LOOKING AT YOURSELF

[Pravin Kumar]

Looking at Yourself:

The only obstacle there is to being free is truly looking at yourself and until you do look at you, true freedom is something that will always be out there in the next thing reached for.

Consider life as water and emotions as a flood, if you're on low ground you will be overcome by the flood waters (emotions), but if you're on high ground the same flood water will come, but the way it affects you will have a much different outcome. This is what happens when a person looks at themselves, you’re naturally on higher ground which builds up a defense against your emotional flood water. Without looking at yourself there will be no defense against the flood water because you will be stuck on low ground and on low ground when the flood water arises, some form of destruction will be the result and the severity of the flood (emotional attachment) determines the destruction.

The flood water only affects what's on low ground, and our lower nature manifest as emotional attachments. The destructiveness of this attachment is determined by what is reached for, drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, food, and so on. Although not everything reached for is destructive, some just have much more destructive potential than others. If you don’t look at yourself there won't be awareness of the nature of what’s reached for. To me, the key is looking yourself because it puts you on higher ground so when the flood waters come it has less affect on you. This is the value of looking at and understanding yourself, it allows you to not be flooded emotionally by circumstances that occur. Although the flood waters will arise, because you are on higher ground you aren't affected like the person who's stuck on lower ground and is reaching for a life preserver, in whatever form that may be.

Michael Cupo