I know, pretty alarming title...
If namaste has the generally accepted view of meaning that the spiritual being in me honors the spiritual being in you, and I believe in that...why is it so hard to see your spirit sometimes and so easy to see your inner asshole?
Is it the same for everyone?
I have a spiritual practice, that I practice every day. I am dedicated and stalwart in my commitment to it. However, there are moments where, try as I might, I cannot see you as anything other than a pain in my ass.
Somehow your spirit and essence gets lost and you are hovering before me in a form that is something less than spiritual and I am vexed. I am struggling to maintain my core because of you, or how you are presenting in my life. I cannot see your spiritual being because it has become obscured from view by your conduct. Your behavior is so egregious or so in my face that I am knocked back into my baser natures and all I can see is what an ass you are being.
Now, I know if this is true for me, then it also has to be true for you...I know that sometimes my conduct is such that it I hard to see me as anything but a jerk, an asshole. I don’t strive for this to be the case, I am, in a word, consumed by my assholeness.
I think that is why namaste has to be more of an action than just an intention. Namaste is something you have to actively do, not just fold your hands in front of you and bow...that is not going to cut it most of the time. Namaste has to be a mental and physical action. Mental because it sometimes takes great effort to turn your assholeness into something that I can see and feel and relate to. So easy it is to dismiss you wholeheartedly as being less than human and therefore not worth my time. Physical because any failure on my part to do the mental work, hurts me...it takes energy and esteem and respect away from me and you at the same time. Pain resides in the body and mind equally so what I fail to address mentally will take its toll physically...it can really be no other way.
I have days where I see everyone’s spirit. Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don’t. But there are entire days where I just see everyone as their spiritual selves, attempting to enjoy life, screwing it up and trying again. But then there are those other days when I can’t see your spirit at all. I see a person I can’t relate to or don’t want to relate to and it so much easier to judge you, dislike you or talk shit about you. I have lots of categories of people who fall into this lot...and some days it is so easy for me to go there, and so hard to go anywhere else.
I think that it is easier to just see you as an asshole because it requires less work. I can stay on the surface. I don’t have to delve or do any heavy mental lifting. You are a jerk. Period. Done. No further thought required. However, I do not want to live in this surface area. I want to inhabit a place deeper than that...because the surface remains shallow and base, and I made a commitment a long time ago to reside elsewhere.
Recently, I was accused of being cold blooded because I didn’t engage the way someone wanted me to. I understood the comment immediately and it made me laugh. I saw the lashing out as an indicator of pain. I could see that my inaction hurt this other person and I can see that my lack of response was the cause. I do not regret my actions. I am trying to work something out in my own mind and if I responded in the manner that the other person wanted me to, I would have betrayed myself in the process. I can’t and won’t do that anymore. I didn’t mean to piss this other person off, I just took care of myself and that took precedent over anything else...including this other person’s feelings. So I am pretty sure that this other person just saw my inner asshole and not my spiritual being. Maybe they didn’t even look any further than my irritating lack of response...maybe they did. I will never know.
What I do know is that I look in others. I always try to look. Sometimes I look immediately, sometimes it is moments later, other times, it may be decades later. But I always, eventually, look for your spirit.
I think perhaps this fact more than any other is what makes it so easy to just see the other person’s jerkiness...it is what is on the surface and digging deeper is harder!
So today I will recommit myself to digging deeper to see my own worth and that of others. I will do the harder thing which is to give everyone a break which would include me because I am part of everyone else. Namaste...really, I mean it.
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