Conscious living is all about living aligned with reality. A truly conscious/aware person is very grounded in the reality of life, he/she is not working from a place of delusion – the advantage (or light nature) of such a way of living is that you have peace and you are conflict-free, the dark nature of such a living is that you will lose your sense of deluded joy and motivations coming from it. The more aware you become the less you get to cling to delusions of any form, and to be robbed of your delusions is a good thing but it also can create a sense of ordinariness about life, making you lose your sense of extraordinariness about everything. I’ve also mentioned this in some previous posts that “conscious living” is not your ticket into a purely light-natured life (such a life doesn’t exist, because it can’t be realistically possible), it’s simply your ticket to living a life of a real choice – when you are living through delusions you are not really making “choices” you are simply being driven by delusions. What I define as living a life that involves a “real choice” is when you are making choices with the full understanding of reality, from a place of inner freedom, rather than making choices from a place of delusion/ignorance or fear-based motivations.
Every reality of life has a contrast present in it. You can imagine several fantasy realities, or realities that have no contrast, and envision some form of a “perfect condition”, but such realities are just imaginations of a deluded mind that does not understand the reality of life. For example, “heaven” is postulated as the highest realm to reach, a realm which is just perfection itself, and by perfection I am assuming that they are referring to it as a “purely light-natured realm”, with only joy and only love, and I am sure such a reality can exist “vibrationally”, and possibly souls that are deeply light natured congregate there, but what do you do after you reach there? You have fun for a while, may be even for an infinitely long time, and then you are bound to feel bored – the dimension of boredom is inherent to the nature of a mind (be it non-physical mind or physical mind, after all the physical mind is just made in the image of the non-physical mind, as they say – Man is made in the image of God). If heaven was the perfect reality there would have been no need to create a physical plane, like Earth, for experience.
The truth is that heaven (or the concept of it) may be a fun reality but has its own limitations, the biggest being that you can’t have physical experiences there, to have physical experiences you need to come to a physical plane; and a physical plane cannot exist without light and dark nature aspects working in cohesion, like birth and death – when you’ve had enough fun in heaven, you may get bored, and you may relish the opportunity to have another physical journey for the adventure of it, hopefully as a conscious choice. A purely light natured experience gets boring quite soon, just as a purely dark natured experience gets exhausting quite soon.
Conscious living is when you understand this reality of life and are consciously willing to embrace the light and dark nature aspects of living. I would say that the day you find the concept/reality of heaven (be it some imagination of heaven on earth or heaven as a non-physical realm) to be deeply “ordinary” is the day when you really see life in its wholeness, until then you keep seeking a certain delusion of a permanent, and purely, light-natured reality. If you find this idea to be “negative”, and feel threatened by this possibility of being robbed of a future anticipation of some extraordinariness, it would be an indication of how fearful you are towards protecting your imaginations and this fear actually keeps robbing you of true inner freedom, and wisdom, in the “Now” or present moment. Also, remember that a lot of religious fanaticism happens in the name of heaven and a lot of people inflict suffering on themselves to seek a future salvation in heaven – it’s just an indication of how delusions lead to suffering, be it a delusion about heaven or hell.
The truth about conscious choice
A conscious choice is the one that you make in full cognition of reality without being influenced by pressure induced externally or internally. To understand that every reality of life has a light and dark nature is the foundation of having a clear cognition of any reality that you desire to pursue. To connect with the natural sense of inner freedom/wholeness, inherent to your being, is the foundation of making choices that are free of external or internal pressure induced by neediness (or lack-based thinking), fear-based thinking or any other imbalanced motivations created from a place of delusion. The absence of a conscious choice is what I would call “compromised living”. When you make a conscious choice, it may look like you are consciously embracing certain compromises that come as a part/consequence of the reality of your choice, but in truth you don’t feel a sense of resentment, bitterness, lack or victimization (that’s associated with a truly compromised life), while you live your choice this way – you own your choices in full cognition of the consequences that it entails, the light natured ones and the dark natured ones.
Consider this example, you may be an introverted person and feel highly bitter of your condition out of your desire to be extroverted (possibly a party animal who is the center of attention), the reason for your bitterness could well be that you are associating something extraordinary with being extroverted (you may imagine that extroverted people are living a superior life) in which case your desire is coming from a place of delusion, so your suffering is created from your deluded thinking more than anything else. When you are willing to see that the reality of an extroverted person also has dark nature elements involved in it, beyond just seeing the light natured elements that it attracts, you will be able to see this reality in its wholeness. When you have this cognition, you may lose your desire for being extroverted, because you no longer associate something extraordinary with it – now you can be introverted as a “conscious choice” without bitterness, without resentment, without feeling inferior. Of course, you can also develop the “skills” of being an extroverted person, as a conscious choice, just for the sake of wanting to live that experience or for the experience of growth – any skills can be developed over time, with an attitude of learning, it’s just that some realities will never feel natural to you and to experience them you will have to suppress your natural inclination (and you can do that as a conscious choice).
