An alternative view on life

In this article, we shall consider an alternative view to the way we ordinarily perceive life unfolding for us.

In general, we have an understanding that in order to attain nearly anything in the material world, we need to work for it. That we need to invest our valuable time and energy into something in exchange for some reward, mostly monetary. We sacrifice most of our lives doing jobs that we do not like, in exchange for some form of paper currency or virtual credits, in order to buy materialistic things we do not have time to enjoy. Or, when we have the time to enjoy them, we do not have the health to appreciate them. Caught in a paradox. 

We are conditioned into a linear way of thinking, a black and white way of looking at reality which seems to be very systemized, nearly like a production line in a factory. We consider life to be like the alphabet, where A always comes before B, where things can only be straight with edges, not round and curved. Even when we look at our houses, our gardens, our furniture, is it not mostly just squares and rectangles? A complete opposite of what we see in nature. Curves, circles, a free flow happening, feminine. Yet, we find ourselves flattening the hills, straightening the curves so that we can place concrete squares on them and label them 'home'.

Does this feel right for us? Does it feel natural? Or are we so busy with our 'work' that we forgot to feel anymore?

A false understanding

There is this notion that if we dream to have something in the future, our first and immediate obstacle becomes the idea of 'money'. How shall we accumulate enough money to do this? Or, where shall we find the precious time to exchange for money, to make our plans or wishes a reality? It seems like our first obstacle seems to be an idea of money, and this breaks a lot of momentum. We either end up spending too much time and energy into generating insufficient income and in the end, we surrender, feeling hopeless, or we try and think of a lot of 'smart' ways of how we can fulfill our wishes, with few of them being practical or efficient. Or, we can look at it as such, that we invest a lot of time into being unhappy, with the idea of this unhappiness being well worth it when we finally find happiness when we achieve our goal - if we ever do. 

This is completely understandable. We grow up in societies where we are indoctrinated and conditioned to think like this. It is not uncommon to see the 'norm' of having to finish school, finish a tertiary education and having a career until the age of retirement, or post-retirement, and then label that 'success' While it is a great accomplishment to have such a life, we need to see if this brings us joy, and if this makes us happy? Are we doing something that brings us joy, or are we doing something because it is expected of us, or because we feel that in the end, the monetary reward will be worth it? Not now, but 'in the end' we say... 

Well, maybe there is an alternative to this way of thinking, maybe we can make our wishes our realities through a different approach.

We can look at trying to rob a bank, which may be fruitless and not the best idea, or we can look at the idea of performing magic, which may pay off, or not. Alternatively, we can start to investigate the nature of our reality, and when we understand this, we may gain some deeper insight into how our realities are created.

Empty ideas or actual experience? 

When we think of the way we experience our reality, how is it that objects come into existence for us? The only way we can truly say that anything exists, or is real, is if it becomes our experience. Anything else would just be an idea, a thought, just concepts.

For example, even when we study geography, learning about different continents does not make it a reality to us, it is merely information about something that could or could not exists. However, when we set foot on another continent or we can observe it through an airplane window, then it becomes our reality, we experience it.

We can even look at some more common experiences in our daily lives. If we wake up in the morning and notice that the grass is wet, we shall assume that it was raining during the night, and consequently resulted in wet grass. Though... did we experience rain? Was rain our reality? No, we are only assuming, through mental conditioning, and linear thinking.

Now, what is the one common factor that is always present in our reality? What is the one thing needed for anything to become an experience? Well, it is us. Not in the form of a person necessarily, but us as awareness. Awareness needs to be present to observe it, to experience it. Without us being present, aware, and witnessing, can we say that anything happens? Without a witness, is there anything to witness?

A witness can exist with the absence of experience, with nothing to experience. Yet, nothing can be present or exist, without a witness being aware of it, or an observer observing it.

Thus, we can ask ourselves, does anything exist apart from us, separate from us? Or does everything exist with us, in us, and or through us? Let's go a bit deeper.

When we have not experienced something, can we say that it truly exists to us, or is it just information to us? Is it theoretical information, or direct experience? Anything not in our experience is just abstract knowledge.

So, how do we experience things, whatever it is that we experience? Is it that these things do not exist at all, and only exist with us? We can say that the world is not empty of its own existence, but unmanifested. As an experience happens to us, it is manifested into existence.

What if everything that we are wishing for, all the things we want to attain, are just areas in our mind where we have not shed enough light on it in order for it to become our reality? The mere fact that we have an idea of something, means that it already exists in the mental plane, it is there. Moreover, when we feed this idea enough, when we start to make it solid, it goes from being unmanifested into being manifested into our realities. It becomes a real experience for us.

We can confirm that everything we experience, was unmanifested at some point. Then, it was consciously or subconsciously manifested into existence, and then it ceased to exist again, as everything else bound to impermanence.

Creating our realities

What we want to understand through this, is that we should perhaps spend less time thinking about how we can make something our reality, and simply start to make it our reality. Everything within the physical plane of existence we experience started with a thought, is this not true? The shoes we are wearing now, it started with a thought. The place we are sitting now, there was thought, conscious or subconscious, that we want to sit here, and it became our reality. The same applies to the work we have, the food we cook, the clothes we dress up in. It started with a thought, and this thought was manifested into existence. Even when we see a beautiful person, before we labeled this person 'beautiful' there was a thought of 'beautiful person' happening, and this became our reality.

Now, if simple things work this fashion, why would the rest not work in the same way too? Why can we apply this understanding to smaller objects, but we feel that when it comes to bigger objects, it is not that easy? Maybe it is because we do not have the patience to work on bigger things, and that we tend to want things now, unable to remain patient while our Universe is busy granting our wishes. Or, maybe we simply do not have enough faith in ourselves. 

While we do manifest phenomena into existence, we need to remain mindful of our thoughts. Knowing this, we should act with caution because this does not mean that only the joyful thoughts, the happy thoughts we pay attention to, will be manifested into existence. The same principle applies to our fears we hover over, to the fears and sadness we feed and grow. We manifest them into reality too.

When we talk about manifesting our wishes and desires into existence, we should be clear on the intention behind it. Does this come from an ego-mind, or does this come from the heart? Do we want something solely for our own satisfaction, or do we want something to benefit our society? We need to check up on our intentions and remember that when we want something for the sake of 'me', we have the unrealistic expectation that the whole Universe, all of Mother Nature, needs to line up to fulfill only one individual wish, to benefit only one individual. However, when we have global peace and happiness at heart, and our wishes are for the sake of us as the collective, the probability of it becoming a reality may be much easier than we think!

As we use this understanding in a selfless matter, our wishes start to come into manifestation with ease, effortless, as it comes from a compassionate heart.

Consequently, we can contemplate on this and feel whether this concept resonates with us or not. We should not simply believe or discard the concept, but put it to the actual test and see what the results are. Putting it to the test, while having a clear understanding of the intention where it originates from, and meditating deeply on the nature of reality. Through meditation, a lot of things are revealed to us.

We may soon realize that with very little effort, we can create a very different reality for ourselves and those around us!

When we look at reality from an alternative point of view, we may be surprised to see how we have been ignorant of things that seem quite obvious, all depending on where we stand.