If Only We Could Live Forever!

Life is a mystery.  Our existence as physical beings is beyond comprehension.  Mind and consciousness are perpetually attempting to unravel the great mystery, or at least come to terms with it through the belief in science and the application of technology on the one hand, and a blind, almost superstitious, childlike belief in mysticism and fantasy on the other hand.  The belief in science is as faulty and blind in its attempt to describe the nature of reality today as once was the Catholic Church and its philosophy in the time of the dark ages.  And, reliance upon a false mysticism is like a terrified child in the night telling itself that Superman will be here soon.

This mystery, this unfathomable, haunting uncertainty, this almost unnoticeable sense of emptiness, sometimes bordering on a subtle sense of doom, is embodied in the idea of our impending fate, i.e. our Death.  Everyone that has ever lived has died.  Everyone living today, every baby that is born in this world today will grow up and will eventually meet the same fate.  And for the most part, there are only two ways to die.  One, you have to get very, very sick, or very, very old.  The second way is that one-day, you just find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time and some kind of accident or tragic event occurs that ends your life.  Even in the reading and speaking of these things, one tends to experience a slight tremble in the innermost recesses of their being.

Okay, we get it, and on some level we accept it, even if we don't understand it or what any of it really means.  We will die someday!

 

Now that we have that handled, what should we do in the meantime?  The idea of health and well-being, along with the notion of longevity and functionality, embody the sum total of our underlying fears that we cannot live forever set in opposition to the idea and the belief that we have some kind of control over the process.  By what we eat, how we think, which supplements we take, and that in general if we take good care of ourselves through a lifestyle that supports healthy living, we can at least enjoy a long and healthy life.  This is what we want to believe is true, and have it so.

Then what is health? The understanding of health in our society, from the Western medical perspective relies heavily upon science and scientific methodology.  Modern medicine focuses heavily on the study of symptoms.  This results in a system that is already out of balance and has a heavy dependence upon chemical-based pharmaceutical medicine for treatment, and very sophisticated technology for the purpose of diagnosis.  It is corporate, it is profit motivated and it makes no real attempt to understand the fundamental, underlying causes of what real health are.  To the Western medical model, health really means not being sick, not having a cold, not having any major disease, and not expressing too many symptoms, etc.

And what of Radiance?  Radiance as an idea is supreme in its nature for it embodies the expression of both a fully awakened and a fully expressed life-force energy as well as a well developed and spiritually activated consciousness.  And even if one fully embodies these divine spiritual human qualities, they will still have to die someday, and not necessarily in the far distant future, and not necessarily in any particularly fashionable way.

Have we really lived in the process?

For this process to work we must overcome our fear and shame around the idea of sickness, old age, disease, and death.  Eventually, we will meet our ultimate fate.  If one is experiencing the embodiment of true radiance that person could possibly be dying of cancer and yet possibly still experience bliss joy, happiness, gratitude, fulfillment, completion and an absolute respect for life.  For this to even be possible, one would have had to already come to terms with their dying process, and be totally in acceptance that the process of dying is just the next adventure that life has to offer.  Only then, would one be able to completely let go and to continue to experience the awakened state of being that is achieved through the practice and application of Radiance.  One has to take responsibility for what health really means and in the end each individual will have to find their own particular balance point and what health means for him or her.

Health for most people, even people who have acquired a great deal of knowledge around nutrition and healthy living, is an idea and a practice that is primarily based upon gaining control over one's future.  If I eat a certain way today and I live in this certain manner now, then I should be able to gain control over my health and be guaranteed good health in the future.

Radiance however is something radically different in its practice and its application.  It is more akin to the actual experience that one is having in this present moment as one's relationship with food, breath, thought, feeling and emotion, bodily pain, peace, and clarity of mind in relationship to addictive tendencies.  The invitation is to cultivate an ongoing awareness of your state of being as it is happening right now.  Moment to moment, continue correcting and adjusting your relationship to the body-mind-spirit entity known as “you”.   In essence, you become the process that allows one to stay in relationship to their state of health and well being in the present moment.  We call this Radiance.

