To Be In The World Today

In a fast paced, modern world it is easy to lose oneself in thoughts and feelings that are ultimately not good for you by any standards. Fears and worries are as normal as butter on toast or milk in coffee. People who do not express their fears and worries, people who seek solutions instead of dwelling on problems, people who have a positive outlook on life are considered strange and peculiar.

The collective consciousness of human beings seems to have created a world where our main function is to survive and want. Not enjoy! Survive and get nicer and bigger dead things. Dead things that you can never enjoy because you are never at home to enjoy them. And that is because you couldn’t afford them in the first place. Therefore, you have to work extra hours. Extra hours in a job that you hate, with people you hate.Then, to top it all, you will have to travel back to your home and go to sleep next to a person that you loved in what feels like the distant past, but is actually only a couple of years. A person you have grown to loath. Without any rational reason. And on it goes until you wake up one morning, old and alone, and the birdsongs dont’t irritate you anymore and you are not worried or afraid. On your way to work you don’t stare into the pavement like you did before. You look around you and you see things, beautiful things, like trees and people in love. Things that you had forgotten about because of the layers and layers of built up worries and fear, anger, disappointment and rejection. You think to yourself in a state of joy and sadness that life has passed you by. And for what? You don´t  know, but you accept that maybe your view on life wasn´t very constructive.

The greatest spiritual thinkers that nature has produced claim that enlightenment starts with acceptance. Acceptance of who you are, where you are and where you want to go. Only by understanding yourself can you expect others to understand you, and only by loving yourself can you expect others to love you.

The Power of Now, a Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle is one of the most widely read books in the world. With good reason. In the book Mr. Tolle talks about the importance of allowing yourself, for at least few minutes a day, to be. Just to be.

There is no one in the world so important that every second of every day has to be occupied by something external. It is necessary to take a step back now and again, and do something…or nothing, that clears your mind and allows you to feel inner tranquility and acceptance.

There are some people in the world, like the previously mentioned “strange and peculiar people”, who just by being themselves light up their enviroment. I am not talking about celebrities or some self proclaimed gurus who have become millionaires by writing books about what to think and how to be. No, I am talking about ordinary people who maybe have never read a book about anything spiritual. Who understand themselves and others through their intuition and natural love of life. These are the people we should listen to. It shouldn’t be to hard to find one because most of us  already know one.