I’ve commenced another Ashram journey, and its three weeks in. It's incredible to observe how many shadow parts of myself have been revealed over that time. Despite these being uncomfortable things to acknowledge, little own write down, I feel that it's very useful to do so. In fact, so do the great spiritual masters. Just recently, I stumbled upon a modern Zen master who dissected the key parts that made up Buddhist practice. One principle was that when an individual sits for long enough, and becomes truly mindful, they will indefinitely learn how crazy and disturbed their minds are! In Buddhism, through coming to know it with more gentle awareness, one develops more compassion for themselves and others.
The following post encapsulates just some of the hidden and gloomy parts of my psyche that have been illumined over the last three weeks. I find it beneficial to write about, reflect on and share. Hopefully its useful for you too!
Confidence
On any given day, I have felt huge ranges of confidence from being as confident as you could be, to being highly insecure. In this particular Ashram there is a far more social atmosphere, given there is a lot of general free time and freedom for community and relationship building. I have enjoyed this aspect a lot, but then, at times been terribly fearful of it too. When I’ve happened to stumble on a nice conversation with somebody and feel a connection, I feel much more content afterwards, but the feeling's fleeting. The next day, I'm stressed because that same connection hasn't continued in some way, and verified itself in my psyche..?
I also notice that it's rare that I backup nice conversation with a following one the next day in a deliberate kind of way. I'm usually just a floater, cruising along the social milieu spontaneously and aimlessly but with a lingering angst. It leaves me confused as to how to be and act, given that my positive feelings depend on positive connection within it, yet I'm also so casual and take little agency towards finding it. Am I really this emotionally feeble?
Isolation
I can’t help but notice a huge tendency for me to pull away, seek loneliness and isolation. It usually feels kind of gratifying when I attain it, but never fully. It's more like a reprieve than anything, a respite from normal worldly experience and I guess the kind friction it produces. It's also got to have something to do with the style of conversation that I feel comfortable with and have energy for. I cherish deep conversations, or creative ones, funny ones, even cynical ones. I dislike the small ones though, and so basically never go out of my way to make small talk with someone.
But despite this conversational preference, it's become obvious to me here that just because I 'prefer' deep conversations doesn't mean everything has to be deep. Some of the deepest people I've met, like the long-term devotees, can be both deep and light as the mood requires. They seem to bounce perfectly from moment-to-moment, as if graced by the inner breeze that lies within each moment. Making this contrast, it's clear that often when I lament the fact that deep conversations aren't available to me, it's more likely that I have a yearning to be heard on the dark themes I've been brooding about within my isolated smog! And this isn't the same thing as craving depth, it's more like a soothing for my sadness.
Identity
Something that repeats in my mind continuously is the fact that I'm meant to be a so-called Counsellor and Mental Health professional. This identity, which has consumed much of my entire identity for too long and creates enormous inner conflict. Firstly, because it's so obvious, if I'm honest, that my own mind is pretty fuckin twisted, certainly not a beacon for the mentally well... And secondly, that so often I don't seem to be connecting or building relationships with people. People around me, seem far more likely to seek support, wisdom or clarity with others, yet this was meant to be my whole schtick... I'm meant to be so wise, so charming, so empathetic, that I would naturally be the candidate people chose more often than not to seek emotional comfort and share intimate confines with... right?!
Once upon a distant time I was this person, I can recall, but now, no longer. Seeing others connect often triggers a swathe of doubts and question about myself and who I am, which can never really resolve. Then when I see it all, I'm confronted with how utterly ridiculous, selfish and unwise it is to be disturbed by others building relationships and enjoying their lives, which is entirely natural!! Yet in me the inner protestation against it feels righteous. Ultimately, what's required here is not a thought that can 'fix' this which I normally attempt to do, but a feeling, a sustained one, that harmonises my inner world with the outer. For too long I have sought thoughts, but now I know only through experience can a healing and new feeling arise. To this now I seek!!
Resentment
A couple of time I've felt resentment and/or dislike build towards a few individua's. It's amazing how quickly and subtly a thread of dislike can emerge and brew into boulders within the psyche. In one instance there has been a young 21-year-old girl from a private school on the North shore. The girl is actually very nice, has an extremely bubbly personality and ultimately there is no issue with her whatsoever, but at times I've found her very hard to tolerate.
Her utterances too regularly feel crafted to me, an effort at portraying herself in her most favourable image: fun, quirky, deep, caring, wise, experienced, spiritual yet also promiscuous, wild and so emotionally unstable. Her schtick seems entirely taken from an AI generated Instagram or Tinder recommendation as to how to build a successful profile in the year 2025. Initially I am baffled and curious by the phenomenon of the girl and ask myself questions: 'How the hell does she do this?', 'Was there like some manual she read?', 'Did one of her school buddies recommend the book', or 'is this just the predominant instinct that lives in her psyche?' As far as I can tell, as I write here right now, the latter is the most likely answer.
Her branding tendency encapsulates everything I dislike in modern society, and so when her speech continues in this form that insults authenticity, my slither of annoyance festers into something larger and ominous. Despite my inner volcanic state rumbling, it's crazy to observe how others - pretty much everyone else - seems to have no issue with her whatsoever. In fact, she makes more friends with everyone else then I fucking do!! It becomes crazy for me to deal with and so the volcano brews.
