To dream, or not to dream, that is the question

I sympathised with both arguments and can only conclude that these don\’t have to be exclusive positions. Indeed, the exclusiveness, it seems, was the very cause of the confusion.

In the Beeja worldview, evolution is the driving force of nature and everything I have observed bears testimony to this view. It is natural for us to want to progress and experience expansion in our lives, to evolve and to experience new things, and therefore why shouldn\’t we pursue those things that offer us expansion?

However, there is a big difference between moving in the direction of realizing a charming proposition, and being rigidly attached to it. Quite often the goal becomes an object of fixation and we project all sorts of hopes and expectations onto the realisation of it. This causes us to unwittingly sport blinkers that prevent us from engaging with and enjoying the richness and texture of life. The here and now and the uplifting aspects of life are made secondary to the primary pursuit of our target objective.

But as so often happens, if the objective isn\’t met, there is unhappiness, frustration and possibly even despair. And if it is realised, the hard earned victory is often short-lived and the waning of the good feelings inspired by the result soon causes us to cast our net out for new fish to catch and new dreams to chase. When we are set on this kind of evolutionary agenda, it seems the pursuit of happiness is a never ending roller-coaster of ups and downs, and the downs quite often overshadow the ups in their number, duration, and intensity.

It is worth asking ourselves, what is it about the acquisition of said objective that we think will create a sense of lasting happiness or fulfillment within us? If we can get to grips with why we\’re pursuing something, it may help bring understanding to the validity of the pursuit and how much of ourselves we need to invest into it.

If we take the other extreme of complete presence, of breathing the continual joys of the here and now, then certainly we will find much solace in the richness of life. And there\’s no denying that there is certainly a deficit of this in most people\’s lives. But can we achieve more than simply being and will it be enough?

It very much depends. If our desire is to dismiss all aspects of material existence then what we may find is that we lose sight of what we can bring to the world and how we can employ our talents to enliven it and progress it. At some level there will be some discontent about our lack of purpose and our going against the evolutionary grain.

Where we may find the most benefit, for us and for all those around us, is to absolutely honour the present moment, but to stay alert to those impulses of inspiration that flow through us and to follow those charm propositions in an easy, gentle, non-attached and non-expectant manner. We may occasionally find challenges on the road to realisation, but if at every moment we are happy to let go of the pursuit, what we will find is a clear sense of whether the current mapping is still relevant. Many times it will be, but sometimes, our talents may be required elsewhere, and the previous phase of the journey was merely a lesson, or an opportunity to create a connection, that will serve us well later on. If we blindly continue in the pre-determined direction, and ignore the signposts on the way, we may find ourselves off track and heading for the road less evolutionary and consequentially less nourishing, bountiful and joyful.

By adopting this approach, we can honour the present moment, honour life and honour ourselves. And we can also honour the evolutionary impulse of the universe by remaining ready and engaged for dynamic interaction with life.

It is of course, easier said, than followed. Most of us are so far from following our intuitive senses, and are so bound up the pressures and obligations of our current lives, that the corresponding rigidities prevent us from staying in the present moment and flowing with what feels most natural and right.

I am not saying we need to become wandering hippies if our present circumstances do not feel right! Many of us have responsibilities to our families, our businesses, our friends, but we also do to ourselves. We can still live our lives, but lead them with flexibility, with intuition, with awareness and with a gentle step.

If you find the present moment is still some way from you grasp, then keep meditating and what you will find is an ever greater share of now-ness and you will find yourself effortlessly gliding through your life journey, unattached to specific outcome, and yet engaged, relevant, smiling and caring, and yet not carrying the burdens of others or projecting your own.

In the west we have the mentality of all or nothing. Everything is a polar extreme. We have good and evil, right and wrong, right-wing, left-wing etc etc. With such extremist thinking comes the tendency to lose sight of the nuances that may offer the most refined and evolved path through life. For the next few weeks, why not try letting go of the need to hold a rigid view, a rigid game-plan, a rigid schedule. Stop and breathe for a bit and see if you can begin to detect the nuances that come from not trying to control an outcome or answer.