We are our own guide to life: Jana Uhlířová in conversation with Monika Stehlíková

At a time when the world is overloaded with information and advice, Monika Stehlíková and I talked instead about how a period is coming when we should simply start to live. Courageously, leaning on ourselves, from our own centre, with respect for others, and only then can a feeling of true fulfilment arrive. Because today's specific conditions are precisely what we can use to return to ourselves, to our quiet centre.

It sometimes happens that people work on themselves, meditate, read, take part in groups where they help one another, and yet they still feel that it isn't helping, that they aren't getting any better. What can be done about it? How should we answer the question: how come nothing is happening?

If we feel that something is missing, that nothing much is really changing, then we are still caught in our mind. As long as that is the case, the feeling of fulfilment simply won't arrive. Our mind tries to get the upper hand over us, to dictate what we should do, what we should think and what we should feel. It plays a game with us. A very subtle one, sometimes barely recognisable. That is why it is important to ask ourselves why we are actually working on ourselves, why we meditate. We may begin to meditate in order to drive away unpleasant feelings, to quietly set a better mood inside ourselves; after all, it is part of the marketing of meditation that we will feel great afterwards. And that is exactly what does not work, at least not in the long run. That is not what meditation is for. Meditation is the development of awareness: observing, watching, perceiving what is, both the pleasant and the unpleasant, without distinction or judgement. Then we move beyond the mind of our own accord, and there we truly are ourselves, there it is good. So the question is what each of us imagines working on ourselves to be. If we use this "work" to change the content of our mind, which is of course entirely our decision, then we risk that in the long run it simply won't be it, because in fact we still remain stuck in the mind. If we decide to do so, and as I say, that is up to each of us, then we should probably accept that part of it will be the fact that it simply won't be it. It really depends on what a person is looking for. There is a difference between looking for something in a course to make our ego more special, and looking there for an environment in which we want to go beyond our ego.

The current situation, full of attempts to live a normal life within limited possibilities and uncertainty, has spurred many of us to self-reflection and turning inward, or to working on ourselves. But what should we understand by this term, and how can we avoid being frightened by our own shadows?

Working on ourselves is a slightly misleading term, because it evokes some kind of effort, activity, striving to do things differently: for example starting to walk barefoot, taking up yoga, eating raw food, changing the way we dress, baking our own bread and so on. If a person feels better doing these things, that is great. The risk lies in relying on the idea that outer activity alone, or a purely outer change, will automatically resolve all our inner tensions. That usually does not happen. Inner discord needs to be resolved inwardly. So working on ourselves is not really work in the sense of that activity, but in the sense of accepting ourselves as we are, of perceiving, of internalising, of going beyond the mind.

Could a way out be to give up the effort to move forward somewhere?

Yes, the effort to move forward somewhere is a movement towards the future. My impression is that we have already worked on ourselves quite enough in the sense of striving, and that now is the time when we should simply start to live, each in our own way, from ourselves, from our own motivation, from our own centre, in harmony with ourselves: awake, here and now. To stop searching for ourselves outside, because this searching leads us away from ourselves. To live our own life, to lean on ourselves and to stop following advice. I say this knowing full well that someone might object that I too am giving advice, but I am not really advising; I am not saying: bake bread, meditate, watch "spiritual" films. I am only saying be yourselves and live your life in harmony with your values and with respect for others: simply live and let live. Ask yourselves. Then a feeling of fulfilment will come from within you, and it doesn't matter whether on the outside you are riding a horse or strolling through town.

We think, we analyse, we live more in our heads, and sometimes we are even afraid to fully experience our emotions; perhaps we see them as something improper. How can we move "out of the head" into experiencing (with everything this experience brings)? In other words: how can we theorise less, "function" less from the head and live more?

