Truth Is Beautiful

image with thanks via Ozcan Erturk on facebook

No Shortcut to Excellence & Beauty

You Can't Pour Water Into A Closed Vessel

Death Is Only A Portal

Sometimes, in moments of great pain and darkness, death appears seductive as the absolute escape.  But like all other distractions from the Here and Now, death’s promise is hollow; the relief or pleasure it provides, short-lived. 

The body is a garment that houses an invisible dweller.  Death is the portal that releases the dweller from its earthly abode, but does not, cannot, extinguish it.  The dweller carries with it, across the threshold of death, its invisible pain.

If pain is knocking at your door right now, let it in.  Let it speak to you, weep to you, rant and rave and lament.  Be brave.  Listen.  Look.  Allow it to come into form.  But remain the witness. Once it is form-ed, it is no longer invisible and no longer with the invisible dweller. 

Give your pain form so that you may set the invisible prisoner free of it.

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You Are A Hidden Treasure

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Disagreements and Conditional Motive

Disagreements and Conditional Motive

Generally the more aggressively we pursue an argument, the more resistant we find the other to be.  When the other is not receptive then our insistence on our point of view is experienced as a badgering by them. 

Someone who is receptive to our point of view is like a vessel with an opening into which our words and ideas can be poured.  In contrast, someone who is not open is like a closed a vessel and our attempts to get through to them are akin, metaphorically, to breaking them open so we can get through.  That is why we repeat ourselves, and become louder and more aggressive in our body language when we are in the middle of a heated disagreement.

The other person, generally, reacts with equal or more aggression or else withdraws into a closed-off, “cold” silence.  In either case, we are not getting through to them.  And we can feel it. Usually when we sense this, instead of backing off, we become more insistent and they in reaction, become more resistant.

If we are mindful, we can sense how receptive or closed off a person is.  And if they are not receptive to our words and ideas, then it is generally best not to impose them because this pursuit will benefit no one. 

In fact, what would be better is to check our own selves – how receptive are we to their point of view and experience?  Are we curious about what they are saying or have we made up our minds already?  Are we listening to them or to our own internal dialogue?  Are we judging them, waiting to respond just so we can prove them wrong?

Our own conditional motive – to be proved right, to fix the other – generally leads to conflict.  Even if we possess the truth and the remedy, it is no good to someone who is not willing to accept it.

photo: shahbano aliani

Worldly success can be a dangerous thing.

Worldly success (called expansion in sufic terms) can be a dangerous thing. 
Though we all love success, praise and affirmation, many of us have seen how damaging it can be.  A successful individual usually becomes arrogant, overestimating their own capabilities, and is surrounded by people who want to get something from him or her to benefit themselves.  In order to get what they want, these people lavish praise and gifts on the person and rarely question him or her.  Why?  Because they are not interested in the merit of the person’s words or actions, they are interested in the benefit they can secure for their own selves. 

Surely we have all met successful persons whom everyone agrees with, praises and never questions **even when what they say or do makes no sense or is clearly wrong.**  

Sometimes we have also witnessed these very same individuals “succeed” all the way down to their own destruction because they were surrounded by sycophants and refused to pay heed to the rare voice that disagreed with or questioned them.

It is easier to see the damaging effects of success in others, but much harder to see it in our own lives. We get intoxicated and lulled by success and affirmation.   That is why failure and criticism are so useful because they wake us up, make us uncomfortable and cause pain.  They can make us look inwards and question our own selves.

A person interested in their emotional and spiritual growth can surrender and benefit from failure (contraction) by opening up to the message and lesson in it; by working on their own selves.


photo credit: http://novellcounseling.org/