A Self-Realization Integration Story

Here's a post I wrote at a certain point in my own journey which illustrates what David Bingham calls turning down invitations, a kind of choosing or letting go that is part of what can happen after you understand your true identity as consciousness and not the suffering human.

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Today begins a new chapter in my personal and outer work. As a person in the movie of life who still experiences different kinds of suffering in spite of knowing ultimate spiritual truth and "visiting" with my true Self frequently, I have done some sitting, waiting, asking, and answering (because the experience is really of being just one, the asker and answerer).

And I have noticed at times that I seem to be able to choose to stop a very troubling type of suffering that still comes and goes for me - severe depression including thinking about or desiring human death, the end of this particular current movie with myself as the protagonist.

When it comes, I see it clearly, this experience. I can see it as an emotion, as a series of thoughts, and as a kind of energy level. I can see that it can sometimes be part of a physical energy level as well, sometimes in conjunction with physical suffering such as pain or fatigue. And this "depression", our common language word for it, is at the top of my current list of goals - that is, to not have it anymore!

So as I said, sometimes it seems that I can stop it when it starts to come in. But not always. I'm speaking to a limited frame of time in this post regardless of time before a few weeks ago, let's say.

So this is not to refer to previous experiences, that is too much for me to deal with effectively and is also unnecessary to approach. Just sticking to the current moment or recent time frame works much better.

I've noticed that when I can stop this from happening, change course mid-stream in this emotion or experience early on, I seem to be in a certain energy state to begin with. A calmer more peaceful, balanced state as opposed to a higher energy and more active "doing" type of experience, which for me may include less of the experience of being present and observing clearly. I don't consider this state to be "bad", not at all. And I try to accept all as it is, especially the more personal type of experiences of energy levels of different types. And all that this human appears to do and say and feel. I've learned this is important - acceptance of the character's state and actions in the story.

But what if we can choose? I know that free will is an illusion, but how far does that go? At what point and in what areas do we have some sort of choice? Different spiritual teachers and scientists share different views on this issue. But how much of that is skillful means, the way of helping people that is appropriate for that individual in that moment, or a teaching that will attract them to the path for their own best good?

I don't plan to go into this any further here. But I will just say that I am currently faced with choice, or the illusion of choice that "i" must go back into (this happens to me still, I just know that it's an illusion when it does). I am supported now, however it occurs or will occur in spiritual reality, in "choosing" to stop going into this level of sadness, depression, and futility, that mental or emotional state which "I" do not want to experience.

Which "I" no longer "wants" this? As with the free will debate, let's not try to answer that right now. It does not actually need to be picked apart, though sometimes we do work on that question inside...

~ Updated December 2024