by Diane Gagné
Appearances seem beautiful. Even if sometimes it’s attractive and other times not so much, we’re powerfully magnetized by appearances.
In appearances, there’s movement, inconsistency, unconsciousness. There can be a lot of knowledge, hints of intelligence and benevolence, but rarely regularity and stability.
Life is constantly moving and changing. We can follow it, observe it, distance ourselves from it or participate in it. Speed and precipitation invite us to dive into it, but rarely to drop us there to let ourselves float. And it’s unfortunately when we find ourselves drowned or engulfed by life, that we sink and find ourselves in its depths.
In our depths.
There’s a treasure at the bottom of each of our personal little oceans. Going to discover it can seem difficult to us, make us dizzy or even frighten us. But there’s practically no danger in visiting them. The abyss is bottomless and the water in it is rejuvenating.
There’s no danger in facing and fully living the emotional register of life. Nobody dies at the end of their tears, and we will never suffocate by dint of expressing ourselves too much. Of course, in appearance, emotional outbursts remain frowned upon. In society, losing self-control is a sign of weakness and there are many spiritual teachings that still convey today that it’s necessary to know how to control oneself. But one can only truly control oneself after having fully experienced and expressed what has been repressed. And the art of adequately expressing one’s emotions is the only real spiritual teaching to transmit in a world that doesn’t yet know what to do with them. Who doesn’t understand their meaning any more than their usefulness.
If some prefer to remain with the idea that the spiritual path has a destination called enlightenment, they will also have to keep in mind that if we’re going somewhere, it’s because we have also started from a starting point. Therefore, there’s an itinerary made up of roads, crossroads and places to visit. However, these places can be found nowhere else than in our depths. In all that hides and lurks in the person who wants to remain in control of what he or she intends to project as an image of him or herself, for the appearances.
Otherwise, Truth has nothing to do with appearances. Truth will always seek to go beyond these, to pierce the secret hiding in stories we love to tell, when the time comes to make claims of intention. Truth has nothing to do with perceptions and will always seek to attach itself to facts. It doesn’t care whether you were hurt or harmed, when it comes to whether you participated in the offence. How responsible are you for your actions and how much are you willing to commit? What are you looking to protect? Or who…
Truth wants to go beyond appearances. It doesn’t seek to make anyone guilty of anything, because the Truth knows that by acting against it, it’s against yourself you have acted. Truth knows you’re already punished before you even admit your wrongdoing.
Because the Truth lies within each of us… And when we don’t act in accordance with it, it’s only a detour we take on a path that doesn’t really exist. Time gives us the illusion we’re on a journey and that’s why we take so many detours in life: To escape, to go faster, to go where we shouldn’t go or on the contrary, because we think that is where we must go. Because we stick to appearances, we prefer to run towards the next destination, rather than fully embracing what needs to be visited in the moment.
When this profound truth is seen, in all its depth, we realize there’s really no journey. No destination to reach, no appearances to safeguard, nothing to protect. We can then begin to truly live and really understand the role of emotions in our life. All the richness they can teach us about ourselves, about others and about life.
So, if you want to stick with the idea there’s a journey to take in your life, to get you somewhere or to achieve some goal, you have set for yourself, so be it. You will then have to understand that emotions are your instructions, your itinerary on the path, the information you must understand and decipher in order to move forward. You cannot hide or ignore them, just slowly learn to understand this kind of map inside you. Learn that certain places will be to visit, from top to bottom. Learn you can’t stay on the highway forever, to go faster or because it’s more convenient. Appearances will always cause you to go faster, stay on the surface, or not really listen or see what is behind them.
However, it’s when we finally decide to go beyond appearances that we finally realize how much they have deceived us! How, behind them, there’s something so much more beautiful, vast and rich than this linear highway that everybody prefers to take.