Everything You Need

You have everything you need at all times. Even when you die, it is what you need at that moment. Your body can no longer be the vessel for your consciousness, because it has become to sick or damaged. The amazing thing is, that you have everything you need while you are alive at all times. You are on a planet that gives you everything you need; air, water, food, etc. Some people do not have water or food, but that is because people do not recognize they need to share what they have. But the earth gives us what we need; the air never just turns of, does it? It is a beautiful thing, that we are beings on this earth that just gives itself to us. But we need to learn how to only take what we need, or else it will have to destroy us just like our immune system destroys bacteria to protect itself.

There are many people that hoard things and do not share. That is because evolution programmed us for survival, and people are still programmed to acquire enough material goods for survival. Now that we have enough, our programming still pushes us to acquire more and more and gives us a false sense of security. We do not take a moment to realize how perfectly secure we really are, just being given air at all times. Nature gave birth to us, made us the way we are. We are patterned after God/Life's design. Everything is the way it is or else it would fall apart and we are a part of everything, so we can know that we are part of the order of things. Knowing that is security, like the air that we breathe. Nothing can be created outside of what is, so we are a part of God. There is nothing to fear, God is with you all the time, everywhere. 

Is the action of nature not unlike drawing a bow?
What is higher is pulled down, and what is lower is raised up;
What is taller is shortened, and what is thinner is broadened;
Nature's motion decreases those who have more than they need
And increases those who need more than they have.

It is not so with Man.
Man decreases those who need more than they have
And increases those who have more than they need.

To give away what you do not need is to follow the Way.
So the sage gives without expectation,
Accomplishes without claiming credit,And has no desire for ostentation.

-The Tao Te Ching

All Things Must Pass

When you notice your state of mind, you notice that no single state lasts forever. In fact, most states pass pretty quickly. The interesting thing is that whenever you are in the midst of a state, you feel like it is the most important thing in the world, like it has the most reality and that it will last forever. Many emotions have this kind of power, such as anger, sadness, frustration. Even positive emotions have this effect, like elation and the feeling of romantic love. Whenever they overtake you, it is very very difficult to realize that they are just passing phenomenon. But whenever they happen, if you practice realizing that they are just momentary creations and that they will wither away like the fall leaves, you begin to distance yourself from them and see the world in a more objective manner.

It is not just your thoughts and feelings that are of an impermanent nature, it is everything; literally every THING. This is because for everything physical, death is as necessary as life. We think of dead things as non responsive, or no longer responsive to the living environment. Because that is what life is, it is constant interaction with stimulus. This constant interaction with all of life is what creates the process of change. Nothing stays the same because life is always moving, always changing, always interacting. Every moment is new. There has never been a moment like this one in the history of the infinite universe! It is impossible for there to have ever been a moment like this one, because death and change are a part of life. Death and change make everything new all the time. The cells in your body are constantly dying to make room for new ones to keep your body healthy. The only reason death is sad to you is because your mind has made YOU into a reality, a constant, a death. You are dead, you do not interact with life but you separate yourself from it. In fact, you are dead because you do not allow yourself to die; you do not allow yourself to go with the flow of life, and change along with it. If you didn't hold on to your idea of self so tightly, death would be like a joy to you, like it is a joy that your cells die in order to renew your body. It is just a change in form. Forms will always change, but life is forever and infinite. Life is forever and always, in each moment. 

Fear

Fear is probably the most powerful human emotion. When it overtakes you, it is in complete control of you. That is why fear has been used throughout history in order to control people. Leaders have used our biology to their advantage in this way. We are evolutionarily programmed for self preservation at all costs, and we can be led to brutal acts just because something is threatening our existence. It does not even have to be a physical threat; it can also be a threat to our psychological identity.