Yes, that is true. And of course there is a reason for it. Small children are close to their emotions, receptive and sensitive, and we were too as children, but we began to build defence mechanisms so that it wouldn't hurt us too much, and that is how we once ended up in our heads. Back then, as children, we probably did the best we could; today the question is whether it still works for us. We keep running away from ourselves into our heads, because there is something we don't want to feel, or something we don't want to become aware of. On the whole, avoiding experience is a generally human matter; we all do it. But we cannot run away from ourselves, and so we produce even more pain and suffering for ourselves. In fact, being "in the head" and not "in the heart" is in itself already pain, even if we don't admit it. So exactly as you say: to go towards our emotions, towards the ones we have long been chasing away, perhaps towards a feeling of shame, humiliation or inferiority that we may carry inside, and to acknowledge it. If we don't do this, we will rather tend to spend our whole life running into something we don't actually want, but that works well as an escape route: for example into the suggestion, which I have encountered in a few women, that they are goddesses, the centre of the universe and so on. If it is only a suggestion of our mind and not closeness to the pure consciousness within us (ACT psychotherapy uses the term pure consciousness, which is in fact the same as the divine spark within us, just a different word), then we go on suffering. So: to perceive ourselves, to go through accepting even what is unpleasant, our old pains stored deep inside us, which always drive us to act in ways we don't actually want.

The past year has given us the opportunity to be more not only with our loved ones, but also with ourselves. After a year, however, we may be tired of the surefire advice on how to handle this unusual situation. How should we properly understand advice such as: be here and now, breathe, bake your own bread, spend time in nature and exploring your surroundings? How can we take hold of this advice so that it actually benefits us?

As I mentioned earlier, I believe it is time for each of us to ask ourselves what is important for us to do, what we need, even if it were diametrically different from what is recommended and written. If it is truly our value and we are authentic in it, then that is it. I think it is time to step out of the feeling that someone else holds the guide to our life. But with that immediately comes a strong sense of responsibility for ourselves; we can no longer make excuses and rely on the fact that, after all, we followed this or that piece of advice. In short, to step out of our comfort zone, to care for ourselves, and to find the courage to do so. People do not step out of their comfort zone, out of rules, principles and advice, because it is very hard. It is very hard to stand up for yourself, to measure everything against yourself, your conscience, your awareness, to lead an inner dialogue; it is generally easier to hand over responsibility for your life to someone else. Many in the past managed to step out, and they wrote about it. In my own way I have come to understand that stepping out of the comfort zone and standing up for yourself cannot be easy, because the state that then arises is so precious that it cannot come "for free". It is hard to enter the stream of present life, without the control of the mind, to bridge the uncertainty, to stand within yourself. Plato once wrote that when the one who had succeeded in this returned to the group, the group wanted to kill him. Freeing yourself was not usually tolerated. On the other hand, today the conditions for it are here, in a way: social distancing, whatever its disadvantages, can be used to return to ourselves, to our quiet centre. The times are favourable for it, perhaps exceptionally so, if we consider human history. Let us make use of it. It can be experienced in nature, just walking along and letting everything flow, not wanting to gain anything or to get rid of anything... and perhaps IT will arrive. Or not, and we will accept that.

How exactly is courage needed for self-knowledge and self-realisation?

For quite a long time, between my twenties and thirties, I developed my capacity for awareness by observing the contents of the mind: through meditation, through contemplation. Only later, thanks to ACT, did I come to know Kohlenberg's so-called triangle of awareness, courage and love. Raising our awareness is beneficial in itself, but it does not automatically lead to a conscious and active life, to the courage to live in harmony with ourselves. What I mean is that it is possible to come to the conclusion that all we should do in life is meditate, which I think is sometimes easier than living the whole triangle in a complex and conscious way (because finding balance is always the hardest part), that is, including conscious action and the conscious experiencing of emotions, for which we need precisely courage; without it, it cannot be done. Without that, even meditation can in fact be an escape: an escape from a courageous life. I admit that in certain periods this was true of me, but I did not know it. I only see it now, looking back.

If we manage to be truly in the present and at the same time we are able to see what pulls us out of it, how should we work further with this insight?

