is waif
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, I WILL CAUSE YOU PAIN
My name is Mara. My parents, who gave me the name while filled up with love, to honor their mothers and sisters who’s names all began with M-a-r, did not realize they were also giving me a name that the Devil shares. In the Buddhist faith, Mara is equal to the Christian version of Satan, who tempted Siddhartha to distract him from reaching enlightenment. Mara is also considered the God of Death and Destruction. Although this sounds like a highly undesirable association, I quite resonated with it. Not because I feel like an evil being, but because I have always questioned what exactly is Evil? Humans tend to view things we disagree with as evil. It’s not even things we fear, necessarily. But things that challenge what is acceptable to us. Forces that cause pain - which is currently largely unacceptable to us, or irreconcilable in our psyches - are labeled as evil.
However, Mara is also considered the necessary chaos or darkness we all must spiritually pass through, so that we can understand enlightenment; the idea that we are all battling our own inner demons. It is popularly perceived that these demons are what are preventing our growth, blocking us from more desirable states of being, such as enlightenment. These demons must be “destroyed,” lest we ourselves be destroyed by them. Kill or be killed.
"Will you take my hand, and go on this Devilish thought journey with me? If you say no, but keep reading, you’ll only be fighting what’s happening anyway (insert devilish laughter)..."
Existing as a Mara (and given the name imbued with Love), I disagree. In fact, I say, on a spiritual level, that our greatest pain is given to us through a love so fierce, it feels like annihilation. This ferocious love is pushing us past our limits, so that yes, we come into enlightenment (or a recognition of love). It is our inacceptance of pain, and subsequently our fight against this very natural state, that keeps us in a perception that we are in an undesirable state of being, battling a demon. We are then fighting against something that is happening anyway. We have made a decision that this is not something to be welcomed and explored, but destroyed. Yet, Destruction itself is merely a concept. According to my current ponderings (which I take on as part of my spiritual practice, and what I feel is my responsibility as a creative professional and Inner-Life Coach), destruction does not actually exist.
Will you take my hand, and go on this Devilish thought journey with me? If you say no, but keep reading, you’ll only be fighting what’s happening anyway (insert devilish laughter)... But in truth, know that I offer these ideas from a place of my own experiences with ferocious love. If you disagree with me, and call me evil, that is perfectly ok. I offer you this unpopular perspective of love, regardless.
Ok, let’s begin with the question: What got destroyed by the Big Bang? We do not have knowledge of what existed before our Universe suddenly came to be, but one idea (among many) is that Nothing existed before the Big Bang. What that really means, however, is that none of what we’re currently aware of as space and time, existed. And even further, none of what we’re currently aware of as space and time existed in the form we are currently familiar with; as scientists state that everything in the known universe did exist, it just existed in a condensed point of form far smaller than a single atom. Yet, if we go with the idea of Nothing being before the birth of our Universe, it is this Nothing that got destroyed.
And what does that mean anyway? Destruction. Destroyed. It’s a word we don’t feel friendly towards. In fact, it can stress us out or create a sense of fear. We often equate destruction with death (something else we really don’t understand, by the way). However, the destruction of whatever Nothing is created our reality; it created our very existence.
And what about each of us? We each were created out of the destruction of both a sperm and an egg, as they merged together, obliterating themselves in an observable flash of light. Scientists report this flashing as the release of zinc emitted in the moment the sperm and egg combine. The zinc apparently shoots outwards, binding with small molecules, visualized by the human eye as a radiating burst of metal. And stored up inside that sudden burst is all the raw material needed to create a human being. That sounds alot like the Big Bang. A sudden bursting forth of a light emitting soup of all there is.
How do we feel about the fact that two perfect forms - a totally healthy, beautiful egg and a totally healthy, beautiful sperm - were completely ruined in order to create our beautiful selves? ...We don’t care about the “death” of the egg and the sperm at all. We call their sacrifice the Miracle of Life. In fact, we don’t stop to consider that destruction is what allowed our creation. When contemplating the Universe, we only refer to Creation; or if we have religious/spiritual inclinations, to the Creator. When we refer to anything as a Destroyer, we begin to conjure images of something we label as evil. We may call it the Devil. There’s the fun (or scary) realization that Evil is Live spelled backwards and Devil is Lived spelled backwards. And yes, many believe that the Devil in all it’s evil ways destroys life!