It is not any one particular thing, practice, discipline, theory or system of concepts or models.  It is not based upon any particular philosophy or science, and is not anything new, yet one can always compile new information.  However, the gathering of information must come from the direct experience of ones process and how one feels in the present moment.

Through self-observation and by developing the awareness and the necessary sensitivity to stay tuned in to your body, your internal energy, and your emotional resonance and vibration, you will not only have direct access to health and well-being, you will have effectively actualized the intention and purpose of spiritual practice, to remain anchored in the present moment, to be of quiet mind, and to have a clear intention to be one with life as it unfolds moment by moment.

The experience of Radiance is the present moment!  The question to ask oneself is always, “how do I feel right now?”. As soon as you ask yourself this question, you will notice, and noticing is awareness itself, that you move from the mind and thinking as internal dialogue, to becoming aware of your body as sensation and awareness.  Making this connection by feeling and scanning the “field” itself.  The “field” is the quantum.  We cannot get there with our minds.  Awareness, presence, and the ability to tune in to yourself right here right now is the key to Radiance and therefore the key to health and wellness. The letting go of thought brings you into the body with your awareness so you can scan your field and feel your self as you are.

Obviously there is a part of radiance that has to do with being very present and aware of your current state of embodiment.  This will include how I feel emotionally at present.  Do I perceive myself as being tired or lethargic?  How is my energy level?  Am I in my head, thinking or aimlessly daydreaming lost in a trance?  Am I asleep and completely uninvolved in my breathing process, or for that matter, unaware of anything else that is going on around me?

The breath is the most immediate trigger or access point to the present moment.  It is immediate, direct, and it pierces to the heart of the matter.  In our sleep state, our awareness and subsequently our attention, which is the focal point of the mind, are diffuse and non-focused.  When we begin to cultivate true spiritual practice, which is immediate and direct, and is focused upon reality as the present moment, we have direct contact with our true state of health and the experience and the expression of true radiance.

How alive do I feel? Do I experience enthusiasm and inspiration for no particular reason other than I am alive and that I can directly experience that aliveness right now as radiance and a sense of well-being.  Every individual is obliged to find that balance point for themselves, for it differs within each and every one of us.

There are some very interesting obstacles that show up along this path.  Much of it centers around our ideas and beliefs concerning food, body image, exercise and self acceptance.  We may not be able to go through life with the body that we want, but we are definitely required to go through life with the body that we have.  Radiance has nothing to do with any of this. 

What if we believed that what is delicious is nutritious.  I know the difference between eating live and vital food vs. eating a cheeseburger.  However, the radiance that I speak of has more to do with how present I am, how connected I feel in this moment, and can I stay connected enough to my immediate experience to extract peace-love-joy-bliss-fulfillment and happiness from the moment. Especially, if I'm eating a cheeseburger.  Be careful what your mind tells you.  Radiance has much more to do with what your heart tells you.

At any moment, in any place, in any situation I can always regain my senses, pull my mind and awareness out of the trance it is in, come into direct relationship with the present moment and take a very deep, conscious, loving breath and change my entire frequency.  Instead of being inner-dialogue focused, I can devote my attention to my senses and with my eyes take in the beauty and the magnificence of the world around me.  I can shift my awareness and my attention to the gentle breeze that might be blowing across my skin or the warmth of the sun, or pay attention to the song of a bird or the cacophony of traffic.  Reality can only happen in the present moment.  True health can only be experienced as a present moment reality.  Ultimately, it will come in the form of a great and all-encompassing gratitude and a deep sense of peace and balance.  To have the ability to come into harmonious relationship with one's bodily existence and to be present to the direct experience of life happening right here, right now, is truly a great blessing and it is the due reward for beginning the search for wholeness in the first place.

Focus on aliveness!  What does aliveness feel like?  It feels exactly how you feel right now.  If you are lost in the trance of mind, the inner dialogue, there is no hope of being present to the aliveness of this moment.  If we are lost the mind and think about health, we will most often construct a scenario having to do with eating better, doing something about life better, ridding ourselves of some bad habit, or taking up some practice that will bestow good health, but always in the future.

