Reversing the Mirror of Perception
Making the turn toward the real, reality, the truth, True Nature, God…. however you refer to that most sublime, all encompassing life force, is, for most of us, not an easy or simple thing. For most of us, it’s a process – a process of continual unfoldment as we turn, turn again, and again and again.
Turning toward the truth usually involves many instances of falling asleep, choosing a goody or two over the truth, the occasional inertia or better idea that takes us back to our habits, familiar life or comfort zone. Our ruts are deep, which leads us to believe that it takes effort to abide in the truth. It takes effort to get out of the ruts and increase our capacity for the truth – until the truth grabs us by the heart or dazzles our minds in a manner that the gravity of our ego life begins to ease up.
Another form of turning again and again toward the truth involves discovering and revelation as what we once thought of as “the” truth broadens and deepens. So, we continue to turn toward the truth as we are opened up and refined.
Fundamentally, turning toward the truth means reversing the mirror. The quest for reality or the life of truth is something to be gained. It’s not something we are going to achieve and put into practice in our life. The truth is the life. What we bring to the truth is our little ego-life – which seems pretty big and significant to us, since it includes everything we see and believe.
Turning toward the truth means bringing our life – moment by moment – to the truth, living in accordance and alignment with how we know the truth. What we read last night that hit home, what we learned in a workshop last weekend, what we experienced in our work sessions or daily practice – we bring that to the truth by applying it and living it in our daily lives.
I’m not not talking theory here. I’m talking rubber meeting the road, walking the talk – and not in an easy way, but in a life or death way. No room for excuses or the champion (judge, jury and executioner) of excuses the superego / inner critic.
Turning toward the truth means reclaiming my aggression if I’m aggression intolerant, standing my ground or staying the course if I’m weak-kneed — all-in-all — no matter what our conditioning, turning toward the truth involves a vulnerability far exceeding what we thought thought was needed when our heart or mind was touched by that first scent of the real that set us seeking.
All my life seeking
Answers, insight, meaning
Never here
For a second
Thinking about here
I’m elsewhere
Poor creature
Here is vulnerability
Beyond imagining
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4 responses to “Turning Toward the Truth”
I will say a few things today about your relationship to the Work, to the teaching, and to the person of the teacher. The Work has existed in many forms and many times, according to the needs of each culture. In a basic, fundamental way, the teaching is your lifeline. It is the lifeline to your real existence. That is a fact whether you like it or don’t like it, whether you approve or disapprove, whether it makes you feel good or feel bad. It remains the truth. Your job is rarely, if ever, to accept or reject this fact, to prove it or disprove it. Your job, if you are sincere, is to try to see the truth about it, and how to utilize it to gain your real life. Without teaching, the ordinary person will remain undeveloped and will be only a potential human being. If you want to remain a normal human being, only a seed of your own potential, you do not need the Work. But if you want to actualize yourself, to live as a human being, then you must put effort into seeing how the Work is the lifeline for real life.
The Work is not an addition to everything else you do in your life. If you consider it an addition, you will not benefit from it. The channel of influence, the channel of nourishment, will be closed to you. You must have the correct relationship to the Work for it to benefit you. If you take it to be something extra that you’re doing, a little addition, something that is interesting, then it will be like everything else of little importance—like joining a club or signing up for a dance class. – A. H. Almaas http://www.ahalmaas.com/Books/diamond_heart_1.htm
Come, Come, Whoever You Are
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come. – Rumi
Who’s your muse?
I see the vales of generalities to the personal; with the cozy covers of Almaas hiding what trully could be your memoir.
Joe – perhaps you mean veils? Cozy memoir in general a turning with mus-ic