The Temptation to Go Inward
La tentación de ir hacia adentro
A student explores the tension between inner work and active engagement with life, and the teacher encourages pursuing what life calls for rather than retreating inward out of fear.
The Temptation to Go Inward
A student explores the tension between inner work and active engagement with life, and the teacher encourages pursuing what life calls for rather than retreating inward out of fear.
I find that we all have these deeper parts of us, some more than others, that we haven't let go of yet, things that hold us back in some way. It's interesting. I'm looking at this whole process of my letting go into what is, and I just keep coming across the same issues that keep coming up. I'm trying to figure out how to move on. Do I need to let go deeper?
The little that I know you, I think the direction for you is mostly to go into life. Actively.
The pull of inwardness
There is a temptation, especially when we discover this kind of work, to think: "This is the solution. I'm just going to go inward and do this awakening thing. That's the way." But it can be fueled by an avoidance of life, by a fear of the messiness and the pain, the gigantic challenges of life.
I think your intuition is right on this. I have this avoidance, and I tend to go into myself very easily and use that as an escape rather than in a positive way. I'm trying to find a way to balance that with more activity and going out. It's really a matter of playing around with my different attachments and trying to listen to what they need at different times.
The guiding star in that sense is: what do you really, really want? And to go after that in every way, to risk failing, risk being hurt. In a very discerning way, risk life. Don't settle for something smaller than what you really want.
What do I really want?
Now, the question "What do I really want?" can drive people insane and become very obsessive. Especially for those who are more inward, it becomes: "I will figure out what I really want, and I won't do anything until I figure it out." That's not what I mean, because it's an exploration. Life responds in ways that shift you. You could think you really want to become a certain thing, and it's very beautiful when you fantasize about it, but then you start moving in that direction and you're immediately disenchanted. Maybe you became disenchanted because you were afraid and are now pushing away from something you really want out of fear. Or maybe you're disenchanted because it was a complete illusion.
Right. It's playing with that. It's like fear versus self, ego versus my true calling.
Yes, and don't think of "true calling" as one particular thing. There is just calling. The question is: are you listening deeply, or are you listening to superficial thoughts?
I guess I've fallen in and out of that, so it can be confusing.
Of course. We all do. But there's no way to really see how you lie to yourself without going into the reality of those things, into life. Life is going to be the greatest teacher. It will challenge all of your beliefs.
Even that part of me that says I'm a liar and not authentic is itself a liar.
Yes, because if you define yourself like that as an absolute truth, it can become true. But sometimes you lie to yourself, and sometimes you don't. Which is which? When is which one? That's your journey to figure out. And you can't ever fully know. It's always an exploration.
I find that it takes a strong will to be okay with that unknown.
Being okay with not knowing
You'll be okay with that with practice. It's not black and white; you don't do it once and you're okay. It's just practice. The more you dive into life in spite of the fear, in spite of the pain, the more you dive toward what you want, the more you'll be okay with it. Being in fear and pain won't matter as much, because you're living. There's this multidimensional aspect: you could be terrified and loving what's happening. You could be heartbroken and in pain and joyous at being alive.
I resonate with that. It's always jumping around between experiences. It's sometimes difficult to notice them together, but with time I have noticed the shifts, the really fast movement between them becoming shorter: from happiness to sadness, from grief to excitement.
Yes, and you can realize, you can experience when it happens, that it's not a shift between one or the other. They're happening at the same time.
I can know that rationally, but I don't always experience those things together.
Of course. The point is that it stops mattering. It stops being the most important thing to feel a certain way. We're too addicted to feeling a certain way, too focused on it. And then we live in fear, controlling life, trying to control the uncontrollable in order to feel whichever way we decided we should feel.
In a way, I have some expectation of what I want to experience, and when that expectation isn't met, I'm not believing that it isn't already here.
The aspiration to live fully
I recommend you simply have the aspiration to live life fully, whichever way that goes, rather than to feel a certain way.
But "to live life fully" can have all sorts of meanings, can't it?
Whatever that is for you. That's a question for you to journey with. What is a full, abundant life? Is it to feel a certain way all the time? Or is that a bit too small?
I'm still hearing a lot of expectation in those words, "live life fully."
I was offering it as a replacement. So yes, it is an expectation. But it's a more unknowable one. There's no rigid right or wrong. If your expectation is to always feel joy and no sadness, then there is a right and wrong: when you don't feel joy, it's wrong; when you feel sadness, it's wrong. Whereas "living life fully," feeling sad or not joyful, is that part of living fully? Maybe. It's more open-ended. You can journey with yourself into what an abundant life is, not as something you can achieve, but as an invitation to openness, to potential, to possibility. Life. Lifeness. Lifefulness.
That's beautiful. I resonate with what you're saying and with all the topics that were brought up. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions, but I think for now this is enough.
A pleasure. Thank you.