Being In the World But Not of The World

A great teaching from a great teacher

Place of prayerPhoto byPhoto de Ryan Miglinczy sur UnsplashonUnsplash

The mind that designed the “modern” world might have been pretty insecure.

Everyday, countless of us are running in all directions. We’re told that we’re doing it for the sake of progress, or change.

The overall “propaganda” is always about telling us how insufficient and “sinful” we all are. In this regard, we’re presented an ideal world, and we spend the rest of our lives trying to live up to that ideal world.

If you take a look at the world today, and really pay attention to how we’re all living, what we’re all experiencing — it becomes obvious that we’re conflicted, and this conflict creates our suffering.

We’re pursuing different objects and people we believe would make us happy.

Our past experiences have taught us that nothing can bring us “salvation.” Yet we keep going because what other choice do we have? This is what everyone else is doing, so let’s keep the show running baby!

Life after life, whether it’s me, you or anyone else, we keep going through the same ups and downs. And this circus, because it is one, we call it life.

Have you ever noticed the magic of life?

Everyday as an example, we see the Sun, beautiful up there, so far away from us yet so close. We take for granted the fact that the sunlight is what permits life on Earth. From the food we eat to our body’s vitality — without the sun, we wouldn’t be here.

But this is just the beginning…

We all believe in loneliness for instance. Whenever someone close to us leaves, we’re disturbed. When no one texts us, we feel worthless.

Yet, somewhere out there, the Sun — a cosmic entity — gives us freely of its energy, without fail, all the time, in perfect equality to all that exists.

The food we eat, the people we love, the pets that make our lives so enjoyable, the plants and trees that make our lives so beautiful— everything, without a single exception, exists thanks to the Sun’s light.

We are here on Earth. The Sun is out there, in the cosmos. Yet without it, we wouldn’t be. Our life depends on the Sun. This is how intimate — vital — our connection with the Sun really is, an entity so far away from us.

If the facts are here — we are connected to all life everywhere and without this connection, we wouldn’t be — how can we ever believe to be lonely? Are we forcefully denying our connection to life?

Do we believe we’re separate beings? Perhaps because we notice our differences in colors, sizes, beliefs. Perhaps our physical experience makes us perceive different objects, and therefore believe in separation.

Is loneliness therefore an act of will? Have we chosen to believe in being separated from one another, from Nature, from the Sun — from life — because that’s what our sensory perception “displays”?

The fact is that we’re connected to everything that is out there. But we believe otherwise.

And because we’re all powerful creators, what we believe in becomes our reality. How we choose to perceive creates our experiences.

What this all means is simple.

There is a world out there, one that’s filled with every reason to give it unnecessary importance.

Whether it’s people’s cunning ways, whether it’s a Natural disaster, whether it’s a politician’s talk that infuriates us all. The world out there works very hard to suck every bit of our attention.

And because “Where attention goes, energy flows,” as James Redfield said, the more we give attention — importance — to the external world, the less attention we have for the world within, in here — in the depths of our heart.

When we’re being enmeshed in the daily “drama”, we’re less likely to be aware about what’s happening around us, to feel our body, to sense Nature, to look at the Sun — to live more consciously. Your attention is your superpower.

To be in the world but no of it.

By giving attention in wrong portions, we live an unbalanced life.

Either we give too much importance to the daily fuss of life, like most people do — or, we simply live in delusion, preaching about “all is light and love” while being completely unpractical.

We’ve seen that we believe in many things that may not be true. But to see this for ourselves, we must pay attention — and from that attention, we learn about our relationship with life; we see the direct link between our internal state and the world out there.

To wrap things up, this is what Jesus meant by his statement:

To be in the world means fulfilling our responsibilities, being practical, learning through our experiences. Not to be of the world means remaining aware, not identifying with the daily drama, paying attention to what the external world is triggering within us, and understanding our lessons.

As long as we’re able to live consciously, which means giving attention in equal portions — to the outer world, and to the inner one — we connect once again to our essence, we live a balanced existence, and we’re truly able to learn from our life lessons, without perpetuating the vicious cycles of negativity that have kept us stuck for so long.

As a final note.

If you have been meditating, using affirmations and thinking positively for a while now without necessarily integrating spiritual truths at a soul level even though you understand them intellectually, I wrote a book called “Spiritual Transition,” which will help you understand the main obstacles to true spiritual growth, how to overcome them and what the spiritual path is all about. Whether you’d like to simply give it a look or get yourself a copy, you have nothing to lose. Check the book here.