I stumbled across this amazing piece today and had to share it.
It made me, stop and take a look (again) at my life, my purpose, my reason for being. Whatever you want to call it.
Hopefully you'l at very least enjoy it, but who knows it may help you discover YOU
Then you can say I am .................
With no fear in your heart or your head.
Most beings live in a world of limitation, lack and ignorance. Some of them know this, and many do not. To the majority who are in some kind of poverty, sickness or misery, they are below ordinary functionality. To many others, the world of limitation they inhabit seems somewhat happier, relative to the greater suffering of those they see around them. They may be successful in worldly terms, but they are still subject to forces beyond their control. These people we could say are ‘ordinarily functional’.
Their lives work better than most, but they remain ignorant of the true aims and workings of life, so the deepest happiness and Freedom always eludes them. Very very rarely do human beings rise to the level of ‘extraordinary functionality’. Most do not even know it is possible. After all, a caterpillar in perfect weather and with plenty to eat all the time is better off than most of its fellow caterpillars, but it is still not a butterfly. At a certain point in a person’s evolution, it becomes obvious that inner growth is THE answer to all of life’s deeper questions and challenges, including illness, difficult circumstances, our love life, all relationships, your working life, money problems, your weight, finding your purpose, becoming fulfilled, everything.
As you begin along the Path, you begin to see how the mind creates your world, down to the last detail. Reaching your potential in this life means freeing yourself from the dominion of your ego, which is another term for your conditioning. This includes beliefs, memories, programs, stories, patterns, feelings, thoughts – everything that determines your inner world and the way you see life and yourself.
In the East they call this your ‘karma’. Your karma is all the stuff you are identifying with right now, moment to moment. The only record of your past is your mind’s stored impressions of what happened, and the subtle imprints within you, at this moment, of all your past actions. Every thought, and the intention behind every action, is recorded in the infinite field of consciousness. Or, to put it another way, God knows your heart, your real motivation moment by moment. In order to be Free, you only have to clear out this storehouse of conditioning or karma. Most people never clear this out. Instead, they repeat and live out the same unconscious patterns and programs year in, year out, until they die. They are perpetually on the mouse wheel of life, never really moving up, lifetime after lifetime.
Their karma determines their possibilities. Their relationships, the kinds of people they will meet and be around, the kind of work they will do, their money life, their health, all of this is determined by their karma. If you do not clear out your karma, you have no choice but to be controlled by it. You will continue to draw painful and difficult events and experiences into your life, and you will continue to respond to them in the same way, which will yield the same results as before. This is most people’s lives. Not knowing how to clear their karma, they live in a state of perpetual resistance, repressing and escaping from their negative feelings, to get some relief, and sometimes being taken over by them. Life is stressful, and the experience is of living in a world of forces that impact them every day, yet lie beyond their control. Relationships are difficult, and the same patterns recur for them again and again. With no understanding of the subtle law of karma, they think life is random, subject to luck, and they fail to see that each person is accountable to the Universe for his/her intention, moment to moment. They blame others, themselves and the world for their condition, or for what does not work in their lives. Or else life is not quite stressful enough to make the search for deeper answers urgent, rather than casual.
So, either way, nothing profound changes about who they are. Caught in self-concern and anxiety (wanting), life is stressful, at least some of the time. Welcome to the mass of the human condition. The alternative to this picture is to set about to clear one’s conditioning, to refashion one’s lower nature, and to let go of one’s limiting beliefs. To purify one’s intention. This is done first by having the intent for inner growth. When the intent is strong, either by inspiration or desperation, or some of both, the teachings of Higher Truth come into a person’s life. This in itself is a profound karmic event.
To have the highest teachings of Truth show up in one’s life is already a rare blessing, which is itself the result of merit acquired in this and prior lifetimes. Most beings never even hear of the Path to Freedom, even though it has been spoken by enlightened beings in every culture since the beginning of time. The highest teachings of Truth are identical in their essence, no matter what culture or moment in history they come from. When the Path DOES appear, the discerning instinctively grasp the gift that life is offering them.
As the Buddha said, “Rare is it to be born a human; rarer still to hear of the Dharma (Truth / Enlightenment / the Path to Freedom); and the rarest of all is to seek it as one’s goal in life. The moment you do, the end is certain. ” The objective of ordinary consciousness is to change the world around you, in order to get what you think will make you happy. The objective of the seeker of Higher Truth is purify and change themselves in order to reach the goal of enlightenment or Total Freedom (extraordinary functionality). This is, of course, the real prize of life. It is the ultimate meaning of this existence, to go beyond all limitation, all fear, and to realize your identity with the very Source itself, the Supreme Self within. This state of Being has been given many labels over the centuries and in different cultures: Enlightenment, Freedom, Self-Realization, God-Realization, Nirvana, Liberation, to name a few. To do this, you must have a strong and sustained intention to release all your karma, everything within you that keeps you limited and binds you to the world of ignorance and suffering.
Taken from the website http://www.purnasvarup.org/Why_seek_Freedom.html
I am Craig Lowe
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