Fear is something very important to understand, because it is the mind's most powerful tool against love and truth. It wants to be a stable living thing that lasts forever, and the fact that mankind has the knowledge that it will eventually die, makes it want to become as strong as possible. That is why many people's minds are like stone, and where the term "closed minded" comes from. People subconsciously shut themselves out from the world and make their minds impenetrable because they are afraid of the abyss. If you stare to long into the abyss, the abyss will stare back into you, and you are afraid of the unknown inside that abyss so you would rather create your own reality. Out of fear people create religion. Out of fear people demonize "the other", people that are different in their society and there is hatred and prejudice. People do not want their mind created reality to be destroyed, because they are afraid of what lies beyond it. 

In a way, fear is also a good thing because it pushes you to evolve. You do not want pain and suffering anymore, so you look for a way out. But actually, you usually look for the way out after all the suffering you have brought upon yourself from this fear. 

We must not let our fears control us, or else we become brutal and animalistic. 

Young and Old

We are used to feeling like we have a center in ourselves. We depend on what we think of ourselves and the world in order to operate. If someone ever came to you and somehow stole all of your self-identity away, you would be alone and frightened like a motherless child. I remember losing my mother in the supermarket when I was little, and it was sheer terror. When you are a little kid you do not have an identity yet, but you do identify your mother as safety from the unknown. You have not really shaped a personal identity psychologically, which will take over as your protection from the unknown. Part of why you undergo so much stress when you are a teenager, is that suddenly you realize you must operate in this world in some coherent manner, and that means you have to define yourself for everyone else. Up until adolescence, you were free from any need to do this, mostly because you did not yet have any responsibilities. But as you get older you realize you become more aware of how society works and what it demands of you. This is why so many teenagers are rebellious and refuse to conform, because they see how identity limits people and closes their minds. Older people are frequently considered "stuck in their ways" or traditional. Just look at the '60s generation, what happened to them? Many of them are probably even conservative now.

The more you conform and limit your mind to a specific pattern that makes you comfortable, the more you die and the older you get. In that sense, you have been dying since the day you were born. In the womb you were physically limited by the small space of your mother's belly but not mentally, but as soon as you were born your mind started to limit itself to what it saw was safety in the wide world. Your mind will continue to age the more you limit yourself. The state of no mind, letting go of fear and self, is limitless and all-encompassing. So you can grow younger, by concentrating on spiritual life. By letting go of your mind's categories, your mind will let more life in and you will see things in a new way, the way you saw it as a child. Jesus said, you must see the world through the eyes of a child, to enter the kingdom of heaven. 

All You Need is Love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdHdIN5tQJQ&feature=related

"Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.


There's nothing you can do that can't be

done.

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.

Nothing you can say but you can learn how

to play the game

It's easy.

There's nothing you can make that can't be made.

No one you can save that can't be saved.

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time - It's easy."

These are the beginning lyrics to the

song "All You Need is Love"

by the beloved Beatles.Of course, most of

us have heard this some

at one point in our lives, and it was the subject of the first

international television broadcast. When

most people hear this song,

they just hear it as a nice idea but

completely impractical, because

after all you do need more than love to survive. However, people have

no idea what love really is. Love is really the law of the universe.

I am not saying that that planets and the stars are having emotional

encounters and falling in love with one

another, I am saying that

everything is constantly in the state and process of perfect creation.

Love is just the universe happening as it

is happening, being as it is

being, in control and in perfect

equilibrium. Every part of it is the

way it should be, the only way it could

be, and it is perfect creation

constantly unfolding. Love cannot really

be described, only its laws

can be described, and that is what the

song does. There is nothing you

can do that can't be done, nothing you

can see that isn't shown,because

only what is IS, the truth of the

universe is everything that exists.

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time, means that

you do not really have control, and all

you have to do is realize it.

The song is about surrendering your

control to God/Truth/Love/Life,

realizing you are a part of everything.

Buddha once said you are already

enlightened but you just don't recognize

it yet. You can recognize it,

by recognizing that love is the universe, and you are subject to

the same laws as everything within it.

Therefore you can let go,

and love will take control. It is always

in control, it is just a

matter of recognizing it, and laying your mind to 

rest, laying your burden down.

Love is everything, so all you need is

love.

All together now, everybody!

