A Dialogue With Myself

Have you ever had a situation where you wanted to love someone freely but you couldn't? For whatever reason you felt constricted or tight? Your heart longed to forgive, or to release, or to spontaneously become available to a higher energy... but there you sat, stuck and closed?

I've had a couple of days recently like that. With great sincerity, I desire to love freely in my life, to ignite this grand heart like a cosmic explosion. I revel in the warmth and courageous tenderness of an open heart and desire to invite every living being into that space with me.

But some days this darn heart just feels closed and guarded. It does not cooperate.

So, hoping to investigate this resistance to love, I ventured into an internal inquiry today -- a dialogue with parts of myself. What if I was an innocent bystander peering into this heart? What if I had nothing to defend and simply looked deeply without agenda? What if I could see my constriction with clear eyes, not clouded by identity or ego, as if I was examining someone else's life rather than my own? What would I observe here and how would I describe it?

Ego Self: I feel hurt, misunderstood, maligned, unappreciated...or any other number of emotions that accompany my constriction.

Higher Self: Who feels that?

ES: Well, "I" do.

HS: Who is this "I"?

ES: "I" am the one who wants to feel validated, understood, cared for and appreciated.

HS: And who is that?

ES: I am the competent, thoughtful, reflective woman who cares deeply for the peace, happiness, and well-being of all people and our planet. I pray that we all awaken into our highest expression and know the divine light that shines within. I commit my life to serving this global awakening and surrender my will to the universal will in whatever way is called.

HS: Sounds rather saintly.

ES: So how come I sit here feeling closed and tight? I'm supposed to be someone who's loving and compassionate, damn it. I'm supposed to be a lot of things, according to me, that I'm not feeling right now.

HS: But if I look closely and with beginner's eyes, with no need to defend or preserve even a single fragment of my current view of self, what is the truth about this identity? The truth is I'm defending a ghost. My identity is completely fictitious. It is a storyline made up by me, energized by me, and acted out by me, but is not who I am. My reactions and hurt feelings are a direct artifact of the very identity that claims to be so noble. Without an identity, there would be nothing at all to defend. There would be no image to protect. This identity is too small -- any identity is too small.

ES: If I don't have boundaries, definitions, or identifications to assert, then what is left of "me"?

HS: When the pretense and masks of the false self fade away, what radiates forth is the inner effulgence of the soul. It is the authentic love and authentic light. The light of pure intelligence imbued with rapture and delight. This is not the kind of love you add as a casual descriptor on your list of personal attributes. It is beyond personal. It is the cosmic radiance that infuses the core of every being.

When you feel constricted, know that you are being called into this greater love. The constriction is a pregnant pause, a signaling moment, to let you know the time is...now! The time to release the next layer of identity that obscures the brilliant and beautiful radiance that is you. Constriction signals the moment to summon all your courage and to truly see -- without blinders or excuses -- how your identity locks you into certain orientations in this world... and to let it go. It is time to surrender the standard defenses, voluntarily melting yourself down into a molten state so the majesty and splendor of your being can shine through.

This eternal effulgence is the truth of who you are.

You are the greater love. You are the radiance.

Comments

[lungfish]

In psychological vernacular it sounds like you have been traumatized in some way and you are on the defensive. Something is triggering you in this way and it may be related to something that isn't resolved. Maybe you know what it is, maybe you have to dig in to find it. You can rationalize it, a little, with calls to a "higher" perspective but if you don't resolve it you will continue to deal with it.
The idea that you can just switch into a "higher" mode and no longer face the traumas, complexes and coexs of your life is naive. The whole purpose of the spiritual journey involves deconstructing yourself to the point where you can have ecstatic experiences (Greek - ecstasis - outside the body) and interact with the spiritual realm. This is the purpose living an aescetic lifestyel, fasting, praying and focusing on your internal nature. Anything else, even if you use "spiritual language" is simply denial, a failure to engage.
What you are doing, it seems, is focusing on the goal or the arrival and discarding the journey and the pain and sore feet that comes with it. To become spiritual means that you are actively purifying yourself by confronting and laying your demons to rest. If you simply deny them in your waking life, they will manifest in your dreams and your daily life. You may come up with a technique to knock them back when they appear but that isn't the same as overcoming and removing them altogether­...
Back to the blocking of your ability to love openly - the only way to disarm that block is to identify its source and remove the obstacle. There is nothing instant about it. There is meditaion, prayer and study involved and you have to do it if you want to eliminate it. You can't set a time limit on it, you can't do it instantly. It will take a long as it takes to understand it and internalize it. Then you can move forward. Your "beliefs" have nothing to do with it other than the faith that truly removing the obstacle will make the path more clear and free you of un-necessary hindrances so that you can continue on your journey towards becoming unbound.
Otherwise all you are really doing is behavior modification or self hypnosis while failing to understand yourself.

[Pandu]

It must be tough having an atheistic 'higher self."

The identity related to this body is not "me," but still I am an individual. Stacey has quoted from Bhavadad-gita in this column. In Bhagavad-gita 2.12, "Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be." Here Krishna is speaking of individuals, and he characterizes them as individuals eternally. The merging of individuality is an atheistic myth.

Why is it atheistic? If individuality is unreal, then all identity is illusion. The misconception develops to the point of thinking "I am God." However, the God position is already occupied, and you and I are not in it. If I say that I am the Pope, everyone is the Pope, it is an insult against the actual Pope. Similarly, the claim that all is one, everyone is God, is an offense against God. It also contradicts God's direct statements in Bhagavad-gita.

It is actually true that the "eternal effulgence is the truth of who you are," but missing is the fact that the eternal effulgence that is the source of the living entites is not the effulgence of nothing; it is Krishna's bodily glow, and each of us is one particle of that.