Hide and Seek

We are constantly changing. We’re not static, therefore, we cannot hold onto our concept of ourselves or others. To truly grow and move and flow with the river of life, we need to constantly let go of where we are and what we know. This makes us available for what is and what’s to come.

Many find fluidity threatening. It is unpredictable and unknown. Without a measured, structured controlled way of being, life becomes rich with possibility and also with danger. Anything can happen. As Alan Watts reminded us there is real wisdom in insecurity. Nothing is certain or guaranteed, and to operate as though it is leaves us unprepared to meet what life presents us in the moment.

“How could this happen?” we ask when life takes a sudden abrupt turn, the very question revealing deep levels of unconsciousness about the nature of existence. Life simply is unfolding as it will, moment by moment, and the workings of it are so vast and complex that try as we might, we will never be able to rein it in and direct it to do our bidding.

The shattering of illusions, such a quintessential aspect of waking up, reveals this unfathomable mystery over and over again. Like grains of sand in a clenched fist, no amount of our demanding the truth, brings it forth. Instead, it seems to be the gentle surrender and dropping of resistance that allows the fog around our vision to lift.

Thankfully, there is always more ... more to see ... more to know ... more to experience. Thinking you have arrived is yet another illusion. So many spiritual teachers have been blinded silly by that one, as they set up their tent shows promising to show us the way.

What a relief to realize that stopping is not an option!

Life is about movement and growth, and those whose main focus is escaping that usually end up getting yanked out of their stupor by some major jolt or challenge.

Fate has a way of finding our hiding places.

We all know the whispering inside our hearts, as well as the ongoing costs we incur by ignoring it.

As I’ve said before we can take our experiences easy and smooth or hard and straight up. There are benefits to each. Often the resistance makes our experiences and the lessons we learn from them far more powerful, indelible in their impact and level of penetration, giving them a bit more staying power.

Resistance then may not be a bad choice if you don’t mind higher spheres of pain, because the tighter we hold onto our illusions, the more attached we get to them, the more wrenching and severe it can be when they blow up.

Life becomes quite shamanic at this level. We invite this kind of no-nonsense teacher when we really want to immerse ourselves fully in the deepest level of a particular lesson. We may even question our ability to survive travels into these depths, because they often leaving us feeling adrift without anchor or familiar ground beneath our feet.

But eventually, with time, we emerge from the murky darkness and find our way onto dry land. In the process, we may discover that something within us—something connected to us, something mysterious and yet familiar—was there to sustain us all along, That something also is what connects us to all that is around us and lets us know that we are not alone.

Once we can really see and experience that connectedness with everything, we no longer need to fight or control or manipulate the world around us. We no longer need to cling to our concepts and beliefs. We can simply let go and fall into the void and relax into the awareness that there is no death and, therefore, nothing to fear.

In fact, there are no limitations at all. There is only this game of hide and seek between the truth and the illusions that distort it.

The ultimate paradox is that since there is nowhere to go but right where you are, you are exactly where you should be, illusions and all.