Cloudscape

If you have become too so absorbed in your thoughts that you can no longer feel, the only way you can feel again is by letting go off control. Ironically, you have to let go off control to regain control over your thoughts.

With letting go off control, I do not mean that you become passive to everything that happens, but that you accept it. You might still change those things, but it will no longer be because you think you have to. Change things because you feel you want to, not merely because you think you must. Thought is a medium through which change is organized, but the motivation for change originates from our feelings.

The irony is that through acceptance, you may become much better in changing things than through rejecting them, since it allows you to build from the things that are already there, rather than seeking to undo them before starting over. Everything can be used to build something else, even if it is its opposite.

In order to be in control, you must control your need for control. Do not be attached to control, for this is in itself loss of control.

If we knew no greed, we would be in ecstasy. To be freed of greed is not so much about not compromising others, but not compromising ourselves. If we weren't greedy ourselves, even the greed of others could not compromise us.

When you are in sadness, try to let go of attachment as much as possible: let go of greed, of anger, of fear. Let go of all things you tell yourself that must or must not be. Letting go of attachment is easier when sad, and in this way, sadness can come to its use. It can thus cleanse your being from impurities and, like winter, creates an emptiness from which new life can grow in spring. The faster you are able to let go, the less painful your sadness will feel, and the quicker it can also pass. Thus, do not resist sadness, but try to make use of it until it is gone. The use of sadness is to make one let go how things go, not as a punishment when things do not go your way. In your sadness, let go off all control and let everything be. Thus, it will come to its use.

Sometimes the best thing you can do when you are in sadness is to make use of your sadness' purification abilities, and the best way to do this is to turn inwards. Meditation, or, if you are religious, prayer, can be a good way to do this. In your sadness, you are more able to let go of control, thereby creating an emptiness within yourself. Learn to appreciate the silence this brings, and in that silence try to find grace.

Above all, when you are sad, think about what you want to do with your life. Sadness is an emptiness which creates a panorama within your mind. Hear the silence. See the darkness. Feel the cold. In this emptiness, find purity. Once you have done this, your sadness has served its purpose, and the light may come back once again.

Love, in its earliest form, still as a germ, usually inevitably comes with attachment, and so fear, and ultimately hatred for anything that threatens that which we are attached to, and these remain until our love has become perfected. Usually, it is only if our love grows steadily, so that it grows already being close to perfection, it does not cause attachment. Attachment arises when our love grows faster than we can deal with.

Perhaps we can so see the evil within us, in the form of fear and hate, at least in part, as a good sign. It means that we are growing, and that we are growing fast. That we hate means that we love, and that we love so much that we are prepared to make the sacrifice of suffering for it. When we make this sacrifice, we must bear it, however, and not impose it upon others; it is our own burden. Others did not choose to share in it.

It is, in fact, easy to get rid of all suffering, but only if one gives up one's love. Love, once found, however, is so strong that one rarely finds the force to dispose of it again, unless one has descended into extreme tendencies of self-destruction, such as drug addiction.

Life is as hard as you are willing to make it. Life will never be easy unless you make it so. Remember this when you are suffering. It is the cross you bear to love. You can always be freed of it if you give up that love, and stop caring about anything in unfeeling emptiness. To suffer, until you are perfected, is your own choice.

Suffering, it itself, is not necessary to grow. But nonetheless, that we are suffering means that we are growing. It means that we have not given up, and that we are trying. For failure is always also a sign of success.

See also:

Change and Sameness

Craving and fear can be converted into love through detachment. Do not therefore resist them, as they can precede love. Instead, allow them to grow into love.

Anything done out of craving or fear rather than love will destroy, whereas only what is done through love can create. This is a general rule because of how love, craving and fear are defined; love will do only that which is the best for that which it loves, whereas fear and craving will bring it harm in trying to do so. However, it must be noted that in everything we do there is both at least some love and some craving and fear involved, so that everything we do will therefore both create and destroy. We cannot be perfect in fully doing everything out of love alone.
We should to do whatever we do with greater love than we do it with fear and craving, to let our love be greater than our fear and craving in what we do; otherwise we should not do it at all, as it would then bring more harm than it would bring growth. If we really are to do something but our craving and fear to do so is greater than our love, then we should wait as long as it remains so, until our love has become greater.

Love in the form of craving or fear is worthless; true love is love that is purified of these. Craving is formed by male, yang energy that stands alone, fear by female, yin energy that stands alone; only when the two are combined can love be achieved.

If you seek beauty, deem only of worth that which is done with love, as love is the appreciation of beauty. However, though all things are created with love in some way or other, albeit the love of destruction, not all love is equal.
Love the whole, however, not its parts, as you will otherwise led astray from the greater beauty; for as far as you yourself are concerned, the whole means all that which you perceive, indeed you can be said to be the whole of your perceptions. If we see the self as such, to love the whole therefore means to love oneself. What this means, then, is to do whatever feels best for oneself, as only through feeling, not through thought, one can consider the whole rather than just the parts.
If what is best for you means to you what is most comfortable, then by all means, do whatever feels most comfortable when all is said and done. If you seek beauty, then do whatever feels most beautiful to you. Do not then be held back by either fear or craving to love whatever beauty you seek, but listen to your center, the heart.
For you can know what will bring you to beauty only through feeling it, as only you can feel what beauty means to you. For everything you do, listen to your feelings and examine whether or not you truly want to do it, accepting whatever it may bring along with it.
If you are urged to do something out of craving, no matter what it may be, even if it is something beautiful, then check yourself, until you feel you can do it out of love rather than out of craving; for nothing is beautiful with love, as love is what defines beauty, and craving can make even that which is beautiful worthless.
To achieve beauty, one must struggle against the forces of gravity, up towards the sky; craving and fear pull one down, but love tells one to fly on upward.

Indifference and craving are the two things we must avoid. They are two extremes, and balanced between the two is love, which neither craves nor is indifferent. It accepts and yet not resigns, cherishes and yet does not desire.
Craving can be in the form of desire, or in the form of anger; the craving to add something, or the craving to remove something. Yet both in the end are forms of destructivity.
Many people who seek enlightenment focus on reducing craving, but do not love, and in so doing become indifferent; enlightenment, however, is unconditional love. In its perfect sense, it is love for all things in the universe, which is a state of divinity. In apathy one will find enlightenment no more than in desire. We should not merely seek to avoid pain, but also seek love.
And yet, at the same time, we should not crave even for enlightenment. It is very difficult.

To become free of suffering one must become free of craving. But to become free of craving, it is not enough to detach from craving when suffering has already occurred, for it might by then already have brought one out of balance; instead, detach from craving when one has wishes for the future. Do not crave one outcome above another, even though one outcome may be better; in the end you will see what outcome fate has brought you. Realize then that all outcomes have their own value, and, if only one is aware of it, also their own beauty.