Sometimes, perhaps more often than not, the person you thought you were needs to be taken away from you so that you can realize that you were not that person.

It is a thoroughly unpleasant experience. Nobody, not even the most evolved among us, would choose for it with a smile.

We choose for it for the same reason we go to a dentist to have a cavity filled — we know the procedure is necessary to prevent further damage and that we will be better off for it, despite the momentary discomfort.

It is an unfortunate truism in spiritual practice that the more you care about truth, love, and kindness is the degree that you will be challenged to realize that you already are truth, love, and kindness. No doing or adoption of identity is required.

If we are doing or adopting identities, we have “slipped” into a personal sense of self, and believe the ego’s “I-thought.” If the being’s underlying intention is to be rid of this thought or false identity, then she actively invites disruptive forces to dislodge it.

Her experience of life becomes chronically difficult. However, what she very often fails to see — particularly in acute flare ups — is the beautiful polishing that is occurring, veiled beneath the waking experience of reality.

You might look at others, with seemingly less struggle, and yearn for a more normal, stable experience.

The fact is: the less struggle, the less turmoil… the less polishing that is occurring and, in many ways — as it would be to remove a piano from Mozart’s gifted hands — that’s a pity.

Some do not wish to polish. They wish to take it easy in this life. That is OK.

The important thing for the seeker after truth is to know that the grass is not usually greener on the other side. Many householders with full bank accounts, stable careers, and grown children still inwardly harbor feelings of incompleteness.

We are here to learn to shed layers of attachment and ignorance so that the innate, natural expression of who we are can effortlessly shine forth.

It is this sublime, freeing experience each and every one of us yearns for and, eventually, seeks. Some faster than others.

Welcome the chaos.