Winner: Scott’s Favourite Blogs of 2013 #3
Imagine an ocean of consciousness. Take a small portion of it and fill an individual teapot. That teapot is us. That portion of the ocean is our individual consciousness. The scooping of that ‘water’ is our birth.
When we are born our water is clear and our minds are like sponges. We all observe everything very closely, including what types of tea are regularly made in our vicinity. If our family gets angry a lot we’ll either be motivated to drink that tea too because it’s familiar, or we’ll actively avoid it because we dislike the ill-effects we see it cause.
Whether we copy or oppose them, those close to us will largely dictate which cues will lead us to prepare–or specifically not prepare–this or that particular emotional tea, given this or that particular stimuli. Our spiritual growth is represented by when we choose to selfishly take conscious control over the preparation of our own tea. In doing so, we become more present.
Our consciousness is like the water. It’s an opportunity. The life-force convection of our very Being allows us to make any tea we choose. But to drink deeply, and to really taste the tea of life, we must take ownership of the brewing process. We must consciously choose to make the tea we wish to use to flavour our experience of life.
The biggest challenge to that is that we often losing track of our sense of choice. Fortunately, that is where our taste comes in. We have to actually start thinking about what flavour various parts of our day have.
If we just throw in the same tea our Dad or Mom made in this or that situation —then we’re not really actively alive at all. We’re not choosing our life at that point, we’re just following a script they accidentally wrote for us. We’re just drinking whatever we were told to drink, like Pavlov’s dogs.
That kind of reaction can lead to things as minor as crying at weddings, to as serious as domestic abuse. But even if we like crying at weddings—it would be much better if it was us choosing that, and not our history dictating it.
Fortunately we have great intuition when taste-testing teas. If we don’t like how a tea tastes then that is not our tea. That is all individuality is: personal taste.
Other people can tell us that chamomile is amazing, but if we don’t like it then it’s not for us. The fact that it tastes bad to us is what’s supposed to prompt us to stop drinking it and stop making it. It’s a signal to change emotional teabags. It’s a signal to change the contents of our thinking.
That change is contained within our consciousness. That’s why as conscious beings we really can’t blame others when it’s us that’s drinking something we clearly don’t like. Old habits die hard. But if we take responsibility for that ugly flavour, that also means we’re assuming control. We’re recognizing our control over our choice of teabags–control over our life experience.
We all make tea all day long. We just go from this moment/sip to that moment/sip. But we are always having some tea, even when we sleep. So, we are better to stop complaining about it as though someone hands it to us. If we don’t like the tea we have we’re free to pour it out and replace it.
When it comes to living with wisdom, it’s really only a matter of practice. The more we consciously change tea bags the better we get at changing tea bags. That ability is an expression of being conscious. After we have that skill, knowing what we like to drink, (from the choices available), is easy. Our tea is the tea that tastes good to us.
The biggest challenge to that is that we often losing track of our sense of choice. Fortunately, that is where our taste comes in. We have to actually start thinking about what flavour various parts of our day have.
It is good for us to get conscious of the process of being alive. This is our short-lived opportunity to be a tea-maker. We should not feel ashamed to make some terrible teas. Drinking those will be what teaches us that the tea-making process is both powerful, and it is ultimately our responsibility.
Over time we experiment with other people’s tea choices and a few of our own, and eventually we figure out which teas are truly our favourites. From there we simply have to remember to brew those every opportunity we get, while also remembering that occasionally we’ll make a ‘wrong,’ (or a bad-tasting), tea. But that’s just normal tea-making. The terrible flavour signals us to our mistake.
Over time we replace the triggers we have that historically lead us to make emotional teas we don’t find productive in our lives. We’ll still have emotional challenges because life ensures pain. But, if we stay conscious, we can make the sort of teas that greatly reduce our suffering.
Before we know it we will casually remember that we are mortal, and that the pot of consciousness that is us will eventually drift back out into the larger ocean of consciousness that surrounds it. And that will be the end of the tea held in the shape of what we think of as us.
At the end of our lives, freed from our vessel, the real essence of us is finally free to flow and mix without judgment, as the former us melts and become an integral part of the vast and infinite ocean of consciousness from which new tea pots will be scooped up to be reincarnated as other individuals with their own opportunities to choose the teas that will flavour lives of their very own.
peace. s
I help people achieve better mental health by teaching them about reality.
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