Frog in a well
The first thing we need to understand is, that people in mayoralty has need, to explain things that surround them, since unexplained things, fright them. In the long history, there was a lot of explanations, for all the phenomena that was happening, and for the life itself. We aren’t new at that; also, we aren’t special, when we believe (so strongly) that we figured everything out. I’m sure people always believed, just as we do, that they figured everything out. The only thing that was constantly changing was the explanation.
As I said, we need explanation - we’re curious, and curiosity (as my friend said) is what make us humans, it’s the force which pushing us further and further. Of course, when talking about curiosity, we must take into account laziness, which seems to be even strongest force.
So, let me tell you a fairytale: long time ago lightning appeared - people were confused, and they were searching for an explanation, a wise man realized that lightning is something made by God; since he was convincing and since that explanation made perfect sense - all people agreed and didn’t though about it anymore. Many years later, and after many corrections of that theory, people accepted that lightning is just “an atmospheric discharge of electricity”, they weren’t sure what that is, but they were happy with it, and they made a lot of fun, of those savages from past, who believed that lightning is send by God.
There was always majority of people who just agreed with the explanation which was valid in their time, since they were too lazy to think with their heads; but what’s really disturbing is, that they were really ready to defend that false believe, defending it even with giving their or taking other peoples’ lives.
I’m concern when I talk to people nowadays, since mostly all I can hear, is just blindness and total inability to think with their own heads. I could swallow even the most crazy idea, if only that idea would be something that person actually figure it out on his own, and it’s based on his own experience, his own life. But what’s mostly happening is just repeating; the irony is, that mass media nowadays has more power (to brainwash people), than all churches put together ever had, but we still believe, that we’re somehow advanced, enlightened, that we understand everything, and (now here’s the irony), that people in the past were brainwashed and mislead by institutions of that time.
Does average person ever ask himself, “why do I believe in what I believe?”, it seems that such questions aren’t often on peoples’ mind. People seems to be fanatically closed, unable to open up to anything.
We’re like computers, outputting bunch of data, not knowing even what that data is, and why are we outputting it. We’re absorbing data, with same mindlessness. To know a lot, is insignificant, why do I care which is the longest river in world, which is the tallest mountain, what’s the distance to the moon and back? It’s just trash, kitsch, it has no real value. Everyone with too much time can learn all those facts. Give me wisdom and I’ll shake your hand, and I’ll even walk with you on your path and respect you. But wisdom is something, masses never were looking for.
I heard a story about the frog, who was living all his life in a well. Two birds has visit him from time to time, and tell him about the ocean. The frog, was trying to understand a scale of ocean, while still having in mind measure of the small well in which he was living. The more he was trying to understand the wideness of ocean, the less he could. He was asking birds, he was thinking and thinking, measuring, calculating. The more he was doing that, the less sense everything had; finally he concluded, there’s no such thing as ocean - it can’t be, it’s totally impossible.
Nevertheless, from time to time, even if only in deepest dreams, he sens the wideness of thing called ocean.
Indeed, in small puddles in which we live, which are all we can see, from time to time, even if only in deepest dreams, we sense the infinity, which is beyond anything we could ever understood.
Life…
The thing about life is, that you must fall in love with it, you must start perceive it, as lovers perceive each other — with tenderness and awareness of every detail, with enthusiasm and expectation of every moment. To spend this time here is great reward; our life offering us so much possibilities, about which we’re totally unaware, while being trapped in our everyday thoughts, which seems so important, but in reality are so insignificant.
In life, just like in love, is nothing to win and nothing to find, but just to experience. The greatness of being in love is the simplicity, the melting of what we’re calling reality, but actually what’s happening, is just melting of our everyday ideas, which are mostly based on fear, and therefore are mostly negative. There’s nothing but love or fear, so when we fall in love, our ideas emerge from love, and therefore, they’re not just positive, but actually limitless.
Falling in love with life, means simply that our perception emerge from love, instead from fear. To put it more simply, it means: when we fall in love with life, life fall in love with us.
