Jesus and the Tao (6)

Judge not (get out of your head, thoughts), lest you be judged. This statement deals specifically with our thought self, the stories and narratives which run continually in our minds about others.  See Matthew 7.   Want to know what Jesus really thought, how he lived?  Re-read Matthew chapters 4-7.  When we let go of this egoic self, life takes on a whole new meaning.

Jesus also said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light”. What does that even mean? Why? When we let go of our “thought self”, we don’t have to be driven by this false sense of self which our minds construct about not only us but also others.  We are not what we think.  “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he” is true only on the level of false construction.  

But who we are is light, not heavy.  Do you feel heavy, burdened down? Let go of your egoic self. Letting go of these fake identities or distractions and illusions is liberating.  This is real freedom!  Tolle talks about these constructs or forms (made up in our thoughts) as being like massive steam engines on the Titanic.  Massive, enormous, space consuming, HUGE, powerful engines which do NOT stop on a dime.  There is momentum when people are so identified with their ego-self, that is their ideas of who they think they are and who they think others are.  They will chug right at you, hoping to pull you into their wake with powerful emotional energy or to feed on your pain energy.  This egoic self is destructive to myself and others.  

Sure, at times, my ego feels temporarily satisfied, but watch how quickly it turns into desire (a future want or don’t want or projection) or regret (focus on the no-longer existent past). The terrible thing is that this emotional energy which is all tied with these fictitious stories about myself and others is destructive and all-consuming.  Once these engines have fired up, there is little to stop them. They perpetuate themselves, feeding on pain energy from self and others, like those Titanic engines heading toward the hidden iceberg.  “And you know what happened to the Titanic,” he quips (See the Omega retreat 2001).  

The good news is that we don’t have to stay in that heaviness anymore, the heaviness of those mental engines.  By practice of presence now, by staying in this moment, we can be free. 

Tolle says to practice presence with nature first: a tree, a rock, a flower.   It’s easier than people. It takes a lot more presence to deal with people and not get sucked into their thought engines, their stories.   Jesus said, “consider the lilies of the field how they neither toil nor spin.”  So, today, I’m contemplating a tree.  Just accepting what is.  Not judging it or trying to make it fit into some grand design or plan or end goal.   Just observing.  And when I focus on right now, I’m less consumed with worries about what will happen later or what happened in the past.