u/midnoon2233

We feel it's dependent on outside situations. That's how our perception builds up as we grow.

To experience it as independent from outside, first we have to be free from outside situations.

As long as we experience ourselves only as persons then this possibility seems almost impossible phenomenon to happen.

As long as we are only some persons then if other person goes away we feel helpless, we feel we are unable to have that pleasant emotion without them. We feel broken inside. As if some part of us have been torn apart from us.

Whereas as be-ing, we feel fulfilled within. What are we, the other person is also the same. Coming, appearing and going all are expression of same reality. And we are that.

So, how we can be without experiencing Love. We shall always experience that.

Our natural state of being, termed as happiness. And we get lost in mental analysis, become more based on the expression than the state itself.

Because somewhere along the way we have known it, that's our mind tell us.

Then mind starts trying to generate it by outside activity. But, in doing so we go further away from it. Become more mind than becoming it. Mind can't make it, so does fake it.

It's when we become free from mind, go beyond the analysis and calculations, that touches us.

It always waits for us to be free. From everything. Within.

Because it is everything in reality. So as long as we remain in contact with unreal everything, the real thing stays away from us.

Ah! What a freedom from goals! Really, they drive us crazy.

Otherwise, we could be simply enjoying whatever is available to us and cherish those. But, no. Mind is never satisfied with whatever it has at the very moment.

Life is. It is satisfied by itself.

Maybe that's the nature of mind and Life. Both are opposite to each other.

One is never satisfied. Other is always fulfilled.

That's why we can experience Life right now. On now, memory and imagination happens.

Or in other words, on life mind happens.

Or, there is no now. What we reffer to as now in counter to past and present that is memory and imagination is Life.

Mind can make yesterday real to us. Because we live as the image produced by mind.

We don't remain as we are actually. We get lost in the process of mind and then if mind makes us suffer we suffer.

The process of getting lost in the ways of mind happens unconsciously.

Or, actually we are not in the mind. But, keep on paying all our attention to it, so we feel we do suffer along with the ways of mind.

Beyond that attention there is that source of attention which is free from mind. Which doesn't bother about what mind makes up as suffering. Maybe that is what called Life.

To carry it we must be somewhat different from it, away from it and not at all it.

But right now it defines me. It gives me my identity. It's a sure way of bondage.

Beyond it what's my existence? I must find that out.

It's seem difficult to think because all the while we were thinking we are what our karma shapes us. But, if it's not so, we can be truly free. Free from everything that binds us.

And if there is a possibility, that our existence is of beyond our karma then we are already free. We just don't know that. We think and hence feel we are bound.

That's actually interesting. We first think ourselves as something and then we also start feeling like that. Where the reverse should have happened.

Our minds should have been shaped according to our experience. But, it gets shaped by outside.

We can just try to reverse the process and make the reality become available to us.

Existence doesn't bother about our thoughts!

And we want to remain sink into it.

Until we make a thought about ourselves that means a proper picture of ourselves in our minds we don't feel like we are even existing.

Whenever we say I or we, we have to have an image about one body and one mind in function. That's all about us, at least we think so.

But, existentially if thought doesn't have any significance then without thought we must be existing.

And if we are not thought then we are not even the constituents of what thought project to us as ourselves. Means not the body, not even the mind.

Then what we could be?

My heart shrinks when I don't find the answer. Seriously.

What about you all?

Well, the answer should not be searched in mind again, it must be existential.

Suffering doesn't happen from Within. Mind creates it.

Within there is only wellbeing if one has access there.

Or maybe wellbeing is also of the mind and there is a realm Within, which is beyond wellbeing also.

When mind chooses to be aligned with it then wellbeing flows out and when mind goes against it, mind breeds suffering.

Then the choice is really ours whether to be with it or fall from it.

Also, the choice is not at all a choice. Because, once mind gets the taste of it everything seems faded then there must be only one longing. To get lost in it.

Even falling from it also happens just to get back there.

That's why the falling is also called illusion. Illusion of giving us the feeling as if we have been seperated from it. But, if we turn around we'll find ourselves again right there.

