After life changing events, a quest to live a better life took me to the foothills of the Himalaya. In April 2017, I arrived to Dharamsala with many questions — in retrospect: too self centered. Fortunately, I had found a great retreat center and left with better questions and answers on the nature of reality and the purpose of life, why the mind is so central to everything and how to leverage it.
The quest for mind and self improvement has always been central in my life. I had consulted psychologists, I have been meditating, and I have always been looking for mind and life hacks in mentors, books, documentaries, Podcasts, etc. Still, I never had experienced such a positive impact and radical change in my life. I left the retreat completely changed and I started to turn my life around and live differently.
It would take me a book to give justice to what I realized. Three things that power me to this day: 1) Looking inward can be richer than anything we can experience in the world around, 2) Freedom and blossom come from the space we cultivate from our bodily sensations and emotions, duality and the stories we have created around them that we call it “I”, “them” and “it”, 3) Languages that support our intellectual growth in many aspects are funnels in others aspects. Unlabeled feelings/energies are of more interest since thinking and speaking too often closes our minds.
How hard is it to live a better life? My personal experience is that it is extremely difficult, even when you experienced deep realizations that you think will power you for the rest of your life. Everything is pushing you in other (the opposite) directions:
- Your need to operate in the world pushes certain behaviors: speed, always on, action vs inaction, result oriented, consumerism.
- Culture shows you a model of life. It is hard to fight against the constant reminder, especially when marketers know and exploit your weaknesses.
- Products and Services available to us are fitting the mainstream model. Even if you have a very strong idea of what you want, the mainstream offering will put in front of you the options that you are trying to avoid.
- Your colleagues, friends, families, and most people live and breath that mainstream model.
Sometimes your realizations will want you to have one experience. But your desires and pre-trained mind will ask for another.
And if you manage to have your realization win that fight,
- How much time/money are you willing to invest?
- Which compromise are you willing to make?
- Are you ready to renounce to x, y and z?
It is the current norm, you can’t escape it really. You can actively live against it but it takes strong will and a lot of energy. Both are limited and you invest already in many projects.
How do YOU live up to your Realizations? Do you feel successful?
I would give myself a 3 out of 5 as I improved major aspects of my life in alignment with my realizations. I maintain a meditation practice much more frequent and deep than I used to, I started yoga to be more aware of my body. Both helped me reconnect with my energetic body. I have opened my schedule to activities I always was pushing to the next day and I changed my diet radically to remove meats. More importantly, I have started to reduce my go-to reactions and have more space to be awareness, love and wisdom. It is a journey. I have a lot of room to improve and, from 1 to 10, I would give myself a 7. I need to be able to live in a different way (more radical), most likely changing the kind of projects I dedicate myself to: a new kind of resort? A more mobile format like a retreat?
What is your answer?
