Drop comparing and life is really beautiful

We define happiness by the things we have that are "better" than what the other people around us have. We feel happier if our neighbor is doing "worse" than us. Why?

The Goal of Life

Do we have a goal in life that we have to accomplish? I mean, come on, let's recognize it, we all are going to die, sooner or later. What happens when we die? I don't know, but that is not my point. My point is: "Is there something that I and you have to do before we die?" I mean, although I don't know what happens after we die, I don't think it is the end, I don't think our being disappears just like that. It might get through a transformation, or it will be "transferred" somewhere well, but we don't disappear. The question is: is there something in this life that can influence what happens when we die?

I tried many things, I hoped many things, but nothing happened. I feel that everything I do is in vain. Nothing happens! But then I realized that maybe I don't have to actively look after something, because the fact that I am looking after something, might create this hope for now, and the illusion later that I did it, I found it. But then it is just an illusion in my mind. Or a consolation at least, that I've done everything I could, and how can I be wrong? Wrong is the root of the idea itself. I need to stop for something. I need to stop creating illusion. I don't need to do anything. Just be, watch, breath, sleep. Melt into life.

Making life a game - is it possible?

Can I remove any belief; can I have no prejudice? Can I make life a game and not a purpose? Can I make life a fun, and not goal oriented? Can I make life pure love and not a business?

I want to be able to do it. But it is so hard, because I'm caught in the notion of life that people created around me, in school, at work, everywhere.

Should I go hide somewhere? But where? Maybe in the mountains where it is hard to be reached...

Learning

We are taught to imitate. We are taught to learn more and more. We gather so much information in our mind and it takes over us. But there is on thing that we don't know: "Learning brings no transformation to our being. The transformation of one's being comes through some other door, not through the doors of mind". Can that door be "the experience"?

The Way

The way is to be silent, to experience in one's self that which is always the observer, and never the observed; to know the knower, and forget the known.

Enlightenment

Enlighened means you have realized who you are. I am aware of the things around me but I still can't see inside me, understand me. It is a big struggle.

My Neighbor’s Grass is Greener

There is this saying that “My neighbor’s grass is always greener”. It is all about desire, desire to have something that you don’t have yet. The problem with desire is that it never stops. You want something that you see today and you fight for it, you struggle for it, until you have it and once you have it, desire strikes again for something that your “neighbor” just got. Desire is the root of unhappiness. How do you stop desire? You can’t actually. Trying to deny it, to repress it, it will make it even higher. Look at children. Try to tell your child not do something. He will start crying and he won’t accept anything else. He will wait until you will not be around, and still do what you told him not to do. Repression is not the solution. Repression creates something more dangerous – the obsession. The solution is to understand the futility of desire. Just watch your desire getting born, getting higher. Just watch yourself trying to accomplish the desire, and at the moment when desire is accomplished, contemplate carefully that moment, and say “Now what?” You will see that there is nothing there. You didn’t realize anything. Your mind will instantly pick something else for you to urge for having. The desire will never stop, unless you understand there is no point in it.

Mirage

I like the way the word “mirage” sounds. Mi-raaa-ge… It’s like being in a desert, no food, no water, and you start hallucinating, you start seeing the mirage. You are not dead but you are not alive. You are just in a dream between life and death. Is the world (or what we call “world”) real? Or it is just an illusion, a mirage? Is everything that I see real, or it is just a representation of my mind? If it was real, then why when I see something, I call it beautiful while someone else calls it ugly? Do we live only in illusions? We must be very confused in this case. Is our life just a dream? It happens so many times, that we have a dream in which “real” things happen, it’s a “real” situation happening in our dream. Why not the reverse? Maybe we are now just part of a dream in which “real” things happen. And we are going to, or we are supposed to wake up at one point. Maybe when we hit the end of the road. Or maybe not then. Maybe if you don’t wake up while running on this road, when you hit the end of the road, the dream is restarted. Maybe you don’t look the same in the new version of the dream, but it is still you, running on a similar road, in a similar dream, over and over again. We (or I?!) need to wake up!

Nowhere to go

I have nowhere to go, but in...

The Door to Realization

What is realization? What do I have to do? Why am I here?
Don't tell me that I have to have a family, kids, a good career and die happily when the time comes. No, I feel that there is something beyond that. I feel that there is something around us. But I don't know yet how to get in contact with "IT". It's like this something is watching me all the time, creates challenges for me, laughs at me when I struggle and fail. I don't feel controlled, but I'm feeling myself challenged every day. Maybe it is what other call "God", or maybe it is another dimension, or maybe it is the "Inside". I don't know yet. I'm searching a lot for the door that will reveal "the real" to me. I feel so close to it, many times, but still I couldn't touch it.

Am I the only one like this? Do you feel the same? Or I am just crazy...

New Age Music

In a previous post I was telling you about Mystic Radio (http://rugaciune.blogspot.com/2005/02/music-of-listening.html), my beloved radio with music to "entertain" my soul. Unfortunately, Mystic Radio stopped broadcasting this month. I was so sad, and later I found out that the owner left us for another dimensions. Farewell and thanks for the beautiful music!

Now I'm left with SKY FM (http://www.sky.fm/) that has New Age music streaming at http://www.sky.fm/mp3/newage.pls
It's not the same as Mystic Radio, but it is good food for my heart. Thanks for those putting efforts in providing us the music.

