Think of how your life is structured. Think of how all of our lives are structured. So many things make up what we call our life and all that it entails. Objects. Persons. Thoughts. Actions. Reflections. Feelings. Decisions.

Innumerable aspects encompass what we consider to be a part of our life, or our entire life. Yet, where did we get these from? Where did all these aspects we now possess as our own come from?

'I don't remember picking that up.', we say.

'Where did that come from?', we ask.

'Who put that there?', we wonder.

'Why did I say that?', we question.

Think about this.

What we consider to be our existence is made up of a multitude of 'things', for want of a better term. Things that we now consider to be intrinsic to our life and duly necessary to our proper functioning.

They're there in our actions, but we don't know how they got there.

Case in point: We find ourselves doing an activity and yet we don't know why we are doing it. We finally figure out that this is just how we do things. This is how we have been doing things for a very long time. There is no other way to do things, is what we're silently telling ourselves. This is just something that we do. Right?

We have relationships that have snuck up on us.

We have connections to the world and its activities that are a part of our daily routine. Whether that be reading the news online, watching television, or hanging out with a particular group of people, or feelings, every morning.

We have so much of our existence that is just 'there'. Again, we don't know where it came from, but it's there.

'Why am I doing this?'

'Where did this come from: I don't recall from where?'

It's only when we separate ourselves from the daily functioning of this organism and its accepted, usually blithely, activities, that we begin to see what is in our life that we truly want and/or need, and what is dross.

When we take a break from the usual activities that we include in our moments of existence we are given a greater clarity to know what should be there in our moments versus what we now have unknowingly put there.

There are many stories about this process of acquisition during one's life.

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To make a simple summary of one of the stories...

A traveler is walking along a road carrying so many bags of luggage that he can barely take another step. He is weary and exhausted from his burdensome journey. He finds himself walking through the shade provided by a tree and notices a woman sitting at the base of the tree, silently watching him.

The woman greets him by asking him where he is going and why he needs so much luggage. The traveler says that he doesn't know where he is heading to and he doesn't even remember where he picked up the cumbersome load of bags he now carries. The woman asks him as to why he doesn't just let go of all the baggage, so that he may travel lighter.

The traveler states that this never occurred to him. He lets go of his accumulated load of items, thanks the woman, and continues on his way.
~~~~

Moving back from the multitude of connections that we've unknowingly established as part of our routine during this walk through existence allows us to experience the space that is always present, but unseen because of the continued weaving of activities that appears to make life seamless.

Allowing for the presence of the simple fact of existence to begin to permeate through the activities allows for the inclusion of something that allows for a clarity of perception that heretofore didn't exist during our daily potpourri of activities that we operate from and through.

One needn't necessarily let go of their life, so to speak, and become an ascetic. One can simply see that changing the flavor of the day through mixing up the routine, both by actions and inaction, can allow for something that wasn't lived from before to enter one's daily existence.

Suzanne Segal wrote in her wonderful autobiography 'Collision with the Infinite' that she operated from an allowing of life to present to her 'what seemed obvious' in the next moment. When existence presented to her what seemed obvious for her to next be doing or where to go, she simply did it. It wasn't a conscious forcing out of life what the mind thought was pertinent and needed. She simply went with the flow of life and allowed herself to experience what it presented to her.

This is what we can all be doing. We can see that how virtually our entire existence is structured around what we tell ourselves should be. What Suzanne Segal wrote about is for one to allow what IS.

When the stepping back from what currently is occurs one is able to see what is truly present in the moment, not just what has been created. More, what is being allowed to be seen.

That is, what is.

This is what is.

Written by Andre Best
http://www.andrebest.com
'...insights :: insightful information for inquisitive individuals'

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