Flowology’s Weblog

How many people contemplate suicide at some point in their lives? I have personally thought about it in the past although I doubt I would ever act on it. It comes from the feeling that life is either unbearable or worthless. You get tired of dealing with the same dramas day in and day out and you can see no way out except self-annihilation. There may be an overwhelming sense of pressure in your mind, or self-hate over who you are. But more than anything else, the thought of suicide comes from your own mind and is not dependent on any external reality. People have the capacity to deal with so much if they feel they are internally strong. The feeling that we can’t deal with it shows a lack of faith in one’s self. It’s really important to bring back self-faith and self-respect.

Someone recently suggested to me that in moments of crisis, you have to ‘take a step back’. You have to detach from yourself, come out of your limited perspective and look around. People deal with so much and are still joyful. Life has to end anyway, that’s inevitable, so why not make the most of the short time you have?

If ever you reach a point where you feel you need to end it all, here are a few things to remember:

1. Everything passes, and this too shall pass in its own time.

2. There are people out there who have faced the same thing as you have faced, and have survived to become stronger and wiser.

3. You can’t change everything, but you can change your attitiude.

4. There are people who love you and want you in their lives.

5. Life is already so short, why make it shorter?

6. This is a creative opportunity so let’s not take it so seriously that it becomes unbearable.

Recently I’ve been counselling a friend of mine, Matthew, who is a real fantasist. He lives for IDEAS, and ideas are almost as real to him as reality, if not more so. Sometimes he says wistfully, “What you feel and create in your mind is just as real as the world outside. There are thoughts, but they are still HAPPENING just as much as events out there.” I’m not sure I can fully agree with this, although Matthew’s argument is very convincing. I can see that what we feel is real whether it comes from a self-projected fantasy or from a life event, but somehow I can’t give it as much value because it does not impact on all five physical senses and it is mostly only real for the person creating the fantasy. But what I do believe is that mind creates matter, and thinking about something enough can make it happen in physical reality…

Anyway, Matthew is a funny character. For one thing, he’s handsome and could get any girl he wanted. For another, he is very sensitive and values his freedom a lot. He gets into relationships, gets frustrated and gets out. So now he’s decided he prefers fantasies and would rather have a relationship that is impossible in physical reality. He’s gone for the internet romance option. He exchanges intimacies with a person he barely knows, who he feels very much attracted to based on what he has got to know of her in virtual reality. They are quite happy keeping things limited to that sphere.

I think it’s a little strange, but what about real life relationships? When people first meet, it’s all about idealising each other and creating fantasies together. That’s what keeps the flame of desire burning. Once people are married with a family, mundane responsibilities kick in and we see each other in the true light of day. We either accept each other as human after all, and the love deepens, or we feel the need to chase another fantasy in order to make life exciting once again.

Why are fantasies so exciting? I think it’s because they make us feel powerful. In the world of fantasy, anything is possible and we can be anyone we want. We can make our own stories.

I guess the happiest person in the world is the one who’s reality matches their fantasy. That’s what you call ‘living the dream’!

Our species has a real problem with sexual relationships. Other animals seem not to have this issue. They just do it with whomever they want and they deal with the consequences however they like; they go with instinct and their instincts more or less follow the pattern of nature.

But we, on the other hand, have this thing called a ‘developed’ mind, which creates all kinds of issues. For instance, attraction is instinctive, but there are so many considerations that we can’t follow through with just instinct. If you are committed, you STILL get attracted to other people but you pretend not to. You try not to act on it. This is because our society needs stable units (couples, family) for order. That’s why we’ve created a sense of possessiveness over our partners and religions with crazy commandments. So, that’s probably why 50% of couples have affairs and the divorce rate is rising (you have to hide your instincts, but you can’t hide your affair forever). Those people who are NOT having affairs are probably past being repressed and have reached a state of true contentment; these people are few and far between.

It’s really a lot to do with sex. We love sex because we love feeling desired and forgetting our limited realities. There’s nothing wrong with that unless it becomes an addiction. It’s ok if we do it, but we can’t tolerate our partners being attracted to someone else. This is pure ego; our little self feels threatened. Also, we need to keep a false sense of order in society by thinking that ‘free sex’ with result in STDs spreading like wildfire; this is an important consideration, but will making things TABOO actually stop them happening? More likely, those instincts will STILL manifest but in a worse way, because they happen out of desperation and guilt. In a society of open education and informed freedom with regard to sexual relations, there are likely to be fewer negative consequences.

