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Absloute truth vs perceived truth - musings on spirituality

 

Truth is .......

"Truth is" a very simple phrase with a complex meaning which makes the subject of truth the most difficult to approach, simply because you might either be at a loss to put it into words or say too much gibberish and confuse the readers. One thing i know well about truth is that its not a one time discovery, your awareness of its existence is the first step in probably a life-long journey of discoveries through self reflection and parayer/meditation . In the first post about the royal level of life I explained the nature of absloute truth, here I will give examples of truth vs the percieved truth that we might have encountered already.

Observing spirituality from the standpoint of different religions, practioners often refer to god/the creator/the supreme entity as the first truth, sometimes the only truth, they came across when reflecting on their inner self. As for myself as a biologist, I could see that I wasn't, as a human being, the product of coincidences and selective evolution but rather a deliberate and well balanced creation so there must be a creator. It wasn't a question of existence as it was a curiosity to get closer to the creator and find a path/purpose that's solely mine so i'd never lose sight of it later on and go back to being lost in my own skin. Which led me to exploring the truth regardless of my previous perception of it, and because of my curious nature and research oriented thinking, I started testing the truth against my pervious perception of it. 

The first thing I did I guess was reinstilling important truths about life, like change. Life is in constant change so it wasn't logical to get too comfortable with what I have at this moment and think that my world might collapse without it, the fact is I change also and keep changing as time progresses, so why would I cut my own unlimited options for something I might not want in the future. This idea fostered letting go of material things and looking forward to the options I might have later. Imagine the things that you have now are lining a straight narrow road on which you are walking, once you walk past them all, you reach a huge crossroads with 100 different roads to walk and each of them is lined with things that are different from what you had but just as plenty. Only by walking willingly past all that you have, can you see the options and possibilities lying ahead in detail, so you can either choose a new road or walk back and forth between different roads because all of the new roads are interconnected. 

It's a liberating feeling and it's not imaginable either, I already proved to myself that I can give up almost everything and be perfectly fine. I was like someone dragging rocks tied to his feet thinking they are precious gems which made him constantly tired and worried they might get stolen, once he untied them and left them on the roadside he started to walk freely and found the road is lined with similar rocks that he can use without having to carry all that weight. He could always pick one rock to carry then leave it for a more interesting one, focusing all his attention on one rock at a time which made browsing through all of them faster and using them more effeciently. That's how focusing all your attention on the job at hand feels like, without worry of winning or losing, without pressure to hoard more while you have the chance because you know you have enough at any given time anyway so just enjoy what you do now, you do it for your own pleasure and sense of accomplishment only. 

The second truth I got was about people, it's a big misconception that if you do good or bad deeds you will get immediate gratification or punishment. Oftentimes than not, your awaited gratification is coming from your own desire and sense of entitlement while your expected punishment is coming from your own sense of guilt. The truth is you don't need the reward to feel gratified for doing a good deed because you did it in the first place because it felt good to you, you felt gratified already, you were giving yourself happiness through someone else's. It's like picking your favorite fruit from the tree with your friends, after filling your own pockets, you start giving to the guy closest to you to fill his pockets too while knowing you can enjoy all the fruits you put in both your pockets with him. 

The next truth I saw was our individuality, I'm unique in this world, there's only one of me and no one is exactly similar to another. It was not logical to accept the same things and make similar choices so I learned about real tolerance which was not only about me respecting the other's uniqueness and withholding judgments but also immunity to other's judgments and disrespect to my individuality. Because i can easily be dragged to doing a form of the judgments i'm advocating against. 

For example, i'm a believer who's moving in a journey of spirituality, when I met my athiest peers from the scientific community I was often on the receiving end of judgment and having to prove i'm truly looking byond our differences, while they were complaining of this exact type of treatment from society and lack of understanding.  But when they met an odd ball like me who thinks that specially in matters of religion and spirituality, it's the person's own journey of inner discoveries to make and trying to offer my unrequested guidance/advice/experience will definitely hinder this person's journey, so I think they are explorers just like myself but taking a different path and it's interesting to get to listen to their journey if they are willing to make friends with me, almost all were willing to make friends but at the same many of them were putting me on the block where they stepped down from without being aware of it. 

