Resting into the Ocean of Bliss

by Michael Mamas | Monday, July 8, 2013 | Personal Growth, Spirituality | 9 comments

Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? Just rest into your Self. Isn’t that what everyone wants? Inner peace, inner contentment, satisfaction, fulfillment? But what happens when you do that? What happens inside of you?

You see, most of life is lived as a distraction, an escape. By keeping your attention on the surface, the depth is avoided. Now why would someone want to avoid that? Well you see, there are inner issues… stresses and strains, emotional tensions, inner turmoil. If you are left to go inside, then those things come up. They are no longer overshadowed by the distractions people create in their lives.

Yet if you were simply willing to live a life that supports resting within the Self, then those issues naturally bubble out. The physiology purifies.  Of course the process does not always feel so simple. As those issues you have been avoiding bubble out, you feel them. You experience them. They seem so real.

The ordinary response is to make it stop. I hear the rationalizations all the time, “Oh, I have done enough long mediation” or “Oh, I am a householder, not a monk” or “Oh, I have responsibilities in the world I need to attend to” or “Oh, I need to stay in the ‘real’ world.”

The truth is that people cannot bear what dwells within them, so they look for distractions. Those distractions usually come in the form of idealized notions (mirages) they long for and relentlessly pursue and fleeting superficial pleasures they consume themselves with. That is called living a lie. What people really long for dwells deep within, beyond the barrier reef of inner issues, stress, and turmoil. But few are willing to do what it takes to free themselves from those things. They prefer to try to bury it all under the rug of distractions. Then they look back at their lives and wonder why they are not happy and fulfilled.

I remember all those years when I was in the ashram. The Master would just have us do our meditations and routine with very little, and for long periods of time no, attention given to us. We felt abandoned or brushed aside. Only after some time did I come to understand what he was doing.

People are like seething, bubbling buckets of emotional issues. They spend their lives trying to avoid those issues.  In the ashram, the Master just takes that bucket, sets it in the corner and (with the catalyst of meditation and a supportive daily routine) allows it to calm down naturally. It was only after some time that I realized he was watching very carefully. Allowing the pot to bubble, but giving it a stir at just the right moments and in just the right way. This was all done so seamlessly in accord with nature, our nature, that it was not generally recognized.

Getting overly caught up in the turmoil of inner issues just fans the flame.  The balance of personal process and physiological purification is essential.  Also, the distractions must not overtake the individual.  When they do, the rationalizations emerge and the individual finds the ‘reasons’ to throw in the towel, give up, and return to a life of distractions.  Very few are willing to stay the course, the journey of the true hero.

Now do not misunderstand me.  Relative life is wonderful and important.  But it must be built upon the transcendental fullness of your own being, not an inner landfill of emotional issues caramelized with rationalizations.  You must live a life that supports the process of inner awakening to that which dwells deep within.  I offer that to you. The degree to which you receive or reject it, is your choice alone.