The Separate Illusion

admin Self-Help, Spirituality March 15, 2012April 14, 2012enlightenment, illusion, oneness, spiritual growth 0 Comment

The Illusion Of Being Separate

One massive assumption we make while living this separate life is to assume we are over here and all that is over there.

Being separate, or at least living like you are, is lonely and difficult. The alternative is to notice some assumptions and ways of seeing the world which perhaps are a bit more real.

What do I mean? Well, for starters have a look around and try and find something in the world that you perceive which is not in your awareness.

Pretty silly statement but if you look and notice that your world and the objects in it including other people are experienced within your perception, then it might change the way you think of yourself and your world.

We assume we are separate and exclusive and the world is happening completely outside of us.

The habit of pretending that there really is a tree over there and it is very green and tall will be automatic and beyond your conscious control in each moment.

A baby wouldn’t look at the tree and call it a tree and green and tall. A baby might not think anything. A baby probably just notices and doesn’t make the distinction of me here and tree over there separate.

However, learning these labels and sounds doesn’t change what is actually there. The labels don’t make it a tall, green tree. It just is as it is.

What use is this? What use is it to challenge the notion that you are
separate?

Well for starters it is the truth. The truth doesn’t need to be of any use, it doesn’t care, it just is. Sort of like saying what use is it to be aware of gravity.

Secondly, seeing the world in this way brings a unity where you and the tree are together.

Sure when you stand and look it still appears as if that tree is over there and it certainly seems to hold a location that is different to you, but you can let it be what it is before it is labeled tree.

Likewise, other human beings are just as they are in each moment.

Whenever you label someone, judge them or mentally hold them in some way other than as another conscious being, aren’t you the one adding all that extra stuff to them?

What if you looked at the body and the life that moves the body and saw fundamentally that is all that is there? You might find a together-ness that you have never felt before. You might find you feel part of something bigger and more awesome than you originally thought.

Sit alone and watch any life form. In the past I would wish seagulls would go away, now I sit and watch and just let them be seagulls. Flies are just being flies, cockroaches are just being cockroaches.
Although, that doesn’t mean you won’t protect your survival needs around them by defending your food, water, shelter or body but apart from that you can work to drop the extra stuff you place on top of just noticing them.

More importantly for us is to learn to do this with others. This is more difficult as the pull to be a me and you be a you is strong when we are interacting.

Practice seeing the Being and be curious about their experience as you listen. See if you can see how much you are assuming when you look out your eyes at the world.

With people you know well you will drop into an assumption about them based on how they have been for you in the past. With people you don’t know you will drop into an assumption about them based on your prejudices and projections.

Let go, surrender, notice that they exist within your experience and let them be them.

We have a strong tendency to hold ourselves as separate and exclusive. Seeing the world play out within and watching from the space you create will make you and others feel connected and part of the whole event of life.

Practice Of Contemplation, Meditation

admin Self-Help, Spirituality March 15, 2012April 14, 2012awareness, consciousness, contemplation, personal development, spiritual growth 0 Comment

Practice
Of Contemplation

To Empower You

A very powerful technique is the practice of contemplation. Some might call it navel gazing but these people probably don’t understand how or why this discipline can change your life. As a child I remember contemplating why I could see the pen on the table.

Contemplation was too big a word for a ten-year-old but I was just curious why could I make the distinction between the pen and the table.

After considering the matter for a while I knew that the light was different between the two objects and that allowed me to see that one thing was not the other. Pretty simple explanation but nevertheless it sort of says enough.

Do you remember doing such things as a child?

Maybe you didn’t acknowledge it but you doing this was engaging in the practice of contemplation. I am sure at some stage you would have wondered why things are the way they are.

The practice of contemplation is to look into a matter to become aware of the way something is, or the why something is.

We generally hold a thing to be something we can pick up, something tangible, a form that two or more people could come to some agreement about its existence. Consider that a thing – a form – is also a thought, a feeling, an experience, and a way of seeing the world.

These ‘things’ are invisible we might say but still they occur.

These things occur in your experience of life and you can objectify them to a greater or lesser degree. By that I mean you can watch them occurring. You can step back, so to speak, and say ‘I am noticing I experience this’. You would do well to consider anything that you can distinguish as a ‘thing’, ‘object’, ‘form’.

I am calling a thing anything that you notice now which wasn’t there once upon a time and won’t be there in the future. That being the case, why is it there now? If it is not fixed, unchanging and absolute then why is it there now? This is fodder for the practice of contemplation. Why is it? Why is it so? Why is it so the way that it is?

Take shame for example. The next time you feel embarrassed, be curious about what you assume to be true to make you feel embarrassed right then. You can do it later if more appropriate but the important point is to notice that it is there now, or was there and it will go in time. So why is it there now? What do you hold to be true in your idea of yourself and the world that causes the shame? We are too passive in our living. We assume that experiences and feelings come pre-packaged. Combined with the ‘it is just the way I am’ naive mentality we end up living a life of self-ignorance and reaction.

I rarely have negative emotions these days. I rarely feel that inner contraction to a noticeable degree. Sure if there is a confrontation or some issue being worked through I might feel some physical sensation but rarely do I notice any real emotion.

For a couple of years I have engaged in the practice of contemplation. Either on the spot or later that evening contemplating anything that happened that day which I reacted to with a feeling. Even the slightest contraction away from another person would see me wonder what I didn’t like about this situation. If I felt fear I wondered what was I afraid of happening. If I felt down or uninspired by work I would contemplate the way I was thinking about life and work. I could then see the cause and effect relationship between my thoughts and my experience.

