Too Many Relationships

Too Many Relationships

The more relationships you have, the more difficult it will be to maintain happiness within all these relationships.  If there are 50 people you love, it will be very difficult to maintain that love for all 50 individuals.  The more people you love, the more it increases the chances of pain and suffering.  If there are only 5 individuals of whom you love, it will be easier to manage.  If you try too hard to maintain too many relationships, a majority of them are bound to fail, and this will cause much pain and suffering. 

Think about all the different loving relationships that we have.  Our mother, father, brothers, sisters, cousins, boyfriends, girlfriends, sons, daughters, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, friends, students, disciples,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      etc.

The problem is that you don’t even get along with your own brother and then you try to seek out a new friendship with a stranger.  The problem is that you don’t even get along with your own father and then you go seeking out for a father figure.  Without a strong foundation of love, all relationships are bound to fail.

If we don’t work on strengthening the relationships that really matter then what we are doing is just trying to build a house with a deck of cards, there is no foundation, we think we have built one house to move onto the next and then all of a sudden the wind blows over the cards and we have to start all over. 

If we use bricks to build the house, the house will last, then when the house is finished we can work on building the next house.  But what is important is the quality, not the quantity.  It is better to have one real friend than 50 friends all disguised as enemies. A real friend does not come by often, you may be lucky to find one every 10 years.  Through the test of time you will be able to determine the real from the false.  When enough time has passed, the real friend becomes family.  Family is the foundation of love.  Without love in the family, you will be wandering aimlessly destroying every relationship you encounter.  The lesson is to fix the foundation before seeking to build.

Do not have a child with a woman where the love is not strong.  Do not decide to have a 2^nd child, when there is no love for the first.  You have not learned to develop a solid foundation with anyone, so any relationship you seek to build is bound to destruct until you learn to break the cycle by refocusing on the relationships that are truly important rather than running away from them in which to seek out new ones to build which will also eventually destruct. – SFL May 30 2015

Children Let Go Easily

Children Let Go Easily

You can yell at a child and he can forget all about it minutes later.  One moment he is crying, the next moment he is full of happiness and smiles.  He is completely total in all his emotions.  If he is angry, he is truly 100% angry, if he is sad, he is truly 100% sad, if he is happy he is completely 100% happy.  His mind is not in the way, he is just natural with his expression.

He is not so easily attached.  You can spend time with him and it will be full of joy but he can forget all about the experience.  His mind is not yet fully developed; he naturally lets go of the past very easily.  He can let go of the good experiences and he can let go of the bad experiences.  He is more naturally true to the moment. 

The state of no-mind comes very natural to the child, like flexibility.  But it is very unnatural for the adult, like flexibility.  Somebody that is very tense can be likened to somebody who is full of mind and full of ego.  Somebody that is very flexible can be likened to somebody who is more natural in having no-mind.  Some people are born to have a natural gift of having no-mind.  Others are born to be very intellectual with a full mind. 

Much can be learned by observing the lives of children.  They have many natural gifts that adults can learn very much from.  Naturally they are very simple, they can find an immense amount of joy in the most simple and ordinary activities of life. Naturally they are fully engaged in the moment.  That is why it is said that a sage becomes once again like a child. 

Mindless Chatter

Mindless Chatter

If there is no substance to a conversation, I would rather read a book.  There are millions of movies available to watch, I am not the one to watch a movie or video because I am bored, if the movie is not worth watching, I would rather not watch it at all, I would rather read, I would rather write, I would rather meditate.  When you are speaking with someone that you do not connect well with, it is better to not speak at all.  It feels like a waste of life, a waste of time engaging in conversations that are senseless, I’d rather be in silence. 

There are people out there that always need the music playing. 

There are people out there who always need the TV on.

There are people out there that always need to be around somebody, just anybody, as long as they are not alone. 

There are people out there that always need to be on the phone. 

There are people out there that are very frightened to be alone. 

These people are running away from themselves, they are very afraid of what they might find, which is nothing.  They are very afraid of silence.  Silence to them is likened to death.  Because they are so afraid of silence, they put much effort in engaging in mindless activities and mindless chatter.  Not until they finally face this silence, will they ever learn to mature and grow. The ego cannot exist in silence. Silence is the death of the ego.  People are very afraid of realizing that this ego is a false phenomenon; that is why they run away from silence.

Relationships

Relationships

Relationships are difficult to maintain, they are a challenge.  You must hold things in common in order for a relationship to last.  You must ask yourself what do you have in common with the person of whom you wish to build a relationship with?

You can build a strong friendship with a running partner until the person decides to stop running. 

You can build a strong friendship with someone who you like to play basketball with until that person decides to stop playing basketball. 

You can build a strong friendship with someone who likes to go dancing until that person decides to stop dancing. 

You can build a strong friendship with someone who likes playing chess until that person decides to stop playing chess. 

You can build a strong friendship with someone who likes to go drinking alcohol at bars until that person decides to stop drinking alcohol at bars. 

You can build a strong friendship with someone of whom you work very closely with until that person decides to quit to move onto another job. 

You can build a strong friendship with someone who likes to join you to go seeking for women a the club until that person ends up finding a girlfriend and loses all motivation to seek.

You can build a strong friendship without someone who likes to exercise with you until that person decides to stop exercising. 

When you lose things you have in common, the relationship breaks down.  If you no longer enjoy doing activities together, then there’s no reason to be together.

People mature at different rates.  What happens in a lot of cases is that if you mature a lot quicker than the people around you, you will find yourself being alone more often.  You might have had drinking buddies at the age of 21, but by the age of 25 you might have decided to give up that lifestyle, while your friends are still engaged in drinking, you decide to put your energies into other activities.  Because you have lost this common interest, the friendship ends up breaking down. 

People change, situations change. Life circumstances change.  Through all this change, it is very difficult to make relationships endure.  It requires a lot of effort from both parties to try to make things last.

Work, Family, and Meditation

Work, Family, and Meditation

I’m all about work, family, and meditation.  If I am not making money, then I am spending time with family.  If I am not spending time with family, I am in meditation.  I do not like to go out to places with many people.  I don’t like to go out to many places at all.  When I work, when I train, it is my getaway, it is my vacation.  Things change when you have many children of your own.  All your free time goes to them and the little time you have left, you have for yourself. 

When I am alone, I like to go for a bike ride. 

When I am alone, I like to read Osho books.

When I am alone, I like to write.

When I am alone, I like to train. 

My life is very simple and basic, some or many may even call it boring.  But to me it is not, everything that I do, I love doing, I don’t really need anyone in my life to feel happy and content.  Actually for 12 years rarely do I ever get a chance to be alone in silence.  Being alone in silence does not come by too often.  When I do find time to be alone in silence, sometimes I use that time as an opportunity express in video format what I have learned about meditation and what I have learned about life. 

I know there are not that many people in this world that are like me, that’s why its so hard for people to understand me, but it’s ok.  I feel that I bring an inner experience of being in the mountains out for the general public to get a small glimpse of. 

I can sit and do absolutely nothing. 

I can read Osho books and do nothing more.

I can stretch and do nothing more.

I can bike and do nothing more.

I can write and do nothing more.

I can exercise and do nothing more.

Those activities are a great joy to me.  I don’t need to go on any vacations or trips. I don’t need to go to the Bahamas.  I don’t need to watch TV.  I don’t need to read newspapers.  I don’t need to watch movies.  I don’t need to spend time with people I barely know.  I find contentment in just being alone. - SFL May 29 2015