Control and Meditation
When we speak of control, we are referring to "self" control. Much of what happens to us is not under our conscious control. However, we can always be in control of our reaction to it. Many do not understand that we have this ability and feel that they are cast adrift in a mighty storm, able only to try to hold on until the storm abates.
In one sense, what occurs in our lives is brought about by our own actions. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". "As we sow, so shall we reap," even "the golden rule" all allude to this truth. We do bring into our lives that which we need to further our growth and understanding. Since we often don't notice this, we miss opportunities to change our ways, feeling instead that life has been unfair to us. This causes the same event to present repeatedly until we come to understand what we are doing that causes it.
I once expressed sympathy for a woman in a nursing home who was celebrating her 100th birthday alone. My friend responded that if she had been a kind and generous woman through her life, she would not be alone on such a momentous occasion. This did not relieve my pity for the woman, but it certainly gave me cause to think.
Many, if not all, of the basic truths we seek in life have already been distilled down into such familiar homilies. We just don't notice them while searching for an obscure, difficult path to enlightenment. Instead, we search for the ultimate guru, the most obscure path laid down by someone long dead, or at least totally unfamiliar to us.
Meditation helps us to go within ourselves and find these basic truths, bringing our lives into harmony inside and out.
...Z
In one sense, what occurs in our lives is brought about by our own actions. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". "As we sow, so shall we reap," even "the golden rule" all allude to this truth. We do bring into our lives that which we need to further our growth and understanding. Since we often don't notice this, we miss opportunities to change our ways, feeling instead that life has been unfair to us. This causes the same event to present repeatedly until we come to understand what we are doing that causes it.
I once expressed sympathy for a woman in a nursing home who was celebrating her 100th birthday alone. My friend responded that if she had been a kind and generous woman through her life, she would not be alone on such a momentous occasion. This did not relieve my pity for the woman, but it certainly gave me cause to think.
Many, if not all, of the basic truths we seek in life have already been distilled down into such familiar homilies. We just don't notice them while searching for an obscure, difficult path to enlightenment. Instead, we search for the ultimate guru, the most obscure path laid down by someone long dead, or at least totally unfamiliar to us.
Meditation helps us to go within ourselves and find these basic truths, bringing our lives into harmony inside and out.
...Z
4 comments:
Yes, meditation helps us to just be. No action no reaction. Simply being.
So true, so easy, so difficult. Simply being seems to be one of the hardest things to do, but one of the truly rewarding.
Thank you, Soulmate.
...Z
Zareba, being alone is not always caused by one having been bad, life has its' strangeness and our culture carries people away without their knowing it, essentials can be forgotten, without intention. With the advent of interactive television and the new round of electronic life products, I assume that we will be further overcome by taught false values, then life will become even more lonely for many. I am speaking of HiDef and the reason for the forced change over, greater capacity and I think, two way possibilities with unlimited attachments. This takes effect here in US in Jan next year.
I am well aware of how easy it is to think that ones' emotional response is ABSOLUTE, often it is learned thru society, and taught thru parentage, the wrong way, the jump to judgement, the leap into hate and anger and revenge, lots of things like that accompany the fault. Then the recourse to others being blamed for the outcomes of those uncontrolled leaps, it is hard for a youth to end that cycle. I have always wished there was a magic cure, a word that could be spoken to snap a person out of that spell and into a reality of calm and sense based on equality and love without qualifications. Alas, it ain't that easy, as you and I know.
Keep the hope and the message strong, our only solution and we are the physicians for this illness.
Hi Jim:
You are right that a person alone may well not have done anything to deserve their lack of companionship. Another friend pointed out that the lady in question was 100 years old. She had probably outlived all the people in her life.
I too, mourn the lack of magic in the lives of our young people, but it is us who must put it back. The younger generations do not know what it looks like so can search forever and not find it. It ain't easy for sure, but it is desperately needed.
Since the extended family seems to be a thing of the past, many young people need the magic that a parent or grandparent can bring. At last count, I had 3 daughters by choice, 5 grandchildren by choice, and 2 sisters by choice. That is as well as my own very Small nuclear family.
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