The more aware I become the more I see that everything has its own charm, in its own way. The experience of struggle has its own charm as does a struggle-free experience. It’s just that you cannot see the charm in an experience unless it’s a conscious choice. When you are forced into something (that doesn’t feel like a conscious choice for you), either through internal or external pressure, you just feel like a victim, you just feel resentment and bitterness, you don’t feel the charm of that experience. For example, a millionaire who drives around in the most luxurious cars may find a charm in traveling in public transport when he gets to experience it as a conscious choice – every experience has a charm when you know that you are only experiencing it temporarily for the sake of that experience. You can now understand why a soul having fun in the non-physical would take an incarnation as a handicapped beggar in the most decrypt cities in the world, purely from the perspective of fascination for the experience – when you’ve been eating sweets all day, the prospect of eating a spicy curry is highly alluring even if it makes your eyes water. Dark nature is not a “negative nature”, it’s a necessary element for the presence of charm, for the presence of choice – without “contrast” life will be extremely boring and static. Negativity does not arise from the reality of life but from our delusions about its reality which causes us to move into imbalanced way of thinking.
The dynamics of living from a conscious choice
You can see people enjoying the experience of fear as a conscious choice, like when they consciously choose to watch a horror movie, to go bungee jumping, to ride the longest roller coaster, to go sky diving or taking up a new experience for the sake of its adventure and uncertainty. So fear as a feeling is not a “negative” by itself, you can enjoy fear also, it’s just that we wouldn’t like to experience fear under force or under some sense of helplessness. Fear can be enjoyed as a conscious choice, it’s just an experience. In fact when you learn to enjoy fear you will no longer suffer from its presence. I learnt to embrace/enjoy fear when I realized that it was a required dimension in the mind and that it added a certain flavor to the experience of living, for example if you remove the dimension of fear totally from the mind you will also remove several aspects of wisdom.
Fear can hamper wisdom or it can aid wisdom, it totally depends of how much inner freedom you have towards fear, if you feel forced by fear then you have no real inner freedom and hence no real choice towards wisdom. I made a real shift, towards finding freedom from the influence of fear (I was dealing with strong anxieties due to my life circumstances), when I stopped seeing fear from the rigid perspective of wanting to get rid of it (and wanting some purely light natured state of living) and started realizing the charm of fear; I realized that I did not have to get rid of fear, I could just enjoy/allow the experience of it as it was – this attitude is what is actually the foundation of the “practice of allowing” and it dissolves the imbalanced momentum of any dimension in you.
An activity can come from the place of force or from the place of choice. For example, let’s say you want to be a marathon runner, first of all this choice can come from a place of delusion in that you feel that you can only term yourself successful/worthy when you finish a marathon (in which case the choice is lack-based and feels like a force), or it can come from a place of wholeness where you feel the desire for the experience of running a marathon purely for the sake of that experience or the adventure of it (in which case the choice is free of struggle and doesn’t feel like a force). When your choice comes from a place of wholeness you are willing to enjoy the dark nature along with the light nature of a reality – for example, to run a marathon you would have to practice running several miles a day while stretching your limits every time (which would be physically painful) to keep building endurance for more miles; it’s logical that you can’t increase your endurance if you don’t stretch the limit by a small amount every session, and stretching your limit will always feel painful, you understand this to be the dark nature of this reality and are consciously accepting of it, hence you don’t feel resentful about the training and enjoy the pain of it knowing it to be your choice and knowing that it will allow your to achieve/experience the light nature aspects that you desire (like building stamina and feeling stronger). However, when this same choice comes from a place of force, where you either feel forced to run a marathon due to external pressure or due to some lack-based belief that you hold about yourself, then there will be a presence of resentment and a sense of being victimized, which is what leads to a sense of struggle instead of a sense of enjoyment.
Arnold Schwarzenegger mentioned that he enjoyed the pain of muscle building (which requires you to tear down your existing muscle tissues by lifting heavier weights so that the body builds bigger fibers of muscle). Anyone who really takes up body building, or just weight training, as a conscious choice, would also have this attitude of enjoying the pain of process, they don’t complain about the pain; however, if they take it up as a forced choice then they would just feel deep resentment every time they have to hit the gym. To have a chiseled body, and enjoying the look of the body, is the light nature of this choice, whereas the pain of muscle building is the dark nature of this choice, when you make a conscious choice you need to account for both the natures and embrace their presence to ensure there is no resistance in you towards this reality. If you don’t like the experience of the pain of muscle building, and feel that it will compromise on the way you want to live your life, then let go of the reality of having a chiseled body – don’t feel resentful about giving up a reality, just know that its dark nature did not align with you and hence you made a conscious choice towards leaving it. Just remember that there is no reality that doesn’t have a dark nature attached to it, and you have the choice to decline the experience of a reality if you don’t like the dark nature component that it would bring in – don’t feel lackful about letting go of realities, there are plenty of realities to experience, and no reality is superior or inferior by itself, it just depends on your personal preference and perspective.
