If you’ve ever dug into the subject of SPIRITUALITY, you’ll no doubt realise that the aim of spirituality is about becoming ENLIGHTENED, which is the process of bringing awareness to the fact that most of mankind’s woes come from his enslavement by the EGO.
The Ego is best described as a state of mind which is completely IDENTIFIED WITH THOUGHT, which means that thoughts, particular rigid thought patterns and habits such as beliefs and values, become part of WHO WE THINK WE ARE, that is, we invest it with our sense of self. Furthermore we mistake our thoughts about the world around us, to be the world around us, rather than just thoughts about the world around us, which is all they actually are, and in so doing, we reduce everything to a mind-constructed abstraction, grossly simplified to aid understanding and navigation.
When ENLIGHTENED, the world becomes a vibrant, ecosystem of wonder. The two dimensional, simplified version, we held to be THE TRUTH, opens up into a vastness of multi-sensory, wonderfulness, that brings with it a sense of awe. You come away from the necessity of thought, into the present moment where LIFE unfolds. There comes with it a number of realisations…
Everything has a purpose and a place
Good and evil, up and down, right and wrong, front and back, ally and enemy, each by its very existence inferring its polar opposite. Alan watts referred to it as “the game of black and white” in his book THE BIBLE. It’s all part of the same thing, intrinsically interconnected, and necessary to make up the rich tapestry of life.
Life is a game
You shouldn’t sweat the small stuff, after all, it’s all small stuff. Problems look big from close up. Zoom out and see the bigger picture. Everything looks small from a 50 thousand foot view.
FEAR is the route of all evil
We think FEAR keeps us alive and it does to some extent, but when out of control it is as likely to be the agent of death. Fear drives greed and the need for power which results in war and destruction. It increases insecurity and leads to even greater fear.
Mainstream media and politics keep fear front and centre to satisfy the public’s appetite (we are hardwired through evolution to take more interest in threats, and negative news), as well as pursuing their own benefit, such as profit and political ambitions. But in doing so, they report a skewed picture of the world, highlighting the negatives but under reporting the positives. There is an argument for avoiding the news altogether, or at least viewing it with an awareness of its imbalanced nature.
Life only exists IN THIS MOMENT
We can only interact directly with life in the moment it unfolds. A preoccupation with thinking and living inside our head’s is a distraction. It’s necessary to some extent of course, to use mental processes to navigate the world, accessing memory, using critical thinking and the likes, but we should live as much as possible, in the moment. All thought is preoccupied with past and future and that’s where our problems and pain also reside.
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