(Concluded from Part 1, above.)
So my job now is to describe confidence as clearly as I can, in just a few words.
Well, until now, I’ve been using bravado, image-management, other-direction (character formation in response to what others say), etc., etc., to navigate my world.
There’s always been a tinny ring to it. Something wasn’t quite right. And I never knew what.
I think of the Tinman in The Wizard of Oz. I always had a tinman quality to me.
My brother had things right. But I never knew what it was about him that that was. Well, I now see it was confidence.
How is confidence different from the bravado I see I’ve used until now? For one thing, there’s no effort involved in being confident.
But in bravado, there’s a heck of a lot of stage and prop management, management of our lines and looks, watching the way we walk and talk, on and on it goes. All of that goes out the window now. It isn’t needed.
In confidence, all of that falls away with nothing needed to replace it. I repeat: With nothing needed to replace it. Confidence itself … and here again I search for words … is felt as a substantial addition to oneself which allows … not quite fuels … us to walk through life without the very questions and urgencies that not having confidence gave rise to.
“Substantial addition”? It lends substance to our words. It adds weight to our opinions. We seem confident in ourselves, in the outcome, etc. Use it for negative purposes and I guarantee that it’ll disappear and we’ll be back to image and stage management by bravado, which other people recognize at some level.
“Without the questions”? The very questions bravado addressed have disappeared along with the situations in which bravado was called for. “How am I going to do this? What will I say?” All the rehearsals and soul-searching are gone with nothing but confidence to replace them. And confidence is more than enough to have one stride forth positively.
Confidence is not a Third-Dimensional feeling. It’s wrap-around. It’s enveloping. Soon I’ll lose awareness of it but, while I’m in it, it’s ubiquitous, all-embracing.
That’s why we need to put nothing in its place to replace bravado.
That’s why Da Free John could say his space was the space of no dilemma. Yes, I see it now. There are no dilemmas in confidence, only steps to take; no problems, only situations.
That’s why Lao Tzu could say do nothing. In the space of confidence, I do nothing to address what I would have been addressing in the other space by doing a great deal, constantly.
Remember I said I now know how we’re going to manage the large projects expected of us later on? The Mother or her legions would bestow on us as much light as we need to wake up our hidden capabilities.
I’m describing one instance of it as it happens.
I look at myself. There’s no cold chill running up my spine. There’s no feeling of dismay such as in “How am I going to do this?”
There is just a warm nowness in which whatever shows up is fine.
A very thorny problem just came to mind and the solution was instantaneous. I get to see that it wasn’t that I had no solutions; the solution was right there in front of me. It’s that I lacked the confidence to just put forward the obvious and take the consequences.
Not courage, but then my courage always came married to bravado. I haven’t tested my confidence out in a situation calling for courage so I don’t know what’s so right now.
This space could last minutes, hours, days. A residue of it will, I’m sure, stay with me. But for however long it lasts, I love it. Divine states like this make life worth living.
Who cares for a Lamborghini, compared with a wonderful, nurturing space like confidence? Doesn’t a person buy a Lamborghini because he wants a space as satisfying as this? Does it work?
Notice: I did not get this space from another. We might want to stop seeking love, peace, bliss, and now confidence outside ourselves altogether. We have them already. Just let go of the overburden of vasanas, behavior patterns, etc. Or recognize the wisps of confidence and bliss as they pass through our emotional field.
Run into the lake. Jump into the lake. Just get into the lake of the divine qualities.
