Secret of the balanced mind

The key trait to have a balanced mind is a constant and continuous awareness of the big picture at all times. And to never doubt that the big picture will eventually work itself out,especially in dark times.

excerpt - The stream and the desert

The very well known Sands story – truly part of all our heritage.



I felt myself drift off into another world and Reda the carpenter began. 'Once there was a stream,' he said, 'a lovely cool, clear stream. It was created from melted snow in the high mountains and it flowed down through all kinds of rock, until one bright morn¬ing it reached the desert. 'The stream was worried, but it knew that its destiny was to cross the sand. So it called out, "What am I to do?" And the desert answered, "Listen, O stream! The wind crosses my sands, and you can, too." 'The stream didn't listen. He let his water roll forward. The first drops disappeared without trace. '"Desert! Desert!" he called. "You are sucking me up!" The desert was old and wise and grew angry at the foolish young stream. "Of course I am sucking you up," replied the desert, "because that is what deserts do. I can't change. Please listen to me and allow yourself to be absorbed into the wind."
The stream was far too hot headed to listen. He had his pride and was happy being who he was. "I am a stream," he shouted, "and I want to stay a stream!" The sand, growing in impatience, replied again: "O foolish stream! You must throw yourself into the wind and you will fall as rain. Your droplets will cross mountains and oceans and you will be far greater than you are now. Please listen to my words!" 'The stream did not believe the sand and cried, "Desert, desert, how can I be sure you speak the truth?" The desert rose up in a sandstorm and called, "Trust me, O young stream, and think back: surely you can recall being in another form." The stream thought hard, its waters swirling as its memory worked. Then, gradually, it did remember ... it remembered a time when it was something else. '"Let yourself rise up!" cried the desert, "Up and up into the wind!" The stream did as the sands ordered and let himself rise in a curtain of mist, until he was absorbed in the wind. It felt wonderful, and right, as if it was meant to be.'

Monsieur Reda thumped his chest and coughed 'And that is how the stream which is life continues,' he said, 'and why the tale of its great journey is written in the sands.'

Anxiety

One of the roots of anxiety is unfinished tasks. And dark imaginings of the future.
Ultimately, given enough time, everything falls into place. The right action is bound to arise at the right time.

The only sin

The only sin is ignorance of the Self. To lose sight of the Self is to get trapped in duality and fear.

Excerpt~~ Void and suffering

The root cause of human suffering

In the most private spaces of each person's inner conscious life, a deep dissatisfaction is lurking, a nagging sense that life is somehow out of kilter, misaligned, not quite as it should be.

No matter how rich or secure or successful a person may be, a fundamental dissatisfaction still persists. The reasons for that dissatisfaction are plain. Everything a human being hopes for is in some sense imperfect, disappointing, or hollow. In the end we all die, which is the ultimate disappointment.
At the same time, surely there are things that every person, no matter how poor or wretched, can be sincerely grateful for. Some things bring more joy than pain, even if the joy is tinged with grief, and even if those things are lost at death.
To renounce desire is not a humane response to the fundamental dissatisfaction, even if the pursuit of desire really were the cause of pain and frustration. It seems that a characteristic of all living things is that they grasp relentlessly after survival and opportunity.

Many human needs are rooted in biology. Those obviously shouldn't be denied or trivialized. Pain is a fact. We feel pain or grief from loss. Desire is part of what makes us vital.

In any case, disassociating from desire can never actually relieve suffering, because the presence of pain and the lack of pleasure are not what causes suffering.
First of all, pain is not necessarily a synonym for suffering. We can't deny or escape pain, but we can be free from suffering by changing how we relate to the fundamental dissatisfaction.
The fundamental dissatisfaction is an unquenchable thirst that is a side effect of human cognition itself, due to being sentient in the physical world.
We can conceive of a perfectly round circle or a perfectly straight line, but those never exist in the physical world. Nothing in the physical world ever lines up exactly with our inner concepts. How we respond to the experience of that misalignment is what matters.
The mistake that leads to suffering is the simple delusion that the fundamental dissatisfaction can be extinguished by gaining more pleasure or feeling less pain or, in other words, by getting more of what we want.
The root cause of suffering is that we unrelentingly struggle to get rid of the fundamental dissatisfaction by means of the fulfillment of our desires, and yet that dissatisfaction sticks to us as a perpetual, unanswerable craving.
It can be difficult to realize that the fundamental dissatisfaction even exists, because it is veiled by our restless struggle to get rid of it. Once we realize that it exists, we're too horrified to accept that it really is unquenchable.
Paradoxically, by facing the emptiness and by surrendering completely to its inevitability, we come to deep peace and no longer suffer.

Michael Webb, April, 2006

The monster inside

There is a monster inside me. A monster made up up of (fear+anxiety+malice). It has a desire to harm and cause pain to others. And then get terrified. It is terrified of the world.

A combination of terror and hatred. The dark one inside the mind. The one playing the game of survival. Who desires to destroy all that is perceived as a threat and living in terror of being destroyed.

I don't know what to do to it other than letting it be seen because I am very good at hiding it.

Serenity

Serenity lies only in the realization that all shall pass. Only the real remains untouched.
Be centered at all times. Even at the cost of death.