Writing Experiment

by Uli on Rough Diamonds

Blank Slate

I’m diving deep and yet I’m scratching the surface.
I’m travelling far and yet I’m going nowhere at all.
I’m letting go and yet I’m receiving more than I can take in.
I’m here and yet I’m eternal.

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds

Seek And Find

To appreciate silence one has to know noise.
To find order one has to accept the chaos.
To enter the light one has to befriend darkness.
To know freedom one has to acknowledge restriction.

The one who knows the dark will embody the light.
The one who fathoms confusion will encounter clarity.
The one who lives up to their limitations will grow beyond them.

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory

Hello, Darkness

Yes, I do struggle.
Yes, I don’t know.

And yes, here it is again: “Hello darkness my old friend”* – and the blank page, my salvation… 

I recently finished a ten-day Vipassana course and I have to say that it shattered something inside of me to an immeasurable degree. It shook me and my, still so precious, existence. It shifted my perspective on basically everything I have ever done in a subtle and at the same time fundamental way I had never experienced before. 

Don’t get me wrong: I know that everything I have ever done is perfect. My past is perfect. My future is perfect. And the presence is what I still long for. And probably this is what made me sign up for the Vipassana course.

In a brief conversation I had today, this person said: “We always have expectations. Otherwise we wouldn’t do a thing.” This was very interesting for me to hear. And it reminded me of how I am creating black and white stories around what “proper” detachment should look like….

It’s OKAY to have expecations. All is okay…. Anyway, later on you will eventually get the point (maybe, maybe not;).

Sooo. What did change through Vipassana? I realized how much I was (and still am!) searching for ‘something’ outside of myself. Yes, I investigate, I reflect.

Life forced me inward several times in my life. To be much more accurate MY PAIN forced me inward, because when the pain became unbearable I had to find resources inside – just to find out that THEY ARE THERE! There ARE resources!!

I internalized, but most of the time I analyzed:

And that is the point. At the end of the day I was always looking for an abstract answer. I was, unwillingly, looking for “an easy to digest” answer – an answer that is still, more or less, acceptable by my upbringing or by my conditioning, my inner voices and internal judges…

It sounds kinda cool to move through the dark night of the soul. It sounds impressive to move kundalini energy. It sounds amazing to “walk the camino”. Nothing more and nothing less. 

I confess: I like “the sounds of it”… Transformation. Healing. Yoga and so on.

So. What Vipassana did was that it stripped allll these cozy wordings, definitions, explanations, RITUALS and STORIES off me…. 

I could finally breathe again. 

Vipassana does not serve the answer on a golden platter. It does not give constructive feedback or valuable advice. 

‘Gotama showed the path…,’ they say. Yes. Figuratively. “The path” is nothing conceptual. It is nothing logical. It is nothing to map out or to comprehend. It is nothing to understand or to study. It can only – and ONLY be walked. One-step-at-a-time. One sensation after another after another after another….

To be fair: There is no freakin’ path (no offence). There is only life itself. And when I say life I don’t mean “this one life”…. Not at all. There is life vibrating through our cells. There is life sprouting from our veins.

There is no such thing as “the core of our being”. There is only being. 

It’s the conceptualization, the intellectualization that is keeping me trapped within my own mind. 

Vipassana forced me to open the gate. Or did it rip apart the fence? I don’t know and it honestly does not matter.

Vipassana let life within me run free. And this left traces in my consciousness.

There is some novelty, a new realization awakening within myself…

The purges have been purged. And now life is urging to move me the way I’m supposed to move…. And now writing this down here I can feel the ‘intellect’ creeping in asking: “What are you talking about?” 

To use the words of Satya Narayan Goenka, one of the leading teachers of the method of Vipassana: “There is only flux and flow.” 

Nothing to suppose. Only to surrender.

And today I do surrender to darkness, because darkness knows more than me. It grounds me. It helps me grow if I let it….

* Simon & Garfunkel, 1964 😉

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory

Collective Purging

Today is a day of insights, a morning of stream of consciousness.

It is one of those moments when I understand that I am not doing it for me. I am not walking the path for the sake of walking it. I am not even sure if I am walking it.

I am experiencing transformation because my life experience is crucial for the life experience of everyone around me – everyone I influence with my being.

What I am talking about here is not my professional influence or what I am saying or not saying within my social relations. It is not about my writing, because this is what I am doing for myself.

It is about how I show up energetically (or not).

Recently there seems to be a challenging time for a lot of us.

I can feel the collective purge – the RELEASE of “old” emotions or life experience.

I witness it first hand by witnessing the processes of my friends.

The unbearable breaks open.

What was closing off is what is causing the opening – of “the path” and of the heart…

New beginnings appear on the horizon. Out of nowhere.

And what is beyond the horizon is unknown.

And that is where we want to go:

There is this big big big misconception around the spiritual path.

There seems to be some sort of cultural narrative (maybe it is within my perception because I am part of the narrative, which makes it even more pressuring to share this thought as unfiltered as possible.)

The narrative is being told on social media platforms. The images shown are flawless. The spiritual path seems to be paved with beauty. It appears to be a chronological process – and incorporation of THE beauty.

But guess what?

THIS IS NOT THE PATH.

The path is beauty, yes.

But “the way” is hard.

Yes, there are the souls that are awake. They are born into awake beings.

But, we, us, the ones who are reading this (I reckon’) are the ones who have to eat the sh*t.

We have to plough that dirt – the most nourishing ground that we have. Our beautiful ugly life experience, our suffering that is us.

It is within us.
It’s our feelings, our wrong-doings, our mistakes, our painfully covered truth that’s sooo crooked. It hurts.

The old skin that wants to be shed but it is so “intergrown” with our lives, entangled with our conditionings.
There is one thing I am more certain than ever: There is no way around it. The untangling is what will release a ton of energy. We know it deep down inside (not as far down as we think).

Our imagination can help us to give the push, but we have to make the move and trust.

The thing about that is: There is no reason not to trust.

This reminds me of a quote I read in a philosophy magazine called “Hohe Luft”: “Being satisfied with life can be an act of rebellion in times where thriving to be the best version of ourselves became the way of being.”

To trust is also an act of rebellion in times where deterioration is everything that is being broadcasted.

And the counter movement? Is BLINDFOLING our true feelings – burrying the truth….

The thing is: We don’t need a movement. All we need is to trust in our own abilities. And with abilities I mean the gifts that we have inherited, our DNA that is allowing us to receive information and process information within our physical body.

YES, our truth IS our feelings.

Trust exists independently from what is going on in the external.

Truth is subsisting. It is us.

Yes, I am saying: “TRUST! NO MATTER WHAT!”

Trust – whatever feeling arises.
Trust – no matter which decision is “the right” decision.
Trust – in your sadness, in your despair, in your anger, even – in your addiction or let’s say in “your awareness of your addiction”.

TRANSFORM IT BY BEING IT. LIVE THROUGH IT. This is how you overcome it.

It is so simple that I would like to scream it from the top of my lungs.

I invite trust.

I invite you to purge all of your emotions, to go all in, to feel it all and move on. You will see the next step. Help will appear out of nowhere.

You are never alone.

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds

There is Only Life

And all of a sudden, there it is again.
The life vibrating through my veins.
The eternal force bringing me back home.

Creation itself is filling my lungs.
I am breathing clarity.
Inspiration is flooding my heart.

Ideas are sprouting like leaflets.

Compassion is unleashing my chest.

Haaaaaaaaaa……. There she is again. My friend, freedom.