Love is awareness
From Elfi
By Angel, to IKAS group (August 31, 2009)
The IKAS group were working on opening their hearts, on finding love and beauty in the things around them, and they were having a hard time with it. This is how Angel explained it to them.
Contents |
Why Bother With Beauty?
Angel: We talk about finding beauty in things, about love, about awareness - because love and awareness are synonymous, effectively. Somebody who knows tell me 'So what? Why bother me with those things?' If noone has any idea of what we're doing we're wasting our time. Why does finding beauty and love in things matter?
A student: When you find the love and beauty in things around you, you're able to acknowledge and recognize the love and beauty inside of yourself.
Angel: Yes, but why does it matter to find beauty in yourself? Why is that important? Does it matter at all? It shouldn't be difficult. If you're working for it, if you're struggling for it, if you're trying to make this happen, then you've got to think it's important, or you're wasting your time. If it's important, why is it important? You don't have to use your head, I'm sure Rohaa has taught you what it means to get in your gut. Get in your gut like the SWEET exercise and find that nice warm feeling, and just tell me what comes. Start it this way: 'It's important to find beauty in myself because...' or 'This matters because...'
A student: It's important to find beauty in myself because you can then acknowledge yourself, so you find the will to work for something that's good for you and actually make sure you get somewhere.
Another student: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... beauty isn’t something solid, it’s something that you feel... it’s happiness, it’s health, it’s... right. It’s the spark that you try to develop, it’s why you work, why you matter.
Sense and Nonsense
Angel: Well said. So, it is important to understand that most of what we're doing is nonsense, that a lot of what I tell you will be completely foolish, that the Fool is actually one of my heroes. The reason is that sense comes from the head and the mind. Sense comes from what you've taught in your lifetime.
It's perfectly sensible in fact to say that an atom has more than 99% empty space, there's nothing at all there, and yet you can touch something and it's solid. People say that is totally sensible but it seems preposterous. Yet if you talk about something like a past lifetime, which many people remember and have the evidence of, that's not sensible. The difference is not scientific, the difference is what we're taught.
We're taught in life this is good, that's bad. This is sensible, that is not sensible. This is science, that's mysticism or nonsense. I'm going to ask you to kind of let that whole idea go. The answers I'm looking for, from each of you, won't come from your head. The biggest answers I've got from this lifetime and others have not come from the head, they've come from the heart, the gut, from someplace alot deeper.
Buying into the negative
Imagine you are walking down the street, and you see somebody who is attractive or interesting to you. Maybe you say Hello, and they say that you're ugly, you're worthless, you're stupid, you're annoying, get out of my face. Something along those lines. Can everybody imagine that? You're nice to them, and they say something really awful to you. Everybody has experiences something like this at some point in their life?
I think we've all experienced it and I think it's easy to imagine for that reason. If I spend a long time getting ready in the morning, I make myself look beautiful on the outside. I'm feeling excited, feeling good as I walk out the door and somebody says: 'Dude, you look like shit today.' Somebody else says: 'What were you thinking wearing that outfit? That's awful!' You know, two or three of those? I'm going to be in a corner just overwhelmed by it all. I'll think 'God I am so ugly. What's wrong with me? Why do all these people hate me?' Every one of these people said something bad and every singly one I agreed with.
Now, we start the day out a little differently, I start with not taking any time with my appearance. Just, you know, maybe doing some exercises in the morning so I feel good about myself. I walk out, and somebody says: 'Wow, you look really beautiful today!
Now if they had said I sucked, I would've just accepted it. 'Oh sure, I'm a terrible person.' If they said you look beautiful I would've probably said 'Alright, what do you want?' 'What's your problem? What's going on? What is that about?' For some reason, when someone insults us, we buy into it immediately. When someone says something wonderful, we tend to look at it suspiciously or deny it completely.
Looking in the mirror
I imagine Rohaa has talked to you about the mirror. That it takes sometimes years of practice to really paying attention and seeing the world around you. The most of us are walking, holding a mirror up in front of our face, and that all we are really seeing is ourself.
We think "God, that person is loud and annoying!" - we're thinking "Maybe I am loud and annoying."
