The art of being your own man and woman

“The greatest thing a man can ever accomplish in his life is to be his own man and to live under his own terms and not be bothered about what others may say of him – this is the height of self confidence and what it means to live a purpose driven life – you do not need Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, Hara Krishna or the Mickey Mouse club to accomplish this feat.

All you have to do is to set aside some quiet time everyday and reflect deeply on life, work and play at your speed, cadence and trajectory – this is not an easy thing to do. As increasingly we live in a world which is doing its very best, to fashion you into someone else or to sell you the life that you should live. This for a man or for that matter any man to shape his identity must be very difficult, close to impossible even as he has to fight a constant battle and never stop fighting to keep his identity from being approprioted by the world.

Do not underestimate the world and it’s persuasive powers. It is adept in forcing it’s will on the ordinary man….insidiously…innocuously…cunningly, this it does through a multitude of tools and means – given it’s way, the world will tell a man, what car he should drive, what he should aim for in life even how many times he should make love to his wife etc etc – but I do not think this is the version of life, that I want to love – it is probably a life that came out from some propaganda poster or the mind of some bent pastor who is out to line his pocket by building a mega mall, if anything it is a counterfeit of a life and if you care to look carefully around you, there are many level headed and so called sane people who may even be seemingly successful, who even appear to have it all figured out. But look carefully and what you will discover is a confused man who is a stranger to himself – these are hollow men in the same vein T.S. Eliot once wrote about – the walking dead only, they are wearing Rolex’s and driving V8 cars – but make no mistake, these men are living a lie, so do not emulate them, you are just buying into a lifetime of grief that comes from foolishly chasing the chimeric pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

This is because many of these lost souls have not given life the seriousness of thought that it rightly deserves. They just follow unthinkingly….blindly without ever once interrogating how they ended up chasing the things they do in life. To put it another way. These lost men have invested in the wrong things and placed their faith in mirages.

Never apologize when you are kind to yourself – never even apologize, if it seems that requirement to be kind to yourself even means you come across as selfish and reclusive and difficult at times – finding your way in life means you have to be the CEO of your own being, to even see yourself and all that you stand for as your own corporation. When you are apologetic and coy in the way you set about discovering your inner self, you apologize for being truthful. You set about assasinating the truth and you end up being somebody else except who you were supposed to be. You are saying to others, “I am so sorry for taking off time to be true to myself.” To live for yourself is not to compare yourselve to others – you may feel that you are just going around in big and small circles – but do not feel dejected – be assured, when you are trully yourself and have discovered your real identity, then it is really only a matter of time before you will race ahead of the pack – this realization may take years for some men to discover and even take longer to realize, but if you make it a point to be kind to yourself and to set aside some quiet time every morning or evening to audit your thoughts and to ask of yourself – why are you doing, saying and thinking the things you do, then don’t be surprised, if you derive at the awful realization – that which you seek was something that someone else put in your head. They wound you up like a clock work toy and all you’re doing is expanding energy and time chasing their goals and dreams, instead of living the life you were always meant to live.

When one sets aside some quiet time everyday and reflect deeply about where, how and why – one needs to do this or that – it’s really only a matter of time before everything will just fall nicely into it’s right place and one will begin to live.

I envy the man who is kind to himself as he is a thinking being and not a robot – he is a free man and that is the heighest expression of what it means to be alive, it is not about getting X number of hits on your blog or being able to retire before 40, it is to live a life, where you know deep down inside you, wherever you go, you go with a true heart – when you do this, you become Buddha, Jesus, Martin Luther King and Gandhi all rolled up into one – your life becomes edifying and example for others and above all you give others the permission to pursue their quest to know themselves better – so learn to be kind to yourself my friends, this is the lesson the land has taught me. Meanwhile, I remain yours Darkness, a student of the tao of the land.

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‘When we ask of others why they much prefer to live in suffering than happiness, to choose war rather than live in peace, to elect for strife and chaos instead of harmony. We will never get a satisfactory answer. Because these poor souls have already fashioned a sort of prison in hell that blinds them to the truth.

It is only when we retreat inwards into the temple of solitude all by ourselves and reflect deeply upon our own lives, desires, yearnings and fears will we begin to discover many of the answers to the questions we seek from others.

Here in this place of stillness where our ego is stripped bare and all the truth is splayed out like wares in a pasar malam – we are able to register our own conceit, selfishness, greed, lust, cravings and yearnings.

It is not a pretty sight to behold….to bear witness to the completeness of our own corruption that is.

That is why many people fear the temple of solitude. That is why they much prefer to blame others and external conditions for their own misery and suffering. That is why , as humans we much prefer to marinate our consciousness in endless layers of meaningless distractions….SMSing, whiling their time playing games or just allowing their mind to be taken in by the tsunami of the mind control apparatus of the marketing manifesto. We are even prepared to do everything and anything to avoid looking at ourselves truthfully.

That is how conceited man is……that is also how we fashion our prisons of delusions.

Don’t believe me. Look carefully! Look closely! Look around you. Do you see it? How the vast majority of humanity seems to prefer to run away from themselves all the time….in truth, we dare not look within ourselves. Do we? As many of the answers to the questions we actually seek….why is there so much misery, suffering and strife in this world resides within us. As often we are cause of the problem.

It is only the strongest and most powerful mind that has the discipline to look with the inner eye at the ugly aspects that makes up our character…to say, I am selfish….I am ungrateful….I am greedy….I am self centered etc etc.

When a man knows of this arcanum and reflects on it often. Though he may from time feel pain…..suffering will always be optional….as he is enlightened.

This is the ONLY defining difference between the Buddha and the blind. One looks inwards and audit his thoughts. He is mindful and all seeing. The other is like a restless monkey, going here and everywhere, swinging from tree to tree – such a indisciplined mind is like a sword that is unsheathe and left lying around, it is bound to cause pain to it’s owner and others.

Research and study this well so that you can bear the many pains of life with the comforting knowledge – while pain is inevitable, suffering is always optional.’