Focus on Life™

I found this article from my archives and it’s related to my book, Fragments of Reality, or actually why I wrote it.

Everyday Life

Most of us are living in a middle of constant rush and hurry. Either we create it ourselves or it is imposed and assumed by the external world we are exposed to. It is amazing how much noise is around us. It starts from the early morning when you’re barely awake and continues till the final moments before going to bed. We are never really here in the moment, ever. Either we are accompanied by a radio and mp3-player or then we are among other people who keep us busy. That’s life–everyday life.

Still everything happens here and right now. We walk, talk, meet people, travel, work, eat, and so on. All these comprise of our life. But all this is just the external frame or the stage of the plays. It’s the outcome or the façade. What we are really experiencing and going through cannot be interpreted from the outset. A top athlete may look busy while he/she is running but how do we know? Within the situation might be entirely different. Actually when one seems to be occupied by the outset the reality within is often exactly the opposite. You cannot afford to think while being in the moment. Every golfer knows this: think about the swing and you have lost it before the club touches the ball.

When is the right time to be? Never is the usual answer—I don’t have the time. But this is part of the illusion like anything else. We are all the time and it is not possible to be but now. What we mean by not being here is to say that we scatter our perception of the world either to the future or to the past—in our mind. This creates the illusion of not being here while you still are physically here. This paradox was something I started to write about. When one begins to observe the world around us it is easy to realise that most of the time we are not living, at all. In another words we are not present.

This non-presence is easy to prove to yourself. Every time you don’t remember a particular circumstance or occurrence you were not there—you were wondering in your mind. Isn’t this a bit intriguing, we live but actually we do not? We look but we do not see. We are receptive to sounds but we do not hear. We sit in a meeting but we are not there— atfer we might not even remember being there at all!

No wonder people may start to feel frustrated or disappointed. It appears that they are not living at all. But if you begin to realise this you still don’t have the time to do something about it. We are busy, with our everyday life. It’s the work, the family, the hobbies and so on. A nice catch-22: constantly occupied to be without ever being. Where to start and how? Is it even possible without going to some isolated place and leave everything behind? Go somewhere in order to find time to simply be. Do you see it! I repeat: go somewhere in order to find the time to simply be. But we already are, when we only realise it.

This is the reason I wrote the book while living my everyday life. Being present is not about places it’s about a state of mind. Therefore any situation or place will do. Actually the busier and more active your life the better your chances to explore and realise the beingness in your very everyday living. Inner peace and harmony are not related to the external circumstances but internal tranquility and presence. Who needs to be calm and quiet in the woods?

We are all after happiness but seldom find it but only for a few glances or passing moments. Most of the time we are seeking to gain it via different things, people, or situations. We try to reproduce the moments and experiences we already had or we are just randomly trying to imitate someone else’s life with their choices. And all these methods fail to provide us anything but suffering and continuous seeking of happiness—they all are external to us.

Happiness is a state of mind that is independent of the circumstances or our surroundings. It is our natural state of being that we have learned to ignore while growing up. We have substituted the internal happiness for objects and desires external to us. They are conditional and related to some activities or specific points in time. What is common to all of these is that they are not present right now. They are projected to the future. This type of happiness is something that you’re always waiting for. Your constant mode is to achieve and ‘earn’ your happiness by actions or circumstances. In other words you are living in illusions filled by your expectations. Disappointments are a frequent visitor when you are dealing with your future projections based on your expected outcomes of the future situations or events. How much in control of your life you really are?

This ‘when..then’ -type of conditioning is very convincing but it is not really living. It’s about building dream castles and denying the moment. You are saying that I’m not happy right now and I’m substituting this moment for another one in the future. You are after the carrot that is always attached to the current moment—the stick stays in the future with the appealing prize as well. This takes many forms. We may prefer to work overtime and then compensate it back in the holidays. Or we are accumulating substantial wealth that we are hoping to spend after retirement. How can you enjoy your life later if you cannot do it now?

Happiness is not a destination—it is a journey. If you are not comfortable being in the journey you are suffering in the destination as well. Life is about experiencing and enjoying every moment you have. It requires that you are comfortable with uncertainty and change. We can only be happy when we have learned to accept the things that we cannot change and regard every passing moment as a gift that has some valuable lessons and experiences to give us. Only when being is enough you can be happy. As long as you need to achieve or become you are not going to find happiness. Life is about change and being in the moment—exploring the unknown.

