Wordless in a World of Words

I have a love/hate relationship with words. On the one hand, they are an essential tool for human communication. They can be crafted into exquisite poems, lofty speeches, necessary instruction, entertaining stories. The downside, for me at least, is their woeful inadequacy when it comes to matters of spirit. There are things I have come to know, without a shadow of a doubt, in my 60 plus years of life in this world-- things I would love to share, to give others the peace that is now the undercurrent of my life, the calm and steady alertness that descends during times of trial. I am not the same person I was a couple decades ago. I remember how I used to be and I laugh at the contrast between then me and now me. Now, outwardly, this may or may not be a noticeable thing. My personality is still basically the same as it was when I was younger. I tend to overplan the day to day things, striving for a perfection I know I can never reach. I can exhibit impatience or lie awake worrying about this or that. The difference now, the big difference is that I am aware of this striving, perfectionistic personality but not totally identified with it. It amuses me, it is not my identity.  I notice it is clearly not packing the punch it used to in terms of anxiety and stress. Like a wheel after the foot has been taken off the accelerator, it keeps spinning but it is slowing down. Losing momentum. About time.

But, I digress. My frustration with words is the subject. I think about how I got here, in this good place, in this lovely inner land of gratefulness and acceptance and awareness of the beauty all around me. I want to share the route with everyone, email the Mapquest directions, give clear instructions how to get from point A to point B. But I cannot. One of those things I have learned, one of the beyond a shadow of doubt things, is that I cannot. Oh, I can give pointers. I can describe the cookie jar and hope it helps folks somehow get their hands on the cookies. But the truth is, I'm not even sure how I got here exactly. There were a lot of twists and turns, ups and downs, bad times and good times. It was, I now laughingly realize, a journey from here to here. No distance covered, no movement on the odometer, just a different perspective on life that has made all the difference. You can have it too. Pay attention to silence in this world of noise. Pay attention to the unseen in this world of many things. Pay attention to the wordless in this world of words. Just pay attention.

"Words are finite organs of the infinite mind.They cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth. They break, chop and impoverish it."     

 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

Knowing What We Don't Know

I can't remember the exact moment I learned to read my first word, but I'd be willing to bet I was elated and felt like I was the smartest kid in the world. Then came another word and another, entire paragraphs, entire riveting Dick and Jane stories (some of you may remember that fun loving duo), and onward and upward. When we learned to read we mastered one word and we knew there was another waiting to be attempted and triumphed over. There was a never-ending supply and we were insatiable, excited. (At least I was.) As we traveled through grammar school, middle school, junior high, high school and college it was a given that there was always another course to take, another concept to learn, another theorem to postulate. We knew what we didn't know and it was a lot.

Did you ever wonder about why, in some people, this impetus to learn slows down and sometimes stops all together? Okay, I know enough now. In fact, (some can convince themselves) I know just about everything there is to know and I am fully equipped to make pronouncements and judgements based on my vast knowledge. We are so afraid to state "I don't know". Why is that? Is it fear? Are we afraid that we will look foolish as adults if we don't seem as if we have it all together and know everything there is to know? How can we know everything there is to know? Wouldn't that be an extraordinarily disappointing universe to live in? The only intelligent way to live, I think, even if we don't continue to go to school or devour books or take seminars, is to learn to live comfortably with the concept of "I don't know", because life is absolutely full of inexhaustible mystery.

Square Pegs, Round Holes

I've been noticing lately how clever my ego is at trying to engage my attention and get me involved in its constant drama, criticisms and angst.  It succeeds quite often and when I "come to myself", that is, drift back to complete presence, I am amazed that I have been duped into buying into the ego's storyline once again.  It is often the act of discernment that saves me, noticing how the ego's exaggerated ruminations tend not only to conflict, but also be astoundingly ineffective.   That is always the key for me.  What works to achieve the aim I wish to realize? The ego's sole aim is to keep me involved in its drama - not to find solutions, find peace or any meaningful answers.  The ego is a master at insisting that we continue to try to  jam square pegs into round holes, knowing full well we can never do it. 

For instance, my ego would like me to believe that people are angry or upset with me when I don't hear from them or get a reply to an email I sent or talk to me in a social setting. To what end? Not to make me a better person as the ego would have me believe, but to create in me the fear of doing or saying the wrong thing, to deflate confidence, to take the joy out of life, basically. This strengthens the ego's position as master of my life.  I know by now this is an old pattern of the ego so most of the time I am not fooled by the thoughts that might happen to float by with this old ruse as a theme, but occasionally my guard is down and the thoughts take hold for a while.   

I realize it may seem strange to some people that I talk about my ego as if it is a separate entity from me, but in a way it is. Well, not really an entity, but a bundle of neurons and thought patterns that have been forming in my brain since I was born-- my operating system, so to speak. An amazing operating system, to be sure, but not without its bugs and viruses. I have found it extremely important to step back from my thoughts and and look at them clearly,which is a vast improvement over the days when I was completely identified with my thoughts. To borrow words from A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle: "I am not my thoughts. Who am I then? I am the one who sees that."