Tagged: perspective
Looking outside the shoe box
The collective consciousness labels and segments experiences: Good, bad, right, wrong. It is all relative to a perspective, a conditioning, a moral standard.
But, the individual experience can only show a limited range. What is a “bad” experience? The passage to a “good” one.
Isn’t “right” born out of what is “wrong”?
Cause and effect are together. All experiences in a person’s life are necessary together. Life is a “togetherness,” although our mind insists in viewing parts and labeling them.
A wall clock is a togetherness. We label 11 AM as “good or bad.” But time never stays fixed; but our labels do.
Sexuality practically, is a range of an experience. Every individual has a particular experience within that range.
The fixation is in achieving some ideal of what “should be.”
“Reality” is that as humans, we ARE not the same…. But we ARE. Language doesn’t allow for that illogical contradiction, but Life is oblivious of our logical constructs. Truly, Life is far from our intellectual understanding, the shoe box.
When we dare to look outside of the shoe box, we will observe that nothing is confined into a container. We make that trick.
The trick works because everyone is conditioned to believe in it.
Watch TV for too long and you will start believing that that world is “real.” It is a dreamy world where the reality of our feelings is confined for the sake of being “right” according to some moral gospel, another shoe box.
Shoes are not meant to be inside shoe boxes. We believe they should be.
Awaken through your conditioning
As we awaken, we could realize that to find the “truth” in specific groups, religions, philosophies, parties, teams, congregations and all sorts of labels denoting separation; is a great illusion.
“Why?”
As we know we are a Totality, One. Thus, a small division of people can only bring a particular viewpoint, a perspective, part of the “truth.”
Life is greater than a particular experience, understanding, reasoning, perspective.
“Wait a minute; what you are saying then is just a perspective?”
If you look closely I am not saying anything you did not know before; but something that you may have learned in elementary school: A part cannot be greater than the whole. Remember that teaching?
Isn’t that evident? That is all i’m saying.
Now, let me add some depth to it:” In Life, a part is equal to the whole.”
This pretty much contradicted my former statement. 🙂
Thus, everyone has the “truth.” Paradoxical?
Just like Life. Every “part” is the movie of Life, itself.
Our mind sees a “part,” but Life cannot be divided into “parts.”
It is a continuous.
Now let me put that into “perspective.”
A religion is a “part” and that “part” is equal to the whole. Do you know why?
Because it is just a perspective of “reality,” of the Totality, of what is. For many, that perspective is all there is. Another religion will give a different perspective and so on; thus, an intelligent person will realize: “Every religion has a part of the truth.”
Which brings me back to the beginning… Don’t you love logic and reasoning? 🙂
But let me go deeper. Because every religion has a part of the “truth,” what is not “truth” in them, is falsehood. Therefore, every time we label some part as “truth,” it has also falsehood in it.
Isn’t that paradoxical?
Just like Life.
More depth?
In Life, Truth and Falsehood are the same thing. Just labels.
Thus, while people conditioned to understand the ways and “reasons” of the “Office world,” have truth and falsehood as opposites, creating “morality” as a by-product; Life accepts that mental perspective by allowing it; while expressing itself in other terms, which is strange to our conditioning, creating a sense of “uncertainty” in us. Life is uncertain. Isn’t that one of the main traumas or fears that most have?
“So you wrote all of this just to say nothing useful… What a waste!”
Sorry about that. Here may be the useful stuff that your conditioning is looking for:
We want to understand Life from the perspective of our conditioning.
That ain’t gonna happen, Mac.
Question about the mind, acceptance and trust
“… only if it was that easy to wait/observe and not act when your Mind is racing @ lightening speed… Isn’t observing and waiting for a change not a thought in itself?
What lesson is life teaching if someone does not even have basic necessities to survive, abused physically/mentally? – will be hard to develop acceptance and trust.
Love to see your response.”
If your shoelaces come undone, it is because it was done.
Thank you for your question for the common good.
If you make a knot while tying your shoelaces, sooner or later that knot will need to be dealt with. That is Life. There is a process to get there and a process to get out.
