by Lars André, Ph.D.
You and I have already known this and have read books by wise men who say that the road home is to let go of all the behaviors and beliefs that stand in the way of the true you inside. For me, it all fell into place and became a fully experienced truth for the first time this summer while taking care of my cucumber plants.
For the first time in my life I feel convinced that I’m describing the truth. A truth that I have had with me all my life, but which I have not seen, because of the fact that I have been looking for it. First I searched during my time as a researcher in molecular biology, and then I searched for seven years in both alternative and more established psychological schools of thought.
My searching gave me a lot on different levels, but it did not give me the truth, until this summer in my garden, when on a deeper and more emotional level I realized that what I experience is true. Maybe only my truth and maybe only for this moment, but why should that not be enough?
I saw that the plants grew better when they got water during a period of drought, and that plants with more space grow better than plants with less. I also saw that my plants grew better than my neighbor’s, because I took away the weeds by the roots, whereas my neighbor took away only the green parts above the ground. Quite simple, or not? If the plants get space and the right nourishment they grow well.
Why should I basically function in a different way if my goal in life is to experience it and allow myself to develop?
Theories can be both intellectually stimulating and important if I want to rationalize mechanistic changes in the material world, but often they have very little to do with life. And by life I mean that I feel alive, and I experience what I deliberately choose to experience. My experience is that most of the ideas that deal with the workings of the soul are also superfluous if we want to feel alive and have the possibility to grow and develop.
I feel alive when I experience something, and then let it go to experience something else. Then I’m in the flow and in harmony with myself and my environment. It is my ability to feel differences between warm and cold, sweet and sour, etc., that make me feel alive. If I’m not in the flow and not feeling alive, I have turned off my ability to feel; I’m resisting feeling certain things. The road home is to take away everything that stands in my way and to feel what is there, whether cold or warm.
A difference and an advantage we have as human beings, compared to the cucumber plant, is that we can give ourselves the right nourishment and take away the weeds if we are willing to take full responsibility and stop blaming the circumstances. Our weeds consist of repetitive reflex actions that hinder us from fully feeling what is there. Of course, we can do as my neighbor and only take care of the symptoms, or like another neighbor who did not take away the weeds at all. In a psychological sense, it can mean anything from an excessive fixation to materialistic things or drug abuse, to an excess in spiritual experiences or scientific theories. Both situations seem to take care of the problem on a superficial level and thereby prevent us from feeling what is really there. Or we can take care of the weeds at the roots.
If the purpose of the search is to feel alive, then regardless of whether we choose a spiritual or psychologically biased direction, we should be looking for a path where issues are taken care of by the roots. One such path is a course named Avatar. Avatar is a series of techniques that teaches how your consciousness works and how you can decide what you want to let go of and what you want to experience. When, through the support of an experienced teacher, you learn the techniques you can use them in your life to make deliberate choices.
I don’t believe that the cucumber plant sits and hopes for a UFO or any spiritual or scientific breakthrough to give it what it needs. I think it is quite happy for somebody to take away the weeds and water it. For me, that somebody is myself.
Once I have weeded my own garden, I can start to explore and choose an occupation and a picture of the world or a philosophical theory that fits me, like the cucumber plant that winds back and forth in order to get maximal amount of sun. I don’t know whether there is a free will in an absolute sense, but I know that I can choose to go to the right or to the left when I walk on a street. I know that I like to stand in the summer rain or eat sun-warmed strawberries. And I know that I like to grow cucumbers.
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