Deception is easy when you want to deceive yourself
Simply wishing that you be able to surrender to your supersoul is not sufficient. There must be discipline in the way you live, discipline in your dietary and eating habits, and regular practice of meditation.
Only then can your body be converted from simply a source of sensual experiences into a conduit for spiritual progress.
My words and value system do not match my actions sometimes. This means that I live in illusion. There is a gap between what I like to think I believe and what I actually believe. How am I deceiving myself?
When my friends talk about "cool" things, which I know will take me away from self-discipline, I ignore my inner beliefs and agree with them about a lot of things in order to conform to the image that society has built for a youngster.
I have somehow given up on myself and lost hope of being able to walk on the challenging path of truth. I consider myself unfit, unready, and weak. Worldly pleasures and the reassuring acceptance from friends and relatives are quite alluring. I want to consider these things the goal of my existence. Why is the greatest passion of my life my greatest failure now? I am trying to "live it up," but I know that great lessons lie in store for me.
I am so used to lip balm that I will be miserable when I don't have access to it. I have set myself up. When misery strikes, I will not be prepared. I will not be able to remain calm and peaceful through life's journey. My myriad likes and dislikes, insatiable desires, and fears will imprison me further in illusion.
I must focus on my goal. I must make honest efforts. No more ignoring what I know is the truth.
I must remind myself of the truth everyday. My sleep seems to erase what I know.
Only then can your body be converted from simply a source of sensual experiences into a conduit for spiritual progress.
My words and value system do not match my actions sometimes. This means that I live in illusion. There is a gap between what I like to think I believe and what I actually believe. How am I deceiving myself?
When my friends talk about "cool" things, which I know will take me away from self-discipline, I ignore my inner beliefs and agree with them about a lot of things in order to conform to the image that society has built for a youngster.
I have somehow given up on myself and lost hope of being able to walk on the challenging path of truth. I consider myself unfit, unready, and weak. Worldly pleasures and the reassuring acceptance from friends and relatives are quite alluring. I want to consider these things the goal of my existence. Why is the greatest passion of my life my greatest failure now? I am trying to "live it up," but I know that great lessons lie in store for me.
I am so used to lip balm that I will be miserable when I don't have access to it. I have set myself up. When misery strikes, I will not be prepared. I will not be able to remain calm and peaceful through life's journey. My myriad likes and dislikes, insatiable desires, and fears will imprison me further in illusion.
I must focus on my goal. I must make honest efforts. No more ignoring what I know is the truth.
I must remind myself of the truth everyday. My sleep seems to erase what I know.
posted by Lotus at 11/06/2011 05:12:00 AM
8 Comments:
Too many "musts" in your post. Conflict really destroys intelligence. Generally, one lives in conflict between what is and what should be. When that conflict is accentuated by the use of will, force, it really distorts the mind. What is important is to have clarity and intelligence in your daily life, and not follow any discipline, a pattern created by yourself or another. Conformity to any pattern is violence and denial of intelligence. One needs to be attentive and awake to everything from moment to moment. But when you set up patterns of behavior, your mind becomes mechanical. Because it is moving from the past and not directly facing "what is".
Hey, sorry if I seem preachy. Just wanted to point out some things to you. You don’t need to publish any of this on your blog.
Seem preachy, huh :) Interesting use of words. You sound familiar.
Thanks for the comment.
You would really have to know more about the source of my ideas to understand why I think like this. It's so difficult to really get to know someone.
I don't profess to know you but its not difficult to see the source of your ideas. Obviously, they come from what you have read or have been told. And that's the problem - they're ideas not facts, not something you have directly experienced. But there is a certain honesty in your writing, which is your own. That is why I have written to you.
Search is meaningless for it implies you already know what you are after. If you are imaginative enough, like many so-called religious people, you may even experience your own projections but that will not be the truth. There is no path to truth because truth is a living thing. There is no book, person, method, or system that can take you to it. Knowledge really is a big impediment to understanding. One must question everything.
That's the thing. you can always question everything when the absolute is impossible to establish. we live in a world of relative truths. "this is a chair" is a non-permanent truth, because billions of years (actually, much less) from now - it wont hold true. but simply questioning the validity of everything does not get you to any final destination - it leaves you hanging in the middle of nowhere and with nothing.
everyone is betting their lives on something - the one thing they can count on - its different for different people. i've figured out what i'm going to hold onto and count on. its a risk i've chosen to take willingly - rather than not taking any risk at all.
its impossible for any two people to think alike, because they've encountered a completely different set of experiences from birth. again, great to know about your views.
Why not be nothing? Isn't that much more logical than holding onto a belief that may be false? Isn't becoming an illusion? It is the fear of being nothing that makes us accumulate inwardly. In truth, you are nothing and one avoids seeing this at all costs. This nothingness, emptiness is always there, do what you will to cover it up. Isn't it infinitely better to understand this emptiness than trying to fill it with knowledge, worship, amusement, drinks, drugs which are all forms of escape?
One must question not to get at some result but to find out the truth of everything. Thats how you learn.
We assume so much. We gather knowledge from different sources in order to become intelligent. We never say "I don't know". It requires integrity. We'd rather gather inwardly anhd be something. This gathering is the self, the me, the ego. You are the knowledge. Therefore, you can think only about what you know. Thought is a result of memory, knowledge and therefore always limited. Thought is not different from you, the thinker. The thinker is the result of thought, which is the result of knowledge, experience, and memory. It is the past. You are thr past. As long as the past is functioning, there can be no seeing in the now. Thought always tries to comapre everything with what it already knows. It cannot see directly and instantly percieve the truth of something.Perception or insight can only take place when knowldge as thought is absent. The n you just see clearly and its not an intellectual conclusion - it is so, it is there independent of you.
You may have different set of experiences but inwardly you the like everyone else. Essentially, your mind works in the same way as others because it is the human mind, human consciousness in which there is pain, sorrow, fears, anxiety, and so on. It is very much possible for two people to perceive the same thing at the same time.
if your conclusion is that we are nothing, even that conclusion is suspect. it may or may not be true. both by deciding that "i am something" or that "i am nothing" we are taking a risk and believing something that may not be true. why assume anything at all?
don't assume that you are nothing. especially while you're telling me to stop assuming that i am something.
It is not my conclusion. What we are saying is not to have any conclusions whatsoever. A belief is a conclusion, an assumption. Let me put it this way: if I don't assume I'm something - supersoul, higher self etc, then I am what I am. When I have no ideas about myself, no illusions of any kind, if I have image of myself, then what am I? When I'm not inventing anything, or taking a stand inwardly, then I am nothing, isn't it? I have not assumed or caused it to be. I have simply not created anything myself. That is not an assumption or conclusion. It is what is.
Typo: I meant to say "..if I have no image of myself"
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