Heh, hello.

After so long, hello. It feels so good to find you again, I am sorry for my absence. I spent the last few years systematically cutting out everything good, and replacing it with everything bad. Here is my relationship with pain.

Pain is necessary. Bad things are important. Yet, I have often fallen to this mistaken ideal that pain is what is always good for us. I say this, because you may have felt this too. Another word for it is self-criticism. They say that always thinking you are the best is delusion, but remember that always thinking you are the worst is also delusion. Thought is a beautiful thing. As with all things beautiful we can either appreciate it and be with it fully, or we can lose ourselves to it. Thought is like a beautful woman. I can either enjoy her company as she comes and goes- living my life with her and without- or I can become obsessed. I can look for ways to keep her with me and play games either with her or with myself.

I see myself as a reflection of this world. And so I will use words like our or you or me. Often, when I would read ‘you’ in articles I would get upset- “That is not me”. The more I try to create a barrier between myself and this world, the more I am trying to keep my sense of difference. This is not the way to be special. The way is when you do not think of this so much. I diverge. Please do not hold my words to their meaning. This is in your benefit. Often, when I have judged something through my lense, it has gotten limited. Judgement is a way to keep our differences. I too am scared to relate to this world. But the world and I are one. We both have caused pain, we both have the right to heal and be heard. Most of all, we both have a right to be loved- you and I.

Our world has helped us understand the games people play with other people. There are terms such as gaslighting where one person supposedly manipulates another by confusing their experience. We immediately judge such a person. This is normal, we are more prone to react without thinking to things that go against our beliefs. But when I look at it, I wish to develop a habit where I can see that the gaslighting is the problem, not the person. In fact, if someone can gaslight me, that means I have gaslit myself. This is keeping our fundamental assumption, the world is a reflection of myself. So it does not matter who hurt me- me or myself- the point is I am hurt. I end up hating the thing that hurt me. You may be doing so too.

To hold onto this pain is painful. It is like the Buddha says, anger is like holding onto hot coal to throw on someone. The way this is phrased, we may forget it is possible to throw the stone onto ourselves. The throwing hot coal on someone else is a secondary issue. We focus on that funnily. When I get mad, I try not to put it out onto others and hurt them. But often, in this process of suppression I have lost. At least when you throw the coal onto someone, your hands are no longer burning. I just hope the person is adept enough to dodge it.

Still, the aim is to not hold the coal in the first place. This is a subtle distinction. For many years, I have held the coal thinking it was better than not throwing it upon people. I have deliberately sought pain. I have looked for coal to hold thinking if I hold it, I am conquering anger. But no, this expectation has done so much damage that I weep. Such has been my relationship with pain, I have sought it and held onto it. I have hurt myself and those around me tremendously. I have robbed the word of myself. I have deliberately removed all of my freedom, so I do not make more mistakes. Mistakes are only a problem if we hate ourselves for it. I hate myself often for my mistakes. I would do it explicitly- ‘you are a loser because you did not pursue physical fitness’. Then implicitly, by creating conditions which appear positive but are in reality still holding coal- ‘you are so great for pursuing physical fitness’. This creates conditional regard.

I have a habit of making my own love conditional. Honestly, I feel so lost in my life right now. I try to say I love it- and I do. There have been wonderful experiences which I always wished for. I always wished for pain. For that I am grateful. As a child, I believed that my privilege meant no struggle, that my story has no rags to riches and so is uninteresting. But is it interesting to myself? When it was, I would blog, but look that too I have stopped. I feel fake. Like I betrayed myself.

I chased pain because of my guilt. Foolish thought. If pain is inevitable like the Buddha says, so is joy. For suffering and joy are interlinked. I can only go low when I go high. I create the standard, the measure for myself. When I learnt this, I hurried to get rid of both. Life has seen it fit to be so generous to someone like me. She has given me so many experiences and offered her hand to be held through them. Often I have rejected it. But like a mother, thankfully, whenever I do come to my senses, she does not reject me. That is all the love I need in this world.

I tried to get rid of both. For a brief moment I got the taste of what Swami Vivekanand told me as ‘lower level samadhi’. Naturally, in the moment I believed it was higher level. To those of you not spiritual, you can call this a flow state, although whereas we have seen flow state to associated with a task (the flow state of writing for example), this flow state is associated with the task of life. And as life encompasses everything, this is the flow state of everything. You lose track, you accept all. But as Swami says, this lower level samadhi does not fry the seed of thought. It is likely we will lose this state. Because where there is thought, there is division. Good and bad.

That is okay. We in the spiritual realm dismiss thought just as we in the intellectual realm dismiss spirituality. Such beautful divisions exist. I call them beautiful, because my greatest joy has come from acknowledging, understanding and integrating the other. But the state of flow that comes from this is not permanent. It is as if I am in a river, floating. I may first say oh no I am in a river. Then I tell myself that if I enjoy it, I will not be in pain. So I enjoy part of the river, it does not hurt. This is the limit of manifestation, our mindset can take us so far as to make a difficult situation pleasurable. However, the folly arises when I cling on to this enjoyment, this part of the river. I try to stay stuck in it and swim back to it.

And this is obvious in addiction. Weed makes us feel good, we enjoy it, then we run to it. People make us feel good, we enjoy them, then we run to them. Waking up at 5 makes me feel good, I enjoy it, then I run to it. The issue is not that we enjoyed a part of the river, the issue is we got attached to it, addicted to it. This means that, in the first place, we did not fully enjoy the river. To enjoy something means to experience it. It need not be good- for example you may watch a sad movie yet call it enjoyable. Strange if we think enjoyment is in the emotion of happiness. It can also be in sadness. What is important is to be fully immersed.

When I think of it, I go down a river (live alone), freak out (poor health), find enjoyment (exercise), get addicted (forget about the present, be in conflict about whether I will go or not, not listen to body, try to be ‘good’), keep swimming back (beat myself up for no energy to be good), then lose strength (sickness, big painful event), be swept by the currents (let loose), freak out (poor health), and so on.

This is the most beautiful process I have seen. Because this entire last paragraph is still part of a greater river. Now, I can beat myself up about how I am not going with the flow and trying to fight the flow- but fighting the flow is part of the flow. Both parts are valid. There is no one way. In fact, if you are fully immersed you are doing good. Our work as humans connected to each other, is to find the choice to always seek to be immersed in the good. And we are. I believe again that this world is good. It is a reflection of myself. I believe again that I am good. And this is a choice, because I am bad too. Heh, when you think too much about it, anything can be right or wrong. And if the point is to go with the flow, what does it matter what you do. Whatever you do becomes the flow. I just hope you have great inspirations and quiet moments. I hope you forgive yourself for the mistakes you have made. And even if you don’t, I do.

Because we are reflections of each other, no? If you have trouble forgiving yourself, let me do it for you. And it does not matter whether you try. To say that I would help someone only if they tried to be helped is like saying you will pull someone falling off a cliff only if they too make an effort to pull themselves up. But to the one who is strong, no amount of weight is too much. And when no weight is too much, your weight isn’t much either for me. So hang in there. Let me pull you up, you need not do a thing other than whatever you are doing. Just do not let go. And do not worry that you may let go, because you can’t. I know life holds on to you just like she holds on to me.

Thank you.