This experience was an eye opener for me, how many times racism for example led to counter racism, it's like an endless loop. Unless one party understands that adopting the same ideas that led to your suffering because you consider yourself deserving of compassion at the moment doesn't make you any different from your oppressor, The victims of today will likely be unconciously cultivating the tyrants of tomorrow. If you understand that every person is different you won't try to group people by ethnicity, color, gender, religion or region and you will be more open to observing their interaction with you as another individual of the same species. You will notice that their lives are just like yours, a series of choices, and because both of you are different with endless choices out there to pick from, you might end up choosing totally different things which is not right or wrong as long as it doesn't hurt another person.

If you want others to treat you with tolerance then demonstrate your own tolerance to them, give them an example to follow, treat people the way you want to be treated even if they wouldn't offer you the same kindness, at the very least you saved yourself from making their mistakes in the future. There are so many thoughts and example on what we think we see vs what's actually out there that's shocking in its disparity, while all this time it was right there in front of us but we can not see it, sometimes even when someone points it out, you'd still think you were on the "good" side because there are so many people around you who think the same. Remember always that discovering the absloute truth is a lonely journey that you have to make on your own, I can only show you glimpses of my own journey so far and my own understanding of it.

Based on this understanding of individuality, you can easily see that it's an impossibility for a group of people to agree with you all the time. People are more prone to emotional outbursts when they get into groups of similar views, especially if they enjoy the cover of anonymity like in cyber bullying. As long as you know these facts you will see the people that hurl insults at you for a certain disgreement, are in a weaker position than you because you know what they don't know. Any confrontation with them will be like the strong bullying the weak, from there their insults/opinions will never affect you anymore. You might even join the argument for fun to see how far you can test their level of unawareness without any negative feed back on yourself, on the contrary it will cement the idea of the discovered truth inside you with evidence from applying it to different people, it will turn stressful arguments into exciting experiments. 

Once your head is quiet and you pray/meditate and contemplate, you will discover that your time is not just linear. The time you use to work or relax is on two levels, one is the actual time in minutes and hours and another in the form of head space.  While your hours are limited per day, the space inside your head is constantly expanding with the added quietness, you can do a lot of things in 24 hours, and because you have a lot of space and your brain started to simplify tasks, you get to use a lot of brain power on each task which raises your effeciency and concentration. All of this leaves you an insane amount of free time and head space, even while working because it takes less effort now you find that you have free space to do other things too unless you can manage to do a few work projects at the same time to occupy your free time. 

This was part of cultivating strong mentality, let's talk next time about purpose and the link between religion and spirituality. 

From restlessness to stillness - reducing stress

 

From what we understand about the state of inner peace, it seems like it goes hand in hand with mental strength, Inner peace helps cultivate stronger mentality as you step further into it. In other words, all who reach inner peace are mentally strong individuals, but not all mentally strong individuals would achieve inner peace because abandoning attachments is an integral part of inner peace while most people would not be willing to give up attachments, on the contrary they tend to center their world around these attachments thinking they represent their purpose/calling in life. And that is probably part of the reason why when they describe the way to achieve inner peace, they describe going through a crisis/tragedy followed by feeling lost and separated from your material world. Because without this sort of forced separation due to pain/grief, you would never think that you can still live/function without the attachments that you had, be it to a material thing like a job or a person that you love. 

