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Almost every person on this planet spends most of their life living in a fantasy land of their own making. There are very few people that have even the vaguest idea of what the true reality of their existence is really like. This has been the sad story of an unconscious humanity for the entire span of our tenure on this planet.

We engage with the world every day of course. We have conversations with others that are based in the real world of the here-and-now. We go to work each day and come home each evening and we are largely conscious of this as we do it. We are always involved in some activity in the real world, whether it is sleeping, eating, going to work, visiting friends or relatives, cooking the dinner, going shopping…all of these things are based in the real world of our senses and we are aware of them as we engage in them. So how can it be that we live in a fantasy when our memories and moment-to-moment experience of the world, gives us all the information that we need to prove unequivocally that the world we that we live in is real and solid and indubitably, not a fantasy of any kind?

The reality is that yes, we may well be physically engaging with the world and consciously aware of what we are doing, but we are mostly, not on the whole present or mindful at the moment that we are engaged with that reality. Our engagement tends to be marginal and reliant on an initial and momentary repeat mental-visit as we physically go about whatever activity we are involved in. It is a partial and perfunctory involvement with life.

Whatever we are involved in; we are mostly unconscious of it most of the time. Our minds are on the whole busy with other things and ignorant of the activity that it has propelled the physical body into motion to deal with. Think about what is going through your mind at any moment of the day, regardless of the task you are performing. Possibly you are reminiscing about the lovely romantic meal you had last night whilst you are doing the washing up, or you are thinking about what you are going to do that evening as you get ready for work. Maybe you are thinking about the shopping trip you have to do later as you rush to get the kids ready for school or you are wondering if you made the right decision over that new pair of shoes you bought yesterday as you decide what outfit to wear for the day. Perhaps you are thinking about what you would like for lunch later whilst you complete some task at work or maybe you worry about whether you will get that job you have an interview for tomorrow as you get ready to go to bed. All of these types of thoughts are familiar to all of us and we have them whilst we engage physically with the world in tasks that although they might be triggers for the thought process, are in all other ways, entirely unconnected with the thoughts themselves.

Whatever the subject matter of our thoughts, they are almost always set in the context of the past or the future. We spend most of our lives in this state – looking back to the past at things that were and now are no more, or projecting into the future and looking at things that have yet to exist or may never exist, in the way that we envisage them.

Stop yourself from time to time and watch your thought process and you will see the truth of this. We all do it. We spend our lives in an unconscious state, only peripherally aware of the reality of the world and of the nature of the existence that is going on around us at that moment in time. We are unconscious to the nature of reality for almost the whole of our lives. Only rarely do we stop and fully engage with the moment as it happens, that is, being fully present, not peripherally present. Fully present means engaging the mind and the senses totally in the moment. Being aware of everything in that moment, not partially involved in some past or future experience.

Staying totally present in the moment – being fully and utterly aware of the nature of reality at the moment that it is happening, is no easy feat. The reason for this is that the majority of the time the present reality is pretty mundane or boring. How interesting is it to chop vegetables or to vacuum the carpet? To wash your hair or to iron a shirt? Not much really. Our lives are dominated by mundane things that it is hard to stay consciously focused on at all times. Our minds get used to the mundane nature of the here-and-now and decide to have as little to do with it as possible and go off searching for more interesting things to ponder. There are plenty of other things in the past or the future that are much more worthy of note to our minds way of thinking. In allowing this, we not only abdicate responsibility for our own thought process, we create a situation where it becomes incredibly difficult to stay totally aware of reality as it happens to us. Our minds get up in the morning and do their daily thing of finding something else to think about. To stay present in reality, we need to retrain our minds and bring them back under our control.

Most of us are not taught to reign in the mind and to train it to do our bidding. So how do we start to live in the present moment as it is happening to us? It is not really that difficult; though it can be incredibly dull.

The best way to begin to take back control of your own mind and thus to encourage it to stay present in the moment – in now, is to bring it to bear on whatever activity you are engaged in at the moment. It doesn’t matter what it is, simply bring your full weight of consciousness to have an awareness of the activity. If you are digging the garden, notice how the soil feels under the pressure of the spade, smell the earth as it is turned, feel the pressure that you place on the spade. The tensions in your body as you exert the effort to turn the soil. Fell the texture of the spade’s handle. Notice the sound of the spade going into the earth and any other sounds that might be around you at the moment: the passing of an aircraft, birds singing, a neighbour in their garden nearby, the sounds of passing cars…try to be totally present and aware of everything that is going on at that precise moment in time. Whatever the activity, we can all make the effort to try to be totally aware of the moment as it happens in this way.

The more that we engage with this type of activity, the more we are able to take back control of our mind and live in the present moment. We can actually start to live the life that is going on around us at the time that it is happening. We start to be fully aware of our lives and can take pleasure in it in a way that we were not previously able too – it becomes richer and fuller and more meaningful and we start to develop a truer understanding of life that had previously eluded us. The advantages of living life as it happens are numerous and profound. Life takes on a quality that we did not know was possible.