But again I ask, What does that really mean? We have discovered the Absolute Law of The Conservation of Energy (with energy being the true nature of all there is), which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it merely changes form (a la- the Big Bang changing the form of our Universe from small and raw to large and structured). And so with this in mind, Destruction and Creation are merely concepts, rather than true happenings, through which we can explore what Change actually is. It can be conceived, then, that Change is the event of simultaneous destruction and creation. And we can actually view destruction as simply the destructuring of current form into something new. So, why do we love creation, but fear destruction?
I think we have mislabeled the sense of awe we feel in the completion of Change as Creation. The act, or event, of Change that happens in ways we don’t understand feels painful, scary, chaotic, violent; and we have mislabeled this as Destruction and Destruction alone. I make this distinction of understanding, because in fact we change every moment we take a breath in and release it back out. Sucking air inwards is a change of state from pushing air outwards. But we understand what breathing is. We don’t interpret this as a chaotic, potentially harmful state of being. However, an infant in its first moments out of the womb appears to be in a state of panic and chaos as it suddenly finds physical functions of its body kicking in, in complete disruption of all it had previously understood as existence.
And, in this, we have a vague sense of acceptance towards Change. We accept that we grow; physically, spiritually, mentally; and that growth is in fact, change. We can actually say, I’m changing, and know what that means because growth includes completion within the scope of our awareness. There’s the knowable before and after. We can currently perceive both the destruction and creation - so it can simply be Change.
We accept that we die, but we don’t really consider it Change. We consider it the End, because we can only perceive the before. How our energy is reformed through death is currently unknown to us. So there’s fear attached to this inevitable moment of change. The fear of Destruction.
That’s not to say there isn’t fear attached to different versions of growth. Fear crops up whenever we don’t know what the outcome of a change will be. For example, we consider puberty uncomfortable, but most of us don’t fear it, because we know the outcome of the process. Whereas, if we go through sudden and unexpected change such as a divorce, a loss of employment, physical violation, or the death of a loved one, we can experience the fear of not knowing how, or if, we will survive this restructured reality. It’s when the question of survival pops up that fear arrives and we experience psychic pain, which is quite possibly simply our misunderstanding of the change we’re going through, like the infant taking its first breaths. This psychic pain is the birth of what we call trauma. There are varying degrees of trauma, but any situation in which we’re uncertain we’ll survive is being in a state of trauma. And the trauma of being inside of psychic pain is the mother of all pain, which at a high enough and prolonged enough level, leads us to decide that the unknown of death is a more welcome option than the anguish of the current reality, and can result in suicide.
I want to explore that conundrum: this great fear produces enough pain that it negates fear. We can say this of any time we have Faced Our Fears. It doesn’t have to be the extreme of suicide. The basis of all fear that would keep us from doing the things we desire is the uncertainty of our survival. And when that pain gets to the unbearable point, when it has grown to a size we cannot manage, we say Fuck It, let me die then if I’m going to, I cannot stay like this.
Is Fear then, a self-annihilating energy? Self- annihilation is an observed phenomenon of our universe. To the degree that I understand what I’ve read as reported by astrophysicists: In the first millionth of a second after the Big Bang, energy conversions were taking place amongst the light energy that is the basis of all things, which scientists named photons. These photons converted into matter:anti-matter pairs which self-annihilated back into light energy. As the universe expanded it was always possible the whole thing would self- annihilate, leaving no structure, only light energy; until it settled on not self- annihilating, allowing a billion-and-one to a billion imbalance between matter and anti- matter to exist. Yet, even if total annihilation happened, energy would still exist in the formless nature of light.
