How to see yourself as you really are

How to see yourself as you really are, is the title of a book by the Dalai Llama and I never actually had a chance to read and understand it, I got so far, but at the time I was grasping for truth anywhere I could find it, and my mental state probably wasn't the best.  I believe that I am now seeing myself as I really am, and I have to say I don't like it, or me.  I made a pass at a married woman last year at a festival, although she got me drunk at Womad in the first place.  I have made everyone around me conscious of their behaviour, whether it's wasting the last of the mayonnaise in the plastic container, or recycling finished cartons of fruit juice, creating systems within the house I live in, making others feel bad for the ways in which they live their lives, only to see the way I've been living mine and the mistakes I've made in the past so clearly now...

I don't have any right to bring these things to the attention of others, I haven't lived right myself.

How dare I go around judging others, or spouting nonsense about unconditional love, or spiritual matters, when I now see that what I thought I was experiencing was a mixture of self deception and delusion.  Every magical moment of the last several years has been taken away because I now doubt them all, except perhaps one.

Stood on a mountain between Astorga and Ponferrada in Northern Spain, a hail storm had just passed overhead, the wind went quiet, the sun came out, not even a bird or vehicle or anything to make a sound and then I felt it, the presence of the divine, a moment of pure clarity, minutes even...

I would have loved to stay in that place, in that space of being forever, built a house there, I made it finally having to leave that spot to the next mountain top village and into a bar virtually in tears.

I'm holding on to that one experience, because of the feeling, not a physical, an emotional one.

I have to trust my emotions, even if I can't trust what I saw, heard, touched, tasted, smelt.

That one I felt, not thought, I felt a feeling I can't explain, I felt the love of friendship.

I thought of someone at home I would have dearly loved to have shared that with.

When everything you believe is called into question, you start to appraise it all honestly, and I can honestly say that I don't regret the ways in which I have done good, tried to carry that out into the world, tried to do good for others, for the planet, but it's all got too much, taken too far now...

I can see the ways in which I have judged others for their way of seeing the world, suggested that mine was the right way and theirs wasn't, tried to badger and persuade others to see it my way.

When now I can't say beyond a reasonable doubt that there is anything to what I said there was.

It's turned on me, I've turned on me, I don't like the way I've behaved towards others, at home.

Out and about yes, it's easy to have a magical weekend away, but those at home were ignored.

I wasn't there for the people I should have been and I was selfishly going for my own dreams.

For that I am truly sorry, and each day I wake seems like another chance for me to feel that.

Feel the disappointment I've caused, feel how badly I've failed, how deluded, false, fake.

I value the experiences of others, I even began to believe them, experience them even.

But do now all my statements about believing is seeing make too much sense?

Did believing in more make it possible for me to delude myself more?

How can I strip apart the personal truth from the truth of the world?

I can't all I can do is honour the journeys of others to their truth.

When you see yourself as you really are I hope you like you.