Some of us may think we are awake when we are actually caught in the trickster of fraud and are playing the angel. We think and act as though we are an awakened angel when in fact, we have left out light and darkness.
Here is a simple test of being played by the trickster thinking we are an angel – (saint, good person, awakened, realized). We find ourselves saying “I don’t know what came over me.” This type of statement is said after the fact – after the devil appeared and we went wild over something or another.
In other words, we lost it! And we project the incident outward. We explain our mistake in every which way possible.
When we lose it and blame or shame ourselves, we are not reconciled with the inner circle of light & darkness. We repudiate the darkness – the instinctual side that has been hiding underground while we pretend to be angels of light. Here is when we make excuses.
There are many of us who pretend to be better or more awake than we are. In fact, we act out the play of the angel. All we have done is repress, reject, hide, and disavow the darker aspects of the two sides of light and dark.
Many of us do this play-acting, not out of malice but out of a desire to awaken.
Let us for the time being consider whether we are true to our Selves or are cheating our Selves with a pretense that is merely an act. It sounds too big-headed, maybe lofty, too. But come along anyway. We need to have a look at the interior structure of our mind.
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Thanks for continuing to read. Let’s begin by asking ourselves a question – it’s an important question because it separates those who need to continue to read from those who can go happily on their way.
Ready?
Here’s the question.
Do you accept your life situation? Or do you pretend it is otherwise?
It sounds like a simple question, but it is surprisingly profound and piercing. We may overlook the impact because we do not understand the difference between acceptance and resignation. Let’s just focus on acceptance since that is what the question asks.
Do you accept your life situation?
Accept refers to our ability to receive willingly what shows up in our life – without any impulse or desire to modify what is offered.
Here’s the check on whether we are telling ourselves the Truth.
IF you had the power and facility to modify and change your situation,
you would not change it because you have no reason to change it.
This is acceptance..
There is no taint of desire for things to be different than they are – but if we have even the smallest taint of desire to change, to modify things, then we are not reconciled with acceptance.
We are unable and perhaps unwilling to untie ourselves from light and dark because we are not yet awake. We may have had kensho experiences, but we still suffer from refusing to accept the darkness as light and light as darkness.
If we go about life pretending to be awake, we cheat ourselves from the Truth.
The Cow
There is a Zen koan that points out our situation and gives us clarity on acceptance versus resignation. It is the Zen koan of the cow that jumps through the latticed window.
The head, body, legs jump through to the other side except for the cow’s tail. This koan is a depiction of the reality that we awaken with a recognition that there is a temporal material world which anchors us until the body itself gives out.
The cow is reconciled with being One between the material realm and the spiritual. But notice – only the cow’s tail remains on the material side of existence. – not much at all but enough for us to imagine the whole cow that is awakened on the other side.
From a look at the window the cow broke through – it is fair to say that the koan is pointing at satori – the sudden awakening of leaping through to the other side while still alive in the body-mind structure. To go one step further – the tail is still in view. It shows that although we break through to the other side, we remain in the body-mind complex until it all karmic energy ceases.
Don’t Give Up. Keep Going.
OM
🙏
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