I think I didn’t even notice the way it was dissolving, that this kind of solidity of somebody-ness was dissolving. Except that I was reminded of it in the way people kept acting with expectation that I be solid – when I wasn’t.
I began to get a sense of this thing happening. At first it felt easy because I had come out of having this value where, to be chameleon-like, when you’re changing your colors to every situation, is a sign of weakness. I began to flip it around, to where I started to experience that as a sign of strength. I didn’t have to be somebody, I could be open more and more to having no idea who I am, what I’m doing here, or where I’m going.
I think that the confusion is feeling that you have to come into a situation with a somebody-ness, that you then have to get everybody to reassure you of it, and that this is all in order for you to feel safe in a situation.
More and more, I find I can walk into a situation, walk up to somebody, and have no idea who I am or what I’m doing there, and allow their minds to define my reality, without getting caught in it.
See, their mind defines the reality. If that reality is one that’s destructive, well, it won’t feel harmonious, and I just trust. It has to do with trust in the inner connection to truth.
It is to go from the world of social existence, where you’re constantly looking in other peoples’ eyes and saying “Am I existing? Am I good enough? Am I what you want? Am I all right? Am I here?”
At this moment there’s a wind in the trees, and at the moment when I heard the wind in the trees, I disappeared. There was just the wind in the trees. Then, a moment later this situation brought back me talking to you, and I realize that for years I could never do that.
I couldn’t just allow the wind in the trees to exist, because I was afraid of the loss of continuity. I was afraid of allowing the moment to be just what it was for fear I wouldn’t be appropriate to the situation.
-Ram Dass
