Tagged: perspectives
The journey of Self-realization
I live in Tampa, Florida. Our winter here is pretty mild so far. I went to Lima, Peru for vacation to visit family.
In Lima, the Sunshine is emerging as Summer is on the way.
I could not be able to fully appreciate the weather in Tampa unless I go somewhere else, ideally to the opposite experience. Self-realization uses pretty much the same “method.”
Most of us are comfortable with our Life styles. We have been conditioned.
To be conditioned is not a “bad thing,” it is just the “outside” becoming the “inside” to put it in simple words.
Therefore, there is a need to “distance” from the outside to become AWARE.
Life has many “methods” for this when the person is ready to initiate the journey of self-realization.
Someone may lose everything that his conditioning has valued. Another may find an extremist religion to get out of his conditioning. Another may experience a disease, a life threatening situation or the death of a loved one. Those events will force the individual to see Life from a different perspective: It is either to change to survive in newness or to embrace their own physical death. Newness is the outcome of either “choice,” thus there is no “good or bad” choice.
At the end of this “game,” whether we endure, suffer, complain, etc. trying to be the same, to remain the same, to maintain “status quo;” Change will appear. This realization may be the beginning of “spiritual” intelligence in Life.
I can appreciate now the weather in Tampa, Florida. I am aware of the subtle changes of green shades on trees, vegetation, and the intensity of the sun. I am aware of the wind, its cooling effect in Winter rather than the gentle breeze it used to be in the Summer. The above, may be nonsense for someone who is entrenched in the “office world” and the “political activities through economies of scale,” living fully in the world of the mind.
Want to know what self-realization may entail?
To get out of our current conditioning, fully, without a chance to go back until the “new” conditioning takes effect.
That is all, but when is happening to “you”… not to many are able to survive.
But if you survive, there is an issue. What is the problem?
To call the “new” conditioning “truth,” “reality” and all of those self-empowering words that only brighten the halo of the “I.”
To be able to perceive different perspectives is the origin of clairvoyance (clear vision.)
Summer is different than Winter. We call them opposites, but they are not. They are different shades of the same experience.
The same happens with every human being. Every human being is experiencing a particular shade of the full range of experiences. This awareness brings understanding of the human dilemma of “doing the right thing” or “being a good person.” Those labels only have meaning through a particular perspective, a particular viewpoint, conditioning…
The “Office World” is just an office located in the 2nd floor of the skyscraper of Life. For many individuals, that is their only reference, their perspective, their reality. Self realization lies in getting out of that office and rather than taking the elevator to the 100th floor, you will take the stairs to the 100th floor to learn to see Life from different perspectives. You will sweat, you will feel uncomfortable, you will suffer, you will be tired, it may seem as if the 100th floor will never arrive. You may lose hope… but you will continue on, because you are ready. Once you get to the top… It is time to come down. That is the “reward.” The experience will free you as nothing could ever do.
That is the price of Freedom from the known, that is… Self-realization.
I have modified this blog a bit to express change. The “about” page was changed. “Exploring the Depth of Living” was simplified with the phrase: “The journey from Yoga into Tantra” while living Life in joy.
From now on, I will be sharing twice a week: Monday and Friday.
I appreciate your openness to read these articles. Change is all that could be offered in this new phase. 🙂
Do you know if you are aware?
Many times we could read or hear that “spirituality” is about awakening.
That is not just “spirituality.” That is conscious living. To live Life in consciousness.
Life is far greater than just “spirituality.”
Have you noticed when your consciousness changed from being a toddler into a teenager?
No?
That is because there is no division between toddler and teenager. It is a continuous.
The words “toddler” and “teenager” could be used to explain things intellectually, but observe that by taking those concepts to be literal, we are creating a separation which does not exist.
Let me use the word “karma” now, to explain a belief.
If you are suffering from a disease now, that is the consequence of your past karma. Correct?
Disease = “bad;” therefore, that disease is “punishment,” “settling karma.”
