Illusion to Reality

Today, just like any other day, passed by quickly. Within my own observation, each day is no different than any other day of habitual-beforehand-attention – ignoring what is only real here in each moment, unnoticed and gone – in exchange for another beforehand imaginative moment of what should lie ahead. I can be deeply obsessed in what I am doing, yet in between lines are spells of trepidations or anticipations of what is to come. Things are not done for no reason, but in the hope of a future return which is dear to my heart and very much connected to past experiences of which I do or do not want to experience again.

Life is just that, a meaninglessly repeating cycle of what the past has taught me to handle. I may wish for a drastic change – a change that will hopefully redefine my future – yet the change I want must be something connected to the past; else the meaning of change will not arise at all.

If my past is haunted by unfairness, all I want is justice for equality. Yet, it is not equality that I wish to have but rather justice done for a past that I am unable to forgive as to put me at ease of that appalling experience of unfairness. By making others pay the price for what I once suffered, my perceived equality comes to be.

Similarly, if my past is haunted by my need to re-experience again, I will go all out to make it happen, as to justify my need for it. Whichever or whatever way I heed, I am merely playing justice to my needs.

What is justice but guilt replaying itself? It does not matter whether it is on someone or towards oneself as long as guilt is being ‘done’. Until this is clearly seen and realised, guilt runs the theme. Our minds are run by guilt. The playout in relationships, corporations and countries are not any different. Those who oppose are similarly, doing the same. Whence is fairness? Whence is change?

I came out from a session of acupuncture this morning and when I was about to pay for the service, I noticed that the mind was uncertain whether to pay for three or two. I came along together with Lai Fun and Alice and both have different meanings to me. One is a wife and the other, a friend. To each meaning the mind gives, I noticed that it churns out its own priority. As I continue observing this strange behaviour of the mind, I also notice that there was a conflict happening within it – whether to pay or not to pay for Alice, my friend. It suddenly dawned upon me deeply the many meanings that my mind has of this world – and all these meanings gives richness to the glamor of priority and preferences about the world. It was never about money though but priority – what if Alice is my sister; what if Alice is someone I adored? Meanings give priority. It is important to realise, if you have not already realised, that meanings are but, still meanings – yet it has such powerful impact in our perception. They are unreal in reality except conceptually. I am not saying they do not exist, yet yes, they do not exist in higher wisdom or reality. But at this moment of realisation, it is what it is – so unreal the meaning is in my mind.

After a moment of that realisation, I chose to pay for Alice. Not that I want to be generous or that I’d like her to see me as generous, or even to rescue her from her need to settle the fee – I was simply doing myself a favour of transcending what is untrue, as not to buy into the belief of priorities. Do notice that there are lots of stuff going on behind those priorities. I call them conditionings which we may not be aware of. To name a few, there may be meanings of lack, of to each its own, of I am not supposed to be stingy, or guilty and many more strange meanings that we have taken on as gospel truth in our journey of experience. The question I always used to ask myself is – if the treatment is truly my entitlement, is it relevant whether I pay for it myself or by another since all the modes of payment are merely means to what I am to experience?

Thus the question of generosity came to mind. Is there generosity in the above experience? No. There was only an intention to give up the meaning of priorities. It is not a giving from the space of joyous abundance – hence, I could not see it as generosity but rather a giving from my giving up of my mind’s meaning. In that moment, I came to realise there are different levels of giving. Giving from giving up our meanings, giving from adhering to a certain value, giving to save face, giving to increase the ego, giving from seeing another a victim, giving from pity, giving from compassion, giving from fear. Still, the ultimate giving is when you no longer have any more meanings of priority, which includes the giving to yourself. This is when unconditional giving arise herein.