If you had not gone through a big crisis yet while still struggling with anxiety and trying to deal with it, it's likely that you thought of reducing the sources of stress around you so it will be easier to cope, then when you get better you might try to gradually increase your exposure to the sources of stress in a controlled manner. The first thing you do is categorising the sources of stress around you based on priority and duration, how long do I have to be with this source of stress, a job or a person, and how important it is to keep in contact with it. if it's a job oftentimes it will be top priority and it might come with a host of people that often add to your stress so if you pick dealing with this one source of stress you get the people related to it as a bonus. Which in turn reduces the space that you set for stress sources and limit your remaining options so when it comes to keeping some people that might cause you stress in the future you'd have to let go if it's long term and prefer the type of social relationships that gives you a lot of personal space where you choose when to get in touch with the person and when to leave so everything would be under your control, this sort of flexibility you'd often get from family and friends who know your situation and support you. 

In theory, this should work fine but in actual fact it doesn't help all that much, yes you feel better than before but deep down you feel like you have a time bomb inside of you that might go off any minute if something came up that wasn't counted for or something you can't control, which applies to a big part of our everyday life, so you'd always keep that fear inside of you while trying to enjoy the outward quietness. 

Looking at your life this way, it's far from normal. You keep trying but it's as though you are watching this life from the sidelines unable to step in and join. Cultivating new relationships is almost impossible no matter how hard your determination is, unless it's work related because you already limited their access to yourself to be only during work hours so the duration is relatively short. Your friends and family are getting further from you because while they are giving you the space you need it erects barriers that make you feel lonely while you are with them, it's hard to overcome this because you are the one who set the boundaries and you can't undo it yet. This is an invisible stress that makes you just feel a sense of loss even though you seemingly lost no one and even though your life seems to be under control, you are not living like everyone else. 

The question here is what's the alternative? What can you do to limit the sources of stress around you while living normally. You need to look inside you for the answer, manipulating the outside world so it seems controllable to you is much harder than manipulating yourself so you would be under your control. You are aware now that there are two parts inside of you, ego and self, so you need to use the part that was unaffected by the outside world (self) to protect and guide the other part that's causing you much grief because of his tendency to be easily affected by the outside world. You need to adopt some of the ideals of the guru (self) inside you based on truth, not your desires. 

For example, you have to work on a project and worried about your performance, like what if I did it wrong or poorly, what would my boss think or co-workers, etc.... Now you need to get a simple fact into your head and remember it at all times. when you start a project, you assess your skills based on actual numbers from previous projects you worked on then add to it how much effort you can give the new project so now you have the tools to start, so based on this you are giving it your 100%, if the result was poor there's nothing you can do about it because you already did your best. 

There's no purpose in worrying or comparing to others, the result you will get will give you an idea about what to do next, it will help you reassess yourself based on new information that was not available to you prior to working on this project, so you are able now to work on your weak points so you can do better next time and become more confidant in your skills. This new perspective cut down much wasted energy where you used to divide your attention between worry and work, now you are only focused on work and looking forward to the result so you can either succeed and gain more confidence or set a new goal for improvement and in turn gain more confidence as well. 

This is a step in giving up the attachment you have for your job, you created a chain of purposes that will turn your previous inflexible job to a more flexible set of things you can do either to improve or start over in a different way while doing the same type of work. Dealing with your top priority in this way should come naturally from then on so it will not seem like a source of stress anymore which will give you more space to deal with other people in your life and the events related to them. Dealing with people seems like getting in the middle of chaos, which is true. You can't control people's actions or responses but you can totally control your participation in this chaos. 

Inside your body there are the two parts, ego and self, controlling your actions and reactions to others, think of the self as the one who will guide and protect the ego. So now you carry your own protection with you, previously you sorted the people in your life in rings around you based on how close you keep each person. By close I don't mean their access to you but how strongly you feel about them, it's unrealistic to think that anyone can evoke strong emotions inside you. for example, you can argue with the guy that hit your car in passing until you are hoarse but you won't remember his face once you get home. Try to put the people that constantly cause you stress on the same level as this guy, engage with them on the outside while being detached on the inside because anyway they are not going home with you and they can't keep you if you decided to end your participation in their self made drama. 