Actually the “big picture,” the “unlimited vision” is not related with seeing Life as a fearful trip where “righteousness” is all what matters. That is just a religious perspective, which is different from what Life shows.
“Karma” is actually continuity. Our perception of “good, bad” is the opportunity for change. Life changes.
A disease now is the opportunity to appreciate health, to be able to be in tune with it.
When we appreciate the disease for giving us the chance to be in tune with health; then we are ready for change. When we reject the disease, we will suffer our experience.
“Why is that necessary?”
Because we weren’t conscious of being healthy.
“Is that bad?”
No. Lack of consciousness will take us into being conscious again. That is the trip, the journey.
We go from one extreme to another. It is in that awareness how appreciation arises.
How could we appreciate day, if we don’t know night?
If we learn to appreciate both; then we understand the continuity, change that will happen. Life is not a traumatic experience anymore (as the ego will see it) but just an experience to be enjoyed, appreciated, play with and let go. That is to be in the “now.”
However, that experience could be surrounded by “man made,” “artificial stuff,” such as beliefs, dogmas, moral standards, traditions… Please remember this: Nature… Life is not bound by Human laws, beliefs or traditions. It is not bound by your belief of a rightful God, for Nature, Life, the Universe, “His” creation… is not bound by those “rightful” laws.
When we are appreciation, then there will not be the experience of duality, choosing or having a preference; for we will know that everything changes at its own time.
What is to be awake then?
To be conscious of the process, the change. We are Life itself, not something separate.
To be conscious that this change will happen whether the “I” want it to happen or not.
When we are change itself, what could the “I” hang onto?
Nothing. Except a belief… and that is why, as we become more awake, deep beliefs will go “naturally” away… That is the change.
Relative Polarity in a mental world of absolutes
The truth is not absolute neither relative. Then, what is it?
“Something” neither relative nor absolute…We could call it “nothing.”
In Life we could see that every scene has a polarity.
That polarity is what is known as “good,” “bad,” “right,” “wrong,” “sinful,” “virtuous,” etc.
The majority of people are so caught up with those labels which are so deeply ingrained through “education,” that trauma will be experienced in their lives.
All those apparent “opposites” are complements of each other. All those opposites are there, because the other side exists.
There is no way for fear to exist without the existence of courage. There is no way for love to exist without hate.
What is courage in the “normal” realm of duality? Less fear. There is a degree, a constant movement that we label in different ways. If the scale of experiences is between 1 and 10, Courage is 1; fear is 10. Indifference is 5.
A person experiencing fear is closer to courage for after the number “10” is reached (fear,) then number “1” will come into the experience. That is why, the range of experiences is not truly a straight line with 2 different ends, but those ends connect to each other in continuity. The range of experiences is truly a circle and because there is a continuous movement in that circle, it becomes cyclical movement, just like the 4 seasons, just like day and night, just like low and high tide, just like young and old, left and right, up and down, etc.
If the above is fully understood, then a person experiencing indifference has a long way to go before reaching hate or love.There are many experiences in between. Intensity is in the extremes.
Observe the range of experiences, observe that every individual is in a different stage, a different degree from the extremes. If someone has experienced one extreme, without a doubt; the other extreme will experienced.
A religious person who has experienced one extreme of Life such as an ascetic Life style, will experience immediately after that; the opposite, and from that point, the movement will continue. For the untrained observer, that person is only reaching a “balance” from being “out of balance” but note that it is only the degrees of change of experiences, which are moving, that is “going from 10 to 1” in the cycle.
“Balance” exists at every moment, at every position in the range of experiences and for that, we may need to learn to embrace the opposites, rather than judge them or to prefer one side and to despise the other, for if we are aware that we are one side of the equation, we are also the other side. We are both sides…The light and the shadow.
The fox entered the property of the farmer and ate a chicken.
From a human perspective, the chicken belongs to the farmer. The fox committed a crime. The fox is “bad,” a “criminal,” and the “poor” chicken “good.”
