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Fear and desire are mirror images of one another. And when i chose¹ to desire and find a sense of self in the accomplishment of this desire, then i divide the world in two parts. One part becomes a means to achieve this sense of self and the second part becomes an obstacle.

Repeatedly some part of the mind is attempting to reconstruct this self by presenting fears of desires, and each time it does so the full experience of Life is made impossible.

Now in me is this force - i cannot call it desire - which changes these attempts into opportunities to surrender and accept Life in its fullness.

¹- this choice being what happens, not really mine as it has a cause in the Being.

Pain, Desire, Will, Love

Pain is a reminder. What do i suffer from?

The very shadow of this suffering is the answer to my question.

If i suffer from not having big breasts, then "having big breasts" is the idea which is causing suffering.

This observation is not all of it though. What is interesting is to investigate as to why one desires a given object or situation. All desires eventually have the same source: the ego.

Satisfaction is about who is enjoying what. Are you enjoying Life or do you want to be enjoyed (by individuals or by Life itself providing you with favourable situations)?

Every moments of suffering are reminders of one's own intentions. At the moment of suffering there is a the possibility to chose to enjoy Life as it is or to suffer the desire of wanting to be loved.

Everyone knows the deep desire of wanting to be loved. It's tough, and although it is much promising and seems sweet when complete, it is the very misery of the mind. Love is here when one surrenders that desire for the unconditional enjoyment of Life.

All what is needed is the firm volition to cast off what hinders true and absolute love, what hinders from fully witness Life and its beauty.

Intentions

In my head, the duality between "before I was in love/enlightened/peaceful" and "now I am angry/foolish/suffering" is still current. And why is it not fading away? Why am I recreating square wheels times and again?

It seems the answer resides partially in the question itself: the very request or demand for enlightenment is the cause of suffering, as I dismiss what is to run after an idea of what should be.

So although I am intensively focusing on enlightenment I do not seem to come to any sort of progress and the realisation sought now was spontaneous then. But why am I seeking enlightenment now and what did I do then? What difference was there in my intentions?

I seek to realise enlightenment because I desire peace, I desire a place free of pain and I want to stand above all things. Before however, the intentions where quite different: I abandoned self-indulgence for the simple enjoyment of Life. By enjoyment of Life i am not trying to say that I indulged myself again, I rather embraced Life in its pure essence, in its manifestation through senses or consciousness. In pleasure or pain, success or failure, there was Life, there was what is and there was I am. The abandon of self-indulgence for enjoyment of Life, was absolute and unconditional, it was direct and spontaneous, it was pure love.

So the issue is in the question only. The answer is already here, seeking happiness---even if it seems a holy peace---is the source of suffering, it is a request of the Ego, for Love, from Life. In enjoying Life, what is, in its pure essence and unconditionally is a surrender of the Ego to Life. Ultimately consciousness' role is to find Life, the Ego is just the story of apparent and necessary separation of consciousness from "the rest", which it sees and can fall in love with. Ego is the negation of what is, Ego is the story of loss, while Life is the story of what is. But eventually even in Ego then there can be Love when Ego is seen as the mark of there being Love made possible.

Duality

There is an apparent duality between "me" and Life, yet logic leads us to the conclusion that this "me" also is an expression of this Life, which proves this duality to be erroneous.

So the current state of mind which is busy with being me and the other which is busy with Life are both part of this Life. When one is busy with "me" then one is busy with a concept created by the mind in order to identify itself. The idea of "me" is limited in time, it has a birth and a death and the mind having identified itself to it and understanding the dire of being finite, tries to find a way to escape death (as well as pain and failure, small deaths as it were).

So at any time when the mind is busy with "me" or with some work it has identified itself to (and must make it become a success), the mind bypasses the present reality, for the end of motion is death to the mind, it is surrendering to its own finite existence.

Yet this finite existence is only a mere concept, just as a leaf only is different from the tree as a concept, whereas the leaf truly is the tree (and where the label "leaf" is unnecessary, so -eventually- is the concept of "tree"). So the mind only attempts to flee what it has created and what it has identified itself to.

It seems that renouncing the idea of "me" and looking at the world around (and again not as what is opposite to "me" but simply as what is) seems to bring balance. But this seems to demand a certain effort, a will power. And is this power of "me"?

Is there free will? Logical deference will lead to the conclusion that there is no thing without a cause, so there is nothing free but the all in itself. This apparent free will should be used to rise above delusion, and when standing above delusion what once was free-will, is simply will, the work of Life.

It's been quite a long time since i have been able to say that "i simply am" and in that time i have been looking at the past moments when i actually did have this ability as my goals.
Having now just read some old entries in my journal, i found out that the story related in these past entries where then present, while my seeking to re-establish a similar state is founded on passed-future ideas.
What about the present? What about what i really am?
Why seeking and -systematically- deny the present state?
Why not embrace fully what is? Why seeking salvation and reinforce a belief of incompletion or suffering?
How about this beautiful Life which i bypass each time i am seeking - even when thinking to seek this Life?
What i really am looking for is what is - and indeed what is, is not to be sought, but rather it is simply found, here and now, immediately.
Even if i know will is ultimately no self-will but the work of Life, i also know my vision is born of and limited by consciousness, and this self-will is true for what seems to be the self. So why not use it? Am i not -as limited consciousness- going to make use of this strength to rise and embrace the All?
Come on Benjamin, are you really about to throw your existence into a dream-life of seeking? Or are you going to plunge naked into Life?