So, I think we should all just chill out about sexual relationships, be honest, open and informed. Two consenting adults who engage in a relationship that is non-possessive are more likely to be independent and fulfilled rather than desperate and needy.

This morning was Monday morning, the best day of the week. I woke up in my apartment situated in a sprawling Asian city and there was no water coming out of the taps. Then the electricity went out. Thankfully, the back-up battery kept the fans going so that I wasn’t reduced to a pool of sweat. Half a bucket of water was kept stored in the bathroom, so I used a jug and had a traditional ‘bucket bath’. Then I was picked up for work and the company sent me a bus instead of a car, so off I went, the lone passenger in a bus. This made me feel pretty uncomfortable, especially because it’s very unfriendly to the environment and that’s why this city is saturated with pollution.

After work, though, my partner and I had a delicious meal in a chic restaurant and I came home to running water. At last. All these events proved to me how very lucky we are. We could have nothing but we have everything we need.  Sometimes you have to see the struggle in life in order to feel strong and prove to yourself that you can take it. Here’s to making it through..!

I contemplated this question last night, and came to some strange conclusions… This is what I wrote down in my diary…

Everything is consciousness and all consciousness is equal. The more concentrated the energy of consciousness, the more individuated a creation becomes. The Source of all consciousness is the one and the same, but by becoming individuated into different forms, some forms of consciousness travel very far away from the Source. They lose connection with their true identity. Such concentrated forms of consciousness (or ’souls’) may experience a very long journey through creation. It may be difficult to endure at times, but their sense of reunion when they come back to the Source will also be greater.

The end is destined for each soul, but the journey varies. In some ways, the journey is everything because it is your creation. In other ways, the journey is nothing because we all come back to the Source as equals. Even a grain of sand is made from the energy of the Universe, although it is less concentrated than a person, an animal or a plant. Because of this, the grain of sand does not deviate too far from the Source. It does not make a great journey but it is nonetheless divine. It is equal to a man who many stray far from the Source and then make a mighty effort to come back to his truth. To such a man, coming back is a momentous joy, whilst for the grain of sand, there was no ignorance or suffering in the first place. Both are equal; both have a balanced experience which is resolved continuously by karma.

So, a person who is ignorant and harmful is not evil, although it appears that way. Such a person would have to make a huge effort in order to redeem themselves. But they WILL do it because their essential nature requires them to balance their actions and return back to the Source. The darkness and ignorance in such a person will need to be balanced by the painful process of coming to knowledge and giving back as much light into the world as they previously took. It is possible, after a long and arduous journey, for an ignorant ’sinner’ to become a saint. They must repay all those they hurt. Reincarnation facilitates the journey of very individuated souls.

Everything in the Universe is equal. Everything in the Universe is energy in varying degrees. Each thing balances itself and everything else that exists in relation to it. If you give darkness to the world, you will have to one day give it light; if you give only light then you will receive light from others (pleasant experiences). If there is ignorance in the world, an equal amount of knowledge will be existent elsewhere in creation.

Balance does exist on a fundamental level, but seeing all the opposition in the world overwhelms us. If we see past it, we see that the Universe has designed a self-created pattern so that it can know itself. We are all creators in this.

Opposition and contrast create forms and identities, but these are temporary identities. Eventually the two opposites merge, they lose their individuation and become harmonised. This totality of harmony between all things is God, it is Source. This is the place from which we emerge and to which we return. When the individuated being loses its temporary identity and merges into the absolute energy, it returns back to the Source. The play repeats over and over again so that conscious energy can create and realise itself through its contrast with varying forms. So, if you want to be happy then don’t look for temporary pleasure. Pleasure exists as a contrast to pain, and opposite values invariably come together. Don’t look for rest instead of work, light instead of dark, order instead of chaos. Instead, look for the balance between the two. The point where the two opposites merge is real harmony and happiness. That is why you will see that the most beautiful times of the day are sunrise and dusk, because light and dark are perfectly harmonised at those times.

If we question the meaning of life, all we get are a series of theories. If someone tells us the meaning of life, all we can rely on is trust. But the only thing we can really be sure of is our own DIRECT experience. For instance, I now feel certain that I am not just a physical body because I have experienced Out-of-Body states. I sometimes have sleep paralysis, which can be frustrating in itself because my mind wakes up from sleep while my body is still in sleep mode. In this situation, I can often pull myself out of the physical body and go into a different, ‘energy’ plane known as the Astral Plane. In the Astral Plane, thoughts manifest into experiences straight away. So, this tells me that mind creates matter (although on the physical plane, this happens much more slowly).

