 The natural state of being for a human is contentment. The play of emotions, the striving and fear of failure, the dreams and terrors -- all flavors tessellating your experience were it a work of art. But the canvas on which all things are painted is contentment. You are content, in all things, in all efforts, and in all failures. All the world’s a stage, revealed Shakespeare. But that we are merely players has been known long in advance by mystics, gurus, and deep thinkers of philosophy. For what is that very nature of a play? The drama is manufactured, the emotion not "real"; the actors agreed to take on their roles and play them at their to their delight. This is what we do every day, each and all of us humans. We play our roles, because we are content to. Though varied they may be, each is content in them. And sometimes, we may forget it is all a play, but that can never change it from being so. Many of us are unaware even of this choice we make; unaware that we are in fact content no matter that we believe or wish otherwise. But let us first learn about this concept we name as contentment. The dictionary tells us that it is "satisfaction"; however, for satisfaction it gives us "contentment." The words defined in terms of each other, nothing we gain nothing new here. So down into the well now, let’s go beyond this confusion by seeking the etymology. “Satisfaction” is composed of the Latin satis, meaning “enough,” and facere, meaning “to make.” "To make enough." In other words: To be finished. To be completed. To require no further work. Such a state seems the property solely dreams immaterial. And indeed, it may be, but look not in dreams if you wish to understand yourself. The present, as it happens, is the only lens through which we can see what is real, for that is our stage. We cannot perform in the future, nor act in the past. Here and now -- this is where we are, who we are. When we inspect it, we find it to be complete. It is as it is, and in this way it always will be. Nothing can be taken or added. Every decision you make, contents you. This is precisely why you made it. For you are the chooser, and you will alway choose that which contents you. Simply by definition. There are no regrets; nor exist wrong decisions. Just decisions we actors make, because we chose to make them. What more could here be added? Or taken away? No, there is no thing to change what exists because existence is that which simply exists and nothing more. It is that thing outside of which there is nothing. Anything which could be added or taken either already exists or never existed at all. There is no thing to change who you are, but that which you are content to choose. Don’t become confused in the illusions of thought, nor emotion. They are here, but they are hollow in their assertions to us about reality. Reality is reality. You are you. Your decisions are the ones you choose. You are content and, all you have to do is see it and you will then know.
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 To all seekers of wisdom, peace, and happiness: I wish you well... ...but I fear you wish ill for yourself. I tell you to question everything and to start with yourself: How long have you searched? And have you found what you are looking for? I’ll wager you haven’t, or you wouldn’t be here. Perhaps you believe you have gotten closer to your goals, and that’s well and good. But beware: the perception belies the truth. The mind knows not of the body nor the soul. In the body and soul we find our peace, happiness, and love, not in the mind. I give you, your pursuit is wholly unconnected to your reality. The mind merely tracks where you have been and are going, but never can see where you are. Happiness is felt, here and now, where the mind works not. The path you pursue only distracts you from this -- that the goal of the pursuit is to step off the path. More questions for you; you'd do well to learn to love them: Why ever did you assume that happiness and love could be pursued? Didn’t you remember those who have never pursued in their lives, who have never strived, never held projects of great ambit and size, yet were blissful and cheery as could be? Pursuing is not being. Happiness “is” it isn’t “had.” If you think otherwise, your thoughts controls you. They say “do this,” or “search here.” And so you go on, just as you are told. Well now let me tell you: forget the mind and let it wander all its days. To wander does not mean it is lost, for even in wandering something can be found if it chooses that to wander is the destination. Look at yourself. It is impossible for you to be lost. You “are.” This is the end. I tell you not to give up your search, but to question whether it can bring you anything that you desire. The mind cannot fix the body or soul. Do you truly want happiness? It has been said that a man needs just three things to be happy in this life: somebody to love, something to do, and something to hope for. Do not complicate things. If you seek happiness, there it is. The body likes what the body likes. As for the mind, it searches, but this is no solution for the soul. Perhaps those words oversimplify. No matter, just use them as a start. You are not so different as to find your happiness in radically different places. Whatever they are, know what you need to be happy. You've had happiness before, it is not a leap to find the causes. Then simply allow yourself to have it. And if you find this suits not you, well… perhaps you are one who just loves the search itself.  Deep inside of you… … there is strength. A jubilant dawn filled with confidence and steadfastness, of willpower and integrity. These lay at the center of your being. Swelling into its fullness with the knowledge of its true being. The One. The Whole. You are all things to all people, whether you’d like it or not. They say we have “storms”; Trials and Tribulations in life, Well let me tell you this… Any storm that arises in your life is of your creation. Do not think the weather patterns come and go; the only thing you can do is measure the wind and check the rain gauge. That you have to “take shelter” in order to survive... The walls you have constructed around yourself are certainly weak; they’re integrity compromised from the howling wind and the torrential rain. However… ...you know, way deep down, that you are protected from anything that can come your way. The power that is there is neither inside or outside, it “Is”. Simply it “is”. There is no surviving the storm, since their is no storm; just as it is impossible to mistake a sunny day for a rainy one. There is similarly no room for logic, simply because it is wholly