Question:
I am an alcoholic and I have been in AA and back to recovery a few times. My family doesn't know it, but I am hiding what I am doing now. I feel so much shame and guilt. By chance, I came upon you and I am wondering if there is anything that you might suggest. Nothing has worked. I just feel so guilty and my mind is driving me crazy.
Katie:
First, I am not a recovery specialist, nor a psychologist. It is perfectly appropriate for you to return to your specialist and if you have not tried therapy, that will indeed support you within the individual identity and its story.
People usually come upon this teaching, when they are suffering and most everything has failed. Either that or they have a deep longing for the Divine or been blessed with a single instant, when they have been shaken out of the mind and its time. Perhaps, for whatever reason, you are ready to inquire more deeply into the Truth of your being. This is why we meet. Yes, addiction is of the body-mind, but there is something deeper here, right now, within you. Its discovery is the resolution of all psychological suffering. I must point that the primary addiction is compulsive thought. That is, over-thinking.
Ultimately, you are the only true answer. The past is nothing but a graveyard, let it go. Of course, we have our very endearing moments of relative happiness and then they just disappear. We are left by ourselves … or with more people that we can hardly bear … and then suffer. This is the reality of the time-based mind, its problems and endless conflicts.
The problem seems to be that people search in a horizontal manner to find some sort of happiness. They try work and it works for a little while, since the desire for work has ceased. We look for happiness in relationships and then we get one. Desire stops and we seem happy for awhile then discontentment resurfaces. Try virtually anything within in the field of every day experience meaning every person, every circumstance, every situation or activity that we THINK is going to make us happy and we find it works for a time and then once again it was only fleeting.
The problem seems to be that people search in a horizontal manner to find some sort of happiness. They try work and it works for a little while, since the desire for work has ceased. We look for happiness in relationships and then we get one. Desire stops and we seem happy for awhile then discontentment resurfaces. Try virtually anything within in the field of every day experience meaning every person, every circumstance, every situation or activity that we THINK is going to make us happy and we find it works for a time and then once again it was only fleeting.
It is never the object that has been attained, won, achieved or intended that causes happiness … let’s call it joy, since it is deeper, caused by nothing, in need of nothing, and virtually permanent. The truth of the matter is, desire ceases, since what we wanted was claimed. Discontentment remerges and we think, “not wrong again!” So it is the lack of desire and not the object that allows true peace.
So, we have searched that way for a lifetime. Think that you have finally got it together … and poof! Then guilt comes creeping in to add more of the same old discontentment, except each time it gets a little deeper and uglier. “What's wrong with those other people!” “What’s wrong with ME?!”
Well, the thing is, you can’t just take my word for it, but it calls for curiosity. You have been conditioned since birth that you are ME and that the ME means that you are a body. Your parents taught you, just like their parents, the whole premise was totally assumed. Is it really true? Well, I never questioned these matters either. I assumed like everyone else. Everything on the ‘outside’ appeared to be perfect. I didn’t even know that I had an ‘inner world’ and inner reality. Without cause, I suddenly awakened to an entire new dimension of reality. Through happenstance alone, I directly witnessed that I was not my body, nor its thoughts, nor the emotional eclipses. Since I became aware of them, I couldn’t be them. I had to be entirely beyond them. Who in the world was that, that was aware of everything?! All of a sudden I was tossed out of a daytime dream reality of the mind to the absolute love and joy of the Heart.
I am not going to suggest that you 'do' anything. Doing is more of the thinking that is the addiction. Any ‘doing’ is only more of the mind. I am going to ask you to stop and begin watching what is really true. If you are searching for joy, you can’t find it … because you ARE joy. It is just like you can’t see your own eyeball and yet it sees. You can’t see joy, the joy that you are.
So the immediate question is then, well, where is it?! How do I find it? Well, you stop all of the escape strategies and all of the salvation ideas. You cannot escape or become what you already are. There is an awareness that is here no matter where you go or what you do. You are aware while you are driving, aware while you are working, aware always. Even while you are nighttime dreaming, you are aware. Well awakening, is really pretty much like waking from a nighttime nightmare, except you wake up even further to the daytime dream of mind. There is nothing unique or for that matter peculiar to realizing that you have spent your entire life DREAMING!!!! The matter of the fact is, awakening is NORMAL! The mind’s idea of living in conflict, identification with the body, suffering … even pleasure … is not normal by any means. When we wake up to the mind and all of its suffering thoughts … we just move into maturing wisdom that is the real nature of the human being.
Mind is tantamount to time. Mind and its thoughts require time and time is equal to suffering. Mind = suffering. Time = suffering. “ME” = suffering.
You have this beautiful awareness within you and its nature is joy. I call it the Heart. The mind-made self (“me”) walks around in a dream and wonders why it is suffering. Well, if you ever said the word “rose” to someone who does not speak English … the word is utterly meaningless. So we have been taught “I” and that “I” is the body. If you are aware of the body … you cannot be the body. So, what is the meaning of this word? If you don’t know that the word "rose" is a lovely flower with a beautiful fragrance and lovely bloom, it just seems like nonsense. Who is “I?” You begin watching within to discover the Truth for yourself. You become curious and decide for yourself to take a look. Not by mental philosophy and concepts. Concepts are only more mind.
You say that your mind is driving you crazy. That is a level of maturing wisdom. Most people still are not even really aware that thought is going on and on and on compulsively. You are aware of your thoughts. Rather than getting up and moving into activity, shift your attention to the awareness of the thoughts. Who is that who is aware? The separate sense of self, the mind made sense of self is like the very bottom layer of a chocolate cake. The bottom layer is “me and my story,” time, I am my mind, I am the body, I am the ego and I AM THE SUFFER. This level of awareness has absolutely no idea that all of the levels above it even exist.