I want others to see what I see, to verify it, even though I'm sure!! My mind says, 'This girl is a fucking issue! She represents all the issues in society! She's fake, its fake, its ALL FAKE!' I want to commence a crusade, where I teach her and everyone else a lesson and do it so eloquently so as to leave no doubt as to the concluding sentiments. I want to bring her down to reality, show her my suffering, all the suffering, her immense privilege, her contradiction, the shallowness of her flamboyancy! And all this only increases as I see my wishes become increasingly out of step with the frequency and mood of the Ashram around me. I'm the only one who is having this reaction. I guess it must mean something peculiar to me, then...
As I take a step back, if I do it with enough space, and consider all things, imbue myself with the peace I have cultivated through spiritual practice, different perspectives become possible. As I open my mind and simultaneously narrow it down, I see how that what this girl represents much of what I've been unable to do, which is to allow the shallow side of myself to reign supreme, from time-to-time, to allow myself to live freely, without the weight of social and ethical issues bearing on every decision I make, to not allow myself to be a little bit cheap, a little naive, innocent, girly and god forbid... stupid!? Because of my inability to do this, I've suffered immeasurably in my life. At some early point, I mistakenly conflated personal honour with happiness, but these two things now I see are not two and the same. Only by allowing myself to be happy and sacrifice some of my inner nobility can I find more gentle happiness in life and find myself being less reactive to the shallower types I come across.
Disappointment
And what about the disappointment I felt when I realised after meeting everyone here, that I wouldn't find my soul mate. I know how ridiculous it sounds. I mean, I can't even believe I'm typing this out, but it's true that in the first couple of day, some part of me scanned the room ascertaining whether someone could be the one, or at least 'a' one for brief time, and I concluded pretty quickly that it wasn't going to be the case. I felt bitterly disappointed of course, causing a depletion in motivation and a discernable sense of giving less of a fuck about the place and my place in it. Of course, I told myself before arriving that I wasn't here to find a relationship, because I was truly pursuing my spiritual path, although if something did happen, that would be great. I didn't realise how much weight my subconscious had put into the latter part of this of rationalisation process. Nonetheless, if I am truthful with myself, it happened, and strongly.
What is this a reflection of? As I get to know very happy and single people here, of which there are many, it's clear that its meaning is a reflection more of the lostness of my soul, the emptiness, the ambiguity, the unhappiness that had crept in, and this attempt for my soul to resolve the issue through an easy kind of option - A lover. How often throughout history have bad choices in the name of love been made? When in reality what lies behind an individual is the unbearability of doing life on their own terms. Despite everything I've said here so far, I'm actually a fairly aware and strong individual. My subconscious doesn't reign over me controlling my life, but if it did, bitterness and failure would dominate my existence because of poor life choices. And besides as I sit and type away right now in a more mature mindset, I don't believe anyone knows whether love will manifest within a few days or weeks. True love takes time, months or years perhaps.
Being a natural stoner
In my first few weeks, despite feeling a range of different feelings, the most prevailing one has been one of fogginess, dreariness, vagueness and detachment. As much as I've tried to concentrate on the mundane tasks we're given during service, without random thoughts intruding and overtaking my consciousness, my efforts have largely been made in vain. It seems like the Ashram has noticed this too.
On two separate occasions, a male devotee as has pulled into a private meeting interrogating me as to use of smoking marijuana. Eventually after my repeated assurance that I am not taking any drugs they gave me feedback that my mannerisms, my general demeanor and lostness suggests that I'm smoking weed currently. I didn't mind that they asked the questions around this - I'm sure they've have had many deceivers arrive on their shores over the years and they need to ask questions early in order to protect the sanctity of the environment. But I was a little affected by the fact I gave people the impression I was a stoner more than anything else.
I mean, I'm actually a pretty clean, devoted and spiritual and person, aren't I? Ot maybe I am just a lost dreamer, who has vices and can't focus? I asked several of my Ashram companions about all this and most of them, laughingly said they would have assumed I was a weed smoker, too. I still don't know how to feel about this. I'm pretty sure this general state of dreariness has been due to getting of the vape, and perhaps other vices like coffee and the internet. The other side of it is that well, I'm pretty some part of it is actually just a feature of my personality. They call it being introverted intuition dominant on the Myers Briggs system which is what I've always been. Leading with perception, visions, dreams, insight, divergent thought. I know I can restore my mental clarity and use this feature of personality in really healthy ways in the environment, I want to restore this once more, so that no longer people assume I'm a stoner.
Dreams
Lastly, but not least is just how crazy, perplexing and revelatory my dreams been since arriving in the Asrham. So often my dreariness during my waking state feels due to the corresponding intensity of my dreams from the night before, never really being able to fully wake up from them. Without going fully into my dreams here, I will broadly describe my dreams being those of dread, dreams representing many of the core issues that have plagued my life and caused problems. Things like my disorgansaiton at times making it impossible to take on responsibility, my inability to reconcile converging sides of myself. My masculinity being tainted with insecurity and doubt, making my image blurry or unconvincing. I've had dreams representing my challenges of leading teams that wouldn't listen, dreams about being with women who I haven't been in love with or even that attracted to, only to be glared at by perhaps a true lover who was never to be. I've even had dreams about large coffees in the morning and their relationship towards covering my psychological stress.
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