Set a fixed schedule for prayer/meditation and try to reflect often on your own analysis of different situations in the past. You can do that in a place that makes you feel safe or relaxed, it helps when it's out in the open with nothing obstructing your view (seaside, mountain, meadow). Self reflection is not the same as prayer/meditation, it needs only a place where you can relax alone and start thinking on your past actions with people and the outcome based on your new perception of truth that's unaffected by outside influence. You can also reflect on your current interactions with people based on your new ideals, if you can let go of your expectations from the people around you it will be the first step in giving up attachments to people. You actually don't need anything from most people except for a small number of close family and friends who are already giving you support and love in their own way. Look past what you want them to give you and appreciate their willingness to give and be there for you, this idea will give you the feeling that you have their support even if their way of showing it is completely messed up. 

Intentionally setting up time to reflect and think with yourself will reduce the noise inside your head a lot while sharpening your focus when dealing with everyday matters because you already have an idea of what's going on inside your head and know what you need from each person so you become more objective and less emotional. You are certain now that all the space you need is just a few minutes of prayer/meditation throughout your day and maybe an hour or two of relaxation and reflection on the weekend, the rest of your time you can spend it with whoever without feeling pressured or restrained.

Let's talk next time about truth vs percieved truth and how to understand and control our response to it which will improve our mental strength.

Ego, self and attachments - the triangle of anxiety

In the previous post, I explained how living with anxiety seems like but what is the cause behind all the stress and fear that keep piling up during this period. Most of the time the underlying cause is the loss of control over your own self, normally we can't control everything around us but at least we have a semplance of control over our own actions and choices. When you feel that you were repeatedly forced to make choices that you didn't want to make for work or loved ones, or when the people around you keep pushing you to react in a certain way when you would prefer never having to be in that situation from the start,  then the one or two forced situations keep dragging out more things that you have to do. 

Then when you start having anxiety attacks, your sense of helplessness and lack of control over your responses make things worse for you, deepening your misgivings and you start being afraid of yourself because you can see that depending on your flawed judgment to continue making decisions at this point will only get you into more trouble. You might try turning to the people that you trust to make decisions for you when the matter is important and you don't want to mess it up but often times than not you still feel that the decision was forced upon you even if you would probably make the same decision on your own anyway. 

This creates a constant feeling of restlessness even when you are not having an episode or being under pressure, you start thinking that the people around you are a constant source of much of your restlessness and stress so you prefer being alone unless you absolutely have to be with people, thinking that the outward quietness might extend inwards, which never happens in reality. Occupying yourself with work, watching a movie or listening to music gives you a much needed break from the restlessness and noise inside your head. 

The question here is why do you keep feeling restless despite being alone with no stimulus ?  

Inside each one of us there are two parts. The first one is the ego or personal self which is responsible for perceiving the outward influences that shape our personalities and beliefs as well as our perception of truth or reality. The other one is the self or soul who has no attachments to the outer world therefore it can make unbiased judgments based on absloute truth. Let's think of it this way, inside of you there are two people, one is young, curious and wants to try anything that seems interesting and is influenced by the collective perception of the people/society he's living in. The other one is an old guru who is detached from outside influences and attachments so he sees the world for what it is, he's quiet knowledgeable and sharp and shares the exact same experiences with the other younger guy only without being influenced from the outside world. 

You are a mix of both guys, you are completely fine as long as both sides are in balance but when the young guy is in control you start to get into trouble and it keeps piling up to the point where you lose contact with the guru. That's when you start experiencing the loss of control and emotional fluctuations which either manifest outwards or stay inside you in the form of noise and restlessness. 

Now you know the cause and effect of your condition but how do we fix this? 

You need to know that the guru never left you, its just that the young guy is so loud that you can't hear the guru, and he keeps getting louder and more restless while he's taking control over you. When you reach this state of imbalance, you can't bring them in balance like before, so you need to go about it in a different way. That's when the dark room comes into use, the one always trying to get out of the dark room is the ego who has total control over you. When finally he stops trying and you start praying/meditating, you get in contact with the guru because you adopted his philosophy. The situation you were in has forced you to be locked up in a dark room with nothing, no attachments to material things like money and luxury items which are of no use to you in there. And no attachments to people, you have already decided that even the people closest to your heart are too much to handle at this point and of no help to you. So the situation was reversed and the ego has abandoned attachments and joined the self so you'd feel immidiately at peace.

