The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [32]
The five kleshas can be solved all at once by embracing one reality. The difference between “I am my hurt” and “I am” is small but crucial. A huge amount of suffering has resulted from this single misperception. Thinking that I was born, I cannot avoid the threat of death. Thinking that outside forces exist, I must accept that these forces can harm me. Thinking that I am a person, I see other persons everywhere. All of these are perceptions that were created, not facts. Once created, a perception lives a life of its own until you go back and change it.
It takes only a flicker of awareness to lose touch with reality. In reality nothing exists outside the self. As soon as you begin to accept this one bit of knowledge, the whole purpose of life changes. The only goal worth attaining is complete freedom to be yourself, without illusions and false beliefs.
CHANGING YOUR REALITY TO ACCOMMODATE THE FIFTH SECRET
The fifth secret is about how to stop suffering. There is a state of nonsuffering inside you; it is simple and open awareness. By contrast, the state of suffering is complicated because, in its attempts to wrestle with pain, the ego refuses to see that the answer could be as simple as simply learning to be. Any steps that get you to stop clinging to complications will bring you closer to the simple state of healing. Complications occur as thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and subtle energies, meaning hidden emotional debts and resistance.
For this exercise, take anything in your life that is bringing you a sense of deep unease, discomfort, or suffering. You can choose something that has persisted for years or something that is uppermost in your life right now. Whether there is a physical component or not is unimportant, although if you pick a chronic physical disorder, don’t approach this exercise as a cure—we are dealing with the patterns of perception that encourage you to hold on to suffering.
Now sit by yourself for at least 5 minutes a day for the next month with the intention of clearing away the following complications:
Disorder: Chaos is complicated, order is simple. Is your house a mess? Is your desk piled high with work? Are you letting others create messes and disorder because they know you won’t make them take responsibility? Have you hoarded so much junk that your environment is like an archaeological record of your past?
Stress: Everyone feels stressed, but if you cannot completely clear your daily stress at night, returning to a calm, centered, enjoyable inner state, you are overstressed. Look closely at the things that make you tense. Is your commute stressful? Do you get up too early without enough sleep? Do you ignore signs of exhaustion? Is your body stressed by being overweight or by being totally out of shape? List the major stresses in your life and work to reduce them until you know for certain that you are not overstressed.
Empathic suffering: Getting infected with the suffering of others causes you to suffer. You have crossed the line from empathy to suffering if you feel worse after offering sympathy to someone else. If you honestly cannot be in the presence of negative situations without taking on pain that isn’t yours, get away. Losing sight of your boundaries doesn’t make you a “good person.”
Negativity: Well-being is a simple state to which body and mind return naturally. Negativity prevents this return by causing you to dwell on not being well. Do you casually gossip about others and relish their misfortunes? Do you spend time with people who carp and criticize? Do you watch every disaster and catastrophe dished out on the evening news? These sources of negativity don’t have to be engaged in—walk away and put your attention somewhere more positive.
Inertia: Inertia means giving in to old habits and conditioning. Whatever the cause of depression, anxiety, trauma, insecurity, or grief, these states linger if you take