More often than not, we feel so enmeshed in the life we have that the prospect of change appears remote or impossible. Thus, we continue on the tracks that we have laid down for ourselves, We are unable to think in new ways and we gradually teach ourselves to forget the other horizons. We unlearn desire. Quietly, over time, we succumb to the dependable script of the expected life and become masters of the middle way. We avoid extremes and after a while we no longer even notice the pathways off to the side and no longer sense the danger and disturbance that could be experienced "out there." We learn to fit our chosen world with alarming precision and regularity. Often it takes a huge crisis or trauma to crack the dead shell that has grown ever more solid around us. Painful as that can be, it does resurrect the longing of the neglected soul. It makes a clearance. Again we can see the horizons and feel their attraction. Though we may wince with vulnerability as we taste the exhilaration of freedom, we feel alive!
John O'Donohue
from The Invisible Embrace: Beauty
3 comments:
Poignant... Sadly my experience is (from observation) that no matter how many "significant emotional events" (traumas/crises) some people have, they do not, or more likely cannot change their way of being in the world. It's as if they are trapped somehow and can't get out of their entrapment whether it's DNA or some other phenomenon of being human. I know this is not what most "spiritual" teachings say, but I see it all the time in mankind. I wonder if this is how Van Gogh felt...
yes, very true. For myself repeatedly looking into the eyes of the trauma with a relaxed mind and body,(from a meditative state) seeing and feeling, allowing it all to stay or pass though, staying with it as best I can over the years has left me with only remnants that I see coming and going, but now choosing to be non-reactive is a real option.
Yes, I see that for myself too... Very nicely stated , just staying with it, as you say. Although I'm still working on the "relaxed mind" :) - yes from a meditative state. A place of Awareness, seeing it but not identifying with it - which takes a lot of consciousness; a *willingness* to be with it, so that we can find a different way of being in the world...
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