Whatever pulls us out of our centre, or in other words distances us from ourselves, is good to notice: to see it, to realise that it is so, to accept it. These are our obstacles. Acceptance is not agreement, but an acknowledgement that this is how it is; then to accept that obstacle within ourselves, and only after that to realise what is important for me to do in harmony with myself. And to live it this way, knowing that it can take a long time, long years, that something will keep pulling us out of our centre, that this is normal, to live with it as an ordinary part of life, and to bring in kindness towards ourselves, accepting that it simply is so when it is so. And not to over-analyse it, not to cling to the past, to move on; now is already a different now again.

Self-knowledge leading to fulfilled self-realisation often brings a degree of uncertainty as well. What should we do with this uncertainty?

The feeling of uncertainty is a feeling, so the answer relates to what has already been said above. As soon as a person is in their own centre, they are so fulfilled that certainties no longer interest them: they then live wherever life happens to lead them, but always here and now. This is contained in that biblical passage (how much wisdom there is in the Bible that we fail to appreciate!): "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." John 3:8.

For many people it is easier to blame those around them for their failures, emotions and missteps. How can we avoid being caught in this "trap"?

Of course, to a certain extent it can be so: take a situation where you have a beautiful, thriving café and the government closes it down; it has been closed for long months and you go bankrupt. It happened. It is not your fault. You can take action. Sometimes this can be wrongly understood, and I have the impression that certain approaches to personal development present it this way: accept everything and keep quiet, be obedient, everything is your own fault anyway; oh, you haven't come to terms with everything yet, so you're not "there" yet. To me, that is clear manipulation. Acceptance does not mean leaving out thinking. If the closure of my café stirred up unpleasant emotions in me, then I have two options, to exaggerate a little: to spend several years getting angry, cursing and giving up my drive, or to accept it in my own way and ask myself what is important for me to do next, what I can do to keep the vitality in my life. On the whole, though, it is not good to turn our anger on others; things will not move forward and we will not feel any relief either.

Is it already meditation when I sit with my eyes closed and try to stop the stream of thoughts? Is it important to ask ourselves why we meditate, to go into this activity with a certain intention?

There are many kinds of meditation. If I were to speak for mindfulness meditation, it is above all a process of observing, accepting and not grasping what is in the content of our mind. And if I am truly able to do that, then it doesn't matter whether I am sitting, lying down, standing or running while doing it. That real detachment from the mind, relaxed observation, acceptance without judging, elaborating, filtering or grasping, is mindfulness meditation. If I am trying to stop my thoughts, that is not mindfulness meditation but an attempt to stop thoughts, and mere effort will not make that happen; rather, the number of thoughts will grow, by at least one, namely the thought that I am supposed to stop my thoughts. So to answer your question: yes, I can sit with my eyes closed even for an hour and still not meditate, just think, only with my eyes closed; no detachment or higher consciousness will come of it. And a person should not want higher consciousness either, that is a bit like sacrilege ☺, but rather surrender to it.

Given their history, Czechs are closer to having their boundaries violated, and they react to this in various ways: with aggression, with searching for the universe and so on. Do you observe a greater inclination towards esotericism in Czech society? What do you think causes it?

To a certain extent it is caused by the fact that we are an atheist nation, so we look for the magical and the mysterious, but outside the official churches, which is actually a manifestation of a certain non-conformity of us Czechs. We know how it tends to be with what is "official": we older ones lived through it under communism. Sometimes, though, we may also be looking in esotericism for a way to make our ego "spiritual", interesting, exceptional, better than others. I think we should not divide anything that is outer and not inner into spiritual and material. On the one hand, we know from quantum physics that nothing is actually material, and on the other hand we know that nothing outer, no act, no sign, is spiritual. Only the Spirit is spiritual, that is, the pure consciousness within us; if we dwell in it permanently, then perhaps it can be said to be spiritual, although by then we probably couldn't care less.