When I Don't Know What Is Real
Cuando no sé qué es real
A student describes the anxiety and confusion that arise when she realizes how much of her experience in relationships, including her response to an acquaintance's terminal illness, is filtered through her own thinking and assumptions. The teacher points toward the health of "not knowing" and the way genuine seeing of selfishness opens the door to something beyond it.
When I Don't Know What Is Real
A student describes the anxiety and confusion that arise when she realizes how much of her experience in relationships, including her response to an acquaintance's terminal illness, is filtered through her own thinking and assumptions. The teacher points toward the health of "not knowing" and the way genuine seeing of selfishness opens the door to something beyond it.
This conversation and the meditation have made me really anxious. I have a few questions grounded in particular examples. In relation to something that at first appeared to be real, I came to the complete realization that I have no clue what the most real thing is in a given interaction. And then I feel terrified. I don't know, and it's very terrifying.
Two things happened, perhaps through the meditation. Let me use these explicit examples, because I think they're connected to everything you've been discussing.
One is a close relationship with a friend, a former lover, who triggers me intensely. I don't know what's going on, I don't know what's happening on the other side, and I don't know what's real.
The other is this: an acquaintance in this circle, someone I wouldn't call a friend but someone I feel connected to at the heart level, as a fellow truth-lover. She has been struggling with cancer for a while, and she made a public announcement that she's now in hospice. She's basically dying.
A lot of things happened inside me. I thought of her, I thought of her husband, but I also found myself thinking about how all of that relates to me, how all of it says something about me. In all of that confusion of thought, I kept asking: what is the most real thing here? What is my heart honestly feeling? It gets so confusing, because in this situation it's not a direct relationship where I can go figure out what's happening on the other side, how they're feeling, what she's going through. All I know is she made an announcement that she's dying. Then I thought of her husband. Then I think I felt maybe anger or confusion around the fact that I have this assumption: she made specific decisions about how to deal with her cancer, and I believe those decisions were shaped by her understanding of non-duality. Does that make sense?
The last bit I'm not sure about in the specifics. You have an assumption that she made choices based on her understanding, or do you mean a misunderstanding?
I don't know the depth of her understanding or where it becomes a misunderstanding. All I know is that it played a role in how she decided to handle things. But see, that becomes about me. That becomes about my own process.
The terror of not knowing
In all of that dynamic, I get confused and terrified. What is the most real thing here? Is it about me? If it is about me, let's just deal with the selfishness for a moment. But there must also be an honest sadness about her death. She's dying, and her husband is dealing with this too. I keep running into this: what is the most real thing here? It's maddening. I don't know. I don't know.
What do you want?
I think what triggers all of this, both with her and with my friend, is the fear that it's impossible to truly relate to anybody. It's impossible to relate to anything. It triggers this feeling of impossibility. Have I ever done anything truly selfless? Can we actually be truly empathetic and loving? Because no matter how much empathy and kindness and lovingness there is, it always somehow comes back to me. That's what makes me this emotional.
The desire to be truly loving
The desire to be truly empathetic and loving is what matters. It's that calling that can pierce through the illusions. The illusion is that, when you say "me," there is somebody there who is really separate from your friend or others. The sense of impossibility has to do with the absolute assumption of two who are separate. Only if two are fully separate is it impossible for them to relate.
It's funny, because at the same time I feel that I landed here precisely because I understand what you're saying more clearly. I think you're right: it has to do with suddenly feeling like I'm "selfing." I heard someone use that as a verb once, and that's exactly what happens. I'm not selfing all the time, but suddenly I am.
Somehow all of this has happened because I more clearly see that everything occurring is coming from my thinking, from my illusion of what is real, from my understanding of what is real. And suddenly, when I stop, I realize I have no clue. In these misunderstandings with others, in this trying to relate to difficult situations, I truly see that I don't know anything. I just cry. I don't know. It's very distressing, this "I don't know" space.
The health of not knowing
But it's very healthy. It's the crossing. Seeing through illusions is not instantly felt as positive and liberating. It's terrifying, painful, humbling, confusing. And all of that is a healthy thing.
It also made me reflect on how much I took for certain in the past. In past relationships, for instance, I'd tell myself, "This person did this, and it was because of this and that reason that the relationship didn't work." Then I realize I never asked why. I never had a conversation about what was really going on. I never truly inquired.
That's what we've been talking about: all the assumptions.
Realizing how much fails because of illusion, because of genuine misunderstanding.
We chose the illusion
It's important to see that we chose that. We preferred it. We created it. It didn't just happen for no reason. It was actively chosen and created. Any time we imagine something, like a child playing, and then we make that narrative certain, treating it as the reality of a situation or a relationship, we are actively choosing illusion, choosing ignorance.
There is only one thing that is certain. Even if you have a conversation and the other person says, "It's because of A, B, and Z," you don't know if they truly know either.
That's exactly what I've been living with my friend. I try to have this conversation and I think, "I don't think he knows either." So how do we get to the most real thing?
What you're really looking for
The real thing is not in the relationship. It's not in an experience. It doesn't feel to me like you're looking for the real in the relationship. You're looking for something else.
That makes sense. I do ask myself that question after the fact, because the interaction moves me and I wonder what was really going on. But say more about what you just said, that I'm not looking for the real thing in the relationship.
It seems like you're looking for something you feel is lacking, and then you find it in the illusion of a relationship. So then you need the relationship or the situation to be a certain way, the person to be a certain way, the separation to be a certain way. But what's motivating all of that isn't a search for what is real.
Maybe not at the beginning. But after a few interactions and realizing all of this, I do feel I'm genuinely asking, "What is real here?" At the beginning, though, you're right. At the beginning it's like any other relationship. I'm looking for validation or whatever.
That said, in these two cases, I think I really did start to see the thinking. With the friend in hospice, for example, I felt sad first of all. But then all of this thinking got triggered because her particular words had the language of non-duality. And it's like: I don't know what it is to be dying. I don't know what it is to be dying and trying to make sense of it through non-duality.
It didn't feel right to me. We tend to say, as in your meditation, that in the end it's all freedom and love. And that's what she's saying: in the end, it's all freedom and love. It's true. It's not that I don't know that. But at the same time, she's dying. Her body, her life in this moment, is ending.
Whether realization is true or borrowed
What matters there is whether her realization is true or not. Whether it's words based on learned words, whether it's coming from herself or not. And you can't know that.
I cannot. Exactly. And that brings it back to me.
Yes. So this is about you.
And that feels terrible too.
Well, to me it doesn't. To me, it's wonderful that you are able to see how much you are, let's say, selfing.
I just feel like a really bad self. A really selfish self.
The loop of selfing
That's the selfing, right? That is the definition of selfing. It's about you, and you having certain qualities. It's the cycle and the loop: selfish selfishness, arrogant arrogance.
I think in the end it all comes back to what I said at the beginning. How can I truly be loving and kind, when selfishness kicks in so quickly?
Seeing it clearly is the way through
It's simple. The more you truly see how selfish you are, the more you are able to not be that. The more we see our arrogance, the more we are able to be humble.