“What kind of feeling comes upon you when you’re in touch with nature, or when you’re absorbed in work that you love? Or when you’re really conversing with someone whose company you enjoy in openness and intimacy without clinging? What kind of feelings do you have? Compare those feelings with the feelings you have when you win an argument, or when you win a race, or when you become popular, or when everybody’s applauding you. The latter feelings I call worldly feelings; the former feelings I call soul feelings. Lots of people gain the world and lose their soul. Lots of people live empty, soulless lives because they’re feeding themselves on popularity, appreciation, and praise, on “I’m O.K., you’re O.K.,” look at me, attend to me, support me, value me, on being the boss, on having power, on winning the race. Do you feed yourself on that? If you do, you’re dead. You’ve lost your soul. Feed yourself on other, more nourishing material. Then you’ll see the transformation.” ~ Anthony de Mello
We have come to the conclusion of the ‘Awakening to Awareness’ mini-series, and while the posts for this book are at an end (for now) the work continues. Self-improvement doesn’t come with a deadline or end-date -it’s entirely up to us whether we plateau, fall back down into bad habits, or keep going to better ourselves. I’m going to try for the latter, as I like the way I feel lately. With all the insanity of what’s going on in the world around us, to feel better at such a time is a major feat in and of itself. Something is working.
The idea of a Sunday afternoon/evening post of something positive and uplifting is one I will seek to maintain, so this space will be reserved for similar sentiment in the future. It’s a nice way of reconnecting to what matters at the end/beginning of a week.
I like the above quote from ‘Awareness’ because it touches on feelings most of us have experienced. The worldly feelings the author addresses are the one that society has conditioned us into thinking we want. Popularity. Appeal. Being #1. They feed on any shred of competitive nature within us and drive us to excel at goals. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Without some elements of drive or compulsion, most of us wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. Yet I’m more interested in the soul feelings – they’re the ones that matter. They’re the ones who will sustain us in times of darkness and doubt. Would you rather the mass, superficial adoration of the world, or the genuine affection of a singular dear friend. In my younger years I might have debated the two lightly, but I’ve always erred on the side of the genuine and earnest, even back then. (Hell, if this was a popularity contest I’d be going about things in a drastically different manner.)
If we put our minds to it, most of us can figure out a way to win an argument. We can use facts and reason and a bit of subtle persuasion in order to prove ourselves consistently ‘right’. I’ve done it for years, and after being challenged on it by family and friends I can always come up with a long litany of examples where I’ve been right and the world has been wrong. It’s there in history. It’s there in the facts. Looking back over those moments, however, I’m left with a sad realization: being right can be one of the loneliest places to be.
And so I strive to focus on the soul feelings, because I know those well. They don’t come along all the time – but when they do I tend to recognize them immediately. A sunny pocket of afternoon when I stood alone on a stream bank in Ireland, watching the water weaves its way through the reeds as the bright green of a late spring scene played out before me. The way time seems to evaporate when I’m in the midst of a new project that suddenly clicks into place and the pages start making sense, connecting as if compelled by a force of magical destiny. A dinner with Andy in Boston when we were trying to figure out wedding restaurant options and the young couple next to us, on what looked to be an awkward but sweet first date of sorts, offered their support for our upcoming nuptials. These are the memories of my soul feelings, and they’re the ones I hold closest to my heart. All the rest of it doesn’t much matter.
{See also Awakening to Awareness: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five.}
