I was reminded of this quote Life of Pi while working though some past stories. I find it inspirational as it reminds me of our humanness, how hard we try, maybe sometimes try to hard… That it may be enough to speak our fear out load and doings so find ourselves surprised that were not alone.

I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.

Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.

Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.

The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.
Life of Pi – Yann Martel

Dear Peter:

Anthony de Mello says that everything is deeply interconnected. When we stop seeing the world as divided (by labels, ideologies, religions, ethnicities, social classes, etc.), and ourselves as divided ((observer vs. observed, thinker vs. thought)- we can move beyond the illusions of separation and the sufferings that go with this illusion.

He says that happiness is not something to chase or acquire—it’s already within us. Children, for example, are naturally happy because they haven’t yet been influenced by societal pressures or labels. The problem is that we become polluted by ambitions, cravings, and illusions that block us from experiencing the happiness we already have.

To rediscover happiness, there is no need to add anything to our lives; instead, we need to let go of the illusions and labels that weigh us down. In essence, happiness comes from simplicity and shedding what isn’t real.

Thank you for posting these Inspirational words this Thursday afternoon , Peter 👭👨‍👩‍👧‍👦🐶🐱

anita

Hi Peter

Thank you for the wonderful quotes! It always makes me wonder when people say that children are naturally happy. I feel like happy is the wrong word for it. I do know what they mean though.

I feel like children focus naturally on their desires. They are just very immediate. It is very interesting to learn that by 18 months old they fully understand language but just lack the physical co-ordination to talk. Yes, a child is happy when they get what they want. The needs of a child are just very simple. To learn, to explore, to exercise, to cuddle, to have fun, to play, to touch, to taste, to eat, to drink, to poop, to vocalise, to express, to move, to cry, to share, to love.

Even at a young age they are learning the rules of the universe. The rules of their parents. The laws of physics. The rules of nature.

And as wondrous as things are. The things that they want the most are simply things that get them attention. The thing that they are not supposed to touch. The thing that makes mummy and/ or daddy smile and praise them.

Toddlers have this wonderful dichotomy. A limited understanding and concern for their survival. Carefully, lowering oneself from the couch. Walking on grass instead of the path, because ow falling is sore. At the same time, they will try and murder themselves by throwing themselves head first off the couch to see if you will catch them. 😂

A love of being self-sufficient. Okay, if it’s fun and I really do need your help please do help me climb things. I just don’t want to do what I don’t want to do. And I want to do what I want to do while you cheer me on… unless I need help… and it’s fun… or it hurts. Otherwise please don’t interfere. Please read me this book.

Banter aside, this approach has been working for me. Dropping things. Thank you for the reminder and the opportunity to reflect. ❤️

Dear Peter:

Thank you for your thoughtful response—it really got me thinking. To answer your question, “What happened between connection and disconnection?” I believe it’s primarily early life abuse or betrayal that creates that divide. When a child experiences this from parents or society, it disrupts their natural sense of connection and leaves them feeling deeply wounded and disconnected.

Abuse and betrayal, in my view, are real events that cause an undeniable rupture. These aren’t misinterpretations of reality—when trust is broken by a parent, it truly happens. A child, not yet shaped by distorted thinking, perceives this betrayal clearly and accurately.

Your example of the sun neither rising nor setting beautifully illustrates the illusion created by thought and measurement. We may misinterpret the sun’s movements as separation (of day from night), but when it comes to early life betrayal, the disconnection is real—it isn’t a matter of misperception.

Maybe it’s the aftermath of early-life betrayal—the self-doubt and questioning of whether the betrayal was even real—that gives rise to distortions and misinterpretations, adding further layers of disconnection within. For the many of us who were betrayed early in life, recognizing the betrayal for what it truly was can serve as the first step toward reconnection within and without.

What do you think, Peter?

anita

Dear Peter:

Good to read from you again! Inspired by our discussion yesterday, I started my own thread today: “The Betrayal We Buried: Healing Through Truth & Connection.”

You asked, “I’m curious if you feel I’m suggesting that our betrayals aren’t real or that any literal separation of relationship needs to be justified?”—I didn’t feel that you discouraged my physical separation from my mother. However, I do see a discrepancy between our perspectives: while we both acknowledge the reality of betrayal, we differ in how healing should happen.

I believe that recognizing and processing betrayal is the path forward—something I wasn’t fully able to embrace before because I doubted whether the betrayal even happened. You, on the other hand, see detaching from the narrative as the key to dissolving suffering related to betrayal.

You point to a higher-level awareness where betrayal, justification, and suffering become secondary to an inherent natural state of wholeness. However, this perspective can feel dismissive of real trauma if it suggests bypassing emotional processing. Trauma survivors often find that reconnection requires first acknowledging betrayal fully before letting it go—not simply moving past the story without processing it.

“We talked of the problem of rumination. That each retelling of our stories is an act of reliving them, often reinforcing the illusion that the past happening is happening now.”- I believe I will stop retelling my story when I fully believe it happened. I can’t emphasize enough how much gaslighting myself has played a role here. I keep retelling my story because part of me is still trying to convince the other (fragmented, separated) part that what I truly experienced was real. At this point, I am highly motivated to believe my own (retold) story so I can move beyond it.

