As the bringer of many fruits to come, the words spelled in a book will bring many ideas in my mind.
The first of many comes as a contrast to the message written above; it conflicts with the act of “thinking”, of using the mind. And so it starts:
The mind is a wonderful instrument if it is used correctly. However, if it is misused, then it can become destructive. It doesn’t matter in what percentage you misuse your mind, because, in general, you don’t use it at all. It uses you! This is a disease. You think you are your mind. It’s an illusion. The instrument has taken hold of you.
Now you might argue that this is not true. Than in fact you do use your mind, and that you use it to do useful things.
As dogs love to chew bones, the mind loves to solve problems.
Are you able to stop thinking? To actually not think of anything for 1,2,30 seconds, 1 minute? I mean really for your mind to go blank. I can’t, can you?
If you can’t then your mind is the one using you. You identify yourself with it unconsciously, so you don’t even realize that you are its slave.
The first step to solving a problem is becoming aware that we have a problem. If there’s no problem, there’s nothing to solve.
So for now I realize my mind is in control of me. The natural goal would be to take control of it. Until then my mind and your mind will continue to keep us in a never ending state of agitation.
With a kind voice he began telling her the tale of the two brahmans and the woman at the river crossing:
There were two brahmans walking down a country road in India, a young disciple together with an older and much wiser brahman. As they were walking the road reached a river crossing. At that time there were no bridges to cross the rivers, so they had to go through the water. By the river bank there was a woman, and as the water was running high, due to the monsoon season, she asked the two men if they can help her cross the river? The young brahman utterly refused, as women were considered to be impure and it was forbidden for brahmans to come into contact with anything or anyone who was impure. However, the older brahman took the woman on his back and carried her across the river. Afterwards the brahmans continued on their way, the older brahman behaving as if nothing had happened, while the younger brahman was tormented by the fact that his companion carried that woman, as it was against the rules of their cast. For two hour the young brahman dwelled on that thought until he built up his courage and asked the older brahman why did he help that woman? His older companion replied: “I only carried her across the river, after which I ceased to carry her. However, you have been carrying her for the past two hours and you will carry her with you for a long time to come. That was what I had to do at that time, that was why I was there. I served my purpose.”
Finishing his tale-telling, he explained to her that we often carry with us all sorts of feeling related to experiences from the past, cluttering ourselves and not allowing anything new to come into our world. We need to move on, get over old experiences and embrace the new ones that will come. As the old saying goes “Out with the old, in with the new”, as long as we dwell and torment ourselves on old experiences, feelings, resents, nothing newer and better will take their place.
She understood the message behind the tale even before he started explaining it, however, his words served to make her realize the importance of this lesson.
I managed to run across this nice metaphor:
The metaphor of the Tree:
In the same Tree we can see leaves, flowers, fruits and branches, all of them different from each other, however, they make up one single whole that is referred to by the word “tree”. All of them have the same root, and through all of them flows the same sap.
Similarly, all things, bodies, and beings come from the same source, and are animated by one and the same vital supreme principal.
I’ll let you draw the conclusions…
Maybe other people also wonder about the most essential thing in our existence, and after some thought I realized that this thing is ATTENTION. To illustrate this here are some quotes:
A new follower joined a spiritual master, after greeting his master he asked “Teacher, please tell me which is the most important thing for me now that I have started my spiritual practice?”. The master replied “The most important thing for you is to develop and enhance you attention”. The follower thanked for the answer and left the room. However, 10 minutes later he returned with another question “Teacher, please forgive me for returning so soon, but can you tell me what else do I have to do besides develop and enhance my attention?”. The master answered “Besides developing and enhancing your attention you need to intensify and perfect your attention”. The next day the follower returned with another question “Teacher, I anxiously want to know which is the next step after intensifying and perfecting my attention?”. The master replied “You have to make your attention more profound and accurate”. After a few moments the follower said “Teacher, I thank you for this important advice, but what else do I have to do besides developing my attention?”. The master answered “My dear, you have to focus your attention firmly and continuously on your body, its organs and functions, on the sensations, on the manifestations of your mind and on the psychical projections that appear spontaneously in your being.”
Publilius Syrus:
“The eyes of a human being are as if blind when his mind is wandering elsewhere or when it is firmly focused somewhere else.”
Joule R…..:
“If we look around us we realize that the modern man, as he is build by the civilization and by the mental methods employed by the society, has no idea about the importance of attention.”
Seneca:
“A big part of our life we send making evil deeds, another important part of our life we send doing nothing, the biggest part of our life we live without thinking about what we are doing. The lack of attention in the majority of people is amazing.”
Swami Sivananda:
“Because most of the time people don’t pay attention to what they are doing, most people are absent in many of their actions.”
Joule Renald:
“Happiness passes us by frequently, but because we don’t pay attention, most of the time we don’t even realize it.”
Some time ago I read an article about Emoto Masaru’s experiments with water. He made a series of tests on water onto which were projected different thoughts, for this the took a picture of the water crystals before and after the thought was projected onto the water. Following experiments with different thoughts and sounds of music, Emoto Masaru concluded that water is influenced by the thoughts projected onto it. Positive, loving thoughts and harmonious music result in beautiful crystals, while negative, violent thoughts and music produce chaotic crystal growths. For example this crystal is the result of the thought “Love and Gratitude”.
