So, you wanna be free from all of it?

Bentinho Massaro speaks in an interview, of traveling through India for a period of some five and a half months. He relates that he met with some swamis and meditation teachers and  came to the realization that he just “couldn’t do it anymore”:

“I couldn’t believe in yet another system, another philosophy, another theoretical: ‘you have to do this, you have to do that, because then you become something.’ It just felt so unnatural. I kinda gave up believing in what the teachers were telling me and the books were telling me. And I started to relax. I started to relax into my own natural presence.”

“Natural presence.” When are we in our most visceral, natural state? I contend that such a period for each of us is precisely in the immediate moments after birth. We are the most natural “us” in the minutes after exiting the birth canal, having the umbilical cord cut, being rubbed down and cleaned-up and then placed on our mother’s chest or in our bassinet.

There we are—pure and perfect—existing in causeless bliss.

Now fast forward to you and I today, right now as you read this article. How much are we in that natural state? How pure and perfect is our presence? I would hazard a guess that, if you’re like I once was, you’ve been a bit drug through the mud of “life.” You’ve been bruised, bloodied and have picked up a lot of crap along the highway. It’s like we’re sticky in a sense, and the danged stuff that sticks to us is things that are not conducive to the pure and natural presence that we were at the zero odometer reading of the expedition leading up to this point. This “stuff” comes from all points of the compass: family, friends, culture, government, education, religion, etc. Some may be imposed on us as children when we know no better. A portion we may gather on our own out of desperation, laziness or both.

Take into consideration this: if we were not born with it, it’s not ours.

What I am proposing is that, our original immaculateness was and is part and parcel of “us.” It is our make-up: the fabric of our quintessence. And all that junk that stuck to us as we traveled that imaginary linear timeline of our presence thus far? It is exterior. Think of us as a car coated with a super sticky substance and all of the paraphernalia that would attach to it on a cross-country drive. Now, consider that we—inside the car—would not have anything attached to us from the road.

Such is as we are.

Internally, somewhere inside this human-body-costume dwells our true self. The soul, essence, universal energy, or whatever term one may wish to denote such; it doesn’t matter. That unsullied state of being has remained unblemished all this time that the outside refuse has accumulated. We are, quite simply, free from it: in the beginning and right now.

When you feel harried, stressed-out, filled with worry—connect with your noble ‘Birth-Self.’ Awaken to the truth that all else is just so much triviality and components of maya (illusion).

You wanna be free from all of it? You are free of it. You always have been and always will be.

Whether you accept that, or rather can “relax” into that, is a question only you can answer; only you can explore. Personally, I think it’s worth it. It is worth a look, thought, consideration. What do you think?

Ricky Ferdon studied a lot “isms” and philosophies, etc. in the past 46 or so years. At the age of 11, while riding in the family station wagon he was suddenly hit with the realization that he would die one day. Up until this point, no such consideration had ever dawned in his young mind. He figured that people who got sick and died or passed away from accidents just had bad luck. This realization essentially ended his childhood right then and there. His spontaneity of life gave way to a turning in: a deep introspection that would color all of his years through the rest of his public school education. Even today he will say that he remembers little of those school years because he was so busy living inside his head that he didn’t notice the outside world and its comings and goings; even his participation in it. Today Ricky is retired, enjoys gardening, doing a little yoga, is vegetarian, married to a wonderful lady and father to two grown children. He likes to write on his blog, Happiness is the Natural State, as things bubble up.

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Ed: Brianna Bemel
Assistant Ed: Wendy Keslick