Once I could see I was creating this unconsciously I could change it consciously and feel better. Contemplation is powerful, ancient and used by great spiritual leaders and masters the world over. It can also be used by you.

Living In Gratitude, Having An Attitude of Gratitude

admin Self-Esteem, Self-Help, Spirituality March 13, 2012April 15, 2020gratitude, spiritual growth 0 Comment

Living in Gratitude Makes

You Feel Better

Living in gratitude for your fate as it appears now is a powerful way to transform your life and shift the perspective that has been holding you back.

Here are my top four ways on how to develop gratitude.

1. Link values

The secret to getting along with yourself and others is to notice that humans will only ever do things because it is important to them on some scale. Knowing this, when you seek to understand what your most important values are you begin to understand your actions and reactions.

Likewise you can seek to understand what is important to someone else and therefore understand where their actions and reactions are coming from. Then notice how what is important to them allows you to do and be what is important to you. This will help your appreciation and thankfulness of others a bit more than you have been.

2. Hold a more sacred/divine perspective

The truth is we each don’t know how the universe works or the secrets to why we are here or how we got here. It is a mystery to us but as we grow in consciousness we get an inkling that things mustn’t be a mistake. In difficult circumstances you can always hold it that this is a test or a right of passage or some exercise in preparing you for something grander, which it will be.

3. See the opportunity to be of service to another

Being of service to others is its own reward. When you look at what work is, it is providing service to others. Having the opportunity and ability to be of service to others is something to appreciate and be grateful for. Out of all the billions of people in the world, or millions in your country or thousands in your area of town, you have the opportunity to help that certain someone. I recall a quote that was powerful for me when I heard it and it is simply ‘Help those who would dream of being where you are now’

4. Use every event to help you discover more about yourself

No matter what the conditions are that you have your attention upon it can be used to help you discover more about yourself. If you are a serious student and am naturally curious about the nature of mind and being, then you can contemplate why you feel or do things the way you do. If you find yourself reacting automatically to situations you can contemplate what you are making the condition mean about you.

Two people could experience the same condition yet their reactions will be different depending on their self-image. Remember the self-image is just a mental construct that has been created withing your imagination. It has no substance in existential reality and so you would do well to leave it behind. To do this you have to be prepared to be everything and anything without resistance or attachment. Then you will find you are living in gratitude.

The secret to personal and spiritual growth and the secret to living in gratitude is to let go of wanting to change the conditions of your life in this moment.

Instead generate gratitude, appreciation and thankfulness for this moment no matter what it brings. If you don’t feel these in a moment have a look at how you are thinking about life and swap to another perspective such as one of the ones above and you will find you have much more control over whether or not you are living in gratitude.

Improving Your Self Esteem, Overcoming Low Self Esteem, Ways To Improve Self Esteem, Enhancing Self Esteem, Raising Self Esteem

admin Self-Esteem, Self-Help March 13, 2012October 25, 2020improving self-esteem, overcoming self-esteem, spiritual growth 0 Comment

Improving Your Self Esteem

Improving Your Self Esteem Clipart Image of a Bald Woman's Head

Imagine improving your self esteem to a level where life was enjoyable and inspiring. A life where you felt like you were a part of something bigger. Kind of like the feeling you get when you get offered a job or you receive an invitation to a party. You feel that you are wanted, have some value and feel greater self-esteem.

Why do some people feel that their lives are worthwhile and yet others
feel like they are a waste of space and a burden?

Are their jobs more important? Is it because they were blessed with a better personality or greater intelligence? The truth is there could be a dozen reasons why you think someone is better or more deserving or ‘together’ than you.

If you are serious about overcoming low self-esteem you can notice the pattern between those that do have and those that don’t. The most permanent and powerful way of enhancing self esteem is to look at what these people think of themselves, not what they think of their achievements.

Be very clear that anything you have WILL NOT and CAN NOT make you feel differently about yourself.

The advertisers and marketers do a great job of linking products, goods and services to your self worth and they convince us through clever advertising that owning stuff and having stuff is the way of raising your self-esteem.

When you look at it closely the thought process you go through in raising self esteem by your possessions or achievements is via what you think others will think of you.

If you get the new gadget, car, or house with a certain address you feel better for a short while because you feel that others think of you differently and that makes you feel better about yourself, for about 2 to 9 days if you are lucky.

Improving your self esteem permanently is about changing what YOU think of yourself irrespective of what others think. In fact you can’t raise your self-esteem while you care what others think of you.

So how do you change what you think of yourself?

You discover who you are, accept it and embrace it. Cherish the unique individual that you were created as. You become conscious, grateful and in awe of that which you are and that which created you as opposed to that which you have.

As you become more conscious, which seems to be the only thing to do while here on earth, you transform from believing you are something to knowing that you have that thing.

For example you might think you are the body but as you become directly conscious of reality you know that you have a body. You then might think you are the feelings and thoughts until you transcend this and see that you have thoughts and feelings and so it goes on into infinity.

You continue to discover the truth and each time you raise your consciousness you permanently raise your self esteem. Or more accurately you leave behind the illusion of who you falsely think you are and realise you are in reality OK.

The fastest ways I have experienced of improving your self-esteem is through shadow work and also the personal peace procedure of
EFT.

Improving Your Self Esteem business man with personal goals on the wall: family - car and a house

Can you see that improving your self-esteem permanently is about knowing the truth of you in reality, as an existence, as a being rather than trying to make the illusion a better feeling illusion?