A few hours ago my idealist self wrote this text about conditioning, what I called the Wall, and how it prevents us from seeing the Truth of who we are. And that our role and practise in our lives should be one of paying attention and not let our lowest emotions, thoughts and cravings manifest in our actions and speech.
That's all very nice and beautiful for sure. But actually I admit I can't really do it! It's hard as hell.
No matter how much I try to rationalise and think about this stuff and come up with pretty organised manifestos of what should or should not be done. The reality is they're just ideals, things that I spewed out from my mind but it really is not mine and it really is not the reality in which I live. Maybe a lot of it came from so many books I read and dhamma talks I listened to and so on. And this didn't just happened with this post, it happens almost everytime I write here.
I started writing about conditioning and in the end it turned out to be something different from what I really intended to express. Funny how the process of writing works. At some point in the middle of writing the last post, what I wrote ended up owning me and using me as a kind of automaton in order to continue the transmission of a pre-conceived idea acquired from many other sources. It's not that the information is wrong, it's just that it was really not coming from myself. I was just being a carrier and transmitter of a meme. This is a sign I wasn't being very mindful although I was writing precisely about the need to be mindful.
I wonder if most of our civilisation is not doing the same thing regarding technology. It's not that we really want to keep building the Machine. It's just that we really don't know what else to do, so we think it's what we want to do, but actually we're just trying to survive, so we keep building and processing information.
What I really wanted to achieve with this last post "The Wall" was try to talk about the importance of conditioning in our lives. Because I just happened to understand the other day that actually if you kind of try to dissolve or destroy your conditioning there's actually not much left. Of course we can romanticise about this and think "Oh but what is left is the essence! It's Consciousness! Life!". But the reality is it's pretty boring if you're left with just that, besides it really isn't possible. We're always going to carry our personality around, our thoughts, our emotions, so I guess we better just make friends with it.
The moment we start to destroy, dissolve, or analyse and deconstruct our conditioning and personality, we go into war with ourselves. And that isn't nice! Just let it be, be yourself. But of course be aware of the nasty stuff and keep it at bay, that's just it, no need to complicate things.
I just remembered now of the alchemical maxim: solve et coagula, which means to separate and join back together again. It refers to the process of self-knowledge where you first observe yourself and know yourself through that process, know the different parts, how we work and so on, maybe change something that really isn't in its right place, and then join everything back together, and this time we finally understand. Well yes I see but... why separate in the first place?
I'm starting to realise that I contradict my self a lot here. One minute I'm talking about following the Heart and intuition, the next I'm saying that we really can't trust anything that manifests on our consciousness and that we can only really trust the awareness. Well that depends of course on the individual and what works best for him.
What I think happens is that when our personality is so screwed up, and we are aware of it, we might go into war with ourselves, or fall in the trap of self-pity. We might start hating ourselves, hating our emotions, our desires, constantly thinking what we should or should not do, or that we are worthless and not good enough for life. And why is the personality so screw up? Maybe the conditioning that formed it was deficient, maybe not enough affection, and attention. Maybe the person was not able to get into a good relation with it's emotions, desires and feelings because of a lack of confidence. Because somehow she was told she wasn't good enough.
The idea that we can't trust anything but the awareness might be interpreted sometimes in a way that might make us think that we must annihilate ourselves, or detach from our Hearts, in order to be left with just that neutral flatline of awareness. Maybe that's what sometimes people understand when they consider mindfulness. I don't see it that way. But sometimes it's hard to see where the line that separates annihilation and development is when it comes to this stuff.
I guess maybe some people go into religion because of this pain in their Hearts, because they just can't allow themselves to be themselves. I've got my moments where I fall into this. I admit it's really not easy to make peace with myself and be myself, and stand up and take responsibility and affirm what I think and believe in the daily practical life because fear is there sometimes. But when it isn't I just feel free! No need to become or conquer or change anything, and life just flows.
Most of the things I sometimes write here are a reflection of the emotional state and level of awareness I'm in at the moment. In other words the way I relate to myself. If I am at peace or in a state of relative well-being and acceptance, I'll write about how wonderful life is and how it all makes sense, how beautiful the Universe is and how marvellous the interdependence and unity of the Cosmos is. If I'm kind of low, like angry for example I'll write something about how screwed up civilisation is, how we're all slaves in this big machine and so on, and that there's nothing we can do except trust awareness and so on.
So going back to conditioning, I believe it is extremely important the way we are conditioned, because it will end up forming our personality. Our first years as human beings are key. That's where we start forming our personality, and absorbing what is happening around us. If the good qualities and potentials of our Hearts are not watered and developed by our educators, then later in life of course our relationship to our Hearts will not be peaceful. And if this happens negative emotions step in, and then that creates negative thoughts as a consequence, which in its turn will lead to negative speech and actions.
If any of you has any children please give them love, attention, give them yourself. They are the future. The seeds we drop today will take root and become the trees of the world after we're dead. The human being does not live just on water and food, we need real human connection. If we get it, we will be a reflection of that later in life. I'm not trying to create a flawless equation that will solve all our problems, there's always going to be some level of chaos and uncertainty in human experience. Just trying to point out that conditioning is very important. Our children's education is very important. Please be aware of what kind of conditioning your children are getting. Try to give them tools that they can use later in life in order to figure out this stuff for themselves.
So maybe we don't need any kind of solve et coagula or deconstruction of conditioning and personality, or other artificial practises. If the person is properly conditioned and given the proper tools in order to recognise later in life other human beings and life on this planet as part of herself. She would naturally recognise the Universe and flow along with it's natural harmony. I'm not saying things would be perfect. There will always be struggle and pain somehow, it comes with being human. But we make it a lot worst than it is.
We got inside ourselves already the proper mechanisms ready to recognise and connect to this mystery. Children come to this world very sensitive, open and lovingly accept and absorb its surrounding environment. If Truth and not profit and selfishness, could be the main motif behind the conditioning of our children, a huge step towards a New Earth would have been taken.
So once everything is figured out about ourselves, about where we are, about who and what we are, and what does our Heart vibrates to, then I guess it's just a matter of being yourself fearlessly. Not easy! When it comes to this I always think of one of my all time favourite superheroes:
Cheers
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