Here’s a reminder.

You probably know this, but maybe you really, REALLY need it right now.

And we most definitely need reminders, as long as we’re so deeply and stubbornly engaged with the mind.

So let this sink in.

Once more.

Here we go.

One of the things that make our lives so difficult (and interesting, that too) is the absoluteness of our moods.

Our feelings and emotions in the moment capture ALL of our attention, and fill up every last piece and extremity of our body.

They color everything and not just the present moment, but also the past and the future of this ‘now’.

Our emotional experiences of life are extremely overwhelming and captivating.

When we feel like shit, everything seems to be covered in shit.

Our future.

Our personality.

Our career.

Our options.

Our relationships.

Tomorrow.

Last week.

And whatever we do, whatever we try, wherever we look: it all smells like shit.

That’s because moods change what we do and think and feel about in absolute detail.

When we’re lost in a mood, when we seem to be caught up in a feeling, it feels very important and sticky and real.

Because moods don’t really feel like moods.

They feel like life.

Our life.

So they fuck up everything, because we forget what’s going on.

Until they float away, that is, or dissolve, or get replaced.

Sometimes pretty quickly, sometimes not so.

But eventually, they do, they always do.

We’ve felt like shit and we’ve felt lost and sad and furious and without a clue thousands and thousands and thousands of times, but every time it happens, we fall for it again.

Instead of really seeing that this occurred many, many times before AND also disappeared again, we seem to be owned by it.

Every fucking time.

Just like all the million times before.

Our experiences are designed to obscure the lessons of the past, and the temporality of everything, to fool us again, and AGAIN.

That is the heart of the human experience.

The key to liberation is ridiculously obvious (but it gets covered up all the time).

Freedom starts with being lost in the moment, in the present very realistic creation, in the mood and the shit of this now… AND somehow know that.

We can KNOW that we’re lost.

We can know that it hurts like fuck, that we’re nervous and anxious.

Yes, even when we seem to be completely lost in life and moods and futures and failures, even when everything screams SHITSHITSHIT!!!… we can still know.

And that is very simple to prove.

We feel like shit… because we know that we do.

We feel afraid, lost, happy, satisfied, hungry, proud, fucked up, horny, whatever, because we KNOW that’s what we’re feeling.

And the weird thing is: this knowing, this awareness, is not part of the experience!

This knowing is actually the only neutral part of every experience we ever had and will ever have, and it’s the only thing that is always there, always, always, always, from every single experience to the next one, and in between.

Always.

This knowing is the incredibly subtle but extremely powerful background of life.

And you know what’s even crazier?

That’s us.

It’s you.

The background is our true nature, our essence, the real Self.

And the moment you realize that, recognize that, the moment you know the knowing, you’ve found freedom.

So get quiet.

Don’t make this into a technical or an intellectual thing.

Just try to fall back in your experience, and zoom out a bit.

Pay attention to nothing but being alive, not the mood, or the feelings, or whatever comes and goes.

Be alive, feel the aliveness itself.

Just know, know deeper than facts and ideas and moods.

Know, this incredibly rich, incredibly gentle, incredibly silent background.

And be that.

Can you feel it?

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(Photo by @mariodobelmann, for Unsplash)