A sneak peak into my new book: “Gurus in sneakers“.

Chapter 1: It’s okay.

However you may feel you have failed at whatever you believe you could have failed at, I hope you will let go. I know how hard it must be for you to be raised by a world that has so many opinions of you. And how deeply those opinions can cut you open, leaving a wound for anyone to witness. 

You were perfect the day you were born. One day, someone applauded you for something you did differently than the moments before that one. Or someone’s face lit up when you did a certain thing that you were not aware of at the time. All you -maybe only subconsciously- knew, was you felt good when the face lit up. When all the shapes became more round, a little bit more soft, when something you saw seemed to open up, slightly changed colour maybe. Became a few percent more shiny. 

Whatever it was, when it happened again, you may have decided that you would try to do something similar and then maybe you would experience the softness, roundness, openness once more. It may have happened around the time when you became aware of the feeling that this being that was just being, was not all there was anymore. That now, there was what was, and something… else? Other? There? As soon as there seemed to be a there, a here happened as well. Until that moment, there had just… been. You had just… been. It….was. Until there was something else. And right from the moment you wondered about the else, the being lost its glory. It was no longer enough. Because now, the here existed only because of the there. The now itself only became the now because suddenly there was also something that was not now. A before. And an after. And worse: An” if,... then..”. Almost instantly, being was no longer enough. Now there was an if. If you do this thing again, in exactly the same way, when this other being is doing something over there, you may experience the soft and round and open once more, here. And you will feel differently than before. Not differently than before there was a here and a there. Because everything was perfect before. Differently than before you did the thing. And you had to do the thing, because you were no longer perfect. 

Maybe we HAVE to forget.

The “if this, then that” might bring you back just a little bit closer to the perfect. Which you, by now, have long forgotten about. Which serves a very important purpose, by the way. For had you not forgotten how you were once perfect, you would have been able to return to it effortlessly. I have often wondered about the purpose of human development. How useless and inefficient this purpose could be, if every single thing we learn as of our first moments on earth will only take us further away from that perfect state we were in to begin with. But. If we could simply remain in that state for ever or return to it whenever we felt like it, the human experience would be quite useless, wouldn’t it? If we had nothing to learn? No direction to grow in? Maybe we HAVE to forget everything in order to reach a higher consciousness, individually and/or collectively. And THEN we can return to the state of perfection that we entered this world with in the first place, armed with….what? 

What could losing all our knowledge, wisdom, skills and superpowers possibly add to anything worthwhile? I often wondered about this. To me, it felt as how I imagined I would feel if I walked out of my front door early in the morning, with keys to the most hi-tech type of Tesla in my hand, ready to take on a journey of many miles, with bad weather conditions and limited time to complete it. And then, as soon as it would dawn on me that I needed to go somewhere and it would not be easy, I would automatically put the keys to the car in your coat pocket, instantly forget about both the car and the journey, get on my knees and start crawling in the direction of my now unknown destination, not having a clue what I was doing and if there was any point to doing it whatsoever. I might crawl for the rest of my life. Alone, probably terrified, with no guarantee that anything would ever be worth the suffering. Then what would be the use of the suffering? None, probably. So what if this is what we are all doing in this lifetime? If we are all just crawling in darkness, in rain, through tornados and hail storms, all by ourselves. Lonely and scared, sweating, freezing, desperate for some meaning. All thinking we are alone. All feeling detached. All desperately wanting to wake up, but clinging to what we remember. Not remembering that we have the keys to the easier journey on us.

This is life in the mind. The mind is not your enemy. It is your friend. Your best friend. It has been since kindergarten. The bff who is your bff because you grew up together. Who you know so well, that you don’t recognize its toxic behaviour. You cannot see how your friend always comes just a few inches too close. How he or she -so let’s just say “it”- becomes clingy when you get curious about someone new. How it becomes scared and jealous when you may fall in love. Saying that it is out for your best interest, trying to protect you from strangers, bad influences, risks, confusion, things that might alter your mind, your image, your identity… 

As soon as you think it, you are not it.

The mind is the childhood friend, the younger cousin, the old neighbour, who doesn’t want to lose you. Who doesn’t want you to become something they no longer understand. Something they don’t feel they can or want to be where you are going. The jealous boyfriend who starts his accusations or even terror, by saying “It’s because I love you…” or even “If you loved me….” That’s the voice that was born the moment you were no longer in the now, but EXPERIENCING a now. Which is about the same as telling people how enlightened you are. As soon as you think it, you are not it. And that, my friend, is exactly the moment where all the misery, confusion, pain, suffering, grief, disappointment and despair inside you -and inside everyone- are rooted. In the moment you had your first thought. The first thought, whether conscious or subconscious, murdered the state of perfection. That was the moment you tucked away the keys to the Tesla. The keys to the kingdom. And you started crawling. Which you still are. But even that, you have forgotten. All we can do now is hope that the conditions of your journey become so terrifyingly, exhaustingly harsh, that you reach the point where you have no other choice but to throw your coat on the ground in anger and despair and hear the this subtle sound of something in the coat hitting the rocks. That will cause you to look what’s inside.

#gurusinsneakes #newbook #writer #wakeup