#34 Expand Your Vision

Most people in the world live in a narrow vision of reality.

They decided upon principles, rules, and perception of the world that they think would make them happy.

But sadly one day, the world turns its back on them. Well, something happened. They lost their financial backings, they got separated from a loved one, they got into an accident.

Some made it through. They picked themselves up, dusted the memory off – leaving their egos smudged, but took off with greater intensity hoping that things will somehow change in the future (until the day their egos are finally shattered). Some didn’t.

Out of this group of people, another 2 kinds emerge.

1. One doesn’t realize why all these unfortunate incidents happen to them, and can’t figure out what they must do to make things better. As a result, they continuously suffer.
2. Another, they finally opened their eyes – they got awakened, even just momentarily, to knowing that their perceptions of the world are just illusions based on meaninglessness.

Referring to the previous sentence, I don’t mean to say that everything is meaningless. But that people’s individual narrow view about the world is. It’s like staying at home as a child with everything provided to you by your parents and saying that the world is comfortable, because your room is.

The problem happens when you get out of this ‘room.’ Or one day, an accident happened – a hurricane hits, an earthquake visits, something else forced you out of your comfort zone. In that moment, you’re pushed right into a reality you’ve never experienced before. And as it turns out, this reality is far bigger, with so many more things happening outside of your expectations. Some good, some bad. The good ones will give you new bliss. The bad ones? Well, they could hurt you more than you’d ever want to experience with new pain too.

I’m not saying that everyone will actually go through this. Nope. If you’re fortunate enough to be protected from all the bad events of life, and could experience ‘flow’ all through your life in what you do and you’re happy with that – then by all means, stay with it. Happiness is the most important thing after all. Bad things may really not happen to you.

But, for people who’ve gained pride – who’ve lost their roots, lost their identity of who they really are,  those are the people which I really meant to write this post for.

People who’ve stopped living from an honest appreciation of their true selves. Who lived life based on a certain identity like a mask, equipped to satisfy their egos. Who stopped seeing every other people as the true being they are, but as a classification of stuff which can be discarded or picked up for personal gain.

If you think this applies to you, just remember to think back on who you really are.

Because in the end, that’s what you would appreciate in yourself too. Life’s short. Why should you waste it on some thing which doesn’t bring you true happiness?

#33 How We Can Become One

Read right to left.

This is how we will finally end up together. As One. The secret isn't so much in finding yourself. It's more so about extending our hands to each other. Enlightenment means nothing until we understand this one day.

Update 11th October, 2009:

Referring to the caption below this illustration, the opposite is also true. The secret may not be so much in extending our hands to each other (blindly). It could be more so about finding yourself. For until you know who you really are, it’s tough for you to see others, and your responsibilities towards them, as they’re supposed to be seen.

That’s the paradox of life, there’s always a flip side – which side you should adopt depends on where you are in your life.

#32 You Have Control

I haven’t been writing much lately. Why, you ask? Well, I’m trying to figure out how to really live life.

Previously, I talked about our main purpose right? At this point, you might probably ask, “Well, then haven’t you talked about how to really live life already?” You live life by following your purpose, and I’ve already filtered what our ultimate conscious purpose is down to the words, “Be fully in the Now.”

So what’s the deal? What’s the problem? Why am I talking about how to really live life, again?

To tell you the truth, it’s because I’m unsatisfied. I should be satisfied with whatever’s going on, but this practice of being fully in the Now itself somehow still doesn’t seem to solve what I look forward to in a happy life. My life still isn’t how I hope it would be, I still feel there’s something missing, and I was supposed to figure out what it is and debunk it so that we could all live happier.

So I followed it, and here I am.

In the end, I couldn’t figure the problem out.

You know why? Because life itself is the problem. We have been born into a world where what we desire most usually doesn’t manifest.

But that’s not the end of everything.

I mean, consider life itself being the external.

The conscious you being the internal, what you can directly express.

So guess what? No matter how bad things on the outside can be, no matter how uncontrollable things are, you just have to realize this: There’s one part of you which you can control no matter how time changes.

You can control how you observe the world.

Whether you can manifest things through your observations or not that I don’t know. We’ll need more teachings from spiritual masters and book authors, I think – or we don’t (Life itself is your greatest teacher, the only downside is you don’t know when and how it’s gonna teach you your lessons). But I hope somehow that we’ll soon stumble on the great truth of how one can live life happy, satisfied and fulfilled forever.

Maybe we’ll discover it together as we thread down this path?

Till the next post.