One’s idealistic self is already defeated. Give it up. 

Every woman and man was birthed within the bodily structure of a human being. At birth the body/mind being is one. There is no division between the body/mind. In other words, there is not a body and a mind; they are one. These two elements or aspects of the human being are not designed or programmed to work separately from each other or against each other. The body/mind is a harmony of different characteristics arising in the Spirit or Energy that IS Life. However, there quickly comes a particular “teaching”, a particular cultural/social/religious indoctrination to begin thinking about.

The process of indoctrination or conditioning into culture, society, and religion creates a split or division in the otherwise birthed innocence of the human being.
There is very soon a division between the body and the mind. All women’s and men’s bodies are the bodies of Life but our minds become the enclosed suitcase of our particular separateness, our ideological or ideal self. And, this very thinking process becomes the meaning and centre and purpose of our existence. We become so chronically attached to our thinking identity we believe we could not live without it.
But, it is not true. Try it, stop thinking about who you think you are, or who you think you should be or what you think of others and you will discover you still exist.
Now try to stop breathing for five or so minutes. You can survive without thinking but you cannot survive without breathing.

Breathing is not an ideal - it is necessary. However, cultural, social and conventional religious indoctrination is concerned with ideals. They are not necessary for existence to maintain itself. Conventional education, morals, gender socialization, cultural icons and beliefs are concerned with how you should behave, what you have to be and believe to be accepted, who you are to think you are not what you already are.

We were all born as a complete functioning form in the Grace of Life, the Wisdom of Life. No one is born “split” from his or her Inherent Nature. However, soon after birth we are, unknowingly to ourselves, ingrained with and moulded to the ideals of the society/ culture/religion prevailing at that time. All of which have nothing to do with the Life-Evolvement of Human Being-ness.

 The process of socialisation is the process of “leaving” the feeling body in order to meet and satisfy the ideals made into law by the social/cultural/religious establishment. We move into the mind in order to cope with the ideal demands of our society or culture and, in doing so, we become split from our Freely Given Natural Life Evolvement.

No one was born split from his or her Inherent Self Being; no one was born neurotic. However, the process of social/cultural/religious conditioning generates a split, a conflict and confusion in the human being. Every kind of cultural socialisation requires us to suppress our feelings in preference to thinking. Socialisation is to have contracted a socially acceptable form of neurosis.

Our lives, our existence becomes enslaved to the unattainable striving to fulfil socially and culturally contrived ideals, ideals that have nothing to do with Realising and Enjoying the Being-ness of our human existence.

We must first of all understand what has “happened” to us, we must understand we have become enamoured of and fixated with the goals of an ideal life, an ideal relationship, an ideal life style, an ideal family, an ideal friendship, an ideal story of creation, an ideal spiritual realisation and so forth. Ah, we are very quick to point out “ideal spiritual practice” but we are not so eager or willing to uncover our own ideal image of our self and what we think we are entitled to and who we think we are.

And herein lies the difficulty for most people who wish to realize the Truth of Existence. The Natural State is still there; the complete Being-ness is still there, nothing has left you. There is no ideal spiritual truth or state to be attained or achieved. The Innocence of Unconditioned Awareness or Witness Consciousness is still there. The Pure Essence of You is still throbbing behind all your ideal images and goals. Oh, to begin with, your Unadulterated Awareness will probably seem quite boring and about as fascinating as nothing to your ego self; nonetheless It is the Innocent Awareness or Witness that is the Essential ‘I’.

Spiritual Self-Enquiry has nothing to do with how one should behave nor is it concerned with how one should be or any kind of personal improvement. Spiritual Self-Enquiry is not concerned with ideals. Spiritual Self-Enquiry is directed to and concerned with what already is, what you already are. The difference between trying to be someone, trying to attain something, trying to fix something, trying to be enlightened, as opposed to finding out what is already Being You, already Awareness as You, already presently Free of conditional limitations, is to be deeply understood.

For the human being who truly desires to Enjoy the Peace and Freedom of Unconditioned Awareness (the True Self Being) she or he must Understand and Awaken from the illusion of a worldly, constructed, limited conditional self; a sense of self that is not one’s True or Innate Nature. If one is to genuinely begin the process of radical Self-Enquiry into Awareness It Self, one must understand how one is ignoring the Completeness of one’s Being that is Awareness It Self. Yes, I say ignore because one has not lost this Unconditional Awareness, one has not lost their Pure Awareness Nature; one is simply ignoring it in favour of securing a sense of self from the conditions one allows one’s Awareness to become attached to.

The Understanding necessary for Liberation from all your thinking ideals about your self and life and relationship and death is simple. However, while you do not understand your addiction to socially and culturally and religiously and spiritually constructed ideals about your self and “how” things “should” be, the Practice of Spiritual Self Enquiry for the Purpose of Spiritual (or Life) Liberation seems confusing and unrewarding and far too difficult to maintain. You see, one has to Understand the Very Essence of Self that one has forgotten, that one has betrayed within the usual endeavour to fulfil one’s own socially or culturally or religiously indoctrinated ideals. In such a way you have condemned yourself to a life of perpetual seeking and inevitable failure. From this point of view you also want an ideal spiritual practice.

Spiritual Practice is not an extension of your illusory self-ideals. Wisdom is not the ideal knowledge of how things should be or how you should be or act or behave.
Your Pure Awareness (or unconditional Self Being) is still with you. Your Essential Nature or Pure Awareness goes on in every moment. There are no ideal words that can describe it. There is no ideal behaviour that is the sign of it. There is no ideal “teaching” that will prove it to you. There is no ideal situation specially organised just for you that will Awaken you to the Truth. You only have to Understand that which you have forgotten, that which you are ignoring.

You must give up the pursuit of ideals - social, cultural, religious and spiritual ideals.
For those who Understand the process of Self-Enquiry in the Heart, it is Graceful.
For those who still desire the fulfilment of socially and culturally and religiously constructed ideals concerning what it is to be a human being, they will say the process of Self-Enquiry is difficult, confusing and even impossible. There will always be a conflict of interest in such a one, a conflict between the mind and the body, between Love (Pure Awareness) and thinking.

The division between the body and mind is the dis-ease of common social, cultural and religious indoctrinated ideals. The division between humans the world over is the dis-ease resulting from social, cultural and religious belief systems; in other words, idealism about how and what it is to be human.

It is a common mistake to approach me or relate to whatever I express in the Way of Life Understanding in the way you might commonly approach or relate to other teachers or teachings. The Way of Self-Enquiry to Uncover the Witness or Pure Awareness of Self is not a “teaching”. If it seems to be a teaching, it is the “Teaching” of Awakening rather than a teaching of ideals or concepts or metaphysical effects or any personal attainments whatsoever.

Tushita Heart Hermitage is a Sanctuary wherein one begins the process of uncovering or Self-Revealing what is already there and alive as You.

The Heart Hermitage is not a circumstance in which to seek acknowledgement or reinforcement of one’s ideal personal self - no matter how spiritually packaged in one or other ensemble, be it Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Indian-meditating-yogi, tantric-sex activist, cultural-spiritual believer, whatever socially/culturally/spiritually borrowed copycat outfit one is attached to.

What ever is left over, Love It.