ULTRAMICROINDENTATION OF THIN FILMS

all kinds of things wrong. Surely that is a fact, isn’t it?

If you were to ask 100 random people in the street whether they believed there was anything wrong with them or with their lives, most, if not all, would probably think you were bonkers for even asking and quickly come up with a long list of complaints.

The belief that I am unacceptable as I am is so commonplace and so universally held that it

never occurs to us to question it.

And yet, can we be absolutely certain that this belief is true? Is it a fact or is it a belief?

Is it not also possible that:

o the idea of something being wrong exists only in our heads and not in the world?

o everything, including the content of our seemingly crazy mind, is exactly as it is meant to be?

o the root of our suffering lies in the false belief that we are in some way unacceptable as we are?

I am not saying that this is the case or not, but simply examining the validity of the belief.

Spiritual masters from all traditions have been saying throughout the ages that ALL IS WELL – that everything is exactly as it is meant to be and that all problems are mind created and stem from the false beliefs that have been programmed into us from a young age. Maybe they are right?

Just imagine for a moment the implications in your own life if the belief that something is wrong DID turn out to be a false one. You wouldn’t worry about things going wrong if there was no such thing as wrong.

You wouldn’t be so concerned about a relationship having ended. You would still, of course, experience the pain and sadness of loss but would be spared the additional suffering caused by judging the situation and resulting emotions as being

‘bad’ or ‘wrong’.

Feelings themselves do not cause us to suffer. Suffering comes mostly from the mental commentary that tells us there is

something wrong – and from the subsequent resistance this creates.

If we are able to just sit with the feeling or emotion – without labeling it, without judging it, without getting involved in any story about it and resist the temptation to avoid it through some form of distraction – something beautiful can open up inside us.

We may realise that all feelings, regardless of how the mind labels them, are part of the exquisite tapestry of Life.

The impulse to complain, judge, criticise or hold grudges arises when we believe there is something wrong with having challenging situations or difficult people in our lives.

Seen as opportunities to help us wake up and experience more of who we truly are, these challenges become our gifts and our teachers. Difficult individuals become angels who have been sent to help us consciously embrace our own shortcomings.

The Dalai Lama suggests that if we want to experience more peace in our lives, we should become more interested in our own inner reactions and responses than we are in the situations and people that trigger them.

When we choose to drop our resistance to what IS, the mind immediately becomes a much more peaceful place.

When I walked over the brow of the hill all those years ago and first saw the holy town of Jageshwar nestled in the valley below, I was struck by the beauty and perfection of the scene before me. There was nothing I would want to have changed about it.

Few of us, however, are content with the valley of our own inner landscape as it is. We want to keep some things and get rid of others. The hills are OK as they are but we want the river to be on the left rather than on the right. Some of the trees we like, but

others we wish to uproot and replace with a different species.

We suffer, not because of the layout of the valley – the particular set of thoughts, emotions, events and circumstances that make up our lives - but because of our resistance to parts of it. We suffer because we want to be in control of what the valley looks like rather than just letting it be as it is.

Most, if not all, of our suffering comes from the various ramifications of the single belief that something is wrong – with me, with my life, with the world. If we could let go of that one, the rest of our negative beliefs would topple like a house of cards.

Let’s take a look now at how the belief that I am in some way unacceptable as I am, arises in the first place and how, given our circumstances, we could not have come to any other conclusion.

This concept is clearly absent in the newborn baby. Babies are perfectly at ease and content with who they are. Babies are, generally speaking, not scolded or chastised for their behaviour.

Everyone knows that they do not choose how they behave but simply do what comes naturally to them.

Before the advent of the individual “I” concept, we experience ourselves as not being separate from Life itself – as part of the one all-pervading Reality. We are not conscious of this, of course.

The belief that I am in some way not good enough, not acceptable as I am, is an inevitable and unavoidable conclusion that we come to at the point when our perception shifts from the impersonal to the personal and we begin to experience ourselves as separate individuals identified with “my” body and “my”

thoughts.

Dad comes home from work stressed and exhausted. The boss has been on his back all day. As he comes in the door, he is absorbed in thinking about deadlines and is too preoccupied to notice the grinning bundle of unconditional love greeting him with arms outstretched. This is interpreted by the young mind as

“there is something wrong with me.”

Mum has been home all day and, feeling overwhelmed and frustrated that she has no time to do her own things, she puts baby down in front of the TV to create some space for herself.

Baby feels abandoned and naturally concludes “there is something wrong with me. I am not worthy of love.”

As we grow and become fully identified with this body and this mind, it is inevitable that we begin to compare ourselves with others. The world is full of people who are more clever, more sporty, more beautiful, more popular and later on, more successful or wealthy than we are. The inevitable conclusion we come to is that “I am not good enough. I am unacceptable as I am”.

If we look at this logically, there are only two possibilities. The belief that there is something wrong with me is either true or it isn’t.

If it is true then the best we can ever hope for is relative peace, and relative happiness. No matter how much you adorn a bucket with gold and diamonds, it will forever remain a bucket.

If it is a false belief then there is nothing to fix in ourselves, for we are already exactly as we are meant to be. God didn’t screw up, after all, when he made you.