Heavenletters

Dearest, it's perhaps a good thing you finally said it: "The only real thing is the suffering." I have certainly felt it that way. What always made me scratch my head is that it does not make sense. There is no suffering anywhere in creation except in the sense of a separate "I", except in the ego, except, that is, in illusion. Pain, as you said, exists as innocently as does hunger. But suffering is only of the ego. You have now proclaimed the only illusion there is, ego, as the only true reality. Thinking does that.

When "you" have seen through ego (which does not necessarily mean "you" have left it behind, but it can mean a modicum of independence from ego), words and thoughts and concepts do indeed correspond to something. But this something is not a thing. Oneness is not a thing.

Be this as it may. If we feel thrown into a life where we are utterly powerless and have no say in anything, what is there to do? WELL, BE WHAT YOU ALWAYS AND TRULY WANTED TO BE but thought you could not be! Yes, if you feel that fate won't let you, if you feel that circumstances won't let you, if you feel that people won't let you, even if you feel that God won't let you, then leave that petty whining anger behind and muster up some real wrath and BE WHAT YOU WANT TO BE ANYWAY AND DON'T GIVE A RIP! For instance, if compassion for other suffering egos moves you, for heaven's sakes be kind to them. Just stop that infertile blustering on and on and on about suffering and ego and illusion and meaninglessness and be kind! If, in a world that looks to you like some place of damnation, you still want to love, then why not simply do it!? If you feel as if in a bottomless pit of powerlessness and helplessness where you are sentenced to live a life you don't want to live, have you never thought, "Oh, we'll see about that!"?

However bound, imprisoned, gagged and paralyzed, declare your independence, come out of hiding and be Danilo anyway. Illusion? So what?