Live Life in Awareness

 

Photo Credit: Marlene Chism | Spiritual Awareness

Live Life in Awareness

There is an imaginary story – some stories are so unsettling because they raise the question – what if this were to happen to me? In this story – there was a bully or goon who would use paint to draw dirty graffiti on people’s walls. He had become a major nuisance for a shopkeeper because his abusive and derogatory language had started hurting his business. The shopkeeper could have fought but he did not as his police complaints were also not helping. So, he hatched a plan – one day he waited till the bully finished his dirty graffiti work and approached him and gave him a thousand bucks for his ‘fantastic work’! The next day he thanked the bully again with money and praised him for his ‘effort’ and with each passing day he kept reducing the amount he gave the bully to deface his property. After a couple of weeks, the amount had come down to just ten bucks and the bully thought that he was not being ‘paid’ enough for his ‘efforts’, so, from the next day he stopped coming and defacing the shopkeeper’s property.

This story actually highlights how people behave and act and what causes such behaviour and what can be done to modify such motivated behaviour. It is about making them change their original perceived motivation to your idea of what it should be so that their behaviour changes without any disruption. It is about creating passion in one’s work and giving positive direction to that passion.

We all study to achieve something in life and many times (in India) we are forced to take careers to satisfy the ambitions of our parents and many times such careers are not those which we actually desire! In the movie ‘3 Idiots’ the concept of choosing a career which you loved, like making your hobby, say photography, your career – then would it not be wonderful earning from something you love to do! With experience and mindfulness practice you learn to evaluate life as it happens and decisions thus taken give your life a positive direction.

It is essential to introspect on where we spend our maximum time and whether it is productive – either materially or spiritually. We need to divide our time rationally to achieve both the objectives – life in the material world as well as spiritual progress by witnessing the life in the material world. As Adam Phillips said, “The unexamined life is surely not worth living, but is the unlived life worth examining?”

It is good to introspect and reflect on critical aspects of our life, our behaviour, our thoughts, our actions – and you can do that dispassionately only if you are honest with yourself. This honesty comes with meditation and inner reflection on the purpose of our life. It is important that we examine our own life, as by doing so we gift ourself with a sense of freedom, clarity and peace. We learn to examine the universe that dwells within our own soul. When we live in full awakened awareness, we travel the road less traveled, and that in itself is the journey to inner peace and tranquility.