My Life In Flux

“All is flux, nothing stays still” – Heraclitus of Ephesus

Today I would just like to share somewhat of a random post. Just expressing where I presently am in my life and what’s on my mind. I also want to thank everyone who is a reader of mine, I really appreciate it. I will continue to write on various topics and try to accommodate different levels of understanding as long as I feel I can contribute something unique. Thank you for allowing me to share the ride.

Life is dynamic, a constantly changing dream, you don’t need to suffer by trying to change it. Once you understand this not just logically but feel it deeply in your being, life takes on a whole new quality, and you yourself become more dynamic. Your focus then goes away from the objective material world, to the immaterial subjective inner world.

Currently, I am experiencing many different emotions, perspectives, ideas, and sensations. I feel that I am constantly outgrowing old ways of thinking, of living, and find myself in a world of ever-increasing possibilities. Everything I once thought I wanted to pursue has faded into the background. My current direction has no label, but it feels like my path, it is my path. Over the last few years, I left everything I have ever known, I live outside of my comfort zone, but more and more it feels like home.

A land where anything can happen and events unfold in indescribably miraculous ways. I have gone through some amazing highs, intense lows, and a little bit of everything in between. In the process, I keep shedding layers upon layers of conditioning because every day I constantly remember that who I really am is not my conditioning. This remembrance is not just an understanding of the mind, but one that I feel with my whole being, with my guts.

Through constant self-studyobservationmeditation, yoga, and traveling I keep removing the dust from my eyes. I am becoming increasingly awake, and more alert; literally, it’s like being Neo and unplugging from the Matrix. Life is only real when “I am” and you begin to see that almost everyone is not. This sense of “I am” is a deep feeling of being centered and relaxed with existence itself. To become awake to life and to your true nature is a very arduous journey, but I feel that it’s the only journey worth making.

I have come to see that our minds are nothing but confusion, seeing the confusion and remaining a passive witness to it, I gain some clarity. I see that there is no such thing as a clear mind, by the mind’s very structure clarity is not possible. When you say you feel clear-headed, it just means your thoughts feel more orderly, how can the mind be clear? Your entire mind is just simply an ongoing thought process.

To discover your true nature you need to go beyond your mind, but we need to start somewhere, so you need to gain a certain understanding to learn how to use your mind, to “kill the mind”, to make it incredibly quiet and alert. Through meditation start getting a taste for “no mind” This is true clarity. It is very difficult to describe a state of being that you need to discover on your own because my description is not going to be described.

Only take this journey if you are serious. There are many pitfalls in the search for personal truth, in the search for reality. Life’s deeper meanings and mysteries are incredibly subtle and paradoxical; you will need to have an incredibly sensitive mind to perceive them. If you make a genuine effort into life’s mysteries, you will prove to yourself that things really are not what they seem, or what you previously had thought. Self-study and meditation will be your way.

Learning to rise above your mind you simply are, and you acknowledge your existence with every fiber in your being. Less and less thinking, more and more feeling, you come to realize how modern man has forgotten how to feel.

“Things do not change; we change.” – Henry David Thoreau

Look at our politicians they mainly live through the mind, they don’t know how to feel. Living through the mind they can rationalize anything, and the mind only seeks to satisfy its own desires. Politicians go on saying they want to change things, but they never see that to change something you need to see the cause of it, they never look to change themselves. As long as they seek to change something externally things will continue to stay the same. Politics are not about change, they are about keeping things the same because it’s in their best interest to do so. It would hurt politicians to really see themselves as they are, they would see how divided they have become, and how many contradictions live inside them.

If we really want to change the world we need to quit watching others and just learn to watch ourselves, our consciousness will grow. No one likes to watch themselves, it’s a lot easier to watch others, and then you can also blame them for any reason.

Learning to feel again is ecstasy. You will know when you have grown in your being when you see that you are more sensitive when you can feel more because then you know that whatever knowledge you gained has come from your own experience. You will know you have gone through a transformation.

Pitfalls of Living in the Information Age

The ease at which we are able to access the world’s information has had some drawbacks. People go on accumulating knowledge, but if it does not come from your own experience it will only become a burden. This is where we are at, people go on accumulating information and begin to believe they know something, yet their being remains the same. No real growth happens to them. Since they feel they already know, they don’t go into it deeply in their lives, it never becomes their own understanding. It remains just as theory, philosophy, and logic of the mind.

People are just becoming more clever, but being clever is just on the surface, this is not real intelligence. Also the more information they gain the more uncertain everything becomes to them. You accumulate so much information that it now contradicts itself, and since it did not come from your own experience you can never be sure about anything. You can’t trust what you think you know.

You see it everywhere on the net, people digesting immense amounts of information to then only use it to exploit others. Yet they feel they have learned something of real value and convince themselves and others that they need what they know. What I see is that you only end up getting a bunch of imitators. Being an imitator you will never find deep fulfillment. You can only be authentic if you grow through your own understanding, knowledge that is not borrowed. You can recite the holy texts, but what good does it do if it only remains information and not your own deep understanding?

So I caution people to be aware of what information they take in if they are not going to create the experience for it to become an actuality because it will only serve to create barriers and confusion.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

A mind that constantly compares lives in confusion, lives in the future, and you become divided within yourself. When you quit watching others and only watch yourself, you will be growing in the present. Ambition can only exist in the future. But to grow in the now is to be non-ambitious, a different dimension of growth, one that makes you more sensitive to life.

Please don’t accept or deny anything I have said, this is your life so go find out for yourself. We are all different so each journey is bound to be different, we may all find the same truths but express them differently because if you find your individuality the expression has to be different. We are all unique, someone may find their inner divinity through dance, another through poetry, another through meditation, and another through compassion, but one is not better than the other.

What you seek is already there, it has always been there, you just need to wake up to rediscover it.

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8 Responses to My Life In Flux

  1. Ivan ,what a post! It completely resonates with my experience. Connecting with our heart really allows us to deal with circumstances, people and problems on a more subtile level. It’s a gentler way of living. Inspiration, solutions and positive coincidences start to enlighten our lives when we just are, and live from the heart.

    Thank you for this inspiring post

  2. Dear Ivan, I agree with every your word. I’m at the very begining of my Way, but I’m full of confidence as i really want to find real Me. Thanks for enlightment…

  3. Ivan, great post. I think taking the time to reflect on yourself instead of what is going on with others, is one of the hardest, but most valuable lessons to learn. I too feel like the plan that I had at the beginning of my life did not pan out at all and I don’t know where to turn next. Thanks for the reminder to take the time and sort out the confusion in my head to find the path that’s right for me.
    .-= Marissa´s last blog ..Intro to Indian Culture in 20 minutes =-.

  4. The mind is the trick here, and as I understood once we begin to go “beyond” mind where no mind is, that’s when we’ll be where we need to be. Truly enlightning!!!

  5. I love your website, this post is great! It really resonates with me, I am not content simply reading or hearing about something, I need to experience it for myself but I do find myself believing and forming opinions based on information rather than actual experience. I love what you wrote, gives me a lot to think about, cheers:)

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