How Can One Be Abandoned By Life?

Namaste.

Namaste.

First of all, I'd like to thank you for. Before I ask you my question, I'd like to thank you for your teaching. It has helped me tremendously. I'd like to thank Eckhart, the Form, for withstanding that suffering that brought out this teaching to help all of us. My questions has to do with issues of abandonment and feeling of unworthiness. For about four decades, I walked around with a story in my head. And the story was that I was abandoned. Life abandoned me. My life situation had it so that my mother did give me away shortly after birth. And so I grew up with someone else. But I felt abandoned by my mother. And then later on, with more challenges of life, I felt that life abandoned me, even though I reconnected with my mother later on. But I always had this issue. So I heard of your teaching, I read your book, and then I realized I could have never been abandoned. My life, I and life all one. How could I have been abandoned?

Yeah.

So I thank you for that. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you.

I brought tissues. But having said that, as you know, my conditioned self always came back to remind me of that. So I have issues when I'm around people, powerful people. You're powerful. But I don't feel like that around you.

I hope not.

But when I'm around wealthy people, especially like, you know, if I met the president, you know, you talk. You talk about the story of the CEO. You talk about the story of the CEO versus the janitor in your book. And yeah, at work, I can talk to the janitor. I feel like, well, he's a janitor. So I have a chip on my shoulder. Hi. But when the CEO's coming, I'm like, oh, I'll get the door for you. So how. How can I stay present? I feel like my ego has to. Has moved into that direction because I can be around here. I feel okay. But when I'm with those people I mentioned, I lose it. I feel small. I feel insignificant. If I could become an ant in the room, I would.

Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

You may remember I gave the example that is very much related to this in in the New Earth about the abbot of a Zen monastery who was waiting to receive the governor of the province, was going to arrive for some ceremony. And while he was waiting to receive the governor of the province where the monastery was, the abbot of the monastery noticed that the palms of his hands were sweaty. And so he had a lot of. Of course, already a lot of self awareness. And he noticed that, okay, the next day he went in front of all his monks and said, I resign from my position of abbot, I have more work to do. And he went to another monastery to study under another master for. For a few more years. And then he came back to the monastery and that was gone. So what he noticed, of course, was that he was not sufficiently deeply connected with being. He was becoming nervous in the presence of somebody who in the eyes of the world was important. And that showed to him that he wasn't deeply enough connected with being the same what you describe. In my 20s I had similar experiences. And when I met occasionally people in Europe, for example, I met. I was introduced to a young man and they said, oh, here is the. He's the great grandson of the former German emperor. And I felt, oh, I didn't remember the mess that his great grandfather had left behind, but I had this image of him living in a. Growing up in a palace. And I knew I had grown up in a one bedroom apartment with my parents, so I felt smaller than him. I was identified with form, with position, the history of me. I had a mental image of who that person was or is. I had a mental image of who I am. And I was still living through a mental image. And when I compared the two mental images, the one I had of him, the one I had of myself, the one I had of myself felt much smaller and insignificant than his. And then the mind kicked in and said, oh, he would be if his great grandfather hadn't made such a mess of things, this guy would now be emperor or become emperor. And a few more times similar things happened. So there is still not the connectedness with being needs to deepen so that you can sense who, or shall we could even say you can sense who or what you are at the deeper level that transcends the form. And this is of course what this. Our work, if we want to call it work is all about, is to take our attention into ourselves so that our attention and our sense of identity, of self is no longer derived from mental images, including mental images we have of our body or mental images that we have that are connected with our history and whatever it is, our upbringing, our social position, they are all thoughts or mental images. Now most it's very normal for people to derive their sense of self from those things, but it's extremely limiting and it makes you uneasy very often in the presence of others. The on the other extreme of that kind of limited behavior would be that you probably don't do it. You could look down on people who you think are inferior and treat them less well and so you feel bigger than them. And then when there's somebody else who you have a mental image that he is more than you, you feel smaller or you want to ingratiate yourself or whatever, or want to disappear, not be seen. So this is why I mentioned in A New Earth, to observe yourself, to see. And again, self observation, not easy. It needs a certain degree of awareness you already know. So I'm just briefly saying for others to observe yourself, to see whether the way in which you behave with different people differs according to social position and or whatever you want from those people I mentioned. The example in New Earth, is the way in which you speak to the janitor the same as the way in which you speak to the CEO of the company? Or is it different? You need self observation to know that and that will tell you to what extent you identified with the conditioned me in the head. So if you become still and discover your essential reality as the being, not the human, to use this terminology, to feel the consciousness that you are the life, the consciousness that you are, as you know, you were never abandoned by life because you are life without the. There's no you. You are an expression of the one life. So you were never abandoned, you were always one with, not more than supported by life, one with life. Because if you say I'm supported by life, you're still creating a duality of me and there's life somewhere supporting me. You are life. The life that you can feel within the consciousness is the consciousness of, is life. So if you can feel yourself as the unconditioned consciousness, the awareness, the presence. Another way we used the other day here was to ask yourself, what does it feel like to be you? Not the mind made you, but the essential presence of you. If you can feel that essential presence and then meet the janitor or the CEO, you will meet exactly the same person. There's no longer any difference. And you will never again feel either superior or inferior to anybody. And that's a wonderful way of relating to people because as long as you are trapped in ego, whenever you meet somebody, it's very rare that you, well, occasionally you might meet equally, oh, he's my equal. But a lot of the time, especially when you meet new people, the ego immediately goes into comparison mode. How do I rate relative to this person? Physical appearance, social position, wealth, possessions, education, knowledge, power? How do I relate? And then you kind of see. And if it's, if you, if you, if you think you are less than, then immediately your behavior changes according. You think you are more. You feel superior, so you talk down to that person. But it's, it's. This is a conditioned, not deep way of relating to other human beings. So if you. The more you connect with being, the easiest it will be when you meet somebody. Not to relate from the level of position or anything else to do with form, but to feel the being that you are, which is precious, which is like some jewel. It's the most precious thing. Being is the most precious. It's not a thing. We're just using language. It's the most precious thing there is. It's this intense aliveness there, this intense joy. It is life itself. Then you can feel that and you will no longer be better or not as good as the other. You can relate to the other as a human being.