This sense of peacefulness is not permanent at first, only when you are praying/meditating, but after keeping a fixed schedule you will start feeling peaceful for longer periods and your perception in this peaceful state will start to shift towards the self's ideals and beliefs which are also your own experiences but with real truth as your guide instead of the collective perception of truth/reality that was predominant in your social circle. 

An example is when you get into an argument over supporting one political party over another with a close friend or relative. Your old self would get emotional because you think you are obviousely right and your family/friend should trust you, your new self will calmly state his point of view and will never argue the point because in your current understanding you see both sides clearly and only side with the one beneficial to the majority of your people, no need to argue or defend as no one is right or wrong here. As for your family/friend you treat them the same way you indulge a child, it's not worth it upsetting them over a small matter and they are still different individuals that need to live their own lives and make their own choices, you don't want to overshadow their experiences in the name of caring for them, so you only point out pros and cons of each party and inform them of your choice giving them space to think and make their own decision. 

You are more of an observer now, instead of seeing right and wrong (duality) you see choices that are neither right nor wrong but only different enough to suit different people. This detachment is not unfeeling or uncaring to the people around you but it's coming from your understanding that you can not control their lives or make decisions for them, on the contrary if you actually did this you will be depriving them from actually living their lives, and you'd be confidant in your ability to offer them support if their choices ended up causing them trouble. 

As you get more in touch with your inner self, your understanding expands. You become more tolerant and patient. Tolerant because your understanding of individual differences became generalised enough that nothing seems odd. Patient because you either know the outcome or can't do anything about it so why the rush. Worry is a thing of the past for you, because the moment you made your choice you already set things in motion so you'd only wait and see the outcome and deal with it accordingly as a new separate chellenge, you stopped stacking up events and consequences of events as a result of your constant worry which ultimately created a giant problem for yourself to deal with. That's called simplifying, your brain will always start simplifying and breaking down complex situations so you can give each small piece all your attention at one time which in turn will boost your concentration to unprecedented levels. 

You can choose to argue, make fun, prank someone or just goof around with friends when you are bored, but ultimately you would need your own personal space to be with yourself and think/understand more about your new found perception which in turn will cement your bond with the self. From time to time you will feel sad/happy/frustrated and all that but not as strongly as before. You now know that happiness can't last forever so you enjoy it to the fullest while it lasts, never getting too excited for having it or worried over losing it. You wouldn't feel the crushing sadness with no end in sight, you will just wait for it to take its course because it will pass too. You know with absloute certainty that the only constant in life is loss. 

Through this kind of understanding you will get a great sense of peace and quiet inside your head that's given time will be unbreakable. You will find that there is no real reason for worry or fear, if by chance you might happen to experience such emotions again you will feel a sense of adventure rather than annoyance or anxiety. Where in the past you used to be afraid of people judging you/pointing at you, you'd only be afraid of ghosts maybe ;) which is not an everyday thing and might be fun to feel the adrenaline rush. 

Let's talk next time about the transition from restlessness to stillness in depth. 

The perception of anxiety and how it relates to spirituality

The perception of anxiety .......

You would need to know exactly what life is like while having anxiety, the first thing to know is that its not something that goes away and returns sometimes because of a trigger like stress or emotional fluctuations like we might think. When it starts it's like you are locked in a room with dim light where there are many objects inside the room but you can still navigate around them to get to the door and get out, while getting to that door you'd feel the fear of failing to reach that door and being locked for longer periods, this fear is the bout of anxiety that's manifested outwards sometimes you stay out of this room for longer periods but the room is always there and you keep coming back.