Constant pace and action are not natural. One needs to relax and wind down as well. You cannot have music without silence. It takes a fine-tuned instrument to recognise when it is the time to blow hard and loud and when it is the time to give away and be quiet.

Peak performance is possible only when one is prepared for it, even unconsciously. Creative ideas and innovations seldom happen in the office environment. It is too predictable and ‘dull’. It is all in the mind but still the man-made landscape is often too ‘square’. Nature does not repeat itself. It creates variance and improvises over the theme.

Dynamics is possible only when you have enough variation. Mechanical performance will kick back in the long run. Getting used to the pattern and repeating oneself may sound like safe and secure, but they are also the way to become stuck and shut down from the unpredictable.

New is always something unknown. Therefore it is also uncomfortable for many. Even though you may not decide to explore and discover new boundaries you can always create variance within the familiar daily life and routines. Take a new route back to home. Do things in a different order or just stop and stare the night sky under the moonlight. Life is about living and living is about creating. You draw you canvas everyday by your actions. Each day is a fresh new start, and a new story to tell. If you are not happy about today’s story, try something else tomorrow. Don’t come up with the same old picture if it did not work out well yesterday. Routines are for machines—people do not have to live like robots. We are artists that create by living.

Is your life in distress – maybe your career, personal direction, relationships, work, or all the above? A cul-de-sac can be a major issue with no easy way out. Still, the answer might be closer than you have realised.

Our reality is the product of our own thinking. It is built upon our assumptions, beliefs, past experiences, and knowledge. In other words, we often repeat the same record over and over again, and even without noticing it. Alas, this is the reason for the unbearable difficulties and ‘impossibilities’. We are stuck.

Instead of looking into future with great distress and trying to work one’s way out, how about pausing for a while and truly looking around you? Where are you and how did you end up here? Where did you come from and why did you choose to be here now? Don’t be surprised if you just simply don’t know, or you don’t have a good answer. That’s how it often is — life just happens if we are not proactively making conscious decisions. We drift and react on daily basis; days turn into weeks and weeks into months, even years. No wonder things may start to seem and feel the same!

Understanding where you are coming from often helps to get a bigger picture of the choices and experiences leading to the current stage. But don’t take it for granted that you have to continue in a similar manner. Each moment you have a chance to make a difference and do something else. We do not have to repeat ourselves like robots —day-in and day-out. Many times the only way to realise the repetition is a major distress factor coming into our lives. It wakes us up since we simply cannot continue like nothing happened. The old record is broken — it just does not play again. We are lost.

If you acknowledge where you are coming from and definitely know that there is no way going forward it leaves at least one possibility left: the current moment. One can focus on the present moment, and try to figure out and observe the surrounding reality. After all it may not exactly be like one has thought it would be — the same old and boring as it ‘used’ to be. But since we only know what we know, it might first be a bit difficult to see something else than what we are expecting to experience. However, there is one great advantage that we haven’t used yet, and that’s exactly the discomfort factor. We know for sure that there has to be something else since things aren’t working the old way again! We have nothing to loose.

If you cannot change the circumstances, the past, and the future has not happened yet, you still have the current moment. So, you have something! And surely you have plenty of more as well. Many experiences, personal assets and resources that you have accumulated along the way in forms of developed talents, skills, knowledge, and so on. In another words you do not have to start from scratch like a newborn baby into this world. You have something to build upon. Maybe not exactly like you used to do it in the past, but perhaps even something better than before?

Getting nowhere and being just here is a great point to start to create something new. It’s very easy to change the direction and do something ‘unpredictable’. Find again the things you like to do and are passionate about. Start to live again a life that is meaningful and full of fun – just by purely being and doing things that are enjoyable. After all, why should we do things we do not like or believe in? It is just so easy to forget to enjoy our everyday life until we have almost entirely lost the track of the whole concept. Then it is time again to rediscover the joy of living and do something else. Life is not about achieving but about being in a manner that is fulfilling and content every moment. A distress can be a blessing in disguise. Carpe diem!

Many of us are learning the lesson with money. Either we are tight to make the two ends meet or we have an uneasy relationship with prosperity.
Wealth itself is a neutral issue. It is not either good or bad. We ourselves create the meaning and its role. Its scope can be very narrow and limited or wide and very significant. Anyhow, it is all up to us. It has nothing to do with the energy called money or anybody else except us. We create our own reality – the energy is happy to provide us whatever we wish for.

