The view from my window

When I first moved into this apartment, I immediately noticed the view from the living room. Up on the third floor, the apartment overlooks a busy Indian road, bustling with people, cars and auto rickshaws. Looking past the road, one notices a truly lustrous row of trees: coconut trees, neem trees, banana trees. The delightful mixture of colour is a feast for the eyes.

Everyday, I sit facing this view, either having my dinner, talking to my partner, writing, reading, watching TV or listening to music. Sometimes I just sit here, staring into space and daydreaming.

Just today, I was staring out at the trees thinking about things I need to do for work, when it hit me: I have been taking this spectacular view totally for granted. Seeing the same lovely image everyday, its beauty has become something regular. I closed my eyes and reopened them. That same initial wonder I felt when I first saw the trees entered my perception once again.

Now, this is only with a view from my window, but how many other things could I be taking for granted right now? There are so many amazing visions, moments, people, things… We really have to renew our vision every once in a while to appreciate what we have.

Don’t lose the magic

We create reality on so many levels, but how can we know what is actually real? Are our thoughts, perceptions, feelings, intuitions actually real? If we can see something, taste it, smell it, touch it, hear it, does that mean it’s real? What if what we can see or hear cannot be seen or heard by others? Usually we define reality through collective perception, but what if the collective cannot perceive something which we perceive very strongly – are they blind or are we mad? We give validity to collective opinion, but is this correct?

I think that it is necessary to rely on the collective to define everyday reality because the collective is what keeps society going. But I think that this is something we need to do for convenience, not something which defines reality. I don’t believe in reality, or to put it another way, I believe in multiple realities. I believe that reality and illusion are not opposites, they are part of the same system which creates experiences. These experiences are relative and they come from personal perception. For instance, when we are children our parents look very big to us, but once we grow they look much smaller. Our perception changes according to our relative position. Sometimes we take collective reality so much for granted that we STOP QUESTIONING. We think ‘that’s just the way things are’. We lose the magic of being alive. We forget that reality is elusive and personal, not rigid and enforced. We lose our imagination, our freedom.

This is a very sad fact. Sometimes it takes a visionary to remind us of our magical life, to show us that we are capable of creating wonderful dreams and transforming them into everyday ‘reality’. Such visionaries have a versatile mind which can see beyond limited ways of understanding reality. They see beyond relative reality in order to search for something enduring, something ABSOLUTE, something which never changes. And sometimes, they find that absolute reality, and they spread the word about something wonderful which connects us all in a bond of enduring love.  But we take that message and often do not understand how to appreciate the wonder of it. We feel the power of God’s message in the messenger’s words, but we don’t know how to keep it alive in our everyday worlds, so we create a system for that message, we make a religion, we make a doctrine. In trying to solidify the message of God, we make it into something rigid, which is exactly what the messenger was trying to free us from. We create commandments and we say that the messenger gave us these ‘rules’ to follow. We become followers, when the messenger wanted us to be the leaders of our own wondrous reality. And that’s when the magic is lost.

Taking a step back

Gautama Siddhartha was clearly an extremely intelligent man. But his intelligence came from an observation of very simple things, those very things that we take for granted or dismiss. How much do we recognise the fundamental facts upon which the Buddha based all of his teachings? The Buddha based his teachings on his observation of life, decay and death. He said that all of life is ‘dukkha’, which means restlessness (not really suffering, more fluctuation). He said that by being awake to this fact, a person can still their mind, detach from fluctuations, and reach a state of total freedom from karma (the state known as nirvana). After this, a person would be liberated from reincarnation (they would achieve moksha). He did not mention the role of God in all this, or how the universe came to be. He very wisely detached himself from metaphysical conjecture, explaining that the truth can only be felt, not logically understood or explained.

I often compare the teachings of great sages in order to find the common thread of meaning running through each of their philosophies. Jesus Christ spoke the scripture of love – ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ and, instead of the Old Testament’s ‘eye for an eye’, learn to ‘turn the other cheek’… In the Gita, Lord Krishna tells Arjun to see all things as equal: pleasure, pain, life, death…

What is the common thread? The stories are very different, and the focus keeps shifting. But overall, it seems like they are all saying that we should take a step back from the drama of life and see how everything is actually linked. Everything that appears foreign, contradictory, separate, is all actually made from the same energy, like intricately woven tapestry. Your enemy is not your opposition, he is your brother; pain and pleasure are not separate, they are linked. The only way you can see this, know it and really feel it is if you take a step back. Look at the whole picture. When you are amidst chaos, go up onto the roof of a tall building and look down. You will see an interdependent web of life. Your perspective changes when you zoom out of the drama.

If you are reading this blog, then you are probably already aware of how interdependent we are, but clearly the world at large is not aware of this. Otherwise, we would not sabotage each other’s countries, beliefs, cultures. We get so wrapped up in our own drama that we begin to think only our experience is authentic or valid. But our experience is nothing without the contribution of countless others. How can we detach from ourselves enough to really appreciate the magnanimous beauty of life, of ‘interdependent arising’? We could try doing what Gandhi did… ‘Every night when I go to sleep, I die. And in the morning when I awake, I am reborn.’

What seeds did you plant?

Going on the idea that thoughts create reality, or ‘whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap’, we can assume that the way our external reality is right now is, to some degree, a reflection of our minds. If you have a passion for reading, your living space will be full of books; if you love animals, you might have pets or work as a veterinary surgeon.

Based on this idea, we can look at everything around us in order to understand our own tendencies or thought patterns. Look at the fruits around you and you will see what kinds of seeds you planted (this may not have been the case 100% of the time, as other forces do influence our lives too, but I think we can say that, once we become adults,  we are the main creators in our lives to a large extent).

So, what kinds of seeds did you plant? Was it education, love, family? Or was it work, money, competition? Whatever it was, are you happy with that? If you are, then you don’t need to make any drastic changes within. But if you don’t like what is around you, then you can do something about it: change the way you think. Believe in yourself to create a different kind of life, believe that you are on the way and that you love your life. It will come.

Treat your life like a lover…

Embrace it, approve of it, adore it, accept it.  Find inspiration in your life, the way you find inspiration in the eyes of your beloved. Treat it with reverence and respect it.

Don’t throw it away, don’t abuse it, don’t waste it or neglect it.

Dedicate yourself to it. And when you have begun to truly love your life, then offer it as a service to the world so that everyone else can be as happy as you are.

We are all responsible for the way our world is today. One-off gestures don’t make a difference; we have to change our attitudes. The transformation must begin at the individual level, and filter out like a ripple across a lake. Serve the world with love and knowledge; it’s our responsibility to uplift ourselves and our world.