Finding The Secret Key To Healing Part 1
Perhaps like most people who begin a spiritual search, I began mine looking to get freer from the pain, stress, and unhappiness I encountered in life by actively seeking ways to find more light, peace, and bliss. I tried so many different paths and practices in hopes of trying to "transcend" or lift myself up to a more spiritual state above and beyond my problems... I could have been called a typical "bliss bunny" looking in some way to achieve a lasting spiritual "high". However, meditation, yogic breathing techniques & exercises, chanting & devotional singing, inspirational books, numerous seminars, and seeking the company of spiritual people afforded me only temporary relief from the challenges of day to day life. Despite more than 15 years of efforts from my teens through my early thirties, my practices didn't really lead to a lasting feeling of greater happiness or freedom. Instead I was on a kind of spiritual roller coaster, experiencing extreme highs, followed afterward by proportional lows, becoming ever more frustrated, and losing hope of someday reaching my spiritual goals.
It wasn't until moving to India and living in the ashram of my Spiritual Teacher (Ammachi) that I began to realize that there was perhaps something wrong with the most basic assumptions and approach I had about the spiritual path. I had thought that if I could only “hold on to” the light and bliss from meditation and other practices long enough, I would eventually be fulfilled... This is actually quite like the popular philosophy that if we can just try to always stay "positive", eventually our life will be filled with a lasting joy. In theory (and in the lives of quite a number of people) this seems to be the path to happiness. However such a philosophy and practice might disregard and ultimately quash some of our most basic human needs... needs which are essential to achieving a more lasting happiness.
For example, if we were to try to raise very small children to "just stay positive", what would be the outcome? Would we really have an immediate solution to much of our children's pain and problems? (... Well, maybe as parents OUR problems would lessen if they would just-stay-positive!) However inside our children, wouldn't we have contributed to the formation of extremely repressed personalities by denying them their natural ability to release their emotional upsets – e.g., venting through crying or complaining, or expressing fear, anger, worry, frustration, sadness, etc.? I’m sure many of us received these kinds of verbal or non-verbal messages when we were being raised during our childhood. Weren’t we told “don’t cry”, “you shouldn’t get angry”, "don’t be sad”, “you shouldn’t even think those kind of thoughts!”, “only bad people have those kinds of feelings”, etc. Such messages may explain the reason for much of our present emotional repression in our lives, and the reason we still carry around with us so much weight due to unreleased burdens from the past.
If we were instead to encourage our children’s freedom to vent their feelings, according to their own (un-adult-erated) innate intelligence, we probably would see that they have a natural and very effective means of quickly returning again to being light-hearted and joyful in their day-to-day lives. Of course, we do need to tell children when and where it is not appropriate to blurt out what they feel – such as in public, while riding in a car, in front of others, etc. But if we encourage them to go to their rooms or to a private space, and completely validate that their feelings are ok and that they are free to release them, it could give them a healthy distinction between the ideas that, “You’re not ok when you feel that way” vs., “You’re ok, it’s just not appropriate to express your feelings here.” When children feel upset and they are allowed to fully express and release it, doesn’t it typically amaze us to see them – perhaps only 15 minutes later -- playing happily as if nothing had ever happened!
Do you know any adults who have such a similar ease and expertise with releasing their upsets so quickly and naturally? How many of us are good at returning to feeling youthful, light-hearted, and joyful after we are personally triggered in our day-to-day lives? Such a skill is very rare indeed as we get older.
Perhaps this is what was meant by Jesus when He said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)
We'll look into how we might actually be able to achieve this
in Part Two of this article!