Therefore prosperity and abundance are at our reach. We can make it to happen. Actually nothing can keep as apart from it - if we only allow it ourselves. And this is the big if. It is not the circumstances or the economical situation. Not the job or anything else in our outside reality. There is no one else to deal with but us.

Can you see yourself already living in prosperity? Wait – stop for a while and really consider the previous point. This is important if you are going to make it to happen. Are you able to visualise yourself living in abundance?

The only thing that keeps us separated from abundance is our own beliefs. We don’t feel that we are worth the wealth. We undermine ourselves and simply don’t believe it is possible to realise. Maybe we have had some bad experiences in the past and thus we are reluctant to try again. It did not happen then why could this time be any different? Or we regard anything even closely related to business or money somehow unrelated or impure when talking about spirituality and higher purpose of life. We want to associate ourselves only with unselfishness and spiritually uplifting issues - not with the material reality.

What are all the above? They are our beliefs and associations that we have created ourselves. We believe so – not the wealth or the money. Nothing has any meaning except the one we create for it. Our reality is relative. This means that we can decide to use money for our own selfish purposes or use it as a tool to build a better future for all of us. Actually have you ever considered the possibility that the most spiritually evolved persons should also be the wealthiest? This is not so outstanding claim as it first might sound like. Who would be better servant for humanity than a prosperous and humble multibillionaire that uses his / her wealth for unselfish purposes? Not even talking about how these people would run their businesses…

Can you now see yourself surrounded by wealth and abundance?

Common misunderstanding about wealth is that is difficult to gain. Or that one has to work hard to earn it. Who says so? Money doesn’t care if you don’t. Actually abundance is our natural state of being. There has been previous Golden Eras when gold was widely available for everyone who needed it. Lack and limitations are our own creations. We are meant to be living among abundance if we only allow ourselves. Some of us are very harsh and hard on ourselves. Our previous hardship has taken its toll and subconsciously we blame ourselves for the difficulties. We think that we have earned to be poor and to suffer. It is a lesson that we have to learn. In another words suffering by being poor is a thing that we need. Once again – if you believe so but certainly you do not have to.

Can you see all your friends surrounded by prosperity and wealth?

Wealth is energy like anything else. If you take good care of it and let it flow it will keep coming and become stronger. But if you use it for your selfish purposes and block the sharing of wealth it will drain. Life is economical. It gives for those who appreciate and cherish it. We do not own anything, rather being only humble housekeepers that take care of the resources and gifts provided to us. In another words we must feel to be worth the wealth. Be responsible and joyous about it. We must appreciate and use it wisely.

And finally the secret of prosperity. How to become wealthy? Simply by being one. First forgive yourself. Forgive yourself any hardship or shortcomings in the past. This is important in order to clear any old luggage out of the way. Secondly, love yourself. Love yourself from all of your heart so that you fill up with unconditional love so and it starts to spill over and finally you radiate pure love. Wealth loves to be around kind and harmonious people. You feel that you’re worth the wealth and it is a natural part of your reality. Beauty and wealth are as natural for you as any other part of your reality. And then the most important issue when you have now successfully prepared the ground for your prosperity: you know that you are wealthy. You must know this deep in your mind, bottom of your heart and solid as a rock in your behaviour. You must be wealthy. How does a wealthy person think, talk and act? This is the way you manifest your reality. A wealthy person do not worry about unpaid bills or low balance in the bank account. He knows that there is nothing to worry about. He / she is wealthy and everything is going to be alright. This does not mean that one should start to spend like a millionaire and take up new loans and so on. It simply means that since we create our own reality by our own actions, talks, and thoughts and these have to be in line with the desire of prosperity. We KNOW, FEEL and ACT with confidence that the wealth is on its way. Nothing can stop as from gaining it. We are creators and thus nothing can stop our prosperity but us. Just do it – you already are.

For us the visible reality is the real thing. We associate ourselves with it and respond to it as well. Often we feel uncomfortable and find hard to match with the world around us. Inside we are at distress with the outer reality. It does not reflect our ideal inner state.

Throughout the ages it has been said that the visible world is not real or it is called as an illusion or maya. Plato had his famous The Allegory of the Cave which described the same with a dark cave and shadows that the people we’re obliged to observe - not the true figures or the outside world. These metaphors are hard to grasp and to realise by us living in the modern world.

