we stand beside the water
with the tides
moving between us
yet the sea
is more than the distance
between two shores
it is what bonds
you to me
One of the greatest secrets of life and happiness is in the continuous learning and growing and the study of life.
The spirit is nurtured by our being happy and healthy. When we are happy and healthy, we share it. We share our vibration with all of life, because all life is interwoven with all life. Our laughter affects those around us. People listening to laughter will start smiling and laughing. Our vibration of happiness and cheerfulness will affect others. This sharing is simply life giving unto life. If we are at peace with our self, and have peace with our life, we’ll be sharing joy and peace in thought, word, and deed.
The most beneficial things we can share are love, joy, freedom, happiness, and compassion. If this is what we are experiencing and trying to share with the rest of life, then this is what life will give back to us. This is the secret to the Golden Rule.
We can look for beauty, joy and laughter in life. Anything that is inspirational and uplifting for humanity is healthy nutrition for our mind and the human spirit.
The revolutionary part of this whole concept is that we can take control of our destiny with only minor adjustments to the activities we are already doing. We can create wellness and come to our happiness, our joy, and our life by recognizing that our happiness is as simple as what we choose to think and thereby feel. We make the choices that are beneficial to our goals and use Will Power to follow through and act upon those choices that are positive and uplifting. We find the balance of the body, mind, and spirit in doing what is good for the individual and the international community. As long as we are working on living a balanced life, we will find we have enthusiasm for life.
Non-attachment
We must expand the quality of non-attachment. An example of non-attachment can be seen in driving a car. When we drive, we have a driving consciousness. We are aware, alert, and following the rules of the road. Hopefully, we are driving respectfully and defensively. When we arrive at our destination, we non-attach and let go of the driving consciousness. It has fulfilled its purpose. Once we leave the car, we go on with what we planned on doing at our destination. We don’t continue to think about driving the car. Our consciousness has now shifted to work, shopping, or whatever our plans are. Driving consciousness has a time and place in our life, but when we aren’t using it, we non-attach from it.
We all know how to non-attach because we do it in so many areas of our life each day without giving it much thought. We have a different consciousness for work, play, interacting, grooming, eating, and so on. These are situations that have patterns or rules and regulations of some kind. When we leave those activities or events, we leave behind those patterns or rules and move into the next situation. The naturalness of non-attachment is based on our interests. We attach to an idea when we are interested, and non-attach when we are no longer interested. Once we can clearly see how it works, we can expand it into other areas of our life.
With deep regular diaphragmatic breathing, proper hydration and nutrition, we will remove 50% or more of our stress and conflict, it will simply not be there. With the remaining 50%, deep breathing allows us the ability to separate the non-essential thoughts from the essential thoughts. Non-attachment will allow us to let go of the non-essential easily. Now what we have remaining is our history, issues, and conflicts. We continue to use non-attachment to let go of these things where and when we can.
Separate Realities
We can let go of our concern over other people’s thoughts and ideas, which have to do with their separate reality. Their perception of life will be different than our own. This makes each person’s views and opinions all separate realities. There is a story of five blind children who were taken on a walk one day. They were taken up to an elephant so they could “see” it. One child touched the leg. Another touched the ear. Another touched the trunk. Another touched the belly. Another touched the tail. When they went back to their village, they were eager to tell other children about what an elephant is like. The first child said the elephant was thick and round like a tree trunk. The next said, no, it was thin, flat, and very flexible. The next said no, it was curvy and thick and flexible. The next said no, it was big and round and smooth. The last child said no, it was skinny, round, and moved from side to side. They all had a different view of the elephant depending upon their specific experience of it. We can see instances of this every day.
When we can’t let go of the opinions or need for approval of other people, it is because we think we need something from them. Our attachment is really to what we want or expect from them. With non-attachment, we must understand that we don’t non-attach from other people, but rather we work on letting go of our needs or expectation of them. We don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. It becomes easier to non-attach the more we understand the idea of separate realities.
Re-education
Re-education is about transforming or replacing the negative thoughts or activities with positive and beneficial thoughts or activities. We choose to add new information to our consciousness. We can add more reading to gain new intellectual, emotional, and spiritual knowledge. This increases the information base part of our mind. We bring in new ideas, which expand our beliefs and interests. This is the time for re-assessing, re-evaluating, and re-defining our life.