Something Simple

I am rather tired tonight so I thought I would talk about something simple. Simplicity is the key to spiritual seeking. The less you have materially the less time your mind will spend occupied and distracted. Having a lot leads to worry over money or even more overindulgence. This triggers the ego's sense of self importance in having more than other people, and then you start playing a mind game that is difficult to break out of. Actually attachment to anything, such as emotional attachment to friends and lovers, knowledge, and thoughts threatens peace of mind. So the goal is to become more and more simple; with every material object you give away your house will become lighter and more spacious, and with every attachment or thought you clear out of your head the more open you become to all of life. In other words, your soul is nothingness that holds everything. You must become nothing to have everything.

If you are on a sinking raft, you will save your life by throwing heavy things overboard. Letting go of mental attachments is the same thing, it is the difference between true life and death. Jesus said, "let the dead bury the dead". The dead are buried under all of their dirt. 

Freedom is having nothing left to lose. 

Evolving Moment to Moment

Every moment is a constant process of evolution. Every day we receive new impressions of the world through our senses, and they change us. Some people are more resistant to change then others, especially if they holdfast to a strict worldview such as religious ideology. But even people that have strict world views will eventually encounter suffering in the world that will push them to seek a different way, and evolve spiritually. They are like trees that break if they are less flexible when the wind blows; the discord of their existence with actual reality eventually builds up and shocks them into having to face truth.

For those of us who have already started to seek the truth, it is important to know that every moment is an opportunity to practice seeing the truth. In every activity you do during the day, you can practice seeing when your mind gets in the way. If someone angers you, something makes you sad, or you get frustrated with your work etc, recognize it is just a condition of the mind that passes. It is material thought and not part of pure consciousness that does not contain such bias. You have to separate your mind from your spirit, energy from nothingness. Think of it as perfect objectivity. The more grounded you become in this objectivity, the more peace naturally arises within you. 

Whenever you recognize your mind intruding on the present moment, you are taking steps in changing your mind into the mind of Truth. Your brain starts perceiving things differently and it evolves physically, because you can change the way it is wired. So you are taking conscious steps in your own evolution when you devote your self to spiritual seeking, and you can do it all the time. It is the most important thing for mankind to do right now. You must die to your mind and give birth to yourself, become reborn. 

How Strange it is To Be Anything At All

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIsou0IRIQU

It is pretty incredible to be alive. It is pretty incredible that there is an earth in a solar system in a galaxy in a universe. Why is it there? This is a question that the mind asks to get itself oriented and to feel comfortable, but there is no reason. It is just in our mind's nature to try and make sense of everything and categorize everything. Also we want to know how big the universe is, or whether it ends. Ending is actually impossible, because if there is a border then there has to be something beyond a border, it is just impossible for there not to be. Actually everything takes on the shape of the nature of the universe; circles. Planets are round. You cannot say where they begin and where they end, you would just keep walking around them unless gravity somehow stopped and you drifted away. Many things in nature are circles; the center of a flower, hurricanes and other spirals, eyes, our circulatory system, nests, oranges, tomatoes, apples, galaxies, cycles of the season and the tides, the cycle of life. The circle is the representation of infinity. Emerson said, "our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens". You can never know why nature is the way it is, or comprehend infinity, life is a mystery to our minds. But to our soul it is eternal knowledge that it has always known, an always will know. So do not think about it but just live in it, life in the center of the circle and watch it all spin around you. 

Suffering

We have to recognize human suffering in order to overcome it. Sometimes we do not notice it when complacently going about our daily lives, but suffering in all its forms is a daily reality for most of humanity. In the developed world we do not see it as potently as in impoverished areas of the earth, but the varieties of grief are so numerous no one escapes them. On the news we always hear about some gunman shooting innocent people, some greedy corporate scandal, pollution, hate crimes, not to mention the war and starvation going on in different parts of the world. Lets face it, the world is utter horror, as we cause suffering for ourselves and each other over, and over, and over again. Human brutality is endless, and we virtually still live in a jungle where we could be faced with violence at anytime, although we now have police and different forms of security to protect us. Even our happiest times, like when we fall in love, often end up falling apart down the road.