“The danger is that we become attached to our storytelling, and it’s this attachment that creates the illusion of distance from our natural self—and so we suffer.”- If I start fully believing my story, I will stop retelling it. The distance from my natural self has been real. I know you say it’s real only in the temporal realm, but we live in the temporal realm—and for as long as we exist in it, we cannot escape its reality.

“That the question of our betrayals being real or not may be a second-half-of-life distraction. We don’t need to fix our betrayals to get back to our ‘natural selves.’ Awakening to the reality that we are already and always Are.”- I understand that you’re saying we don’t need to fix past betrayals to be whole again—rather, we should awaken to the reality that we were never truly broken in the first place.

In the eternal realm we were not broken. In the temporal realm, we were. I was. I suppose I can’t fix past betrayals, but I do need to believe they happened. I can’t emphasize enough the role of denying my own story—the one I keep retelling.

“Death, a process of detachment (not indifference), removes the illusion of separation.”- There is no illusion in the reality of separation—separation is tangible, an undeniable reality in human experience. Yes, it happens in the temporal realm, but the temporal realm is where we live. While we can incorporate a touch of the eternal, we cannot escape the reality of time and space.

I really liked all your input about the eternal realm, over time, and found comfort in it. This realm exists, of course. But the temporal exists as well, and in very practical, tangible ways.

“Innocence is knowing everything (life as it is) and still being attracted to the good.” —Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Sound familiar?) 🙂”- Amen! The ultimate goal—not to erase the past or deny its reality (gaslighting oneself), but to move forward with awareness and still embrace connection, compassion, and love, “Healing Through Truth & Connection”, as I phrased it in my new tread.

Peter, I truly appreciate the thoughtfulness and depth you bring to these conversations. Your insights challenge me to explore new perspectives, and I value the way you articulate complex ideas with such clarity and openness. Thank you for engaging in this dialogue with me—your reflections are meaningful, and I deeply respect the wisdom you share.

anita

Perhaps a better question. When does the seeker get to be one who found?

Hi Everyone

I think the difficulty with severe abuse is that it causes structural issues – brain damage as well as deregulating the nervous system. It is not just that there is attachment. If only it were as simple as attachment.

I truly don’t believe that language is the issue. As I pointed out infants have a full grasp of language at 18 months, they even have memories that last for 9 months at that stage. Language is not the problem. Memory is not the problem. Sense of self is a cornerstone of child development and an infant doesn’t have much of one. It doesn’t develop until the tween years. One of the difficulties severe trauma causes is impairment of sense of self.

Children have total reliance on their caregivers. From a young age their parents define what is right and wrong for them. What is dangerous, what is safe. Reinforcing behaviours that the parents value. The child experiences emotional attunement towards their caregiver. There is a huge amount of control parents have over their children and that is why parental abuse is so damaging.

People with severe trauma have to deal with unpleasant experiences of trauma re-emerging. Learning to accept it, let it happen and let it pass. That is the reality of dealing with these issues. Treating ourselves with compassion when these difficulties occur is vital.

Perhaps I’m approaching this with the knowledge of an infant that developed PTSD at 4 years old. I was never a happy child. I simply did my best to cope with my environment. Children experience the same difficulties that adults can if they are exposed to the same traumatic environment. I honestly don’t see much difference between adults and children. More understanding of the world. More experience and the ability to choose what we would like to do with our lives. Meta cognition as well realise that we do have the ability to shape our own minds.

Hi Anita
I’ve been asking myself how I could express my thoughts without being dismissive are making it appear I was suggesting thier was only one path.
How does one express that the world of Maya is a vivid and compelling reality, but ultimately, it is a temporary and illusory manifestation, not the ultimate truth. and not sound dismissive?

For me the path of rumination doesn’t work as another Truth I’ve come to know is that – “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it,” Albert Einstein
Rumination has helped me gain better understanding and come to terms with past hurts but never healing. Never the Love that I also desired. For that I’ve had to ‘transcend the world of maya’ only to surprised that I already was, what I was seeking. These tend to be momentary realizations as you noted Life is lived in the world of Maya and it is thier that we must find our way, or own path… Only something did changed the past pains that had hunted me no longer had the same power over me. I still had to deal the repercussions of the past but…yeah that’s going to sound dismissive.

I’ll let Anthony de Mello speak for me (though I don’t think myself enlighten – “Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed: after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed.” But there’s a difference: I don’t identify with it anymore.”

Hi Alessa
I agree, I’m a fan of Krishnamurti but in small doses. I’m still coming to terms with how he totally dismantled my notion of belief. Which I will spare everyone. “)

I also would not say I was a happy child. Anxious child seems a better description yet when Anthony said -“Happiness is the natural state of little children” I knew what he was saying was a truth…. so I must of had moments… yes thier were moments.

For me language is a problem as you can’t use it without creating duality. Anything one says eventually has to be unsaid. I think this is why Krishnamurti came to the path of negation in his path to know Love. For me language and duality are intimately connected so belongs to the world of maya.

I’ve been exploring the thought that its motion and language that creates our experience of life within the world of Maya. AI wrote that as ‘our perceptions and understanding of reality are filtered through the lens of language and shaped by the constant flux of experience (motion).’ And of Allan Watts noted most of the language we use was given to us and not our own…

Anyway their I go again and again I apologize