Are We Human Beings or Human Wantings?
For a life form that is called 'human beings', we do very little being...
Mostly speaking we are human doings, human feelings, human havings, human thinkings and human wantings.
If we human beings would spend a bit more time just being, we would create the time and space to reflect upon our actions, our emotions, our possessions, our thoughts, our desires, and to then make more sense of them, and begin to learn who we are…
Instead we are hijacked and relentlessly driven by our never-ending desires, thoughts and feelings which trigger us into the actions and the language we put out into the world. It's as if the world out there determines what we do and say, and how we react and behave, and it does, but only when we are beholden to our desires.
Desires are the puppet strings, and we are the puppets.
As Buddha correctly told us 2500+ years ago, and as Ayurveda taught us 6000 years ago, uncontrolled desires lead us to the rack and ruin.
I would say our desires arise out of our ignorance, and lead to our fears, and to our addictions to hits of momentary pleasure, to give us some kind of relief from the inner torment that desires create in us. It looks like this:
ignorance >> desires >> fears >> dependency and addictions
If we knew who we were, we would feel gratitude for our life, inner peace within our being, harmony in our relationships, and we would increasingly experience feelings of joy contentment and happiness within, camaraderie with our fellow human beings, and a sense of deep connection with the whole web of life.
Conscious living, with an open mind and heart, allows us to be a motivated learner and to get rid of our ignorance and rise far above this level of human existence of constantly chasing the next hit, or running from the latest 'enemy'.
It just takes a change of mindset, a willingness to learn, and to find the right guide to help one do that. We can do it on our own, but our history has not had mentors, gurus, inspirers, guides, motivators and great educators for no reason. Part of who we are, once we discover this, is our connection with others, so let’s be connected.
Usually, but it's not the law, people only start to make meaningful changes when they are in deep psychological pain and suffering, or their bodies have become diseased.
I reckon it's better to start transforming ourselves before we get to such a bad space in life! Your challenge is simple and clear: find out who you are, and then be this person. Just be, and find out.
