When we start on Monday, what is it exactly that we’re doing? Are we improving you? Changing you? Fixing you? No. You’re fine the way you are. We couldn’t change you into anything better anyway. You’re not broken. At worst you’re confused by thought and are temporarily inactive, but that’s the worst that can happen. You have no ground to recover. You just think you do.
You’ve tried the other kind of resolution before. They don’t work. That’s because they’re trying to do the wrong thing, whereas this process doesn’t turn the old you into a new you. This is the real you learning to understand the ego you. Once you can see your ego you realise it has a role and you accept it. But you do not let it lead your life.
Accept duality not as good or bad, succeeding or failing; simply accept it as the opposite action to the clarity of conscious. If there’s a thing we could loosely call healthy then that implies there must be an unhealthy, although it would be healthier if you could see those as two sides of the same coin of life. You can walk or you can run, it’s just that one uses more energy and it tires you out faster.
No matter which side you’re looking at in any given moment, the other side is always there ready to be seen. That very duality is at the heart of why you perceive anything at all so you can’t get rid of it. And why would you? The only thing that blinds people to the flexibility of their reality is their own busy, egotistical thinking.
Despite all that thinking, clarity is always waiting. Channel 6 is still on the air while we’re watching Channel 8. We still are enlightened, we’re just not aware you’re enlightened in those moments.
If there’s no good and bad and no succeeding and failing, then all that’s left is being. You can be silent inside and be driven by your spirit, or you can choose to fill your head with other people’s ideas and busy thinking, but both of these acts take place within the same reality. You know how a busy head feels. Why not try a quiet one?
You must accept that the real way we make you feel better is we stop trying to fix something that wasn’t broken in the first place, and instead we just need to teach you how to better manage your own consciousness. A useless car is different from a useful one being used uselessly.
Use today to actually accept that your previous efforts did not pay off. The resistance to an ego change is strong. We need to accept that we don’t need effort, we just need understanding.
Spend some real time with this meditation today. Again; truly think about the fact that your previous strenuous efforts have not resulted in changes. Accept that truth and then live in reality. Once you’ve done that you’ve finally emptied your cup and it can be filled with newer, fresher, better-tasting tea.
It’s one simple commitment. You’ve tried the other things. This year instead of the big change, aim for the small weekly realizations. By taking smaller steps we can get where we’re going, which is ironically right where we are.
We simply cannot fail in the most important sense, so accept and enjoy that fact. I’ll see you on Monday.
peace. s
A serious childhood brain injury lead Scott to spend his entire life meditating on the concepts of thought, consciousness, reality and identity. It made others as strange to him as he was to them. When he realized people were confused by their own over-thinking, Scott began teaching others to understand reality. He is currently CBC Radio Active’s Wellness Columnist, as well as a writer, speaker and mindfulness instructor based in Edmonton, AB where he still finds it strange to write about himself in the third person.
