Dvorahji: I always find it fascinating and somewhat disturbing that some intensely religious and spiritual people lose sight of God at some point and fall into deep despair.
Darling Baby: The reason they fall into deep despair is cause they fall into deep despair (one of those miserable happenings). And in some way, THEY still “THINK” they can make life go THEIR WAY…and what a shocker after all that tapas, good works, sacrifice they still get crucified or hit by a red bus. It’s a real bummer, don’t you think?
It’s so hard to accept that “you” have no control and LIFE IS GOING TO DO IT’S THING, isn’t it? But just take a look at your own life. You’re a good person aren’t you? You try and be kind and helpful and feed your kids, and do you meditation and wish the world well, don’t you? And you even have several organization that you help, who feed children and give medical care, don’t you? And still after all this, you still got very sick, can’t work and lose your home. OR get in an accident, trash your new car just as you were going to pick up your son for his important recital. OR, your husband just had an affair and now you’re getting divorced? So tell me, how much control do you really have over your life?
Well, religious/spiritual people have just as little control as you do!! it’s a natural happening that they can fall into deep despair, because life is still an enigma with no rhyme or reason, and maybe somewhere along the line they thought they had it all figured out spiritually, expected more and believed their own rhetoric. Once you buy into your thoughts & feelings, you’re sunk!
Of COURSE no one has it worked out. WE NEVER DO. It’s an open-ended mystery and all you can do is FREE FALL INTO THAT AWESOME MYSTERY. IT’S to be lived not thought about. IT IS WHAT IT IS. A continuous circus with flashing red lights, green parades and the Divine posing as a Guru or two passing by with an OM life raft.
Life works IT’S WAY… AND GOD is your Nature not your pawn & master to become servile to. LIFE IS A HAPPENING AND SO ARE YOU. It’s really kinda cool, cause then you can just let go and be nothing special, instead of a spiritual person or a person of god. Just breath into your own BEING…THAT’S ALL THAT’S REALLY HAPPENING. And be happy, because it’s going to be over soon, in IT’S OWN WAY….Love you, Dvorahji
If you fall into despair, just bow down and give it all UPPPPP! Cause there is NOTHING to hold on to except the Divine….
The great Hebrew prophets Jeremiah and Amos were often n despair and suffered cosmic depression at times over the pain of all sentient beings. Jesus was in despair in the garden of Gethsemane. Buddha taught that a true Bodhisattva not only feels the joy of all who enjoy, but the suffering of all who suffer. Maraharishi once told us that the suffering of the universe would tear him apart if he did not also have the dispassion of the Witnessing Pure Awareness along with all that pain. It is a total crock when New Age bliss ninnies imagine that the enlightened are always giggling and never feel the immense dignity of universal suffering.
You know every thought & feeling has it’s degree of intenseness…It’s impossible not to be intense about anything you’re passionate about and seekers can’t wait to get “enlightened” to be spiritually secure in some way…moderation is a myth but OMG don’t we try! (especially if you’re a double scorpio!)
Oh Fred…Heartbreaking isn’t it? BIG LOVE/BIG HURT…love hurts!… I was just listening to Norah Jones & Keith Richards singing Love Hurts….I feel I seriously missed my calling.
I always wanted to be a musician instead of talking about all this “spiritual stuff”…I may really just drop all this and start singing…and I mean the … See More
Everyone experiences suffering to certain degrees. But what I don’t understand, is that pain part of our “karma” from another life? In other words, have we inflicted that pain on somebody in another life and it keeps coming up in this life until we finally “get it?”
I remember riding on the train in Chicago 10 years ago, going to meet my fellow editors from the Chicago Tribune. I looked over at the people on the train, and at that moment a flood of compassion hit me & I could feel
their emotions, and I began to cry deeply.
I knew at that moment that whatever it was that My Guru had to deal with all this pain…I couldn’t do it. I was definitely didn’t want to be a guru…I didn’t have all the equipment. Because even the pain that i felt from those in the subway was overwhelming…
It’s been ten years…and I’m more relaxed, spacious, …but when those dolphins get massacred it’s heartbreaking…so it’s not just the pain of people, it goes on and on, animals, the earth, a bee, a plant…everything contains the beauty & the beast. Life is excruciatingly painful & ecstatic (ecstasy can also be very very painful.