Even while following your true passion, in terms of a career or vocation, you need to contend with certain dark natures that would be present in your reality. Basically it boils down to the question of priority. Just because someone is following their passion doesn’t mean that they have no challenges or dark nature to deal with, it’s just that they stay true to their priority of following their passion in their expression over other things. For example, if you are an entrepreneur, following your passion to be independent, you might have to spend more time at the business than you would spend doing a 9 to 5 job and you would have to be okay with the responsibility of being your own money generator, but on the light nature side you don’t have to report to anyone and can boost your earnings at anytime depending on your productivity instead of waiting for the year end appraisal. Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone, and doing a 9 to 5 job is not for everyone, and one is not superior than the other – it just has to be a matter of conscious choice based on understanding yourself and your priorities. For example, if the security of receiving a steady pay check, every month, is a bigger priority for you than the adventure of running a business on your own, or following your passion about something that interests you, then make a conscious choice towards that priority – your priorities can change as you grow in maturity, or grow in your sense of inner freedom, but at any point you need to have an understanding of what your priority is and stay true to it while embracing the light and dark nature of the choice.
If you don’t feel like making a choice about something, you can always make the choice to just let go and allow life to bring you a certain clarity on your preferences. Always allow yourself a sense of abundance, where you don’t feel the need to make choices under pressure – the truth is there is never a lack of choices in life, if you miss one boat there will always be another one coming along. Of course, this choice of having a sense of abundance would require you to embrace the fear of uncertainty (when there is no boat in sight one can end up panicking instead of being allowing of the temporary phase of uncertainty before the next boat comes in). To make choices with a sense of lack will always make you feel resentful even if it gives you a sense of temporary pseudo-security. Living a life of struggle or aligning with a struggle-free way of living are both choices, each has its own light and dark nature to contend with.
Riding out the consequences of your past choices
When you make a choice, it starts spiraling into a reality and this reality has a momentum to it that sustains it. Even after you terminate your past choice, the reality created by that choice will continue to play out for a while due to its “gathered” momentum. So you will have to deal with the consequences of a past choice, for a while, even after you consciously make a new choice. It’s important to realize that the consequences of your past choice will run out of momentum, in some span of time, when you start making a different choice – this is part of reality and it’s best if you simply embrace this truth about it instead of fighting the consequences of your past choices. You can make a new choice at any point, and if you stick with your new choice (in thought and action) your reality will shape up to match it, and the realities created by your old choices will dissolve on their own. Of course the dark nature of making a new choice is the dissolution of the realities created by your old choice, a sense of loss can come in when you let go of an old reality as a part of your new choice – one has to have the openness to allow this dissolution, and sense of loss, as a matter of choice.
If you want your old realities (created by your old choices) to dissolve faster, you would need to stop giving interest or focus to these old realities and just allow yourself to experience the consequences of its past momentum, in a state of openness, until it ebbs away. For example, if you incurred a financial debt as a result of some past choices (from a state of unconsciousness or delusion), and you are currently a more aware person who is making a conscious choice towards financial stability, you will have to ride out the consequence of your past choice for a while, in that the debt will not disappear overnight, it has a momentum which it will sustain for a while. You will have to stop being so focused on the consequences of the past choice, and bring your focus to your current choice. The debt will have to be handled, and if you are in a state of allowing you will always be receptive to solutions coming in, however you don’t have to keep worrying about it or feel resentful about it, rather you can stay with the choice of letting go of identifying with the patterns of thinking that lead you to the financial crisis (like patterns of neediness and lack) while holding a perspective of abundance or well-being.
Choices made from a state of imbalance will obviously created imbalanced realities. An imbalanced reality is rooted in an imbalance of struggle or suffering, and the intense fluctuation of the experiences of highs and lows. A state of imbalance comes from a mind/thinking based in delusion. The consequence of the choices made from the state of imbalance will continue to have their effect, in your reality, for a while even after you become consciously balanced in your thinking – this can’t be helped, and it’s part of the physics of how life-energy moves, in that it sustains momentum from a past focus, for a while, even after the focus is removed. Knowing this truth about life will allow you to stop feeling confused/worried about why a certain imbalanced reality is not “leaving” your presence even though your thinking has changed – don’t allow the presence of this past consequence to affect your present choice of thinking (in fact, even your thinking will have a past momentum based on past choices which you would need to let go of identifying with, in a conscious manner). The state of allowing is about letting the old consequences/momentum ride out, and ebb away, in force thus bringing in congruent solutions – if you try to fight it or if you continue to identify with it or suppress it, you are indirectly giving it more fuel to sustain.
Can you go more in depth in regards to aligning with the dark nature of a desired reality? This seems to be the most challenging part of aligning with the ordinariness of life.
Is it useful to simply categorize our desired reality into the six dimensions of the mind, like you mentioned in an older entry?
