“Never miss an opportunity to give your ego a blow!” –Swami Kriyananda
Funny, I always doubted that the purpose of life was simple survival. If it was, then every single being on the planet can be said to have failed miserably. No, we must be here for something more transcendent, don’t you think?
So it is with great pleasure that I come through a very difficult period, one in which I’ve lost – kicking and screaming the whole time – attachments I had to my family of origin, my children, my country, my home, my career… even my life. I have slowly been weaned off of everything. My house had been cleaned out, as it were. Empty to its core, but still standing… incredibly.
My “self” has finally become so unmoored from physical attachments that it finally begun to re-identify with the infinite, instead of the finite.
Which brings me to today’s realization: Every time the ego arrives at a dead end, with no money, no hope, no chance… and finally calls on God – like Pinocchio calling out for the Blue Fairy – that, my friends, is a day of great “success” for the soul. The soul has been patient with us while we carried on about our survival, whined about holding on to what wasn’t meant to be permanent, shrieked about staying “in control,” (whatever that means).
We even have to fail at the spiritual search, if you can imagine. The spiritual teacher Adyashanti says, “Everything that I used to succeed spiritually failed. But at that moment of failure, that’s when everything opens.”
So yes, it is in these times of great “fear and trembling” that we are finally willing to Grow Up out of our limited, personal identities, and dare reach out into the Infinite again.
Seen from this viewpoint, where even our failures and losses are helping to push us onward, we Finally Get To Relax. We no longer prefer gains over losses in life.
Everything is seen as win-win.
Joy Biscuits 