When your anxiety progresses further you'd find more objects in the room then the room gets bigger and then darker while the objects gets sharper where most of the time you'd get hurt trying to find the door. Each of these objects is the pressure and stress from people and situations in your life while the room gets bigger to accommodate all these objects and gets darker because it gets harder to see clearly the more objects there are in this room, when the stress is related to someone that you love the sharper the objects that hurts you while trying to navigate in the darkness the longer you stay down after getting hurt before you go about trying again. 

At some point it might feel like you are not getting out of this room so when you are afraid of trying to go find the door again after recovering from an earlier injury, you try to occupy your time. Even if you are alone you would want to do something, maybe lose yourself in a book and through it see part of the world outside that you are unable to join it will be like magical glasses when you wear them you can't see the dark room you are in but instead some other path in life where other people live and immerse yourself in their stories, it might motivate you to get up and try again.

The real question here is why do you keep going back and how to stay out for good. 

Now you understand that while you are in this room you truly have nothing in there, no money, no love, no support, no one to help and at the same time you need a lot of that to be able to get out, but even the people who love you the most are incapable of helping you. Sometimes the people who try to help make it worse instead and add to your pressure and then guilt over pushing them away the next time they try to "help". That's when you try to look for support elsewhere, and because your close allies/friends/loved ones cannot help, you get to know for a fact that another person can't help you. So you are on your own unless there's something else out there that can help.

The journey to spirituality..........

That's when you turn to spirituality, the simple bottom line of most religions is unconditional love and a lot of forgiveness from the creator. When it was my turn to look at the bottom line of my religion I found two beliefs:

One, we are god's favorite creatures which means he loves us the most. 

How much is that love exactly? I asked

So since the beginning of creation god sent only one part of his love to go about for all earth's creatures and kept 99 parts for himself. On this earth what everyone perceives as the greatest love of all is a form of willingness to sacrifice all even your own life for the one you love, the example was of a mother's willingness to die in her child's place. This kind of love is not rare in human history or even you might witness it in your life, and all that is only one part. So now you are the favorite receiver of the remaining 99 parts, which in my perception means that i'm very much loved even more than any other love i've ever received in my life.  

Two, god will forgive anything you do except forsaking him and worshipping another.

How will god forgive me, what if I did something terrible? I asked

You only need to ask for forgiveness to get it immediately, with no conditions. But God only forgives what's his, like when you do something bad, lie, cheat, hurt yourself, etc... You need to seek forgiveness from the people you've wronged and in turn try to offer forgiveness when you are wronged, this part led me to "karma". So in my understanding, god will forgive me if I cheated someone out of his money for example because I disobeyed his rule of no cheating but I need to go seek forgiveness from the person or compensate him for the damage I caused by taking his money. 

With these two facts in my head I started to open up to spirituality, I needed love and forgiveness the most to be my pillars of support to be able to lean on when i'm in a perceived crisis because at this point only I could tell if there's a serious crisis coming my way or not, I needed the type of love that doesn't ask why I did this or what i'll do next, I needed the forgiveness I can get without going about explaining why I failed and giving promises I can't keep which would only add to my troubles. I wasn't thinking of hurting anyone anyway or doing bad things.

How do I ask God for love and forgiveness? I asked

You don't ask God for love because God loves you anyway just go on and talk to him, let him know you and hear your voice. It's like when there are so many children to take care of, the silent one who doesn't ask for anything or complain about anything is still loved but would get no extra care without asking for it. The best part is that you don't have to voice out your suffering and grievances if you don't want to recount it because God already knows. 

In some religions it's called prayers and in others it's called meditation, so I started by having a physical place of prayer/meditation that I can bring with me to the dark room. It was hard at first because my perception of the dark room itself is hazy I can only feel the emotions it leaves behind strongly but at that time I did not yet see myself in the dark room clearly. First I brought a mat that I can place wherever, so I can bring my prayer/meditation spot with me anywhere and anytime I need it. Then started simple prayers maybe 5 to 15 min each time while I close my eyes because if I keep them open I still see my place unchanged but when I close my eyes I would picture myself on the prayer mat in the dark room but the spot where I pray/meditate is illuminated in soft light and around it is empty space, while reciting the prayers I take intermittent reposes in the balasana yoga position which was immediately calming. Whenever I get into this pose and close my eyes I see clearly the dark room with me there on the prayer mat and I can talk to god as much as I like or just stay silent, it felt so peaceful. 