Who is the observer?
If it is the “I,” that is not an observer. That is a doer. That “I” is the one trying to figure things out through methods, beliefs and pressure from others, how to untie the knot.
There is an “I” and there is “no-I.”
The “I” is the one known by most. Who is waiting? The “I.” The “I” is observing from a self centered personality while separated from everything else.
“MY mind is racing at lightening speed. What is the method to stop it? Perhaps “I” should “observe it” and “wait” to see if that method works for ME… Hey, I just came up with a thought… It is “my” thought even though “I” did not willingly think about it…This change should be “natural,” I wonder why is not “natural” to Me yet?”
The above is one interpretation of what Ahnanda is trying to explain, but it is far from what Ahnanda means.
If we are only using our minds to make intellectual sense of this, we are wasting our time.
That is not “bad” at all, for it is part of our process. So even that misunderstanding is completely “good.”
How could I express “no-self” through English words structured to use “I,” “you,” “him,” “her” at every corner?
Your mind wants an answer to “resolve the problem” of experiencing the “misery” of “racing thoughts.” Right?
Ahnanda says: Open your heart, your feelings…
“But how?”
All I can share is my experience which is not a “method.” Go to Nature. Not once in awhile, but BE there for you are THAT. “There” your feelings will open up, your heart will breathe and your mind will calm itself “naturally.”
“OK. I will try that. I will spend a year in the wild…”
No my friend. If you are just going there because “you” want to achieve something, you may achieve many things in that experience, but not the “goal” of calming your mind.
If in your process you do not feel the need to be in Nature, if you force yourself to do it, just to achieve something like “peace of mind,” you will be sorely disappointed… but that is not “bad” either. It is part of your process. All is “good.”
The “I” wants to achieve. “No-I,” cannot exist there.
However, if there is a natural need in you to spend your time outdoors as much as possible, to observe Nature not because you want to achieve something for yourself, but just for the heck of it, just because you have infinite love for Nature… then, according to your process, you are naturally ready to experience what is like for the mind to slow down.
Do you see the process? It needs to be natural, it cannot be forced.
“But I want to achieve no-mind NOW!”
Can you force an unripe fruit to be ripe “now” just because you decided to “make effort” to be ripe, because you have the “goal” of going to “heaven” or another “objective” such as peace, happiness, joy, etc.? 🙂
Now, into your second question:
“What lesson is life teaching if some one does not even have basic necessities to survive, abused physically/mentally? – will be hard to develop acceptance and trust.”
Life lessons… are only lessons for the one who is aware. For the one who is not, their position in Life could be of suffering.
Is suffering “bad”? Any other way to dismantle the “ego” “naturally”?
Two things to keep “in mind”:
1. Our perception of someone’s suffering could be enhanced if we compare with them. “Look I can go to the toilet everyday… but those poor things do not even have toilet paper.”
I have seen those “poor things” smiling from the heart in their day-to-day life. That gift stopped, once they started comparing with “others.” This is not meant to say that social inequalities are OK. This is meant to say that our perception could be tinted with greater suffering than what is actually experienced by the one going through the experience in Life.
2. If you are going through some experience in Life, you are equipped to go through it. If “you” tied up your shoes, “you” must experience the process of untying them. The process is not the same for everyone.
Acceptance and Trust is needed for the one who has gone through the extreme of experiences of rejection and distrust. When your life is colored with distrust and rejection, then the process will shift, to arrive into trust and acceptance. The “I” will fight to keep things safe for “him” despite the imminent change. Trust is not something for the “I” to “develop,” it happens if the “I” allows it. If the “I” does not, there will be further suffering. See the game? 🙂
Someone who in your perspective has been abused mentally, physically and is living without the basics, may not necessarily experience distrust and rejection towards Life. Again, it depends on the process that this person is experiencing in Life, his “location.”
That “terrible” experience for you, may not be the drop that spills the water from the glass, for that person.
That is why, to feel for someone has a much greater accuracy than to think or analyze their “situation.”
