ordinary self

Being one's ordinary self

One is being a buddha

We live in a time when we tend to worship celebrities, human beings who are in the limelight, the famous ones. They may be sportsmen and women, pop stars, TV celebrities. They may be just very wealthy individuals who like to be seen, politicians of course, and perhaps here and there royalty. But the number, the number of celebrities, is tiny compared to the population. And yet in a way we look up to these few people as role models. And, consciously or unconsciously, we try to become like them. 

In doing so we are saying there's something wrong with me as I am. I need to be better. How can I be better? Ah, look all these celebrities, they are liked by so many people. And there it is on Facebook: how many likes do you have? How many people like you? This is so important for many people's self esteem that some will even go and pay for people to like them. It's absurd.

All of this is rather sad, but what saddens me even more is that something similar tends to happen in spirituality. Deep down inside we are longing to return home, to remember who we really are, to find our essence once more. And whilst we have lost touch with that, there will be a part of us that feels incomplete, inadequate, in need of improvement. And in spirituality, many turn to the masters. Perhaps you become a follower of Gautam Buddha or Jesus or Lao Tzu. There are many.

The difficulty is that we tend to take the same celebrity approach to these masters. We put them on a pedestal. We start to worship them. And we want to become like them. That is missing the point altogether, though. What we see in an individual master is not so much the buddha nature – yes, hopefully that is coming through too – but of course these are also human beings, each with his or her own particular style. And that's often what we are responding to. Perhaps we like Osho's irreverent jokes. Perhaps we like the quirky paradoxes of Lao Tzu. Perhaps we like the way Jesus heals people. But these things are not essential. These things vary from one master to another. And if we get fixated on these more superficial traits, then we will never see the essence. And what's more, as we try to emulate our favourite master, we are moving away from our authentic self. We are making it more difficult to see the buddha within ourself. We are heading in the wrong direction.

To be a buddha, one needs to be one's ordinary self, without feeling the need to augment who one is, to change who one is, without feeling the need to become like someone else. Even if that other person is a beautiful master, they are not you. So it is imperative, if we are to be a buddha, that we are our ordinary self, unadorned.