At first the prayer/meditation was not making a lot of difference except in the balasana yoga pose but for this I wanted to do it often. Then I started to get more confidant in my belief that I had the love and forgiveness because each time I get on the mat I felt better to the point where when I face a crisis I can feel the panic inside but be able to hold it until I can get on the prayer mat and it all goes away, it still felt bad but where before I had no place or time to let go and get rid of it so I kept the small episodes pilling up for long periods at times, at this point I had fixed times for prayers/meditation throughout the day and sometimes extra time at night where I can let go and feel calm even when I didn't need it, I still maintained the prayer/meditation times.

With that as my sure place of recovery, I was getting bolder and more daring but I didn't dare yet to go confront my demons like doing the stuff that i'm avoiding the most. Instead I did all the normal things without the fear in the background of my head, it was not there anymore but the dark room was still there and now it became my place of comfort instead of fear because it was where my prayer mat was from the beginning. By this time my perception of things started to change, as I was coming from where I had nothing and now was starting to get things. All the things I got since then I started to sort out according to priority, I realized there are not many things I absolutely needed so I set my bottom line of what I can give up and still be ok or happy even, the more things I put on the give up list the happier I was because the list was a worst case scenario where I will still be ok even if I give it all up, and every little thing I got to still keep on that list made me feel grateful and happy.

I might still have the exact same things I had before when I was thinking i'm entitled to them because they are mine and losing any of them is unfair, when I was going through a crisis I discovered I was not entitled to anything may it be support or love or forgiveness from the people around me or a job promotion or more money. So when I got any of them I was so happy and grateful, it was like going about fighting in battle like everyone else but expecting no rewards, if you end up with rewards it's a happy thing but if you end up with loses you keep fighting like everyone else or stop and go fight somewhere else, it's your choice and you have nothing to lose because you went in with nothing in the first place.

When you reach this point you will be outwardly completely fine with almost no chance of going back to being locked up in the dark room of clutter because it's not the same anymore, I will explain in the next post about the existence of the dark room, but inwardly you know that you still don't dare to do some things which is no difference from most people. The first thing you did was making a list for the things you can give up and be ok, next is to make a list for the people you can give up and still be ok which is much harder to do. People can't be treated like objects for one simple reason, you can't influence their response and sometimes can't predict it as well so it's easier to sort them out according to how close you want them to be.

Imagine your social circle of people in rings around you, where in the closest ring you keep the people whom you love dearly and trust the most. The people in the first ring are whom you would want to protect because any of them getting hurt will hurt you as well. The second circle are people with more restrictions in getting to you and less attachment from your side, then the next circle and the next...... You can make as many circles as you wish and nothing is set in stone there, you can always shuffle people from one circle to the next. Now inwardly only you know who are the people you are most vulnerable to, and the rest can't even touch you because they have to move through your inner ring to be able to get to you, outwardly you will definitely change in mostly fun ways, the people around you will think you are getting more shameless and thick skinned as well as tolerant. Criticism has almost no effect on you, social shaming is like watching TV drama you might even try to be sarcastic and make fun of the whole thing while you are in the fray so you wouldn't miss out on the fun. 

When you reach this point, you are on the right track to attaining inner peace. 

I wrote so much today, probably will explain about self, ego and inner peace in the next post. 

The royal level of life - inner peace

 The royal level of life.....

All of us move on in life controlled by our personal self's impulses, it controls our response to various situations, wether to choose peace or conflict. In a way we often let others control the level of our emotional response, but logically it shouldn't be so. If in every situation you can see the outcome based on facts that you know (truth) instead of what you want to believe or hope for (untruth). You will realize that you always have a choice in your own life but sometimes you make mistakes in identifying your options which leads you to the mistaken conclusion that you had no choice. 

