Are we so good in our essence that we can't even accept ourselves as such or are we just stupid?

[maha]

Dear Hari,

Today I listened to your lecture 2011.02.12_Instruments_of_Expression and it hit me to the core of my current challenges in life. Amazingly so it described the essence of what would unfold just in half year later from the time of that lecture being broadcast.

At that time I kind of got used to miraculous things happen in association with you but this is really a miracle for me much more personal than many others. Even in that lecture I asked question at the end about my way of being curious in life as a way of expressing myself, even though I rarely would ask questions. And just in half year I met the person whom I find most compatible with and we would help each other to express ourselves in many good ways, including translation of your book.

Now I have to learn the lesson which you addressed at the end of that lecture – when we feel that we can only express ourselves in the association of one particular person and otherwise we would rather not live and would want to abandon life. You revealed that it’s not at all the fault of that person but it is our inner desire to abandon life since we cannot live with ourselves when we can’t stand ourselves because we don’t like ourselves and we only use other person as an excuse.

Now I see it clearly about me and when I ask myself why can’t I live with me, then it struck me with paradoxical phenomena that it seems we can’t live with ourselves exactly due to good side of us which we would otherwise respect in ourselves very much but in complexity of circumstance unfolding in this world it often looks as our weakness and then we start to judge and blame ourselves for it and behave in unnatural ways to negate our very good essence itself and thus basically destroying our fortunate life situations in a self-destructive ways.

When at the same time we are idealists, then it reinforces such conflict of ourselves with this world or rather with our manifestation in it even stronger when we hope that if we quit from this world then we will find another one where our essence will be much more welcome and compatible.

Even though intellectually I understand that this world is not a problem as it only reflects our self-expressions, then why even in circumstances most favorable for our natural expression of good in ourselves, of our essence we do not value it so much and still throw ourselves into such situations when we no more want to express ourselves or feel that we can’t do it anymore even though obviously we have no other choice than to be? Perhaps the cause of it were our even deeper non-acceptance of our essence or its manifestations in this world?

[Hari]

Sutra answer:

Deep within, we know who we are and this creates a standard we should live up to.

We can never live up to this standard.

We therefore think we are not good enough.

When we are younger, we strive to correct this. We rarely do.

At one point we lose hope. This often leads to self-destructive acts meant to punish us for not being good enough.

After a while, we desire to stop this, but we seem to lose track of how to.

So we get some help somewhere. This changes life for a short while. We feel good about ourselves to some extent, until we don't.

We again deteriorate. In some cases, we spiral down to the bottom. We then look up and ask why. At that point we make a choice. Where we go from there depends on us.

Consider the cycle. Consider the root.

"Not Good Enough."