@Kathryn, there are so many opinions on your questions and so many books from different teachers written on the subject. From my perspective these questions just don’t make any difference to your life in the present moment. Things happen, regardless of “where they came from”…Our job, if we want to be happy and productive and in peace in this LIFE, IS TO TAKE/RELAX with EVERYTHING/LIFE AS IT COMES.
Don’t look back, every moment is a new opportunity to be happy/in humor/to put on a hat and have fun, regardless of the past.
Sometimes I do just that, and sometimes not. However, your beautiful loving wisdom does help me let go sooner and just let life be as it is in the moment, whatever that is. The happening commonly called Life is just that, a happening like a dream at night. It cannot touch Who We Really Are. The dream of Life from moment to moment Just Is. Why…Because it is…as in your beautiful song “Life is Totally Meaningless”, so Shut Up/Relax & Be Happy/Be Centered…a reminder to myself, the little me. 🙂
You know Margaret, there are all these “words” to describe what’s happening to us, and what it all means, and what enlightenment is, and How we are “unconditional love” and how when we become aware, nothing bothers us, and so manananananany words…and always it boils down to:
Life is what it is and continues to be what it is for each person and flows like a river and IF IT COULD BE DIFFERENT, IT WOULD BE…and since it isn’t, relax with the flow of your life, what choice do you Have?
You can Suffer, fight, resist – OR flow, surrender, move along on your back, relaxed, flowing with the river until it takes you to shore…
EXactly…I’m not interested in being a Sri Sri…I’m a Dvorahji and I serve where I can and what my life’s path/happening is…(but I remember wanting to be a Sri Sri and I see others wanting to be HIM). And I say forget it! I mean who wants to be Jesus or one of the saints…it’s just ego, fantasy, ignorance that thinks being one thing is better then another. JUST BE YOURSELF, serve in your own HAPPENING – and happilllyyyyy!
The problem comes in when people think in order to be “enlightened” at peace, they have to be like their Guru, but that’s nonsense and that’s where suffering comes in for the seeker.
There are “enlightened/at peace” people hanging out at home taking a bath, watching tv and eating cookies, and at peace with all.
A fly is equipped to be a fly, a gorilla is equipped to be a gorilla, a guruji is equipped to be a guruji and a Tanbir is equiped to be a Tanbir. Everything has it’s gig and it’s as enlightened as the next gig.
There’s a saying in the Gita and I’m paraphrasing badly: “…Better to die in your own dharma then be in the dharma of another…”
It is absolutely so, and easy to know who and what you are when all is blissful, or bliss is like a readily available box of chocolates one can nibble on to keep the bliss alive from time to time, but when everything falls apart, or some belief in some thing, that germinated, begins to expand, and it gets all inter twined in the freedom, then it can be disturbing, and despairing.
disturbing and desparing are part of the human condition…bliss is not a constant for anybody…it comes & goes like everything else. It’s just that when despair, misery comes and everything falls apart, a person of true knowledge or faith, gets on their knees and cries.
They know they DON’T KNOW ANYTHING, They don’t keep asking why and going over the “why this happened to me” and on and on. They just CRY, PRAY AND KNOW DEEP IN THEIR HEART THAT IF THIS MOMENT COULD BE DIFFERENT, IT WOULD BE! And that can bring an inward peaceful acceptance of this Vast mysterious life that we’re in, instead of putting one in a psychological mess of thoughts & feelings of why and why and why – and HOW could “I” have prevented this.
A person of knowledge GIVES IT UP TO THE DIVINE Space, Vast unknown, because he knows there is NOWHERE ELSE to go. A person of knowledge knows in their heart THAT IT IS AS IT IS. They may not like it, and they may whine/cry/beg/
plead/complain or witness it…and YET there is a “peace” knowing THAT YOU ARE NOT THE DOER AND IT IS AS IT IS.
There is a difference between being religious or intensely spiritual AND being at PEACE with your life exactly as it shows up. AND that difference is EVERYTHING.
The main trap of the deeply religious or deeply spriitual people with a lot of knowledge, is that they believe their own rhetoric, their own belief system. Unfortunately it just doesn’t usually pan out!
A person of wisdom really “knows” he KNOWS NOTHING, EVER, so he throws his head back and just LAUGHS when the “red bus hits him”! What else can he do??????
and he doesn’t go searching for answers frantically to change that confusion or make himself feel better – (in other words he doesn’t add to the confusion) Confusion is Happening – But IT (that observing principle) is not confused.
