Originally intended to be (karmic friday) but terribad internets has delays :/
There are many ways to divide an individual up. For today's post, I'll be focusing on my personal favorite, which is the mind, body and soul.
The mind - Anything to do with thoughts.
The body - The physical aspect.
The soul - The infinite, ineffable aspect.
In a day, I spend more time with the aspect of my mind than the other parts of my trifecta. And when I say spend time, I mean ways in which I satisfy the desires of my mind. Some examples would be: not being present, being caught up in thought processes, getting the intense urge to identify with material (and sometimes immaterial) goods. During a period of meditation today, I realised that this behaviour of mine to identify more with my mind than my other aspects was primarily due to my childhood, where I didn't feel like I fit in with the other kids, and so had to make up imaginary things to please my mind. Things to take my attention away from the present. This behaviour continued up till quite recently, about half a year ago, when I had my 'breakthrough', spiritually and mentally. Even since then, it has been hard to keep present, to stop myself from identifying so passionately with my thoughts, especially since I returned to Brunei - where I grew up.
As for why the soul was neglected - None of the education I received during my school years drove me to establish a connection with myself on the personal level. I don't blame my teachers, rather I point the finger at the educational system - it attempts to take on the massively important burden of spiritual discovery and connection of God, with the still-ancient view of the industrial era -> that this life is nothing but a never-ending cycle of work and providing for society, that an individual is no more than a means to an end.
I realised earlier tonight that due to this imbalance in time spent on the various aspects of the trifecta, my life was suffering mainly in the physical and spiritual aspects. I sense this feeling in people around me quite often too. And so, I've decided to list some of the actions and/or processes which involve at least two of the three aspects, so as to correct this current imbalance.
mind + body - actions that involve pushing the body past its current limits
mind + soul - being present and paying attention to actions that feed the soul
soul + body - allowing the body to be in full control, while being in line with the soul's desires
mind + soul + body - actions that draw all attention to the present effortlessly.
Somehow, skydiving seems like the appropriate mashup of anaerobic exercise, meditation and yoga. ;)
At the present moment, it seems that skydiving is out of the question for me. Looks like I'll have to find a fun alternative extreme sport to take its place. :)
It was amusing - at one point during my meditaion, while I was on my back with my hands pressed together to thank God for everything, I had a moment of divine insight, you could say. The view from where I was lying was one of the ceiling, lit up by my trusty paper-mache Ikea lamp (dragged back all the way from Bristol). As I laid there, my hands created the illusion of seperate realities - my vision on either side of my hands differed greatly in terms of color and object positioning - the right side saw the light as a heavy orange glow, and the left a bright, shining yellow. And yet in reality, nothing had moved. Which leads me to my point - there is no such thing as a reality that is either black or white. Reality is white, black and every shade of gray in between. The only thing that differs is our perception of reality. Never fall into the illusion that everything is seperate. That illusion was placed there so relativity could be established, so we could know ourselves seperately, yet the ultimate truth is that we are all one and the same. Without the illusion of being seperate, we could not objectify experience on a personal level.
So, today's take-home messages - Go through the hours of an average day for you, see which parts of the trifecta are lacking in attention, and start filling in those gaps with your own activities! Also, honor each moment, each person, each experience as being unique in its own right, while also knowing that all of them are all parts of the same whole. <3
The mind - Anything to do with thoughts.
The body - The physical aspect.
The soul - The infinite, ineffable aspect.
In a day, I spend more time with the aspect of my mind than the other parts of my trifecta. And when I say spend time, I mean ways in which I satisfy the desires of my mind. Some examples would be: not being present, being caught up in thought processes, getting the intense urge to identify with material (and sometimes immaterial) goods. During a period of meditation today, I realised that this behaviour of mine to identify more with my mind than my other aspects was primarily due to my childhood, where I didn't feel like I fit in with the other kids, and so had to make up imaginary things to please my mind. Things to take my attention away from the present. This behaviour continued up till quite recently, about half a year ago, when I had my 'breakthrough', spiritually and mentally. Even since then, it has been hard to keep present, to stop myself from identifying so passionately with my thoughts, especially since I returned to Brunei - where I grew up.
As for why the soul was neglected - None of the education I received during my school years drove me to establish a connection with myself on the personal level. I don't blame my teachers, rather I point the finger at the educational system - it attempts to take on the massively important burden of spiritual discovery and connection of God, with the still-ancient view of the industrial era -> that this life is nothing but a never-ending cycle of work and providing for society, that an individual is no more than a means to an end.
I realised earlier tonight that due to this imbalance in time spent on the various aspects of the trifecta, my life was suffering mainly in the physical and spiritual aspects. I sense this feeling in people around me quite often too. And so, I've decided to list some of the actions and/or processes which involve at least two of the three aspects, so as to correct this current imbalance.
mind + body - actions that involve pushing the body past its current limits
mind + soul - being present and paying attention to actions that feed the soul
soul + body - allowing the body to be in full control, while being in line with the soul's desires
mind + soul + body - actions that draw all attention to the present effortlessly.
Somehow, skydiving seems like the appropriate mashup of anaerobic exercise, meditation and yoga. ;)
At the present moment, it seems that skydiving is out of the question for me. Looks like I'll have to find a fun alternative extreme sport to take its place. :)
It was amusing - at one point during my meditaion, while I was on my back with my hands pressed together to thank God for everything, I had a moment of divine insight, you could say. The view from where I was lying was one of the ceiling, lit up by my trusty paper-mache Ikea lamp (dragged back all the way from Bristol). As I laid there, my hands created the illusion of seperate realities - my vision on either side of my hands differed greatly in terms of color and object positioning - the right side saw the light as a heavy orange glow, and the left a bright, shining yellow. And yet in reality, nothing had moved. Which leads me to my point - there is no such thing as a reality that is either black or white. Reality is white, black and every shade of gray in between. The only thing that differs is our perception of reality. Never fall into the illusion that everything is seperate. That illusion was placed there so relativity could be established, so we could know ourselves seperately, yet the ultimate truth is that we are all one and the same. Without the illusion of being seperate, we could not objectify experience on a personal level.
So, today's take-home messages - Go through the hours of an average day for you, see which parts of the trifecta are lacking in attention, and start filling in those gaps with your own activities! Also, honor each moment, each person, each experience as being unique in its own right, while also knowing that all of them are all parts of the same whole. <3
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