Caterpillar

There comes a time in every caterpillar’s life when it hangs itself upside down to form a cocoon. During this process, the caterpillar completely turns into liquid and somehow from that liquid manifests a beautifully intricate form. If that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is.

A caterpillar doesn’t walk around thinking ‘one day I will be a butterfly’,
nor does it spin itself a cocoon knowing one day it will emerge. It does what it does because that’s what it does.

I want you to consider the possibility that every single thing that happens in our life is exactly what needed to happen. You don’t have to believe me, just humor me theoretically. If we stand back far enough, everything is a lawful unfolding. Our so called choices do not arise from the void, they are a consequence of everything else. In this way, the entire universe is connected, every little detail contributes to every other little detail. There is no alternative, everything that was going to happen will happen.

Lets talk about Productivity

How can I orchestrate my life so that it gives me the optimal amount of gratification and self worth through altering my habits so that I feel valuable at any given moment?

As long as we are doing things for our self, we suffer. There is suffering in not getting what I want, and there is even suffering in getting what I want because I realize it isn’t it. It’s in time and everything in time perishes.

I am not saying do not pursue because you see even if I was, we wouldn’t be able to stop. We can not give something up until we are done with it. In other words, If you are trying you have already lost. You can stop doing something but you can not give it up until you are done with it. There are just as many people dying of non-smoking as there are of smoking:

Its been 2 years, 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days since I last smoked!

Do you see the suffering in that? Walking around all the time busy being a ‘non-smoker’, just as trapped as a smoker if not more. How much laziness does it take until we are done being lazy? As much as it takes. Might even be an entire lifetime. How much productivity does it take until you are done with being productive? One by one we shed these veils when we are ready, but only when we are ready. Force them off and they have you caught. However, trying to force them off is part of the process of realizing you can’t. In other words, you can’t stop being lazy, laziness has to stop being you. But you also can’t stop trying to not be lazy until you are done with trying to stop.

So what am I saying you should do? Nothing. Do exactly what you are doing, its what you need to do to finish up so that you can move onto the next one and the next one until we are all done with it all. Then we can let go.

One step at a time we suffer so that our hearts can fill with compassion. What is it like to be compassionate? Its freedom. From your self. You do what is needed, not what you want. You do that which reduces the suffering of everyone involved. This is the most self aware thing you can do but its not for your self.

There is no forcing this. Once you are ready, it just happens. The writing is always on the wall for those who are ready to read it. The extent to which you can hear what I am saying right now is the extent to which you are ready to hear it. I fear most will not hear what I’m trying to say yet I write anyway because that is my predicament. The extent to which you can hear this is also the extent to which I am not caught up while writing it. So watch out for my hidden intentions!

Look at me telling them how it all is
Wow I am so intelligent for writing this
Wow I have got it all figured out
Look at how honest I am being here
Look at how honest I am being for telling them how honest I think I am being
I hope this isn’t making me come of as insane

As long as there is an ‘I’ in the equation, forget it. These are all my traps. There are probably more going through my mind as I type but these are the ones I am ready to hear and recognize.

It’s okay to be depressed. it’s okay to not be compassionate to your self. It’s okay to be lazy. It’s okay to be dissatisfied. It’s okay to be angry, hungry, jealous. When you are obsessed, be obsessed! When you are bored, be bored! If you are confused, great! Every single state is pure emotion, open your heart to it. Its always the same moment. Isn’t it mind blowing that we can even feel these things?

Wow, look at that self-pity! Mmm how exquisite… Mwuah Its delicious

How can we be anything other than what we are.

Its all part of the experience, just let yourself be. Surrender. You’ll be done with it when you are done with it. Once you give in, you can put it behind you but you can’t give in because you want to put it behind you or you are not giving in. No strings attached in this game. You can’t detach these strings, they come off one by one on their own. Everything that has happened to you or will happen to you or what you will choose to do is exactly what needs to happen in this lifetime for you. Until a certain something happens to me, I will not be ready to see the next message that is staring at me.

On one level, there is remembering and forgetting.
On another level, the joy of remembering is not possible without forgetting.
Go one more level and to remember is to forget.

But what about Personality?

Have a conversation with someone from a remote village about personality and they will quickly think we are insane for being so obsessed with it in our culture.

Based on this criteria, I will judge you and compare you. Hire you. Date you. Become friends. Love you.

Behind every judgment, is our own insecurity.

Oh look at Sally, she is so hardworking. She is just on another level. That’s how I should be if I am to be loved and feel worthy.

Oh Joe is so lazy and lost. At least I am not like that.

Not a single human being gets through childhood unscathed. Parents are under an immense pressure to socialize their kids into becoming acceptable. We are busy rewarding and punishing them in the most subtle ways so we can fill them with things we want out of our own fear that they will turn out like Joe. And we are going to do the same to our kids. We don’t have a choice in this, its bound to happen. You can try not to do it but you will then become busy being someone ‘trying not to do it’.

This process of socialization is a necessary reality. As a result, we are all left with a deep seated feeling of unworthiness. To different extents. We feel there is somewhere we have to be. Something we have to be. As if we aren’t enough as it is. We don’t even start at a neutral, we start at a negative working our way up. This isn’t a new concept, Christianity touches on this idea with the original sin.

The only thing you can do for anyone is to work on your self. When you are free, you create an environment where people can come and be free. Where people can play. What you can offer to your child is not values, aspirations, and habits. The only thing you can truly offer is your ‘here and nowness’

It is not personality that draws you to people, its the lack of their identity with their personality. The extent to which you are drawn is the extent to which they are you. Do not mistake this for relatability, that’s just more personality.

Whatever thousands of stories you tell yourself about who you are when you walk around, give them up. If you are ready to. Meet me behind the drama, so that we can be free. From our self.

Once we start seeing this, lets not get each other more trapped in stories. Every time I am busy being ‘someone who is doing the right thing’ , there is a segment of people I separate from my heart who I think aren’t.

Every time I forget that there is no ‘them’, I create more suffering for you. Which means more for me because of how it all is.

Life is not something that we do, its something that happens to us. Including the choices that we make. You can’t not do something however. Then you just become busy being someone ‘not doing something’. The whole thing is exquisitely beautiful whether or not we are currently aware of that fact. Us not being aware of it is part of the perfection and beauty. Just as it is.

We are decaying at every second. Who knew that the most beautiful thing that could happen to our ‘self’ was that it slowly decayed?