To Believe is Naive
Last week we examined BELIEF vs. TRUTH and came to understand that BELIEFS are created by the outside world and exist in the mind, while TRUTHS, are experienced on the inside world and exist in the heart. Moving forward with the intention to: experience the experience, uncolored by other people’s crayons; I stumble upon the question of HOW? How do I experience the experience unflavored by past experience and untainted by other peoples’ agendas if that’s all I have EVER done, or can remember doing, or have been programmed TO do? How do I navigate with my heart as the driver and my mind as the passenger and NOT vice versa?
It seems to me, the first step in learning how to drive with my heart is through: RADICAL INQUIRY. Why RADICAL you ask? RADICAL because you are going to question all that you “think” that you know. You are going to question the very process you unknowingly use to LEARN. From the beginning, we have been TOLD. We have been TOLD what to do and how to do it; we have been TOLD what is right and what is wrong; we have been told what to think and how to think it, we have been TOLD to trust….trust our parents, trust our teachers, trust our leaders…..BUT how can we do THAT when we have ONLY been TOLD what trust LOOKS like and have never been encouraged to engage in what trust actually FEELS like. Looking is very different than feeling. Looking at the car is very different than driving the car. Looking at a pool of water is very different than diving in.
I don’t know about you, but I am tired of being TOLD; I’m tired of relying on the TELLER for MY peace. I’m tired of driving my life around in circles with my mind, dependent upon an external device called GPS for a preset destination, of which I have been TOLD to set.
For it is in the TELLER’S TELLING, that the separation with SELF manifests. If I listen to YOUR TELLING, and then compare it with MY OWN TELLING and it is different….now what? If I have been conditioned to trust in the authority, the expert, the parent, the teacher, etc. then I will automatically discount MY OWN TELLING, and boom!….THERE IT IS….the distrust of myself has sprouted! The more I distrust myself, the more I seek approval from everyone else. Why would my own approval matter if it has been proven “wrong” or “different” from the outside world authority of which I have been redundantly TOLD to trust?! Hence, the decline of my relationship with my inside world and trust of myself.
From a very young age my heart dipped out of the driver seat and sat passively in the passenger seat, feeling so utterly unworthy, as to even suggest an alternate route off the unpaved road in fear of being TOLD, once again, that my input could not possibly be as accurate as the GPS…..it is ONLY then can we realize that our obsession with a FALSE accuracy is steering us further away from the BOLD unknown direction of TRUTH.
So maybe we can start with our BREATH as inspiration for the kind of trust that is possible. Most of us are not riddled with stress about whether or not we are going to have enough air for our next inhalation. Maybe THIS is the teacher we have been unnecessarily searching for?! Maybe THIS is the kind of teacher we can learn about trust from, because THIS teacher is NOT outside of us; THIS teacher is not a TELLER, this teacher is THE TELLING itself from within. The ING in TELLING representative, of presence, and presence existing only in the NOW. And there you have it folks, lesson one on truth: it can only exist right now, hand in hand with breath. The best part…you don’t have to pay some exorbitant amount of money to study with a renowned guru, you don’t have to fly off to foreign a land, you don’t even have to leave your own home. All you have to do is close your eyes and consciously, curiously, engage with your breath. And not to worry, the breaths’ syllabus is infinite, cloaked full of subtleties and nuances that will guide you from your head, right down into your heart, as it comfortably slips back into the drivers seat of your life, where it belongs.
YES YOU CAN.
Blessed BE!
-Andrea Dawn