I’ll use the ambiguous example of winning the lottery (becoming a millionaire overnight) :
Fear – you would fear for your security or the security of your loved ones because you inherently know that having money makes you a target for crime/greed, you would fear losing it all and going broke again, you’d fear people judging you for having abundance, fear of peoples ulterior motives, fear that although you have a lot of money you still aren’t content, fear of losing people for not fulfilling their expectations, you would fear the great deal of responsibility especially in relation to the economy
Hate – you hate that people hold high expectations for you to fulfill thier (financial) needs, at some point you would hate maintaining the lifestyle and perhaps begin to resent the money, you would hate being judged by others who feel you don’t deserve abundance, you’d quickly begin to hate the financial responsibilities like bills or managing finances, you’d hate higher taxes, you’d have difficulty distinguishing true friends from those who are just around for money/perks
Boredom – less pressure to have a job so more freetime, at some point you would lose the thrill of the “lavish” lifestyle, there would be less of a challenge when it comes to impressing people which could make you feel dull, you would sense that everyone around you simply likes you because you are rich and it gets old/boring to be around them, you would begin to resent how easily the money came to you since you didn’t have to work hard to earn it and start feeling undeserving of such abundance (meaninglessness/guilt)
Sexuality – you would probably have more access to a lifestyle with more sexual freedom, however you may over-indulge due to the allure associated with sex energy
Love – you would probably feel more inclined to love others, your family relationships have a better opportunity to flourish in light of your financial abundance (of course the opposite reaction is quite possible), you would have more money to give to charity and fulfill other purposes that your heart desires
Joy – it would feel easier to align with creativity, there would naturally be more opportunities for joyful activities like travelling, family get-togethers, parties, and material desires would be more easily fulfilled
Ok, can you shed some insight on whether I’m in the right frame of mind here? Is wanting to win the lottery a deluded desire coming from a place of lack, or is it simply a desire coming from the understanding of effortless creation? (it feels like the latter, yet there is still a sense of superiority towards the light natured aspects, isn’t this natural though, as the light nature is far more enjoyable?) Also could you share some ideas on how to improve this perspective? The act of creating this list felt effortless and inspired by the desire to gain a deeper understanding on aligning with the reality of life.
Look forward to your response.
I noticed I went in depth with the dark nature while neglecting the light nature so I added more just to have a little more fun and balance the dark with light.
Sexuality – you’d probably receive more attention from the opposite sex since financial abundance is desirable, naturally feel more confident to attract a desired sexual experience
Love – you would love your financial freedom, love sharing your wealth and making others happy, love meeting new people who have financial abundance too, love pursuing new business ventures, you’d love running in to people from the past to show off your new improved lifestyle
Joy – more money to align with your comfort (better car, better furniture), you would enjoy the act of going out and shopping, or simply enjoy normal activities (like going out for a walk in a nice confortable pair of shoes that you previously couldn’t afford), enjoy the attention you receive from others especially the opposite sex, you’d enjoy giving, you’d have more freedom to try new things and discover more desires
Ok, now it’s a little more balanced. If this is a proper mindset, how would one go about aligning with this? In a state of wholeness I’m sure it would be done naturally, but visualizing help, while allowing resistance to ebb away? Thank you.
Great read… I am currently learning to practice to think and live my life the way you are teaching and its starting to help me. I am still dealing with the momentum of past choices that happened before I discovered this new “realistic” way of living and thinking. So I have a job that I took out of feeling lack and feeling fear to make money right away. So I am resentful toward the job and feel inferior when I go into work .. But now since reading your articles I am choosing to let go of that and accept this is a natural consequence “neither negative or positive” of my past choices and I can just accept it and not feel resentful. I also now am learning to enjoy the experience for what it is actually in a similar way that you said someone in heaven may get bored and want to try living on earth as a beggar. Once I reach a new level of awareness I believe that my situation will improve and I will start to choose what I am doing more and more, and when I have to do things that I don’t want or choose to do I will be able to let go and just be aware of the reality of what is happening and take the experience for what it is.
I have also been severely plagued with extreme anxiety and hopeless thinking for the last several years… Now I am practicing just being aware of the thoughts that pop up in my mind, and understand that they are just energy forms that are coming to my mind from past experiences and what my mental computer is generating. I no longer am giving the fear or negative hopeless thoughts as much attention and can feel the momentum starting to shift. Its only been 3 days but I can tell an improvement. Will positive thoughts start to occur naturally again for someone who has been living in severe depression and hopeless type thought for several years? I am already noticing a great improvement but just curious if “positive” or thought not based on fear or lack etc will occur naturally?
Sen, I’ve lately found myself frustrated with a repeating pattern of struggle. I felt I’d finally turned a corner some months ago – then a month later, found myself back where I was before. Let go of the upset feelings and got along nicely, then this struggle would come up again. A situation came up again last week that had me upset, wondering why I am unable to free myself of this (lifelong) pattern of worry.
Your last paragraph is very helpful – I may well have turned the corner and may be on my way to letting go of the old pattern, but the strong momentum will keep it coming up for some time yet. My mind needs this sort of truth to quell the urge to fall back into the pattern of worry. Yes, this has come up again; but no, there is no real need to get in a tizzy about it.
How does one become comfortable with dark nature?
Elmir,
As the process of releasing mind momentum continues, you become balanced in both the light and dark natures. In an imbalanced state the dark nature can feel very uncomfortable and you may want to avoid it by clinging to light natured states such as Joy and Love. This is how its possible to get “hooked” on light natured states and avoid (suppress) the dark natured states. Balanced states of dark and light natures are both included in wholeness, and required to start living a conscious life. When both states are balanced you won’t have to try to be comfortable with the dark nature, it is a natural comfort in the sense that there is no resistance to the energy. Without resistance the pull of avoiding the dark nature is removed and it can be expressed wisely and freely and it will effortlessly flow without the need to suppress it or control it.
