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 in our thinking mind, separated by our memories, knowledge, and experiences—our past—from reality in the present moment. Living on an island of only what we know, we create a world where we think we can control our future by repeating our past—which is all we know. We all suffer from addiction; it is just a matter of degree and devices. I digress.
So, as an alcoholic, how do I dissolve my addictive cravings—wanting to feel different than what I feel right now—so I no longer identify with being torn apart by the choice of staying sober or dying in addiction? The truth is that I cannot change my cravings for selfish choices that repeat my past; that is the definition of addiction. 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.” But the past, including addictive thinking, can be transcended if “I” disappear.
Say what: 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 being—my thinking. My thinking is the collection of all my memories, knowledge, and past experiences I cling to as “me.” “I” and “me” create the illusion that “separates” the thinking self—my material existence—from the same creation in which the divided me, myself, and I exist.
Disappearing is an effortless act of transcendence: overcoming limits and going beyond boundaries of psychological measurement, time, space, and thought—in a spiritual dimension. For example, if I transcend thought—beyond trying to control—to effortlessly observe my thinking mind trapped in time, “thought” as “I” disappears in the eternal present moment where there is no past and no future “me.” Then there is no “me” to remember or desire the cravings of previous experiences; if “I” disappears, then the selfish choice between addiction and sobriety is transcended by a complete understanding of the present moment, and craving evaporates in choiceless awareness that is my true nature.
So, how do I unlearn my dysfunctional past and let go of all concepts and beliefs that sustain the self-centered image that “I” shaped with family, culture, and society as me—separated in addictive thinking, not wanting to feel my past and unable to heal my psychological wounds? How do “I” empty the self of the illusion of me and disappear into the unity of selfless awareness?
The answer is meditation!
Meditation can happen when the mind is calmed—sometimes, just by observing the divine vibrational energy flowing through my breath—when thinking dissipates until time stops and the past disappears in the present moment. Meditation can happen whenever I observe my thinking and realize all my choices are between past remembrances and future desires that can evaporate in the light of choiceless awareness—now. Meditation can occur when the beauty/love of the natural world is so overwhelming that it instantaneously redirects my divine vibrational energy flow from the resistant boundaries of my conditioned thinking to flow through my unrestricted—open—heart; when the self has disappeared, and “I” am no longer separate but one with the universe.
My self-image can disappear only when it is emptied of self-will, rendered choiceless. The thinking self cannot exist if there is no past from which to choose; the need for self-will to feel different disappears. Choice creates the illusion of the autonomous “I” as having the power to control things outside of the self, to be “something” unique, to “be” separate from the other, and to be “isolated” by the fragmented boundaries of thought—drawn by my past. Choice as “I” separates me from nature and the rest of humanity by genetic, cultural, and social differences manifested through selfishness, insecurity, possession, nationalism, politics, religion, and all my beliefs based on memories, knowledge, and experiences—all my thinking—that keeps me imprisoned in my mind.
Freedom from addiction is not sobriety; Freedom is the end of all comparison.
Freedom is beyond my thinking, where attachment, comparison, and the past disappear. All that remains is constant awareness of my arising—temporary—emotions, which I can embrace with the choiceless understanding of healing, love, and joy in the present moment. And, it is always the present moment: when (psychological) time disappears.
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 into frustration, anxiety, depression, anger, or violence by 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 freely through my open heart, with all the never-changing virtues of my original innocence—honesty, courage, integrity, love, compassion, etc.—directly into the world with healing for all, including the divided “me.” Authentic, joyful living in freedom occurs when the psychological past dies, 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 (memories, knowledge, experiences) used by the “I”—ego mind—to sustain self-existence that covers my original innocence has been stripped away. Then, with focused, effortless attention, the clear and unhindered insight of awareness dissolves my selfish cravings and grows my ability to feel whole, complete, and at peace without any desire in the choiceless present moment.
When addiction disappears with the past, and the illusion of self-becoming in the future evaporates, meditation remains as the selfless beauty of life happening now.
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