You think "Wow, that's a wonderful person!" - you're thinking "Wow, they got something that I like about myself."
Everybody in some way is just serving as a mirror for us. So, if somebody insults me, tells me I have no value, I buy into it. Somebody tells me something nice, and I don't. If they're all just a mirror for me, and I put those pieces together, what is that telling me?
I don't see it as important that you don't find beauty or that you find frustration. What seems important to me, is that when someone critizes you, you immediately accept it. And when someone speaks well, you'd immediately disagree. And if they are just mirrors for you, that means that if there is some part of you that says "You're beautiful, you're amazing, you deserve better," you're going say 'No way. What do you want?' And if there's a part of you that says "You are a worthless piece of garbage," you're going to say "Yep, that's certainly true." And you know it's true because you're seeing it in everybody around you. And if you see it in others and they are just a mirror, then it's true in yourself.
So we've got two unanswered questions. The first unanswered question is 'So What? Who cares if you ever find beauty in yourself?' The second unanswered question is 'Why are you willing to make a deal with the devil inside?' It's a greed of the most darkest, the most brutal, the most critical. But you are not willing to find what you might look like inside. To find the beauty and celebrate it. In fact, when you find it, you fight against it.
I can see why you have trouble getting this lesson. One, you don't see the point in it, you don't know what the purpose is. Two, you are unwilling to accept it when you find it. I can show you easily how to find beauty, how to find wonder, how to love themselves. But one, you don't think it's important or don't know why it's important. And two, you are not going to believe it when they hear it.
Being attracted to beauty
Has anyone here ever seen something really horrible? Something that just really deeply disturbed you, something you wish you could unsee? I imagine most of us have seen something some time in our life. Let's say I have a new puppy that I really love. We're playing in the yard, he runs in the street and gets run over and killed. That going to disturb me, that's going to be very uncomfortable. And seeing what is left of the puppy is going to be a very unpleasant sight. So tell me, as a normal human being, is my first response going to be to look closer at the puppy, the dead puppy, and study what it looks like all beat up? Or is it to look away?
Imagine a horror movie, imagine anything that's gory and violent. Our first response is to close our eyes, to cringe, to look away. It's a natural human response. We've all done it. When something hurts, when somebody's in pain, when somebody we love is hurting, when something we care about is damaged, we may stare in shock at it for a moment, but our first response is to look away. We can all think of times when something has been awful and we've cringed or tensed, turned our head away and closed our eyes. All of us have done this.
Now, if you happen to prefer pretty girls think of girls, if you prefer pretty boys think of boys. Think of someone incredibly beautiful, sexy, amazing, walking by you on the street. You glance over and you notice them and your jaw drops and you say "Wow." But, to be polite you look away because you don't want to stare. But, natural human reaction, what do you want to do right here? Can it be to look back again and kinda take a second look? Or just to stare at your feet?
You'll take a second look. Without even thinking about it. This reaction is so deep in the guts, it's so visceral, that your mind doesn't even get a say. You may find yourself looking a second time before your mind even says "Hey, wow!" This deep visceral reaction that makes you turn away from the puppy, the damages goods, is making you look at something beautiful.
I've given you two examples that I hope you understand, because you will find this response in yourself. In the one you really want to look closer and in the other you want to look away. When we find something beautiful, we want to look at it, to study it, to be aware of it. When we find something ugly we want to turn away. Everybody understand that? It's a very simple point, but very important.
Awareness matters
Alright, so here is the answer to the first question, the one you had trouble finding an answer for. Awareness matters, we go through life in a dream, failing to pay attention. Drifting in a cloud, caught up in our own little reality. Our eyes closed, our ears plugged, once in a while glancing up and just looking in a mirror. Most of us do not truly live, we live in this bubble, half asleep, daydreaming and sleepwalking.
This process that Elfpath's been teaching you, these amazing ideas, all of it comes down to one thing and that is awareness. We are learning to be aware. Learning to see for the first time, to feel, to hear, to understand to get deep inside of ourselves and others and to truly begin to live for the very first time. And all of that life, all of that power, all of that significance comes from one thing and that thing is awareness. When we are aware, our food tastes better, our lights are brighter, we love people more and there is more beauty and wonder in the world. There is so much when we are aware. And when we're not aware, it's laying there in a coma with our eyes closed. We have nothing.
