awakening

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Lynn Paterson2 Comments

Greetings Beloveds,

A continuation of musings in the same vein or theme as the previous blog, The Hidden Beloved.

The ordinary self is not good enough. So I try to make it other.  I try to make other myself.  I try to impose a shinier version. I yearn to be this big shining star.  I effort to find something that I am.  I see an angel and think; maybe I am that still waiting to be discovered! Special, different, better, worse… all impossible.  The more I want to be special the further I take myself away from truth. The more I set myself aside from ‘others’ the lonelier I become.  I belie I am different in my suffering – no one can understand. I get the pleasure of the martyr which is no more than the pain of separation. Separating myself and negating the self are the same thing/action.  That I can be different, special, above everyone else was the promise and lie for I can no more be above than below.  But I can choose to experience them separately.  By separating myself I can choose to split the whole into two.  Or at least experience it as such.  But even oneness is imaginary surely? Still, it will do for now as it’s impossible to imagine nothingness, and I need some context for to have no belief also seems impossible. In exploring this unveiling the fairy story of the Emperor’s New Clothes came to mind.

I’ve written a new twist on the story. His story, the Emperor’s.  And I cannot quite believe that a brief search just now on the old fairy story of The Emperor’s New Clothes is now all about Russell Brand’s new film which is all over the news today!!! – Seriously, I don’t keep up with the media and had no idea when I started writing this several days ago.  Just goes to show there is no separation, though in the case of Russell Brand, I wouldn’t mind the illusion. But onwards with the new take on an old story:

The Emperor’s New Clothes

The Emperor believed he could separate himself and be above everyone else. Despite his ever increasing attempts to make himself special, this always failed to make it so, and he became a bit depressed and sometimes a little angry with himself, and drove himself harder and harder to achieve the impossible.  He decided to commission a new set of clothes that would finally distinguish himself from everyone else in the crowd on the great day of showing off.  The news spread far and wide. Clothes made, dawned the day.

Huge crowds turned out despite the rather cloudy cool day. Most were wearing their sheepskins to keep insulated from the reality of that. And of course, consensus reality meant all had already agreed to see what they were conditioned to see and forget that they had agreed in the first place, leaving them thinking they had a separate mind from everyone else, yet all happy to act the same anyway.

Except for a young child in the crowd outside the palace where the Emperor paraded.  This youngster was not conditioned or socialised, and some might call that wild or innocent. The child saw the truth, that the Emperor was not wearing any clothes.  In fact, his desire to transform into someone better created the inevitable –it happened. But not in the way he thought he wanted of course as he literally got naked to others before he was ready to get naked to himself! And it turned out that these clothes did the opposite of what he had tried to do; they did not provide a barrier to oneness at all.

As the child spoke up, the spell was broken and others saw through the eyes of innocence and the lies of better or worse than were exposed, just like the Emperor was.  Right there, in that moment, the crowd had a chance to stop the game and get naked too, but instead they chose to continue the game of duality, and chose the ‘better than’ role and ridiculed and shamed the Emperor for his pride. Shame and pride are of course opposites in the world of make-believe.

The Emperor also had a choice in that moment as to continue the ‘make-believe’ game or not. But heck, he was already completely bollocks naked, how much worse could it get???

He too saw through the eyes of the child and through the lies of the game and went to the child and thanked him for showing him the truth.  In doing so he simply swallowed and digested his pride which immediately gave him a huge sense of freedom and relief, plus a lot of ‘new’ energy to use.  His nakedness revealed his natural humanity which is quite harmless really, and so pretty soon no one was afraid of him being better than they any more.  In fact, everyone stripped off as the sun came out, the day became warm, people jumped into the fountains, splashing happily as others rushed off in great excitement to prepare a great feast.

And they all lived eternally ever after.  Though as humans, it was inevitable that the next day some were hungover as they were not quite ready to embrace the new and simpler way yet.

The Hidden Beloved

Lynn PatersonLeave a comment

Why is self-care so difficult? Why is say, sitting in silent meditation for only half an hour each day so darned hard to do? I’m not talking about guided meditations, snoozes, setting a sacred space etc. I’m talking about just sitting there with no distractions whatsoever. So why is that so very hard to do?
Because it’s really listening to ourselves – in sitting in silence with nothing else to distract us, we have to see who we are; we have to come face to face with who we think we are. It is very difficult to be intimate with the self; we’ll do anything at all to avoid, to void the self, to distract us from the monster within or the terrible emptiness that we think is inside of us.
This negation of self, this mass belief of the ordinary not being good enough, has created a monster of consumption that is never going to be satisfied for it’s impossible to fill a void that is not actually there in the first place. It’s all a lie.
The ordinary is enough, and trying to add to or change perfection can only take us away from that.
When we look at all the lies that we manufacture to convince ourselves that what our beliefs are right and that we need to change, to add or alter ourselves, we can see that the products of those lies materialise.
You’re being sold your self-worth. Oh dear! Hence the endless consumerism or the infinite inventions of that which is supposed to make you feel whole and complete.
The ordinary is enough is a realisation that the ordinary is enough.  But that claim, those words, that sentence, well, it doesn’t feel like enough does it?
And this can be applied to everything that is out there designed to change, improve, alter, whatever! It cannot be done. Change is not possible, only perspective can be changed. The more things change, the more things stay the same. That’s because you, they, me, everyone, is eternal and unmoving.That’s it. The key to discovering, to uncovering this truth, is to actually do the opposite of what we are all desperately trying to do – stop trying to change anything at all.Yes, one of the greatest lies of all time is that change is necessary, or even possible.It’s this belief that is the promise and driving force of all religion, including new age spirituality, and of course, one of the biggest money makers of all time.
“Be the change you want to see in the world”. This one had me in its thrall for quite some time till recently in fact, when I saw through the mistaken belief that change is actually possible.
The only thing we need to change, is to stop trying to change anything, especially ourselves. Only then will we be able to see that we are perfect exactly as we are. Though it does take some time for the layers of what we’ve tried to add to peel away. And it takes a lot of courage to face that which we’ve hidden from, to uncover the self-betrayal and self-abandonment and attempts to negate the self. However, when we’ve seen, and then become the Hidden Beloved, it’s worth it.
The realization may only happen in its own timing. Until then, it is inevitable that we will continue to look outside ourselves, to endlessly try to fill a bucket with a hole in it, and continue to fail to fill up from the outside.

Nothing more is needed.

Notes about “The ordinary is enough.” When I discovered this I wanted to explain it by saying how exquisite the ordinary was, but all that did was to start the re-layering process again. There’s no need to explain why the ordinary is enough, no need to find other words to describe the feeling that the ordinary is enough. It is simply what is left when effort is removed. The Peace of The Ordinary. The peace of Giving up Trying to Change or Fix IT. The Peace of trying to change yourself. There is no change possible – change is an illusion – it all stays the same no matter how much it ‘changes’. The lie is believing it can change. Action can only come from what has been done before. Right action comes from Being. You cannot change yourself. You can only change the way you see yourself.

Blessings,
Lynn