joy” or “I’m into love, tolerance, diversity.”  Then we become intolerant of “negative” people just as we are intolerant of our own negative thoughts.

It’s not that positive traits are without merit. They have their place and their natural expression. As social beings, it is natural to want to be good, to succeed, to understand, to be accepted, to have people like us, to belong. And having lots of social connections is the number one lifestyle factor that predicts longevity.

Being with your tribe feels good. Yet underneath, we fear being losing or being exiled from the tribe, especially if it means we may not be able to survive on our own. And that raw instinctual fear can blind us to reason and higher guidance. 

So again, we keep it simple. We just watch and learn, we step back from our beliefs, attachments and identities, even positive and reasonable ones. Do they really serve us as much as something more innate, lasting and unconditional?  Do they, even subtly, separate us from others? Do they create a sense of striving or unease? And is there another way to live that is more relaxed, more trusting, more in tune with the greater intelligence behind life? More spacious?

And what about when we lose our way? We learn. We learn from the good, the bad and the ugly. We learn to be aware of passing thoughts, feelings and identities. We learn the many ways they rob us of peace, wisdom and harmony. And we learn how unaware we are most of the time as we don’t even notice the trancelike thoughts that stream through our minds as we garden, drive, do the dishes, talk, go about our day. And it’s OK.

It’s OK and there is always a choice. There is always the choice in this moment to just step back from the mind, to be in the heart, to just be the field, the Presence, the beingness behind this life we are.  

To know the truth that what we really are is life itself, life expressing in this manner, right now, as this particular person, this particular drama, be it personal or planetary. And it’s so much bigger.

There's a lot of freedom in that. Not having to be anybody. 

This is, of course, a timeless teaching (certainly not original with me, whatever that is). It is the same as the Buddhist teaching of non-attachment, the Christian teachings of unconditional love, and a psychotherapy known as Disidentification. Eckhart Tolle speaks well about it.

So just observe, just be aware. And be aware of awareness. This spacious realm is our refuge forever. From it springs guidance, wisdom, peace and joy. And that is what will get us through our current crisis ­– and any to come. Trust the Field. Trust Life. Trust God.