What Would You Give?
WE ARE ALL INVITED
Q: What Would You Give?
A: If you were on the precipice of real change, what would you sacrifice? And when I say real change, I mean from the inside of your bones kind of change. The change that ushers you into a new frontier of perspective because the old view no longer exists. People typically don’t like to change because it is deeply unpleasant. So you would have to want something greater than your own comfort for this to even be a valid inquiry. But what would happen if you could wipe the attachment from your own POV and truly give your full self in exchange to become different than you have ever been. Would you? What would you give?
Sometimes I wonder why I write these journals. They are very intimate and not fully articulate in ways that may make sense to others. And then I remember, I write these because they are blueprints for the step I am taking simultaneously as I type. These journal entries are present-moment thoughts, true and raw reflections of this morning's contemplation, or perhaps an earnest effort to bring the amorphic into form.
INNER WORK
Inner work is personal and individual. Everything I say and do will be reflected back to me by karmic law. There is no out, there is only through. Therefore, as I navigate “through” I share these words from my heart and mind with you, because quite honestly if I didn’t would I even exist? Are you following me thus far despite the Koan speak? In case you are lost, we are spiraling inward.
I am being serious. Look, I don’t know who I am in full. And quick digression, do any of us have that pristine of a picture of ourselves? And if someone does, is it of their egoic and crystalized dream state they’ve created that they know all too well? Or the alternative option to the egoic state; what lies beyond the self-created world? And how do we get there? In my novice opinion, from my experience, it appears that the only way I have been able to “go anywhere” is by dissolving from the known.
THE JOURNEY
Cue, this moment now.
Ok, now that you’ve been invited into a deep state of my mind, let me share something with you. For those of you who read my journals, you know by now that I am here for the journey. For the trials, the triumphs, and simply here to learn. And what I am learning right now has me in captivated awe. Total awe of the cost of what it takes to really get out of my own way. I am astonished at how full of “myself” I have been throughout my life. Completely full of my own created thoughts, dreams, visions, temperaments, attitudes, beliefs, preferences, etc.
At an obvious and rigorous threshold crossing of life, I recognize that the “cost” is in not being able to take many of the aforementioned aspects of myself with me into this new chapter of being. And maybe you would wonder why I would be attached to ways of being that don’t serve me? Well, have you ever tried to change a habit?
This is vulnerable, quite messy and the three words that I can offer to describe my moment are these, “I don’t know”. I am swimming in these words, fluid in texture, forgiving in nature, and are reminiscent of the in-between zone of where I have been and where I am going. And none of this matters unless I am willing to give myself over.
AN INVITATION
What does that mean? To who am I giving myself? Because of the cruel world of opinions and judgment placed upon others’ faiths, maybe I will keep that within. However, I will share with you that in my experience, there is an invitation in my heart and it is up to me to accept or deny this. I believe we all have this invitation. And now that I know it exists, I would be a fool not to accept. Yet, (clearing throat) accepting this does equal death to my identity and life as I have known it. And, as “easy” as it is to type that sentence, there is nothing “easy” about living that into reality. It is the opposite actually.
And then amidst dramatic pause, the paradox emerges…if I do not choose to die to myself, my false personality, and my ego - the only choice is self-deception. The question then becomes, which is more difficult? To boldly step where I have never gone before, into the horizon of possibility through sacrificing my ego and choosing self-honesty? Or to live asleep to reality, surviving on the fumes of the collective consensus that suffering is a way of life and that distraction is the new God?