I am learning that the inside of me, knows far more than what the mind tries so hard to know, that the inside of me is more powerful than my mind can get a handle on, that the inside of me simply is, while the mind tries to find ways to negotiate, to entertain, to ‘work things out’.
What my mind wants is an easy time, it wants happiness, success and glory, or even just an easy life. When ever I hear my mind rattle off like a freight train running a story of , ‘if I do this, then it will all work and things will be easy,’ I groan, but I’ve learned to haul it’s ass back in line, after all, it’s just running a story, like the ‘if I win the lottery’ story’ that can distract us for an eternity. Or the ‘if only’ story that is all to easy to get lost in.
I am reminded of Albert Einstein who said:
“I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves — this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty.
The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.”
I can feel how ‘the ideal of the pigsty’ can be so very appealing. Pig’s nose around in their ease, happy in their comfort of warm muck up to the eyeballs. How many of us live lives like this?
How many of us have lived lives like this? I just put up all my hands (two) and all my feet (also two, but if I had more extremities I would have to put them up too!).
Don’t we just love ease and happiness? We ignore all the muck in the world just to have the ease, with just a few fleeting moments of happiness now and again, maybe once a month?? Or once a year on holiday on the Costa del’Ease? Then back to work and eleven months and one week of muck.
So are we seduced by this ease, even though we are neck deep in muck? It sounds ridiculous, but I can’t see another rational answer as to why we would choose that just to live in ease. Is it a trick of the mind that keeps us choosing ease over anything else?
Another word for ease would be-what is familiar. We choose the familiar over and over, not because it makes us feel awesome, but because it may require something different to change it. It’s a very narrow world though. It will never allow us to step into who we really can be.
Does the ideal of the pigsty allow us to look at more? No, it keeps us wallowing around in our own muck. Does it allow us or encourage us to look at something bigger, more important than the ease?
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.” Albert Einstein.
I’ve not found the ‘mysterious’ in the pigsty. Only outside of the ease can we wonder and marvel.
If we look at Kindness and Truth as having the potential, or the key, to give us the courage to choose to become Beauty within ourselves, day by day with gentle and loving choices, would that help us let go of the ease and the familiar of the pigsty?
Ariana Ray. http://www.newlookstresssolutions.com
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