It\u2019s actually my job.<\/p>\n
People come over and throw problems and pains and discomforts and doubts and worries and fears at me, and then they ask:<\/p>\n
\u2018What should I do?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018How should I behave?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Why do I keep doing this?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Why don\u2019t I start doing that and stick to it?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018How can I change?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018How do I make the world change?\u2019<\/p>\n
And of course the one I hear almost everyday:<\/p>\n
\u2018Do you have any tips and tricks?\u2019<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with the last question.<\/p>\n
When I ask them what kind of tips and tricks would be helpful and powerful and transformative enough to get rid of things they\u2019ve been stuck with for years, they have no clue.<\/p>\n
Still, most people really believe that \u2018just doing something\u2019 will wipe away the debilitating experience of being a specific someone they are so used to.<\/p>\n
As if one activity (\u2018wake up early and make your bed!\u2019) or habit (\u2018meditate every day for 23 minutes\u2019) or bloody obvious insight (\u2018when people talk about you, they never really talk about you\u2019) instantly lifts the heavy fog of the fundamental misunderstandings you have about life.<\/p>\n
True clarity is the absence of knowledge, not the accumulation of it.<\/p>\n
The confusion we live in derives from being totally attached to and caught in our amazing imagination, and the automatic and full attention we give the mental creations we are constantly presented with.<\/p>\n
All this can be tremendously painful and complex (an it often IS), and the way to stop it is seeing it for what it really is.<\/p>\n
The ONLY thing people need to really see to get over it, is that they are actually Consciousness caught up in a tiny, temporary and very realistic fabrication.<\/p>\n
But most of them don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Because, well, that\u2019s not how it works.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s now how WE work.<\/p>\n
We experience what we experience, and that seems to be way more important and realistic than understanding how and why it actually feels that way.<\/p>\n
When we\u2019re confused and fucked up, most of the time we\u2019re too zoned out in discomfort and misunderstanding to appreciate the subtle peace that still exists somewhere in the back of our experience.<\/p>\n
Telling people what is actually going on, just pisses most of them off.<\/p>\n
So I talk about psychology and the intellect and opinions and the past and habits and angels and the future and relationships and labels and triggers and pain bodies and whatever comes to mind in the moment, just long enough to get them to settle down.<\/p>\n
And the settling down is where it actually happens (although I like to believe that my amazing eloquence is very important too).<\/p>\n
It takes just a couple of seconds of pure, untainted awareness to feel that deepest spark of unlimited aliveness again, to smell the faintest whiff of home, and when that connection is somehow recognized, people are on their way up.<\/p>\n
Like miracles waiting to happen.<\/p>\n
They will not be free from their habitual suffering straight away (not even close: most of the time there\u2019s still a lifetime of habitual shit to see through), but at least they are in a much better position than they were for a loooong time.<\/p>\n
This first glimpse is the turning point, the fertile ground for a profound awakening.<\/p>\n
And it is way, WAY more important than the perceived helpfulness of any tip and trick.<\/p>\n
The thing is: we can be caught up in endless mazes of mental complexity, underlined by powerful feelings, and most of the time we are.<\/p>\n
We can get lost in things that don\u2019t exist and never will and we can even understand that, and STILL do it and feel it and hate and fear it again and again and again.<\/p>\n
We can totally understand the utter subjectivity of our experience, at least theoretically, but since it IS our experience and the only one we have, the idea of what\u2019s really going on quickly loses its power in the daily grind of habits and ideas.<\/p>\n
\u2018I know it\u2019s just my thinking, but\u2026.\u2019<\/p>\n
And after the \u2018but\u2019 there\u2019s just more thinking.<\/p>\n
And even more thinking.<\/p>\n
And thinking about thinking.<\/p>\n
And thoughts we are not even aware of.<\/p>\n
We are very much caught up in that huge, swirling pile of fantasy because that\u2019s exactly what makes us human beings.<\/p>\n
In order for this thing to work, it HAS to look and feel incredibly real.<\/p>\n
In order for the intelligence behind everything and nothing to feel confined to a body with many limitations, it needs to fully forget what it actually is.<\/p>\n
And there we arrive at the core of waking up, and the end of suffering.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s remembering what we really are.<\/p>\n
Remembering.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s what I am all about.<\/p>\n
Consider this a most loving slap in your face.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(Photo by @wheremikeat, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today I tried to explain the unexplainable. It\u2019s actually my job. People come over and throw problems and pains and discomforts and doubts and worries and fears at me, and then they ask: \u2018What should I do?\u2019 \u2018How should I behave?\u2019 \u2018Why do I keep doing this?\u2019 \u2018Why don\u2019t I start doing that and stick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[97,96,117,100,116,113,103],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32426,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32424\/revisions\/32426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}