That turn around doesn't happen without grace. Grace makes that turn around possible for us. Without it we can't choose the right choice.

If youthfulness is not of years then time doesn't define it.

It's something which is a representation of what we are.

Then anything which is time bound youthfulness is beyond of it.

We normally think as body ages youthfulness also decreases. And ultimately we will lost it when our bodies die.

But, if youthfulness is not of age that means not of body then maybe we are ever young. We just don't notice it.

That because of the firm identification with the body. We can't believe we can exist other than the body we acquire. So, the natural perception of youthfulness becomes as the body grows older it also goes away.

If awareness without mixing up itself with it's own appearances becomes evident to one then this sense of Aliveness and Involvement without the question of years could become a reality in one's experience.

That means if we are in our minds all the time, then life will give us treatment.

We can't be out of our bodies because if we once get out then we will be out forever.

But, not so with the mind. We can use it when necessary rest of the time we can be beyond it. Actually, we are beyond it but we choose to be in it. The habit has become so strong that without it we feel lost.

Even, that is also a choice, feeling lost without it.

It's like we created tools for our action and now without the tools we feel incomplete just by forgetting that we are not the tools.

Looking at it that way, it seems there is a very very thin line between compulsiveness and consciousness.

It's nothing but the consciousness itself which gets tangled up in compulsive patterns of movements. And maybe in the realm of movements this is the only way to express itself as something. But, even when the consciousness expresses itself as compulsive patterns of various expressions then also it is nothing but only consciousness.

Praises lifts up the mind and abuses brings it down. But, praises and abuses never reach out to that which is beyond mind.

But, I still live in mind and get affected by these two factors very easily.

And my mind because of previous conditionings is so deeply identified with itself and the body that it needs strong reminder every time when it falls on those traps.

Reminder of something which is untouched of mind and body but without it no body or no mind can exist nor do they function.

Only one who is established there can keep the freedom unto oneself to not to get effected by any of these outside circumstances. Otherwise, at every blow mind will drag one up and down.

It's the same mind which when follows the ways of body it expresses lust. And when it longs for inclusion, love becomes it expression.

But, how can I settle down when I long for something?

Maybe in longing there is fulfillment. Or maybe for that which it longs that is fulfilled unto itself.

That is the only thing mind can actually long for. Because that is the only reality. Rest are all illusions.

That doesn't mean we don't experience illusions at all. But, they are all for short while. Non-lasting.

But, that reality is ever shining. Maybe that's why even in that longing there is assurance itself which settles down the mind.

And there is also no give and take business exists. The easiest and ever free deal. Just that we have to choose to do that affair. Within. Nobody need to know outside.

Experiencially, I feel I'm fully alive when I feel myself beyond the body and mind I'm identified with.

And whenever mind takes over the handle, finished. I still then know I'm alive but I feel torturous because mind runs me.

Or in other words may be I can say I loose awareness as awareness and I remain aware as function of mind and body.

That is half aliveness. Because I don't want to be in mind's grip but at that moment of shift I feel myself as absolute helpless creature. Which mind is dragging into it's grip and it can't do anything.

Is it because of I allow the mind to do it's own thing or mind actually has the power to make me to follow it's ways as it wants?

I'm yet confused about.

If my life is my Karma, I must be beyond all Karma. I can not be something which is bounded by karma.

But, right now my experience of life is like karma is pushing me here and there. Not the opposite as I'm creating my Karma in turn my experience of life.

This is just because I think I'm this body which is a product of some previous Karma, and also the mind where I kept my ideas, prejudices secretly.

I never ever wondered, I could be something beyond them. I have wasted so much time in nonsensical thinking and wondering about so many things in my life but this wonderous thought never ever crisscrossed my mind. Maybe just because of outside support. Everybody thinks so, so.....

Now, if I'm something which is totally beyond Karma, then every thing I experience which are all products of Karma including my body, mind, energy, the world everything I'm not.

For that me is there any need to make anything?

If I see "that", then only life is. What else is?

Death happens to the body. One who will be willing to die must have been experienced something which is beyond the body.