I am not trying to be depressing, I am just trying to point out that there are endless forms of suffering, but also a solution. As I have said before in my other blogs, life is infinite, and since suffering is a part of life, it is infinite also. But I have also said that one must step in the center of the circle of infinity, and watch it spin around them objectively. It is a difficult solution but it is the only way. You must understand that all things pass, the good and the bad, and realize it is just the nature of everything to constantly balance the good and the bad. 

Once you realize the nature of suffering for yourself, you step out of the chain of suffering that you cause yourself and other people. You break the link in the chain. 

One Life of Many

You have always been, and always will be. To think that this is the only life you have ever lived is ridiculous if you realize it. I am sure that statement might sound hair-brained to some, but it actually makes no sense that this has been your only body and your only life. Why would you think that YOU are the only one that will every possess this your consciousness, and if you are alive in a body right now, why would you think that was also not the reality before your life and will be after your death? I think it is because we are so identified with our flesh and blood that we can't see past it. This is a hard thing to express, but when you realize it makes complete sense, but sounds crazy to everyone else. It just makes no sense that your life would be limited to only this body. If you want to know what your life was like before you were born, look at your life now; it was also consciousness, in one form or another. If you are curious about the afterlife, do the same thing. You will just be conscious in another form, there really is no mystery. YOU or your "I" will not be able to experience what the afterlife is, but your consciousness will start out in another form with no memory, but you will be evolutionarily programmed with the level of consciousness you achieved in the last life.

What is happening now, is always happening. This life is not that important, it is just another life in the small blip of infinite time. It gives you a sense of ease to know this. Anyway, I have not completely grasped it yet, sometimes I get it more than other times. It is hard to understand because it is too simple. But if you are alive and conscious right now, you have always been and you always will be. 

This is a poorly expressed post, but I realized this stuff better yesterday and I had to get something down. 

Everyone is on Their Own Path

In a way, no one in the world is bad, they are just learning what they have to learn to grow, no matter how bad their actions may appear. Ofcourse, it is not conducive to the greater good, but you cannot change anyone else's path. But all rivers lead to the ocean.

That being said, it is important to know when interacting with someone is not in your best interest. It is difficult to interact with most people, because there is always an underlying string of judgments, comparisons, jealousies no matter how subtle. The problem is that people do not know how to separate themselves from these thoughts, and realize they are just a part of their accumulated ego, so there is always a phonyness in interaction. Not to mention, their mind games are contagious, so if you are practicing spiritual detachment then it will make it difficult, and you will suddenly also find yourself judging. Our egos were born out of such interaction, so in order to undo them, do not dwell with people that nurture them. If anyone tries to incite bad behavior in you by arguing or taunting you, WALK AWAY. This behavior is stupid and meaningless, and what makes this world so sad. However, interacting with another person that is practicing spiritual life, there is an unwavering intimacy that goes deeper than any mind to mind relationship. There is intimacy based on the very thing that creates interdependence between all things of the world and the universe. Your relationship is based on the truth of your existence, and you coexist in complete peace. You let any problems that arise pass by like clouds in the sky, and recognize how unimportant they are. You are two beings in human form, and acknowledge each-other as that, nothing more. It is a silent understanding. 

Therefore have respect for everyone and know that they are on their own path, but also walk your own path, and do not let anyone push you off it. 

The Fragility of Life

Human beings live with the dilemma of knowing that they are going to die, and this makes them different from any other animal. It is what probably leads to the most delusions, and creates such denial/psychological coping mechanisms that we probably do not even realize that we fear it. That is, until it actually happens. And when it actually happens, we are probably shocked, since we somehow never think it will actually happen to us. It can happen to you anytime, in countless ways, no matter if you just got that job you wanted or if you are getting married. Death doesn't care. It is really a miracle every moment we are alive. Sometimes when I am in class I look around at the students and they look so dead bored. Then I imagine what would happen if some school shooter came in and try to kill them; obviously they would look much more lively. It is interesting we do not feel such enthusiasm for our lives all the time, and I think it should be that way. Not necessarily in an outward expression of enthusiasm, but a silent underlying appreciation.

