in Social Lounge by | Being Who I AM |
| Written by Matthew Spears |
| Friday, 09 January 2009 22:30 |
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That is the perfect word: limiting. All the while, in all the teachings I was attracted to, from Ramana Maharishi to Tibetan Buddhism to western teachers like Eckhart Tolle, there was an essential element that we are all unlimited. There is no end to who we are or what we can do. The only limitations I have are the ones I make for myself. Of course, I tried to reconcile this by saying "it's all this darkness that's the limitation. I need to let go of it. It needs to go away.". That's a lovely rationalization I made for myself: trying to cut out part of myself by saying that it was what was limiting me. Over the last two years, Karen and I have consulted Polaris in channeling about so many of our personal issues. It's a learning process for us, too. No matter how much love and wisdom we receive, it's still our experiences that are most important. And the love I've felt has shaken my foundations. This shaking has been partly the direct experience of their appreciation of all this "darkness" - the sharing in their deep perception that all the energy I thought was "bad" was truly a gift. This "gift" wasn't just new age positivity - it was their literal experience of it. After all, they were taking it in and dancing with it. The most rageful tantrum of anger, the most dark depression, and the most terrified hiding in the corner is all playful to them, because they see everything humanity as beautiful. And seemingly because of that, I find it inconceivable that they would get hurt in the same way I would.
This isn't an exercise for me: I truly am all those things. I try to see myself as a kaleidoscope of color on a canvas. The thoughts are like sprinkes of angel dust, sometimes arranging themselves into lines that hold the framework of other colors. The emotions are the colors themselves: sometimes passionate and bright, sometimes with the dull grey of an empty stomach pit. And the canvas itself is my body, easily overlooked, but just as beautiful, especially with its ever changing shape and responses. These thoughts help me see all of this as beautiful. And when I see beauty, I see beyond these limitations I create for myself. When I see myself as beautiful, I seem to immediately open myself to the universe: to everyone in the same challenge as me, to those wanting to help, and to those simply being in a state of appreciating the beauty of this world we live in. And in this community of that one moment, there seems to be an end of whatever struggle I have created for myself in this home I call a body.
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  written by lovingawareness, April 14, 2009
Impatience makes the body less comfortable to be in. That's my primary chief feature. :-)
I find that every time I think I accept myself as who I am, I discover more of myself and discover that there's some expansion needed to accept *that*! Write comment
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Being Who You Are. 
Part of my daily meditation practice for a while has been the Thich Naht Hahn-inspired "I am That" exercise. Whatever I see, I am that. If I see a politician on TV, I am that politician. If I see a beggar on the street, I am that. If I see an old video of Mother Theresa helping the desperate in Calcutta and New York, I am that. If I see a vortex of dark storm clouds in the sky that speak of an abyss about to envelop me, I am that too.
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when I was a child and young adult I had a hard time accepting my inner places. now, I'm living that part comfortably. who I am is just fine-- whether or not I'm living 'up' to some standard set by myself or someone else.
the part I have trouble with now is my body. as I grow old, it is less and less comfortable to live in. sometimes I get impatient to just let it go. obviously, I'm not ready yet, though.