There are thousands if not millions of books, businesses, internet sites, television ads, blogs, magazines, and people on the street who will inform you, sometimes for free but usually for a price, about ways that will allow you to acquire whatever you desire. Sometimes the lure toward acquisition is straightforward, such as “how to get rich by buying and selling real estate,” or “you can lose 5 pounds a week on the Atkins diet,” but often the pitch is more subtle. If you don’t believe so, then consider the millions if not billions of man-hours that have been invested in the development of effective marketing techniques. Do you really think that investment has gone into figuring out how to give you exactly what you want or need, including more freedom of choice? Are you foolish enough to think that those techniques don’t work?
A similar phenomenon occurs when the desire is not to acquire, but rather to let go and lighten our load, getting rid of much or all of what we have that burdens us. Although it may seem to serve a “higher purpose” to simplify our lives and leave more room for “spiritual” activities, the process of letting go is as influenced by the forces of manipulation as the compulsion to acquire things. In fact, it’s really no different. Now we are “acquiring freedom from our possessions” …
Manipulation of the human mind takes place on many levels. It is as present in everyday cultural values as it is in the latest offerings from Madison Avenue. Television news used to be more subtle in its manipulative ways, but today it is just outright blatant. The first mistake we make in dealing effectively with all the manipulation that surrounds us is to believe that we are above it. Sorry, but it just ain’t so. You and I, we’re tools, to quote the vernacular.
Even though it might seem simple, losing everything is more elusive than it sounds. Sure you can declare your intentions to renounce all of your possessions and desires, even going so far as donating all your money to charity and dropping off all of your personal belongings at the Salvation Army. But letting go of the compulsion to reacquire all that has been lost is not nearly as easy as the romantic mind would like to believe.
Maybe losing everything is no better an idea than trying to acquire what we perceive as lacking. It’s exactly the same thing when you get right down to it.
Where do we turn then? I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you.
What I can offer, though, is a radical notion for most. Get to know and love the strategist within you. Yes, that one, the one who causes all your pain and suffering. The one to whom you may deny acknowledgment or acceptance. The one who compels you to do (or at least consider doing) all kinds of crazy shit, even though you can’t seem to find any good reason. Most of us work hard every day trying to get rid of this devil, or barring that possibility, trying to hide its existence from ourselves and others.
Sorry, but it will never work. There is no strategy that can defeat the strategist. Learn to live with it, to love it, and most especially, to love the strategist in others as well. When such harmonious coexistence is finally achieved, then … well … there you Are. As Lovely as a human devil can be.
The personality is but a product of imagination. The self is the victim of this imagination. It is the taking yourself to be what you are not that binds you. The person cannot be said to exist on its own rights; it is the self that believes there is a person and is conscious of being it. Beyond the self lies the unmanifested, the causeless cause of everything. Even to talk of re-uniting the person with the self is not right, because there is no person, only a mental picture given a false reality by conviction. Nothing was divided and there is nothing to unite. - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That
Deborah | 26-Dec-08 at 12:59 am | Permalink
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Deborah
http://termlifeinsurance2.com
Svasti | 28-Dec-08 at 4:44 am | Permalink
Its a weird phenomenon… can we really ever lose everything? Whether its physically, emotionally, materially or metaphysically - life is in a constant state of flux.
I moved home (again, where I live is always in flux too) in mid-November. And since dragging everything out of storage, I’ve been mercilessly shedding ‘things’. Clothes, shoes, handbags, general crap. Things I really don’t need.
But nature abhors a vaccum. Since then, I’ve acquired a new (and wonderful) writing desk - which kinda balances out the equation somewhat. Even though said desk is much more useful.
And that’s just the physical.
Perhaps you’re really talking about the idea of surrendering attachment? As in, showing no preference as to whether or not your possessions, your emotions, thoughts and other such things are ‘yours’, or ’someone else’s’. Do we show possessiveness for our ‘things’? Do we relate to those ‘things’ as something that defines who we are?
For me, that’s the real definition of losing everything.
Mike | 28-Dec-08 at 5:01 pm | Permalink
In a sense, yes, that is what I am talking about. Even more so than that, I am pointing to the falseness of all the notions that we have about attainment and loss, and suggesting, rather than considering the contents, observe the process by which those ideas come into being.
Peace,
Mike
River of Karma | 01-Jan-09 at 7:16 pm | Permalink
Hey Mike,
Been awhile since I dropped by. Great to see your new site. And as usual, great posts bro.
Here’s to a Happy New Year.
Cheers,
River of Karma
Mike | 01-Jan-09 at 7:25 pm | Permalink
Hey ROK,
Thanks, and Happy New Year to you as well.
Namaste,
Mike
Stacy | 07-Jan-09 at 11:03 pm | Permalink
Dear Mike,
Recently, I noticed something amazing: I went through great pains, acted as if I had made ultimate sacrifices, dramatized my very existence, and created a huge illusion of loss in my life through various mishaps and adventures ill advised to most. In actuality, though material and spiritual things have shifted, and I can enumerate items or even ideas/concepts that I’ve surrendered, there was/is nothing to lose, and likewise nothing to gain. I’m practicing accepting things more and pushing less these days, as a result of this direct experience.
‘Course, there is still this person that shuffles around in the body that I wake up inside of everyday. Old habits die hard, and I’m far from realized, whatever that means. Yet, I’ve sort of reached an equilibrium (mostly intellectually, but more and more directly) where the losses and gains are no more than ripples in the river I wade in, as I continue to discover the true meaning of my particular, perfect life. Brightly, happily, it is one that intersects with all of yours.
Love,
Stacy
2Da1 | 08-Jan-09 at 7:11 am | Permalink
Hmm. Isn’t the essence here that we don’t own anything in the first place? How can we loose or let go of that which we never owned?
Life, body, mind, spirit, material “possessions”, …. Never been ours to keep. We’re just bookies, managing and working with these items, till they fall apart, or we do first.
Thanks for sharing. Very inspiring.
Kind regards.
2Da1
Mike | 08-Jan-09 at 9:21 am | Permalink
Stacy,
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing with us.
Mike | 08-Jan-09 at 9:27 am | Permalink
Hey 2Da1,
You’re right, “ownership”, “having things”, and so forth are all labels and concepts that we attach to reality. They are born in thinking, and die in thinking. But “seeing” this is also not so obvious as it seems. To get it in the world of concepts has no practical value. But to be unaffected by such labels, that is an entirely different matter altogether.
Peace,
Mike