All this soul searching, and wanting to reach a 'higher state' or 'understanding'

So, are you looking for a better life?
look no more,
life cant be better, or worse
because life just is.

Life happens,
wether we want it or not.
Life is,
wether we are aware of it or not.

All this searching,
and seeking,
and wanting things to be different, using abstract thoughts that have nothing to do with what is.

All the information, including what you are reading right now, about how to perceive life. In order to achieve some state that is somehow better than what you are experiencing now, is but just a drop in the ocean of what life is.
In the sense that looking for a way out, or a different perspective, or wanting to be a better person, or wanting to reach enlightenment, or desiring to feel what its like to be one with all, be consciousness itself, experiencing ego-death, we fail to see the vastness of everything else that is around us.
These are all but ideas, the same ideas that people have been having since the dawn of time and that many have pursued in the hope of breaking the cycle of life and death, reincarnation or just because its what they thought they needed in order to escape their self inflicted pain and misery.

When you search, you have a goal in mind, which is not a bad thing if you are searching for the remote because all you feel like doing is lay down and Netflix for the rest of the day. That's what your life is about in that moment in time.

When you search for a spiritual experience or a communion with God/the Universe you are just going around in circles.
Like the Ouroboros, the snake that doesn't realise it's following and eating its own tail, we are looking for something that ultimately is right there under our noses, we just are not aware or in tune with it because we are so distracted by our hunger.


So, I guess, basically everything that I have written here, and everything that countless others have written on the subject. Is distracting you from what is, right now for you.
But at the same time, it's exactly what is, the moment you read it.

Huh?


Does it matter ultimately?

Why do we need to make life so complicated?

a reply to: athousandlives

Why do we need to make life so complicated?

Because some of us like new challenges, experiences with people, other cultures and selfexploration; by it's very nature it sometimes gets complicated.

So what? An uncomplicated existence would drive me to spend way to much time on a web site and.....oh wait....

Life is mysterious, no matter how deep we dig we will still have further to go. It's an endless rabbit hole, much like the homunculus argument.

The truly wise admit that they don't know the "how" of life. Life is a paradox within itself. As you say, it just is and people miss the forest for the trees.

originally posted by: athousandlives
When you search for a spiritual experience or a communion with God/the Universe you are just going around in circles.

Does it matter ultimately?

Speak for yourself.

A simple prayer to the God Source beyond this Universe asking Him to give you guidence in a dream will give results in less than 24 hours.

Secondly, everyone on this planet right now is being given the choice to guide lost people back to 'the source' (God).

So a persons decision and actions do matter now because not many people are 'switched on' like all ATS members.

a reply to: athousandlives

Greetings- Reads as if it was written by someOne who has lived 1,000 Lives. Perhaps You can share that 'insight' w/the Ones who are under the impression that this is ALL there is?

Are You a reader? Here is a book that is right down that line and I've even added a 'con' review..

www.goodreads.com...

books.google.com...

hinessight.blogs.com...

I'm goin' fishin'

namaste

a reply to: JimNasium


Nice Jim- Here is another:The Meaning Of Life
by Joseph Rowlands
(This speech was given at SOLOC1 in 2002)

What is life? What do we mean when we say the word? Since the word stands at the center of Objectivist ethics, the answer to this question has wide-reaching implications. We say that life is our standard of evaluation when judging morality. It seems like it'd be a good idea to take a closer look at the term. This lecture is intended to determine what exactly is the meaning of the word life. I'll discuss different possible meanings, and the implications of both.

So to start, I'm making the claim that there are two very different, competing ideas for the meaning of life. I call these the static and the dynamic view of life. I believe the static view of life is the more predominant view. I also believe it to be the incorrect view, which I'll attempt to show throughout this lecture.. The dynamic view of life is far less common, but appears to be more precise and useful. I'll start with an explanation of the two competing views of life, before comparing and contrasting them. I'll begin with the static view of life.

Static View of Life:

The static view of life holds that life is a state. It's like a position you get to. An end point you secure or maintain. An analogy is being satiated after a nice meal. You've arrived at the state, or secured it. Over time, you start to lose the position, though. You automatically move farther away from it. You can then act again in order to re-secure the position. Without action, you'll eventually stop being satisfied, and become hungry.

In this view, life is the opposite of death. Death is the state at which your mind and body stop functioning. It's a point that when you reach it, it fundamentally changes what you are. You go from being a living breathing entity, to a corpse. In this sense, death is very clear-cut. We can take a similar view of life. Life, then, is the state in which your mind and body still function. It's the condition before death.

With this view of life in mind, let's look at some implications to this view of life. To start, since life is our standard of morality, what implications would that have on our ethics. What kind of actions would we take, and how will we evaluate those actions according to this view.

If you think of life as the state of not being dead, there's a lot of things you can do to prevent death. You can put a large zone of comfort between you and death. The easiest example is having lots of money. Money can buy medical treatment, food, clothing, shelter, self-defense...the list goes on and on. So to ensure your life, you could seek to gain large sums of money.