Anyway, as Alice tries to repay me for the fee I have made, I reminded her that she was doing a great service to me by accepting the fact that I am simply doing it for myself and not because of her. And as weleft the healing centre, I suggested that I treat her breakfast. Looking at me dumbfounded, I told her I just felt generous to share what is in my space. Well, whether she feels guilty of receiving or not is another matter altogether…. :)

 

Imagine you have an itch on your skin due to an assumed mosquito bite. Grumbling and agitated by the itch, you move your hands towards it and start scratching incessantly while at the same time search for the darn mosquito at the wrath of your merciless desire to annihilate it. Right at that moment, if you had bothered to notice, there is a relationship going on. In fact, a very intimate one moment – you and your mosquito. Yes, that is what it is. Whatever you experience at any one moment in time is your relationship to whatever is there. Yet, let us dissect that relationship further and explore whether there is a deeper relationship beneath it that you may not be aware of.

Putting aside the mosquito image, what is left is the itch that is compelling you to scratch. The dislike of that itch is what you are relating to at that moment. That is a more closer-to-reality relationship that you are having rather than with the mosquito. In relative, your attention is more towards resolving the itch rather than the mosquito. Which is more important at that point – scratch or search for the mosquito? I am not saying that the mosquito is not in the equation of your itch, but rather the itch is what you wish to end or avoid, if possible. And since you can’t have that immediately, and it gets into your nerve to scratch harder to end the itchiness with the target of blame going to the mosquito.

Yet surprisingly, the itch is in fact not the actual closer-to-reality relationship. Like an onion being peeled, another layer comes into attention. If I were to invite you to temporarily give up the need to scratch just for a while, what will you be faced? Unbearable-ness, I am certain. It is the unbearable-ness that you can’t handle that makes you stretch out your finger to scratch. Now, you have come a long way in noticing what is actually going on. It is about you and your unbearable-ness. From not being able to bear, which is your threshold of discomfort, you have gone as far as making the mosquito responsible for it. How would the mosquito know it has hurt you, except to feed itself when it is hungry? Yet, you labelled it as biting (the mosquito is toothless!) or attacking you.

Could you have imagined the mosquito is actually not exactly what you are relating with but in reality your unbearable-ness of the itchiness? And when you do not notice that, the mosquito becomes your victim of circumstances. Your unbearable-ness has nothing at all to do with the mosquito – if you are ready for that truth! Consider a moment an image of a hunger stricken child in Africa with flies all over his face. Does the child consider the flies a problem and try shooing it away? What I am conveying is that if there is no underlying issue with unbearable-ness, the mosquito will not at all be the attention of your distraction.

But let’s move beyond unbearable-ness and explore what is beneath it. It must surely be about our level of tolerance that brought about the threshold of discomfort. Yet, the level of tolerance can be stretched if we were to give ourselves the effort or patience to face a little bit more. But usually we don’t. Killing the mosquito or scratching the itch will be a better and faster way of getting rid of our discomfort rather than facing it. Rarely do we take full responsibility of it – and it has much to do with our latent attitude of survival – giving in to fear instead of developing love. Imagine if it is a human that you dislike – will you go to the extent of murdering, like killing the mosquito? I would choose to believe that you will not go to that extent. Then what course of action would you take next? Predictably, you either move away timidly or you impose intimidation onto the subject. Whichever way, you are introducing fear as your way of life. Because of that, you may never see a truer reality as in beyond the story of the mosquito.  As you play the game of blame or attack, you will never get a chance to realise the delusional construct that revolves around your experience.

Your attitude lies the key to your truer relationship – the only relationship that is ultimately true. The idea beneath that attitude is what moves you to take the course of action – either one that saves the world, or hurts it. If you are conscious, you may even notice tolerance is not loving. Wholeheartedness acceptance may be the direction. Whatever it is, it is a matter of whether you are keen to seek the truth and nothing else but the truth, or drown yourself in the ocean of deception. This is your only choice albeit there is no right and wrong in either. The past is gone and the future yet to arrive. Your Now is the only potential given to you to realise a reality that is seldom known. The Now cannot be robbed from you. It is offered and re-offered to you until you come to a fullness of realisation. And until that happens, the nightmare of delusion continues … there is only you and your ideas, nothing further than that.