So, we have searched that way for a lifetime. Think that you have finally got it together … and poof! Then guilt comes creeping in to add more of the same old discontentment, except each time it gets a little deeper and uglier. “What's wrong with those other people!” “What’s wrong with ME?!”
Well, the thing is, you can’t just take my word for it, but it calls for curiosity. You have been conditioned since birth that you are ME and that the ME means that you are a body. Your parents taught you, just like their parents, the whole premise was totally assumed. Is it really true? Well, I never questioned these matters either. I assumed like everyone else. Everything on the ‘outside’ appeared to be perfect. I didn’t even know that I had an ‘inner world’ and inner reality. Without cause, I suddenly awakened to an entire new dimension of reality. Through happenstance alone, I directly witnessed that I was not my body, nor its thoughts, nor the emotional eclipses. Since I became aware of them, I couldn’t be them. I had to be entirely beyond them. Who in the world was that, that was aware of everything?! All of a sudden I was tossed out of a daytime dream reality of the mind to the absolute love and joy of the Heart.
I am not going to suggest that you 'do' anything. Doing is more of the thinking that is the addiction. Any ‘doing’ is only more of the mind. I am going to ask you to stop and begin watching what is really true. If you are searching for joy, you can’t find it … because you ARE joy. It is just like you can’t see your own eyeball and yet it sees. You can’t see joy, the joy that you are.
So the immediate question is then, well, where is it?! How do I find it? Well, you stop all of the escape strategies and all of the salvation ideas. You cannot escape or become what you already are. There is an awareness that is here no matter where you go or what you do. You are aware while you are driving, aware while you are working, aware always. Even while you are nighttime dreaming, you are aware. Well awakening, is really pretty much like waking from a nighttime nightmare, except you wake up even further to the daytime dream of mind. There is nothing unique or for that matter peculiar to realizing that you have spent your entire life DREAMING!!!! The matter of the fact is, awakening is NORMAL! The mind’s idea of living in conflict, identification with the body, suffering … even pleasure … is not normal by any means. When we wake up to the mind and all of its suffering thoughts … we just move into maturing wisdom that is the real nature of the human being.
Mind is tantamount to time. Mind and its thoughts require time and time is equal to suffering. Mind = suffering. Time = suffering. “ME” = suffering.
You have this beautiful awareness within you and its nature is joy. I call it the Heart. The mind-made self (“me”) walks around in a dream and wonders why it is suffering. Well, if you ever said the word “rose” to someone who does not speak English … the word is utterly meaningless. So we have been taught “I” and that “I” is the body. If you are aware of the body … you cannot be the body. So, what is the meaning of this word? If you don’t know that the word "rose" is a lovely flower with a beautiful fragrance and lovely bloom, it just seems like nonsense. Who is “I?” You begin watching within to discover the Truth for yourself. You become curious and decide for yourself to take a look. Not by mental philosophy and concepts. Concepts are only more mind.
You say that your mind is driving you crazy. That is a level of maturing wisdom. Most people still are not even really aware that thought is going on and on and on compulsively. You are aware of your thoughts. Rather than getting up and moving into activity, shift your attention to the awareness of the thoughts. Who is that who is aware? The separate sense of self, the mind made sense of self is like the very bottom layer of a chocolate cake. The bottom layer is “me and my story,” time, I am my mind, I am the body, I am the ego and I AM THE SUFFER. This level of awareness has absolutely no idea that all of the levels above it even exist.
Most people identify with their thoughts. “I feel so guilty.” Those thoughts are like photographs and mental images. It is like looking at the same dull and boring photos over and over again. Through some grace, we finally get sick of them and begin observing who is that who is aware of them.
1. Shift your attention from thought and start observing the awareness. This begins an inward journey and ends in the discovery of an indestructible joy that you will realize that has always been here. (“not me, this is too weird, I can’t do this, surely there must be something else.”) This is the only way out that is truly lasting and the beauty is that it is already here. We just dust off the concepts of the mind and we see that it is simply already radiant.
2. Go buy Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now, http://www.eckharttolle.com/. The book is masterful at dissecting the concepts of mind, the ego and its idea of time. Can you show me the past? It isn’t here other than a thought. Thought includes mental images (photos of the mind). Events in your life are nothing more than notches on a chronological dateline. Yet, we maintain an emotional relationship with them. Simply, we cannot maintain our painful story and get rid of the pain. Makes sense doesn’t it? Retelling the painful story perpetuates pain.
3. Accept nothing unless you directly look and find it to be true. Even then, it is only true temporarily. Keep observing deeper within you and deeper yet. Each time letting go of old beliefs and assumptions.
1. Shift your attention from thought and start observing the awareness. This begins an inward journey and ends in the discovery of an indestructible joy that you will realize that has always been here. (“not me, this is too weird, I can’t do this, surely there must be something else.”) This is the only way out that is truly lasting and the beauty is that it is already here. We just dust off the concepts of the mind and we see that it is simply already radiant.
2. Go buy Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now, http://www.eckharttolle.com/. The book is masterful at dissecting the concepts of mind, the ego and its idea of time. Can you show me the past? It isn’t here other than a thought. Thought includes mental images (photos of the mind). Events in your life are nothing more than notches on a chronological dateline. Yet, we maintain an emotional relationship with them. Simply, we cannot maintain our painful story and get rid of the pain. Makes sense doesn’t it? Retelling the painful story perpetuates pain.
3. Accept nothing unless you directly look and find it to be true. Even then, it is only true temporarily. Keep observing deeper within you and deeper yet. Each time letting go of old beliefs and assumptions.
And by all means, get the help that is presently required to help you live within the circumstances in a balanced manner. In the end however, you are the only answering.
Katie Davis Website: www.katiedavis.org
Katie Davis Website: www.katiedavis.org
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