One thing i have come to realize from all my tries is that just because i want something, i am not going to get it. my very wanting stops me, my very wanting defeats me in the end. i slowly slowly get agonized from my lowly state. one day it gets too much and i get a burst of thought where i formulate a whole plan to get out. i start working according to the plan and start getting some success. agony starts ending and i no longer suffer in the same way. i realize this plan could only work when i am already in suffering state and can get me out of suffering but cannot take me further once that suffering is gone. nowhere to go i start returning to same wretched state. its like i want suffering to get out of suffering. its like the good state is just too good to pump me further. its like even my goals are paradoxical; they look very awesome and tempting when i am in suffering state but loose their contrastic attraction once i’m in happy state. not that i loose sight of my highest goal, but that enthusiasm, that motivation is gone. my want betrays me. well, it rarely happens that i get to reach upto even this level, but whenever i do, this happens, and it makes me realize that many of the things i thought were true in me were but illusions. they were like desires that vaporizes once reaching their fulfillment. so, you know, the backup support start getting less and less as i move upwards, since more and more temporary desires keep vaporizing. i am recalling a story where an old sadhu/hermit is bathing in river and a young man comes to him and says: “I want God”. old man picks his head and pushes it under water and keeps it under for a long time. at last he leaves it and young man brings his head out. old man asks: “what was it that you were most wanting in those last moments?” young man says:”air”. old man says: “come back when you want God just that much.” so i guess i don’t want my highest hope just that much yet. much in me is there that gets satisfied by far lower things. maybe i spent too much time perfecting the highest one that i couldn’t  bring the lower ones even close to it. they are far too low, its not systematic. maybe desires and sufferings are proportional, which means i have not yet gone very deep into suffering (which is true).
i don’t know, everything is looking like an illusion. i put so much mental effort on all those plans and what i got is betrayal from myself. how true all those thoughts were looking, as if they won’t last until i reach my goal. even my devils betrayed and proved out to be just some puffed up frogs! i am just so weak. i don’t even know myself. now tell me, is it wrong that i call myself a liar? you will read it and call me a hypocrite, and yet its true that at that time these were the things that were like my whole existence, my whole world. and here i am sitting, as if nothing happened, whereas its nothing less than my rebirth. maybe i always knew this is going to happen, and yet am selfish enough to try everytime.
or maybe i wasn’t looking for the highest goal at all. that was just a facade under which my ugly-type selfishness was working. maybe everything i ever wanted was just end of suffering. and when i got it i got bewildered because of a lack of goal and returned to same suffering. or maybe i got bewildered because the facade was exposed, and returned to suffering as a self-punishment. there are many ways to look at it.
8 comments
Awesome. Yes, this world is illusion. Seeking becomes an obstacle. Yet the end of suffering is a worthy goal, though peace had been thought of as nothing. Indeed, you can not have known what you sought, because you had discounted the inestimable. You are on the right path. G.W.
Yeah I can relate and understand what you’re trying to describe. In my life the closest thing I can compare it to is my belief that getting in better physical shape will change my life. The suffering is enough to get me started on eating healthier and getting back to exercising. But after only a week or two, I start to see the first signs of progress, and everyone thinks seeing progress will encourage you to keep going, but I always viewed it the same way you described above, you start to get towards what you want, thus your level of suffering already starts to decrease, so you stop doing it. And like you described, apparently the thing you thought you wanted was just an illusion, I never really want to engage in a healthy lifestyle 365 days a year, I just want some relief from the suffering. So I work hard enough to just start feeling better, and then ironically that’s when I stop and let myself go back to rock bottom so I can start suffering again.
Motivation is a very hard thing to maintain.
You’re right, you probably don’t truly want the things you think you want if you keep running into this experience where you only get so far before abandoning the goal and retreating back to square one. I want to know what it’s like to be a really healthy athletic person, but that’s not the same as saying I actually want to do all the work that’s required to be that way. I like to daydream about the goal but I do not actually want to partake in the process that is required to get there.
The things we tell ourselves will improve our lives really won’t anyway. The human mind is always chasing far off goals because it seems we’re only happy when we’re unhappy, ironically. We never feel comfortable as we are, we always have to set some far off goal to chase after. And even if we ever manage to reach the goal, we just immediately realize that we still aren’t satisfied, and pick something new to go after. I kind of subscribe to the zen buddhism belief that desiring things leads to suffering and you’re just better off realizing that the thing or situation you desire isn’t really going to make you happy anyway, but the downside to that is that you can end up justifying an entire lifetime of never really achieving anything. Which is viewed as a positive in the buddhist way of thing, but in the rest of the “real” world if you don’t convince yourself to always be striving for something, you look like an outcast.
So even though I often find myself realizing that the pursuit of goals is silly and pointless, a lot of times I allow myself to fall back into that habit anyway, convince myself that something I want to buy will make me happy, or if I change something about my life I’ll finally be satisfied. Sometimes I still give in to running on the hamster wheel even though I already know that it doesn’t lead anywhere.
@G.W. everybody seems to say i am on the right path. then why am i on this site, writing stories of my failure? just because i have a goal? what if that turned out to be an illusion too? every worldly fact indicate towards that, and its probably only trust that’s keeping me going. what will happen if i loose it too?
@spiritdying zen buddhism is awesome. yet convincing oneself doesn’t seem to do anything. i have tried that so many times. that’s the whole problem. what does life want – that we keep running and running? running when truth lies at simply sitting? and running even when we know truth lies at sitting!? that’s just… dictatorship.
Hey quearo. I did not that you are not in some deep stuff. What I said was that you are, or at least you were for that moment, pointed in the right direction. You don’t need to convince yourself and that will not work. I am not trying to convince your. I do want to give encouragement where it may be helpful.
Are you Buddhist or some other religion? If so, this can be used to explore how your mind works and this is something that will help a lot. In other words it should not be used to control your behavior or to prove that you are wrong or should be guilty. It should be used to give insight into the true nature of your being (holiness) and learning to stop interfering with it. Then you can turn to your true purpose here.
Capische?
i understood that; u meant the way to right path is first de-conditioning. i knew that’s what was happening there. and this is what i was asking: that this is not working, and this too can be wrong. anyways…
But you are assuming that you would recognize, in your present state, what you need and what is working. In fact, this assumption is a major impediment to progress that would otherwise proceed more quickly.
Do you have a religious affiliation? The reason for this question is simply that the deconditioning process typically proceeds along religious lines and only rarely against them, if they are there. Why? Because religion is seen as the basis of morality, though it is far more, and the purification process must be seen as an ultimate good or it would be abandoned or avoided, because no one can, or should, proceed in a direction that they believe to be wrong/evil/bad.
well as for religion: no. but i do trust a religious figure (Buddha). and yes, you can say that the purification process is seen as ultimate good because that’s what he said.
but i don’t think one can work without having ideas of what he is doing and where he is going. atleast not when he is independent and not within a group or organization. do you mean to say i should ‘let go’? but that would be paradoxical.
Yes, you do need the ideas. They are the theology of the religion, or other ethical philosophy, you follow. What I am saying is that they are the ideas you must use, so that you are not left rudderless with only good intentions. So if you truly have no religious affiliation, but trust Buddha, use Buddhism. This is more difficult in Kansas than Bankok, though it can be done. In Kansas, Christianity is easier, all other things being equal, which they never are.
The one thing you must consider now is a positive step that you choose to take. It by definition drops passivity and raises the stakes. Making the decision and taking the step will lead to the next question that automatically arises: Will it work.
It will work because of intention to heal. Simply remember that the healing is internal, not external, since they are cause and effect. In any case, take the present step, since that is the one facing you.