It seems to me that all our problems, all our suffering and conflicts, both personal and global, stem from one basic problem: our ignorance of who we really are. We have forgotten our inseparability from life and so we have started to fear it, and out of that fear we have gone to war with it in various ways. We have gone to war with our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, our bodies, with the present moment itself. In our efforts to protect ourselves from pain, from fear, from sadness, from discomfort, from failure, from the parts of life we have been conditioned to believe are bad or negative or dark or dangerous, we have stopped being truly alive…..
…Spiritual awakening-realizing that you are not who you think you are is the answer to this basic problem of humanity. These days there are many books available on this topic….. But there is a trap here. Spirituality can easily become just another layer in our armor…. Spiritual concepts and cliches like “There is no self” , this is not my body” or “Duality is just an illusion” can simply be new beliefs to cling to, new ways of avoiding life and pushing the world away, which result in more suffering, for us and for those we love.
….Life cannot hurt you, because you are life. So the present moment is not an enemy to be feared, but a dear friend to be embraced. Yes, spirituality does not strengthen your armor against life – it destroys it.
—Jeff Foster – The Deepest Acceptance