The human perspective is not “reality” but merely a perspective. From the perspective of the fox, the chicken was food. To eat that chicken was “good” for the fox. From the perspective of the chicken, that was a “bad” thing. Do we see the polarity in that scene?
Moralists will engage in labeling one side of the polarity as “good” without realizing that “bad” is needed to be there as well.
That scene of the fox and the chicken is void of human morality. That is the way Nature, Life operates.
In Life it is all one event, the chicken is part of the fox now. Life continues on. A chicken may eat worms. Life continues on.
But a human… a human will kill the wolf just because the fox entered his “private property,” and ate his “possession.” He “bought” the chicken with paper money as if Nature cares about the exchange rate. 🙂
Every experience in Life will bring a polarity to be aware of. If we could for a moment set aside the labels of “good, bad, right, wrong,” etc. from our vocabulary, we could observe a different perspective, a different reality.
We could observe that every truth, every single truth is not an absolute, but a perspective based on a particular state of consciousness.
The above realization could be the beginning for the “Life walker,” the seeker, to abandon the path of denial, repression and judgment, for the one of simple openness to Life. That is the path of integration.
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 Ocean of Life and Death
Everyone has a thought. Everyone has an idea. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone has a solution. Everyone has a problem… 🙂
This is the story on how some fish living in the ocean debated among themselves about the “truths of life.”
A Lanternfish who only lives in the depth of the Ocean gave his opinion about the extent of life.
“Life is complete darkness. That is why the Creator has given us our own light so we can see in the darkness. Thus, we were created to be in the darkness and this is where we will stay.”
A Shark meanwhile disagreed with the Lanternfish’s opinion. Although the Shark was unable to go that deep into the Ocean to meet the Lanternfish; the Shark assumed through the information disseminated by an Octopus; that all Lanterfish are narrow minded.
“Come up here into my territory, and you will see something different, if you live to tell,” was the Shark’s comment.
A Shark has experienced light and also has experienced that there is life above the Ocean. However, a Shark is not into philosophical/religious conversations. A Shark is there to enjoy himself by being feared. There is no time for this sort of talk when he can smell his next prey nearby.
A Dolphin, heard all of these rumors. The Octopus accomplished a great job disseminating the information in all different directions.
The Dolphin had his own opinion. “Life is vast. It is light and darkness. It is water and air. It is fish and human beings with their machines. There is no end to it.”
That mention of “air” was confusing for many fish, for they though that everything that existed was water. As a matter of fact, most fish only had experienced water in their lives but not air.
It was “normal” to believe in water only. That was the common, accepted and respected tradition.
The Dolphin left the scene and started jumping outside the water but the other fish from below were not able to see that far from below.
Every fish gave their own idea to the gossiper Octopus. Every fish has their own opinion, their own “truth.”
A Seagull flying by caught a small fish by diving into the Ocean. That fish was versed in the recent philosophical discussions of life. The Seagull, took its prey to a nearby rock to be devoured.
The fish told the Seagull before his death: “ Now, I understand what the Dolphin said about life… but even more.”
The Seagull replied: “Death brings greater understanding about life,” and swallowed the fish.
Question: Dear brother, Is it possible the ritual of visiting Mecca for purification for Muslim might have been from the origin of visiting baba at maduban?
Thank you for your question! 🙂
Gyan mentions that we are “ancestor souls,” therefore; under this vision our current activities will be followed later on by other souls. This is what is known as a “memorial.”
Under that vision, yes we can say that visiting Mecca or any other holy pilgrimage place had its origin in our current practice of visiting Madhuban. However, i would like to remind everyone that the cycle of time is a circle and because of that it can be viewed from different “viewpoints,” according to a “point of reference,” meaning that from the viewpoint of a Muslim soul, our “pilgrimage” to Madhuban is just copying what they do; because for a Muslim; their religion existed way before Brahma Kumaris in their “view of time,” according to their religious views.
This paradox of time and timing is something which needs to be understood and looked at from different perspectives to understand that the “truth” is a paradox.
Best wishes!
Exploring the Depth of Living 