We add new information by reading new material. We add it by calming the breath and mind to see more clearly, and reflect upon it. We add it by meeting new people and doing new things. We can attend seminars or classes. We expand our life with new ideas and activities. This gives us new and different information in our consciousness, which allows us to see and perceive life in a new and different way. When we bring in the new, then letting go of the old will happen naturally.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include
the freedom to make mistakes.
Mahatma Gandhi 1869-1948
Finding balance in our life
Finding balance in our life helps us attain the enjoyment of everyday living. We need to balance the inner and outer life. Most people in this country have graduated from high school, yet did not take three essential classes: 1) How to do self-analysis so we can develop an aware and healthy relationship with our self; 2) How to handle our finances, or how to budget and spend less than we make; 3) How to have successful male/female relationships, including healthy boundaries, and healthy parenting skills. If we are going to lead a balanced life, we must accept responsibility for learning these skills.
Love and Relationships
Love is the connection we have with all of life. When we begin to put conditions on how life should be, we begin to limit our ability to experience love.
Love and relationships are two different things. Relationships are about the boundaries we have for our interactions with others. We have relationships with the earth, with our co-workers, with our families, with our lovers, with strangers, and with pets. We have different kinds of relationships with different people or things. For each relationship, we will have set up different boundaries. Now we need to look at the boundaries we have set up and evaluate whether we have set healthy or unhealthy boundaries.
The fewer conditions we impose on life, the more open we will be to embracing life just as it is. Love has to do with our nature and the bubbling over and sharing of that nature. Our relationships are the boundaries and conditions we set up in order to share our love.
Expectations
When we are enjoying our life, we will find that very little will cause us conflict and stress. Except for the major issues like death, divorce, and terminal illness, most pain and conflict come from broken expectations. This needs to be addressed. Are the expectations we have of our self and others reasonable or not? When both reasonable and unreasonable expectations are broken, there will be disappointment.
An unreasonable expectation is when we just think or believe that someone else is going to do something. These expectations are based on assumption rather than clear communication. We still feel disappointment when the unreasonable expectations are broken. When we have desires or expectations, we need to clearly communicate them to the other person.
Lack of communication is fairly common, especially in the male/female relationships. Men communicate more clearly with other men, because they are using similar thinking processes. The same is true when women communicate with other women.
Clear communication needs to include definitions of our boundaries and the other person’s boundaries. Separate realities can only come together and cooperate through clear communication.
Can a person ever explain the taste of sugar,
simple and plain?
Kabir c. 1440 AD
Most of the things that are beneficial for us, like diet, exercising, proper breathing, controlling the mind, and meditation, or self-awareness, are things we are doing daily, and only take minor adjustments. It is a minor adjustment between choosing nutritional foods or junk foods. It is a minor adjustment between directing the mind towards uplifting thoughts or negative thoughts. It is a minor adjustment between taking full deep breaths or shallow breaths. Most of these changes involve a minor adjustment between an old poor habit and a new beneficial habit.
We are the sum total of our thoughts, words, and deeds. If we aren’t happy where we are, we can change our views and we will change our life. This is accepting responsibility for our happiness and our self. We understand that we alone can nurture our self in the very manner we need nurturing.
We must embrace being open to life. This gives us the freedom to share who and what we are with our family and friends. This begins with developing the relationship with our self. If we are happy with what we are doing, then what others may think or say won’t cause us conflict.
Non-attachment from old limited ideas will lead to transformation. Non-attachment of the past isn’t about forgetting the past. Non-attachment isn’t about other people. We aren’t trying to change someone else. It is about our expectations of life. Ninety percent of what is holding us back from being happy is in our mind (our beliefs and ideas).
We can keep our desires and goals, but we change our perspective of who is responsible for the fulfillment of our expectations and desires. We take responsibility and become a master of our life. Having desires is natural. We just make a small adjustment in our thinking of who is going to bring about the fulfillment of our desire. This allows us to come to the moment and bring new things into our life. All we need is the courage and discipline to make the minor changes, and I do mean minor changes and we can change our life.
When we bring in the new, letting go of the old will happen. A transformation will begin to happen.
