After my very deep meditation and contemplation of what I called "emptiness"....
A thought came, I opened my eyes. I'm back here. And yet it seems so far, so good. And immediately, the thoughts begin coming again ... I will now call Erik. The feeling of being pressed to do so, the impatience of danger, of passing time, time is running and maybe tonight he will not be there, so I do it now. Again urgency, after this moment of pure silence. I do not want to and at the same time, I feel driven by fear of the future. If I don’t do it now and he leaves, I’ll regret not having done so. I have completely left the moment ...
After an hour of discussion, we hung up. The end was really weird and even several times during the conversation seemed weird to me. Was I looking for something to say, just to be with him? I talked all the time. I seemed to always have something to say. I had no desire to control it and at the same time, I’m so aware now of how I was able to do it ... I was afraid and I felt I wanted to know what he was doing, when, like a police inspector. When I hung up, I felt super bad.
Bonnie and Geoff returned. I feel uncomfortable. I wanted to join them, but I felt they were in their stuff. I watched from afar what they were doing, waiting for the moment go to them. In speaking to Bonnie, I feel something blocking. I told myself I'm not completely open, I'm probably closed. Yeah, I'm here because I want to be with them, to be part of life here, like this, because I suddenly decided to, because I feel like I'm pretty cut off from what was happening here, because I feel abandoned because I have not received the attention that I was looking for through other things and again I feel this emptiness, this malaise.
I feel that all that has brought up a lot. All these "absences" created around me help me to see what is there ... I do not know what really, but I'm super sad, lost too. I go to my room, I want to share my feelings with Erik and I feel I have a lot of shame to see so clearly how I was, I acted, the underlying motivations.
I begin to write him. We begin to chat. He suggests we speak, but I weep bitter tears, and no, I do not feel it. I want to share with him but not to speak. I therefore continue to write everything I feel, and for the most part, I can not really express what I am experiencing. I feel especially sad and lost. It is as if everything I have told myself flew off, went up in smoke, as if the concept of Armelle disappeared. I feel like a letting go of my personality, so much has been exposed, revealed, unmasked ... And all this, so quickly. I feel this state of "I do not know, I know nothing." Everything seems so confused ... I would therefore agree with everything, and I feel quite humbled by making myself naked, by not guarding anything ...
I see anger coming up when Erik tells me that I am loved, that God takes me in his arms, when I told him that, right now, I would like to be in his. I take it as denial of what is here. We start talking about it, which leads nowhere, because I feel he wants to stay with what he thinks and I want to show him that he denies what it is to be spiritual. I finished by telling him to drop it. I don’t want to argue or even try to be right. I see clearly what I mean, and what it brings to me, and it’s the principal. And I really think I understood something fundamental with the fact of wanting to be spiritual, to see how this spiritual ego functions, how it denies, uses the Course, illusions, metaphysics, spirituality.
I'm going to dinner. I'm not hungry, but I feel like being there. I feel my mind unable to think, as if it’s going to explode or implode. I stay in that. Which has besides, a very nice side, such lightness ... I am there, right there, present. Nothing else. And in that moment I experienced wild laughter, so innocent. This was not a normal laugh, it was different.
I chat with Erik again after dinner to pick up where we left off, but that does not lead further. I always feel the urge to speak, and at the same time, I have nothing to say. I look at this ... how it plays out! for this afternoon, so I wanted to talk to him, and at the same time, not, that I had the impression of telling him my doubts and questions and of making myself little just in order to talk, so he would pay attention to me. And then I felt bad because I diminished myself to be in contact with him, whereas now I feel good. I feel like something is pushing me to call him. So every time I go back to the past to have something to talk about with him ... And in the moment, it’s as if it is stronger than anything I’m aware of. And this time I do not feel it. I don’t want to feed it again.
I go watch "The Peaceful Warrior," the story of Dan Millman. I feel from the outset that it will be very hard for me. The gym, competition, the story of my life. The pride, the belief that I know, and I know even better than the others, this feeling of superiority and the spiritual ego from the path I am following, then this feeling of unworthiness, fear of failure, the need to beat myself not to fall off the top of the podium, on which I seemed to be my whole life. And from where the fear of emptiness comes...
