Have you noticed something...quite unique about joy? Something that makes it different than pretty much everything else that we, as humans, can experience?
Joy is an experience that takes us out of time. When we're truly in the midst of joy, time simply disappears; it's as if there is no time at all, yet somehow, we continue to experience our selves.
And there's another thing to note, too. When we're enveloped by joy, our thinking stops, but our consciousness remains utterly alert. We, for perhaps the only times in our lives, experience what life could be like if we could simply stop thinking and re-connect with our being.
Meditation is the journey to the center of joy. That is really the only purpose of meditation; to guide us back to our selves. Little children do not need to meditate; they are already meditative. It's only us adults, with layers and layers of personality, ego and other artificial things, need to find the way back home.
Happy travels :)
Showing posts with label being. Show all posts
Showing posts with label being. Show all posts
Monday, August 18, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Fear
Our personalities, our experiences, our cultures, and even our genetics help "shape" how we interpret the world in which we live. In this sense, each of us truly does live in "our own little world" because, indeed, no two people can possibly interpret the same thing in precisely the same way; and that itself is a beautiful testament to nature's utter love of variety. Nature doesn't copy. Nature is always original, even if people can choose not to be.
However, despite all of the different ways we interpret our world, there is one thing that underlies the experience of almost everyone: fear.
Forget what some personality tests and theories tell you -- that only some people are "fear based" while others are "anger based" or whatever. The root emotion that drives most people is only one thing: fear.
Why? What are we so afraid of?
We are afraid of being ourselves. We're afraid that if we simply BE ourselves-- not try to be something else in the future, or someone else in the future -- that we will suffer. We will somehow be rejected or punished or something like that. And so we strive, endlessly, exhaustively, to BECOME something else; not because we actually want to become something else, but because WE WANT THE FEAR TO STOP.
However, the fear cannot stop because the root problem is not "out there" in the future, in tomorrow's success or next week's goal or whatever else. The root fear is simply a anxiety and misalignment that erupts when we refuse to accept ourselves as we are.
Until you accept yourself as you are -- without condemnation, without criticism, without commentary, but simply as you are -- fear will follow you like a shadow. Yes, sometimes the shadow seems to go away -- but the shadow is always there; sometimes looming, other times slim and hard to see.
Stop becoming. Start BEING. And see how it transforms your life.
However, despite all of the different ways we interpret our world, there is one thing that underlies the experience of almost everyone: fear.
Forget what some personality tests and theories tell you -- that only some people are "fear based" while others are "anger based" or whatever. The root emotion that drives most people is only one thing: fear.
Why? What are we so afraid of?
We are afraid of being ourselves. We're afraid that if we simply BE ourselves-- not try to be something else in the future, or someone else in the future -- that we will suffer. We will somehow be rejected or punished or something like that. And so we strive, endlessly, exhaustively, to BECOME something else; not because we actually want to become something else, but because WE WANT THE FEAR TO STOP.
However, the fear cannot stop because the root problem is not "out there" in the future, in tomorrow's success or next week's goal or whatever else. The root fear is simply a anxiety and misalignment that erupts when we refuse to accept ourselves as we are.
Until you accept yourself as you are -- without condemnation, without criticism, without commentary, but simply as you are -- fear will follow you like a shadow. Yes, sometimes the shadow seems to go away -- but the shadow is always there; sometimes looming, other times slim and hard to see.
Stop becoming. Start BEING. And see how it transforms your life.
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