 I can only imagine what happens at the moment that you realize you are about to die, but I would think it would go something like this: you suddenly realize that nothing you did in life really mattered at all, because it is all going to be stripped away from you at death. If you haven't tried to seek truth in your life, you wonder what everything really means for the first time, and wish you had thought of it before. You die in utter oblivion and confusion, and that is happening to someone right now. 

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.
If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?-Kabir

Phony Niceness

Religious people seem to always want to suck you into their circle. Some days it is the Mormon coming by your house on a bicycle trying to convert you, or it is the preacher standing on the corner near your college trying to give you the new testament. They always act really nice toward you at the same time, so that it is hard to get annoyed. The unfortunate part is that it is a phony niceness, and just under their image there is an animal like all the rest of us. It is interesting how we can walk around acting nice, but I wonder what would happen if there was some kind of civil unrest or we ran out of food. We would just revert back to the jungle. There is an old Twilight Zone episode that takes place in the 1950's during the cold war, about a family that has the only bomb shelter on the block. One evening they invite a bunch of their friends over from the neighborhood, and they are having a jolly ol' time. And of course you know how the 1950's was the epitome of phony niceness. Well anyhow, suddenly the radio announces that there will likely be a nuclear attack. What happens is that the family moves into their bomb shelter, but everyone else goes into a panic and ends up acting like a bunch of maniacs and completely tear up the family's bomb shelter to get in themselves. Right after they have done that, the radio announcer suddenly comes on to say that it was a false alarm. Ofcourse everyone just stands there looking like complete idiots, and they will never view their neighbors the same way again. The point is, is that unless you change yourself with the truth, understand that you are not your mind, and that you are an immortal spirit in a mortal body, you cannot separate yourself from the beast within. We are bloodthirsty animals, right under the surface. We are just obedient to authority for the most part, and that is called civilization: when authority has successfully hid the truth about you under the guise of manners.

Oh and here is the Twilight Zone episode in case you want to watch it. It is really good. In fact many Twilight Zones have really great lessons in them (only the 1950s-60s series though, the 1980s one was crap).

http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/entertainment/watch/v15133435DHMr5sx9

Naivite

I think that many of us are very naive about this world. I know I am far too trusting of people, and it has caused some trouble in my life. Children are completely naive, and have not formed judgments because of this yet. The more exposed to life you are, the less naive you become. Sometimes this makes people bitter, but it can also make you wise and cautious in a good way. You can know that there are bad things, but you also don't have to let them affect you, and in that way you can become like a child again.

Someone I know and trust very much told me the other day, that one may think a bear is really cute and want to hug it if they haven't developed judgment yet. If you are too naive, that bear will kill you, because you can't hug a bear simply because it is cute, you have to also know it is a part of nature and it is a hunter. It is like that for a lot of things in life. People are attracted to dangerous things for various reasons, and have to suffer the consequences if they haven't learned not to be compelled by them already. There is a certain beauty in dangerous things, that is somehow attractive to us. There is a certain freedom and wildness about them. 

But you have to understand how life works, and how this world runs, and this world will run you down if you are too naive. Be wise about the world, and be wise about the truth of all of life, and you will know how to use judgment for your safety, and also live detached from it like a child. 

