Wednesday, August 6, 2014

The Balance Between Being Content yet Aspiring Towards Evolution

How do we aspire for a better life without getting caught up in tomorrow?  How can we remain content with life as it is, but still seek to change a situation?

 
As a race of people capable of complex discernment I think it is a natural tendency for us to aspire towards something "better."  If you were a Native American you sustained your existence through fishing, hunting, and agriculture.  You were interested in developing ways of doing these activities that enabled you to harvest these resources with greater ease and success.  This drive within us that wants a better life is what enables us to evolve.  Yet today, where life options are practically limitless, we can become overwhelmed as to how we wish too see our life unfold.

I do not think you need to be dissatisfied with a life situation in order to see it evolve.  Actually, I feel it shows a sense of passion and vigor for life to have the desire to see your life and the life around you evolve.  I use the word evolve because I feel the word describes directed change.  To evolve denotes that change is something that progressively transcends what was before.

Yet, all to often we get caught up in what we want to see evolve in our lives that we lose our grip on being fully present.  Being content with "what is" takes a degree of present moment awareness that is not by our thoughts that want a different reality to exist.

It's about being aware of your desires and observing your attachment to them.  You cannot be content if you "need" change.  It means to have a vision without your emotions being contingent upon the results.  It takes a concentrated awareness to be grateful that life is presenting you with an opportunity to create and to experience who you are.

It seems that finding emotional balance in our modern thought driven world takes a sort of awareness that has us constantly grateful for life and the experiences it brings yet knowing that our visions and aspirations are not in vain, but rather they represent our efforts as conscious human beings to create a "better" world as we desire it.  Yet it also means surrendering to the fact that we are not controlling our lives to the fullest degree.  And in doing so we need to let go of expectations so that even if our aspirations do not manifest we still maintain a sense of gratitude for what is.

There always seems to be some sort of compromise in life.  This job may be more enjoyable, but it pays less or there is another partner "out there" that you may find more sexually attractive but you feel that another is better for you because they nourish your spirit.  The hypotheticals are endless...but compromise teaches us that we share this world, and our lives, with others.  It's about surrendering to the idea that we always don't know what is best or what we should strive towards.  It's about having faith that each new experience is something that is helping you become the person you are destined to be...even if it is a destiny that never would have imagined for yourself.

So keep striving for "better" as you see it.  For that is what the world needs now more than ever. Strive for a life that enriches the relationship you have with yourself and with others... And attempt to have faith that all is in its right place even if you think it's not.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Seeing Oneself as the Nothing That We Are

Without stillness we are lost.  Maybe not completely, but when the mind consumes us we repeat the same few mantras over and over.  We become consumed with mind activity, and thus we lose sight of all that is within and going on around us.  When I am still I find myself.  In that moment I am "found" because I realize there is nothing to figure out, nothing to know, and nothing to be other than myself.  The moment I try and become something I am no longer true to myself.  The moment I try to understand I move away from understanding.  There is no trying... there is only doing, being and living.

Contemplation is important.  I see it as the middle ground between stillness and mental activity.  With conscious awareness it can become an activity that has us hone in on our repetitive thoughts.  We can then choose if these thoughts serve us or not.  Yet do not be fooled by contemplation.  The moment we identify with new thoughts they become the relative thoughts of tomorrow and thus we get back into the same rut of incessant mental activity.

Often times we compare our lives to others in order to see who we are and who we want to become.  Yet, this only keeps us tied to the dominate thought paradigm that surrounds us.  We then become unable, not to be unique, but rather to be ourselves.  We are all beyond definition.  Every person is more than their title in life.  There is no one person more important or less important than another, unless we declare it as so.  And in our modern world we so often use judgement and comparison to figure out who we are so that we may, for some brief moment, feel a sense of worth.  Yet the irony is that when we seek self worth by comparing ourselves to others we loose sight of who we really are.  We paint the picture of who we are...instead of seeing ourselves for who we really are.

You are more than what you think you are.  You are infinitely nothing.  And to see yourself as undefinable is what brings you in touch with your true self.  True being that you are a phenomena of life.  Your experiences are your true worth from which to draw meaning and true power.