What does "I am Enough" mean?

One of the most dangerous and toxic ideas of modern civilisation is the idea that we are not enough as we are, that there is some kind of ideal to reach where we can at last say “I am”. This causes us to behave with ambition; living in spite of ourselves in the present in order to press on toward some image we have of a “better future”.

This fictitious image is reinforced by media, advertising, customs and of course, the real nail in the coffin; education. We are continually coached away from an awareness of ourselves as we are now and toward an unattainable image of what a “real person” should look like. We are taught to have contempt for ourselves in the present, to see it as an embarrassing and shameful caricature of what a “grown up”, the finished product, should look like. As such, most people live on a treadmill. Like a mouse their little legs move at a rate of knots and they feel they are “getting somewhere”. In reality they never get anywhere, for they are trying so hard to get away from where they are, and who they are. This is perhaps best summed up by the Buddhist term “active laziness”.

The result of this brainwashing is that almost no-one living in such an environment has a chance to see oneself truly objectively, that is, the “enclosing” layer of self-consciousness (not ego) that renders our self-image complete is never formed. Instead we wallow in our shaky subjective watery self-image that is so precarious that it changes at the smallest suggestion from the outside. Like Narcissus, our reflection changes according to circumstance. We don’t develop the power of knowing deeply of our own completeness, our sufficiency and psychic adequacy. Instead we hand our power over unflinchinly to the world, to authorities, to ideas, to pictures, to dogma, to rules and belief systems.

There are many possible reactions to this retarded sense of completeness. The most popular is denial. That is the old chestnut; “get on with it. be a man. drag yourself through, a bloddy mess that infects and re-infects, because that is life, Sunshine!” Denial, putting a veil on the inside to protect us from the reality of the spiritual poverty we sense inside, is about the most futile, hopeless, desparate reaction we can have, as it completely erases the capacity for Sincerity. For to be sincere in looking upon what we feel is missing, honest enough to see our shortcomings, compassionate enough to be with our hurt, forgiving enough to temper blame and fault, wise enough to know that in reality we never did anything wrong, that we are not being punished. Though the latter is what we struggle with most, thanks to a few hundred years of Christian indoctrincation that tells us our life itself is a sin, a punishment.

In the cloak of denial, many people stand up and create a “strong” life. They are successful, proud, have clever minds, talents and abilities, they have affluence, they can influence others, they are popular, focussed and ambitious, often have a good sense of humour, a good looking spouse and lively kids, a nice house and car, plenty of friends. Yet a person who has done some inner work will see through the facade in a second, they are hollow on the inside, their actions orchestrated by strings “outside”. Denial is the way to the spirit wastelands.

The paradox in all this is that it is only by getting a “vision” for how to be authentic do we find the necessary courage to set foot on a path we know will be very difficult. Yet it is not the same thing as lusting after an outcome, a true vision is not something that dangles in the dreamworld, it is more like hearing your orignial song, your special brand of music booming out of a mountain. That mountain is who we truly are, not the glamour or illusion of who we want to be, think we should be, or wish we were. This is what motivates us to walk; the perfection of our true self.

Feeling enough does not lead to apathy or resignation, it leads to Realism. Saturn may as well be Satan to most people, especially in the ambitious age of “YOU CAN DO ANYTHING!”. That, to me, is an immature and foolish way of looking at things. You can do only what you can do, nothing more and nothing less. And in that is hidden the greatest freedom you will ever find, for if you can do one thing perfectly, the thing that only you can do, you have the master key to your whole life.

A belief in oneself, a true faith and loyalty to one’s innate and god-given Being, is a birthright to behold. We should know deeply, intimately and absolutely that we were created for a purpose, for a specific use. There are no mistakes, no divine cock-ups. All creation is perfect, it is not a product of Man, it is a product of God. Man is the instrument to satisfy God’s whims, simple as that. To know this on a personal level, that special relationship that is between ourselves and our creator, is perhaps the most sacred of all knowledge.

Copyright. 2009.

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