It really boils down to this:
We are not happy because life is not the way we want it to be.
But why is that? Why is it that we are not happy with the way life is? There are two reasons for this.
Firstly, we have forgotten that WE ARE LIFE. That, LIFE IS US. It’s like we’ve pinched ourselves off from Life, like a wave pinching itself off from the ocean. It then looks at the ocean and says:
I’m not you. You’re not me. You’re not the boss of me. I’m going to do my own thing.
But the ocean is really water and the wave is water, just shaped differently, but in essence exactly the same. And so, when the wave thinks it’s cut itself off the ocean, that it’s separate from it, well, it’s going to feel the effects of that – the effects of being cut off from its Life source!
The second reason is a consequence of the first:
Instead of enjoying the fullness of the ocean, of Life, we experience an infinitely more constricted state of being and the tragedy is that we’ve adapted to this state! We now consider this NORMAL which effectively means RIGHT or OKAY. So, all our experiences are measured against this NORMAL and if they don’t fall within the ‘normal’ range, then they’re considered abnormal.
Now, think about it. What does ‘abnormal’ include? Feelings of rage? Thoughts of violence? Addictions? Failures? Depression? An amazing sense of limitlessness? Spaciousness? Super creativity? Immense joy? All of these are automatically assigned to either side of NORMAL while all the time, we are forgetting that NORMAL is itself that state of being we’ve maladapted to, having cut ourselves off from the infinite ocean of Life, from all there really is.
Please pause and allow that to sink in.
The ocean is full of Life, of every goodness and the source and cause of our being, and we’ve pinched ourselves from it and adapted instead to a constricted state of being that we call NORMAL.
What does this mean with respect to all of those things that we experience outside the bandwidth of NORMAL?
All those unpleasant things that we experience are states we experience when we feel even more acutely pinched off from the ocean. All those super good states of being are those that we would experience if we never felt separated from the ocean but which, from our NORMAL state of being, feel amplified and unreal or unnaturally/freakishly good. ‘Too good to be true’, as we’re used to saying. ‘Not to be taken seriously or trusted’.
Please keep in mind that we are not ever separated from the ocean since the ocean is all there is. But we feel separated from it because this is how we have been conditioned in our evolution as human beings.
Now, we can attempt to make use of this information by processing it intellectually. If we do, we might experience some small benefit which will be sporadic in its occurrence and never quite effective. On the other hand, we could literally put this information to the test by practicing Mindfulness.
In such practice (which is really the state of Mindfulness), we bring our attention, gently and patiently, again and again, to whatever arises within our stream of consciousness. Mindfulness practice typically uses the breath, sounds in the environment and body and bodily sensations to focus the attention. And as we do this, refining the focus all the time, we naturally and effortlessly return to a very natural state of calm, of quiet joy, of bliss. With even finer and more stable attention, we might experience rapture or ecstasy.
Interestingly, the word ‘ecstasy’ has its origins in the Greek words ‘ek’, meaning outside or beyond and ‘stasis’ meaning stable. In its original form, the word referred to the natural stable state of being outside oneself, that self being the NORMAL, Ego-bound state.
Mindfulness brings us into contact with our most natural, stable state, our ocean self.
Mindfulness brings us into contact with our most natural, stable state, our ocean self. It does this indirectly by simply drawing our attention to whatever is showing up in our stream of consciousness. Such practice makes us more aware of the limited wave self that we identify with and all its states of anger, guilt, shame, unworthiness, fear, superiority, attachment and aversions. With practice, however, we find ourselves tipping more and more toward (or into) the ocean, identifying more and more with it.
The grip of the wave self, the self that perceives itself as separated, the Ego self, loosens. We find ourselves more effortlessly and spontaneously falling into our natural state of peace, calm and ecstasy. We experience our natural wholeness (a process we might call ‘healing’), greatness, limitlessness, power and loving Presence.
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