Kayla said something to me today which I believe is a key as to why I so often am not in the place that I desire to be. She said that I am not fully in the here and now. She said that the dog prefers to hang around her because he knows that she is going to notice if he's hungry, thirsty or needs to go potty outside. This is because she is living fully in the here and now. She uses all of her senses, including her sixth sense to fully experience the present moment.
I've been thinking a lot about that. I think that living in the here and now puts you entirely within the moment, and so you are intimately familiar with your surroundings, your inside and outside world. You will know what needs to be done in your world and in what order it needs to be done. But doing is not the point. Being is the point.
The 'Conversations With God' trilogy by Neale Donald Walsch, talks about the path to the life of your choice. It says that most people think that if they have something, they will be able to do something and will then be able to be happy. God says in those books that you must first be happy, then you will do things that make you happy and you will have things that make you happy.
I've noticed that I'm always trying to do things. My whole life is filled with doing things. Then I wonder why I'm not happy. Happiness is a choice. I think I merely do things to distract myself from the fact that I'm not being happy. I think that if I do enough good things, that I'll be happy. I've lived an entire life this way and it's gotten me nowhere. Whenever I have a moment of inactivity I start to worry, become depressed or anxious. Worry and anxiety are emotions brought about by fear of the future. Depression is an emotion brought about by feelings of a past gone wrong. Where in any of that are my feelings or thoughts about the present?
Meditation is something that can open me up to fully experiencing the present. I've always used meditation as a way to think about the past or the future. If I use all my senses, including the sixth sense, I can know myself and where I stand. Only then can I change anything. Since it is my firm belief that we are all one and that we are all God, then psychic senses are just me being more in touch with myself. If I am both the creator and the created, then my psychic abilities are merely me being in communication with my creation and creator.
If I continue to live a life in which I am ignorant as to who I am being, I will continue to be ignorant as to what I am doing. I will open myself up constantly to being disrespectful to myself and to others since I will not consciously be creating a life full of love and respect. If I am God and God is love, then I too am love. God is joy so I too am joy. If anything I do is not loving and joyful, then I am not being true to myself.
When I was young and my parents were being mean to me, I would go into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. I would smile at myself and tell myself that as long as I can smile at myself, my parents haven't won. It felt like such a healthy attitude at the time, but I've come to see that I was merely choosing to be happy living in misery. I wasn't trying to better my situation in any way by standing up to my parents or creating a better life for myself.
I have carried that same attitude through the years. It is that attitude that has allowed me to live in such misery and to cause my family to live in misery with me. That is not true happiness. That is a giving up. It is not living, it's being dead inside. It was a smile, borne out of defiance, not out of joy. My entire life has been a reaction to life as opposed to a creation of a chosen life. There is no low in which I tell myself and the world that I have had enough and will take no more. How can I give anyone a happy life if I have no rock bottom for myself. I am willing to tolerate anything, but that is not a strength because I am not willing to make anything better.
I have lived a life in which I am a creation of my past and my upbringing. Kayla can confidently say that what her parents did to her and what she's been through have nothing to do with who she is today. She is who she is by choice. Suffering is an illusion. Need is an illusion. When you come to believe that you need nothing, you will not choose to suffer no matter what is happening to you. You can be a self-made being. You will be victim to nobody and nothing. The chorus to the Chief Loh song, 'It Matters Not' goes, "It matters not who you've been, where you're from or what you've done. Seek the future. Only where you're headed and who you now choose to be." Of course, the best way to become happy is to help someone else be happy!
