Category: General

I begin to observe that I never chose out of the box. In truth I can never choose out of the box. The “I” is the problem, not the choice. Each time there is an “I” attached to the choice, it will forever choose from the box. For the “I” only knows how to choose from duality. It doesn’t know how to choose otherwise as the operating system is limited by its own programming. Like what one meditation teacher puts it – the fan only does two things – either it turns or stop turning. It knows nothing other than that.

The mind works the same way. It never goes beyond duality. It is a lifeless machine, so to speak, conditioned by duality. It can never think out of the box. For it knows no other way other than black and white, good and bad, this and that, front and back, above and below, know and don’t know. That is all it is. Nothing new, nothing unique, except the same old game of choices from duality. When I go beyond the form, beyond materiality, what is left is the same old stuff – the mind choosing aimlessly, on a merry-go-round trip, swinging from one end of the pendulum to the other, never getting out of it. And that is what choice is to the “I”.

I may say my choices make me who I am today. But who I am is no different from anyone else except my interpretation or meaning of status, fame, role, possessions. But isn’t that what others have in them too? My ignorance only made me think that I am better than them. But how could I ever be better than anyone when the choices that “I” make leads me in the same kind of situation like anyone else – I still have to experience hunger, sickness, old age, and finally death. If I don’t get this true fact into my head I will always feel I am either better or worse off than others. I can never win this game – as this game is limitlessly limiting by nature – just the duality of existence, a tireless game that has no ending. It is like playing the broken record over and over again, oblivious to the fact that the recorder can be switch off. We let the recorder play, and play and replay again, over and over for meaningless time until we wake up from it.

If “I” can get out of the way, surrendering myself and allowing trust to fill in the gap, what could life be? Have you ever tried? Obviously many failed and gave up, as the ego is just too impatient to allow nature to take its course. It brings up fear in you and force you to imagine that this,* is a wrong way of living. And that is the worst thing we can ever give to ourselves for we don’t allow any opportunity at all for a paradigm shift of experiencing out of the box. We nail ourselves to doom again, falling back to the so called choices of life – which in reality is no longer a choice but simply a trap.

Invite yourself to take the leap of faith – go to the very edge of the ego and just… fall. Play this game and observe what could arise in your space. There is nothing to lose as either way you are back to doom anyway – the ego trap.

It is about choice. Not the kind of choice of which to choose when I am being given something. Neither is it about which road to choose when I come to a crossroad. Nor is it about a dilemma situation which I am forced to choose. In truth, there are no choices in all this scenes, as my outcome of what I choose is derived from my past perceptions, and hence dictated by an idea. Many an occasion , the so called choices I made are fear based rather than love, or wisdom.

I sat on the couch this morning, simply being in the now, observing the landscape of the mind as the heavy traffic of thoughts and emotions wheezes past my attention. Whether or not I am there for the mind, whatever there is in it still passes, oblivious to my presence. And the scene is no different from resting at the window sill, watching the world pass by.

On a certain occasion an object will attract my attention and at that precise moment I will miss whatever that is passing by. I can’t change or reversed the scene again. It is gone. I would not know what is there or whether it was there. What I know is that I am totally immersed in my own imagination of what I was attracted to, oblivious to the reality of what has gone by. In other words I was unconsciously deluded by my inner, so called, delusional reality.

To avoid this from happening, I just need to stay cool, relax and learn not to be pulled into what comes my way. But do I have a choice in this? None at all. I can’t dictate what is already coming into my space. Neither can I dictate what will attract me. Both are beyond my choices. I don’t have a say in it. Only because I am so unconscious to how the mind works. Everything are all natural occurrences coming my way. In other words, they are all effects taking place in this so-called time and space. And they are merely defined as experiences in my own space – nothing more than that. I can’t hold on to it nor resist it – though many a times I thought I was able to do so, obviously out of delusion and ignorance.

So what is choice then? My choice is to choose again. To choose what has already just passed – my reaction to what is. To respond to what has already occurred in my space. If what has occurred is fear, I choose to surrender. If what has occurred is love, I choose to surrender too. My choice becomes obvious and clear as I don’t choose out of wanting or not wanting but simply in the state of being, of surrendering. And when this choice is being chosen again and again, being practiced over and over again, it takes on a new process in the operating system of the mind. It no longer clings or grasps but simply surrender. There is no longer the “me” to do or to choose but simply undoing. No one undoing.

And the meaning of surrender is not what we normally understood as giving up, but rather allowing or letting be from the level of trust. And even that, the trust is not blind but rather the work of wisdom and all its attributes. It is a trust that comes from the knowing that I do not know and there is a greater intelligence far more that this tiny speck of “my” knowing. As I choose this way, I choose to heal the mind from dysfunctional grasping.

I can’t choose right-mindedly unless and until I choose to be in the now and here, right precisely at this moment. And the only way not to forget to be in the present is my choice.

To come into greater Freedom, we take the choice to choose pathways that bring us little little freedom.

It doesn’t sound pleasant when we hear people telling us that whatever we do we are doing it for ourselves. It gives us a meaning of selfishness and ill-intent when such words are directed at us. I may even retaliate or defense myself if I am told that way. But the truth is… I am that.

If I react to a comment, I can be sure there is a part of me that attest to the reality of who I am. I hate that part of the statement that tells so bluntly about me. I am angry because you have exposed that part of me that I am so unwilling to deal with. That is who I am but I am so unwilling to address it and I carry that pain with me wherever I go.  I thought I have buried it deep into the abyss of the mind and expect it to decay and rot into disappearance and carry on with my day to day living.

But the truth is, I am carrying it day by day, moment to moment. I am not aware, obviously. My actions never lied. My actions tell me so. I am maneuvering a machine that is geared towards approval and support instead of entering into spaces that I could foresee conflict and disagreement. I thought that is normal and sometimes I also thought that is being timid. And those are the times where I will bulldoze myself into those spaces with trepidation, expecting courage to overcome my fear and yet, hidden at the edge of my mind, there is an overwhelming hope that the outcome will be to my favor. Isn’t that selfishness again?

There are moments where I am “in charge of a situation” – having the ability to articulate my answers to questions that seems complex and unanswerable to a lay person. I feel great and elate. I may also feel that at that moment I have the ability to “conquer” what is in front of me, to “slay” whatever that is directed at me. Do I hear myself at that moment? No I don’t. I am only following and believing what’s in my thoughts. I don’t questioned what comes up in me. I am drowned in my own obsession as I feed my own selfishness. Where I am standing tall, I am standing on the foundation of selfishness.

Where I am standing low, I am also standing from the space of selfishness as there is a payoff for me in that space. If I am in equal with someone, I can be sure somewhere in the abyss of the mind, there is also another hidden agenda. In reality, there is no difference between superiority, inferiority or equality – they are just façade of the same stuff – unworthiness infested into selfishness.

It is a disease of the mind, a cancer that spreads in different forms to attract attention to feed itself. Listen deeply, and you will understand what I mean. If unworthiness is my core and selfishness is my action, does selflessness matters anymore than selfishness? Does doing good any difference from doing bad? If doing good is motivated by the ill of the mind, what good is really there for me except to feed the hunger of the ego?

Or is there something that I did not see, something I have missed, something so profound that I have misinterpreted entirely of what the Masters have to say? Surely there is something greater than what I am seeing. Surely there is a potential of true wisdom and love emanating in me, only if I am truthful with what I am not, to see who I am. In that space I am sure to view selfishness and selflessness, with love. Until I truly come into that space, I can be sure I am constantly feeding the ego, at different levels and degrees. Aren’t we all self-centered?