Then, living also would have meant not living as a bodily person without knowing what's the background which is backing up the body, mind and the energies that maintains the both.

Rather, living as that. Then, if body comes and goes that will not be a issue.

Then, there would be absolute freedom. Without the concerns of the body.

Then, that living is not living as a person. But, living as a being. Living totally.

Because the fear of suffering 'what will happen to me' is just a thought.

This thought rules all other thoughts. This thought creates disturbance in nicely set pattern of thoughts which are usually resting by their own.

On close observation of mind, I found these whole system of thoughts and emotions are nothing but certain amount of energy. Not always but sometimes it is noticeable.

If this amount of energy remains just as energy, not menifest as thoughts and emotions, I feel blissful. Because it then doesn't creates disturbance in life.

Then, exploring life or become it seems a possibility. As energy is always life oriented. It straight wants to rush towards it's source.

Stepping stones for what? Because that which is the reality doesn't need anything to climb up to itself.

It is simply there.

It is mind itself wants to reach somewhere and find ultimate peace or joy something. Because by itself it constantly create troubles. It doesn't wants to be how it is right now. That is all it's problem.

Compare to this mind says there must be something which is completely fine by itself. How the mind tricks!

The reality could be very near but since it doesn't get fit into mind's definition mind will keep missing it. That's it's nature. Otherwise, how mind will function.

It's like reality is a huge magnet. And mind is sealed in such a way that it can not touch reality though it is not seperated from reality. When by grace a little or sufficient opening happens in the mind then that huge magnet pulls up the mind and mind merges back from where it gets sourced.

Then that only really exists. Though body, senses and world don't evaporate then. Yet a sense of oneness pervades.

Otherwise, when the mind is sealed in it's functional mode then everything seems split again.

Devotion fills the minds with it's own overwhelming sweetness.

In that state mind doesn't feel the need to bind us in it's grip and it sets us free.

Else it wants to contain us to fill up it's gap.

But, when it gets overflows with devotion, it doesn't hold us back.

And we feel free. Free from mind.

It seems so easy at the same time tough also. Because of so much of stuffed calculations. If I do this what I'll get, how much effort should I give, how much energy should I save, if everything goes wrong? I'll be of nowhere. Mind is constantly busy in these thoughts. In this pathetic condition of mind, performing any activity with deep devotion doesn't actually happen all the time unless we are doing something which we truly love to do. Thus, it happens sometimes here and there momentarily. And sometimes the breeze of freedom touches us, passes by.

Then, again we get caught up.

In those moments of devotion, if we experience ourselves beyond the processes of mind and body then Liberation might become a living reality for us.

This inner intelligence is not intellect. Rather, it runs the intellect.

Something beyond of all our calculations. Beyond of sense perception.

To that time is limited.

For that only now is relevant.

Transcending the limitedness of time and making it a living reality or becoming it or realising that we are it is all that it constantly desires.

Now is it's doorway to pass through. But, every time I miss. Mind takes this desire to it's own ways and don't allow me to be absolutely relaxed at this moment. Mind keeps me busy on it's own job subtly but impactfully.

May be being in the realm of mind one can only wait for that intelligence to bloom on it's own by showering it's grace to mind.

But it is in that fear that I may give it up or loose it, mind doesn't allow to transcend it.

Really.

Mind fears that once it got transcended, it's existence will be vanished forever. And it wants to survive. It's survival is on it's ownership over life. As if it is directing life at each and every point. As if life is dependent upon it. As if without it life is worthless. Whereas the opposite is true. But, it survives on lies.

Keeping a distance as life and not letting mind to own us rather use it as a tool happens when awareness clarifies it's own self without the mind and mind could see how by letting it to be aside the most wonderful happening gets reveal itself.

It's very simple actually. But our problem is mind wants to dance a little. It doesn't stay there.

And when it dances following wrong steps all the negativity happens.

Even the dance is not the problem, but it becomes that when it is outwardly bound by senses.

When the source of the same dance becomes inwardly bound, it breeds ecstasy.

Then, that dance happens as an expression of freedom. Freedom from within.

Not as a reactionary follow-up slavery of outside illusion.