At some point in your life you might reach a level of inner peace that's called the royal level, it's when you see truth vs untruth. You would know that truth is, it doesn't need your awareness of it to be, and its not the nature of truth to oppose because it has nothing to defend. Does it make sense that truth would work with what you believe or against it?  

When you get to this point, you will find that you don't have to get into many arguments or discussions, a lot will not be of concern to you, you will favor inner peace over inner conflict. And if you do get into an argument you won't try to prove to the other person that he's wrong, the fact that he's wrong needs no justification (truth). If someone is lying to you, you will not expose his lies for what it is, you will just sit back and enjoy watching him make an effort to get you to believe a lie when you already know the truth. You will realize that you can't change the universe in one argument, the ignorant will remain an ignorant no matter his education because he chose to be so.

You will know that life goes on wether you wanted to move along with it or stand still in mourning, anger, frustration, disappointment, worry or sadness (truth). Anything that hinders your forward progress will only occupy a little of your time because you know that life will not wait for you until you are ready to move forward (truth). Your response to sadness and happiness will not be extreme, yes you will feel sad or happy from time to time but it won't be an event that marks the end of life as you know it or the beginning of your new and better life because you will know for a fact that nothing is for forever (truth), the sadness of today could turn into happiness in the near future and the happiness could be the beginning of new sadness, the only constant in life is loss (truth).

Inner peace and contentment..... 

You will no longer cling to pleasure or resist pain because you realized they will both pass (truth), you fully enjoy the pleasure as long as it lasts and wait for the pain to take its course and pass. The peace that you have with you will give you a confidence that makes you feel that you can do anything to which you put your mind. Your thought system will take full advantage of this feeling, it will fill your mind with countless possibilities of what you can do or have. You will experience a great depth of creativity and a sense of inner resources to pursue anything that you choose.

At this level you will reach some type of control over your personal self and an inner peace that will make you feel that you are the king of your own life, aware of every detail in it and truth is your guide. You perceive the universe as a classroom where you learn over and over to let go of untruth in all of its forms and to remember that truth is reality. You will realize that your personal self and it's world are ideas in your mind, you will watch their stories unfold without attachment and with an open mind, sometimes you will get involved in them but you realize that this doesn't change truth so getting involved will be some sort of an entertainment to you.

You will have patience where you had none because if you were right in your conclusions, its another step in your pursuit of truth and if you were wrong, it will be an exciting experience that you will enjoy immensely. You will feel whole, content and at peace. Extending love will happen automatically for you, you are secure and giving but not because its right or good to be giving nor are you giving to get or defend anything. Giving is simply the natural expression of knowing that you have everything you need to be content and its limitless because it comes from inside you. 

You will realize that happiness is not attained through richness. Wearing a 300$ watch or a 3000$ one will give you the exact same time, owning a 30$ wallet or a 300$ one won't change how much money you have in it, booking a seat in first class or economic class will not make a difference in the time you need to reach your destination and living in a 300 acres house or 3000 acres won't make you less lonely. Your perspective will shift drastically and so will your definition of happiness, your happiness will not be centered around someone or something instead it will come from inside you. You will rediscover life and find pleasure in the little things you used to miss in your previous world of untruth.

I don't mean that we should avoid arguments entirely, when you know the truth before getting into an argument, you will know for a fact that arguing about it won't change it so you won't have anything to prove because truth needs no proof, which will lead you to the state of total peace inside with no pressure, you might argue on the outside for fun or because you want to test others awareness of the truth that you can see clearly, sometimes they stay blind to it even when you point it out and demonstrate it to them. It's an amazing and fun theory to test and it turns your arguments into entertainment instead of conflict. At some point you would be looking forward to arguing with someone that is different, that is close to having the awareness and perception of truth, with an a open mind or with the potential of having an open mind.