without security

Ordinarily, we look for security in life. Most of us aim for a safe way of living. To a certain extent, this is natural, to avoid undue risk of death. But psychologically we have taken this too far. We have become risk-averse.

For something to be secure, to be safe, it has to be predictable, known. Unfortunately, life is unknown. I say unfortunately but actually, it is fortunate that it is so. For the known is the past and there is little point in repeating the past. Life itself is forever new and the new is unknown and the unknown is insecure.

The lucky ones live without security, without the need to feel secure. For in fact our feeling of security is, in any case, illusory. We like to think things are predictable when in truth, things are unpredictable. If we can face this simple fact – that existence is unfolding in unpredictable ways – if we can live with this, then we are living closer to the truth. The unexpected things of life do not cause us so much anguish. We are, indeed, expecting things to be unexpected.

Certainly the enlightened state of being is totally without security. To the enlightened one, this is no problem at all. For psychologically, that which we were trying to secure – expending so much time and energy, so much effort to make secure – psychologically this was the ego, the sense of self, as a separate being. To the enlightened ones, the ego is just an idea in the mind, which has lost all power, for it has been seen to be an inaccurate and non-useful idea.

Once the ego has dissolved, psychologically, there is nothing needing to feel secure. Thus the insecurities of life are no longer threatening. Instead, living in that space of the unknown, of the insecure, we feel everything as fresh, new, unique. For we are no longer trying to interpret the present in terms of the past. That whole movement of our thinking was borne from our need for security. When this whole way of thinking has disappeared, then life becomes fresh, alive, vibrant. For that, we need to join the lucky ones and live without security.