When I Am Healed, I Am Not Healed Alone
Am I happy…? I used to ask myself. Sometimes the answer was yes and sometimes no, just like every other person. If yeses were more, I would be happier, so I had to pull and hold onto situations that created more yeses and push away whatever created the nos. It required so much of my energy, yet the promised happiness was always fleeting, never to stay.
For many years, I played that game: pull and push, wanting/not wanting, liking/disliking.
There was this nagging knowledge that there must be another way. So I searched for it in literature and philosophy. There were hints but never a full-fledged teaching. Neither could I find a community to ask life and death questions.
On an auspicious September night, 8 years ago, I came across a course in WISE, not a Path yet, a simple sharing – or so I thought- but my life changed.
This is not a story of a person though. This is about understanding, it is about wisdom, a mental factor and how it works. It is also about delusion that we are ignorant about. But then again, these are too abstract words and not great catch-lines. So here is my experience though it is also a universal one.
The game of pull and push was the cause of suffering all along. I realized indeed there was another way thus proving my earlier thought. The suffering we all face can be reduced greatly in this lifetime. One can be certain not by belief or faith that suffering is possible to be eliminated altogether.
And I, from trying to fix things my way, never quite achieving, struggling, forcing, judging and not realising everything is my perceived right and wrong, good or bad… Now I have become aware that it is not me but it’s nature working. The mind will try to fix, become, acquire, achieve, add, or subtract, push away, condemn, change… therefore suffer. But there is a possibility to stay with ‘whatever is present’. Sometimes completely, but most of the time partially and with struggle. But there is the knowledge that struggle is part of ‘whatever is present’ as well. So, I can stay in that struggle in peace.
And this peace is only a part of what the Path offers. It is greater than what any experience promises. It is understanding that what we all know is non-existent. We have all been mistaken. We understand nothing of life and existence. We are not what we think we are. And that understanding is the Path to Home.
The specific ways and practices that are explained by teachers and friends in detail and with dedication are ever present in the community. And now, all this is offered on an extensive scale where the whole community can come together and spend learning time together. To me, it is the precious generosity of the Path. Having a home where practising is made easier on many levels which is hardly offered in life is such a rare gift. A place with supportive conditions, a village of our own, welcoming sincere practitioners of truth to its sanctuary.
And a fun fact; I am not Malaysian nor do I live in Malaysia. I do not know if I will ever be able to spend time in the village, however much I wish to. But it doesn’t matter. It is easy to realise how being part of a great purpose will be the cause of a greater good and that will be supporting a greater benefit for the whole community. At some point, it all comes back to us; whatever we put in, in whatever way, in all fairness, we receive as we give. When and how and what, are the questions of the mind. They do not mean anything. When we are healed, we are not healed alone.
All is Love,
Beliz Erciyes
14 Mar 2023