These have been my direct experiences, so I have concluded that there is a spiritual dimension, and that somehow I am creating my reality. But how does it ALL work, every little bit of it? That I do not know. And where was I before I was born on this Earth? Where will I go afterwards? I just don’t know.

What I do know is the HERE and NOW. This small moment, which passes at the blink of an eye and seems so trivial is actually the be all and end all of life. This is the only place where we are truly alive. If we are living in the past or the future, then we miss this beautiful moment of being awake to reality.  Being in sync with the Universe in its awareness of the present moment, that’s what I call ‘God’ - for me it’s the Source of everything and the destination of everything.

Have you ever desired someone and that person desired you back, but everything in the universe prevented you from being together? This is the exact situation one of my close friends is in. She has a special connection with a man, who wants her just as much, but it’s impossible. The reason why it’s impossible? They were both already in loving relationships before they met each other and couldn’t leave their spouses just like that. They have good marriages. They are also from completely different backgrounds and live on opposite sides of the globe.

So, you’re probably wondering how they got to know each other… Well, they met at a work conference and got talking. My friend, let’s call her Tina, said that James was on the exact same wavelength as her and they fell into a deep conversation. They both clicked with their partners in an ‘opposites attract’ sort of way, but with each other, it was like they were the one mind in two bodies. They were working in the same location for a while, and kept meeting at work functions. Eventually, the truth came out. But they could do nothing about it. Now they are living miles apart, but whenever they speak, the potential of that connection still hits them.

They saw each other recently and things got pretty heavy. They almost spent the night together but somehow managed to avoid it. Sometimes when he speaks to her, he tells her how much he wants her, craves her. Most of the time, they avoid talking about their feelings. Why are they still in touch? They share a way of seeing the world which is very special and it keeps them connected, but the desire part makes it impossible.

When I ask her if she would ever act on this desire, she affirmatively says no. But it’s very likely, that without intentionally meaning to do anything, she could get lost in the moment. I really don’t know how to help her. Is this something she can accept and deal with it if she doesn’t think about it too much? I hope so. She is a good person who loves her life, it’s just this connection which she finds overwhelming.

I wonder if the universe is trying to tell her something by putting her in this situation. Maybe that love is universal and cannot be exclusive? Before she met James, Tina always said she couldn’t even think about another man in the same way as her husband. She was so adamant about true love being an exclusive phenomenon. And she still adores her husband, but also has some feeling for another person.

Sometimes I think that life is a funny game where you end up getting more than you gambled for, but it causes you a bit of heartache if you don’t know how to handle it.

One idea that’s working out well for me right now is ‘Don’t just accept it, LOVE it’. This does not apply to my life, my personality or any such Oprah Winfriesque ideal. It applies to all those things that I usually consider annoyances or frustrations, like traffic jams, litter on the streets, noise pollution, atmospheric pollution, bad hair days etc. Yesterday, whilst travelling on a bus in heavy heat, the feeling of restlessness began weighing in on me. At that point I thought, ‘What if I ENJOYED being uncomfortable?’ The attitude created a shift in my awareness which in turn changed my experience. Attitude can influence experience quite directly sometimes, and that’s exactly what happened.

So next time I start thinking, ‘How awful it is that…’, I’m going to turn it around into, ‘I love how awful it is.’

I have been, and still am, on a journey of exploration, a search for meaning. Through a process of investigation, elimination, and experience, I am beginning to learn how to live.

I have done all of the following:-

1. Volunteered in a slum community

2. Joined spiritual groups

3. Read lots of books

4. Done creative writing

5. Spent time with friends and family

6. Gone on expeditions

7. Moved to another country

8. Slept

9. Numbed myself with external stimuli

10. Repeatedly tried goal setting

11. Graduated from an Ivy League university

12. Poured myself into work

None of the above worked. I absolutely love my friends and family, but no one else could show me the way to find fulfilment in my own life. Others can only give inspiration. The ultimate responsibility comes from within. Fundamentalist meta-narratives that proclaim a single path to truth have not worked for me. Life does not fit into a single, neat theory. That’s what gives life its edge, but also its elusiveness. The only way to deal with it is to go with the flow…