The Wisdom of Eric

Finding ourselves

Once with Eric, I explored my sense of feeling adrift and being uncomfortable with my life. I just felt an inability to appreciate or be mindful of the life gifts I had received, and it was angering me.

We talked together about inherent unsatisfactoriness in a conditioned world, and he suggested that I should celebrate my dissatisfaction instead of drowning it out with ego. This made me think.  What was my ego drowning?  I guess I was forgetting my objectivity. That I needed to remind myself that there was more to the idea of myself than just me!!

This realisation led us to talk about cultivating a beginner's mind, where everything is possible, rather than clinging to an expert's mind.

Shakespeare tells us that life is a play, and all the world is a stage. Perhaps the stage allows us to explore all aspects of ourselves and to give them a place to be recognized. I was asked by Eric to give the aspects of myself a voice or an identity. To try and recognise them and become self-aware of them.

The wonderful Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj captured it as ‘knowing what I am not’, is the key to accepting what I am’. And importantly, the essence of this journey of self-exploration is the awareness of love. It is love in action. I can only love if I am aware of myself, and can accept myself in all my complex glory.

Ah, but how can we put ourselves in a place to hear our inner voice? I believe now the key is to try to listen deeply within, to sit quietly and just smile inwardly and try to feel with no judgement, for our authentic voice. For our truth. I believe that we are already perfect, but to explore our perfection, we must embrace our imperfection. Listen to the internal voice, find it and listen deeply.

This can be hard because our natural state is forgetfulness. Plato wrote that we drink from the river of forgetfulness.  We forget because we need to continually experience, learn and evolve.

I think James Hillman also talked about it in the ‘Soul's code: In search of Character and Calling.  We need to be lost to find our way home and finding our way home is the journey of our life. I am currently wandering, and it's uncomfortable. But I trust that I am finding my way home.

find me at www.harveycounseling.com