Oh my!   Credit: Wenode.me

Looking back over my life with the eyes I have now – after all that clearing – I’m appalled at a few things I see.

The fact that my vasanas or core issues are no longer raging allows me the space to consider my past as it was, rather than how I reactively responded to it (core issue) and self-servingly painted it (conditioned behavior and constructed self).

In my connections now, I have the opportunity to watch my conditioned behavior go off and no longer run with it. I can be the observer of it.

And I’m appalled at how much conditioned behavior goes off, as well as what the conditioned behavior is.

I was an angry man. I’ve been a total pain in the rear to a lot of people. That’s what I see.

It took a lot of looking and a lot of putting pieces together to see the picture without my self-serving filter.

I should be down on my knees begging forgiveness of the people who had to put up with me.

This being an ascension ethnography, a record of an ascension, reaching the point where I can “accurately” (1) see my past, as painful as it is, is a milestone, actually to be celebrated. I don’t need to live life that way. As Casey said in Tomorrowland, I can fix it.

It isn’t how objectionable I was in terms of being an old grump as much as it is in the little ways. I see myself about to make silly, disempowering comments to the people in my life nowadays and I’m shocked at what I’m about to say. Is this really how I’ve been?

Casey, Tomorrowland: Can we fix it?

Never mind how banal it was; how undercutting.

Based on what I hear myself saying, as my conditioned behavior plays itself out, I can’t believe how unconscious I was. And this passed just as ordinary life in those days.

***

That’s one view of the matter.  The other view is that I set out in life to be a total pain in the rear and I succeeded.

The Complainer, the runt of the litter, made his presence felt by holding up the proceedings, unwilling to cooperate until he’d been heard. (Who now promotes listening? Right? All makes sense.)

So here I am. The train was headed for disaster and I let it roar off the rails: I turned from Complainer into a Total Pain for a lot of people.

There’s nothing for it but awareness. This too shall pass. But Gawd, does it hurt to see it.

***

[A day later.]

Yes, it hurts for a while. And then the hurting stops. But now the truth is known and, with it comes, relief.

What’s better? A short sharp pain and a lifetime of relief or no pain at all and a lifetime without relief?

I’m still alive. I survived the experience of calling myself on my number.

It’s OK to call ourselves on our own numbers and it brings the relief of knowing the truth.

Footnotes

(1)  Self-servingness probably goes on a mite further.