If we take into consideration the fact the we, humans are made up of about 70-90% water, one could draw an interesting conclusion: the same laws that apply to the water on which Emoto Masaru made his experiments, apply to our bodies. This means that the nature of the thoughts we project onto ourselves as well as onto others determines the structure of the water molecules from our bodies and the bodies of the people we interact with. Harmonious molecular structures determine good physical and mental health, while chaotic structures generate diseases.
Emoto Masaru continued his experiments to furthermore prove that thoughts influence the way we develop, as in the nature of thoughts could cause an accelerated growth or on the contrary, it could impair it.
The Japanese scientist made a series of experiments on which he draw many interesting conclusions, the main idea being that we should become aware of the thoughts we generate because they effect everything in and around us.
Positive attracts negative, female attracts male, night attracts day, cold attracts warm, and so on, opposites attract. However true this is, the law of attraction doesn’t refer to this type of attraction, but to an attraction of energies. The other day I mentioned that the whole universe is made up of energy and that our thoughts actually generate mental energy. This is the basis on which the theory of the law of attraction is founded on.
In short, this theory says that the thoughts we have attract the events that happen to us. However, this doesn’t work just as you would think. If you have a thought with a negative form, for example “I don’t want my wife to leave me” the mental energy that will be projected in the universe will attract the event of “my wife to leave me”. The element of negation is lost. So if that is your wish, then you should think something in the lines of “I want my wife and I to stay together”, or any other positive form that will attract that action. In fact, what you need to do is adopt a positive thinking.
I’m sure you’ve heard of those self-help books that promote positive thinking as the way to a happy life. Well they are right, because by thinking about what you want instead of what you don’t what, you will experience those things that will make your wishes come true. This means that all you have to do is create an image in your mind of what you would like your life to be, next keep this image alive and you will see it taking shape in reality.
This theory is more thoroughly discussed in the film The Secret: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0846789/
We are all made of energy! The peoples of the Far East all know this, just look at the people who practice Tai Chi, they move this invisible energy that is all around us and in us. In fact, as quantum physics shows it we are not even made of mass, we are a form of energy as everything around us is. And this form of energy is controlled by our mind, by the thoughts we project.
Quantum physicists argue that if we could control our mind and if we believed that we have the power to reshape the reality around us, then we could actually do this. We could create the world around us according to our desires.
The Newtonian theory states that everything around us is a result of hazard, that even though you take the right decisions, the events in your life are independent of your actions. In contrast, the quantum theory goes to say that the universe responds to the mental energy we project out to it, meaning that the thoughts we constantly feed inside our minds shape the events in our lives.
Every thing has an energy field and as a result every interaction is in fact doubled by an interaction of energy fields. Once this aspect is understood, then we can move to a new level of understanding of the universe we live in.
How many people do you know who have A blood type, who work too much and suffer from stress related diseases and can’t calm down? They don’t calm down because they use all sorts of habits to distract themselves and they reduce their life to its practical aspect. They do this to avoid reminding themselves how insecure they are about their life.
In his book Redfield draws a sort of timeline showing our evolution through time. About a thousand years ago people’s lives were ruled by a sort of blind faith in God and in the Church. However, with scientifical discoveries people began to doubt that God is all mighty. As a consequence scientists were sent out to discover the truth. In the meanwhile, people shifted their attention to a new purpose, a material one and they began to concern themselves with ensuring their personal comfort and security. So this became a purpose to life, this is the issue we have to rise above. And rising above it implies realizing that this material purpose is not the real purpose of our existence and as a result we start searching for the real goal of this existence.
This is something I strongly believe in, especially because it gives deeper meaning to life.
For some time now I’ve been trying to get my hands on a book, actually on a trilogy. I’m talking about a group of books written by James Redfield.
One day at the office, I was just returning from the copy room when something caught my eye. In my neighbor’s drawer I spotted a green book with its title containing “SH”. I immediately thought it’s a book by Redfield, so I asked him to show me the book. Little was my surprise when it turned out to be the last book of the series. In addition, he also owned the first book and he was glad to lend them to me so I can read them.
This book reveals a series of insights that I found very interesting, especially since a part of them I have experienced. And, if I can overcome my inertia I might experience the rest.
The story goes that we, humans are on a continuous journey of evolution from the beginning of time till the present day and onward. Nowadays we have reached a point where the next step that we have to make is to wake up from our slumber of ignorance to become aware of the reality around us. The signal of this moment of evolution consists of noticing coincidences happening in your lives. These coincidences come as a sort of answer to the problems you are facing in order to help you move forward.
I found that becoming aware of the fact that “coincidences” actually happen for a reason gave me meaning and made my experiences full of beauty and love. However, lately I haven’t been aware of anymore coincidences taking place in my life. In fact, awareness is the keyword here, since most of the time we are like sleepwalkers. We move through life without noticing what’s around us.
So, to put it short: wake up, be aware of life, enjoy it and soon you’ll live this insight.
Among the many stories that I have heard one stands out. It’s the story of Milarepa.
Milarepa is a Tibetan Saint, who during his youth learnt the craft of black magic and destroyed an entire village, killing many souls only to satisfy his mother’s thirst for revenge. Realizing the immense wrong he had committed, Milarepa went out to seek someone to help him release himself from the chain of karma he accumulated. Under the guidance of Marpa he endured many years of physical hardship to burn his negative karma and finally through meditation he reached enlightenment.
Milarepa’s life stands as an example that anyone can free himself from their karmic chain of cause and effect, no matter how low they find themself.
Also during his life, Milarepa made a blessing saying that whomever would hear or speak his name would not be reborn in a lower life form than his present one.
Here’s a movie illustrating the first part of Milarepa’s life: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499238/
