Dear Speaking Tree friends On August 12th Jyotinarayan Mohapatra wrote,
“Dear Mr. Thomas,
“There are many facets of life....but how could anyone be happy when one realizes that life is a funny game…The more you play the more you are entangled in it.....what is the way out?”
I would like to share with you my response to our exchange:
According to my observations dear Jyotinarayan, ours is not so much an escape from as it is an expansion into.
Life, as you say, has many facets, and we ourselves are multi-faceted, or multi-dimensional. Individual self-awareness in the present expands self-presence into all the past, present, and future that the present contains. All that we remember and imagine can only be remembered and imagined in the present whether or not we are self-aware in the present. The way out is to make every effort possible, as often as possible, to be self-aware in the present moment, in this moment now as you read these words.
Present self-awareness begins with an observer and a subject of observation. If I put my attention on the subject Thomas and the observer of Thomas simultaneously, the awareness of that attention is self-awareness, a higher more enlightened state. Self-aware attention within the present moment expands the presence of self-awareness into otherwise hidden perspectives of the world we live in but do not see. This is freedom, ego dissolution ― non-attachment.
Happiness is not a feeling, it is an enlightened state free of the need to be defined by thought, sensation, and feelings.
All the best..,
t
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