…into unknown territory continues. I have been feeling a little disorientated this week, well it has been arising for a while. I am living in a state of almost continuous peace and also in near solitude, and at times it feels like I am swimming in a calm water with no direction. In fact I don’t really feel I have any direction within this sense of freedom. No goals! My mind does not like that, its screams objection and tries to generate discontentment.
I’m doing what I need to do each day and little else, and everything feels quite effortless. I feel as though I am dying in a way, not painfully, but I do wonder what is left for me to do here in this life. I dont really want anything, and it is odd experiencing this relative desirelessness. Desire hasn’t completely gone, but when it does come I could drop it in an instant easily. I play with it, I whip up some lust for something, or for sex, or a walk in nature, and yet nothing has much of a hold on me. It occurred to me that it is a little like what I understand of depression, in the sense of a lack of motivation. Though I am not sad or unhappy, just stable and then some more stability.
I am doing little things, kind things to myself and taking care of day to day business and finances. I am more organised than ever in the financial department, have set up standing orders for payment of taxes which I have never done before. I always lived on a wing and a prayer and just got used to the stress of having to find large sums of money when taxes and bills were due. Now I am relieving myself of that and doing some advance planning. I was against seeking for financial security in this world, but now I am playing with the idea that a little planning ahead is a kindness to myself and it prevents unnecessary stress.
There is so little stress these days, that’s why I feel like I am swimming. I am not afraid, and so am not motivated by fear now to do anything, and I feel little desire so that rules out that motive for action. This is my very own personal experiment with awakening and I dont really know what I am doing. I have the Tao te Ching for guidance, and other similar guides which are a help here and there. Mostly I am staying very present. It feels quite intense at times this being present all the time. There is no escaping from it really, other than into films and dramas I like to watch for relief.
An old friend died recently. I spoke to him nearly daily for about 8 years. When I heard the news a surge of pain arose, sorrow and sadness for myself that I would no longer have his company. The main feeling was happiness though, he was very old and physically in pain. It was a sudden painful death in a place he loved, just as he wanted his death to be. I noticed myself going though this experience, aware and allowing all the feelings and thoughts to come and be felt, and yet it is within the vast expanse of Awareness.
I feel a part of me try to rebel against this whole process I am in, and complain about it, try and find something wrong, something that needs solved, but there is nothing at all to do, or say and nowhere I want to go, and nobody I want to be with also. Other than 1 friend really, though I am not sure why I want his company. I can talk to him I suppose, expose it all honestly. But even with him, I feel I have little to say. I notice that I am becoming more of a listener. I listen to people’s concerns, their fears, their feelings…and I see instantly what is behind them. I now resist the urge to engineer them in any direction, and instead I consciously feel compassion. If I have a reactive response to what I hear, I immediately gently centre myself and re-tune back to compassion and non separation.
I did feel a tinge of excitement when I spoke to an old friend the other day (my ex husband). The enthusiasm was perhaps the sense that his state is not unsimilar to my own and that maybe we can relate to each other. I feel very alone these days, and a little chumming along with someone is attractive. Then again, if I never spoke again to him, I would be fine with that. As my other friend R says, the monkey brain doesn’t take kindly to states of quiescence. He is coming to visit right now. The monkey brain resists this peace and dearly wants to find a problem with what I am doing, a danger, a drama, anything but this nothingness as it perceives it. This is because there is no job for it now.
So its new and still feels unusual. I am exploring some experiences in a new way. Like last night I had an itch and instead of scratching it I allowed the sensation fully without resisting it. Stayed with it some more and watched as it changed to no longer being an itch, but became almost pleasurable. Might be interesting to experiment with pain in the same way.
Learning to Rest with it All 