Next, your health is an important indication of how far away you are from death. You can even say it's the direct measure. Money is an abstract measurement of how far you are from death. It adds long term security, and protection against surprises. Health, though, is right there. If you fail in any of your needs in life, you can see your health deteriorate. Everything is geared towards increasing your health, and decreasing illness.

Then there's risk. If life is a state, then you have to avoid actions that might lead to death. Risk-minimization is important. In modern days, where medical science is pretty useful, and food is abundant, non-natural death is relatively very dangerous. Sudden accidents can kill you even if you're very healthy, and have lots of money. So reducing risks is one of the ways of promoting life.

You can continue this method of looking at life, and determining values. Some are more abstract. Capitalism, for instance, reduces threats of war, violence from your own government, makes food more plentiful, encourages medical science to progress, etc. You can look at all of these ends which helps buffer your from death.

I said earlier that the static view of life was predominant. Now that we have a better idea of what it is, we can point to instances of this view. There's a number of them, so I'll concentrate on some of the bigger ones.

First, there's the idea of 'success'. People strive for it, and others are jealous of it. So what is it? Well, many people would say that 'success' is having accomplished great things, or acquiring large amounts of wealth. Success usually involves having a nice paying job, a comfortable house, sporty cars, beautiful wife and kids, and a dog or cat. It can include having made a scientific breakthrough, or becoming President of the United States, or starting a successful business. This view of success is very much based on a view that life is a state. It points to a pretty picture, showing all of the things you have or have done.

A second instance of the static view of life is the goal of retirement. Many people yearn for the day they'll be able to quite their job because they've got enough money. They have this idea that maybe they'll take it easy, hang out with friends or loved ones, and stop wasting so much of their lives. They can travel the world, meet interesting people, and not have a worry in the world. I say this is the static view of life because it seeks a point in life where you are finished. You have everything you need to live. There's no point continuing to struggle because you've secured, as well as you can, the bulk of your contest against death.

A third, and similar instance of this view of life is marriage. A lot of young people view marriage as a position to reach in life. It's supposed to bring happiness. I've seen people who think that once they get married, many of their troubles will go away. They'll have secured companionship, and they'll be able to focus on other things. In this sense, marriage is seen as an end-product. A value that's achieved.

So to review, the static view of life holds that life is a state. Actions should be taken to preserve or strengthen this state. Since it's a state, you can measure it at any particular time. You can point to the money, marriage, house, or well-paying job as proof of your successful living. The focus is very much on the values you accomplish. I'll now turn to the dynamic view of life.

Dynamic View of Life:

The dynamic view of life holds that life is a process, not a state. Ayn Rand said "Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action." Notice the term 'process'. It's a "process of self-sustaining and self-generated action".

In this view, life is not a state, but a series of actions. Life isn't a place you reach, but the process of reaching it. Life is action. It's the things you do. It's the process of accomplishing goals, not just the end results of the goals. Life is action. Life is the things you do and accomplish.

In the analogy I gave earlier, I compared the static view of life to being satiated. In the dynamic view of life, being satiated may be the end target, but it's the process of producing food, cooking, eating, and digesting that we would call life. This is not to say being satiated is not the goal. That is still the ends being pursued. But life is not simply the ends. It's the entire process, from start to finish.

So life isn't just the things you accomplish. It's not having a lot of goods, or having accomplished a lot. It very much depends on how you gained those goods, and how you achieved it. It's not the money in your wallet, but how you got the money. Did you earn it? Did you steal it

a reply to: athousandlives

There's one way I know of quite extensively but we can't talk about that here.

a reply to: athousandlives

Life cant be better, or worse
because life just is.

That's not true because thousands of years ago there were more diseases and more wide-spread slavery and even stadiums where people fought to the death as many people watched and found "entertainment" in their suffering, and this was considered legal. At one point, there was even no compassion for rape of women. That was seen as normal and some even used rape as a method for marriage.

Life is way more peaceful than before. There is more Love.

What matters is Love. Without Love, people are like "Ouroboros", the symbol of the dragon that consumes itself and is self-destructive, but with Love, people are Born Again/Resurrected.

originally posted by: athousandlives


So, are you looking for a better life?
look no more,
life cant be better, or worse
because life just is.

Life happens,
wether we want it or not.

I think this 'essay' would go down a bit easier, if you didn't present it as the only 'worthy' Perspective!

"The acceptance and understanding of other Perspectives furthers our acquaintance with Reality!"

originally posted by: namelesss

"The acceptance and understanding of other Perspectives furthers our acquaintance with Reality!"

Reality is what is real - it is what there is. There is no one separate from reality so how can there be different perspectives of it?
As soon as there is a describing of 'what is' it is not anymore - reality is constantly changing - appearing different - it is ungraspable.

Who can accept and who can understand? Reality is hiding and seeking is happening or reality is not seeking. Reality IS whatever is happening.

originally posted by: athousandlives


These are all but ideas, the same ideas that people have been having since the dawn of time and that many have pursued in the hope of breaking the cycle of life and death, reincarnation or just because its what they thought they needed in order to escape their self inflicted pain and misery.

Self-inflicted pain.

That says it all.

Most of our misery and suffering is self-inflicted.

It is self-inflicted because it has to do with what we tell ourselves.

