Why are we here?
We are here to grow up. What does that mean?
Typically we get loaded up with lies and misperceptions when we are young due to simple misunderstandings created by our youth as well as traditional false beliefs passed down from parents. The lies put us in fear and make us miserable. This motivates us to seek a way out of the fear. Adults appear to be fearless to us, so we want to be grownup like them. We don’t realize that they are just as scared as we are – just better at hiding it.
We learn that sometimes the fear abates and we feel centered and at ease. We try to figure out what works to make us feel ok, but our efforts are generally derailed by the lies we believe. We try to outsmart the fear by creating a future we think will be safe, but it never works for long. We don’t like being in the present, because we feel really small and vulnerable in the present. We prefer living in the imagined future where we have fantasies of being powerful and able to get our way, or in memories of pleasant moments in our past.
The big point is that only in the vulnerable present moment can we feel and hear God/ Spirit/ Higher Self. With practice vulnerability becomes a type of strength that empowers us to see through the illusions that hold the fear on to us.
The crap from our childhood is there for a reason – to force us to mature and develop consciousness skills, participation skills, relationship skills, and so on.
Simply being conscious is not enough. We have to be functional as well. Otherwise what is the point of hearing God/Spirit/Higher Self if we have no valuable skills with which to carry out its directions.
We hate the effort of being conscious. It takes a lot of work to be present and constantly taking in new information. It is much easier to take in just 1% and fill in the other 99% with stuff we have already processed and stored in our mind. But it is only by being conscious that we can truly be at ease, because we are fully connected to “what is.” Ease comes from our ability to adapt and respond to the ever-changing moment, not from our ability to hide from the constant change.
So that is the big picture point of existence – to learn to be conscious in the present moment responding to God’s/Spirit’s/Higher Self’s direction with skills we have learned by overcoming the fear causing lies of our childhood.
Being present is a matter of focus and attention, but the mind will not do that for very long without a powerful feeling motivator driving that focus. Life threatening physical situations are a good motivator, but those are rare for most people. For most people FEAR is just their Failure to Embrace and Appreciate Reality because they are busy focusing on past failures or future hopes or anticipated failures. Their fear is rarely present and real here and now.
The better choice is a perceiving the here and now from appreciation, gratitude and compassion. These are the yin and yang of the spiritual life. The “I Want My Way” game is only for your guidance and appreciation of your personal creations. “My Way” has nothing to do with other people or anything else in the universe of “What Is.”
Appreciative gratitude is the stance from which to receive life and compassion is the stance from which to outflow and act toward life. This is the essence of spirituality and the end game in growing up. Everything else is just fluff.
Learning how to effectively act compassionately and truly embracing the truth of “what is” requires serious skills. These skills are what the Buddha called “right discrimination” and what Laozi called the “Way of the Tao.” This is not an easy path. We have to flush out all the lies taught us and made up by us in our youth – all the beliefs that we are somehow more significant than anyone else and that they should therefore behave in ways that are comfortable to us. We are not entitled to any such thing. How people treat us is entirely a reflection of how we treat them bouncing off their life story. How they act in general has nothing to do with us.
No amount of power or control can change the nature of another person. They are who they are. Power can suppress their expression of their nature temporarily, but not change them. So power can never gain you peace or ease, because their true nature is always struggling to be released. Power and control are unending chores and battles – not ease or peace. It is better to appreciate and be in compassion to find peace with each person’s true nature.
This is a tall order. Our comfort zone is made out of our perspectives and feelings about life. It is comfortable precisely because it requires no consciousness – it is automatic for us and requires no effort. Everything that is not us will be different in various ways and therefore uncomfortable to us. Discomfort is our inner signal that we need to wake up and be conscious because we have some non-self information to process. Spirituality is the process of embracing the discomfort of being conscious so that we can expand our awareness of life by seeing life from different perspectives. Yes, it is hard work, but it is what lifts you up into the feelings you really want – peace, joy, love, and happiness. These feelings are the reward we gain be embracing and appreciating life.
Appreciation, gratitude, and compassion are the key.