It is the perpetual, erroneous projection that what ever I am right now, and whatever I am experiencing right now, is not enough, I must do something to improve myself and make my life better.  Yet the Radiance that we our speaking of and are looking for, can only be experienced right here, and it can only happen right now.  It is the sum total of my aliveness in the present moment.  Focus on aliveness!

And what of sickness, ill health, disease, old-age and death.  It is hard to conceive that this is the fate that awaits us in some form or fashion.  In relationship to health, if we live long enough, old-age and bodily destruction will eventually consume us and we will die.  Health according to the body will fail.  But what of Radiance?  Radiance is so much more than just the physical body.  Much more than just the homeostasis of our physiology and biochemistry.  Health is so much more than just chemicals and bio-mechanical processes and biochemical pathways that can be described by science and are therefore and subsequently given claim for the reason of our existence.

But what of Radiance?  Radiance can be perceived as the direct experience of our life force in the present moment as the physical body. It is the experience of our aliveness as the physical body but not isolated to the physical body.  Maybe we can say that Radiance is the direct spiritual experience of our physical being-ness.  I am very alive in this moment.  I am as alive in this moment as I was the moment that I was born.  I am as alive and as excited in this moment as I was when I was six years old.  This happens not as a result of some external object or perceived experience, but as a result of directly experiencing myself as Reality in the present moment.

If I focus solely on my mind and listen in a trancelike manner to what my mind is telling me, there is no hope whatsoever of achieving the proper results of having the true life that I'm looking for, period.  Anything that I have or perceive that I have as an experience on the physical plane is transitory.  I cannot hang on to it or possess it in any way.  I can only be present to the experience that I am having in the world and with the world.  When the experience or the meeting with another is over, I must still come back to myself.  If I am awareness-focused, then I am guaranteed to attain all that I have been seeking all along because it can only be found, experienced, and enjoyed as the Here and Now.  As we experience life and witness it's process without judgment, from a non-dual perspective, we relax into the experience of the peace and the harmony of Life as it is unfolding.

Only by practicing awareness and being awareness itself, can I be totally fulfilled today.  Tomorrow can only take care of itself as it unfolds into whatever today is in actuality, as reality.  Reality as this Day, as this present moment, is the only game in town, and it has been this way for eternity.  In the awake state of everyday life, the mind is always chattering to itself, describing this or that idea, situation or object.  We have an opinion or belief about everything under the sun.  None of this in any way by itself is a problem.  It is actually the creative expressive force of mind, somewhat undirected.  The problem lies in the self-deception, that we take what our mind is telling us as reality, when in fact, it is only our personal opinion, our particular point of view.  In essence, we all live from the perspective of our own personal hallucination.  When you take the mind and its conversation out of the equation, Reality is fundamentally empty, quiet, and relatively simple and peaceful.  When we bring our story to bear, and overlay it upon the fundamental empty quality of Reality, the fun begins.  Adjust your story!

It does describe the subjective reality of your own internalized view of the world.  You are the only person in this world who has the particular perspective of reality that you call “my life”.  It is as unique as your fingerprint and your DNA.  You have your own unique vibration, point of view, and particular and precise conversation about how the world comes into existence, maintains itself, and disappears.

These conditions of consciousness our immutable, and at any moment I can reorient myself by coming back to my awareness and noticing how alive I am right now.  I can take a deep breath and with awareness let go of mind.  I can assume control for brief moment of the conversation that is happening in my mind, and willfully use the same mind to begin to feed back to myself how beautiful and glorious life is in this present moment and by focusing on the bodily sensation of aliveness, I can experience what I would call “my health”.  This is the true Yoga.  Study aliveness and keep adjusting the story!  The world appears as we speak it so.  Breath!   Focus on aliveness and stay true to purpose!

 

-James Hyman

 

Three Quick Important Messages From The Magazine!

1. Your comments really matter in this community, so speak your mind below.

2. Should any ad above or beside this article authentically catch your attention, be sure to click and explore it. Our partners and affiliates through Google are placed here for your benefit and convenience. Looking into these ads is a wonderful way to keep the lights on at Spiritualists International Magazine.

3. We invite you to look deeper, and peruse what the L*B*T offers its Advanced and Unlimited Members by clicking the “Join Us” tab, or right here!