Empathy is a feeling which will naturally tell you “how to act” without thinking about it. How someone became the personification of empathy in Life?
By having experienced its opposite… naturally…That process is not necessarily of a single Life time.
If you don’t have empathy naturally, then a method will be needed to make you believe that you “have it.” 🙂
All the best!
Experiences in the “spirit” realm
We are not alone. There is more than the physical plane in “reality.” Nevertheless, for many individuals, their “reality” is only the physical plane, the 5 senses, logic and analysis.
Some individuals with experiences in the other planes of “reality” have labeled those realms as “subtle region,” “astral region,” “spirit world,” “dream world,” etc.
Those regions have their respective “inhabitants” as well.
There is a continuous relationship between the physical world and the subtle/spirit worlds.
The physical world could be labeled as the “doers.” The subtle/Spirit world as the “influencers.”
As we understand this relationship with greater depth, we could realize the limitations of the “I,” “me,” “free-will,” “predestination” concepts.
What about if what we “think” that we are “thinking” is not necessarily “our thought”?
Crazy, huh?
Anyone scared? 🙂
Lack of awareness is compelling. That is why, one of the main things to understand is to learn to observe.
There is no “center” of attention or “opinion” in observation.
From that “exercise,” we could realize many other things.
Whenever someone claims to have a “spiritual experience;” it is just that… an experience from a perspective in Life.
If we want to glorify that experience and call it “divine” or use any other label, that is our own interpretation.
In my own experience, I had some of these “spiritual experiences” and still have them. However, the interpretation that I used to give to those, has changed as my consciousness has changed.
Remember the time when you flew in an airplane for the first time? To talk about that experience was marvelous. So great that perhaps we had lots of enthusiasm… If someone asked: What does it feel to fly? Ahh! That was the opportunity to “teach them” and to advertise our experience. Perhaps we could gain a follower in the “fly now” club!
If this sounds like the way most religious beliefs are, it is just a coincidence. ☺
If those experiences are separated by time, then that is the “carrot” the donkey needs to get out of the mundane, the trivial “same ol’ thing,” and feel “special.”
Those experiences add newness to our lives. Those experiences may be different from the majority; they have a meaning; they may be beautiful but… those experiences are unable to change our consciousness.
That is how, someone who encounters a subtle being, could label him with many names, which are part of his learned tradition: Angel, God, Demon, etc.
What is important to understand is that any experience with subtle beings is meant for a purpose in our life journey. These experiences will appear when necessary. There is no need to look for them. They just happen.
Some have experienced “rock climbing” I have not. Shall I suffer because of that, when there is lots of things to experience in Life?
One more thing. Those experiences are not meant to be “followed by everyone.” These are personal experiences.
When we understand that everyone has a different perspective of Life, all experiences are never equal.
As we become prepared through an openness of our consciousness, we will experience what is necessary to continue on.
That is the guarantee that Life has for everyone of us.
That is how, “spirituality” cannot be separated from Life.
Some religions and philosophies pretend to make that separation, but that is fictitious, artificial and… “unreal.”
Life is a continuous. “Spirituality” is to be in Life, not outside of it in a golden box of regulations and beliefs.
The “spirit world” is there. It is not “better” nor worse than “this” world, just different.
We are “here” but at the same time, we are all in this… together. Paradoxical, huh?
Discover your truth
Is what I am conveying here the “truth”? 🙂
Hope that by now, we realize that it is just a perspective under the package of my own experiences in Life. There is insight through assimilation of Life experiences.That is why, Ananda can write everyday about different topics from different perspectives, for Life is unlimited.
Ananda is not conveying “his thoughts” or “his opinion” or “his expert assessment” or “what he has read someplace else.”
If I did that, to read this blog will be just a waste of your time.
If what I am conveying is just my own experience; how is that related with you, the reader?
Obviously, you will be able to see that there are many perspectives about Life. Many beliefs, many ideas and traditions, which shape the way, we perceive Life.
Do you want truth and not perspectives?
