Author: tomgrasso (Page 10 of 38)

I can feel the shackles coming off.  Boundaries set by others, boundaries I have set on others, and shackles self-imposed that once bound me to the ground are falling by the wayside.  I can feel my arms opening, my heart being left without defense, and my soul being bared by each moment I’m alive.

It’s liberating even if I am only just beginning!

Now, I am imagining the ideas of “right and wrong” I once had and shared with those around me.  Was I really wrong or did I simply not share the perspectives of others who judged me as wrong?  Was I sinning or was I simply being contrary to the IDEAS of behavior pressed upon me?  Was I reacting to fear, or was I having the experience necessary to end fear’s hold on my mind?

Was it all wrong?

I certainly know that I appreciate these moments of light because of the experience of darkness I have had.  I certainly know that I am grateful for the Love in my life because of the experience of fear I have had.  I’m not sure, right now, that any of it was wrong.  It was right in some respects.  Each moment of suffering, whether my own or shared, defined my vision of Self and the way I wanted to be.  If this is true, how can those moments be wrong?

Sin, to me, is a guide.  It simply means that, at most levels, the experience of sin is necessary in order to experience a moment free from sin.  Since this life experience I have had has been fraught with suffering and denial, I am able to truly know freedom, Love and acceptance.

So, it seems necessary to stop “beating myself up” for things.  They happened, just like a major earthquake, and now it is time to move on.  The earth shook, so the question remained, “what will I do now?”

I could sit and wallow in suffering as I have, or I can take the experience and use it to benefit others.  I can sit and cry amidst the rubble, or I can start removing it to help others.  I can blame God for the devastation or I can begin cleaning it up.  I can remain in judgement and misery or I can find joy in the work of forgiving and Loving.

So, guess which I choose?

I choose to surround myself with loving, caring spiritual guides who magnify my vision.  I can love them unequivocally without role playing, without pretension, and without reservation.  I can share in their experience rather than own it.  I can offer them a hand and have them take it or leave it without judgement.  I can be mySelf.

Yes, that is liberating and I wish I could simply wave a wand and have everyone enjoy it.  That would be counterproductive, because without those who reserve their love, or role play, or act in pretentiousness I could not truly experience anything else.  They need to make the shift on their own, as their own experience and understanding is the best “wand” ever created.  They need to be who they are without my interference.

That, my friends, is why I love these “challenges” as much as I love all of you!  I love those who wish to bind me to “past roles” as much as I love those who allow me to be “me.”  I love those who judge me as much as I love those who accept me.  I love those who challenge me with their rules, rites and rituals as much as I love those who require nothing.

“Love one another as I have loved you,” is to say, “love your executioner as much as you love your lover.”  Why?  Both are equally important to the experience you are here to have, and if you condemn one you condemn your experience.  If you condemn your experience you are condemning yourself.  You cannot experience happiness in condemnation.

It appears, from my perspective, that we are way too busy condemning ourselves and our experiences to actually enJoy them.  We plant negative seeds in everything we do, then we water them and give them food.  When they sprout, we condemn them as if we had no part in their growth.  We get tangled in the weeds we have planted and nurtured, condemn the weeds we have planted and nurtured, and then blame someone or something else for the condition we find ourselves in.  All the while, we were in control, and we were the problem.

So, I am not “pulling the weeds.”  I am embracing them and seeing how they got there.  I am also planting different seeds.  Soon enough, the weeds themselves will fade.  They need attention to live, and I refuse to give them the attention they crave.

I love this present with all my heart.  Whether alone or with the love of my children embracing me I am happy.  Whether talking to the walls or being surrounded by the Love of friends I am at peace.  I needed this, and now that I have it I simply want to feed it, water it and give it the sunshine it needs to dominate my landscape.  YES!!

Peace!

Let me clarify at the beginning that by “suffering” in this post I mean EMOTIONAL suffering, not physical suffering.  It’s an important distinction here, since I believe the roots of emotional suffering are different than the roots of physical suffering.  With that in mind, allow me to continue.

The question is not whether or not you will “stand by me,” but whether or not I will stand by YOU.  I can’t be concerned with your actions, regardless of what my ego says I’d like to have happen.  What I can do, however, is understand my own truth and simply live up to it.

I say “simply” but certainly understand there usually is nothing “simple” about it.  In the battle between ego and awareness our minds often cater to the lowest common denominator.  While it is true we must be at our most aware during these moments, it also seems true that we also must have the very human experience of catering to that low point.  We must suffer, it seems, to have the human experience to its fullest even as we strive to attain a place where no suffering appears.

Is the hand giving or taking? Grasping or patiently waiting? The perception is yours to make...

The question I am asking is whether or not I should I cry with those suffering, hold them, yell with them, fight alongside them, or should I seek the end of those experiences?

What is wrong with those experiences anyway?  What’s wrong with having a good breakdown when your relationship fails?  What is wrong with crumbling to the floor when what is doesn’t jive with what you want to be?  What is wrong with being human?  Why do we hate who we are so much as to always be seeking that which we are NOT?

More importantly, to this thought anyway, why do I feel the need to make someone who is sad smile?  Why do I have to say to them (abstractly of course) “you are suffering, that is wrong, and I will help you change it?”  Why can’t I simply hold their hand and share in the experience as if it is absolutely perfect in the moment?

Sadness doesn’t make a person who is beautiful suddenly ugly.  Not to me anyway.  In fact, it  highlights their beauty to me.  Their suffering doesn’t make them suddenly unappealing to me, if fact it is a common thing we have as human beings.  What the suffering of someone we care about does is fundamentally scare us.  We want to end their suffering because we want someone to magically end our own.  We want to make them smile when they are sad because we want an end to our sadness.  Our actions have as much to do with our own needs as it does with those who we care about.

I’d suggest not trying to end suffering.  Don’t comfort to end sadness, comfort to share it.  Don’t crack a joke to make someone crying suddenly burst out in laughter, just sit and cry with them.  Don’t hold them to say “it’s alright, it will be over soon,” but rather hold them as if to say “I am here with you, in this moment right here and right now, and we will walk through this together.”

If that provides comfort, so be it.  In this way, the one suffering is doing the comforting, and you are simply sharing in the process.  Don’t interfere with the process, simply share in it.  Imagine how close two people SHARING in sadness become in that shared experience?  When you walk through the fires of hell with someone isn’t that something more beneficial than preventing the walk in the first place?  I’d believe so.