The monkey on my back whose vexations I’ve endured for most of my life but whose motivations I avoided acknowledging has finally been unmasked. You see, I have been envious of many, many people, most of whom I only know about rather than know personally.
When someone has spoken well of them, referring to their ideas that I myself have had, for instance, I have bristled with concealed irritation. When they have achieved something recognizable, I have silently attempted to minimize these achievements by attributing them to their good fortune or their egotistical desire for recognition. But, in these and other ways, I have suffered the pain of withholding a natural inclination to celebrate the talents and achievements of others, as if doing so would relegate me to obscurity.
The unmasking of the monkey has come in a rather unexpected way. It has come by embracing the fact that each of us, as a unique expression of the ultimate, the divine, the all-encompassing, has our unique path to follow. And each of these is equally valid and vital. Together, they express all of Life.
But society i.e. a bunch of individual humans has a separation mindset that wants to accord differential values to people and things. And so, according to society and the individuals among it, some people and things are regarded as more important and more deserving of our attention and whose work and achievements are considered better than that of most others.
A baby is rarely seen as anything but a blessing, a gift, a great fortune to its parents and to society at large. Very few people are likely to devalue a baby or consider it less worthy than other babies or other humans even though its crowning achievement has been nothing more than being born. But we do devalue older folk, the so-called adults of society, by the mere act of valuing a few over the many. We cast our measuring eye and mind over the people we know or know about and we mentally assign them positions on our arbitrary though vigorously argued scale of values. And when we do this, we diminish the value of many while artificially inflating the value of some.
The finite, bounded, space-time sense of self disintegrates to give way to a boundless, timeless, infinite Self
Realizing this, I was able and more willing to look closely at this monkey on my back. I discovered that what it was really seeking was to be valued. I also realized that Love, which is unconditional, does not operate on a socially constructed system of values. I realized that without having to do or be anything other than what I already am, I am ‘valued’. But who or what am I ‘valued’ by?
Because of the separation mindset that we are all conditioned by and into, we feel that we must be valued by others. However, when we sit in the consciousness of our true nature, we find that who we are is not an individual, personal, biographical, historical, physical, geographical, political, cultural or sexual self. We find that this finite, bounded, space-time sense of self disintegrates to give way to a boundless, timeless, infinite Self. And this Self has no need for anything, anything at all. It is whole and complete in itself. It has no need to be valued. There is nothing beyond it and there is nothing that it need aspire to. It is whole, complete and desirous of no thing, nothing.
When I then look at the separate self from this experience of boundless Self (which I might also call Love or God), I am able to see that no separate self is more or less valuable or vital than any other. Regardless of how other separate selves value the separate self that I call ‘I’, there is an inherent pricelessness that all separate selves have since all separate selves arise, as they each do, from the whole, complete, boundless Self.
From this vantage point, I am more willing and able to acknowledge and appreciate the priceless nature of each being, each self. Rather than try to diminish or begrudge their achievements, I am more willing to celebrate them. And I am able to appreciate the vital role that every other being or self plays in the achievement of any one being or self.
Now, when I say this, I don’t mean to claim that I know exactly how these dots are connected. I don’t and I don’t need to. What I do know is that in our ultimate nature, our most fundamental nature, our true nature, there are no separate beings or selves. What I do know is that this subjective, social assigning of values has ultimately no meaning. What I also know is, that as a separate self, I can choose what to value, what will be useful for me. And what I choose to value and know to be useful to me is whether or not I allow myself to be unconditionally happy (as is my true nature, my Self) or whether I insist on conditioning my happiness on the value that others assign me or indeed, that I assign myself.
Unmasking the monkey on my back has meant that I have a more respectful and appreciative relationship with myself and with others. In an arbitrarily ascribed system of values, I can value myself and others without inflating or diminishing the value of either.
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