Please Be Curious

“When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.”

 

The above quote by my man Carl Jung is one I consider often when observing my world, especially when my awareness lands on parts of my experience that leave me feeling like something else or someone else is responsible for whatever state of not-ok-ness I seem to be trying to wiggle my way out of. Confusion, anger, depression, spite, jealousy, resentment~need I go on?

For a good long time now, the terror that has been raining down on our world has left me confused, sad, a bit wiggly, but mostly wondering…

How am I a terrorist?

Or

How am I violent?

And

How do I blame others for my unhappiness? How do I hurt others? Who have I not forgiven? What unconsciousness inside of me is co-creating this nightmare? By what mechanism do I turn my own suffering or the suffering of others into a concept, rather than feeling the full thrust of our pain?

Basically ~ What aspect of my psyche feels so dastardly and unacceptable to me that I’m unwilling to own it?

As one of my great teachers Adyashanti said this last weekend, “The answer to your question is your life.”

Look, I think it’s fine that we are putting France flag filters over our Facebook profile pictures in an effort to show our support. I think it’s fine that today we were encouraged in yoga class to focus on what’s good, rather than get upset about the tragedies that happen everyday. I think it’s fine that we’re all pretty lost without our weapons of mass distraction. (actually, the WOMD are probably dangerous, depending on your level of psychological stability.) It’s okay to want to feel better, to not want to bring yourself and everyone around you down by focusing on the scary stuff.

It’s fine, but it’s palliative.

What feels very true to me is this: Pushing our attention away from the dark places in our world and psyche is only making the dark places darker. The more unconscious we insist on being, the more our individual and collective unconsciousness manifests itself in our world as events.

“There is no out there out there.“  Dr. Fred Alan Wolfe

I’m certainly not suggesting that spreading fear and unhappiness is the way either. And yes, there is so much beauty here ~ right here ~ mountains of things to give thanks for. However, remaining unconscious of how we are unconscious is how we perpetuate what horrifies us, and blaming and obsessing about what we perceive to be the problem only keeps us up north blowing around in the blustery winds of thought and far away from the places where actual transformation occurs ~ in the dark spaces we don’t want to go. If we have a hankering to truly heal our world we have to start with ourselves. I don’t mean this as just another nice idea. It’s bloody hard to admit and to feel that we’re not all sweet cream and sunshine. Guess what?  We’re actually selfish and judgmental too. (I just described myself.) To become whole ~ to heal ~  means in part, to turn our attention inward and face ourselves and own all of the ways we believe that the problem is “out there.” To simply get curious about how we project our darkness into the world and how we distract ourselves from the raw experience of feeling is a radical act of love. To let our hearts break wide open and feel the suffering that is here ~ right now ~  is to wake up from the dream of separation that is creating hell on earth.

There is only one and the one is grieving.