unnecessary. “I am what I am, and that’s all that I am.” Well, What you know is what you know, and that is all that you know. Is there anything to survive? Certainly not, since there is no problem. Where is the threat of an object to itself? To be threatened is an impossibility. There is nothing to be harmed, and of course, you are no harmer yourself. Remember that there is no “storm” to survive... You and the "storm" are inseparable, and those processes which create the storm are the same that form in you every other inclination and desire. There is no “storm” but there is certainly a “you” that creates whatever “you” desire. There is no need for “me” to teach you how to live; I have no need to “find out” out. No need to” get out”. You know there is that old scientific myth that we only use 10% of the brain; Well that it is certainly a myth, ie. no truth in it, since if you were not using the full capacity of your brain at all times, you would be unable to survive. You would certainly be dead. But don’t worry about the mind. There are a million-and-one processes going on in your body. Are you consciously controlling all of them? Live and let live Goddammit. The "great power" is not unbearable. You are bearing it at this very moment. You have been bearing it for all the years since your birth. You will bear it until your death. This is to say can you understand yourself? Not inside, no. Outside? No. There is nothing to get, and that is the good news. Go on, now, you’ve no time to lose.  The chains broken, the kings dethroned, the laws revised and rights established. All in the name of freedom. For what is the human story if not one long tirade against those forces which bind us to slavery? And yet in chains we remain. Ever-present, lingering. Can you feel them? They are so subtle now, but still we feel we are restrained. We are told we are free, yet each day we feel… ...less than free. A mystery of the highest order. Nothing binds your body. It is free to move. Nothing binds your tongue. You are free of speech. Nothing binds your actions. You have free will… or so we say. See, there are many forms of slavery, but in point of fact, the grand sum of our efforts in history have been merely to shake off the most easily visible culprits. Chains, laws, kings. We've removed them but it just hasn't seemed to help. What is left to be freed? What fetters left undone? Need a hint? The chains of bondage have never been broken at all. You are as enslaved today as ever. You are trapped like a rat in a maze. Stuck in the mud. And yet all your life you believe you are free, because you have been told. No chains! No laws! Go and be free! But you are born, live, and die, and only in your final breaths do you look backwards and realize that it wasn’t so. That your precious life, your free will… it was nothing but one big crock. How dangerous. How sinister. That you were manipulated in that way, told to run when there was no where to go. And when all the masters have been run out of town, statues from pedestals pulled down, who is left to stop you from getting your freedom? Can you take a clue? It’s you. Slavery comes in many forms, but there has only ever been one true master. Oh sure, we quibble and we groan, and complain. The enemy is out there! The enslavers are he or it or that or the other. To divide in this way creates such a nice tension, and resolution. The problem simple. Reduced neatly like an algebraic equation. The solution: change the world and freedom will ring. Now we can struggle, now we can act, and strive, and have purpose and meaning, and happy endings. How nice. Such are the material of fairy tales. Tale as old as time, ain’t it? And yet every obstacle has been surmounted, chains pulled off, ideologies switched in and out, ebbing and flowing ad nauseum. You should be asking yourself one critical question: shouldn’t we be free by now? In all the vicissitudes of the change and overcoming and freeing, there is only one common denominator in the struggle and that is man. In man is the slave, in the slave is the master. And the master is identity. “I am the body.” Now chains can bind you. “I am the mind.” Now laws can silence you. “I am happy.” Now sadness can kill you. Dead and gone, you have lost yourself! The tyrant is not out there, I’m afraid to tell you, but inside. Here he has always sat, orb and scepter at the ready. He is empowered by misdirection. He feeds off of ignorance. As long as you search out there for him you never find him inside. You will search to the ends of the earth to until at long last you realize you could not see him because you carried him on your back. Tale as old as time. And so finally, our freedom. How is it to be won at last? Come close, listen here. I can tell you this: to seek freedom is to assume you are enslaved. Investigate and see if this is really so. You just may find you had never really looked.  .Desire is quite a lovely thing. We have a need for something; an “empty hole”, let’s say, and we get it. Desire solved.
Is it? When a question is truly answered, there is no more question. Question solved. However, we all know it doesn’t quite work out like that. When was the last time a question you had was truly answered and you were content with the response. I bet hardly ever, especially if you’re of the questioning type. More often than not a supposed answer to a question itself can breed more questions. “Is that right?” “Ok. well what about this…?” Instead of satisfaction actually the exact opposite has occurred; more answers are being demanded from your state of confusion or at least, your state of “not knowing”. What don’t you know? You mean to tell me that you are perplexed by the situation of things around you? Why? You are discontented, dissatisfied with the things around you...why do you choose to be confused about the things around you? You might respond “well of course I’m confused, there are a lot of things going on around me and in this world that shouldn’t happen and I don’t know why.” Well, you seem not to understand yourself first of all. You do not realize that if you cannot control the things around you, you can control yourself and your responses to the stimuli. Perhaps the greatest line in the Bible comes in the 23rd Psalm: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death… I fear no evil. You are in control of yourself and yourself only, be contented by the fact that you cannot control others. You’re not supposed to. When the whole world realizes themself, then, there will be no problems. The pursuit of controlling others will cease when there is only yourself to blame. |
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