It’s just more of the same old same old cycle of sunshine, rain, clouds, midnight, on & on & on….
Buddhist’s say “pain is inevitable, suffering optional”… As we rest as awareness we experience the world around as a nothing less than perfect love…nothing to do, just be..perfect love. That which we naturally always are. Nothing to learn, or study, or cultivate..simply recognize what already is….perfect love.
:-))) Dearest Dvorahji! Thanks seems so inadequate. Ahhh…all the lovely ‘knowledge’ where yes, we experience that we are not body/mind/world since we can observe them constantly changing…blah, blah, blah,…it still seems at times to help me drop the ‘attachment to the changing”. But I see what you’re saying, the shortest route is IF IT COULD BE DIFFERENT IT WOULD BE, so relax and flow with the river of life AS IT IS.
And thank you for the wisdom on, in my words, ‘when there’s physical pain, cry, plead, beg, doctors, body work, yanh, ynah, ynah. But the important thing is IF IT COULD BE DIFFERENT IT WOULD BE. Silence. The mind (yanh, yanh, yanh) has no argument for that but to dissolve.
that’s ok Dvorahji, you can suffer if you wish… The point of it is, that we have choice to suffer or not suffer…and that we have a choice as to how we experience what appears to happening in the world around us..
D
ear Dvorahji, thanks for the great elaboration. By the way, in Javanese culture there a teaching that is “sumeleh marang sing gawe urip” meaning that we should “take it for granted”… allow the God deposes our destiny…
Dear Linda, NO, I do NOT choose to suffer, who in their right mind would choose to suffer?
However from my perspective, THERE IS NO CHOICE. LIFE IS A HAPPENING…You think somewhere along the line that “you” choose your thoughts. and that of course is a VERY NICE THOUGHT. From my perspective “As the BUDDHA SAID: “Deeds are done but there is no individual DOER!”. IN other words. “THOUGHTS done and there is NO individual thinker!”
From my perspective, today’s “New AGE” thinking wants to control their life, just like the “old AGE thinkers ” did. Great! See what you can control. You can’t even control your sneeze or your tripping & falling, but somewhere along the line you want to control your suffering. GREAT!
Keep trying to control your life and let me know how that works out for you…chances are you can’t even control the thought of a pink elephant at this moment.
I’m not trying to be rude here…everyone is entitled to their opinion and spiritual trip…My opinion goes like this:
LIFE IS A HAPPENING. IF IT COULD BE DIFFERENT IT WOULD BE and since it NEVER IS, accept your life as it is….and then MASSIVE HUGE, BUDDHIST VERY COOOL SELF/SILENCE….and then with an open beautiful clear fully enlivened mind, go out into the world and give them Happiness or hell, depending on what you’re glorius happening is!
THE DIVINE RUNS THE SHOW – ALL OF IT – INCLUDING YOUR little tiny winy thoughts and mind….and by the way..THE DIVINE IS MY NATURE and so is BUDDHA…
and darling Green – GOD IS ALL THERE IS….Somewhere along the line, our heads got screwed up about God. So we say, yes, “god is everything, he knows everything, he does everything” and then we put a big “BUT NOT THIS” in there. And that’s where we’ve gone astray.
God does everything, knows everything and IS OUR VERY SELF, not buts, no ands, no maybes! No nothing. God/The Divine runs the show.
But that really isn’t fate, because everything is still a HAPPENING, a new every moment.