Taking Care of Impermanent Things

I am thinking about environmental sustainability tonight, and how we have to cope with a constantly changing physical world. It is true that the spirit never changes, but it is in an impermanent body that has to deal with environmental changes. Just because you are ultimately your immortal spirit, does not mean that you should not get up everyday, brush your teeth, take care of yourself and the earth. You should be grateful for the vessel that you are in, and the beautiful planet that is our home. Your soul cannot experience life without a body, and a body cannot experience life without the earth. Everything physical will pass, but we should interact with what IS in every moment. The earth is suffering right now, it is a reality. We have disrupted its balance, therefore, we need to work to restore the balance. Being in the present moment, means knowing everything in it thoroughly. Knowing what is happening fully conscious, and making the proper reaction to it. Many people on earth are currently ignoring the state of our planet; some for religious reasons, some think other things are more important, and many are just apathetic. If you do not act thoroughly in the present, there are consequences in the future. You cannot navigate through life blindfolded. We are currently creating an environmental disaster for our children in the future to clean up, because we are not fully aware of the present. We are wrapped up in dreams of the past and future, in selfish thoughts of how to gain the most we can. We are chasing after things that don't exist, and think they will give us permanent happiness. Experience the life you are experiencing right now. It is always passing phenomenon, but it is real. What is real is the people in China or India developing lung cancer from pollution, rising sea levels displacing people, droughts that cause starvation... and all because we weren't paying attention in the past. There is a passage from "the Little Prince", where the prince says we must uproot our baobabs before they grow too strong, tend to our garden. Baobabs are trees with really strong roots, and once they grow too big it is almost impossible to uproot them, and they are huge and would overtake the prince's tiny planet. The little prince uprooted the baobabs on his planet every morning, because he recognized the problem and the solution, and he was aware of the consequences.

Our Past

The quality of life that we enjoy today is very rare in history. The human race has been through a lot. In the past we couldn't even think about anything but survival. We progressed very slowly, and just hunted and gathered for thousands of years. When we finally began creating civilizations, most of us endured brutal domination by some greedy king or emperor, that would kill us if we did not do what they wanted. In fact the more civilized we supposedly became, the more we had reason for war and other violence. After thousands of years of this madness, we came to the 20th century that saw the fastest technological progress ever. At the same time it was the most violent century ever. We developed more powerful weapons such as machine guns and nuclear weapons, to kill on a more massive scale. It was also the first century that people began to live as well as we do today, with a bed, refrigerator, car, shower, etc. Imagine not being able to crawl into bed or take a shower, it was a reality for thousands of years.

If we act like we did in the past, there will be no future. Evolve or die. 

If we do overcome our ego/minds, we will no longer have to put our money, time and resources into violence. Instead out creativity could run rampant and we could just focus on improving life in the areas of health, sustainability, food production, technology etc. Really, our imagination would no longer be bound. Right now, however, there are so many people unwilling to change that it hinders progress. Just look at how much trouble Obama is having in passing a healthcare bill that is no where near as progressive as healthcare in Europe. There are also many people who refuse to believe that global warming is an issue. People want to go on living in the past, even though it is the worst place, because they get comfortable in it. 

Conceptualizations

Conceptualizations and other forms of mind categorization are like barriers against reality, or life. They are especially strong in spiritual or religious groups. It is quite obvious what happens with religious groups, they just box themselves in and shut out the daylight, but I think what happens with more new age or spiritual groups is more subtle. People acquire emotional associations to things, that formulate a picture in their heads about they way things are. Emotions create such strong impressions in people, that these impressions will keep being projected on reality over and over again. What happens with spiritual groups, is that they emotionally attach to an ideal, like the compassion of Buddha and the glorious pictures of him with light shining all around his head and lotuses blooming all around his feet. It is a powerful image of glory to the point where we perceive it as other worldly and feel it is some unattainable height that we mere humans cannot achieve. It is the same thing with westerners being so attracted to the east, especially India and all its gurus. The east is actually the most beguiling of all, especially because it has so much truth wrapped up in illusion. Westerners go there and experience a complete difference in environment; from living in a mundane and organized world almost like a scientific lab, to a random and colorful setting with a guru that is talking about otherworldly experiences. It is beautiful and intriguing, and people have strong emotional reactions to the ideas of inner peace, joy, ecstacy, understanding, heightened consciousness and enlightenment and these things become a magical picture that they get a mind-high off of imagining. Also, there is the idea that the East possesses ancient wisdom that is shrouded in mystery, but that we have to recover. This just gives power to the imagination, and another mind-high, when the truth is there all the time there is no reason to look to the past. The reality is, that the truth is almost boring. The mind and the imagination and all of its conceptualizations are powerful energy, that are barriers to life. The truth is cold and has no power. It just is the way it is, it is as cold and realistic as it can get. That is why the truth is so hard to find, because we only know energy, and we don't know that nothingness exists because we are constantly feeding our energy. Actually the less conceptualizations you have, the more boring the truth is, because passion and interest come from emotion and other ideas. But the truth is necessary, because the reality is that it is the only thing that can change the world for good. It is almost like the scientific homework you have to do for earth-school.

