Spoiler Alert: my selfish potential for addiction never ends, but addictive thinking can disappear in understanding the present moment—and it is always the present moment.
My latest revelation of awareness is that everyone suffers from addiction. All of us can be, and most are, trapped in addiction to our thinking: the isolation we create in our mind full of thoughts, separated by our memories, knowledge, and experiences—our past—from reality in the present moment. Living on an island of only what we know creates a world where we think we can control our future by repeating what we already know—living in our past. We all suffer from addiction; it is just a matter of degree and devices. I digress.
So, as an alcoholic, being addicted to a substance—in addition—to my addiction to thinking, how do I dissolve my addictive cravings—wanting to feel different than what I feel right now—so I am no longer being torn apart by the choice of staying sober or dying in addiction? The truth is that I cannot change my cravings for self-sustaining choices that repeat my past; that is the definition of thinking. It is impossible to change my thinking because it is impossible to change my past. As Osho says, “Other than awareness, nothing changes a person, nothing at all.” I can’t think my way out of addiction, but addictive thinking can be transcended if the “I” disappears.
Say what: sobriety only happens if I disappear?
How can “Vic,” the manifested image my thinking mind has created, disappear—without jumping off a bridge—and no longer be pointed to or identified as “me”? The self, my material existence, is not only my physical body and possessions that I identify and cling to as “me;” my material existence includes my psychological ego—my thinking. My thinking is the collection of all my memories, knowledge, and past experiences that create the illusion of individual permanence as the thinking self—my material existence—is separate from the rest of creation in which the imaginary ego thinks it exists.
The disappearance of my separate ego identity is an effortless act of transcendence when self-awareness arises as the observer, to recognize the boundaries and comprehend the limitations of psychological measurement, space, and time with heart-felt understanding—without thought—a silent awakening of my higher power. Only through my higher power of constant awareness can the illusion of the separate self—“I”—disappear when my thinking stops in effortless observation—time stops.
So, how do I unlearn my dysfunctional past? How do I let go of all concepts and beliefs that sustain the self-centered image shaped by my family, culture, and society, the “me” separated by addictive thinking, not wanting to feel my past, and being unable to heal my psychological wounds? How do “I” empty the self-illusion of the separate me and disappear into unified selfless awareness?
The answer is meditation!
As J. Krishnamurti writes: “Meditation is not a withdrawal from life. It is not concentration. Meditation is the constant discernment of what is true in the actions, reactions, and provocations of life. To discern the true cause of struggle, cruelty, and misery is true meditation. This needs alertness, deep awareness. In this awareness of right values, there comes the comprehension of reality, bliss.”[1]
When meditation happens, my self-image disappears. The thinking self cannot exist with meditation. The “I” disappears when it is emptied of self-will and rendered choiceless. Choice creates the illusion of the autonomous “I” that separates me from the rest of humanity by comparison of genetic, cultural, and social differences; all my beliefs based on memories, knowledge, and experiences—my past—keep me imprisoned in my mind.
Freedom from addiction is not sobriety;
Freedom is the end of all comparison.
Freedom from choice is freedom from becoming a “me” by comparison, imitation, conformity, being better, or more. Freedom from becoming means the flow of divine vibrational energy-in-motion (emotional energy) is no longer transformed by the restrictive barriers of frustration, anxiety, depression, anger, or violence—my thinking; trying to be different, unique, or special, but for many, unfortunately, we end up addicted, isolated, lonely, in depression. Instead, freedom from becoming allows my divine vibrational energy to flow through my open heart, with all the never-changing virtues of my original innocence—honesty, courage, integrity, love, compassion—directly into the world with healing for all, including the divided “me.” Authentic, joyful living in freedom occurs when the psychological past dies in the present moment, and only awareness of unity with all creation remains in the infinite, silent [w]holiness of being one with the universe. The beauty of life—meditation—happens now.
The path of awakening is revealed when the veils of memories, knowledge, and experiences that sustain the self-existence of the ego mind and cover up my original innocence are stripped away. Then, with focused, effortless attention, the clear and unhindered insight of awareness dissolves my selfish cravings for additions and grows my ability to feel whole, complete, and at peace in the choiceless present moment.
There is no greater purpose in life than to awaken,
in meditation, that my Higher Power is self-Awareness—
until the self disappears, and all that remains is Love...
[1] The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti: The Mirror of Relationship, Volume III 1936-1944, Krishnamurti Foundation America 2012, Ojai, CA, pg. 55.
VAB 02-15-24
©2024 stillawakening.com All Rights Reserved
