I’ve asked myself couldn’t I just commit to feeling good forever (effortlessly)? I’m curious as to what would come up or what stands in the way. It caused another bout of discomfort, but this time bearing in mind that ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings so that I stopped fighting myself. The awareness of it is the feeling of it. There was actually a feeling answer to this.
It eventually turned into another resentment, but at ‘others’. ‘Others’ don’t accept me as I am so ‘I’ cannot feel good continuously. This feeling feels very angry and if left in place I can see it turning into bitterness. Resentment and bitterness because I am waiting for ‘others’ to give me permission to feel good by accepting me. It’s the immediate objection that comes up. But are ‘others’ really standing in the way of me feeling good? Can others actually change how I feel? That’s the conditioning that if I feel good then ‘others’ will beat it out of me.
This then morphed into feelings of self-consciousness. Something I had not identified them as before. What stood out to me was that I was taking these feelings of self-consciousness as attentiveness or awareness itself in some way. They are the lens thru which I was looking out at everything. The lens of ‘others’ imprinted onto me so that I’d stay in line.
The resentment and anger when questioned, persisted. So I stopped questioning and backed off. Then completely on its own and with no prior sign, an immediate sensuousness ensued. As if an eraser was used to wipe away that feeling that seemed to be at the center from which I operated. Like this whole suite of feelings from my chest all the way down to my navel were just wiped out. Like I had some locality before but now I did not. It was like suddenly being brought “forward” and I noticed that I’m just here stunningly alive. An interesting thing I noted in this rather felicitous moment was in the nature of the way it happened. It happened in a way I could never imagine or could do it. I wish it lasted longer though. It’s always like this, somehow I seem to get myself to this point of experiencing this and then afterwards maybe I try too hard and I can’t get back to it.
The feelings then returned but the resentment then had morphed from being pointed towards others to me. Anger that I went along with others. There’s also this “realization” in the periphery of disbelief that then I would have to face the fact that life is indeed easy and that’s an entirely new direction. I had been listening to ‘others’ so gullibly and dutifully self-castigated. This feeling has now eased off and there’s a sort of “simmering” happening. If this is the case what vested interested is there in harboring these feelings? Or why would I want to be these feelings?
Another very interesting thing that I’ve noted in my reflection is how I had not been taking into account of what it means to be harmless. In this correspondence, Richard explains that how to be harmless also includes oneself. So if I’m being angry or resentful, then I am harming myself as well. It’s also interesting that while I read thru this that I am in some way unwittingly operating from a ‘put others before oneself’ type of philosophy because when I consider including myself in what it means to be harmless, then I get a reaction of ‘oh I’m being selfish’ if I also include myself. So in some way, the laws of the ‘real world’ are such that to be happy and harmless is to be selfish. The laws of the ‘real world’ require one to suffer. How perverse! I’m seeing a more clear picture as I go along of this inauthentic persona that has been constructed and psychically impressed. Almost like there’s two of ‘me’. The ‘me’ that’s born of the world and another more authentic and naive ‘me’ that’s possible.