To have a good life, I think, we must love it - just like, to have a good relationship, we must love the person with which we’re in relationship. We must be forgiving, patient, and mostly understanding. The recipe for good life, I think, is the same as for good relationship, but that’s not coincidence, since what is life, if not the most important relationships of all - the relationship with ourselves, with God, with universe.
Be Grateful
There is so many things, for which we all can be grateful, if for nothing else, we can start, with the realization, that we’re - by some miracle - alive, and conscious. Where is life and consciousness, there is always potential, of happiness (and even enlightenment), so we can be grateful, even if only for that potential.
In dark times of my life, I was grateful for light days and short periods of happiness; when things were much better, I slowly forgot to be grateful. Instead of that, I became greedy.
We always think, how we need more, but what is more good for, if we can’t notice what we have now? We’ll get more, but, in that very moment, we’ll again desire more, and again, we won’t notice what we have in this moment. And so the life will pass, in need for more. That’s a life of a poor man.
Life of a rich man, on other hand, is life of grateful and aware person. When we know what we have, and we’re grateful for that - we don’t need more, we may still follow our dreams, but one is to follow the dream, and walking on the path of life, and another is desire of something to happen, and trying to force our life into particular direction. One is death thirst, another is refreshing sip from the never ending string of life.
Money, or any material thing, can’t make you rich, - they never could, and never will. And among the poorest persons in this world, seems to be the riches, and among the riches, are the poorest.
Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.
—Doris Day
To be grateful for most regular things, is sometimes hard — only when we lost them, we realize we had them, and just how much they were worth. Health, inner and outer peace, hope and faith, etc… We’re so unaware of those things, while we have them.
If we’d just start thinking, for how many things, we can be so grateful - we could think for a whole month. But I’m not saying, that we must start making a list, of all the things for which we’re grateful, I’m just saying - we should recognize some of them, since after recognition, the inspiration will came - above all, the inspiration for life itself.
It’s sad, that we need to be inspired for life; I believe, that depression and many other mental disorders, and even many of the global problems, are (more or less) the consequence of the uninspired life. I think many people lack the sense and reason (of life), - they’re feeling like a machine, or actually, as a small piece of a big and horrible machine.
In gratefulness for the simple and small things, we can find a lot of inspiration for our life. The great inspiration, to do something with life, can arise. One can start seeing, before unseen possibilities. Of course, we shouldn’t mix, being grateful, with being attached. While attachment may imprison us, gratefulness, and appreciation of the current moment, will liberate us.
Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.
—Buddha
To Be Alive
The realization of reality would lead into liberation. People have no idea how far from reality they are. We have no idea, what a big illusion is this, what we perceive as “reality”.
I won’t say I’m some kind of exception, some kind of superman, who is liberated, free, illuminated, enlightened in state of nirvana, - no, I’m not. I’m not even close. On other hand, I had, at least couple of times, glimpse of what lies beyond dirty windows of our so called reality. I was alive, couple of times, couple of seconds, in my whole life. And I’m sure you were too, and I’m sure that’s something we’re looking for. Either in money, or in sex, sport, spirituality, church, religion, etc..
I said that realization of reality would lead directly into liberation - the enlightenment; by the fact that most of the people aren’t illuminated and liberated, we can conclude, they lost the touch with reality. When I talk with people, when I’m looking my own life, I can see how very far from reality we actually are. It’s like living in a dream.
So what is reality? I have no answer, I haven’t seen it, since if I would, I probably wouldn’t be here, writing this post. I can say, what the reality isn’t, I can tell a lot about being dead. When talking about reality, I won’t go into things like perception of physical reality, I wont talk about our senses, and how things are processed in our brain, I even don’t have enough knowledge about this, to be able to write about it with any confidence. I can say however, that even physical reality, the world we see, isn’t seen from our eyes; they do provide data, which is processed, cut down, and “enriched” with our believes, fears, expectations, etc…
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
— Albert Einstein
What actually lead me into writing this post, wasn’t the questioning about physical reality, about outer world - but rather about our inner world. The fact, that we don’t live our life fully, that we’re ready to sell ourselves into slavery, that we’re so easily ready to sell our believes; we’re so easily ready to believe words of other people, rather than our intuition, rather than our own experiences or even our own eyes. All those things, lead into realization, that this isn’t life, it’s rather some state between life, and death, between being awake and dreaming (mostly we’re dreaming).