I go back to the last competition in which I participated and completely messed up, because I went to train at another club, better, at a higher level for a week, and I did not tell my coach, who apparently had learned, but never said anything, any more than I, but who no longer bothered with me. And I prepared alone for this competition in which I competed in a higher division because I had won all the other championships. And then I screwed up everything, I failed. I was so angry and so ashamed. I stopped everything, without ever talking to him. And watching this film, I told myself that there is a lesson here for me, that I haven’t seen yet, received. And then I see where this sense of betrayal comes, that I felt many times vis-à-vis David, and how this feeling, finally, protects me from doing the same thing I did at that time. Wanting more, to go faster, be better, betting on another teacher who will bring me what I did not find in the current one. One teacher or another, always looking for more, wanting more. Believing that he is the reason I'm where I am. It's the same thing I saw that afternoon with Erik in Mallorca, it brings me back to that. Believing that everything would better if it was different and that it’s the outside that makes my inner condition.
I could also stop wanting to be the strongest, the best and the first, stop competition. Drop the concept of Armelle angry at everything, because outside it’s war and you must win and fight and be aggressive. Drop the idea of wanting to experience danger, of playing I'm not afraid of anything and want to be braver than the bravest, still to exist, through another concept.
And finally see how much I fear being in the present moment, how I am in the past or the future giving reason to my fears and my doubts, but never experiencing what is now and trusting that by reaching a future goal, I will be happy, happier, and I will no longer feel all these unpleasant emotions that I now feel. Avoidance. Always believing that everything is in the future, even by trying to achieve enlightenment, it’s in the future ... a nice way to not be present Now, to not believe it's already here now ... Not wanting to feel what is here now, judging that it should not be there ... being in denial ...
I also see the humility of "I do not know, I know nothing" and how in life, things are so simple. And also how I wanted to exist through all my accomplishments these last times, and now, it's time I'm quiet, and in the interior presence, instead of wanting to turn everything to the exterior ... and expect in return ...
I feel I have just integrated everything I read, listened to, had as insight these last days, here now, watching this movie. Just being in this moment, clearing my mind of everything that could be in the way and being here right now. There is no future goal, no feat to accomplish. Just living each moment as if it were always the first. And I also felt that everything that happens is to teach us. Each thing brings us a little farther, to make us understand things and be in the presence, in consciousness. Letting go to detach, changing to leave all these attachments, locking, to which I cling again and again.
And as Socrates said "When you love doing something, do it." It is as if these last months had been there just to make me understand that everything was already here, and there was nothing to search for, and here I can now come back to all this, what I love, and with a completely different consciousness of what Is, in the presence ... doing without doing, and letting it be done through me ...
I am fully aware of the words from Walter and Don when they accompanied me down into this deep malaise, this heaviness, this suffocation that I attach to the fact of no being with Erik and everything more that brought up. These words coming from questioning my malaise, had been "accept being here, accept being on earth. And stop running, let go ..." Suddenly they made sense ... yes, it's been years that I did not want to be there, anywhere, maybe even my whole life, I spent so many years writing stories to not be where I was, dealing with what I lived, then I ran, again and again to exhaust myself, in all areas of my life, to fill up or not to feel, most often putting happiness in the future, in achieving this or that, otherwise I would not be fully happy, then I put the brakes on too, so I continued to search ... And then there was always something lacking. The motto of the ego "seek and do not find..."
And here again, on this path, I feel the same search for a future goal, one more race to achieve something, and this path as each of those I have taken brings me a lot ... but now I'm exhausted, it is enough. I just want to be here, to stop and look ... because there is nothing to find, we are all already Everything .. It is therefore still another ego game to keep us busy and not see what Is already here ...
I'm in a state of "I do not know, I don’t know any more, nothing ... I do not want to talk, want to say anything, just want to stay here in silence, where everything is ... I feel so at peace and in deep humility.
I feel so grateful, for everything...
Armelle
Translated by Andy...
