The flow of life
When it comes to life there is no substitute for involvement and being present. Life is meant to be experienced and enjoyed. Many people seem to be rushing round in some mad rush to find out what works, always looking for the solution, the quick fix, the shortcut, the hack, and these generally are also people walking round with a face like a smacked backside. You cannot get one over either society, this planet or the universe. So you can quit constantly trying to turn your whole life into some ideology, philosophy or formula.
All existence is change, all existence is relationship.
There you have it. The most important thing about life and living existence expressed in just eight simple words. If you're reading this I want you to take note, grab a piece of paper and write these words down. Burn them somewhere into your memory. Learn those words by heart.
Then, I assure you, you will always know what to do.
There's a certain wisdom in playing God. The Taoists in China call it 'wu wei' or the art of effortless living. It's also known as 'the way of the ancestors'. This approach to life is often quite the opposite to the common social experience here in Britain where usually by lunchtime you will have encountered at least one idiot telling you what you should do. If you should ever find yourself in such a situation just play along and nod. Then do your own thing. Just like God does.
I'm not suggesting you should try to be God. I would avoid that. You see if you try to be God or claim to be God you will have millions of religious people praying to you and telling you what you should think and what you should do.
Understand you're really not the one who's in control here.
There is no point in trying to turn your life into a value system or trying to follow some kind of philosophy or belief system sticking to what works and what doesn't. Sooner or later you will either run into some kind of conflict or end up not knowing what you're doing or not understanding what's going on. Any ideology or philosophy is just a rough guide, intended for people who don't have much life experience, but by the time you reach your early 20's you can ditch the ideologies and belief systems and focus much more on just going with the flow, enjoying life and doing your own thing.
What works is always trying to subject other to self, rather than the other way round, as many people try to do and subject self to other. Understand that you're living quite naturally on the basis of past memory and life experiences, and it's the environment which is constantly changing, not you. By environment here I'm referring to the universe, this planet, society, your community, and everyone and everything else you don't see as you. It's all environment. This is what you need to be paying attention to, constantly, and if you pay enough attention to what's going on around you, then sooner or later you will develop the ability of knowing what is relevant and what isn't, what is important and what isn't, and what is appropriate and what isn't.
Back in my training, when I was still a teenager and living with my mentor who taught me eastern cosmology and trained me in Theravada and Vipassana I was taught the Three Baskets or Tipitaka and that life came down to just three things- the 'way' or direction, the insight, and the experience. My mentor was about 70 years older than me, he was elderly, Bangladeshi and wise. For three or so years I got first hand experience of the 'way of the ancestors'. He also pushed me to study mysticism, the occult and magic, which was unusual for anyone connected with Buddhism or Theravada. It took me about 15 years to figure out why.
Which brings me to my next point. If you follow an ideology or stick to what works exclusively, you're cheating yourself. Here's why. Quite a lot of your life is going to end up as mistakes, failures, missed opportunities, misunderstandings, getting things wrong, things not working out. But even though it doesn't work out the way you wanted it to, it's still experience, it's still memory, it's still somewhere in the past. It still qualifies as 'flow' and the flow of life. Then one day, when you're not expecting it, did not intend it, you're going to be in a situation, you're going to remember something, recall something from the past, and like trying to open a locked door for the first time with a bunch of keys, you're going to find the right key, try it, and the door will open.
Just like here today, in 2022, I'm here in Nine Elms running dreamweaving workshops and meetings despite the fact that way back in the early 1980's I was trained in Theravada Buddhism and Vipassana meditation. Consider that back in 1983 (or thereabouts, memory is hazy and I'm getting old) had my elderly mentor not pushed me into studying the occult and magic I might be teaching Theravada and Vipassana, or doing something completely different with my life. Forty years ago I didn't understand why my mentor was pushing me to study the occult or magic. Today it makes perfect sense.
This is how human evolution works, and human evolution is the only thing that works. Not some ideology. Not some philosophy. Not some formula or life hack.
Can I interest you in a dreamweaving workshop?
Dreamweaving is a way of bringing everything together which I've been writing about here to create a passage back to your natural mindfulness and connection to your environment. All you need to do is to delve into memory and transform your memories and past karma into words, language and some form of social interaction, giving your past memories new life, so that you can develop new conscious awareness from your environment and work that back into memory and also share your past memories in community with other people.
It's entirely magical in nature, which is why it's based on language. I'm not sure if you've ever had a situation where you've had a thought buzzing around somewhere in your mind, something which you just can't get to the bottom of, and which has been bugging you for a few days. Then you enter into a conversation with someone, and they come out with something, and all of a sudden something just clicks and what was bugging you for days now makes perfect sense. Have you ever been in that situation?
This is a typical dreamweaving experience.
How it works is that you're constantly subjecting self to other by listening to other people, and in return you have to come out with stuff for other people to listen to. It work on the basis human evolution and goes right back to our earlier evolution and lived in communities and communes when everything was shared and communal, and even after a few meetings or workshops you should notice a difference in the way your life flows.
Worth a shot?
