Bertrand Russell, the famous British philosopher who was a huge political and social activist during his lifetime, said “every great idea starts out as a blasphemy!”
Sometimes looking at difficult things in life from every angle, or from an entirely alternate perspective, sounds crazy. Just thinking about being with something horrifying and contemplating the idea that it is not as bad as we think….it almost sounds cold or inhuman.
For example, studying cancer, or death, or torturous pain, tragic accidents, huge earthquakes, mass murders….not exactly pleasant topics for most of us.
When I first encountered The Work and questioning my thinking it was through reading Byron Katie’s book Loving What Is. I was reading along, loving the ideas and my mind opening as I read, and then I got to a section where Katie is doing The Work with a woman who experienced sexual abuse during her childhood.
Suddenly, I felt a little sick to my stomach. In this situation it is not possible to “love what is”, I thought. But I kept reading.
It is radical to stand back from what we think of as the greatest horrors in life, and look with open eyes.
I confess, I like things when they go “well”. I like happiness and easiness and kind voices and quiet places. I don’t much like being surprised or having people jump out at me for fun. Sometimes it takes me 15 minutes to jump into a cold lake.
But I see now how when I preferred to chop out all the “troubling” things from human existence and from my experience, when I raised my fist against them and tried to avoid them, as I used to, I became tense as a block of cement. And about as happy.
Anthony De Mello, the wondeful Jesuit priest I mention occasionally who died in 1986, wrote that people would come to him with their problems and often wanted only relief. They did NOT want to understand their problem and find their part in it. He said that he discovered that some people had to suffer ENOUGH in a relationship so that they got disillusioned with ALL relationships.
Other writers and teachers speak of this suffering that seems to need to occur in order to wake up and find a better way of thinking, of living.
I do not know if we need to suffer, but it seems most of us do. We feel anxious, sad, terrified, sorry, guilty. Some of us feel suicidal, some of us feel deeply angry with others in our lives.
Adyashanti, one of my absolute favorite spiritual teachers, writes poetry that does not always sound pretty, peaceful or gentle when it comes to Reality, God, Source, or Awakening.
One thing that appears true….things don’t always look rosy. We are going to die. People are unpredictable, like the weather, like life.
“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretence. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” ~ Adyashanti
Be compassionate today with yourself in your fear or distress. Be open to others as they are terrified, or enraged. This is all part of the pace of life.
“The Master give himself up to whatever the moment brings. He knows that he is going to die, and he has nothing left to hold on to…” Tao Te Ching #50
Be with the silence and the part of you that doesn’t know. Bad things happen, good things happen. It’s not OK. But it is.