We can learn about ourselves by studying nature and science
Water on the pavement does not get absorbed but when the sun shines on it, that water evaporates and then joins back to the air.
The air has no country, land or ocean as its home, it is everywhere in the planet trapped by the atmosphere. It lives within the confines of its body, which is the atmosphere of the planet.
Likewise, the mind or soul is an energy that is condensed, like water out of the air, and is trapped inside the body, but with the right sunlight, which is mental awareness, it can eventually evaporate and disperse as it becomes a finer material and leaves the body.
If you put a sheet of paper in the sunlight, nothing will happen to it. But if you take a magnifying glass and focus the power of the sun into a small spot pointed on the paper, the paper will catch fire and burn.
Paper left on its own will deteriorate in months or years, but if ignited through the concentrated power of the sun, it will burn in seconds. That is exactly what all spiritual practices teach, to focus the mind and concentration through their various practices, meditations, mantras, etc, but they all do the same thing, train the mind to be perfectly focused on a single thought or point of what that practice is.
That singular point of focus of the mind through intense concentration is the spot of sunlight magnified on the paper, which will help the condensed soul evaporate and be freed from the confines of the body/mind/ego personality.
Regardless of what religion or spiritual or mystical or no teaching or path or cult you want to follow, there is only one thing that is the only useful purpose for a life, rather than all the pastimes people find to give meaning to their life – music, sport, activism, business, money – and that is to develop as perfect concentration as possible. As Buddha said, if you could keep concentration perfectly for 7 minutes you would be enlightened, or the Sufis say, one round of Zhikr done perfectly, you will unify with God.
Regardless of the tradition, they all say that if you reach perfect concentration for long enough, it does not matter how you do it, you will reach enlightenment or find god. Therefore, we say, the reason you cannot find anything with a motivating reason or purpose is because the only one thing that gives meaning to life is evaporation so you get through the confines of the body to unify with the universe as part of the ‘air’ you are, through total and perfect concentration. Make every moment of your life a practice to develop that concentration, with the goal of evaporation of the condensed energy, you or your mind, trapped in the dense vessel of your body.
We will talk about how to do this further down
If you need money for travel or freedom from obligations, then do any business or work that makes the money, as money is the means to achieve the goal rather than the goal itself so what you do does not have to be something you love, because the REASON you do it, is what you love.
About unity, and using science and nature as the way to learn about being spiritual, is that air on our planet is a single unity – there is no different air anywhere on the planet. It is the same air, everywhere, a single unity. As mystical teachings tell us, the goal is total annihilation, the Jewish practice of repeating “I am nothing, I am nothing” to annihilate the ego, Karma yoga, selfless service to annihilate the ego. All the teachings and mystical paths are the same, to annihilate the individual self, which is the ego/personality.
As any animal leaves its home, does its things in the day and then comes home at night. We are the same. When the ego personality is annihilated as the control of our being, then we return home and join with the unity of that energy, which permeates the entire universe, the ether, and then we can still be alive and human, as nothing happens to the body, but we are connected and aware of the connection to the reality of all things and the truth that everything material is impermanent and therefore not as relevant as it appears.
The goal worth living for is to become evaporated to be able to be part of the one unity of this energy.
How to do this is simple in concept. Pick whatever you want that you can stay totally focused on, could be almost anything, doing art, music, or business, as long as you can stay fully focused on what you are doing, but know that what you are doing is for the point of keeping your mind focused, and not actually what you are doing.
So it cannot be anything, but at every moment while you are doing it, to keep your attention focused on your forehead as a point in your body, or the crown of your head and repeat a word or couple of words that are your mantra. What the word is does not matter as long as it means something to you. You must keep focused and repeat it but aware that you are repeating it, not like mindlessly repeating in your sleep. But to do it and make the repetition keeping you awake and focused. Meditation takes so much concentration that you may start to sweat.
Repeat when you are walking, sitting, standing, driving, whatever you are doing, if you do not need to be focused. When talking, do it when there is a pause, even if it only for a couple of seconds, go back to repeating the word and only stop when your attention is needed to do something else.
This one simple process that you have read here is all you need to achieve enlightenment, because everything else with all their complex systems, big words, mystical extravaganzas are all just distractions by entertainment. They capture you because they claim to be stories of the spiritual world that will bring you closer to god, but if they excite your mind as something special, hidden mystery, magic new discovery, then you will be lost in entertainment and imagination feeding your ego, and never get anywhere. This is proven by the thousands of followers of flashy gurus who never make any progress even after 20 or 30 years.
Observe yourself and what those things have given you. If they gave you a feeling of good, warm encouragement, but do not get your mind to stay focused on the single point, then they are distractions and counterproductive.
Beware of who you follow and what you do, is it leading you closer or further from the simple reality? All you need to do is be perfectly focused long enough for your mind and ego energy to disperse to evaporate and become first as free as a cloud, and then evaporate the cloud to become part of the unity of the one permeating energy.
If you want to do something, an activity or hobby. Pick something that requires precise work, that you need a physical or imaginary mental magnifying glass to see what you are doing, that requires a steady hand, a pinpoint type work, so you must be fully concentrated. Kyudo, Zen archery requires pinpoint precision in all the parts of the body that are required to be just perfectly aligned in order to hit the bullseye. So it can be small or large. But precise.
Japanese calligraphy is great, or this one I made up, draw a straight line with a ruler in a light coloured ink, a very thin line, then get a needle-fine point pen in dark colour and cover that line with dots. One dot at a time, to cover the line, but so accurate that it still looks like only one line that was drawn with a ruler. Or sewing with hand stitching that is as precise as a machine.
Find your way to keep your mind focused, and just do it as long and often as you can, most definitely every day, and in a year, see the difference of who you have become.
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