The Box

There is a growing understanding and confidence that we really do construct our own worlds purely with our minds and deepest desires.

On the one hand it is good to believe that we understand the rules of reality because that way we feel in control and secure about the world around us. On the other hand such attachment to fixed rules creates a box, an apparently unchangable and rigid reality - even when that reality causes us suffering!

The unbelievable truth is that we hold the map of our own reality, and if we wish to change that map then we can change our reality in any way.

A trivial example from my own now boring reality is my ex-girlfriend. In retrospect she was a fine girl. I certainly know that physically she was appealing to other men, she would turn heads in the street etc; she had a sensible regard for her appearance, was smart and people found her very pleasant. What is more remarkable is that she tolerated even enjoyed my life style - even living with me in a tent for some time. Now that breaks my mothers rules on women many times over. In my world however the rules are different - women one way or another restrict freedom and so I found her possessive and controlling - there is nothing she could do to avoid the rules of my system. So we parted.

Indeed that does break the rules I have grown up with. Nice girls need to groom themselves and require material comforts, wealth etc - yet here was a girl who was open minded to the idea that reality was non material, yet who came from very much the material world view. Anything is possible it just requires us to rethink exactly what we want, and be prepared to actually accept that.

The problem then for me is that I am in a box. It is a box which creates very great suffering because I have not resolved the rules - here they are:

Rule 1 - is that extreme romantic love is the greatest happiness.
Rule 2 - is that economic reality (work, money, buying, possession} are a severe drag and weigh life down.
Rule 3 - liberation from physical existence is the greatest happiness.
Rule 4 - life without extreme romantic love is not worth living
Rule 5 - true liberation is equanimity and treating all people as equals.
Rule 6 - extreme romantic love leads to family which is an economic event.

Complete mess up - this world does not hold together and I am suffering as a result. I know I can do each bit - yet when I try to put them together it all falls apart.

> Reena (God rest her soul)'s first partner was a millionaire - realising that maybe she wanted that I couldn't accept her based on Rule 2
> Extreme romantic love while bliss by itself cannot be a final goal because it breaks rules 5.
> Extreme romantic love breaks Rule 3 because romantic love is based on the physical.
> Rule 6 brings the whole thing into doubt anyway!!
etc

Conclusion there is never going to be perfect resolution because its impossible (not just that I can't believe it, but that I want opposing things!). This is the source of all my suffering - wishing for the self-defeating.

So which way is it? Romantic love with the physical entrapments, or non-romantic love and worldly liberation? For anyone worldly reading this the implication is that if you really wish for something then it is as good as got - belief that it is impossible (not just contradictory) is the reason why it has not already happened!

The answer is in a way already here. If I really? understand that the mind has the power to do all this, then don't I at the same time already realise that material existence (or the appearance of my world) is actually an illusion that I have created? In which case rather than just selecting various realities like a child in a sweet shop, why not step back a second and get to know the cause of all this! Why am I making myself suffer?