If I go and see the doctor today, and he will told me, I have couple of months to live, I’ll probably really die in couple of months. Not because of any fatal illness, but because of being so sure, about his words, I’ll taken them more seriously than my inner feelings. On those rare occasions when I’ve watch TV, I head about small people; that’s the expression used for people, which doesn’t belong to the political (or some other type of) elite. The sad fact about this is, that many people would agree with that, thinking: “yes, I’m small person, unimportant”. How sad is that?
People will very gladly admit, and truly believe - that they’re nothing. And because they do believe so, they allow to be tortured, humiliated, and exploited. Admitting you’re nothing, has “good” point too, by admitting so, you can easily blame others, for just about any of your problems, plus, you can play the role of victim. We’re what we are. Nor black, nor white, full of colors, capable of being as big as the biggest or as small as the smallest. At night, I sometimes looking into the sky, seeing all the stars, they bring smile on my face. We’re so small, so unimportant, and invisible. It’s so funny, that one invisible dot, on invisible dot - our earth, in hardly visible dot - our solar system, thinks, how big she is. And another invisible dot, think how small she is, compared to other invisible dot. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Nothing. One big zero, emptiness, void.
People are so happy to compare, the whole system of comparison works so well, since they always find someone who’s smaller than them - and they beat it, step on it, smash it, - with such a pleasure. This is really sad, but even saddest are wars, in which two masses start killing each other, based on religion, nationality, or based on any other silly illusion. Dear reader, if there was any doubt, about this world being awaken or not, war and hatred clearly shows, that people actually aren’t awake, they don’t think - they have brain, but they don’t use it. We have a world, of zombies.
Who else I could quote (again) if not Albert Einstein: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.”
To be alive, to be awake, it’s the same; if you’re not awake, dreams will carry you, dreams will create daemons, dreams will turn you into beast. You must wake up. To be awaken is to see, to see though your eyes, to be equally invisible dot, in infinity of the universe. To be awake is to feel now, not to be lost in tomorrow or yesterday. Feel on your skin, see thought your eyes, taste, hear. Trust yourself, and love yourself and love the world around you.
Understand yourself as you are, - you’re equal, no one has the right to step on you, and you have no right to step on any being. Throw away your guns, tear down the walls; and see the magnificence of surroundings.
You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?
— Jalal ad-Din Rumi
I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things… I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind.
— Leo Buscaglia
Oh soul,
you worry too much.
You have seen your own strength.
You have seen your own beauty.
You have seen your golden wings.
Of anything less,
why do you worry?
You are in truth
the soul, of the soul, of the soul.
— Jalal ad-Din Rumi
Wise up!
Lets talk about suffering, about difficulties in life and about “overcoming” them, shall we?
I can’t imagine with what else to start, if not with Buddha’s first noble truth, which saying (simply enough) that life is suffering, meaning that sooner or later we’ll suffer somehow. Buddhism of course, offering answer on how to end suffering, actually - that’s the fourth noble truth.
Now that we know that life is suffering, with that in mind, we can look around. If I look around, for example, I see so many people suffering (because of) many causes: some are sick, some wanting(!) love - or better said relationship, some has experienced some personal trauma.
The way how we understand the suffering, is a bit confusing and mostly wrong. We mostly feel, that suffering has absolutely no meaning. Since people mostly think their suffering is meaningless, they’re not looking for a meaning - they fail to see meaning, so the meaning stays overlooked and unrealized. Result: their suffering really is meaningless and unproductive.
Since we mostly failing to see meaning, we’re looking for a quick fix, - maybe pills, maybe some therapy. Anthony de Mello said: “Even the best psychologist will tell you that, that people don’t really want to be cured. What they want is relief; a cure is painful.” Ahhh. So true. Cure is painful, since it does require a change. But people wanna quickly eliminate the suffering, and stay absolutely the same. Of course, things just don’t work like that.
