The wisdom of courage is just accepting the instability of life. That what you know is already there. Accepting your own limitations, even if you don’t understand them, and living your life anyway. Because really, that life you are living, do you really own it? Do you control it, really? Do you actually have to control it?
I’ve tried to control it, and then became miserable. The idea that you own your life is misery making. Your life isn’t a passive object for you to own. It’s an active force like the weather, the wind, and the waves. You are a part of it, and the strength you desire doesn’t come from forcing you, or anyone around you, to do anything. Trust strength is permitted, not created.
What do we ever really create? What can you even imagine that has no basis in reality already? We are a part of this big scary world that we fear has power over us. The world is your body. You are more in the world than perhaps you currently understand. What do you want? And I mean the question.
Maybe that’s the problem, we don’t know. I don’t know. Yes, it is the problem. You want the world like you want something to eat.
My wants are endless. Your wants are endless, yes, and not controlled by you. Does that make them evil?
But the underlying want or need? This is another confusing issue people make, that need not be made. There is no confusion, it is actually need. The call to engage life. That underlying need is real, and to be embraced. Otherwise it’s just a death wish. Are you more spiritual if you say you don’t want anything? If so, how so? Because, that really confuses me.
Our ‘good’ wants are the ones we need? Affirming of life? The clear wants. When desire become unclear, that is when we engage in self destructive behaviour; addictions, self flagellation, even the hateful rejection of the self and the world. You can’t accept one, and reject the other. In Taoism, they speak about giving up wants, but they don’t speak of ignoring wants. Eastern thinking is tricky for westerners like that.
When I was dying, I had no wants or needs. True, you were dying and you gained them again when you were saved.
Didn’t have them, or didn’t hold them? Didn’t hold them. The force of desire was still there, but the relationship changed briefly. Do you believe death was bliss, and to be desired over life?
I think that’s how we have to live. Have our wants, but don’t hold them. Know them. It is courageous to know your wants. Yes. Hold hunger, and you will eat when you don’t need to. Know hunger, and you will eat till you don’t need to.
I can share my own experience with death since it’s come up. As you shift into death, yes, you don’t want or need anything. As your mind clears, things shift quite a lot. You engage a powerful seeing, and honestly it can make the dynamic of desire seem like bliss. You can miss that context, that warm immersion that isn’t present in death. You see exactly how you relate in death, and how you did in life, and what it all means. People don’t really want to know these things now do they? These “spiritual types” who ennoble being desire free, who are they helping? What are they teaching you about life?
Nothing nature can’t teach me. Exactly. Including human nature, inner nature. Jesus showed desire in the market he trashed, and he showed desire in caring about his followers errors. He wanted better for them.
Make a mistake for me.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~