Still nothing could be more true. Maybe the phrasing could be different but the original message remains intact - always. This visible reality is the one where we communicate and observe. Still we are present in other planes as well. They are not visible to us but still we are members on those ones as well. Beside the physical body we have also our feelings and emotions as well as our mental capabilities. They are as real for anyone as the physical world itself even thought we cannot see them.

So, where’s the real reality and what does it mean? The world every wisdom tries to illustrate and refer to is the reality of thoughts. That is where anything is first created - it is thought out. Only after that it can be expressed and materialised. No matter are we talking about going shopping, building a house or even speaking. First it has to be created and then it is a matter of realisation depending on the case at hand.

A thought without any feeling is not complete. Saying ‘I love you’ without a feeling is meaningless. Similarly the feeling or the passion / desire has to be combined with the thought. Together they are something. This applies to talking, building a house or any other matter. (The third required element is power or will to execute or carry out the matter but this is just a hint for the considerate reader and not relevant for the topic.)

Why should we not focus on the outside world and instead purely concentrate on the inner higher reality? No matter where you look you find the wise words that encourage to look inside or as Pythagoras has so nicely put it: “Man know thyself then thou shalt know the Universe and God.” These should not be understood in a manner that one ignores the visible world or isolates from the world. They purpose is to encourage to focus on the essence or the source where everything is really taking place and where one can have control and real influence on the visible world.

First this may sound quite a bizarre or contrary but just consider how much in control of your world you really are? Are you pretending to be in control or just really facing the facts that you are only an observer for the occurring events. A feeling of being in control is not the same as having a real influence on the issues and understanding what’s really causing them. Can you have a peaceful and happy life?

Some people can. And they have followed the advice. They have realised that in order to achieve something one has to look inside and find it first there and only after that can it materialise in the outer world as well. Actually nothing can prevent it from occurring shall the desire be strong and persistent enough. Why is this so hard to believe and start to implement?

Simply because we are used to live and look outside of ourselves. We take it as granted that by doing something in the outside world we can make something to happen in our desired manner. But what happens when you start to do this? One creates a perpetuity machine without even realising it and having a chance to jump out. Often only the final desperation makes the person to get out of the cul-de-sac and start to look inside for strength. Only then can something start to happen. The reason for this is very simple. The outside reality is just a mere cause of the activities that happened before - ie. the results or the reflections of the mental thoughts and feelings. Nothing can ever change in the outer reality till the thought and emotional structures are changed accordingly.

One has to ’see’ and ‘feel or believe’ together the desired outcome first and only then it can start to happen. If you just look the current state of the visible world and take it as granted without any creative and passionate effort then nothing will ever improve or change. Actually the opposite often happens. A negative spiral is created - things look so bad and hence I will be so depressed and so on. Naturally a positive inspiration and feeling is also possible to happen - then only the sky is the limit - isn’t it?

Why is this so hard to believe - still? Since we do not see the real reality and thus we do not consider it matters. We think that we can think, feel or say whatever we feel like without much consideration or significance. And look the state of the world today! Have we been able to live in peace and love each other as humans? How about your thoughts and feelings - only loving and peaceful everyday and towards everything, permanently?

Maybe we should start to consider more carefully the wise words repeated so often to us throughout the centuries. We even have living proves of people who have achieved a permanent state of tranquility and happiness. Even the latest science do not disapprove this. Einstein and quantum mechanics can do wonders if one wants to study them. Why is it so that the observer effects the observation or to put it differently the thought effects the thinker.

Have you ever considered what dying means? Often we are
very shady and quiet about death. It is something we do not
want to consider or think about. It is a taboo. It is something
that only happens to somebody else—not to us. In other
words—we are afraid of it. But why?

What exactly are we afraid of? Something we do not know
anything about? Maybe.

Dying means that we are departed instantly from every-
thing we are attached to and have. We have to give away
everything so familiar and “natural” to us, something and
everything we have taken for granted. Our health, physical
body, friends, family, wealth, possessions, lifestyle, habits, and
so on. This is death. It is detachment.

Clinging and attachment do not have to be physical in
nature. We can have obsessions, desires, needs, and cravings.
Suddenly we cannot satisfy those by physical means anymore.
We are forced to be without them. This is death.

