Lost in the Weeds, Part II

Ah, rats ...

I promised you a part two, didn’t I?…

What was I on about? Let me go back and read…

I suppose I mentioned I’d give you a sword of truth or something?

Man…

I have got to stop making such lofty promises. Imagine trying to deliver on that at ten o’clock at night after a hard day’s work. But I’m a trooper, and a man of my word for the moment. So here you are, perk up, listening cap on let’s begin.

Big sword reveal coming up. Huge.
...
It starts with you being lost.

Is this so?

If you feel found, perhaps this is not necessary for you. But if you feel any unhappiness, any tension, any pain or suffering at all in your life, you are indeed far gone.

The thicket of confusion is not a fun place to be. I’ve been there, and I’ve hacked my way out one swing after the other.

Using what, using what? That’s the question, isn’t it?

What is the “sword,” the tool with which you can end the cycle of pain and misery?

Recall that you battle. You are in a battle. Now, look how clear I gave things to you last time: “if you are in a battle, you have quite literally two positive options -- win the battle, or call a truce.” But then what did I tell you next: I said, you are the one who chooses to battle. You battle because you want to. I said nobody is making you fight. Nobody is really there threatening you. It is not even a true battle. You have picked up the arms and, going against a sea of troubles, now you fatigue wish to stop. But my, you’ve forgotten how! I

slipped you a little something, there, didn’t I -- there is no enemy outside of your creation.

 You’re on both sides.

You’re the protagonist and the antagonist.

The negative feelings are as “you” as the positive ones.

That there is for you a coin of wisdom, and, as coins do, it does bear its two sides. Let me expound upon them.

Side one:

(ready to be shocked?) ...

...you cannot actually rid yourself of your pain.

You cannot fight it. You cannot eliminate your drama, your suffering, your depression, or your sadness any more than a rock could fall on itself and split itself in twain. Time to buck up, sack up, and grit your teeth because you aren’t getting rid of your problems. They’re there forever. They’re you. Get rid of them -- and give yourself a lobotomy, destroy your essence, kill yourself.

To be fair I told you this in part one already, weren’t you listening?

Your fight is with ideas, heady fictions, distractions, confusions. You hope for better change to avoid doing any of the dirty work of change, which cannot come through fighting. You wish yourself “better” without understanding that there is no relation in your wishing to your actual state of improvement. The battle you fight is at best a distraction to give you something to do with your time, and at worst a miserable, energy-intensive, life and death struggle over peanuts. You’re wasting your time, because you can’t change you by fighting. You’ve made no progress in becoming happier or more fulfilled or anything you are searching for and you’re doomed to continue on this way forever.

Some sword I’m giving, huh?

But the coin, flip it.

Let’s hear some of that good ol’ news! And lord have mercy here it does come!

You cannot hurt yourself! You cannot lose the battle!

This battle is an illusion of the highest order; it is not a battle with any stakes whatsoever. You cannot be killed, you cannot be hurt, you cannot be touched. You can only feel this way or that. But this is not you. You are both the positive and the negative, and so neither is truly you. You are the totality of the two sides and you are above and beyond, transcendent above your feelings and free to watch them come and go as they do please.

The sword?

Well, here it is.

You have nothing to do.

You have nobody to fight.

You do not fight at all.

You simply experience yourself. This is true. This is reality. Absolutely and unambiguously -- I dare you to try and disprove it.

Stop believing you are fighting anybody or anything and you will see the tools of war drop from your hands. You aren’t fighting. You’re just being.

Those parts of you that make you unhappy will remain as they are you, but here’s the trick: as you begin to let go of the battle, it will cease to bother you. Your pain, will quite literally stop causing you pain, even if it is still there.

Hard to wrap your head around huh?

But worry not about understanding now; you must see it for yourself.

And your future will be bright. For as you withdraw from the battlefield and opt to watch it go on from high above, you will find contentment. You will find that a while a battle rages on below, you are no longer involved, nor interested in the outcome of it. Indeed you will see there can be no outcome, since both sides create the other.

Now you are free to stop pretending and to start living.

There are two favorable outcomes of a battle.

I’ve told you, you cannot win.

What I am instead telling you to do is make a truce.

With yourself, with your battles, with your feelings and your fears. Stop trying to control what you cannot control. Leave them be, let them act out as they will. This is the truce to end the war.

Peace and joy will come to you.

Enjoy.