Category: General

My friend requested me to stay on last night and I was unwilling. I construed her as not supporting my needs, and she construed me for not supporting her. Upon arriving home I allow myself to put aside the storyline and enter into castle of the mind – the deep abyss into the cause of “the need for support” and came face to face with vulnerability, my old ancient friend.

The mere existence of me and you has vulnerability as its cause for the word “exist” means “supported”. And what am I vulnerable to that needed support to erase the hunger of vulnerability? I can only be vulnerable if I feel separated from something else. If I am everything there is no reason for me to feel vulnerable.

And thus starts my insanely journey of support. I need mental support, I need emotional support, I need moral support, I need material support. I need spiritual support. I need relationship support. I need monetary support. I need sexual support. Everything I need is to fulfill my support. I keep seeking support my hunger for support so as to drown my feeling of vulnerability. Each time when my support is not met, my vulnerability rears its head.

It is a hotspot. I dare not face that spot. I feel terribly painful even to know it, what more to feel it. And thus I either put a blame on you for making me vulnerable or I drown myself for another support. Everything I do, I do to keep this support continuing so as to appear further and further from the truth – the fear of vulnerability. My fear sparks my journey of support. My journey of support is all Doing. I want and don’t want – that is what my Doing is all about.

I want your support. If I get that you are not supporting me, I do not want you to be around or I move away from you so as to look for another support. I am in constant hunger for support, from everything seen to unseen. I seek support from status to control, from approval to appreciation, from security to hoarding, from money to materials, from relationship to God, from feelings to emotion, from sex to satisfaction, from health to well being – all for the sake of this serious vulnerability that I am not willing to face.

The more I grow my support the more I sense my worth. My worth is founded from vulnerability, fed on vulnerability, sustain by vulnerability. What is “I” then except something that is built from fear, built from the delusion of thinking I can escape from what is there that frightens me. Instead of taking the step to understand what is it that I am not facing.

And death will come one day. And at the door of death, I am fearful to face the Unknown. Not the Unknown, in Truth, but my dear old Vulnerability, as my accumulated support came crashing upon me, leaving me alone to face what I have not ready to face. Where could I run?

At leasts I am still supported by “I”…. and hence the dream continues…..

I can’t want desireless as wanting is another desire
When I am fully present to desire, I am already in desireless.
Desire releases me.

I do not know I am in the dream
When I am aware, I realized I was just in the dream.
The dream releases me.

I can’t release my thoughts
Except thoughts releasing me
When I give presence to it.

I can’t undo the ego, as to fix it is another ego at work
When I see the working of the ego
The ego undoes me.

I cannot do surrender
As to do it is to not surrender.
When I let it be,
Surrender do me.

I cannot feel lost unless I knew I am lost.
I cannot experience bondage unless I tasted freedom
I cannot be selfish, if I don’t know what selfless is.
Either one, I am telling my own story.

Surrendering is a tricky word. Many faith have mentioned this word over time in history and yet the word remains illusive. I ignored this word in the past as I thought the word “self-reliance” is more appropriate – later did I only realized that I was actually holding on to a egocentric definition of “having the ability to control or to take charge” instead of its true meaning of being.

The word surrendering tends to be misquoted for giving up or resignation. In the world of constant doing. controlling and acquiring, surrendering prone to be seen as a sign of weakness. To surrender in war is considered a sign of defeat.

Once my teacher threw a question that brought me to understand the word “surrender” better. He asked whether do we need to look to see; do we need to listen to hear? It was an unexpected question as I have taken both these senses for granted. What’s the difference between seeing and looking, or for that matter, listening and hearing?  Seeing is not your job, looking is yours. Irrelevant whether you wish to see or not, seeing is already taking place. Everything is capture through the seeing though your attention is not given specifically to it. I don’t have a button to switch off my seeing. I can’t stop seeing by closing my eyes as I can’t close my eyes at all, except closing my eyelids. Seeing is still taking place though I closed my eyes. There is no “me” involve in the seeing. I cant’ do seeing. Seeing is simply a part of nature.

What is “looking” then? When I look I manipulate my seeing outward, for in reality, seeing is arriving to me, rather than I “going out there” to see. I am conveying a conceptual experience though in reality neither is true – seeing simply takes place as seeing. But for the purpose of inconvenience in differentiating the experiences, I am sharing with you how I felt when I see and when I look.

Let me illustrate an example: If your eye-lids are closed, and I were to clap my hand, you seems to have a sense that hearing is “coming” to you. But if I were to invite you to listen to a specific sound, you seems to have an impression that you are “going out” to hear. Get what I mean? Whenever you involve yourself in a process, nature takes a thwarted direction, replaced by the nature of ego instead – the “I am”. Ego has its own specific way of functioning, many a times in opposition to the natural flow of nature.

Observed too that once ego is involved, you only pick up what you want to pick up – when you are looking, what is around the parameter of your look is blurred. A good example is like the autofocus function found in camera: everything around the focus becomes blurry when we target on a specific subject, creating a contrast between both. Whereas everything is sharp when there is no focus in particular.

Thus whenever I focus on an object or a situation, I am omitting a lot of details from my parameter. When I am not, I am able to see a wider scope of what is already here for me. When I “focus” on my work, I place myself outside, losing myself totally to it, oblivious to anything that needs my attention. When I am “aware” of my work, I place myself inward, fully acknowledging what is in my space, including anything that needs my attention. Why the need to focus when everything is already here for me? Does it mean when I don’t focus I am not giving attention? This misconception arises because I don’t realize it is the awareness that is important rather than the work that is important. When I am aware, I give fullness to whatever I am doing. But because I have difficulty sustaining my awareness the only way I know better is to focus and doing so I lost myself to it, including everything that is dear to around me.

What needs to be surrendered? Surrendering the ego and allow beingness to take over. Surrendering eagerness and welcoming presence to what is already here. Surrendering is getting myself out of my way and allow awareness to grow. I can allow awareness or ego to dictate. And that makes a difference between thy will be done instead of my will be done.

Surrendering is not giving up. On the contrary, surrendering is letting it be. Surrendering is giving presence to what is already going on. And even if ego is on the control, can I give presence to it without involving? And in the space of allowing, awareness naturally takes over.