For now allow the mind momentum to keep releasing and both natures will integrate easily into your experience and automatically balance out. If you feel an intensity in the dark nature (or either nature) it just means that the nature is still in imbalance and to allow it completely so it can naturally balance out.
What about physycal pain which you don’t choose to feel, for example if you get injured somehow, how can you find the charm in it, how can you not suffer?
Irina, the point about “finding a charm” was in the context of someone who has come to a place of conscious balance (or inner wholeness). When one has a state of inner balance (through growing in awareness and letting go of imbalanced momentum) one does not attract imbalanced external situations including imbalanced pain (or any imbalanced experience), and hence one is in a position to see the charm in all their experiences. This is not true for someone who has an imbalanced momentum within, because they will tend to attract imbalanced situations/experiences, externally, including possibilities of imbalanced physical pain; it’s not possible to see a charm in imbalance because of the intensity of suffering it creates.
Do you mean that if you have come to a place of conscious balance it is imposible that you, for example get hit by a car and suffer pain as a result of this?
Irina, yeah that’s what I mean, when one has a vibration of balance he/she is not tuned to attracting an experience that’s not a match to it. Being in a place of imbalanced physical pain is not a match to a balanced vibration, so such an incident wouldn’t be happening in the reality of consciously balanced person. Of course, it’s the internal experience that matters, you can’t judge the experience a person is having based on the external incident alone – so an external incident may seem “negative” (like say a break up or a loss of some kind, that’s for the best eventually) externally but the experience of a consciously balanced person would be balanced without any extreme intensities.
Sen, thanks for the explanation. I find this a bit hard to understand entirely most probably because I lack this balance that you are talking about. I have noticed when I’ve been in some kind of physical pain a big part of the suffering is the fear of worse pain ahead and the sensation of losing control over what’s happening. I guess if these two feelings were not present I wouldn’t look at it as suffering but just as a negative experience.
In your article “You can make a new choice at any point, and if you stick with your new choice (in thought and action) your reality will shape up to match it, and the realities created by your old choices will dissolve on their own”.
Does that mean we chose fear-based living? And, to disolve fear-based living we must first (a) make a choice, and (b) allow??
Please clarify Sen.
Dave, conscious living is all about exercising a conscious choice. Fear-based living is not conscious living. We don’t choose fear-based living, the ability to have a choice requires that you have a sense of awareness (and freedom) to exercise the other option – people move into fear-based living out of a lack of deeper awareness of life or reality, by holding on to a deluded way of thinking or through unconscious identification/suppression. The state of allowing is just a pointer on how to dissolve past momentum (simply the pointer to stop suppressing and stop over-identifying with the past momentum), as you release the past momentum you start having the freedom to exercise a new choice of living, to live congruent with a conscious choice rather than being driven by the momentum of imbalance.
Hello Sen,
Your articles are really nice and makes a lot of sense. I am doing the allowing regularly for a month now. I can feel some lightness, some changes. I had one question though. There is one personal issue that has affected me recently. With allowing I am slowly able to start coming to a place of balance. I feel neutral about the issue most the time now. But one aspect of it is that there are a couple of people who during the issue has been very unfair to me and made some remarks about me which was completely opposite to what they have been telling me for years. They did that to justify some of their actions. These people were close to me, so that made the remarks very insensitive. With allowing i feel neutral towards them, but my conscious mind still has the impression that they were not fair. I dont feel anger about it, but conscious mind just wants to move away from them and focus elsewhere. But since they are close, they cannot be avoided as well. In general when someone makes a personal attack even after we reach a neutral place is it possible to go back as before? isnt it prudent to stay away? the conscious mind will prefer that right? What if they are close people? Just had a doubt as i am undertaking this journey.
Sen,
Have a question. Your comment to Irina’s following question intrigued me.
Do you mean that if you have come to a place of conscious balance it is imposible that you, for example get hit by a car and suffer pain as a result of this?
If I understood you correctly are you saying that it is impossible for a person that has come to a state of conscious balance to attract an uncontrollable but painful external reality like a car accident or a plane crash or any other external event that can cause physical injury? Or in other words is it correct to say/assume that people who attract such realities had some kind of imbalance going in them?
I have a reason I ask this question – I know a colleague of mine who worked with me. I didnt know him personally, he sat on the same cube with us and as far as i could tell he was always cheerful and happy. I for one could not detect restlessness or an imbalance in him – he seemed a pretty calm person. One day he met with a road accident when he was just crossing the street. How is this possible? Would be interested to know your views on this.
