How helpful is this understanding?

This understanding changes nothing, yet at the same time, it changes everything.

In a recent conversation with someone close to me about this understanding, the other person stated that it didn’t really matter whether what I was saying was right or wrong, because it doesn’t change anything, we still have to live this life and operate with things as they appear to be.  So it occurs to me that if this person sees things this way when surely others may do too.  Thus an article addressing this point was born!

What is the benefit of knowing this?

All of the behaviour that we look at and don’t like comes from a misunderstanding.  A misunderstanding as to where our wellbeing comes from.  When we know it is always with us, we don’t need to do anything ‘shifty’. Anything that protects our own interest, regardless of what it means to others.  We don’t need to lie, steal, cheat, harm in order to protect or improve ourselves, because we already know we are okay.

Equally if any of these things are done to us, if we are lied to, stolen from, cheated or harmed, we know that we are okay.  No material matter can harm the essence of who we really are.  And with this knowledge we can forgive.  There is no need for anger, retribution or justice to be done. We don’t need to make the behaviour personal.  We know that it is being done from an innocent place of misunderstanding, that’s all.

Further to this, when we know that we are all One, that it doesn’t make any sense at all to harm another person or living thing, because they are us, so we are hurting ourselves.  When we know who we really are, we can feel a sense of ease, of peace, of love – more and more.  From this place of ease and peace and love, our lives become ‘better’.   Sure we won’t feel like that 100% of the time, but when we forget who we really are, remembering again is only around the corner so the suffering (and any harmful behaviour that may result) are short lived if carried out at all.

These are the basic fundamental human to human benefits of knowing this understanding.

To ease suffering

When we have this understanding and suffer, sooner or later this knowing kicks back in, and we remember that our suffering is coming from a place of forgetting that we are always totally okay.  From buying into an idea that we are anything other than whole, perfect and complete.  This simple remembering means that there is nothing we need to do.  We remember that we aren’t broken, we don’t need to fix anything, or change anything, improve ourselves or our circumstances in order to be okay.

Some activities of change may end up playing out, but it comes from a different place.  A place of curious exploration, rather than desperate seeking.

And because we know we aren’t broken, we also know that nobody and nothing else is either.  We are free to see the beauty in every person, situation and moment.

What else?

Well when we know that nothing material can bring happiness, the endless quest to acquire more stuff comes to a rather abrupt end (well it certainly has for me).  It longer makes sense to consume things we don’t actually need.  To buy clothes because we think they will make us look and feel good, to engage in activities that are (when you look into it) harmful to our planet, and to the people involved in producing the products we needlessly consume.  With this reduced need to consume, our need to earn large amounts of money also goes.  We know that we are okay whether we have a Ford Focus or an Audi R8 (the view’s always the same out the window and you still get stuck in traffic).  We can afford to enjoy a life rather than spend our lives making a living.

In work, our approach changes too.  Instead of fearing the outcome of different things, worrying about whether we will get everything done, how our business is perceived and so on and so forth – we are free to play with the experience of having a profession.  To curiously explore what could be possible.  To be okay with trying and failing.  To be able to dust ourselves off and go into the next meeting/pitch unscathed.  To be able to go to our ‘superiors’ (ha!) or our bank manager to make that suggestion without attachment to the outcome.  What would be possible then?

How many hours of worrying do we do a week?  What would we do with this time if we knew that we never needed to worry again?

Thanks for reading. x