I said before, that suffering has meaning, and the meaning is: the call of our life, the big shake of our life, the alert, the sign: “it’s time for a change, you’re doing something wrong!” And the fact is, we can’t deceive our life, .. we can deceive everything and everybody (even ourselves), but not our life.
The suffering is process, and it most likely won’t stop - until we realize it, and make some changes. Like in great song by Aimee Mann:
It’s not going to stop ‘Til you wise up.
We don’t wanna change, it’s amazing, people would rather die, than change. So they keep suffering, as suffering seems easier than the change. I heard people saying: “I’d rather die, than stop eating *some kind of* food”, or “I’d rather die, than give up smoking”. They don’t even try, and they really do - soon enough - die.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” – Albert Einstein
When suffering become just too much, too loud, too big, we can start realizing good sides of it. The suffering can bring us back to ourselves, it can eliminate all the noise that’s going on in our life, and focus our view on more important things: self-realization, our inner world.
Really, the suffering, can make us a better person, a more aware person. But it’s necessary, to realize the meaning of it. When we finally do realize the meaning, does suffering stop? Well, I said in the beginning, life is suffering. If I have fatal disease, I’ll still feel pain; or I can be still single (and alone) as I was before, or if someone had trauma in past, that won’t just go away.
“Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed: after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed. But there’s a difference: I don’t identify with it anymore. Do you know what a big difference that is?” — Anthony de Mello
Do you know? “Before, when the rainy days came, I felt like a clouds, now I feel like a sky. Calmly observing them, passing over.” When I found at lease some meaning in my suffering, when that happened, things started to change. Indeed, I was still as I was before, but yet different. I start realizing things, I start realizing myself. When I look back on my life, I see what a big and important role suffering played in my life, and how drastically changed me. Without doubt changed me to better.
To be honest - sometimes, I want a new wave of suffering, as I realized what a big power is in it. How much energy, and how that energy can be transformed into something creative, how that energy can push me forward. When I suffer, I look mostly for what needs to be changed, what needs to be realized, I don’t search for quick solutions anymore.
We sometimes don’t wanna wake up early in the morning, but when we finally do, we see priceless sunrise, wonderful morning, full of life, so fresh and relaxing. What the realization of suffering brings, is just as beautiful and full of life as the morning is. We must just open our eyes, and wake up.
Of course, this doesn’t cover all types of suffering. For example, probably it’s unfair to expect that a kid who has nothing to eat, will realize some higher meaning in his suffering. I was mostly talking about spoiled society, who suffer mostly because of some bad habits, and wrong views on life. Instead they’d actually try to do something, to realize something, they’re putting all energy into search for a quick fix. On other hand, if we’re able to lost ourselves in our suffering, to disconnect off our body, and ideas - the suffering (that’s believe in many religions) could brought higher realization.
Who am I?
Through all of my life they were teaching me completely useless things. School - what a waste of time is it, when it failed to inspire student, to constantly learn, but first and mostly learn about himself. We were learning so much about drunken and depressed writers, about dates when they were born, when they wrote another depressing poem or book, and when their luckless life finally ended.
We were learning about math, geography and history, about all the subjects, but never about the person, who is sitting there, who is listening, who is learning. The question closes to “who are you”, was the one on the test, right on top, and the answer was always your name. I’m Marko, there was another Marko in my class. So, it was very clear that I can’t be just Marko - that Marko really doesn’t mean much.
The life goes on, questions about what should we do, how to earn more money, and what to buy with it. The questions where to spend next holidays, and if the person with which we’re starting the relationship, is telling us the truth. The questions if the politics are telling us the truth, and the rage, when from time to time we realize that they were again giving us empty promises.
Ship at Sea, Sunset by Edward Moran
Politic, it’s such a big topic. People must watch news, read news, listening news, every single day, more than just once, more than twice. On any occasion. And then they can discuss news, and feel so well informed. Seems they know everything about the world, but nothing about themselves.
If I ask you, who are you, what will you answer? Your name? Your job, the fact that you’re a husband or a wife, the fact that you’re rich or poor, that you have some education or some experiences, your religion? Is that you?