Sankar, like I said, you can’t judge an event by itself as being negative or imbalanced. For example, they say Ramana Maharishi, an enlightened guru in India, had cancer in his arm and he actually opted to have the surgery done without any anesthesia (because, in his own words, he wanted to experience the pain consciously), in fact he used to enjoy putting his body through discomfort (he would prefer lying on a rock than on cushioned bed), so in his case the experience of pain was not an “imbalanced experience”. Also, getting hit by a car and dying in an accident doesn’t have to be an event attracted by “imbalance” – one perspective is that, as a soul, they may have decided to terminate their journey at that point for any reason that they have from a non-physical stand point, what I would call a “a destiny they choose in their non-physical perspective as a part of their plan”, possibly their requirement here was to be a guide to someone or to be an inspiration or a wake-up call for someone, and once they fulfill this requirement they go back to non-physical. So an event by itself cannot be judged as being “imbalanced”. Of course, there are many people who would attract an accident purely through their imbalance. My point is that when one is balanced, one’s internal experience is one of balance, and internal experience is “personal” to that person – we cannot judge what the person is experiencing from our outside perspective.
Sen,
First of all I want to thank you for the marvelous work you are doing on this blog through your writings. your approach to life and spirituality is indeed unique. Before I came across your work my view of the higher life/spirituality was to be detached from everything. I do not know of any spiritual teacher that explains the state of conscious balance in such an easy to understand way. your writings do resonate deeply within my being even though my ego resists some of the truths that you so freely write about.
I have another question in my mind that I want to ask though – Most of the people that I know in my personal life does not know anything about consciousness or conscious living. As far as I can see most of them have pretty strong ego’s (or the ego force as you call it), they probably have little or no knowledge about the space of being (or the space of life energy as you call it), they only believe in personal will/strength with little knowledge of the “being” nature but yet they seem to function effectively and lead happy normal lives atleast on the outside. The way I see it they are unconscious yet balanced. Is my statement correct or is it just another false interpretation of the ego? The state of “unconscious” balance seems real to me. is this assumption correct?
I can now see that all my psychological suffering is due to the imbalanced force of the sensitive ego and I am now open to release this force consciously but still I cant help but ask “how is it that other people who have such sensitive ego’s seem to maintain a sense of calm and hence do not suffer?
Again I know this question is from my “ego” itself but I am curious to know your take on this.
Sankar, different people need different understanding to find balance at different points in their life depending on their level of awareness – it’s also possible to find happiness through a certain delusion, or a sense of balance through a rigid teaching, it’s what I would call unconscious balance because it’s not rooted in reality but more in delusion – unconscious balance is fine but it’s still resting on shaky grounds. Some people find peace through an orthodox religion, whereas some need to gain a deeper understanding of life to gain peace because their intelligence/awareness does not allow them to hold on to a religion based belief system. So it’s all personal. As long as person is able to find balance, it doesn’t matter how the achieved it – of course as one grows in awareness it’s possible that this balance is disturbed unless it was rooted in a clear understanding of reality. For example, I used to find a sense of happiness when I was holding to some rigid spiritual teachings, it was deluded by it gave me happiness – but with time my awareness of life grew to the point of me questioning that understanding, I felt disturbed until I found a clearer understanding which is more rooted in reality than delusion. The more aware you become the more you would want an understanding that aligned with reality, you can’t hold on to delusions.
There are also people who feel balanced because they don’t carry any significant emotional momentum in their being (through past life times) or body (through genetic influence or childhood issues), they may also hold certain simple understanding about values, about organization and about healthy living which allows them to stay balanced. Basically, when you sense a certain imbalance in yourself or in your reality, it’s a wake up call towards growth, towards balance, and it’s a personal journey and the understanding that brings you to balance, at that point, is also personal to you.
Just to add a few words to what Sen said, if I may…
It is very hard to judge a person’s inner balance based on their external appearance. Most of what we see is an approximation at best and more often than not is a seen through the lens of one’s own imbalances. This is the trap most conscious or ‘awakening’ people tend to fall into. Comparison or benchmarking is a very faulty methodology in this sort of work. It is like trying to estimate the height of a mountain by holding your thumb in front of you.
A simple analogy is to imagine the rise in awareness to be like a spiral rather than a line. This awareness is spiralling upwards. So picture a vertical staircase which is half in the light and half in the shadow. Somewhere in the distance at the top of this seemingly neverending spiral is a light towards which we are all moving consciously or unconsciously.
As we ascend this spiral there are those steps that fall more easily into the light and those that fall into shadow, and again those in the light and then those in the shadow. Each time we are in the light we feel relaxed, calm and reassured. When we are in the shadow we feel lost, alone and abandoned. Yet we ascend, constantly and continuosly.
What we do not realize is that as we are ascending, the light keeps getting brighter and the shadow dimmer and dimmer. But still our conditioned minds have come to associate light with liberation and shadow with suffering so the two opposites continue to play out until we are able to see that it is all just a play of shadows.
When we look at others who “seem” less conscious yet balanced just remember that they are somewhere along that spiral and perhaps they are standing on a lighted step, taking it easy and chilling out for a while. Maybe they’re sitting on that step smoking a cigarette or eating a sandwich but a time will come when they will feel compelled to rise and begin the ascension again.
To truly understand what another person’s balance is we would first have to know what their soul’s purpose was for this incarnation. Perhaps it was to learn some raw lessons in which case they will most likely not project a very balanced exterior for most of their lives (kind of like signing up for a nightmare calculus course). Or perhaps it was to just have a really fun learning time (kind of like signing up for a drama course).
