Quite a few years ago, I spent a weekend with a man called Dr. Hew Len.
He was a gruff no-nonsense teacher of peace. No fakey fake. No nicey nice.
I happened to get to sit down next to him at the same restaurant during the lunch break on the first day.
I told him I felt awful about my rage, especially with my teenage daughter.
He said “clean.”
That was his primary teaching, his offering of what one could practice to feel free. That’s what we were learning about in his weekend workshop.
Clean your mind, stop reacting, say “I love you”, take 100% responsibility for what’s happening around you.
No questions, no stories, no explanations.
He was awesome, I loved him. And he said that if you wanted to talk and talk, even talk a little bit, you were full of BS.
This weekend I’m in another personal development retreat (I know, I know, I seem to be in a lot of these lately…we’ll talk about that LATER)!
I was reminded of Dr. Len when the workshop leader said all your stories, talking, yapping, suffering….
….all just data, just machinery, projection, comparing to the past, worrying about the future, limited.
Not the real YOU.
I thought about what question four in The Work of Byron Katie always points to: who or what would you be without your story?
Without believing your thoughts, your feelings, your judgments of other people? Without grabbing what you see, hear, touch, smell and THINK and instantly being so sure it’s all absolute reality?
Who would you be without being so sure there’s something to be worried about, or terrified of, or even happy about?
I know it’s kinda crazy.
Instead of looking at what is and believing in it, this is imagining who you would be without those thoughts…
Just get quiet and see, today.
You might think you can’t, you might think “I don’t know how to be without my thoughts!”
You don’t have to be without your thoughts altogether…that appears to be impossible.
You just have to click into the sense of not being a believer of them. See what else is here, besides thinking and stressing and reacting.
Hold still a minute. Don’t talk.
Dr. Len gives it to us without any sugar on top:
“You have given up yourself, your pureness of heart, for trash. Can you imagine giving up a pure soul for trash? This is what we do moment to moment….But if you’re at zero, everyone else will be at zero. And you really are at zero. That’s who you really are.” ~ Dr. Hew Len
You are so big, so amazingly powerful, beyond all your thinking and fears and judgments. You have done nothing wrong to have them, so don’t go getting mad at yourself.
Just be and imagine.
Dr. Len calls it zero. A big fat zero. Nothingness. Flat line. Space. Resting. Silence. Emptiness.
Don’t be scared of what it’s called.
You are not defined as your body, you are not your environment, you are not your relationships, you are not your mind, you are not your thoughts, you are not your emotions.
All these parts honorable and fascinating, nothing wrong with them.
But wow, you are all this and much more.
I LOVE YOU!
Isn’t it fun?
“Without a story of being limited, you’re infinite. There’s nothing more joyous than that–to know that you’re all things and new each moment, and that all of it is projected. People think that limitlessness is terrifying, because they don’t have inquiry. But it’s no more terrifying than sitting in your living room.” ~ Byron Katie
Much love, Grace