Are you Living or Existing?
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”¹
In fact, the unexamined life is not living. Without conscious engagement you are merely existing. Your life is nothing more than the product of your cycles of reaction to the world around you, based on the unconscious programs and patterns within you.
One must consciously examine themselves and their life in order to “Live”!
This is so – but what is your examination going to consist of? You can examine, that is look at, every part of your life, become a witness and see-er of your choices, behaviours, emotions and thoughts. But what will this alone bring you?
Life is not a spectator sport – it is an engaged participatory journey, so seeing is not enough.
What are you going to do with what you see?
You could “examine” your observations, learn why you do what you do. Or you could explore how you achieve things, seeing all the steps involved. But in the end, will this type of examination alone, help you become a better person – Do you even strive to become better, to be more than your upbringing and the programs you have absorbed?
So… “What sort of examination is useful and of great value?” I hear you ask…
The short answer is an engaged one – one that takes seeing as just a starting point, and brings accountable co-measurement to bear on all that is seen!
Let me share this analogy:
Just as the default nature for many companies is the ugly value of “profit at any cost” i.e. good returns for shareholders, regardless how they get them (that is, unless the company is consciously choosing to build itself upon True Beauty and Heart Based Values), so too with the average person, their default nature is to seek comfort at any cost!
They navigate by emotion, by Like versus Dislike – seeking more of what they like, and trying to avoid what they don’t – without ever truly enquiring why they like or dislike these things, and whether in fact living this way actually helps them become freer, more enlightened and Love Based Beings!
They stumble through life falling deeper into emotional and sensory gratification, ricocheting off things that are deemed unpleasant, and never finding the stillness within – the space from which examination is possible.
Yes the stark reality I am describing is that a great many of humanity do not actually Think!
They have mental emotions, patterns of physical and emotional behaviour that have the vague resemblance of thought – but are not clear defined thoughtforms – the product of deep investigation and the forming of a well explored and multilayered perspective.
Without clear thinking, combined with direct investigation and detached, dispassionate observation, the Gates of Wisdom remain firmly shut – even if a person has developed the ability to think. Wisdom is so much more than knowledge alone.
Wisdom is forged in the void of the Heart – so to open the Gates to Wisdom, that is to the Ocean of Love that allows the way to Enlightenment, what better approach can we take than to hold ourselves accountable to the values of the Heart – to Heart Based Values!?
This is the answer to engaged examination: we examine our self, our life, our livingness and co-measure all we see against Heart Based Values. We do a version of this process unconsciously already. With every choice we make, our options are weighed up against the values within us – whatever they may be.
So…
Are the Values you hold growing you into Heartless Evil?
If you hold yourself accountable to values aligned with materialism, selfishness, cruelty, greed, judgemental hatred – the values of darkness and evil – then eventually you will succeed in becoming a truly dark and heartless being!
You will then continue to cause great harm, through lack of conscious loving, in preferring your comfort and likes over compassionately caring for others, for animals, and for the natural world. If you do not actively seek and embrace Lovingkindness, Benevolence, and True Harmlessness; your inactivity in this regard will mean you will continue to ignorantly create and perpetuate darkness in the world!
In short: If you only hold yourself accountable to the values of a “heartless scoundrel”, then you will eventually succeed in becoming a heartless scoundrel yourself!
Let us not become a Kingdom of Pernicious Miscreants.
Instead…
Let us embrace the Heart and its values, opening to the fragrant nectar therein, and become a Kingdom of Lovingkindness, a Kingdom of beings who live from Benevolent Generosity.
Let us strive to awaken to an embodiment of our Best Selves, and join as one global family – The Kingdom of Souls, on Earth.
Tools for Transformation
Where am I unconsciously stumbling through my life?
Where in my life can I choose to bring greater awareness?
In what situations do I feel triggered and tumble into reactions?
How would I prefer to respond in these situations?
What do I believe is important, and therefore what Values does this importance reveal within me?
If I think about these Values, do they inspire me, such that I would consciously choose to live by them?
If I were to look at myself from the outside, will the qualities and person I see enthuse and impress me?
Choose one or two of the revealed and inspiring Values or qualities, and reflect on how you can modify your life and livingness to more embody them.
Wishing you conscious success.
Azure Seer
1. This quote is a famous dictum apparently uttered by Socrates, as described in Plato’s “Apology” 399 BC