Imagine, as you are walking around the block, you meet a person, who appears much happier, healthier, and confident than yourself. Immediately, a voice within you starts nagging you. It tells you how unsuccessful and miserable you are. In a moment, this voice lists all your flaws to you.
After a while, you realize that your walk is over, you've passed by too much life, the green sites, the birds, and other people-you've missed to see any of them. All along, you've been thinking about that one person and comparing yourself to him.
That is how your mind works. It generates a thread of self-perpetuating thoughts from just one picture. A long the way, you lose everything else. It focuses on your flaws and compares you to the perfects, and keeps judging you for not being one.
Right now, you are experiencing the world from behind the lens of thoughts, past conditionings, and limited world views. It is a small, dark, and lifeless world. Your experiencing of the world is a projection of your inner realities, having nothing to do with the realities outside. In other words, you are out of touch with the truth of life.
You have yourself closed up in a cave built by your own thoughts and inner realities. You look out from behind the dusted window of that cave, seeing everything grim and depressing. But you have, and you can, get out of that cage, liberated, free, and absolutely vibrant.
When your inner dialogue-the one that constantly occupies your mind-silences, there remains a vast space in your mind for experiencing life. Trees show you another face to their existence, a face that’s quite different than what you have experienced so far. Birds begin to appear differently and interestingly. So do the limitlessness of the sky, the winking light of stars, the light movement of clouds, and the mesmerizing touch of the wind.
You have surpassed the lens of the ego and have torn the curtain apart. You are in touch with life directly and without intervention of thoughts. As a result, a new energy kindles within you, one that’s very pleasant and alive. Your face, language, voice, and the way you walk project liveliness.
Your eyes shine brighter and your smiles are genuine and without any expectation of reciprocation. You are fluent with the flow of life. You become like water, in constant alignment with life.
You become kinder to people. You see through their suffering and find pure and loving hearts in them. You no longer get afraid of people who intimidated you, as they are suffering the same way you are. You no longer wish to manipulate anyone into fulfilling your wishes.
But more importantly you become quite sympathetic about others suffering. You can’t see them suffering and so you become socially active. Some spiritually liberated people become teachers, while some others start movements that are focused to decrease human suffering.
Is all this possible? Of course, it is. You have experienced it, but sparingly and for brief moments. Remember when you see a beautiful flower, a meaningful painting, or a good movie, you get out of yourself and get immersed in that subject.
For a short while, you feel at peace and at ease with life and yourself. Why? Because you are detached from your thoughts. You are liberated from their chains. But then, it ends and the suffering emerges again.
That's why good art has so much value and people pay high prices to acquire them. They get humans out of themselves and allows them to experience life, albiet for a moment, free from suffering.
But it should not be that way. If a piece of art can get you out of yourself, so can you. You can stop focusing on your own thoughts intentionally and change the direction of your attention from your inner dialogue to the outside world. That's quite possible and profoundly beautiful.
If you do that, you will find that everything in life is a piece of art. A leave of grass, a drop of water, a bird signing, all are mesmerizing things to experience.
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