Posts Tagged ‘releasing’

Today I was browsing the Sydney Morning Herald and chanced upon the following article extracted from a blog written by an American woman living in Sendai, Japan. It shows how, when extreme adversity calls, humans drop their false self (ego) and live and behave together in a totally different way. The way we could all live with a little effort.

Here it is:

Somehow, profound joy amid sorrow

American Anne Thomas has been teaching English in Sendai for a decade. These are edited extracts of an email she sent to family and friends this week to let them know she was alive and a blog entry she wrote.

THINGS here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend’s home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.

During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out a sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.

Utterly amazingly, where I am, there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People keep saying, ”Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another.”

Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes.

No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival.

There are strange parallel universes happening. People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs.

And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack each day, now to send this email, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.

My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don’t. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that much larger than myself.

In evacuation centres there are puppet shows for children. ”It’s to ease their minds,” my friend explained to me. ”That is very important.”

In another shelter, junior high school students got paper and paints and made a large bright, energetic sign that said, ”To have life is profound joy.” It was hung high overhead so everyone could see it.

We comfort one another as best as we can. We still say, ”Gambarimashou” (We must keep up our fighting spirit).

I want to close with another email from a friend who is a university teacher. It, too, is an excellent manifestation of the truly remarkable Japanese ”kokoro” (heart and soul).

”Today was supposed to be a graduation day which was postponed and might be cancelled. When I saw the students at the campus housing this morning, they served me a special breakfast that the juniors cooked for the seniors to celebrate the day. The meal was cold, but really special. I won’t forget the taste of it. I am convinced that my students will overcome this tragedy with the positive attitude. I intend to emulate them.”

You can read the full text of the blog article here:

http://odemagazine.com

When releasing becomes constant all the time, even though we are outwardly active, we go through life and work automatically, all the time remaining in our real Self.

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The mature seeker of the Self starts with: ‘The reality is that I was never bound; I was always free and perfect’, and takes off from there.

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Just look at what you are rather than what you are not. When you when you discover what you are, you simultaneously discover what you are not and drop it.

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Say: “I am not this body; I am not this mind”, and stay with it.
Seeing that you’re not the ego, you’re letting go of big chunks of ego.
The determination to release determines how much you wipe out the ego.

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Constancy of releasing is the degree of quieting the mind.
The longer you can release, the more ego goes.
Once you reach peace, then find out what you are.

Related Blogs

Releasing to make your mind blank is in error. You cannot make your mind a blank.

Releasing is a stepping stone to the knowledge of the answer to “What Am I?”

Some day the most delightful thing you will know of will be releasing.

Release until it becomes a constant, i.e. until it continues in the back of the mind regardless of what you are doing.

Releasing is just getting quiet, getting quiet and just being. It’s awfully nice to just be and be and be. It’s a tremendous experience. It’s a wonderful feeling of just being. However, don’t stop there. Keep dropping ego until there is no more.

You’ll reach a point  where you’ll like releasing better than anything else, because you’ll reach a point where you’re being very much you’re real Self.  That is the greatest of all joy, which you formerly thought was external in the world, in your wife, in your children. You’ll see your wife and your children as nothing more than your very own Self; you’ll see that. And the joy will be direct and constant all the time.

The answer won’t come from reasoning. It will come from releasing. Some day, some time, it will come. It will just present itself to you, so simple, and you’ll just say “Oh!”.

Releasing has to get to the point where it is the most important thing. Make releasing constant.

Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Spiritual knowledge does not come down to a lower level. We have to raise ourselves up to it. We raise ourselves in releasing. Releasing should be used to get higher understanding by raising ourselves up to where higher understanding is.

Releasing is wonderful. Things happen with releasing that never could happen without it.

You can make the mind quiet by the desire to discover what you are. When the interest in knowing what you are becomes stronger than the interest in this world and body, then you discover You. Desire, intense desire for it, is the key.