The Spiritual Walks

This is blocking your happiness

Whoever saw the last video will know that generosity is a key aspect of the Arba'een journey. Here I shortly touch upon the beauty in giving.

I took part in this year's Arbaeen walk. Since this was my first time, I wanted to learn and understand why millions of people all over the world come together for this observance. This is my attempt to take you with me and fill you in on what I have learnt.

It's impossible to meditate. Here's why...

Wait... Seriously? Embarrass people? Walk with me, let's talk about it.

Here we discuss how to be more in tune with yourself. Another way of describing this is to re-recognise and abide by the true self that is beyond concepts, thoughts, opinions and desires. The place of freedom. The place of absolute peace.

Here I share with you my spiritual awakening story. The moment it all became clear.

Usually we experience flow for some periods time whilst engaging in an isolated activity like drawing, studying and running. I spoke about this in a previous video about 'Entering flow'. This time I wanted to touch upon entering flow not through an isolated activity but through awareness itself. Like this one can experience the flow of flow or in other words the flow of time. Let's dive into it!

We can take many lessons from how nature orchestrates itself in existence. The rivers flow, the wind blows, the sun shines and the moon glows. All without any complaints. It sounds silly but imagine the sun decided not to show up one day because it got anxious by imagining what could happen the whole time. We’re not any different, it’s just that we actually do hold on to concepts that cause us to constantly trip over ourselves. Let’s talk about it.

We sometimes occupy ourselves with different tasks, objects, activities and circumstances to ultimately fill an unfillable void within us. This is really the root of why anyone strives for anything at all. But on the flip side, one is extremely fortunate to realise somewhere down the path of life that accumulations somehow make the void feel larger and that 'less is more'.

In this ever increasing 'hustle' and 'productivity' culture we sometimes find ourselves losing sight of what truly matters. We often strive to achieve particular goals to fill a void within us only to realise that it doesn't. Let's take a look and see where we can gain clarity to re-establish what truly matters to us!

Across almost every tradition the idea of knowing your self prevails. In fact it doesn’t take too long to realise that we all want or are already in the process of discovering it. People sometimes even travel across the world, seek ancient wisdom and teachings to fulfil this. But perhaps you don’t need to go anywhere. Perhaps you already have what you are looking for. Let’s find out?

How often do you just pause, look around and within you and think, "wow, it's really happening. I am.... existing?". It fascinates all of us, whatever walk of life, origin or background. But the moment the mind comes up with an answer of why or how that is, the fascination is lost. Life is then seen as this familiar thing that we know all about again. Let's take some time to slow down, breathe and unwrap this 'present'.

Alan Watts has this cool analogy where he said that if you looked at a newspaper with a microscope, you would see randomly scattered dots that would not make any sense. But if you looked at the same paper with a naked eye you would see that those same dots were actually scattered strategically to form an image that can now be seen. Self-reflection is the tool that aids in the shift in perspective that allows one to see the bigger picture. Let's talk about it.

We go through many experiences in life that we can easily label as desirable or undesirable. The pleasant experience we make the milk but the unpleasant experience we try to block. The problem with this is that all experiences happen on the same stage of life. Therefore, rejecting an undesirable experience would mean rejecting a desirable one. In other words we have built walls and numbed ourselves to life. Let’s look at ways to re-spark that joy we once had as children.