Illusion to Reality

It is rather easy for me to mistaken an original product with the fake or imitation piece. It probably takes a skilled person in a particular trade to note the difference. With more and more sophisticated technology available in hand, the imitation product may no longer be as obvious as in the past.

Training and purifying the mind has the same issue – many a times when I thought I am already in the state of pure peace and bliss, that state turns out to be an imitation of the ego.  In term of “imitation” in mind states, it has the taints of like and dislike, obscured by ignorance itself.

A good example is the quality of acceptance. Acceptance in its truest sense is about acknowledging and facing what is without any intention or purpose of changing or fixing it. True spiritual acceptance requires an act of surrendering and allowing whatever is to take place without any reaction or interference to it. In reality whatever the mind reacts has little or no effect to what is except a fabricated perception of control. Not recognizing this reality is what creates our delusion.

In the imitation state of acceptance, there is always a desiring for what is to change – it may not be obvious in the foreground. One easy way to recognized it is to check whether there is a tolerating attitude going on at the background of the mind. Whenever I am tolerating, I am gritting my teeth in my mind, withholding myself back from bearing witness to what is, even though I may be facing it without much of a choice. Tolerance is an imitation of acceptance. On the other extreme, resignation is also an imitation of acceptance. When I finally see the futility of tolerance, I resign to the “fate” with animosity, giving up myself in a way that expresses my discontent and rejection. Both are extremes to acceptance. In true acceptance there is purely peace and impartiality.

In each true quality you may observed that there is always bound to have both extremes, on each end, mimicking the balance of its center. We can understand this logic as it take two ends to make a center. The Buddha’s teaching of gradual awakening is solely based on this understanding – coming into balance of both extremes – The Middle Path, the path that is founded by recognizing both extremes on each end – holding on and resistance, created by ignorance.

Holding on and resistance are both clinging or craving in nature. They manifest themselves as like and dislike, want and don’t want, desire and aversion. Both these nature springs from ignorance of what is – it is these nature that brought about the meaninglessness meaning of control. In reality, control is a freak, a lie – an unknowing fabrication that we took as a gospel truth in our day to day living. This lie proliferates practically in all our mental states, whenever there is no awareness and wisdom backing our actions. I may say all reactions are ignorance by nature.

The inward journey of finding myself is the continuous journey of recognizing imitations in the mind. All imitations have limitation by nature. I can’t change imitation as the word “change” already imply “I have the control to take charge”. Imitation releases me when I recognized it as untrue, as false.

Truth reveals when I recognize false as false.

Fear arises due to lack of understanding. When I am not grounded in understanding I find myself standing on uncertain ground. That uncertainty is my fear in action. As long as I am standing in unfamiliar ground, I am prone to vulnerability. To acknowledge and recognize this state propels me to inquire what I can be to maintain groundedness.

When I ignore this vulnerability and instead tries to overcome it through bringing in the opposites, say courage, I am in fact, not allowing myself to see the root of my fear. I may overcome it to a certain degree, but the root of fear will not be totally understood until I inquire within. That root of fear will re-manifest itself in other form. Fear is an indication for opportunity of wisdom to arise. Without fear, I would not have seen what is in me that I have ignored, that I have not understood.

Fear cannot be induced, it is a state that reminds me I am not that. If I am overwhelmed by fear, which I normally do, I will missed the opportunity for understanding to arise. If I were to remember to be in the presence of awareness and recognize fear is about non-understanding, I would have taken time to be with fear instead of fearing it. By staying with fear, fear releases me. I can’t release or run away from fear. Through faith and proper understanding, fear releases me.

I have fear of disapproval, fear of unworthiness, fear of insecurity, fear of lack – and many more unfounded fears. Those fears are real to me, yet, as the word “unfounded” implies – I have not found the reason of the fear. If I have understood the reason behind the fear, all my fears would have diminished. What caused my fear? What do I need to understand?

I look into the ideas that brought about fear. If I am afraid of disapproval, I inquire into my idea of seeking approval. Why is there a need to seek approval? Is it just an old idea I am believing that lacks intelligent questioning? Or is it just a perception of the past that is been brought into the present that may or may not be relevant to what is truly going on in the present process?

I can either recognize it as an old pattern that is no longer true or necessary, and allow openness to enter into my space. Or if I am already skilled in seeing it simply as ideas that are unprofitable, I can accelerate the healing journey by introducing a new profitable idea over it. This is by no means a covering method but rather a total replacement of what I know is no longer profitable to my well being. Neither is it a positive thinking. I can only replace what I understood or else it is just a cover up of what I am not willing to face.

In truth when I understood fully the causes of fear, replacement is no longer necessary as seeing the falseness of the idea reinstate me back to the truth. But so long as fear crops up as residual experiences, and I am able to see them as illusions of the mind, replacement technique can be an efficient tool. If I am experiencing fear of disapproval, I can turn it around by saying I am approved unconditionally. By doing that I am approving myself unconditionally irrelevant what conditioned is implied. I am simply undoing whatever idea that is conditioning me to have fear to another idea that is releasing me from the bondage of fear.

It may not work all the time but that too is alright as what is is indicating to me my lack of right understanding. For that I am encouraged to enter deeper into seeking what is blocking me from the truth. The journey is never ending until I come fully into love presence, the presence of infinite wisdom. Understanding or wisdom is the key factor that releases myself from my own self-imprisonment. And the bridge to it is self-inquiry.