Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Easy Does It

People fail when everything they do becomes too difficult and impossible to do even the simplest things necessary to achieve and maintain their optimal health.  Eating becomes a chore, sleeping, bathing, and eventually even breathing.  At that point, life lies in the balance.  If things get any worse, that life may no longer be possible -- but if it gets better, that life is resurrected and recreated -- and that is the importance of "recreation," and also, "resurrection."  "One must die to the old -- and be reborn in the new" -- especially when that old is not working but only ensuring one's end.

Still, letting go of the old, may not be possible for many -- conditioned as they have been, to always make things more difficult for themselves.  That is what they think is necessary to "improve" -- that they first have to create the problem in order to motivate themselves to discover a better way of doing things -- than they always have been done before.  There is no provision in their learning (conditioning), of simply finding a better way -- freeing one from the addiction of that conditioning that fails them.

In this very manner, most people are ultimately their greatest victims -- victims at their own hands.  Only in rare cases, are a few destroyed at the hands and capriciousness of others.  Even those who are, usually play a large part in placing themselves at the mercy of others -- whether well-intentioned or not.  The most common of these "relationships," are the familiar toxic codependencies -- of which it becomes difficult to distinguish which is the victim and which is the perpetrator.

Only a generation ago was there acute awareness of such vulnerabilities -- as people were more dependent of specific others because they didn't have access to everybody as easily as the World Wide Web made possible.  It is even difficult for those who were not living then to even imagine such a world -- now living at the leading edge of communications and information, as every new generation is born into.

So the challenge of the old, and for every generation, is to constantly die to the old, and be reborn into the new -- and living only in that reality, and not the past, or even the future -- but the now, which implies that past and the future, and is the only reality.  How one does in that present moment, is the sum total of that life -- and nothing is more real than that.

The culprit therefore, is all the distractions and entertainment, that takes one away from that focus and mindfulness, that that is what matters -- and not all those things we often think is so important instead.  That is the simplicity of being -- totally there, in the present moment -- when all things are possible.  And particularly, that is the solving of the problems of our daily living -- which is both the simple and the grand -- reduced to clarity.  Otherwise, there is confusion as to what is the actual and what is the imagined.

And that is the way many live their lives -- always in this confusion -- mistaking especially, the complicated for the simple -- and insisting that things always be complicated and difficult, as though that was the end purpose of their lives and activities.  Eventually, life just gets totally out of control -- and consumes all their time, energy and resources.  Every little thing, then becomes a big thing, consuming all their time, energy and resources.

Yet despite that, everything simply gets worse, and eventually, hopeless -- at which point death becomes the only thing possible.  That existence is no longer viable -- and capable of continuing, no matter how great the expenditures and effort.  So rather than effort being a measure of success, it actually is a better indicator of failure -- because sustainability demands economy and efficiency.  Everything that is uneconomical and inefficient must end.  We know that in everything we do.  But some will persist in their denial for as long as possible -- until that is no longer an option.

Then life and choice, is out of their hands, beyond their control. Intelligence is what makes the world simpler and easier -- rather than more complex and difficult.  And that makes all things possible.

Saturday, March 05, 2016

The Best Things in Life are True

In the old days, people would warn that if something sounded "too good to be true," it was too good to be true -- rather than that the best things, are true -- but many will choose not to believe it, and never bother to find out.  "Finding out," is what differentiates the highly actualized people from those who will never find out what their life is -- and might have been.

Such people live only in their thoughts, fears and anxieties -- which separates them from actual contact with reality.  They live well within their "safe zones," never venturing far from where they are -- while moving in ever-smaller circles, so that nothing new can disturb them in the small worlds they already know -- confirming that, as all that can be known.

They repeat that, in everything they do -- never breaking out into the unknown and unfamiliar -- even and especially, if it "sounds too good to be true."  Their minds are already made up -- nothing could be better than what they already know -- even if that knowledge, is the source of all their difficulties and misunderstandings.

That is the world of dysfunction -- but even then, one believes, nothing could be better -- and that which is, "sounds too good to be true" -- even if it is true.  But they've already been warned -- not to go there.  Those are the limits of the known world, and what one really wants to know, is the unknown world.  And that is mainly a matter of conditioning -- to find out the unknown, and not just to repeat what one already knows -- as though that is the limits to what can be known.

Ultimately, that is what we are conditioning (educating) ourselves for -- to move into the unknown and unfamiliar, and not just to go where we've always gone before -- thinking that is the extent of the known, and the universe -- for certainly, it is not.  The unknown, will always be far greater than the known -- of even the smartest person.  And in fact, the smartest person will be the one who knows -- that what they know pales in comparison to what they don't know, and their life's work, is to find out -- what they don't know.

The unwise person, is they who believe that they already know-- everything that can be known, and so there is no need to ever find out -- despite how little they know -- and so the question is not how much that person knows, but how they go about finding out what they don't know.  Those are the people who make a difference -- in every time and age.

The rest are merely delusional people -- who think that what little they know, is all that can be known.  That is obvious -- to nearly everyone else, and so the work of such people, is to convince as many others, that that is not true -- but that up is down, left is right, right is wrong, good is bad, and even too good to be true -- as well as any other deception they can think of.  That is sowing the seeds of confusion -- by which they hope to eventually make a living, if not rise to the highest offices in the land.

From there, it is much easier to tell everybody else what to think -- while those immune, are those who know how to think -- which invariably means thinking for oneself, and all that entails.  Surely that means finding out for oneself the truth of the matter -- and not just quoting others as though that was some greater truth.  The truth one discovers for themselves, is always the greatest truth -- and not merely repeating what others tell them is the truth, but they never bother to find out for themselves -- until it is too late, and then they realize that everything they thought they knew as the truth, is false -- but that is too little too late, and can no longer change their destiny and fate.

That is what aging is -- going one way, with no change possible.  One is set in their ways, the course is immutable.  So how not to be that way, is the question of every age.  How can one change, and what is the meaning and process of change?  How do we actualize that truth?  How do we exercise it?  And that is the significance of exercise -- to bring about change, and not simply reinforce the status quo and the path we are on -- with no turning back, no change possible.

Certainly, fundamentally, movement is about change -- and how we bring it about, and what are its aftereffects.  It is not just about wasting energy in the greatest way possible -- as many so-called educated people think.  If they really thought about it at all, they would realize how preposterous and absurd such conditioning is.  Yet everybody else repeats it -- as though it is some holy mantra.

As one exercises, as one conditions themselves -- that is what they become.  The fact is undeniable.  If they are not getting the results they want, they must do something different -- and not just what everybody else does, that causes them to age hopelessly in the same way -- despite their denials of that fact.  And that is their problem -- that they continue to do what they've always done, hoping for a different result -- rather than finding out, what it is that gives them a dramatically different result.

That is obviously what they are not doing.  So one asks, "What movements, postures or poses will put one directly and explicitly into the shape one wishes to be in? -- and just do that."  And let go of the rest.