It is also has to do with the examples we are given to follow.

So we must break free of our Habit Energy, our Toxic Emotions.
So we must unlearn the Habit Energy, and let go of Psychic Pain.

We do this by telling ourselves the truth.
We do this by rising above ego and false authority.
We do this by our communication with Source.

Joy and Abundant Peace is our natural state of being.
Everything else is noise, mere worry and distraction.
Returning to Source is reclaiming wholeness and bliss.

Mindfulness leads to Peace.
Awareness to Joy
because these are always with us
they are always present

we need only open our eyes and see.
we need only open our ears and hear.

a reply to: athousandlives

That's why I like this video

a reply to: woodwardjnr

Thanks, I admit that Alan Watts has been a great influence lately. He always manages to make me realise how seriously I take life and all the constant self inflicted mental pain has very little to do with what is really happening.

a reply to: athousandlives

You need to cheer up a bit.

I seem to remember posting to a thread of yours some time in the past. It was about the Tarot pack you had bought. What happened since ? Don't tell me. You gave up.

Patience is the key when embarking on any form of esoteric studies. You must already know that.

What is ironic is that the moment you embark on any kind of search/study (be it tarot, magic, meditation, or whatever) you life immediately starts changing. You feels different and your focus of attention changes. Many channels open up but not much flows in causing an imbalance. To counter it you put even more effort and the situation becomes even more frustrating.

I do not believe you are the type that just gives up and this OP is just you having a bad day.

Even though you are not looking for advice , I will still make a suggestion.

Firstly, you will not get very far unless you train three aspects of yourself (body, mind and soul) at the same time.

Secondly, you must experiment. Everyday, you have the opportunity to do a little magic. Use it. Whether it be doing a tarot reading for friends just for fun; predicting the outcome of something; attracting someone's attention by focussing on them. You will find that you become more attuned to your environment. Then it become easier to achieve success because you have had fist hand experience of your inter-connection with your surrounding.

It is well worth reaching higher states of understanding. The direct benefit is that you rise above most obstacles and eventualities in mundane life. After all , it is you mind that imprisons you and it is the first part of you that needs to be disciplined.

a reply to: wasaka

wow wasaka

I found a simple truth that seems to work for me.

That is that happiness is found in connection and experience with others. The more time I spend with other people I enjoy the company of, family, friends, meeting new people, etc. the happier I am. Money, power over others, social standing, material possessions dont seem to matter or relate to how I feel.

Does any of it really matter , other than right now? Probably not, but life is a hell of a ride if you spend as much of it as possible with other people. At least in my experience.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain

originally posted by: namelesss

"The acceptance and understanding of other Perspectives furthers our acquaintance with Reality!"

Reality is what is real - it is what there is.

Yes! It's ALL there is!

There is no one separate from reality so how can there be different perspectives of it?

There is One Consciousness that peeks from all eyes.
Every point in the entire Universe is a unique Conscious Perspective of the bit of Reality that exists before it.
Rather like telescopes pointing in all directions, at all 'magnifications' at the same moment!
All would be a unique Perspective of the One Reality!

As soon as there is a describing of 'what is' it is not anymore - reality is constantly changing - appearing different - it is ungraspable.

All 'change' is apparent, due to the unique Perspective every moment!
The 'scenery never changes, only the Perspective (doesn't 'change', but is always unique)!
And YES! The 'eternal' Here! Now! is most assuredly 'ungraspable'!

There is One (unchanging, ALL inclusive) Universal Reality, Here! Now!
Every moment is a unique 'snapshot' by which the Universe becomes completely and utterly Self! Aware!

Who can accept and who can understand? Reality is hiding and seeking is happening or reality is not seeking. Reality IS whatever is happening.

All Here Is, is Reality!
As you said, it most certainly IS "what's happening"! *__-

a reply to: wasaka

That is beautiful, thanks.
Actually, I'm trying to constantly remind myself of just being aware and opening my eyes and really see, and my ears and really listen.
Sort of like a mantra,
It ain't easy though, its so easy to forget and just get carried away by all the emotion and thoughts
peace

a reply to: crowdedskies

Cheers crowdedskies, I guess I needed that advice.
Even though I wasnt particularly sad or depressed when I wrote this. I just came to some kind of realisation that nothing really matters in the end, you see, all religious ideas and dogmas, or politics, or just striving for personal spiritual perfection.
The reality is we know nothing, we have many ideas and concepts, but ultimately everyone's ideas are different from the others.
I'm not saying don't follow a particular path, if you are really and honestly attracted to it, but just don't take everything too seriously (that's my thing, I take life way too seriously sometimes).

And what you say about disciplining the mind, is something I have been trying to do for years now, maybe I'm slowly getting better at it. But still such a long way to go.

And I do still read a tarot spread now and again, it's actually just there looking at me, I think I might have a go tonight.

a reply to: TechniXcality

I guess I have an idea of what you are talking about... maybe.
I had a few 'experiences' which led to some deep insights.
I say there is no right or wrong, all is part of life, in the end.
The most difficult thing for me is to remind myself of such insights and apply them in day to day life.