Growing Up

When you are growing up, you have to go through a lot of crap that will make you into more of a neurotic being. School wants to mold you into a category and puts pressure on you to be a certain way, and if you are not they make you feel bad about it. You grow up competing with grades and assurance that you are doing well, and you don't really know how to think for yourself. The worst part is that they never teach you about anything important, like love. Love and having a family, are probably the most important thing you can learn, and it would probably save a lot of kids from problems down the road. You can't really teach anyone how to love, it is a natural thing, but you can teach them things like how you need to be rational at the same time as falling in love, or else you might do something impulsive. There are logistics in love, even though it is an irrational thing. You have to know the consequences of marriage, what it will be like, what having kids will be like etc.

Right now adolescence is the biggest tragedy. You start having a major identity crisis around age 13 and you feel like you have to be something. You really have no where to go but to conform or completely drop out of the game, or like I did, play the game on the outside and think about the universe on the inside. You are ripped out of the glorious childhood world of exploration and joy and curiosity, and you are told you have to be a productive member of society, and compete with all of your peers, because it is a dog eat dog world. That kills your joy fast, and you start dying to things slowly. You are dying slowly because you have to become a certain thing to succeed. Then we get older and get a job, and do a constant passionless circle of work, home sleep work home sleep work home sleep.  

There has to be a model of society where you do not have grow up in certain areas, such as joy and wonder. You need to grow up and become wise about how the world works logistically, and about how you work, so you can have a balance between these two and be able to function. I suggest less work. I mean, if everyone on earth was given a job, we would all work less. We would take up creative activities during our free time. Work sucks, it is true. 

Stress

In times of stress, there is only one thing to remember: you are not your mind. It helps to remember that what your mind thinks matters, like all of the details of the day, are not really that important in the big picture. Silence is your true nature, and it is a place you can access if you remember this. There are a lot of things that may bother you; grades, money, work, people etc, but take a step back and realize how little that would even matter if you died at that moment. That puts it into context. There is nothing really to be stressed about. Dwelling on it creates a bigger problem. The more energy you put into worrying, the more your worrying will perpetuate itself. The energy is like the push to get the wheel spinning, and if you worry too much you lose control and the wheel runs away from you. It is ironic, because people worry because it feels like they are gaining control by doing so.

Silence, you are not your mind, be with that which is. 

Do Not Forget Your Purpose

We ultimately have one purpose: to seek truth.

We are humanity; we are war, love, hatred, peace. We have had every joy, we have gone through every suffering together. Look at Jesus on the cross; you can see his humanity, it is the perfect image of humanity. You say he was not human, but divine? Well no one was more fully human. No one delved into the joy and the suffering more than him, and that is what he did for truth. Can't you see the bones under his skin, and the blood on his hands? 

It if our purpose; to love truth so much that we would die for it. You have to love it to seek it, and then you will eventually know it. It is a wonderful thing to live and acknowledge all of existence, to never lie to yourself or anyone. It is harmony, it is the way it really is. If you forget your purpose you are in discord with the truth, you are dead to life. 

Don't You Ever Forget

You are not seeking the truth unless you are willing to see all of it, the bad and the good, and make the two one.

You have to be willing to accept your own mortality, look at your fears unashamed, and notice that your mind hides these fears under the guise of pleasure. 

Spiritual seekers say things like "all is one" and "we are all equal". This is true, but it is deceiving because you cannot just stop at what makes you happy. 

You have to dig deep down and really be honest with yourself. See how all of your ideas are just something you hold onto because you do not want to come face to face with truth. 

The Truth is something that you can only understand when you are in touch with that frightened self in you, the one that stands in shivering awe of the universe. 

And then when you are finally in touch with that child in you, you can see how your mind works to block the truth because you are afraid. 

When the truth is blocked you are not in touch with life, it is your own delusion you are in touch with. 

Truth before life, don't you ever forget.