Do I love you as I love myself? Not sure you’d want that.

What does that even mean – love myself? Feels kind of split. Love needs an object, right? Like I love you. Love needs to be aimed at a target, right? But if I love myself I feel kind of torn.

How does love get that way in the first place? So that it needs an object?

That would happen if there were people I didn’t love.

Maybe I confuse love and want.

I want you.

I want you bad enough, I say I love you.

So love is heartfelt preference?

Is this the same love that can be unconditional?

If love can ever be unconditional, then it can never be otherwise. The unconditioned always was and always will be. It doesn’t depend.

Like truth – always present, seldom seen.

The unconditioned must be everywhere and always.

So if I wake up in love, I wake up in the heartfelt experience of all.

What if my mind can only hold my beloved?

What if my mind can only hold what I want? How do I get my mind to hold all?

Hard to do.

Maybe it’s hard not to do. Maybe that’s what all the fighting’s about.

I heard once that if you’re not yet a Buddha you should expect some difficulties.

Sometimes I get to feeling like I’ve moved on. Like I’ve seen a light and got done with something.

And a light that I saw is that I really don’t know which way someone else should turn. Even if I had the power to send someone off in one direction or another, I really have no business doing it. And of course I have no such power anyway. I have no business doing it, because I really don’t know how things will turn out. And things keep turning out and turning out forever. And I don’t get to stop infinity and say, There! Right there! That’s what I was going for!

Can’t do that.  Thinking that I know what’s best is a very sketchy proposition.

Also, It’s just barely possible that I might have concern about how I’m going to look if I advise something and it all goes sideways. Of course if the lights all turn green, then I’m looking good.

So, I got it. I caught my ego dealing in other people’s outcomes. Even with my best intentions, underneath I was looking for a return, a little reflection of the light.

I realized I gotta stop thinking about wisdom. I don’t know any more than anyone else. I renounced my lifelong goal of wisdom. That’s right. As a child I wanted to become a wise man.

Cut that one loose.

Mind my own karma.

I’m thinking I’ll just hold the space. I’ll pray that we all see the light. I’ll pray that we all become generous. And fearless. Live lives of grace. I’ll pray that we feed each other.

And I’m feeling freedom. I have moved on a little bit. I don’t have to figure anything out. I’ll just do my job, hold good thoughts and lower my profile. Stay in my pay grade.

I’m breathing easier now.

Hold on. Why am I breathing easier?

A lower profile is harder to hit?

I’ll be admired for my humility?

This is the same damn three chords I always play! I’m still dealing in outcomes. Tried to back out a bit, play it safer. And… Still dodging arrows. Still chasing glory.

I should be very suspicious of progress.

This field can’t be quit until the battle is finished. Dying won’t save me.

The enemy is a phantasm. Hard to identify.

Take a breath. Begin again.

So what chance do I have? Who am I kidding… If even saints can’t get it right… Might as well pick up my marbles and go home.

That flashing neon You’re Not Trying Hard Enough never goes away. Solidifying inadequacy no matter what I try. Well that blows my theory that the gods don’t give us tasks that can’t be done.

In my case though it’s true. I really don’t try hard enough. In so many ways. I know this. Look at where I could have been.

And try hard enough for what?

Maybe I’m not looking at this the right way. I have a tendency to want things to be perfect before I begin. I know this. Can’t start down the trail without the correct boots on.

Try hard enough for what? Hard enough to not be a disappointment? But maybe there’s no feedback loop to the flashing Not Hard Enough message. Maybe it’s running off something else. Maybe it’s the message that’s the problem.

Try harder than anyone else? Then what? Don Juan told Castaneda that we don’t know until our last breath whether we’ve succeeded. Until then it can go either way. I can’t lock it in no matter what.

Maybe I’m not looking at this the right way. Krishna told Arjuna to stop getting hung up on how things turn out. Pay attention. A friend told me that she can’t meditate because she gets distracted by thinking these thoughts: Okay, I’m meditating. What comes next?

I told her nothing comes next. 

If I’m recognized, it’s because I myself am seen. Recognized by many, who I am becomes clear. Consensus. That many people can’t be wrong.

This is a superior position. I may now divulge the wisdom.

Need to meet expectations. Dress the part.  Name something after myself.

I don’t know if I can look that many ways at once. I can almost see it. But I can’t feel it.

Old-time yogis were outsiders.

Where’s the glory in that? Nobody’s going to step off the sidewalk to let me pass. No interviews. No pictures. No money.

No recognition.

That doesn’t mean I’m not who I am.

Maybe I’ll just find a place to unroll my mat and slap hands with whoever shows up. Take a vow of obscurity.

Maybe that’s already too much.

I have to find the right base. Where am I operating – little self or big self? If I am grounded in sense-ego self, I’ll continue to be distressed. That goes round and round. It doesn’t go anywhere. Samsara.

