The Living Room

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“I want for nothing”

When I had my first awakening experience, I realised I wanted for nothing anymore. Everything was perfectly alright, I knew I would always have what I needed and all I wanted was dance to the tune of Life.

Then after a while the honeymoon phase was over and I was back in reality. However, I still did not want for anything else than I had. That remained with me. When anyone would ask me what I wanted, I said : “I want nothing”, and I truly believed it.

It was not a lie, because this was what I felt at the time. It was as deep as it would go and as profound as my realisation at the time. But it was an illusion, just a little corner of what “I want nothing” actually means.

It was not for after a while that I realised this was another one of the lovely paradoxes (which actually are no paradoxes, but that’s worth another reflection).  “to want nothing” had not so much to do with not adding more stuff into your life, but letting go of what is already there.

We humans are built on desire. Desire is the root cause of the egoic conditioning.  As human beings we have some vital needs (like food, water, air, shelter and procreation), as well as the need for relationships and realizing and expressing our potential.  Based on these basic human needs we build a whole pyramid of wants, which includes everything in terms of “how we want our life to look like”.

Much of this process is being influenced by our genetic roots, upbringing and individual experiences. Conditioning means learning from experience and we start to condition from the first day of our life on this earth.  What is happening is that we build a whole intertwined structure based on our sense of “self”, our ego – that which we think we are and have to protect.

And the conditioning happens even at a time the sense of “I” is not even developed yet. The separation experience of a small child, or the trauma of not being taken care of adequately by what is perceived as the “other”, leaves traces in the emotional memory and become the basis for lifelong avoidance patterns. They become the foundation of samsara – the karmic wheel of life, where we vainly try to satisfy our needs, by fulfilling our desires.

I can see that in some instances of profound awakening these patterns fall away – simply by ceasing to think and staying in the present moment permanently. Emotional reactions are based on thoughts, so if there is not thought, there is no reaction. However, in most human beings going through a process of non-abiding awakening, the emotional garbage and residual cellular memory of events that happened a long time ago, sit in the body and lead a largely unconscious and autonomous life, noticed only by the repeating patterns and events  in our life,

Letting go is the process of non-egoic conditioning. It means to cease fixation or attachment – on anything. It means to no longer holding on to a belief or identification and to make room for it in full acceptance. And it means to dissolve the old patterns by bringing consciousness to it.

It occurs to me that many have experiences and realisation  of their true nature, but only a few will be called to take upon themselves  to embark on a journey of living a life suspended upside down. It means to live my life by the laws of the universe and a principle understanding of all is One. It means to shed beliefs and identifications, go beyond conditioning and fear. It means to stick to it, even if others do not understand or are unwilling to follow. It means to understand I am all but a leaf in the wind. Some get carried far, some drop after a short distance, some are twirled around and some land in the dumpster. Not by my will but thine.

Do the best you can.  This is all what this  it is about.