Born into the flames
Birth is a traumatic process for everyone concerned, so painful that a woman's body releases hormones to make her forget what just happened which allows her to focus on the new life in her arms. Though at least her pain comes from a place of knowing, pre-acceptance and awareness of the journey she has taken. The newborn on the other hand has been forcibly ejected from non-consciousness, a oneness that had no dividing line between the external and internal, they were in a state of non-being, there was no time except a heartbeat, no self, no constructions, no conscious needs or wants.
Then they are thrust into the world of being, the world is revealed to and it is separate, other, which is just one of the many disagreeable qualities that they are going to encounter, for the first time they will want, they will desire for it to be as it was. Whilst they did not ask for change or new and novel experiences, when they are blinded by the light and confused by temperature, all they can do is scream, and the only comfort that will calm them is to return them to the sound of their mothers heartbeat and the warmth of her body.
If only we could all just do rather than think ourselves into doing nothing. When we are born into the flames of consciousness, without even realising what it is, they do, react, there is just change, that is the object of our consciousness in the first moments of our lives. Something has changed and they scream against it, newborns scrunch up their races to protect their eyes from the blinding light, they seek a retreat to the comfort of a familiar temperature. They can only express and share horror at anything that does not agree with what was familiar.
They were protected by the embryonic Fluids, darkness and silence, as our senses developed, too fragile to be used until the first moment of birth, like adults put in a sensory deprivation tanks for too long, it can be overwhelming when brought back into a world of stimulus. So imagine the newborn who are using their senses for the first time, all it is possible to do is be overwhelmed by the contrast, and it is the first instinct of a mother to reduce those contrasts. We on the other hand can choose to embrace the flames of contrast.
Even in adulthood we squint our eyes if we accidentally looked towards the sun, we instinctively cover our ears when there is a loud noise, hold our noses in the presence of teenage boys, spit out sour milk and pull our hands away from the flame. We react shamelessly like a baby when confronted by stark contrasts to what we are unfamiliar with, we retreat from stimulation into darkrooms to lie down and recover ourselves, and who is the self you are trying to get back to, it is not the same self from a day ago, a year ago, a generation ago or even the child you were. No one actually wants to go back to who they were, the whole industry of self-improvement is based upon becoming someone better, that contrasts with who you are now and yet we pull back from contrast instinctively.
Perhaps it explains why it is so difficult to improve yourself, we do not actually want contrast, at a fundamental level we retreat from it. If it was simple to change, to become the type of person that you want to be, you would just have to watch a few videos or read a book, and then take the simple steps and actions of that kind of person, because truth to be told, when you look at someone you admire, their actual experience of their lives is as simple as your experience of your life. They take the actions that they do because they are the actions they took yesterday, that is the experience of everyone, they do what they are competent at which is whatever they are familiar with doing.
They have different outcomes because of those actions, and from the outside, from your positioning of looking at their lives, they looked like things to be admired but from the inside it is merely what is familiar. You can see this when some one is a master of a skill or sport, they look like they are at home, they are at their everyday business, even when they are doing something extraordinary, it could be a tennis championship, or an opera, the best look the most comfortable, and is because they are, they are competent, confident and at ease with themselves.
However to get there took a lot of discomfort, and to be resistant to that discomfort is the only truly difficult thing in life. To be able to experience contrast without shying away from it, shutting your eyes, closing your nose and retreating into a familial womb, your meditation mat, the gym, a rose scented linen duvets behind light bocking curtains. To be able to face the contrast is a truly heroic act, and we get that choice every day, it does not always have to be an intense sensory experience of the world, how familiar five senses, more often than not the real contrasts that terrorises lies within the six sense.
The sixth sense that is the sum of our mental processes, thoughts, feelings and emotion, which are all aspects of this single sense. Indeed so overpowering can this sense be, that is the five senses that we retreat back to, using the breath as object of your meditation is really nothing more than retreating to a place of limited contrasts, where we spend time in solitude that is to protect us from the contrasts of other people and putting on headphones, listening to classical music is the equivalent of an infant sucking on their thumb.
And there is no shame in it, it is the nature of our experience, we seek contrast and we retreat from it, that is a human being, our nature and entire purpose is to fight the good fight repeatedly. Boredom is in essence the experience of lacking contrast, of nothing to do or failing to live in alignment with our purpose. Not in the sense of meaning or grand purpose, just what our nature requires of us, it is contrast that we seek because being able to experience greater contrast is what makes us feel deeper. We were born to overcome that contrasts, to grow as beings of consciousness and the more self assured we are being able to grow, the more content we become, to be able to live every day and embrace that contrast is what living a good life consists of, that persisting state of engaging in challenging things with an attitude of grace, joy and ease, a good life is not an easy life.
And we are fortunate that life will continuously prompt us with resistance, it is our guide to what is contrasting with our current experience. When we feel the resistance of low-energy it is because we are being challenged about our current status quo, and not by anyone else, except ourselves, it is like a becalmed sailing ship, we are stricken, lifeless and limp. Only we have the responsibility to find the wind again, no one else can or will find your unique course again, only you can put the wind back into your sails, you might have to wait for a breeze, but you are going to have to be ready to tact into it, to find the contrast between the drag of your ship and the force of the wind, and to ride the energy that is produced when they met in harmony. Then you get to experience the glory and beauty of the flow of energy and feel reborn into the moment.