Dearest Dvorahji, I didn’t mean to say that you or anyone would want to suffer. I was only making a joke, you know to lighten things up a bit. What I see is that the only suffering is imagining that we are separate from our source of perfect love. The solution then in all problems is to rest as awareness, which connects us with our source of perfect love. In the light of awareness there is no need to try to control anything because we are able to see that all that exists is perfect love. Just like a piece of paper held under a pure crystal ball appears to be part of the ball, the perfection of the crystal ball is left undisturbed. Much like the images that appear in the world around us. When we are connected to source no matter what we are feeling, thinking, or experiencing, our true inner peace is left undisturbed. As we rest as awareness for short moments repeated many times until it becomes automatic we eventually stabilize our well being. From this pure space of stable well being we avoid nothing, face everything, free of the need to control, fix, change or modify anything. When we recognize our true nature of stable well being in perfect love there is nothing to seek or achieve. This is freedom. This is living an optimum human life. If you have any further interest in resting as awareness you please check out www.greatfreedom.org. Love & Hugs, Linda
Dearest Dvorahji, I wish you the happiest of holidays!!Thank you for all of your loving support and the beautiful work that you are also doing in our world. Love & Hugs, Linda
Very nicely said, Dvorahji. Yes, “Life is what happens to you while you’re making plans to do otherwise.” “It is what it is” (except when it isn’t haha). The true challenge you have is to truly ACCEPT (not EXCEPT) what IS, actual REALITY, before you can move on. It’s not necessary to LIKE it! In fact, if you hate it, you’ll have greater motivation to take action! Byron Katie says “If you argue with reality, you will lose 100% of the time!”
I believe that adversity and despair are gifts from our Soul to lead us in the right direction when we go astray from the “agenda” we came to incarnation to learn and accomplish.
I have experienced several long periods of despair in this lifetime, all of which resulted in significant growth. My last “dark night of the Soul” – a 15 month deep, deep depression from June 2000 to October 2001 – was my Soul SCREAMING at me to change my direction in life. It could not be dismissed or ignored! Painful as it was, it worked! I turned away from my life of pursuit of material “wealth” and the four “P’s”: Possessions, Prestige, Power and Pleasure, which wasn’t working very well for me, to my Spiritual Path, where I found the only “P” that really mattered – deep Inner
“Peace”!… See More
Dear Ray Honey…If you believe/live ” LIFE IS A HAPPENING” and there is ONLY the Divine…then you begin to see very clearly that “depression,” changing your direction” and WHEN you do it (change direction), is in fact NOT YOUR FAULT, but compeltely in the hands of GOD/the Divine/THIS/ whatever you want to call it.
From my perspective IT REALLY IS EXACTLY AS IT IS ALLL THE TIME…..
And from my perspective “adversity & despair” are thoughts and feeling that COME & GO and are PART OF THE AGENDA THAT YOU CAME HERE TO DO! (not astray from the agenda you came to do)
And from my perspective ONE NEVER, EVER, IMPOSSIBLE to go astray…Why? BECAUSE, you are not the doer. GOD IS. the DIVINE IS, IT IS. And:
” IF YOU’RE LIFE COULD BE DIFFERENT, IT WOULD BE”
From my perspective this simple/yet profound mantra is THE END TO MISERY and really let’s ONE “shut UP (fall silent) and BE Happy, even when they are NOT….love you Ash, your friend, Dvorah
Hey, Dvorah! Thanks for your quick and insightful response. I agree, completely, that everything that happens to us is part of our Journey and the learning experience we came here to have. And also, that “pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”.
Happiness is a choice..I have come to believe that the big “H” – HAPPINESS – is a result of attitude, not of circumstances. I see it as an STATE of (spiritual and emotional) well-BEING which results from an ATTITUDE of hopefulness. A STATE OF BEING which we create for ourselves with an ATTITUDE! So, rather than working so hard to change our circumstances, and declaring that “I’ll be happy WHEN (in the “future”, not NOW) this or that circumstance is the way I want it to be, we can change our attitude about our current circumstances and be happy right now! In 12-step programs they call this ACCEPTANCE [not “EXCEPTANCE” 🙂 ] of “what is”. It Is What It Is (except when it isn’t, and then it all depends on what the meaning of the word “IS” is…lol). Byron Katie says, “When we argue with Reality, we Lose, 100% of the time.”
acceptance is a happing, attitude of hopefullness is a happening, “what we create for ourselves” IS A HAPPENING!…”you creat nothing for yoursel”….LIFE IS A HAPPENING.
Just think about that statement, like a sutra…no answers…just think about that statement and let it go. LiFE IS A HAPPENING! rest with it, and see where it takes you….
I’m off now..check some of the posts I’ve written at 250….LIFE IS AN HAPPENING…PERIOD. YOU do nothing, (although the appearance of doing, the lila) is magnetically powerful, so in a sense there is the appearance of doing.
But the key to relaxation to TRUE HAPPINESS…IS “LIFE IS A HAPPENING and rest in that for awhile.
Go one step beyond Bryran Katie…and don’t argue with reality or unreality….just rest in what I’ve suggested….
