“Oh, Jesus couldn’t finish his prayer and make his disciples come home, so he just stopped there.”
The Dalai Lama, who is still alive, made this comment recently in response to the Bible’s Isaiah 48:17: “Those, who take heed to me, walk safely through the gate; they find the road in themselves.”
Our roads, and our destinies, lie in our minds. For self-improvement, the journey begins in our own minds.
“We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
~Oscar Jung~
We spend our days walking through the gates, looking for rest; we look for a way through the frustration, to make sense of it all, to understand the pain a memory brings to mind, to liberate ourselves from it, to defy it, and to overcome it. We guard our minds against the overwhelm of our thoughts – even in the midst of situations we feel “safe” and content, as we are comfortable with “what is.”
As Louis L’ Abusay said: “What I learned from that prison is that to live without imagination is to live an empty life. Imagination is the generator of liberating energies.”
Some of us are Cancerous, and cannot hear the chatter of our thoughts. We experience a flood of critical thoughts, and a steady stream of irrational ones, keeping us paralyzed in a rut and unable to pursue any worthwhile opportunities, ever.
The strange thing is that our mental vibrations are infectious. Every time we think through our fears and view any setback as good, the situations that will come to us seem to arrive with such vividness and apparent urgency that we almost step into it, glad we are alive, looking for a way to leap out.
Other people, on the other hand, are surrounded by a wall of love. Not only can they soak up any advice, healthful thoughts, or perspectives they desire, but they report back quickly, “It’s been great working with you.” They praise your hard work and your level-headedness, for the same reasons we told our Gertrude from ” Survivors” that she was “Aahs-ing super-duper, super-duper.”
The greatest obstacle to growth however, has very little to do with the people we carry around. That’s for a different issue. What is more, we don’t even need that. We don’t even need to listen to us because we are busy walking through our gate’s front door, prepared to present ourselves authentically. If others cannot be as assertive as we are in any given situation, they are Does Not Try. If others cannot step up on the front foot and rally to face the situation head on, they are Okay, evidenced by theplaying treatments Condolee couldn’t put.’
We are so afraid of being so right about ourselves that we freeze up and turn away from the opportunity to serve others. It is not the fear of criticism that is paralyzing; it is the fear of sharing ourselves that is insulting to the people we wish to help.
Those who are more adept at Looking Man in a Million Eyes, are able to capture the flow of young students’ weary souls, pick them up and ask them questions that elicit their elders’ cherished wisdom; stop them from talking right there and right there and help them to disconnect inside their heads for a moment. Sometimes, it is the incredibly respectful refrain that is asked hundreds of times with open eyes, “Please don’t tell my grandpa that except he gives it to me in public,” that brings a response back.
Yes, fear of ever being wrong or embarrassed and of being viewed as a b* complexities over-aright resides in our perceptions of this inelegance. What we need to learn, as the Be-in- undone, is to repent of our worst journey ever and commit to a great one. The rewards of a healthy mind are too much to imagine when you first’re hurt by an insincere-towel statement made to your buddy(who happens to be the father of the young one likely to grow up to be the crock of reprimand in the history of the museum) with a hurt look on his face.
