Battlegrounds of Illusion
The battleground of sports performance and life. Sport is nothing other than a metaphor for life. Nothing is as tortured as an athletes un-manifested goal, it is tortured because of the minds attachment and addiction to win or fail.
Performance is a battle. It takes place not in the world of doing but inside of us.
We don’t win out against the external environment at all, we win out against our own thinking and judgment, this is the true reason winning is so satisfying.
The satisfaction is not felt out there in the world, it is felt in here. For a moment there is deep satisfaction with oneself and the judgment falls silent. It is the love of the peace and silence in that satisfaction that calls us to repeat it, but why did we lose it?
Before too long we became restless again, the mind kicks in and starts it’s search for another outcome, another goal post, another postcode that does not exist.
The circular pattern begins its journey again, our restlessness leads us to once again look outwards for a manifested outcome that temporarily makes us feel whole.
The torture of nothing ever being enough. How many accomplishments will it take to fill the void?
Education, sport, relationships, the addiction to moving on once the energy starts to wane is a signal from the inside that we need to come home, but we never do.
Sadly we move on again and again to projected greener pastures that do not exist, or if they do, not for very long. That is the irrefutable truth of the outer manifested world, it is constantly changing, dissolving and transient.
The fact is that if we are able to come home, if we are able to stay grounded, seated at our own core this torture can be alleviated.
We can enjoy the fruits of our labour here in this moment and see it for what it really is, a doing in the outer world of objects.
That doing is observed from an energy source that is not anchored in the world of doing, it is clearly outside of it, rooted, grounded and profoundly anchored in being.
Regardless of what happens, win, fail, draw, it changes not, only the thoughts that travel through it do, which are also part of the outer world; transient, temporary, arising and dissolving.
Because we believe our thoughts to be at our source, we believe our thoughts to be who we are, and hence we believe ourselves to be an object in an outer world of doing. Consequently we define ourselves by what we do, hence we suffer, we are tortured endlessly by a never ending realm of gain and loss.
It’s a lie, and it’s an untruth!
I’d be a hypocrite to suggest I do not also suffer from this illusion, the fear of the loss of my wife, my children, my house, my athleticism, I could go on but I know I don’t need to.
A constant state of needing to be more, needing to do more. I try to keep myself safe by doing more so I can be seen as being more.
The more I do to gain that projected safety, the less I am. Man what a paradox!
I lose myself to doing, I compare myself, worry about being taken over by the latest new thing, the better looking, the stronger, the smarter. Ultimately that better looking, stronger, smarter also becomes dated, superseded and worn.
Nothing is stable. Nothing is safe, nothing is out there!
One realm however that never goes to sleep rises above all, again and again, in our direct experience.
It is the unchanging in the changing, the realm that contains all our transient, wims and desires, our addictions to the new, the fresh, our search for safety through doing, our dreams, hopes, goals, wins, failures and all of the transitory thoughts that make it all up.
If you can stand back for a moment and look at it all with clarity, you can become aware of its dream like quality.
All of it is appearing within this realm we were born into, what is this container that is observing all of this?
All of this effort, all of this straining, this judgment, all of this non stop thinking, all of this never ending doing, the winning, the losing, the birth, the death, the nature, the beauty, the horror, the dark, the light, the good, the bad.
You know it and observe it all, all of it appears in you. Forget the confusion, the stories and the arguments for a moment and fall silent to this place that holds all of it.
What is this entity that observes and is aware? If I am who and what I think I am, how is it that I know this thinking appears in me?
“I am” sees this thinking, my thinking cannot see I am. Again because of this illusion, I buy into my thoughts as being my definition.
I am clearly not what I think, I am the one who observes, lovingly observing.
Never flinching for a second, through all the doubt, fear, fog and confusion, through all my feeble attempts at trying to express myself to you.
Through the limited, narrow corridor of my mind and thinking that we hopelessly try to communicate to each other with.
My hopeless attempts at using words to try to describe the depths of my love that are not taken the way I intend them to be taken.
Consider this for a moment, where would any sentient being on this planet be without love?
This observer is made of it, it creates the beings on this planet through only one portal, love. Does the doing in this world take us towards love or away from it?
If it takes us away from love, it takes us away from life, because life is love and love is life, it is all that you can come in with and the only thing you can go out with.
Not to be against doing, but is there love in it or not?
It’s a simple exploration.
Love what you do, love what you have, love who you have!
Anyone else being triggered by these words?
Have you ever wondered? Who and what is it that is observing?
All of it seen, only all of it!
Who are we really?
What are we truly capable of?