When someone tells you, “I love you,” and then you feel, “Oh, I must be worthy after all,” that’s an illusion. That’s not true. Or someone says, “I hate you,” and you think, “Oh, God, I knew it; I’m not very worthy,” that’s not true either. Neither one of these thoughts hold any intrinsic reality. They are an overlay. When someone says, “I love you,” he is telling you about himself, not you. When someone says, “I hate you,” she is telling you about herself, not you. - Emptiness Dancing
, Adyashanti
This quote hit my brain like thunder and has been rolling around for the past two weeks. From where I look I cannot spot a fallacy with it, and that brings several things into question.
If it is true that whatever anyone says to me is about them, is their opinion and describes only their world view, then it follows that anything I have ever said to anyone else is actually about me, and is my opinion and describes only my world view. So, essentially, I have never said anything about anyone else, and no one has ever said anything about me.
Whoa.
I grew up the fat kid, and was the butt of a great many jokes, teasing and pranks. I developed an obsessive concern over what others thought about me, and what they said when I was not around. The above line of reasoning throws that whole process out of the window, and replaces it with a radical new world view empty of shame or concern. It is not necessary to take other’s expressed opinions personally, because they can’t possibly be taken personally. They are not about me. They are information about the speaker only, and how the world is currently occurring for them. The only way for their words to have an impact, over here, is if I change my opinion to match theirs.
The above also nicely puts in a nutshell the contention of the realized sages that Realization must, and can only, be done for oneself. If everything said is said about the speaker, then it is not possible for the Buddha to say what realization is for you. He can only say what it is for him. We must each get to that place, which they all say is the same, for ourselves. And, once there, we cannot actually talk about it.
Stumble it!
6 Comments
And yet the sages do talk about it. They can point to that heightened state of consciousness. More importantly spiritual teachers can point out when we and how we are trapped in an illusion.
We do not have to get to Realization on our own. The words you read struck you. You are not alone in that process.
If you want to explore the paradigm you discovered further it is outlined very well in the book The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz. One of his agreements for changing your life is “Don’t Take Anything Personally.”
Good post about freeing your self from the trap of opinions.
Thanks!
I’ve read The Four Agreements. Loved it. Excellent framework for living a good, comfortable, rewarding life. Awesome stuff, and yes, the agreement “Don’t Take Anything Personally,” is another way of saying what I quoted from Adyashanti.
I must disagree with the idea that we don’t have to get Realization on our own. How can it be any other way? That is what all the great ones tell us - the only one who can Realize is you. They can, and do, point the way through their words, actions and presence, but they cannot hand it to you. You must make the effort alone. In the final step, you are alone.
Ramana Maharshi stumbled upon Realization with the only guide he mentioned being that he had once heard the name Arunachala. I do not compare myself to him, but his example points to what they all say. It’s you, and only you can realize that. Teachers can also help keep you on the path by catching your games, but they cannot make you come to terms with those games, you must take the teaching “on board.”
The words of the sages will always be part of what has guided me. But, the last step is just me.
Thanks for the comment. I’ll check out your site.
I agree and disagree. When someone says they love you, it does have something to do with you. When I say that I love someone, it is because there is something about the way they make me feel that I truly love, which is, one way or another, a consequence of their being at its core.
I more or less agree on the issue of hate, however. If you hate something, if it gets you down, that is your own weakness. To be truly strong is to have no true opponents. Which, if one loves everything, what opposition is there to that person, really?
As for Realization, one may come to the point where one realizes that one is never truly alone, and consequently one could not have possibly arrived at Realization on one’s own. Though I do agree that, on the surface, it is important for one to reach one’s owns conclusions about reality as much as possible. If nothing else, it increases the odds of one of us idiots stumbling upon some truth.
I loved your article. You are right. If someone insults you then their comment is really just their opinion. It doesn’t mean there is truth behind their words. Its just the other person’s world view. It can only be true if you change your view to match theirs.
Communication must be two ways or it isn’t communication. There is a sender and a receiver and when the receiver gets a communication the circuit isn’t complete until the original sender is informed that their message has been received. How the message is sent and how it is received depend on many factors, including but not limited to the mental state of both sender and receiver.
Many times statements made by someone are indeed, self-descriptive. However, sometimes they are descriptive; for instance, if your doctor is attempting to give his diagnosis of a problem you have, he is not speaking about himself, he is trying to tell you something.
In the spiritual sense, if someone says, “I love you”, it may actually mean that you need to love yourself; it may mean that the person has discovered something about you worth loving; and it may of course be self-descriptive. The meaning of the message is to be found in the state of both sender and receiver.
The Buddha for instance, was considered to be a different order of human being, so when he made a statement it reached different people on different levels and was understood by those people at the level that they could understand it. He said, “seek your own salvation diligently”.
Now ask yourself, what does that mean to me?
Thank you for the thought provoking article.
Andrew: The cause of their statement may have something to do with you. In fact, they could not make it unless they at least knew of your existence, so in that sense you are involved. But, what they are saying is about how they feel, they are not speaking the cause but the effects of the cause. At the end of the day, in the final step of Realization, we are all alone. It does not matter how many guides we have had, or how many may be rooting for us and cheering us on. The final step can only be made by us. We are all in this business together, we are all alone in achieving it. Thanks for the comment!
Amy: Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the comment!
Diego: If a statement of pure description is made, “You’re hair is red,” the speaker is not making the person’s hair red, they are only saying what they see. In the Hindu tradition there is the fable of the man who goes into a dark shed and sees a snake in the corner and is frozen with terror. That man will swear up and down that they see a snake and can describe it accurately. Then a friend comes along, flips on the light and the snake is revealed to be a coil of rope. The frightened man was not saying anything about the truth, only what he perceived.
The statement, “I love you,” can have thousands of meanings, all given after the fact. But, the first part of the statement is key, “I.” I am saying this, am I not?
The Buddha also said that each person receives the same teaching in accordance with their attributes. The teaching is the same, its affects may not be. Thanks for the comment!
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