If we are engaged in thoughts of the past too much, we live in a world that is not only gone and dead, but conditioned by our own particular perspective on it and so it is not real. If we spend too much time living in the future, we spend our time living in a world that has yet to come – if it comes at all, that will again, be conditioned by our own particular perspective on it and our own conditioned view of the world.

Training the mind to be conscious of the world in the moment can be a long and arduous task, but the rewards are great. But does engaging with this practice give us a true and accurate perspective of the world? Do we start to fully see the world for what it really is? In part yes, but not fully.

Living in the moment allows us to experience the world as it truly is at that precise moment in time, from the perspective of our conditioned understanding and response to the world. It is real and there is no alternative to it – but it is a reality based on our perception of it and how we relate to it and ‘read it’. What we are not aware of is a reality that is devoid of conditioned understanding. So even though we may be present in the moment, what we perceive of the world is based on all that we have previously learnt about it. When we pick up a knife to chop vegetables for instance, we bring to that moment, all of our learning and experiences of other knives. We relate to the object through this lens of our own making and so we do not actually have a true experience beyond the conditioning that we gain from our own experiences and from the information given to us by others. So even when we are present in the moment, our perception of reality is distorted by the past.

How for instance, do we see a tree for the first time every time we look at one? When we look at a tree, we bring to that moment, our knowledge, understanding and experiences of all other trees we have ever come across. We believe we have an understanding of that particular tree because of what we bring to it, but in reality we have no idea about that particular tree. To begin a relationship with the world as it truly is, and to see it afresh for the first time every time – to strip away our knowledge and experiences, we need to maintain as often as possible the practice of living in the moment – of not dwelling on the past or the future. In this way, we maintain a real and living relationship with the world and not one that is part fantasy and part peripheral engagement. We can begin to develop the ability to see beyond our conditioning and to see the world as it truly is.

Of course the object of this exercise is not to delete from our minds all of our conditioned responses to the world – these serve us in a multitude of ways and are what we need to help us to function in the world effectively. We do not want to reach a point where we have no concept of what a road or a fast approaching car means as we step off the pavement because we have stripped away our memories of the past and thus the tools we need to survive. The purpose of memory is to help us to survive and live fully in the world – it is not to provide a fantasy release from the drudgery of the moment.

What we do with our mind is key to our happiness. Our minds control our reality. How we relate to every aspect of our reality creates the world around as we perceive it. If we truly want to experience reality, the first step is to begin to train the mind to live in the moment. This is after all, the only place that reality exists.

Shared from Steve Gooch

MySpace Playlist at MixPod.com

Taking a ride the other night on the train was an okay trip – I didn’t have any problems and my wallet gave me the empowerment to move swiftly through the chaos of time.

What is she talking about – you are thinking? well …

If more people slowed down and considered how they link their information they may find a curious link – however, quite inspirational way to get around our home town here in sunny Brisbane. They may even have a laugh!

Just recently and not so long ago the governing body that takes care of linking carriage between places we people go as consumers, introduced a “touch on” “touch off” system that takes care of getting here and there without worrying about if you are running too late to buy a ticket! get your card at a local newsagent and top it up – online! if you want; the options for our personal choice these days as a consumer are endless.

Does anyone think of the subtle tones that some governing bodies imply with their colour, contrast, application and impact?

The Card that I am talking about is the Go Card – easy come easy go – easy get; not easy to forget. Why isn’t it easy to forget? I am advocating for a system that is in touch with the polarity balance most people are trying to achieve but think it is bought at the local shopping center.

The colours represent a very strong theme.  Lets take the chakra system of motion in energy for a start.  Orange is the opening to our solar plexus; Green is the harvesting or opening of our heart and Blue is the communication center that allows self expression extending from the neck and expressing via the throat.

The economy is in a depression? or is it? is it our ways of thinking that depress our means for random thinking? do we get bogged down in thoughts because the image bounced back from someone else because they were having a shitty day?

Keeping balance in life is as easy as understanding we live in between 2 aspects in this life.  The mental life of thought – and the physical life of “do”.

Keep your balance by staying online; don’t go under the radar and don’t go above the radar – staying online is actually great for the blood pressure!

Keep your top up, your balance (in check) and use the right link to get you from here to there.  Integration between information is a celebration for a nation.

In my other professional life, I write content and rules for games. Board games, mostly – social party games involving cards, questions, and friendly competition. I learned through having this kind of job that e very word is important. Words for cards, questions and rules must be chosen carefully in order to be clear about how to play the game, and the meaning of each question. I really notice when I come across a game with poorly written rules or cards.

When I was in graduate school, I used to take Biblical text study courses. Studying Torah (Bible) is another very detailed word-based discipline. Every word is thought to be significant, and we would often debate why one word may have been chosen over another, and read about what the great Rabbinic commentators’ thoughts were about these choices. Detailed text study gave me a profound respect for the process of choosing words carefully.  More here

Have you ever really thought about some of the terminology we use to describe our moods? If you say that your spirits are “low,” people immediately conclude that you are troubled or depressed. However, an extreme victory or positive experience may cause such a “rush” that you are flying “high” for days.