Am I fighting from a weak position? I have to get to higher ground. Renounce the lower ground. I have to reconfigure my consciousness. How do I do that?

I have to want it. I have to want freedom more than I want bondage.

What do I want my mind to be? A clear instrument? Do I settle for the drone -  jerked around, reactive, enthralled, deluded by the senses, absorbed by prejudice and opinion? It’s a bootstrap thing. I have to move myself. I need something that will start the movement. How about humility?

How would I do that?

• Stop thinking that I know better
• Stop thinking that I am better
• Stop thinking that everyone should be better
• Stop thinking that I should be better

This must be comforting, I hold it so close.

I see that you love me, Faithful Monkey.
Come. Sit next to me.

I have seen you heal with illness.
Will you teach me your way?

Speak sweetly to your sorrows.

I have seen you light the way with darkness.
Will you teach me to do so?

Love does not end at the fall of night.

I would not stand illness.
I would not have darkness.

Would you deny the living moment?
Would even God dare to say,
This moment should not be?

You call it darkness. I call it Now.
You call it illness. I call it ripples
In the stream of Grace.

*****************

Faithful Monkey learns that it is said truly that the
master may make use of anything. And he learns that
the present moment is always precious.

We of the world need something to relate to, something physical. I need something to count, something to strive for, something to perfect. I need commitment and progress. I need defeats and victories to bounce between. I need description.

At least I think I do. The sages say to let it all go. Drop it and see your perfection. Practice, don’t practice – you’re already there… Can my imperfect practice yield perfect realization? Not if I can’t break what binds me. But really, nothing binds me. Nothing can. It’s a misperception. I’m not held. I hold.

And what practice is there that will loosen my grip? Maybe I’ll never let go. If I ask, How can I just be? That’s still a question, still an action. I’m still thinking that I need to be some other way.

I’m still missing it, still holding on. Cease all striving. Cease all action. Stop complaining. Stop wishing, stop fishing. Stop investigating. Let your brain cool down. Come to zero for a moment.

What’s left when I’ve let it all go?

This is a difficult teaching. In our outcome oriented culture it is hard to understand how the outcome might not be the most important part of an action.

Someone I love was in a difficult situation. He had chosen a difficult path of service, and his plans had been cast into doubt. He was faced with at least two possible outcomes neither of which was attractive. I wanted the best for him. I wanted things to turn out well for him. But I realized that even if I had the power to bring about a worldly outcome that would resolve his situation, I did not know which outcome I would choose to bring about. I did not know what to pray for.

Everything changes so every situation does resolve – it resolves into something else – and what at first seems desirable may in time seem undesirable. I could pray for a particular future as if I had a god’s-eye view and could know what would be best for everyone. I realized, though, that of course I do not know which outcome is best for anyone. Because the infinite unfolding of possibility that we all live within is beyond my control or knowing. I cannot claim that the future is mine to know just because I imagine that I know what it should be. If I’m honest about it, my preference for one future rather than another is just that – my preference. Selfish, in other words.

So I come to this: My prayer for my loved one is the same as Krishna’s prayer for Arjuna. I pray that my loved one comes to realize his true, deep Self. I pray that he not be distracted from that quest by fixation on worldly outcomes. I pray that he finds joy in his labor. I pray that he realizes his divinity.

And I make the very same prayer for you. I pray the same for everyone. Without exception.

Maybe you think that I figured this out. I didn’t. It came to me immediately as knowledge – immediate apprehension, no words involved. I just knew, then I added the words later. This occurred during a yoga training at Kripalu. We had been instructed to go outside and practice samyama. [See Yoga Sutra, 3.4] I began practicing with a leafy sapling of a tree. As I released my own individuality and position as observer, I began to experience no-difference with the tree. There was no tree, no me, just an experience of being. After a while I experienced the wordless knowing described above.

Intuition is an aspect of the vijnanamaya kosha.  We may frequently have experience of the intuitive body – the experience of unmediated knowing. The experience can be fleeting though and go unnoticed. Since I have become more mindful of such experience I notice that I often have an immediate, wordless knowledge of something, and then the words come. The knowing is first, then the words.

I might also see intuitively my own motivation for an act. I act selflessly with no motivation of self-gain, and quickly the ego comes in and rationalizes the act into selfishness, looking for a payoff. If I don’t maintain mindfulness and the self-serving words come to dominate and displace the subtle knowing, then I might have regret for having acted selfishly when in truth I had not acted selfishly at all. Likewise with judgement of others. I might have no intuitive criticism of another person’s actions, but the reactionary ego might arise and start to build a case against the other that, at a deeper level, I don’t believe.

Yoga practices can lead us to a  progressively deeper understanding of ourselves.