Consciousness: The way out of pain

Emotional pain is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. The more you are identified with your mind, the more you resist the present moment, and the more you suffer.

The present moment is all you will ever have. Make it the primary focus of your life. Always accept the present moment. It’s insane to internally resist something that already is. Surrender to what is. Take action if necessary and possible. Accept and then act.

The accumulated emotional pain stored in your mind and body is the emotional pain-body. Watch out for any sign of unhappiness in yourself. Accept that it is there, don’t judge or analyze. Stay alert and present, and be the observer of what happens inside you. Become aware of the pain and “the one who observes”, the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your conscious presence.

Psychological fear is almost always of something that might happen. You are in the here and now, but your mind is in the future. You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with a mind projected future.

By becoming aware of emotional patterns, by witnessing them, you break your identification with them.

Moving deeply into the now

The Now is the only thing there is. Life is now. Everything happens in the Now, never in the past and never in the future. Dangerous activities force us into the Now, they make us feel intensely alive and free us from thinking.

If not now, when?

Be present as the watcher of your mind, of your thoughts and emotions, and of your reactions. Through self-observation more presence comes into your life. The moment you realize you are not present, you are present.

Intense presence is needed in situations that trigger a strong emotional reaction. In these situations the emotion tends to take you over, and you tend to act out the emotion. Identification with the mind gives the emotion more energy, observation of the mind withdraws energy from it.

If you set yourself a goal, be aware of where you want to go, but give your full attention to the step that you are taking at this moment. Don’t reduce the Now to a stepping stone to the future, to something without intrinsic value. Are you always trying to get somewhere other than where you are? Is fulfillment always just around the corner?

The only place where true change can occur is the Now. All negativity is caused by too much past, too much future, and not enough presence. Presence is the key to freedom, so you can be free now.

Narrow your life down to this moment. Most life situations are full of problems, but do you have a problem now? Use your senses fully. Be where you are. Look around, don’t interpret. Listen to the sounds, don’t judge them. Allow everything to be, within and without. There are no problems, only situations to be dealt with now or to be accepted as they are. Problems are mind-made. Why make anything into a problem? Focus your attention on the one thing you can do now. No matter what happens, don’t create more problems.

Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing? “How” is always more important than “what”. Give much more attention to the doing than to the result of your doing. Realize that in the deeper dimension of Being you are complete and whole already, and that your happiness does not depend on the results you achieve. In this state of Being you have succeeded already.

Mind strategies for avoiding the now

The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with life’s challenges. These challenges reveal whether you become more deeply unconscious or more intensely conscious.

Anything unconscious dissolves in the light of consciousness. Observe your unnecessary judgments, your resistance to what is, and your denial of the Now. Ask yourself: What’s going on inside me at this moment? What are my thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations? Am I resisting what is?

If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. You are responsible for your inner space. It doesn’t make any difference whether your thoughts about a situation are justified or not, just don’t resist what is.

Negativity is never the optimum way of dealing with any situation. With true acceptance, which means not judging and not resisting what is, negative emotions will not arise. To complain is nonacceptance of what is.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If your here and now makes you unhappy, you have three options: leave the situation, change it, or accept it totally. Choose one of these three and accept the consequences. If your action is a mistake, you learn something, in which case it’s no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.

Surrender means dropping all inner resistance. Stress is caused by being “here” but wanting to be “there”. All you ever have to deal with is this moment. Just be, and enjoy being. The only real thing about a journey is the step you are taking at this moment.

The power of Now is the power of your presence, of your consciousness liberated from thought forms.

You find yourself by giving attention to the present moment, to your behavior, reactions, thoughts and emotions as they occur in the present moment.

The state of presence

Close your eyes and say to yourself: “I wonder what my next thought is going to be?”

In a state of intense presence you are free of thought. Holding some of your attention inside of your body, keeps you present. Whenever you watch your mind, the silent watcher becomes stronger and the mental constructions become weaker.

The inner body

The illusion of the self: that you are nothing other than your physical body and your mind.

A word is no more than a means to an end: it points beyond itself. If a word doesn’t work for you anymore, then drop it and replace it with one that does work for you.

Exercise: Close your eyes, direct your attention into the body, and feel it from within. Can you feel a subtle energy field inside your entire body?

Don’t condemn of deny the body. Allow your animal nature to be, and enjoy it. Transformation is always through the body. Be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body, and feel it at all times. This anchors you in the Now. Don’t use all your attention for your mind and the external world. If you find it hard to connect with the inner body, focus on your breathing first. Focus your attention on your breath as it moves in and out of your body.

When listening to another person, listen with your whole body.

At the deepest level of Being, you are one with all that is.

