The Sense of Something Missing
La sensación de que algo falta
A reflection on how the false sense of self is rooted in a feeling of lack, and how drawing closer to that feeling reveals a love that was never actually absent.
The Sense of Something Missing
A reflection on how the false sense of self is rooted in a feeling of lack, and how drawing closer to that feeling reveals a love that was never actually absent.
At first it seemed like the love was coming from him to me. But it was actually my love for him, or rather, the love we shared. The love that simply is. The relationship was the bridge to knowing. I knew it in me, not in the sense of depending on that body and mind who passed away, as though he took his love with him. That was only what the mind believed. And that belief became the seed that started a shift: the recognition that love is here.
When the mechanism of believing starts to fail
Over time, the mechanism of believing that love is elsewhere started to fail. This goes to the very essence of the sense of self. That is where it gets truly disorienting.
The false sense of self comes from a belief that something is missing, that something needs to be different. At its core, this is related to love, to a feeling of lacking love. We all experience it differently, but essentially the feeling is that something is not okay.
Getting closer to the feeling of lack
As you begin to question that, you first need to recognize the experience directly: "Yes, I am constantly swimming in a sense of something missing. This is the bane of my waking existence." The more you become aware of it, the closer you can get to examining its reality and its truth.
This is the process of conscious suffering. The more you draw close and become aware of that sense of lack, the more painful it becomes in a way, because there is no remedy. Everything you have been trying does not work, and you start to feel like it is getting worse. But you are actually just getting closer and closer.
The sense of self is the sense of something missing
If you look at the essence of it, the cause of it, it has to do with the sense of self. The sense that something is missing is itself the sense of self. We are deeply attached to that sense of a separate, independent self. The closer you get to it, the more you are pressed against this attachment. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot get what you truly want and keep your sense of self intact.
Touching what is already here
Touching into that knowing, recognizing that you are already loved and there is nothing to do: yes, that can release and relax the sense of self. Stay with that as much as you want. I mean it. Whenever you want, you stay with it. It is always there.
At some point you will see that you do not need to return to it, because you will recognize it is always present. You cannot be away from it. You do not have to retaste it, reconfirm it, revalidate it. It is simply essential. And in a sense, it disappears, because it is not something that can come and go. The things we can know as things are what come and go.