What Would "You" Be... Without "Them"?

The question persists…when will you realize that deeply engaging in relationship, with those who populate your personal experience of a ‘world,’ is the means to your awakening? When will it dawn on you that nothing else can suffice for the consistent joy and freedom you seek? The 'self' is not dissolved on its own, but in immersion with other selves.

Yet, you continue to wring drops of momentary “happiness” out of everything but the relationships that have defined you (as you define them). As always you are disillusioned and disappointed by what you find. But, you persist, nevertheless. Who (what 'ego-self) taught you this?

The ego self-construct (that you identify with) is nothing more than a package of concepts that you believe is definitively YOU. Nevertheless, it was your experiencing 'others' that showed you how to be “you,” (simply by their being “them") In fact, you required the experiences of a whole world of ‘others’ for which to determine the defining aspects of “you.”

“You” are an ego that you claim, without a doubt, is your ‘self’ and none other. But it was everyone else that allowed “you” to assume a reality separate from others (as you allow them), but always in contrast to the identities they assert and actualize and that you believe are as ‘real’ as you. You need to experience “them,” as they need to experience “you.”

But now you seem to no longer require their assistance. Now you travel alone.

Somewhere, while learning to be "you," through experiencing “them,” you suffered and often suffered deeply. From that suffering, the ego determined that it was “they” who were to blame, because without them, how could you have suffered.

Although we all suffer, suffering cannot be shared. It is an exclusive interior experience closed off from the world. We wish to share our joy, but suffering is intensely personal, causing the ego-self to fortify and insulate itself against the world. To the ego-self, if it is ‘they’ who are cause of your suffering, then it is ‘they’ who cannot be trusted to assist with your pain. Therefore, it will limit all connection.

This is unfortunate, because the mutual experience of joining together in Deep Spirit is the awakening you desire and there can be no other path out of suffering but through them. Suffering is nothing more than the interpretation that “they” cannot help you and, therefore, “you” are all alone.

This is often why we see others suffer, but deny assistance in the hopeless belief that suffering is an undeniable part of the human condition. When actually, it is alienation and estrangement from one another that is the human condition and that, and only that, is why we suffer.

To deeply understand one another, to dwell in the space between minds, is to eradicate all suffering forever, because it annihilates all fear. For centuries, we’ve traveled a million different roads as the way to salvation and the means to end our suffering. But each road brings us back to the pain that we started with. It’s not the road that need be changed, since all roads lead home. But you can't travel alone, because it is those around you who are the means to the end of suffering, no matter what road you travel.

Image by Susan Morrison Sims - "The Journey"