Either way there is learning. What another’s soul-purpose is, is beyond our comprehension. Its hard enough to figure out our own. In learning to allow our Self to be without judgment it is simultaneously necessary to allow other Selves to be without judgment. Because they go hand in hand. They mirror each other. When you being to come to a place of true balance, you will perceive it everywhere around you. Beneath, between and pervading everything.
Hi,
There was one stage when I used pointer’s and my mind in a controlled way.. as the process of allowing continued …. even thought the momentum of mind was reducing.. it did not give me any confidence ( i only had faith) but instead all my attention was completely aborbed in the mind and its momentum, then i realised that i was allowing ” by disidentification : the momentum seperate from me, even when its intensity has reduced to very small”. Then i realised it was high time to ” let go of my ‘identification’ with
‘this disidentification’ “.
After this i could feel lot of calmness in me.. but still the mind is there .. its ‘fears’ ” ‘questions’ ‘anxiety’ ‘pain ‘ ‘love’ ‘joy’ ‘longing’ ‘what if so and soo : horror ‘ each emotion sill plays out but now i am aware : that i am just as human as anyone else and so it is..
I wish to thank all those who have taken soo much patience with me while the process of allowing was going ON : almost a year for now. Especially to someone who is soo close to us: to whome we might have knowingly, unknowinly hurt them during the process.
My KUDOS to the wisdom and assurance you share in this blog.
Hi Sen,
I really like your article on conscious choice. The idea of living in reality means accepting the lights and darks really resonated with me. Something that I am torn or maybe questioning on a personal level is when I meet new people I introduce myself as an actor/producer, but like many in the creative profession we all have day jobs in order to live responsibly, until our passions become our source of income. Does this mean I am approaching life from a deluded state of mind? I hope this makes sense…
MK, I daresay not. As a fellow actor, I can understand the discord that arises from having to hold down a job that pays the bills, while yearning for the passionate life dream to unfold, a situation which likely affects many people in various other professions. I struggled with this myself until Sen helped me to understand it from my mind’s perspective. Some people find nobility in the idea of being a starving or struggling artist, regarding the holding down of a job which allows one to live with some measure of dignity tantamount to selling out. That’s OK. With evolving maturity, I am at a place now that recognizes that everyone is simply where they are, living life from the perspective they consider to be true for them at that point . That means that if, like me, your mind needs the security of an income, then its perfectly OK to align with that perspective. From my standpoint, my mind is incapable of maintaining the positive focus that is necessary to attract the desired reality of a career as an actor if it has to fend for food/shelter on a constant basis. It’s just not the way I’m built – this is where Sen’s post on aligning with your ease/comfort makes particular sense. This perspective is rounded off by other understandings that are emerging – I like to go over Sen’s old posts now because they make much more sense the more I grow. Seeing that from life’s perspective, everything is just experience, it becomes possible to enjoy the experience of a job that is not my life’s passion, simply for its own sake. I find that my mind can now savor the experience, the likes/dislikes, the people, the industry, knowing full well its simply a pit stop, en-route to a different destination, without fighting constantly with itself about having to do this and feeling lack over the dream that has not yet manifested. There was a time I struggled with the idea of gratitude – I couldn’t understand where majority of the spiritual community who talk about being grateful got it from and how they could be authentic about it because it just felt forced whenever I wrote ‘1 0f your 5-a day things to be grateful for’ in the old journal. Now, it comes easily to me, in the form of appreciation of experience. I get a serious kick out of the smallest, most innocuous experience, to the grandest, life changing event.
Dear Sen,
I wonder how we can hold the perspective of abundance when we are in a financially imbalanced situation. I understand that my current financial crisis related with my past patterns of lack, still I simply find it hard to imagine myself in a place of abundance when I’m actually in a dire need for money. It feels like a deluded thinking to me to hold on to the belief of abundance when I can even hardly pay my rent. I used to be a very struggle based person, maybe I still am, I love your articles they really calm me down, I feel not happier but more peaceful since I have started to follow your advice and allow things to fold naturally. I’m currently in a transition period, in-between jobs, but I still find it difficult to embrace the fear of uncertainty, but I still hold on without too much dwelling on the lack. I am also trying to create a new reality for myself. Last week, a miracle happened, I had received a new job opportunity (an opportunity, actually based in my old reality) . I call it a miracle because this is the first time in my life I receive something whithout me struggling for it first. Although I was in the midst of a financial trouble while being busy of creating a new reality for myself, I wasn’t looking for a job, I don’t even have a good network; out of a sudden my best friend called and she told me she just met with a person who was looking for an employee who exactly has my qualifications. This job opportunity can save me from my all financial troubles. Despite my financial worries, I still don’t want to make a fear-based decision. The job suits me well and my qualifications, it is the job I have been working for 8 years, it has some dark qualities that I’m trying to be OK with it (one of them actually freaks the hell out of me, but I quess I have to face my biggest fear -which is public speaking, in fact this fear was holding me back from actually and actively seeking this job in the first place, but it’s difficult to say no when universe somehow delivers it directly to your door).