So it seems Annihilation simply means the absence of form so far as we understand it. This brings us back to that sense of trauma of misunderstood change. To lack form as we understand it. We don’t know what that means. We feel fear until we simply decide not to feel that type of fear anymore and burst out of our current state of being into the unknown. We are constantly bursting in and out of new states of fear, each one keeping us inside a current form until we simply cannot stay like that anymore. Kind of like the virtual particles quantum physicists have observed to appear to be popping in and out of existence all the time (like in that first millionth of a second of our universe). Or, the Big Bang itself, suddenly popping into existence. I make these comparisons to actual physics, because we are creatures of this universe, governed by these laws of physics. When we burst out of a current state of fear; such as the first time we say I Love You to a romantic interest, we literally take on new form. There was an instantaneous destruction of how we related to existence before saying this and the creation of how we now relate to it after having said it. We can apply this to anything we’re doing for the first time.
We might say that well, that’s not really painful. But of course there are levels to all of this. If we felt no pain of fear before doing something, we must not have perceived it as something to fear. Or, whatever we’re about to do for the first time has a perceivably acceptable outcome, so
whatever uncomfortability we may be facing, is within a manageable range. Taking our grasp at understanding this: that fear produces the energy of pain that will eventually cause it’s own annihilation, leading us to experience the absence of fear, thus the power of ability, it would appear that pain is a desirable thing to experience. Can we accept this?
And for those of us experiencing the level of psychic pain pushing us towards suicide, I do not say these things to negate your suffering. And I do not say these things to encourage anyone to commit suicide. This is a serious level of suffering that feels unbearable, and seeking help is the other way through it. Seek help, seek connection, seek the reminder that you are loved and desired to remain in human form. Know that no matter what unacceptability you appear to be facing (family members that do not understand, feeling like a burden on others, feeling worthless, anyone telling you to get-over- it), it is acceptable that you are in pain. You are worthy to make it through this experience. You are worthy to seek help every single step of the way. Whatever change you are undergoing, your existence is valuable beyond words.
Can we accept that pain is acceptable? When we can stand in our pain and say, simply, I accept you, relief can begin. Acceptance leads us to recognize Love. When we decide pain is something undesirable, and something to fight against, we begin to see monsters and demons all around us. We desire to invoke an ability to destroy things. Aha, but destruction is what we fear. And yet, we’re literally asking for what we fear in our lives when we wish to destroy things. And so pain persists, as long as it needs to, until we can pop into a different form of existence. That ferocity of love is like, alright, you still desire to experience me as a demon. You still desire to hate me. That is fine with me, because I know you will eventually come to understand you are capable of more. Because Love is actually the force asking us to expand and see things from a more capable point of view.
Consider how we perceive the state of the world. We are quicker to indentify hate and destruction, rather than love and change. Who among us is going to walk up to someone we perceive as an enemy and say I Love You to them? Not a great many of us. What do we think will be destroyed if we do that? Ourselves? Our cause? Our sense of right and wrong? Justice?
When we see enemies, we are blind to other people in pain. Someone causing pain in the world, is in fact in pain themselves, fighting against their own perceptions of demons. To say, I Love You, is not to say, I agree with how you are causing pain. It is to say, I recognize your pain, and know you are capable of more.
Is it that, existentially, we carry this bizarre molecular memory of being condensed out of form, from before the Big Bang? It is agreed that when we were a sub-atomic point, it was so hot that all there is was melded together in this singular mass. The energy that gave rise our consciousness was there. So it is possible that we carry a collective memory of a pain so great is caused the Big Bang? And in this we fear going backwards should we decide to enter the unknown realm of unconditional love? After-all, there was the theory, that had previously been leading the pack, that the Universe could only expand so far before gravity would cause it to snap it back upon itself into the state of nothingness again. But that misunderstands that it was we ourselves, as a universe, that decided to change form. That again puts us fighting against an opposing force. Something that will shrink us back.
Yet, as we have continued to grow (ie, change) as a collective humanity, it has now been discovered and accepted that the universe is simply continuing to expand, at rates faster than we thought possible before, due to something we don’t yet understand, that scientists call Dark Energy. Dark forces. Evil. Demons! But we’re expanding anyway. Change is happening anyway. Can we entertain, just for a second, that we’re expanding into greater realms of love? Can we accept that the pain the world is reflecting to us, and the pain we feel individually, is the universal cry of, I cannot stay like this anymore!
Let’s breathe deep, in and out, and accept the pain that will push us into a new form. Let’s decide we can say I Love You, even if only to ourselves, and see what happens as a result of that change. The other option is to keep fighting.