And what do you want? New car, cellphone, visit US, become an opera singer, learn to play a piano? Is that all? And what if I ask you, why? Why do you want new cellphone, why do you want to become an opera singer? —- Did you ever go, just one step further, look just a little bit deeper into yourself? What’s there? Why those desires exists, is it just something empty, inspired by advertisement? Did you question yourself, your desires, your wants, and did you follow your honest answers, and keep questioning those answers, with more “whys” - until you finally saw, even if just for a moment, the glimpse who you really are?
People follow a path, but how can they, when they don’t know, who is walking on that path. How can they choose anything, if they don’t know who’s actually choosing. How can they love, if they don’t know, who is loving.
Can you buy the right clothes for yourself, if you don’t know how tall you are, and if you know absolutely nothing about your appearance?
Life is such a waste, when we don’t try to learn, who we are. Why would I care, about the moon, - what moon is, how far is it, what’s up there - what good will this ever do, if I don’t know who am I. As a matter of fact, - as far as I’m concerned, moon could be just one big cheese, putted up there by a ruler of the universe, who is just a simple shepherd. Well - what difference that makes to me?
Yes, it seems, we’re concerned about everything, but ourselves, though everything doesn’t make any sense, until we realize who we are. We should really stop: doing, thinking, learning, - and first realize who we are. And then, with this awareness start doing, thinking and learning.
The Path
I saw for a moment surrounding blueness and infinity, and then they said to me, that I should watch where am I walking, so I won’t trip on something. I listen their advice, and start walking on the path, which was smooth and obvious. It had no branches, just a few light turnings, it was dry and clean, and so trodden that I got the feeling, that for centuries no one step off it.
But I heard of some, who walk off this path, and they lost themselves in endlessness of dark and dangerous forests. I hoped so dearly, that something like that wouldn’t happened to me. I was walking for quite some time, in admiration and pride of the trails I was leaving in mud and patches of snow - which were situated in shadows of ancient trees. Path was dark and pastel, but I never raised up my look again, just like all those who were walking beside me, and those who were walking behind me, and those who catch me up, and those who I catch up - never raised their look up.
I loved some of them, without ever even looking their faces, and I was listening them, but never asked who they really are, and they never asked me, who I really am. We were talking only about our trails, and about path, which was common to all of us, and which was leading us to the same unknown destination. We were so proud of our steps, though they were melting away or were stumped all over - mutilated and erased. Just from time to time, we saw a miracle in dirty puddle, which was reflecting the blueness, so familiar to all of us, as we all saw it in a long forgotten beginning.
I was walking on the edge of the path, and slowly I walked off it, not that I would want that, not that I would even know when or how. I found myself alone in waste land, and there was no path ahead of me anymore, and there was no trails behind me, and fear was strangling and choking me, and solitude and silence ruled my world and accomplishing all of the steps, I cowardly took. I took an confused and frightened step, which resulted in slip and fall; and the pain and the darkness was in me even before I landed on the ground.
There was nothing anymore but the thought of the death, which lasted endlessly, until finally, weary of waiting the death to come, I open my eyes.
I was blinded for a moment, and then I saw something I didn’t saw since the very beginning of my life. It was that infinite blueness, painted with clouds, which glided so lightly and smoothly through the sky.
I was lying there and there was no want in me, for my eyes to see anything else, but this boundlessness, and the moment lasted for years, before the desire to stand up again, appeared.
When I stood up, I looked at the landscape through which I was walking for all my time, and I saw it so green, covered in spring, lighted by wonderful sunrise, full of trees, birds and butterflies and there - not so far from where I was standing - the river, blue as the sky itself, flowing into the infinite blueness of sea, which was merged with the sky.
In that moment I became aware, and I started to running - I was jumping all over, breathing, feeling my heart beat, running straightly, directed towards infinite water, which was calling me.
I arrived at the evening, when the moon was rising, so close that I could touch it, but yet so far, that I could never reach it, in the space that doesn’t exist.
And the night came, and the stars were twinkling, and I haven’t breath anymore, and I haven’t feel the beating of my heart and I haven’t saw through my eyes, and I haven’t felt on my skin. Now, the wind was carrying me into the unknown distances, over infinite sea, and I was the wind, and I was the sea and the stars.
