“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there’s a field. I’ll meet you there” – Rumi
There’s a place – beyond your thinking and emotions, beyond your beliefs, suppositions and habits -where you can go to find whatever it is in life that you seek. There are no answers or solutions in the so-called ‘outside world’. They don’t exist there. They exist on the inner plane of awareness, accessible when the mind is still and the heart is open.
I love this Rumi quote – I wrote about it not so long ago in a post called There’s a Space Between Past and Future and I think it sums up my purpose for this blog which you can read here in my About Beverley page.
We search endlessly for meaning in our lives, for solutions to perceived dilemmas that confront us, for purpose to guide us on our journey, not realizing that all the time, we are looking in the ‘wrong’ place. Nothing we do or say, nothing anyone else can do or say, nothing that happens ‘out there’ in the world, can give us what we think we need. (And that statement alone can be enough to send the mind into a crazy, spin-making story of doubt and fear, resentment, reaction, even anger}.
Consider the Stillness
And yet…consider the stillness. Consider moments of bliss – we’ve all experienced them – an awesome sunrise/sunset, a walk in the woods, looking into a baby’s eyes or those of a loved one. Those moments of connectedness show us the way. Though it may appear that something on the outside has stimulated this moment, the experience is actually on the inside. We don’t experience the sunset in the sunset itself, we experience it our hearts which are open and melting, mind silenced by the pure majesty and awe of this beauty.
What if you could live your life from this place of connectedness, of open heart and quiet mind? In this day and age of life moving at what often seems an unsustainable pace, that would at first glance appear almost impossible. And yet, if you were to understand, to truly grasp the absolute awesomeness of being able to do just that, would you not at least invest a little of that busy life to at least discovering for yourself through first-hand experience, the possibilities and potential?
The Purpose of The Life Journey
It is a journey this life we live. It is a journey undertaken at very subtlest of levels. It is a journey that has the potential of bringing you to a place of unspeakable joy, beyond anything you can currently even begin to envision.
Eckhart Tolle speaks of primary and secondary life purposes – I write in more depth about them in Life Purposes. If we accept that the primary purpose for a life is to awaken, then we need to understand what that means – and how to go about the awakening process. Every person finds their own way. While there are as many paths to the top of the mountain as there are people, the top remains the same – knowing who we really are and living from that powerful inner knowing. A few of the resources I have found to be very helpful on my journey to date are listed here.
Glimpses Inspire to Keep on Moving Forward
We’ve all had glimpses of the truth of our being, but we too easily give up on living our lives from that place because it seems too hard, or we don’t know how, or we misunderstand the importance of doing so. We think the easy escape into what we know, the artificial stimulations from various addictions (food, drink, drugs, tv, exercise even) will supersede the hard work of disciplining the mind and becoming aware. Emotions like anger, resentment, depression etc. fit in here as an escape also.
It takes work. The rewards are mind-boggling – beyond mind’s comprehension. How do I know? Because, like everybody, I have experienced these moments – from the ups and the downs of artificial mind stimulation to the merging of my mind and senses with Life Itself. And my senses also tell me that I have only touched the tip of an enormous depth of potential and possibility.
Are You Willing?
If you are willing, truly willing, to go through the withdrawal that will surely happen as you stop feeding yourself on these false assumptions about your life, stop living in the past and/or the future, you can find heaven on earth. But you have to be willing and you have to do the work.
This is not a place where everything goes exactly as you might want. You actually have no say in how Life will present itself. Rather, Life presents itself clearly to you in every single moment for you to accept or reject/ignore. You reject it at your peril. You surrender to it as your divine right/heritage. And if you do that, you discover the ‘field’ ‘out there’ that is pure ecstasy. I’ll meet you there.
