September 8, 2011
by tomtalia
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Wanting Attention

This is an excerpt from the book “180 Degrees To God: Sitting With A Modern Mystic”
Painting of Flowers
SHARAM: You talk about attention. When we are a kid, we want to get the attention of other people by being funny and saying smart things. Then we get older and the element of sex comes in and we want to get attention by being sexy or being pretty. We want to get attention from the opposite sex. So life is about getting attention and we have to understand why. Why is it all about getting attention? Because we think, deep inside, that we are not good enough. If we get the attention of other people, it’s validation that we are good. If we really think we are good enough, it doesn’t matter if we get attention or not. So, it is just that thing again of bad and good. I’m not good enough, so therefore, attention makes me feel great. And it’s not just out there, even here (with Sharam), without attention from me, you may fall apart because you think, “Oh, Sharam doesn’t give me attention because I am not good enough.” We just have to understand that it all has to do with how we feel about ourselves.

September 7, 2011
by tomtalia
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I Deserve

This is an excerpt from the book “180 Degrees To God: Sitting With A Modern Mystic”
Trees Fall Autumn
STREAM: I don’t understand the connection between the feeling that I don’t deserve and my fear that I’ll look bad in front of people.

SHARAM: Nobody thinks that they don’t deserve. There’s no such thing. They just think that other people will not like them if they find out that they are not good enough. Everybody thinks, “I deserve everything.” It’s only in the group or in public that you think you don’t deserve. When you are shy to talk in front of people in a sitting, it’s the same thing. You worry that “I’ll look bad,” but our mind turns this around to “I don’t deserve this.” When you sit in the group or class and you are too shy to say something, you are too passive, you think that you don’t deserve my time because other people are better than you. Why? They are better looking? They have more going for them? They know more? It comes from an inferiority complex, meaning inferior to someone else. “They are more superior, and I don’t want to look bad. I don’t want them to know what I know–that I’m not good enough. So I am going to be quiet, and I am going to be passive.”
Do you see the connection?

STREAM: Yeah, it’s pretty subtle.

SHARAM: Really, what it is, Stream, all these different words—jealousy, inferiority, superiority, looking bad, not deserving—these are all because we are looking superficially. We are looking at the surface. If you go deep to the roots, there is only one thing: EGO. And, if the ego steps aside you are in ecstasy. Agony or ecstasy, that’s all there is. Misery or ecstasy.

STREAM: Is fear the same thing?

SHARAM: Same thing. What is fear? Afraid of losing, that’s all. Fear means worrying about losing something. That comes from ignorance. You can’t lose anything. We don’t have anything. How can we lose it? There’s nothing that we have.

You think you don’t deserve. You don’t deserve my love because you think you are not good enough. What is there to be good or not good? We are one with Existence. Can Existence be bad or good? No, it just is. You are beyond good and bad. Just Existence is. And Existence does what it does.

The interesting thing, Stream, is that everybody finds you interesting except you. Everybody really likes you.

When people don’t like themselves, they go to two extremes: either they become aggressive or they become passive. I hope one day you start liking yourself, because if you like yourself, you will be assertive.