Portals into the unmanifested

Deepen your attention, until you no longer perceive a duality between the observer and the observed. Transcend your body.

Inner resistance cuts you off from other people, from yourself and from the world around you.

Become aware of the space around you. Feel it. Pay attention to “nothing”.

Every material form is destined to dissolve again and ultimately nothing out here is really important.

Only when sound appears, does silence come into being.

Enlightened relationships

Most people search for physical and psychological gratification from a state of dissatisfaction, fear or lack. Any satisfaction that they obtain is short-lived. True salvation is a state of being without fear, suffering, lack and insufficiency, and therefore without wanting, needing, and clinging. It is freedom from compulsive thinking and negativity.

Your mind tells you that you need something before you can be free, fulfilled, complete, or good enough. But all you need is already here and now. You “get” there by realizing you are there already. Say yes to what is and take your attention deeply in the Now.

Romantic love relationships seem to offer liberation from deep-seated feelings of fear, need, lack and incompleteness. When you are together, you feel intensely alive and whole. But that intensity is needy and clinging. There comes a point when your partner fails to meet your needs, which makes those deep-seated difficult feelings resurface. And then you see your partner as the cause of those feelings.

People try to escape the present moment because they are afraid to encounter their own pain. Every addiction results from a refusal to face and move through your pain. You use something or somebody to cover up your pain. Intimate relationships do not cause pain, they bring out the pain that is already in you.

Freedom is to know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the love underneath the pain. Acceptance of what is, stops you from judging and frees you of the mind. Completely accept yourself as you are, and completely accept your partner as he or she is, without wanting to judge or change them in any way. Love is a state of Being.

Every relationship crisis offers an opportunity for spiritual practice. Acknowledge and fully accept the facts of the situation. Bring what was unconscious up into the light. Accept that the relationship is here to make you conscious instead of happy. Learn to give expression to what you feel without judging and blaming. Learn to listen to your partner in an open, nondefensive way. Be present.

All you really need to do is accept the present moment fully. You are then at ease with the here and now, and with yourself. Just be yourself. Do not judge yourself, feel sorry for yourself and don’t be proud of yourself. There is no “self” that you need to defend.

Beyond happiness and unhappiness there is peace

Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive, inner peace does not. Do you truly know what is positive and what is negative? When you live in complete acceptance of what is, there is no “good” or “bad” in your life anymore, just inner peace and stillness. It is the end of all drama in your life. You cannot have an argument with a fully conscious person.

All suffering is ego-created and is due to inner resistance. Failure lies concealed in every success, and success in every failure. Impermanence is a characteristic of every condition. When a condition is judged as “good” by your mind, it makes you happy and the mind attaches itself to it. Due to a change in the condition or in the way you view it, you could start judging it as “bad”, which makes you unhappy.   

Pleasant things or conditions cannot give you an identity and a permanent sense of fulfillment, they can only provide you with temporary and superficial satisfaction. Nothing can give you joy, as joy arises from within as the joy of Being. To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease and lightness.

All negativity is resistance. Have you ever seen an unhappy flower or a frog without self-esteem? Learn from plants and animals about acceptance, surrender, Being and integrity. They do not have a mind that keeps the past alive unnecessarily and builds an identity around it.

Use negative emotions as a signal to become more present. Wake up. Get out of your mind. Be present. Offer no resistance. When you accept what is, every moment is the best.

Meditate deeply on the mortality of physical forms, including your own.

The meaning of surrender

Surrender is about yielding to the flow of life rather than opposing it. It is not about giving up, doing nothing about a situation, or ceasing to make plans. Surrender is the unconditional acceptance of the present moment, the abandonment of inner resistance to what is.

Surrender is a purely inner phenomenon. It’s not the overall situation that you need to accept, just the Now. Don’t judge the Now, and don’t resist it. In a state of surrender, you see clearly what needs to be done. Ask yourself: Is there anything I can do to change the situation, improve it, or remove myself from it? If so, take appropriate action. Focus on the one thing that you can do now. As you surrender, check if there is any trace of resistance left inside you. Become totally free of negativity.

You can say “no” firmly to a person, or walk away from a situation, and not feel any resistance at the same time. Let you “no” come from a clear insight of what is right or not right for you at that moment.

If you can’t accept what is, you won’t be able to accept anybody the way they are. If you make the Now into a means to an end in the future, you probably will also make every person into a means to an end. If during an argument you feel very light, clear and deeply at peace, that is a sign that you have truly surrendered.

What is cannot be undone. Say yes to what is and then do whatever the situation requires. Create no more negativity and suffering. It is not the situation that creates the suffering, it is your resistance against the situation. If you can’t accept the outside situation, then accept what is inside you. Do not resist the pain. Witness it without labelling it mentally. Face it and feel it fully.