We constantly vacillate between hope and disappointment, yearning and disgust, as well as brief satisfaction and feelings of futility. It is as if some internal calculus is continuously at work. And we devote all our energy to having this calculation reach a certain configuration to approximate, in our minds, happiness. But in the end, there is only disillusionment with how happiness has again eluded us.
The fact that there is consciousness does not mean our present reality is only a dream. All I am saying is that I rely on consciousness.
How one chooses to discover reality is a personal choice. While one may prefer experimentation, another may find one’s way forward through awareness—being in a situation rather than forming opinions about it, feeling the lay of the land rather than recalling its geography or history.
The thing with awareness is—if one takes to it—you don’t have to cling to any words or reasoning. You can travel light, moving forward guided only by your inner feelings.
I wrote the following in the book “Stillness in the Roar of Experience”:
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine that you are at a point just before your birth. (Hold that feeling for a moment or two.) Then you are born. Now, open your eyes. Isn’t the world bright? Maybe too bright? You briefly squint your eyes. The world is full of colors. Some things even take your breath away; the world is full of such powerful pulls. But there are also things that repel you.
We move through our lives, elated and disgusted by turns, all the time thinking infantilely that the world is a plaything and should yield to us what we desire.
But the world is not a plaything.
It is a mysterious place hot enough to cook our brains.
We are not here to play. We are here to deepen the colors and to be fuel to destiny. All the time here, we think we are consuming, but we are being consumed. As we tear the world apart, we tear ourselves apart.
Now, close your eyes again. Where are you now? You are on the verge of death. You just closed your eyes for the last time while dying. All the lights that have distracted you throughout your life are gone. You will soon be back to where you were before you were born.
Is it a long dream between life and death? Or is it momentary forgetfulness? We thought we were this and that when life and death are but bookends.
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