So, when each one of you, when you truly find yourself beautiful, you look closer, you study, you are aware. And in doing so you learn. When you find yourself ugly or weak or stupid or incompetent or disturbing, you look away, you sacrifice your awareness. The very key to everything we are doing is awareness. And only when we find ourselves beautiful, then will we pay attention. When we find ourselves less so, we do not, we shut off our awareness.
Love Is Awareness
So these two things are synonymous. Love is Awareness. The more that you love something, the more that you pay attention to it, the more you really see it, the more that you are aware of something, the more you love it. Now, you may have heard 'Love is Blind.' Love is blind means that I am dating a woman who is an awful person but I love her so I don't see it. I know a guy who is just a real slob/slug, but I love him so I don't see it. This is not what I'm talking about. This is not love for that person, this is love for myself. That is, I am so in love with the idea of being in love that I will ignore all the details.
No, I am talking about loving a new pet, so much that you want to touch its fur or watch it play or spend hours studying it. I'm talking about loving a subject at school so much that you put extra time in. I'm talking about loving your job so much that you work extra just to be there. I'm talking about loving a person so much you'll listen to them talk for hours if they're saying nothing. Love is that kind of awareness.
So if the key to everything all the wonderful truths that you are finding in yourself is awareness - and awareness is love and love is awareness - can you see why loving yourself is so absolutely fundamentally critical? To all of this? If you cannot love yourself you are wasting your time. At this point you need to just start taking prescription drugs and medicate the rest of your life away. Or get into some abusive relationship so the pain hides all of reality or shoot yourself in the head and get it over with. All of life is awareness, if we wish to truly live we have to be aware, and awareness is love. Love is awareness.
The reason it seems clear is because it's simple. Anything true is simple. And anything simple is true. If it's complicated it means you haven't understood it yet. If it's complicated it means you're still learning. You can take the most complex astrophysics mumbo-jumbo and somebody who really gets it, can make it clear to a 5-year old. What's simple should be true and what's true should be simple.
Practise for yourself
Alright, if there are no questions, then I'm going to leave you with an assignment because I want you to practice this. For at least the next week - and I really think you should do this for the next year on and off once you get used to it (make yourself a note, hang it up somewhere) - go out in the world, just once in a while. Maybe, you know, half an hour today, and an hour tomorrow, and maybe a little bit next thursday. Just a little every so often.
I want you to look at someone or something that's uncomfortable. That's disturbing, that's ugly, and I want you to really look at it. Then see if you can really pay attention to it, if you can really be aware, while you find it ugly. Notice the thing in your guts that curls up and wants to pull away. Notice the tension in your shoulders and the knotting up in your jaw that says "I don't want to do this." Notice that if you do it long enough the start of a tension headache from your shoulders up to your head. I want you to watch the things that are ugly and see if you can be aware.
And I want you to watch the things that are beautiful and see if you can really be aware of those and find out how easy it is to just study beautiful things hour after hour. And as you do this, as you practice this, I want you to begin trying to find beautiful pieces in yourself. You may think you're fat or ugly or stupid or worthless or incompetent or whatever but you've got at least one place somewhere. 'I like my fingernails today.' 'I'm really proud of how I look in this outfit.' Find one thing that you can like about yourself. And then take that thing and practice liking it, practice feeling all the positive. Your ultimate assignment in this, and this could take years, and it could take months, and it could take minutes. But your ultimate assignment is to be able to look into the mirror, and say with absolute integrity 'I love you. And there is noone on the entire planet I would rather go through the rest of my life with than you.'
I will say that this is the most amazing and wonderful part of this journey you have. Waking up every single day thinking 'Oh God, it's me again, it's my life again. I hate this, it's going to suck. ' is such a burden. The moment you can start to really realize 'I love you. Wow. I really think I'm awesome. I LIKE waking up with me. I like hanging out with me. I like what my life is giving me. I like who I am.' When you can do that it makes your whole life so much more alive. It's like falling in love the first time only it's so much deeper because it's you and you really know you. This, if you can do, this is a phenomenal thing. I wish you all well.
