In order to fully awaken to the fact that you are nothing but Awakeness itself, you must want to know the truth more than you want to feel secure. ~Adyashanti
Reverb10 Day 14
Prompt: Appreciate. What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in
the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?
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The persistence of truth.
I’ve come to see that no matter how hard I might try to avoid, bury, ignore, or deny it…truth remains steadfast.
Sometimes, the truth fits with my liking. It’s what I want it to be and I have no trouble at all doing what it asks me to do.
Other times, the truth is the last thing I want to acknowledge. I want it to go away. I want to barter with it. I ask it to compromise, but of course it does not. Of course. It doesn’t have an agenda. It just is. It’s just the ego that has the agenda, and it’s agenda is to stay safe and secure.
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The truth just is.
The truth is like a decision that has already been made.
The truth isn’t good or bad. It just is.
The truth doesn’t barter, argue or defend.
The truth doesn’t compromise.
The truth is asking for surrender.
I’m not yet completely there. Close, but not yet there.
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What is the truth?
It certainly isn’t what the mind says it is.
There is no ‘my’ truth or ‘your’ truth. There is just truth.
It is what is.
And, in writing this, I can see the power of its unwavering steadfastness.
How do I express gratitude for it? Good question.
Much of the time I don’t express gratitude for it. I’m not grateful at all. I want my safe secure nest, and yet, as Pema Chodron writes, “To be fully alive fully human and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” Continually thrown out, not just thrown out when I feel I’m ready for it.
The bracing against the truth is exhausting, because of truth’s steadfastness. This hanging on, this not wanting to let go into the abyss, it is exhausting, yet it is, the bracing itself, the hanging on, is what gives the ego its sense of existence.
Adyashanti writes:
“What if you let go of every bit of control and every urge that you have, right down to the most infinitesimal urge to control anything, anywhere, including anything that may be happening with you at this moment? Imagine that you were able to completely and absolutely give up control on every level. If you were able to give up control absolutely, totally, and completely, then you would be a spiritually free being.
This battle of will, this desire of ego to maintain control in the face of the inevitable pull of truth – I appreciate the power of this relationship. It is profound.
There is no good or bad. There is no right or wrong way to be. There is only the ultimate pull of life to wake up to itself.
I can see this dance so clearly. The appearance of me is dancing on the edge of disillusion. This appearance of me fears what might happen to it. This appearance of me can’t be seen or touched or experienced in the same way as life right here. Yet, it’s power is strong. I appreciate the power of its futile dance.
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I know that simply writing this post is an act of gratitude. I’ve come to see that everything serves this pull. Everything. Somehow, in acknowledging the frightened parts of the mind, a beautiful relationship is nurtured between the truth and what fears it. The mind is beginning to see it is held in love, in that which has no agenda other than to know itself as itself.
Beautiful and the very essence of truth. Thank you for this piece.
so, so beautiful. “It is what it is.” I know that exhaustion. I’m learning to surrender (yes, “not even close”) I am so grateful to have found you through the Twitterverse and #reverb10. Your words move me.
Thank you, Julie.
“[Truth] doesn’t have an agenda. It just is. It’s just the ego…”
So much of my year has involved the ego, whether it’s creeping into my ear, being let go, or simply standing around watching/judging everything going on around/inside me. This post gives me appreciation for this ego and the learning that comes with it.
And yes, of course, the truth.
“Much of the time I don’t express gratitude for it. I’m not grateful at all. I want my safe secure nest…”
Ouch. Me.Too. I want so much for this to not be true, but alas, the truth is unwavering, with no agenda. Like you say, it just is.
I will sit with this today.
Love this post and this quote by Pema, dear Julie:
“To be fully alive fully human & completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”
The truth sometimes can be hard to digest until something clears and it flows through us. Love!
The power and steadfastness of this post is strong, Julie. You may fight yourself to exhaustion, we all may fight outselves to exhaustion, but the clarity of your speaking is truth. You say this post is itself an act of gratitude, and so it is. Because you honor the battle and the truth of the battle, in its writing.
Writing is commitment. You commit those words or thoughts to paper/screen and they are yours. There is no arguing that you didn’t “say” it or write it. You own them and they own you.
That is truth. The truth and your writing of it affected me greatly. Thanks.
What a beautiful post… and a pleasure to read.
Thank you for this wonderful post – your writing is as illuminating as the sun currently rising over the rim of the Downs in East Sussex, England!
truth doesn’t need an agenda, doesn’t need to be defended, doesn’t need votes of approval. truth doesn’t compare itself to others and doesn’t give a twit what other people think about it. truth doesn’t hide (even though it surely is hard to see sometimes) and doesn’t play games. as you say, truth just is. and when you put it like that, it is so simple that i wonder why we expend so much energy complicating it.