From a site visitor: “…Just been introduced to the ideas of Vedanta: How does one overcome day to day frustrations and feelings of anger etc that may arise during a normal working day? While alone, reading, or with friends (bascially pleasant situations) i find it obviously easier to be in a peaceful state, but when i am at work the general frustration and complaining that is part of my job takes over and everything i may read or meditate on just goes out of the window. I guess im saying, how does one start to make spritiual practice and the journey of Self-realization a part of ones working day? I simply find my feelings of frustation in a chaotic workplace overwhelming! Thanks for your time, Jaime
F.: Hello Jaime. Your question is typical of the inquiries raised by “beginners” and is valid. For now, you want benefits, and that too is understandable at the beginner stage. Yet most people want solutions without digging deeply enough to expose and completely understand the actual source of their problems. The fact that you’ve been introduced to the Advaita philosophy might accelerate your finding the peace you seek since your words have revealed the source of your frustration and anger: duality.
For the following to make any sense at all, you must (ideally) sit in the presence of a Realized Teacher or you must complete some additional readings and take the pointers into contemplation.
The newest version of the book CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS explains how peace every day can happen after SELF-Realization, but you are not ready for that book since the prerequisite is a completion of all seven steps on the “path” to Reality as outlined in FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE.
That process not having been completed, consider this: is it possible that the real source of your frustration and anger has nothing to do with where you are throughout the day and has nothing to do with what is happening around you? Is it possible that the source of your anger and frustration is rooted within, in jaime’s beliefs? Is it also possible that every role that jaime has played in life has brought with it a plethora of desires and expectations as well as a plethora of fears? Is it possible that fears can produce overwhelming chaos and that unmet expectations and desires can produce anger and frustration?
Persons (that is, those who have not fully realized all that they are not and who have not Realized That Which They Are) will try to experience a compartmentalized (and therefore dualistic) existence, such as the one you describe: OK alone vs. not OK at work; pleasant situations vs. unpleasant situations; spiritual vs. not spiritual; stable feelings vs. unstable feelings, ad infinitum.
Stability (and therefore peace) will not happen when a person is identified with, and attached to, anything that is “relative.” Only an existence marked by abidance as the Absolute can be stable and peaceful, as opposed to “chaotic” and “overwhelming.” Such abidance can only happen post-Full Realization. Either take all of the steps required for abidance as the Absolute to happen or know that your anger and frustration and chaos will continue with only the brief respites that you mentioned.
How brief will those respites be? If employed full time, over half of the hours in a week will be spent at work or in sleep (if sleep comes). If sleep is peaceful, it is a preview of what the waking hours could look like if Realized: you can be unaware of self; contentment can happen while not being attached to the happenings of “the world”; and peace can happen as you are unaffected by the surrounding chaos that continues on the planet while you remain "at rest." If abidance as the stable Absolute does not happen, then you will be driven to participate in the instability of the “relative run.”
THE “RELATIVE RUN” PROVIDES ONLY A TEMPORARY RESPITE, AT BEST
The non-Realized are always on the run: they run from the partner that they blame for their unhappiness; they run from a job that they blame for their unhappiness; they run to people and places and things that they think will make them happy. It could be that your job really is chaotic and overwhelming, relatively speaking.
It could also be that the influences of your personality type (possibly an Enneagram Type Four) make your current employment situation totally intolerable. Type Fours often feel fine in the solitude but miserable if in a crowd or a chaotic workplace. Running to another job might provide a temporary respite, but do you see how limited an existence becomes when external forces and/or personality determine what jaime can do and what jaime cannot do?
F.: Hello Jaime. Your question is typical of the inquiries raised by “beginners” and is valid. For now, you want benefits, and that too is understandable at the beginner stage. Yet most people want solutions without digging deeply enough to expose and completely understand the actual source of their problems. The fact that you’ve been introduced to the Advaita philosophy might accelerate your finding the peace you seek since your words have revealed the source of your frustration and anger: duality.
For the following to make any sense at all, you must (ideally) sit in the presence of a Realized Teacher or you must complete some additional readings and take the pointers into contemplation.
The newest version of the book CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS explains how peace every day can happen after SELF-Realization, but you are not ready for that book since the prerequisite is a completion of all seven steps on the “path” to Reality as outlined in FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE.
That process not having been completed, consider this: is it possible that the real source of your frustration and anger has nothing to do with where you are throughout the day and has nothing to do with what is happening around you? Is it possible that the source of your anger and frustration is rooted within, in jaime’s beliefs? Is it also possible that every role that jaime has played in life has brought with it a plethora of desires and expectations as well as a plethora of fears? Is it possible that fears can produce overwhelming chaos and that unmet expectations and desires can produce anger and frustration?
Persons (that is, those who have not fully realized all that they are not and who have not Realized That Which They Are) will try to experience a compartmentalized (and therefore dualistic) existence, such as the one you describe: OK alone vs. not OK at work; pleasant situations vs. unpleasant situations; spiritual vs. not spiritual; stable feelings vs. unstable feelings, ad infinitum.
Stability (and therefore peace) will not happen when a person is identified with, and attached to, anything that is “relative.” Only an existence marked by abidance as the Absolute can be stable and peaceful, as opposed to “chaotic” and “overwhelming.” Such abidance can only happen post-Full Realization. Either take all of the steps required for abidance as the Absolute to happen or know that your anger and frustration and chaos will continue with only the brief respites that you mentioned.
How brief will those respites be? If employed full time, over half of the hours in a week will be spent at work or in sleep (if sleep comes). If sleep is peaceful, it is a preview of what the waking hours could look like if Realized: you can be unaware of self; contentment can happen while not being attached to the happenings of “the world”; and peace can happen as you are unaffected by the surrounding chaos that continues on the planet while you remain "at rest." If abidance as the stable Absolute does not happen, then you will be driven to participate in the instability of the “relative run.”
THE “RELATIVE RUN” PROVIDES ONLY A TEMPORARY RESPITE, AT BEST
The non-Realized are always on the run: they run from the partner that they blame for their unhappiness; they run from a job that they blame for their unhappiness; they run to people and places and things that they think will make them happy. It could be that your job really is chaotic and overwhelming, relatively speaking.
It could also be that the influences of your personality type (possibly an Enneagram Type Four) make your current employment situation totally intolerable. Type Fours often feel fine in the solitude but miserable if in a crowd or a chaotic workplace. Running to another job might provide a temporary respite, but do you see how limited an existence becomes when external forces and/or personality determine what jaime can do and what jaime cannot do?
Are you beginning to see that jaime can either take the steps to be fully free or will be hostage to personality, to externals, and to relative influences? Are you seeing that one who is not free can never be at peace with any consistency? Do you also see that anyone who is not free is also co-dependent, always allowing people, places and things to determine how one feels and to determine whether one is “happy” at times but “frustrated,” “angry,” “chaotic,” and “overwhelmed” at other times?
There is much for jaime to understand if peace and stability are to replace all of those current traits of a relative existence. If being "spiritual" and "meditative" were the final solutions, that would have happened by now. In fact, "being spiritual" is only the third of seven steps to Full Realization. For now, that should be plenty to ponder. The discussion will continue tomorrow. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
READINGS RELATED TO TODAY’S POST:
SEEKING “PEACE OF MIND”?
WORKING ON BEING FREE OF PERSONALITY?
READY TO TAKE THE SEVEN-STEP “JOURNEY” TO REALITY?
