free thinking

I am going to expand on a topic that has come up in discussion. I will revert on it later again, to touch on the Absolute and Relative nature of things. Today I will restrict the conversation to a specific aspect of knowledge sharing.

There are 6 billion people on this planet, and each one has their own opinion on life and its nature. With these 6 billion viewpoints, all different, how can anyone maintain that their viewpoint is better than that of another?

With this kind of argument, we immediately move into dangerous territory. If it is all relative to the person experiencing it, what about Hitler, or even George W? Is their experience or perception just as valid, because relative to them, it is right?

First off, I want to make it clear that there is nothing worse than pompous preaching, with some fool trying to force his understanding onto other people, thereby doing a good job of destroying their individual and real understanding of life, by having them adopt his stupid ideas. But there are people walking this earth who have gained a lot of wisdom, and we can learn from them. Our path can be made easier by gaining their insight, as these people have seen deeply into life.

How do you tell them apart, the charlatan and the sage? It is simple, by what rings true in your soul. Read the words, think them in your mind, and if they are the right words for you at this stage of your development, they will ring true in your heart and you will know them to be true. If they do not feel right, no matter who says them, don’t force yourself to believe it. Your soul is developing on its path, and will recognize the next step for it. Even more important, life will lead you to that step.

For me, that is the basis of faith. Learning to trust that you have a higher self, the deepest part of you, and it has a divine link and can recognize truth. And learning to trust that life, as tough and no-holds-barred as it is, is a sweeping, majestic design that we will never be able to properly comprehend.

A very interesting comment was made on the previous post. While it may have seemed overly negative, it was written at 10pm at the office, when matters take on a certain perspective while vitality is low. Today is Friday, I have just received a new car, the weekend lies ahead, and the perspective is very different. But they are both perspectives on the same matter, and both perspectives have truth to them.

I think my main point in that posting, is that we have to be consciously aware of where we are going with our lives, where it is taking us too, who we are becoming. Midlife crises are very prevalent, and I think that their cause is very simple and almost unavoidable. A life lived for decades without a spiritual focus, starts to seem as empty and meaningless as it really is. Experience eventually shows the person, that the way that their life has been lived, is fruitless. One can not achieve real contentment if one is not living the “real” life.

This dawning should be a turning point in the life of a person, but because society is so extremely unaware of the real, underlying nature of life, it gets glossed over as a mid-life crisis and the advice is to get some medication to feel better. When it should be to change their life, change their perceptions, change their thoughts, and become truly alive for the first time.

So, why the focus on thought?

A few people with strong, clear minds that have a good flow of positive thoughts; have a significant impact on their environment, including on the people that surround them. All Scriptures refer to the yeast that will leaven the bread, or something similar.

So if you develop your mind and have control over the thoughts in it, it is not just for the benefit of yourself, but also of society. And yet there is almost no focus on it in modern times. When it is all that is really important. Seeing life with clear eyes, and controlling your words and deeds with a clear mind.

And it not just new-age fluff. There are many people who will not care if I explain how the yoga books teach that matter comes from energy, and energy comes from mind, and mind comes from thought, so through thought we can control the world around us. So, lets switch from yoga teachings to particle physics.

When they investigated the atomic nucleus, they discovered that the proton and the neutron are not the small billiard balls they were once thought to be. They are made up of smaller particles called quarks, which can not be separated and are only found within a particle. What is extremely interesting about quarks, is that they seem to flicker in and out of (material) existence. Quarks, like electrons, are nothing else but energy.

Quantum physics has also shown that the fact of observing an experiment influences its outcome. The person’s thoughts affect the physical processes.

So this material, hard, unchangeable world around us is very much an illusion. The chair that you are sitting on is made of atoms that are nothing more than tiny swirls of energy held in a pattern. A pattern that is formed and held by intelligence.

Our intelligence is NO DIFFERENT from the Universal Intelligence, it is part of it.

By having intelligence, you have power, and you have responsibility to use it properly.

I received this in the mail from a friend:
“While walking out of work on the public holiday, I grabbed a fruit juice from
one of the fridges.

As I cross the road I see a beggar in an old gown scratching through
the bin for some food. he pulls out an old Iced Tea can and pours
some of the remaining liquid out that has ash, insects and other things
floating on the top. Without thinking, I cross the road again to him,
push his hand down with the can in his hand and asked him to please
not drink that. I gave him my juice instead and have never seen
someone so happy. That made my women’s day.”

it is something that i see with every day. when you spend money on yourself, it gives a certain amount of satisfaction. buy something for someone that really needs something, see their real joy, and see how much more you gain from it.

and it is not really about charity, or being soft or too liberal. the yoga teachings state it simply, that the more advanced a human is, the more they realise how closely they are connected to other humans, and other beings. in fact, this is a direct test of someones state of development.

the simple man cares only about himself. then as he grows through lifetimes, he starts to care about his family, then his tribe, then his race, then his nation, until eventually he cares about all people. the advanced human does not feel peace until all of his fellow humans, know happiness.

the reason behind this, is how closely we are linked. ultimately, we are one being. if you hurt another, you hurt a part of yourself. when we treat the poorest being with compassion and dignity, we are honouring the source from which we all come. because we all have the same spark inside of us, some just have more rubbish around the spark. but that spark is there, and gives them their divine nature. and we should love that divine nature.

I had been neglecting something very important the last few months, and that was daily yoga and meditation. When I resumed the practice, I was quickly struck by how valuable it is, and the lack of recent practice explained my recent uneasiness.

There is one realisation that strikes me very powerfully when I sit in meditation. You withdraw into your centre, get in touch with your core, and everything else around you fades in significance. This leads to the understanding that this would be possible whatever the surrounding circumstances were.

In other words, what is happening around you, the circumstances that you find yourself in, can not really affect you, who you are, what you are made of. That is always the same. And when you understand that, it makes it easier to face whatever comes in your day. Because it can not really affect you. Nothing can really change what you are.

It is partly to come to this understanding, that Life throws us the curveballs that it so loves to pepper us with. Because through the endurance of suffering and tragedy and triumph and despair, as we learn its separation from ourselves and our state of being, we start to come towards some very powerful knowledge.