Choice is a burden

My friend said once: "The process is very simple. Meditate, become more aware and then you will see: choices disappear, a choicelessness arises. And it is such a tremendous joy to have a choiceless spontaneity. It is such a freedom. Choice is such a burden."

It is us that create the choices, it is our society and our civilization. And we get overwhelmed by choices. And we forget our inner being, our "simple" inner being, which is the only place where peace can be found.

Take the choices away from me, please. Let me stop for a second. Let me rest in peace... alive.

Finding my balance

I wonder how the little creatures survive in this world. Or maybe it's only the humans that have worries about what is going to happen next...

Choosing a lifestyle

Think
For every meal you take, should think it's not easy to get. Do appreciate blessings.

Feel
Being able to live a day in peace, is a blessing.

Optimistics
As you have peace, everywhere is good.

Appreciate blessings
Grab the opportunity to give. The one who gives is a blessed man.

Worldliness
The less thing you have, the less desire you have.

Preach
Are you free? Let's have a cup of tea!

Quiteness
Put away self-centre, then you'll have happy life.

Realisation
Wow! Leafs fall!

Who Am I?

I was asking myself in the previous post: "who am I?" and I was looking for an answer. But what if this question is unanswerable? What if the question doesn't need to exist? What if the "I" in this question is just a creation of our mind trying to give a new form to our ego, to delimitate ourselves from the existence?

A World of Questions and Unknowns

The more I live in this world, the more questions and unknowns I have. One would have thought that it would be the reverse, the more you live, the more you become a wiser person that knows more. But it is not the case. The more you live, the more you understand that you know less and less. What is life? Why am I here? What is my purpose? What is "me"? The list gets bigger and bigger. Are we being sent into this life to look for answers or to create more questions? I can’t just accept everything as it is. I have a mind and a heart and a soul that was given to me. To be used, I guess. Everything should a reason. Life has to have a reason. If it didn't, that it wouldn't make any sense for us to be born to live a life.

We live from dualities

Did you notice that we appreciate a thing or a person only in the moment when we are away from it/him/her? The human being needs to compare in order to decide if something is good or bad. We cannot recognize the good as it is, in its pure form. We need the bad to exist as well in order to compare it, so we can tell the difference. We need pain in order to appreciate a warm and good feeling. We are such strange creatures. We sometimes live in pain, but because we didn't meet the pleasant feeling yet (or we didn't hear there is a better feeling), we manage ourselves to believe it is good enough and we don't want to change. But in the same time, when everything is good and pleasant, we create the thought that maybe something better exists and we become sad and live with the eternal recklessness that we don’t have the best of the best. We seem to not be at ease when everything is smooth and pleasant and calm. While the bad, the dramatic, the cloudy and noisy make us feel better, engaged and confident. I still wonder why...

Simple Life

In my life I follow Albert Einstein's sage advice to "make everything as simple as possible - but no simpler."

Silence

"An ancient pond/
A frog jumps in/
That silence."

In a world full of sounds, I'm looking for the silence. I'd say - because I like its sound.

Chinese Characters

I'm fascinated by Chinese characters. Especially by their composition from different situations and their history and origins. A friend of mine explained a few to me. Really impressive.

The character for "listening attentively" consists of five characters: the character for ear, the character for standing still, the character for ten, the character for eye, and the character for heart or mind. Chinese characters are really picturegrams: they are pictures that have evolved to describe a certain situation. This picturegram for listening attentively means: "When in stillness, one listens with the heart. The ear is worth ten eyes."
The character for sacred, holy, or saint is made up of three characters: the character for ear, the character for hole (which is taken phonetically to mean clear), and the character for standing still. Thus, a saint is one who, in stillness, hears clearly; or, what is holy or sacred is being able to hear clearly, which evolves to being able to hear the word of God or being able to hear the sound of Buddha's voice.

The Music of Listening

http://mysticradio.com/ is my listening music.
But there is a part in me that likes Iron Maiden, a heavy metal band. I simply ignore the words in their songs and I just focus on the melodies. They succeed to move me every time into a contemplating and reflective state.

I Don't Want Anything

Some people hate me for this. I'm just happy with what I am and what I have and where I am. I don't need or want anything else. If it just happens that life will bring me something new tomorrow, well, it's just the natural way of life. In fact, I always say to myself that I have maybe too much. I like having a simple life so I can really live it and enjoy it. Life it's wonderful and beautiful and complete by itself. I just need to contemplate it. Socrates said once that "those who want the fewest things are nearest to the gods". But they don't understand me.

Water which is too pure has no fish

.... said Ts'ai Ken T'An.

I've been taught to strive for perfection and I've been told to not stop until everything is perfect, but all these "teachers" forgot one essential thing: to explain what perfection really is. Who defines it? By what laws? My perfection can be somebody else's imperfection. I love the fish, I like watching the fish in the water and listen to their unspoken words. But it's just me.

The Grass Grows by Itself

"Sit quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself."

It doesn't matter how much I struggle, life continues to flow its course, without even looking at me. So then, what's the struggle for? It is only this false illusion that makes me believe I can go against the flow and change something. The truth is, the flow is caring me, and "the grass grows by itself"...