You know, those stars up there, they might not even exist. I mean, it takes so long for the light to travel here that the stars themselves, they could be gone now. You know? It´s just weird, but they are like a message from back in time. The universe is bigger than we can imagine. I guess it just kind of puts things in perspective. All the stuff that we think is so important when in reality it’s not. It’s nothing. Our planet, nevermind, our species, you and me, we´re nothing. We´re like a blip in time. We can´t worry. We just have to lie back and enjoy the ride.
Jasper Herman, 90210 (via justarandomhumanbeing)
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.
Know yourself
We are, what we think we are, that’s what Buddha said; you can trust that this statement is true, and you can take it literally. Now, here’s the first problem: instead of trusting ourselves, and believing in ourselves - we believe what other tell us. You’ll maybe say now, that a person is defined by his/her environment, therefore - there’s no choice. But, even though we’re define by our environment - there’s a choice, actually, a path on which we can go; the path of self-exploration, - self-realization. So, the exploration of our inner world. The realization who we are, and what’s our purpose. And this realization shouldn’t be just something shallow, but should be deep, philosophical and spiritual experience.
When realize who you are, you won’t need grasp on the words anymore, and living in hope, that people will say something good about you, so that you could feel a bit better, and you won’t have to hope, that people won’t say something bad, what could made you sad. This is the point on which you know who you are, they have right to their opinion, but you know, so you don’t have to (and you don’t) react emotional.
It’s really logical - you lived with yourself all your life, so I guess, you’re the one who should know yourself the best. There’s not even a single day, which you wouldn’t spend with yourself, there’s not even a single person who could know you better - that’s of course - if you explore just a little bit, and if you start believing in yourself, and in your experiences.
Self-exploration isn’t just important - it’s the key actually, since without it, you’ll easily got cough in your own made-believed-word, which consists of old, and outdated opinions. You must explore your inner world, and realize who you are - and you must keep exploring your inner world - and never stop.
People are running away from themselves, somewhere out, since inside, it’s often too bad, too strange and unfamiliar. Music, television, work, people just can’t be alone in peace and quietness, they’re looking for joy outside.
Right now you can imagine you inner world, as a big dump - everyone comes, and throws some of his things into it, and you just take it all - you love those who throw something “nice” and useful, — and on other hand, you hate those which are throwing bad items; “exploration”, in this analogy, is cleaning of this “dump” and replacement of it, with nice garden; cleaning will take you a lot of time, but when you’ll clean it, - you won’t have so much work with it anymore, and even the work which you’ll have won’t be so hard, opposite, it will be mostly joy. When other people will see this nice garden of yours, they won’t have desire to throw trash in it, quite opposite actually, they’ll enjoy and appreciate it.
But mostly you’ll benefit from this nice clean garden, you’ll feel good in it, you won’t have the need to run away from it anymore.
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