We have to die in order to live. What does that mean? We
think that we are alive and kicking when we are driven by our
lower qualities like desire, lust, obsession, and so on.
Satisfying and fulfilling these consume most of our lives. We
call this living. We are in a never-ending circle where old
needs are fulfilled and instantly new ones arise. How liberat-
ing and happy!

Being truly alive means that we are free to live, not
obsessed or forced continuously to fulfil something. Free to
be.In order to achieve this, we have to set ourselves free from
our attachments and desires. They are strong and we cannot
win them by force. The more we resist them, the larger they
become. We can beat them only by ignoring them, by learn-
ing to live without them, by detaching ourselves from every-
thing in a similar manner—as death will do to us, finally, but
this time we do it voluntarily, gradually.

It is a misunderstanding to believe that detachment will
mean literally dying and living without anything interesting
or fun. On the contrary, how much fun and freedom do you
have when you are obsessed by something? Detachment does
not mean giving up living—only giving away all the attach-
ment and clinging. You can still enjoy the sunrise and have a
delicious meal, but the difference is that those do not bear any
utility value for you anymore—they simply are. There is no
need for anything. One is not lacking anything because need
implicitly declares a lack of something (i.e., the object of the
need).

Clinging and attachment are based on ignorance, and de
facto the only thing to give away is the wrong understanding.
Greater wisdom liberates. Always.

Life is breathing. It has three different phases—inhalation,
short pause, and exhalation. Internal and external action—
visible and invisible. Active and passive.

Breathing is living. Its intensity varies with scale. Some
breathe faster than others—their perceptions and realizations
are relative to their tempo. Small beings (e.g., cells) have dif-
ferent breathing cycles than large beings (with larger mass),
such as humans, when compared to each other. Still, the rela-
tive cycle is intact. This can be realized only in cross-scale
comparisons.

Life is a realization process (i.e., existence/manifestation)
in time. In other words, life is relative motion where the sub-
ject’s internal frame of reference is relational to its breathing
cycle. A self-conscious being has the potential to experience
various cycles at once (interlinked) and focus within a cycle in
any of the three directions. The subjective intensity remains
constant, but in relation to an external reference frame, signif-
icant relative time adjustments or movements can be experi-
enced.

In our language death means the opposite of living. Being
alive is to live, create, explore, and experience. Death is some-
thing where nothing is moving and everything stays still, a
total freeze or a complete stop. It is something where nothing
new is developed nor does anything change; death is simply a
state where nothing is created anymore.

In order to be truly alive, one should be familiar with
death. What does it mean not to be alive? Not to create,
explore, and experience? Stay still, hold back, freeze the situa-
tion, and maintain the status quo? Resist movement or
change?

How can we be sure that we are not already dead? To put it
differently, are we really experiencing, continuously creating
and exploring something new? We are not eager to explore
and break the boundaries. We are not so excited about any-
thing new and unknown happening. We’d rather not rock the
boat and stay still and lie low. We are uncomfortable with
change and prefer the current situation, no matter how bad or
awkward.

Change happens very slowly in the physical world. Drastic
renewal takes decades or generations rather than weeks or
years. Our mind is quick to draw scenarios and imagine
things, but real implementation of visible action takes
decades, if not centuries. We drag our history with us. We are
conservative and changing only with force. Someone who
does something only when under external pressure is not cre-
ating. Where is the freedom and joy of exploration? To put it
in brief—we are dead.

Our life can be compared to a project. Projects have a begin-
ning and an end. Its definition states that it is not perma-
nent—it has a definitive life span. It starts, goes on, and ends.
A project has no purpose itself—it is only the means for
something. It has a purpose and it is used as the vehicle, the
tool, for the objective. Temporal is an interesting term.
Something has an existence in time and, therefore, it has to
have a starting point and moment as well as have an ending
point and time. It is only temporal. Everything that exists in
time has its own tempo, time, and place. Nothing is perma-
nent.

Birth, living, and dying. Often the transition points are
interesting. In those points, something changes from one for-
mulation into another—a real drastic transformation hap-
pens. Still, our own life is mainly characterized by the middle
part—the continuation. We focus almost no attention on the
beginning or the end. For us, the living part is the only real
existence and we ignore the beginning and the end. But how
can we know what to do and where to go and, more impor-
tantly, where to target if we are not aware of all three charac-
teristics—the beginning, the continuation, and the end—of
temporal existence?