HARE RAMA KRISHNA HARE HARE

Thoughts show up in our mind from who knows where, and we assume they belong to us—that they are what we think, what we believe, what we should do, and what we are. What if your thoughts are just the conditioning you were given, and they are no more yours and no more true than someone else’s thoughts, which are no more theirs and no more true than yours? Our thoughts are just part of the programming that makes us human, while we are actually spiritual beings.

Like the color of your eyes or your personality, your thoughts were just given to you, and they make up this character you think of as yourself. But are you this human character? Or are you what is reading these words and contemplating whether or not you are this character? Can you be this character and be what is aware of and what contemplates this character? How is that possible? Maybe you are something beyond this character, but you are pretending to be this character. That would explain it, wouldn’t it? Every so often, we have glimpses of the Actor behind this character—of what is playing at being “you.”

Just as an actor has a choice to continue acting or to do something else, once you realize you are the Actor, you have a choice to continue acting out the drama of this character or not. When the play is over, the actor goes home. Likewise, when you are done with the drama of this character, you come Home. You retire from being “you,” and give up the trappings of this character—the desires, beliefs, opinions, fears, fantasies, judgments, self-images, and other conditioning—and relax into your true Self, which was hidden behind the costume all along.

Life continues once you retire from being this character, but it continues without all the drama and pain. It turns out that the conditioning created the drama and suffering, not life, because when the trappings are shed, so is the suffering. What a surprise! You really were just pretending to be someone. It felt like you were someone who was opposed to life and struggling to find contentment, but all you needed to do was shed the trappings—the conditioning—that made you this character. The curtain goes down on the experience of being that character, but life continues, as essence expresses itself through you more purely now. How happy and content essence is with life, and what a relief it is to be free of the stories and the drama!