The most important thing in your Life--Part 3

Up until now, this article has mostly focused on who you are on a purely conceptual level. But now it's time to take a field trip and dive deeper within and learn how to access your true reality.

As stated earlier, your inner reality constitutes of everything that happens within you—the thoughts you think, the emotions that you feel, the reactions that come out of you, all of this. And to get in touch with that means simply to be conscious of that and to know yourself as more than what goes on inside you (this part is explained later).

So just become aware of everything that happens within you—listen to the voice (s) in your head, feel the energy of the emotions, observe your reactive patterns whenever they become triggered due to some outside events or by even your thoughts—just continue to watch all of this without putting any mental label on them.

It means just allowing yourself to listen and feel whatever goes on within you. For example, if the voice in your head says something that you find very objectionable—don't react to it and just allow it to be. You're just watching your thoughts, not controlling them. This distinction is vital; do not ever try to control what happens inside you, whether they are your thoughts and emotions or reactions cause doing so will only result in giving more energy to the unconscious mind. Just watch and be aware of everything that happens in you, that's all you need to do.

And when you continue to watch your inner reality, you will soon become aware of the distance between you and everything that goes on inside you. Whenever you listen to a thought, a separation happens. And at that moment, instead of being identified with and immersed in the thought, you are stepping out of it and being the awareness that is aware of the thought.

Think about it—the fact that you can hear your thoughts means that there's a distance between you and your thoughts, clearly you are not your thoughts. Otherwise, how can you even listen to them?

When this happens, you begin to free yourself out of imprisonment in thoughts, which unfortunately is the case for most people in the world. You feel yourself as the watcher behind the thoughts and directly experience the truth that you're not just the content of your mind. Then, just practice being in that state of pure awareness as much as you can.

With practice, you'll notice that the thoughts that goes inside you constantly, will lose power over you and you'll find it easier to stay as the witnessing consciousness underneath them. Your thoughts won't be able to control you anymore and you'll also experience an undercurrent of peace and joy that radiates from that inner space.

This is not a technique, it's far simpler and fundamental than any technique. You're not looking for anything, you're just being aware of everything that's already in you. Then see how that feels as you go deeper and deeper within yourself.

There are many more ways that show you how to take your attention deeply into yourself but they can't be covered in this article for obvious reasons. For those, I suggest that you read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle—it's an essential read if you want to deepen your self-realization.

And with the deepening of your awareness, you discover one of the greatest gifts you can possibly get in your Life—I'd like to call it the ability to enjoy, I know it sounds a bit dramatic but honestly, there's no other way I can describe it. It's not an achievement, it was already there in you but you never knew you had it till you became aware of it. It comes with the awakening of your true reality, of how closely you are in touch with who you really are—beyond the person, beyond everything you have known yourself to be.

The ability of enjoyment is something that's completely independent of what you have or not have in your life. If you access that ability within you, then you can be extremely joyful no matter wherever you are or whatever you have, be it just a tiny hut or a huge mansion. Whether you have lots of riches or nothing at all, you will always find yourself blissful and fulfilled. It is at this point when you realize: the outside circumstances of your life will always keep changing, but your source of peace and fulfillment does not.

And it's the ability of enjoyment that actually determines whether or not you can truly enjoy anything in your life. If you don't discover it within you, then you won't be able to cherish and enjoy ANYTHING, even if you manage to acquire everything that money can buy or all the status and success that the outside world can ever give you. As Sadhguru, the great spiritual teacher stated--”You'll have everything and you'll have nothing”.

The reason is that most people try to find themselves through the outside world. Their accomplishments, their riches, their sense of pride—all of that is just a pursuit of things to identify with and make themselves more 'complete' through those things. They're trying to feel 'whole', without realizing that completeness can only be found in the inner reality, the dimension of the formless.

This is exactly what our culture doesn't tell you. It shows you from childhood that the key to happiness is always outside you—it's in the possessions, relationships or social status. Of course, as you can find out for yourself, this way of going through Life doesn't work and only leads to momentary pleasures followed by deep suffering.

Also, as you can easily verify from experience, acute unhappiness and depression isn't just in poverty, it's in the affluent world as well. In fact, the basic underlying suffering is in the same level—always searching outside for the one thing that the outside world cannot ever give you. It's in the inside, it's in who you truly are, it's in you.

And that brings us to the end of this three-part article. Basically, the first two parts were just stepping stones to this one and they were written simply to encourage the reader to take the journey within cause it's the only place where anyone can find long term solutions to all their problems in Life.

But it's more than just solving your problems or re-arranging your Life. It's about knowing who you truly are and what is your true purpose in the cosmos. Which, to me, is the most essential thing that you can discover and know in Life.

Cause how can you feel like it's ok to not know who you really are? Because you believe that your life will be just fine without it. And the reason why you might think that is cause your unconscious mind is running your life right now and what you think as your 'Life', is just a bundle of patterns operating by itself—thought patterns, patterns of activities, behavior patterns, you name it.

Ask yourself—isn't most days in your life feel the same? The same old structures, the same old shackles, all played out in endless repeat performances? Do you really feel like you're living? Do you want to break free and know what true freedom feels like, which is freedom from the mind? Or do you want to keep pretending that it's alright? 

The choice, as well as the consequence is yours and yours alone. But the direction is ever the same—it's within.

There's also a very real sense of danger when people do not know who they really are. As long as you are unaware of yourself as the immortal and indestructible awareness, you'll always derive your sense of identity from the external world. Your past, the work you do, your possessions, your accomplishments, physicality--these are the things that you'll identify yourself with. 

And when these things crumble (as is the destiny of everything in this world of duality), so will your sense of self. You'll feel the grief, the struggle to hold on to your false sense of self (cause you don't really know who you are) and more forms of acute unhappiness. This will also invariably lead to pain and suffering, for both you and the people around you. 

But if you know who you truly are, as the awareness beneath everything that comes and goes in your Life, you'll learn to easily accept both the good and the 'bad' events that you go through and your whole life will be a living embodiment of joy, untouched by the duality of the World.  

I hope this article serves as a springboard and encourages you to go deeper, to turn inward and reach the next 'level' of your Life.