Most of my problems are fear-based. I have also encountered to your blog when I realized that I was suppressing my fears. I normally can’t even watch a horror movie. In the last week, I also made myself watch a horror series, in fact at first I enjoyed it; but I got immediately sick and throw out for few days. I guess, it was a wrong thing to do force myself to face my fears. It’s good when I allow fear but I guess I shouldn’t be forcing it.
To sum up, I don’t want to make a fear-based choice about this new job prospect, but yet we all gotta make living somehow and it feels like a deluded thinking to think myself in a place of abundance when my reality is based on actual lack (e.g. a little debt & now knowing how to pay the next month’s rent)…I allow my fears and don’t dwell on them but I find it hard to imagine myself in place of even a bit of abundance unless I got this new job. Eventually, I have decided to let the universe takes its course but I’m still curious about your opinion.
Asli, I never give a pointer on “forced positive thinking” because that never works. There is such a thing as “natural positive thinking” (where there is no force, but your mind naturally feels positive) and there is such as a thing as “inner stability” (where you have a sense of inner calm/balance irrespective of the outside situation) and both of these are not “manipulated states” but natural states of being that one can come to through letting of the momentum of negativity in the mind. What I mean by a perspective of abundance is when you are willing to let go of perspectives of lack – I am not saying “think abundant” I am just saying let go of clinging to lack-based thinking, there is huge difference between the two. The practice of “allowing” comes from a perspective of abundance, it’s rooted in wholeness and thus takes you towards wholeness/balance – the practice of allowing does not require you to “think positively” it just requires you to let go of “struggling” from a place of desperation, fear, lack or insecurity, and be open to life. You said, you have a fear of uncertainity, however the reality of life is that it always be uncertain, so you have two options 1. Keep worrying about the future 2. Be open to allowing what arises knowing that every situation has its own “solutions” and when you are allowing of a situation you are also allowing of a solution. You can’t know a solution before-hand, a solution can only materialize at the right time – for example, if you have a “debt problem”, it’s a problem and it will have a solution orchestrated, but the solution would be made available as per the right time, you want the security of knowing what the solution is, and wanting all the solution at this moment so that you can relax, however the solution can only come at the right time in the right quantity to allow for a balanced movement. For example, if you desire a job, and you keep saying “I want to see a job before I can prepare for the interview” it makes no sense – you have to follow your inspiration (like preparing for the interview, posting your resume or just being open to attending interview or being mentally prepared to work 9 to 5 etc) and then allow things to shape up as they will with the right timing. I’ve been in some situations (before) where I had no clue where the solution was going to come from till the last moment, and then the solution would be right there – it was nerve-wracking for me but in my awareness I started seeing that solution does appear and it’s just some people jump out of the window too soon instead of waiting for the solution to take shape, and it will take shape to take care of the problem (because a problem creates an intense focus in your being towards the desire for solution). Nowadays, from my place of wholeness, I see solutions take shape more smoothly instead of me having to wait till the “last moment”, this is because I have far less resistance to life’s movement and hence it shapes out with no real “discomfort” involved.
The truth is “solutions all happens, every problem manifests an equivalent solution”. Whatever be the problems in your life right now, if you just take the time to observe, you will notice that they will all find solutions – it’s just that you want “assurance” right now, you want to know how it will happen, you want all the security right now because you are not open enough in your being to “wait” for the future to unfold, it makes you nervous and anxious. So instead of being concerned about the uncertainty, work on your “openness”. Develop more and more openness towards allowing uncertainity, and observe life from this openness. The knowing I have about this nature of life (to manifest solutions to every problem) is not because I have “trust” in life, it’s because I’ve observed life at work in my own life – you can do the same.
You’ve given a good example of how life brings solutions in your own comment – you mentioned landing a job offer out of the blue without requiring any real struggle from you. Of course the job will also be in the “path of growth” and will challenge some aspects in you that are “stuck” or hung-up and you need to be open towards these challenges with the perspective of seeing them as opportunities for growth. The more open you are, the more you become privy to solutions before hitting “last moment”, but even if you are really imbalanced you can be sure that solutions will come in (it’s just that from a place of imbalance you attract solutions at the “last moment”, as a manifestation of your nervous desperation vibe, and your solutions may lack some wholeness), and every solution will also bring with it more growth opportunities or more reflections of creating further balance.
Sen, is it possible to speak with you?
Elham, I’ve given the required info, for arranging a personal conversation, on this page – Personal Interaction
Dear Sen,
Thank you very much for the clarification. You have described my situation so accurately and insightfully. With regard to openness, your helpful advice is right on spot. I am speechless, thanks a lot.
Wow this was so enlightening. The brain is no joke. I am seriously experiencing extreme anxiety and the negative thinking is intense. I do not blame my past I only blame myself. However, reading this post I can certainly attach my thinking to conditional response from my past and probably inherent a lot too. If I am expecting a negative result then is this what I am bringing on myself? Like, a compound of wrongful thinking for so long? I am the victim of my own thoughts and my life is turning out this way due to this thinking pattern or as a result of this cycle?
Please do not post my email or name. I thank you for your wisdom.
Hi Sen,
also from me a very warm + big “Thank you” for this article. What you write is so true and helpful and brings total clarity. Please continue your work.