Learn to look inside yourself. To be honest with yourself. That is all…but paradoxically, it may take a long time to master that art.
Whatever else you may wish to read here, will only broaden your perspective, if you allow for that to happen.
Some may read these lines looking to find something to support their beliefs and perspectives. You may find some articles may do that and others will not.
Do you embrace those which you like and reject or feel contempt for those articles, which you don’t?
Yes? 🙂
Open up your consciousness. It is not a matter of accepting or rejecting but a matter of not uttering an opinion and merely acknowledging another perspective, which makes up this wonderful experience, which we call Life.
Isn’t “reality” that everyone has a different perspective of Life?
Do we want to call some as “right” and others as “wrong” experiences? Who are “we” to emit such a judgment?
Just let it be and learn to enjoy your own experience of Life. Move along the river of experiences to be able to taste different flavors, all of them “good” for when we are aware we could learn many deep teachings which Life holds.
This is not a matter of being fearful, of being scared of being “punished” by a God, for if God teaches honesty, how on earth could we be “punished” for being self-honest?
If we are punished, who needs that dishonest God?
God gave you “free will”? right?
If we are supposed to only obey “his” law… that is not “free will.” That is eternal slavery.
Do you believe in predestination instead?
Then, what is the need for a God?
Better forget all of those beliefs and “life insurance” promises for the “after life” and start truly living the “now,” the “moment,” by being free of beliefs, free of attachments, free of ideas to cling to and free of self induced fears and merely enjoying the ride, the different scenes and twists that Life could bring.
That may sound great, but believe me… It takes lots of inner work.
Whatever your perspective of Life is, enjoy it. If you don’t… allow for your consciousness to change by not clinging to things in your head, but by learning to trust and follow your heart, that is by being honest with yourself.
Fixated in being the “same.”
A painting could be observed from different locations. That location will give a perspective, a point of view.
Life is just like that. Many perspectives, many points of view according to the location of our consciousness.
That location changes, for everything changes in life.
If we deeply go into this, we could perceive that the idea of an “I” who is static and unchanged only exists as “true” in a fixated mind.
Our inability to flow with changes in life will create a trauma to an “I” who is searching for comfort, security and permanence.
Religions and philosophies thrive in offering comfort, security and permanence to an “I” who only exists in fixated minds.
That fixation is a jail.
We are willing to cling to a dogma, to a “truth” that is forever trapped in dualistic words in the name of permanence, security and comfort.
A belief is just a fixated perspective.
Freedom resides in opening the doors of that golden jail and break loose from it.
The “I” is searching for an identity. Once the “I” is satisfied with an identity it will cling to it, demanding permanence.
That is a sure trip to insanity.
“You are a superhero. Superheroes are supposed to behave like this and not like that.”
The label “Superhero” becomes a mental jail, which does not allow someone to be something different.
Look at yourself.
How many labels do you think you are? Isn’t your life just about living up to those labels?
Anything we think we are, becomes a trap, a restriction to be something else.
When we were kids, we allowed our consciousness to take us freely into different perspectives of life. Somehow, we lost that ability when the “I” wanted to have permanence. At that point, beliefs to maintain the “status quo” were needed… so the belief was about “bettering the I.” 🙂
Consciousness wasn’t allowed to change by itself.
I could wake up one day and all of a sudden, “I” could truly not believe in all the beliefs I had before. I may want to be free from them… but fear of not being the “same one” appears.
There is no change when we are the same “old thing.”
The “I” want that permanence, but yet religions and philosophies teach about self-transformation.
How can we transform if we don’t allow our consciousness to change?
It is that “I” who does not allow that transformation to occur.
The baby becomes a child. The child becomes a teen. The teen an adult. The adult reaches maturity and then old age sets in… at that point the baby appears again… that consciousness comes back again, without invitation, without “making effort” all by itself.
