Life is not about breathing once, and saying - ok, I'm done, I took care of it. No, in life you breath, and breath, and keep breathing some more. Then you eat, and eat, and eat again and again. Every day you do the things necessary in-order to insure you have shelter. Many continue the life of our population by having and raising children, yet in the end, this thing called life ends, and we get to see if there is anything next.
For many - Life's true nature is survival, in life you struggle. That's the name of the game, and from the day you were born you have fought the good fight, and so-far, you have survived. Every morning when we wake up we get the chance to do it all over again. We also get to learn from our mistakes, and either find joy or suffer, either way we go through the day one way or another - you decide how to take the trip.
I have found however, that this thing called life, and what we call, "the struggle to continue," is never the basis for our unhappiness.
What I have discovered is this - we suffer over suffering! For many this is the ultimate dilemma, and is the basis for the journey you are about to embark. What you are about to discover is how to finally see beyond the added struggle we have created in our lives.
There is an interesting trend in the world to act that this part of life does not exist, and that if you do experience it, it can be medicated away, or covered up somehow. We no-longer teach our children how to deal with reality, instead we have created a false sense of reality being told to keep busy, and these things will go away.
Many of us have no idea how to be happy anymore. We work all day, go to bed tired, and wake-up tired. We are so busy thinking life is about comfort, buying and throwing away - only to buy more, and throw away more. This lifestyle is part of the continued cycle of conditioning currently going on in many parts of the world. Life has been reduced to whether you have a new car, or a hooptee.
People have been conditioned to believe that you must think one way, or another, regardless of how your inner wisdom reacts to it. This is the basis for struggling with life's struggles.
I am not saying you should, or shouldn't, have nice things. What I am saying is this; the people who attend my classes are both poor and rich, and each seam to suffer the same way. So in the end it is not about what you have outside, but what you discover inside of you that matters most.
We have been bombarded to believe that our joy and happiness, is someplace outside of us. Maybe if I take a vacation I will find my smile again. So we load up the car, or take a flight to some exotic place, only to find that our smile wasn't there. How could it be, we had never been there to have left it there in the first place.
Maybe our love for life, our joy and happiness, is closer than you think. Maybe, just maybe, it was placed not someplace outside of you, but in the one place you would never think to look - inside.
You see our first relationship is with our self. How do you handle your thoughts, your emotions, and how well do you take care of yourself? Are you the type of person who is a martyr and places everyone else first and then constantly complains, or brings it to everyone else's attention?
Maybe you see yourself as unworthy of love and affection from yourself, so you seek it from others and have a deep need for approval and attention. Many who have these beliefs feel if someone outside of them doesn't like them, or approve of them, how can they love themselves? Living this way is so painful. I understand, I lived this way for many years.
After taking a flight many years ago I was amazed to see the reaction from many of the passengers who were flying with small children. When the flight attendant began to pre-flight instructions on what we should do in case of an emergency, it became apparent right away how many parents were onboard.
You see part of the instructions were that incase of cabin pressure loss oxygen masks would appear, and if you have small children parents were instructed to place the masks on themselves first, and then on their children.
This started a discussion in the cabin that lasted throughout the two hour flight. Parents repeatedly said that they would die for their children, and that their children have to come first. I understood quite well what the true meaning was for the instructions given by the flight attendants.
At one point when asked what my opinion was about this by a rather upset woman sitting behind me, I simply said that I understood her point of view, however, rather than being willing to die for your children, are you willing to live? To my amazement, she smiled and simply played with her children for the rest of the flight staying out of the discussion which continued between several of the passengers.
This is my question to you now as well.
I understand the many things you are willing to do in order to excel in life. I also understand the many struggles we may have learning how to accept, and deal with some of the obstacles that may come our way.
However, my question to you is this, are you willing to be happy, to live the life - inside - you can have regardless of whatever life throws your way - outside? Are you willing to live?
In-order to live, and no-longer suffer from suffering, let's look at a few of the ways we create our own obstacles in life. First off, many of us live in a state of dissatisfaction.
We never have enough, we become obsessed with having more, and nothing is ever good enough. This spills out into our relationships, our partner is never enough, our children are never smart enough, or don't behave well enough. Our job is beneath us, and our lifestyle is not as good as someone else's.
Who we are, and what we have is never good enough. Living this way we never find satisfaction with anything. Life becomes just one disappointment after another.
Maybe you are the person who lives only by ideas, and belief systems. These are never completely universal. We make rules, languages, governments and cultures. We like to think that we alone have the right answers and hold these ideas and beliefs to be true, and are willing to go to great lengths to prove we are right.
If you look at these beliefs and ideas closely they are just thoughts, something we make up. They are never permanent or universal. In the end, most of our ideas and beliefs separate us from others more than they bring us together, and we wonder why we feel trapped and alone.
Most people become overwhelmed and trapped by these ideas and become argumentative and defensive as even they cannot live up to the standards they place on others. We have become so conditioned to keep life in a box, an ideal that must never change. What we don't understand however; is this is where we have been wrong the most.
Life, and all it contains, is impermanent. Time moves on, we grow older, yet we hold on to beliefs as if they too will never change. This is the basis for our stress and our suffering. Simply said - we fight reality.
Stay tuned for - Part 2 - of this conversation coming in the next few days.
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