When we come to that point in our evolution as a human being where we finally are ready to stop struggling and are truly willing to embrace the unknown, then we will come to rest. Everything will change. Our entire inner world and our relationship to life as a whole will turn upside down simply because we are ready and willing to stop struggling forever.
Most people are lost in what seems to be an almost endless
struggle. A struggle against the experience of thought. A struggle against the arising of
feeling. A struggle against the movement of time. This seems to go on and on and on. There
may be temporary breaks, brief moments when one experiences some relief, but this usually
doesn’t last very long, and then one begins to struggle once again.
If we can learn how to give up the struggle, we will discover a natural and inherent
freedom that has been there all the time. A very big part of spiritual practice is about
learning how to stop struggling. When I speak about giving up the struggle, I’m
speaking about being willing to give up a very rigid, fearful and self-centered
relationship to our experience. This demands a lot of courage. Because in spite of the
fact that many people claim that they want to be free, most often when they are
actually given the opportunity to stop struggling they don’t want to. They don’t
want to because the struggle, as unpleasant, painful and limiting as it is, at least
provides a safe refuge, a familiar ground on which to exist. It is that place from which
one can always recognize oneself.
If we are truly prepared to give up the struggle, if we are prepared to stop struggling in
the way that we have been so used to, we have to begin to make room for what we don’t
know. We have to make room for what we don’t know in relationship to our inner
experience and also in relationship to our outer lives. The secret of Liberation is found
through learning experientially what it means to stop struggling. And once we have
experienced what it means not to struggle, even if only for a very brief instant, we have
to find the courage to put that into practice in the way that we live.
Finding the willingness to stop struggling is one of the most challenging parts of
spiritual practice. Indeed, it seems to be very difficult for most people to grasp the
subtlety inherent in ceasing to struggle to the degree that it could actually become a
natural state. That can only occur if it is something that one wants more than anything
else in life.
In order to find out what it means to stop struggling, one has to be willing to look very
deeply into the reasons why one is endlessly struggling in the first place. Not only do we
struggle to hold onto blissful feelings, happy memories and pleasant experiences, but we
also struggle to hold onto fear, morbidity and unhappiness. We struggle to hold onto what
is pleasurable and also we struggle to hold onto what is painful. This is a blind,
mechanical and very conditioned clinging onto that which is familiar.
What is revealing is that when we are lucky enough to experience what it’s like not
to struggle, even if the experience is a positive one, we are almost always threatened by
its implications. When we finally do cease to struggle, what is discovered is a depth that
is unknown. Ceasing to struggle and the experience of that depth is most often perceived
as inspiring and intensely meaningful, but far too demanding a state to live one’s
whole life in.
One of the most shocking revelations that occurs in genuine spiritual practice is the
discovery of how profound is our attachment to the known and how meager is our willingness
to truly embrace the unknown. It is in that revelation that we see for ourselves that the
very act of struggling, even if unpleasant, allows us to remain in territory that
appears fundamentally safe and secure because it is known.
If we are sincere in our desire to stop struggling, we have to become more and more
interested in being attached to nothing whatsoever except the perfect attainment of
freedom alone. Freedom means peace, cessation, joy and bliss. When we come to that point
in our evolution as a human being where we finally are ready to stop struggling and are
truly willing to embrace the unknown, then we will come to rest. Everything will change.
Our entire inner world and our relationship to life as a whole will turn upside down
simply because we are ready and willing to stop struggling forever.
But there’s more. If we’re lucky, the peace that we have found through ceasing
to struggle does not become yet another safe refuge, another fixed reference point.
Instead it becomes that which gives us the courage to dive wholeheartedly into the
experience of being fully alive. It is very important to understand that going all the way
means more than merely ceasing to struggle. Going all the way means that because we have
stopped struggling, we are finally able to dive fully into the experience of life. Why?
Because we have given up all attachments to fixed ideas about peace and rest, we have
found a willingness to struggle in a way that is entirely new. In fact, we find to our
surprise that we experience a calling to struggle in a way that does not keep us bound,
but literally sets the world on fire. The discovery of this willingness makes something
clear that shatters all of our ideas about Enlightenment: that final Liberation is found
through caring more about life itself than in being free from it.
Home | Archives | Contact
Us | Advertising Rates | Writers
Guidelines | Mission Statement
Index by Author | Index by Topic | Service Directory | Calendar of Events | Horoscopes
Email: Phone: 713.526.8822 or 1.800.640.5191
Mail: P. O. Box 540444, Houston, TX 77254