Words such as high, low, rush, up, and down can be used to portray not only how we are feeling, but also describe the vibes in which we are living and emitting.

Everything is energy
Everything that exists, whether or not you can see or touch it, is made up of energy. From the floor that is beneath your feet to the thoughts that run through your mind, it all boils down to energy, and energy is never still.

For all intents and purposes, a floor is solid matter. You can see it, touch it and it supports your weight. Seems like it is just sitting there, serving its flooring purpose, but that doesn’t mean that it is still. The energy that makes up the floor is hard at work, moving and vibrating at just the right speed and frequency to maintain its solid structure and physical appearance.

Thoughts are no less real than the floor beneath your feet, but they vibrate at a different speed and frequency. You may not be able to touch them, but that doesn’t make them any less substantial. Your body also has its own vibrations. After all, there is a whole lot going on underneath the skin that most of us don’t really think about!

Can you feel it?
We all have good days and bad, but have you ever really paid attention to how life tends to flow in relation to your mood? How about when you meet someone for the first time and immediately like or dislike them, without really knowing why? Everyone and everything is throwing off vibrations. Sometimes, we are consciously aware of the resonance and frequency, and the intermingling vibrations that either harmonize or repel. Because like attracts like, the vibes that we emit are similar to a mating call, drawing in people, events and things that exist on the same or similar vibrational plane as our own.

Most times, looking good and feeling good go hand in hand. When we are feeling good about our selves and our lives, we tend to have a bit more confidence and it shows. We are more charismatic, appearing brighter and more beautiful – to ourselves and others. Those “happy to be alive” days are the best. We may dismiss them as luck or a fluke, but the reality is we have kicked our vibrations up a notch, and we are emitting and feeling an energetic boost.

Harmonize Energy
When our vibrations are low, we are more tired, pessimistic and can even be mean or depressed. Those vibrations are the energy we project and the energy we attract. This vibe is more likely to cause a bad hair day, get us caught in traffic and possibly top it all off by having our morning coffee spill on us before the big meeting or presentation. We tend to look at the incidents as the cause or source for our state of vibration, but many times it is our vibrations that attract the incidents.

Not all of us are meant to be one of those happy-shiny people who are bouncing off the walls with boundless energy, but each of us does have a positive vibrational groove. We’ve all experienced that level of harmony before, and with a little effort we can find it, maintain it and even increase it. Like a finely tuned automobile, when our mental and physical energies are in harmony, we hum with personal power.

Change your Vibe
Life is probably never going to be easy, but there’s no law that states we have to continually add to the chaos and confusion. With a little bit of effort, each and every one of us can be a little better and a little brighter, which will help clear away some of our obstacles or attract what we need to surmount them.

If life isn’t going the way you want it to, change it. Put down that never-ending list of everything you have to do, and all the things you don’t have for five minutes and simply focus on yourself. Understand that in your life, you are the point of origin – the place where everything begins. Therefore, the vibrations you project are like a magnet, drawing in things of the same frequency. When you truly understand that principle, you will feel a shift in consciousness and your vibrations will begin to change in accordance with that shift.

Words like “can’t,” “want” and “never” may begin to fade if your quest is one geared toward happiness and improvement. These low frequency words are powerful, particularly in thought, especially if you believe them. They are heavy and limiting, and what they hold down and hold back is your vibrations – the essence of you. Try replacing them with will, can and deserve, and you have just created opportunity rather than obstacle. Believe those words and your vibrations will increase, lighten… and so will you.

A Higher Frequency
Changing your vibes can be fairly easy, but maintaining that shift may take a little practice. Fortunately, there is opportunity in every thought and every action. Focus on the good things in your life, even when things are tough. Visualize yourself as you want to be. Meditate. Exercise. Recite positive affirmations of your own creation or ones that resonate well with you. Absorb the energy of music that lifts you, pumps you up, or brings you peace. Sing. Dance. These are only a few simple things you can do to raise your frequency, but with consistent and conscious effort, you will be able to measure your improvement and success.

Our perceptions not only influence, but also create our realities. Like a ripple caused by throwing a pebble into water, the vibes we send expand and touch others just as their vibes are flowing and seeking us. Some moments in life seem so perfect. Even though those moments pass, their vibrations can remain. Surround yourself with the people and things that you love and make you feel good and consciously project the same.

I re-blogged this from a friend.  I will have to install a re-blog gadget for next time.

Responding to the Above:

Well now that our vibes have extended and touched all that have been here on this page and participated in being as you have been to share with us. Life is an amazing journey that individually seeks humans being the extension of who they were in their body of past life experience engaged in a new now. I find it captivating how our energy is fused within our life story within our d and a to re-create b and c. Love is living inner greater higher truth – hugs to you Ruth for sharing above and to all here on this page with me … here is a chakra moon with blessings from the store from which image I share … Happy Full Moon June 2009.

Gertelbach Wasserfälle from Ralph on Vimeo.