Nevertheless, the “I” is unhappy. The “I” wants to relive the “past,” the identity hasn’t gone away… so there is suffering… to mitigate that suffering, let us believe that the “future will be bright” in the after-life…
Whether Paradise or Heaven exists after someone dies is not the issue. The issue is to see the intention of the “I,” the desperate need for permanence.
Are we aware of that?
The diet of separation
In the world of concepts and analysis, we have been taught to separate things. Even the word “things” implies differences, categories. “Many things.”
When we use that perspective to observe the world, obviously the way that we will perceive it is by separation.
“This is a fish. A fish cannot be the Ocean. The Ocean is by itself and fish are different.”
Ananda was looking at the Ocean. He saw a fish jumping up as if it wanted to take a look outside the water, and then dived into the Ocean.
Could a fish live without the Ocean? We could put that fish in a tank of water, but then we will need to change that water often, for otherwise it will stagnate. Eventually the fish may not survive.
Could the Ocean exist without fish? Evidently no. As otherwise, water without anything in it, will stagnate. Fish need Ocean plants. Every being in the Ocean is necessary to maintain freshness of that Ocean. Every being has a “task” to maintain the Totality alive. Every being is necessary.
We observe different forms but many times we do not realize that those “things” are integrated. They share a common “breath” to survive.
From the perspective of the fish, there is no difference between “it” and everything else… unless the fish learns to “think,” which means separation.
A 3 year old child does not have an identity yet. That child does not know about male and female, ugly or beautiful. That child only observes and imitates “others.”
Once that child learns to differentiate “others” from himself, then a personality will appear that will separate “things.” That is, thinking has appeared.
The adult way of seeing things is very limited and seldom integrated with the Totality.
Notice that religious beliefs as well as moral codes and educational values are built up under the perspective of this separation.
Why is it important to reflect on this view of separation?
Because judgments, comparisons, beliefs, critics, expectations, etc. come from this view, this awareness.
That is why it seems very odd when some moralist tells someone: “You must not criticize. It is “bad.” God is going to punish you, if you do. It has “bad” karma.”
When the whole understanding of this person resides in the awareness of separation.
Obviously, We may even create commandments to “shape up” “others” into not criticizing or judging or comparing; but if my consciousness is rigidly situated in the perception of separation, I will only be kidding myself.
“We are all brothers.” But yet we could kill each other…as brothers… 🙂
“ Let us go green. Let us save the planet.” But yet dump garbage at any other place but “my house.”
“Save the manatee” but who cares about the bees.
This is not some religious, end-of –the-world story. Please observe how that consciousness of separation from our common roots is damaging not only “our” planet but is taking away the sanity within human beings.
Let us take a look at this page in Wikipedia about personality disorders.
The common aspects of those personality disorders are the avoidance of “others” (separation: Paranoid, schizoid) through the need for admiration of the self (ego-centered: Narcissism) on the other side. In other words, those diseases are about strengthening the “I” in separation with everything else (others.)
We are unable to integrate into the Totality. Even some may pray to the one God, who is the big boss, separated from us, to save us all, when we are unable to perceive that same God as part of the Totality, Nature, the Universe, etc.
That is why in Spirituality there are many phases of awareness which all depend on how open our consciousness is.
There are some religions preaching “salvation” if we just accept so and so as the savior of all. Other religions imply that only by “belonging to them” you could be saved.
Nevertheless, when our consciousness is no longer restricted to the individual; when we could finally integrate ourselves into that Totality like that 3-year-old kid or the fish in the Ocean, then what is the need for “ME” to be saved? 🙂
To pretend to save that “ME” is merely the continuation of that ego supporting separation.
A sane, conscious individual will be able to be aware that everything is changing and thus, everything is momentarily. Those changes are unavoidable for change in itself is that recycling movement in life.
That is why enjoyment of the moment is all there is. So, enjoy! 🙂
When we realize that, we could observe things from a center which is beyond the expectation, desires of ego… and we could enjoy the scenes in life not as separated from it, but in integration.
That is where the “true” smile appears, just like the one of a 3-year-old kid: spontaneous, sincere, unrehearsed, alive.
Exploring the Depth of Living 