integrity...

a friend recently posed a question....are you comfortable with being the person you are and can you look back at the events in your life with a degree of acceptance and comfort...

just set me exploring a bit...

we show different sides of ourselves to different people and various perceptions come together and reach a kind of agreement as to my identity.there are certain associations people might make when relating to me.I could be all of that , more or none of it..We do exist in the context of the other in mind spaces.

I am what I am, i may or may not be what you think I am...a perception , a filter comes into play when we view each other..in effect we relate to images of the other we have created within ourselves rather than to the other...The experience of the other is totally within us...

so it is with events we go through...we evaluate them , judge them...whereas experiencing is an end by itself...a complete event...evaluation and judgement inhibit our abilities to experience.

There was a time when I used to judge myself and consequently others very harshly against projected ideals and benchmarks of acceptable norms and behaviours.

Today, I see a difference. My ability to accept myself for whatever I am as well as to accept others is much greater.

episodes in life have had various hues...from the embarassing to the frustrating to the pleasant, the humiliating, the threatening, the life-shattering and so on. Successes co-exist with failures and crash-landings...just as praises co-exist with condemnation...

But they are a reality i cannot deny...neither can i erase them...i have survived through them and there is a kind of comfortable co-existence in acceptance..a few people have in the past evinced surprise at certain open sharings I have done in this very blogspace.I am not ashamed or uncomfortable with various expereinces I have had which would qualify as first person integral spaces that have evolved in awareness.

It is also true that I may not share all with due respect to people who have occured and are occuring in my life....and shared spaces more often than not involve interpretation and judgement ...an actual realtime experience with it's infinite permutations and possibilities is very different from any perception of the same...hence discretion is often demanded , albeit with integrity in awareness...To me, every space i have shared in any context is sacred and i respect and thank every individual I have encountered in my life, some in great friendships, others in violent differences and disagreements, yet others in a casual acquaintanceship...each interface has contributed towards my identity as of this moment as it continues to do so...a process evolving on its own as well as in a synergetic confluence of my interaction with spaces, people and things.

and creating, moment by moment, this awesome process we term as "life"......