WHO'S DOING IT?

What's happening for you? Whatever is happening, regardless of how you feel about it, is just happening. When a thought about what's happening jumps in, though, and we shrink our self to engage with the thought, a bodily feeling follows and, Bingo! We take it personally and emotion (thought-in-motion) gushes. And then we credit or blame someone else for that emotional geyser, and everything seizes up.

You might as well get used to the Ruthless Rule of Reality – We make ourselves feel. Our parents, our children, our enemies and even our friends will continue to press our hot buttons until each of us realises what it is in us that we won't go responsible for, yet. Much to our annoyance, these people keep showing us what's got us bushed and, I'm sorry to have to tell you, they're not going to change until we do; that's how much they love us.

The first step out of any blind alley you're in is to get that you (as in “ego”) are the sole cause – mark my words here – the sole cause of your own suffering. As Byron Katie said more than once – “Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be caused by another person. Offence is never given; it is only taken. If no offence is taken, there is no offence. No one outside me can hurt me. That's not a possibility. It's only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I'm the one who's hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don't have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I'm the one who can stop hurting me. It's within my power.

Question: When a thought is thought, who is the thinker? When a feeling is felt, who is the feeler?

Answer: There is no thinker or feeler. The thought we call Ego (because that's all Ego is) – the thought thought itself. The feeling felt itself into awareness. When the bag of thinking called ego jumps on board the thought/feeling, thinking “I am the thinker and feeler of this”, then suddenly the thought is thinking us, the feeling is feeling us, and we have forgotten what we are and become the victim of our own mistaken identity: we are neither the thinker, nor the thought, neither the emoter nor the emotion. We are an awareness of the thought being “thinked” and the emotion being felt. It has nothing to do with who-we-are, unless we get suckered by ego into thinking so.

The existence of any conflict in our life is entirely down to thoughts that create a fear for one's life. Mind, which is a bunch of thoughts, thinks “Without this thought I can't survive”, and suddenly you're off the freeway and into the wilderness. A ditch awaits you.

What is happening is just happening. What you're thinking and feeling is just happening in awareness. But when you let your “I” or “Me” jump in and get involved (try and stop them!) suffering arises.

By the way, you cannot stop a thought or a feeling arising. Try it! The more you try, the tighter you will spasm onto them. No one has ever been able to control his thinking or emotional reaction. Suppress or cover-up – maybe, but control – no, although some people may tell the story of how they have. I don't like their chances of living a healthy old age.

Around age 12 I got badly electrocuted and learned a valuable lesson about energy that's not flowing where it belongs. I learned that the harder I tried to let go, the harder it spasmed my muscles into a tighter grip. I had to relax and wait for the energy to let go of me. I learned that day to relax, remember what I am, drop trying to rid myself of the thoughts and feelings, and meet them instead with kindness and understanding. Then they let go of me.

I know I keep quoting certain people, but they say what I know so much better than I can. Like Byron Katie – “You are your only hope, because we're not changing until you do. Our job is to keep coming at you, as hard as we can, with everything that angers, upsets, delights, excites, attracts or repulses you, until you understand. We love you that much, whether we're aware of it or not. The whole world is about you.”

Life is good,

Life is kind

Life is very beautiful....

All that appears to be, to me

Is arising in me.

“I” is not the body,

“I” is not the mind;

“I” is the Aware Presence

Within which these things I do find

Author Unknown