We are born pure. We are born innocent. We are born without the knowledge of good and evil. It is, at the later stage of our lives, that we become the product of our environments. That our behaviorism reflected from classical and/or operant conditionings. Which quickly begin to fill our basic directions.
And then, life happens to us. That we become what we think about. It is the beginning and the ending of birth. A beginning of a conscious development to our actions and reactions. At how a thought process consumes our life attitudes. At the same time, it is the ending of a highest bliss with supreme enlightenment of formless realm of peace. Of devoid ignorance, hatred and greed. Of the pure land in the paradise of heaven.
At birth, the only instinctive action that we know what to do to communicate, other than making bodily movements upon our arrival, is to cry. It is a natural sound language to let the people around us to know that we have arrived safe. It is probably a cry of joy. That our earthly existence will make us to enjoy our forms, the sounds around us, the odours, tastes, tactile sensations and mental images which our mind soon to encounter.
It is probably a cry of fear. For all that matters, we have chosen to come for a purpose which, unfortunately, becomes harder to find as our initial innocence starts to fade as time ticks. Often, there is always a desire for a change, want to change, but we seem lost at how to go about doing it.
We are born to complete a journey and to die completed with a purpose. In the ultimate dimension of a journey being everywhere, in everything and in everyone. Reality-as-it-is is in the handle of a con-conceptual dimension. A Zen master once said "When I walk, I just walk. When I sit, I just sit. When I eat, I just eat.' Purity, and innocence, is in acceptance of the truth. A pure and innocent mind has no conditioned stimulus and response to judge but in realization of bliss everywhere as is. On a vegetable leaf. On a blade of grass. On a sardine. On sorrow. On sarcasm. On disappointments. Without saying it is good or bad.
I would tend to believe that we are born with TWO purposes. That, firstly, we are here to re-learn. To complete human understanding so as to enrich the give-and-take relationship compelling us to experience happiness and sorrow. To understand the concept of ultimate dimension. To experience through application of it to gain the experience for true understanding. To explore our own being in order to become whole and reunite our spirits with our physical bodies in a commonality of purpose.
The second is to make spiritual progress with an end objective to merge with God. To live in his consciousness and experiencing God within us. To surpass, and not identifying, our five senses, mind and intellect but making spiritual development. The spiritual process beyond our looks, our intelligence or success. No matter at what stage in our life, the God-consciousness is always within us yearning to be once again given freedom to be and to become a whole part of each of us.
Becoming God-consciousness is not about being religious but through right conduct and wisdom of philosophical beliefs . It is about becoming whole and there is no necessity to struggle, neither physically or emotionally. It is about understanding a wealth of mindful of positive mindset to become all that we want to be.
While the second purpose is in a call for wisdom that will illuminate everything and reveals boundless compassion, getting to it takes a higher consciousness of attitudes. It embraces all living beings and awakens us towards transformation. Of a change from the old to the new. Of old winning formula to a new winning formula. Of current view of our situation to a better view of our situation. Of negative to positive. Of ignorance to knowledge. Of doubts and worries to understanding and awareness. Of fear to faith. Of anxiety to calmness. Of disease to health. Of death to growth. Of sadness to happiness. Of hate to love. Of anger to compassion and forgiveness.
Everything is just is. Every of our problems, of our adversity, of our catastrophe is just is. It is how we (want to) manage our emotion that will determine the end result. In walking our journey here on earth, we need the consciousness of the second purpose, in our positive attitude, to lead the first. In calling for wisdom, we need to take charge of our attitudes from all our acquired lessons to-date, of everything we have accomplished in the way of knowledge, wealth, position and status.
No man is an island unless we choose to walk a journey of a pilgrim. It is possible especially for one having an exalted purpose and moral significance. Jesus did it. Prophet Muhammad did it. Lord Buddha did it. But, for the many of us, we just need the society - families and friends, to make us full. To make us what we want to achieve, significantly or otherwise. To fulfill an innate instinct of togetherness in the society of truth and the society of people.
Every man has a story, and for who he is today, based on the development of his emotional programming from his early days. From all the things he sees, hears, notices, observes and the values of life that had been told, taught and imparted to him. The total sum of all of his educated mind, analytical mind, intelligent mind, thinking mind and reasoning mind formed his habits and conditionings. His emotional programming is the sum of all the decisions he made as a child about himself, about others and about love. About his circumstances, fate and destiny.
All the 'pure' and 'innocent' - the birth trademarks, begin to fill with emotional programming. Getting along with others in a community, in the society at large, derived from it and become a learned behaviour. We begin to take pride in human nature. We do not do what we know to get what we want. Instead, we do what we feel in accordance with the conditioned mind from our emotional programming.
Studies show the level of existence to every man, in his life story to become what he is today, evolved around:
Emotional
Programming Age Contributors
50% From Birth to 5 years old Parents, Grandparents, Family
30% From 5 to 8 years old Parents, Grandparents, Family, Teachers
By eight years old, he has received 80% of Emotional Programming. He has learned 80% of all things good if this quality of life has been the order of the day in his upbringing. Likewise, he has learned 80% of all things bad.
15% From 8 to 18 years old Parents, Grandparents, Family, Society
By 18 years old, it is 95% [50% + 30% + 15%] of Emotional Programming. His beliefs and convictions evolved around the sum total of his experiences from what he saw, watched, heard, observed, noticed, told, taught and become a large part of a learned attitude and behaviour. It will be his to-be habits and conditionings. It determines the basic directions in every man's life and to steer him as he goes on.
What remains is only 5% to make the difference towards achieving with the second purpose to life. To re-learn and re-evaluate and to reconcile with the spiritual purpose of life and the reason for our birth on Earth. There is nothing wrong for our entire life, and entire education system and entire society to live a rich material life, striving to achieve satisfaction and happiness. It has always been the primary goal of all men.
We have been raised to chase, and to follow, the dreams of our 'Contributors'. They have instilled us the same worldly purpose by encouraging us to study and enter professions that give us more benefits. They shared with us of their endless resultant happiness and satisfaction.
A man's story, of how and what he is today, is a story of his well being and the quality of his life and not an excuse for his failures and mishaps. Of his sorrows. Of his struggles. His fate and destiny, or the karmic's effect of his actions and conducts during the successive phases of his existence, is not a calibration of retributive justice but about lessons. About enforcement to lead positive attitudes. It is about to live life by a desire for liberation from earthly sufferings.
A single thought in our ever powerful mind can change circumstances. A drop of positive attitude will lead us to accept unresolved issues and tie up loose ends. As we change so is the course of happiness. We just need to be honest about things that we have said, or done, that had harmed our life story. We just have to own up to our own failures. We need to let go of useless attachments that no longer serve a purpose in our life that only cluttered our emotions. A clutter, be it a physical thing or a belief, blocks all things good.
Everyone makes mistakes and we regret our past actions and decisions. Exposing our frailties and recognizing that we are not perfect frees us from feeling stupid or less-than. We need to turn the stone and flip the coin to bring light to those things that we are not proud of. In return for a realization and through these experiences, we are going to learn a great lesson and have the likely to become a better person. Keeping negative actions and hide them out of shame can overshadow our well being with shame and/or depression. The thing is, we deserve to live life with joy regardless of our imperfections.
The longer I live, the more I want to realize the impact of Emotional Programming on my life. It is not about being disrespectful to all the people that had been a part of my growth. It is not about disowning values that had made what I am today. It is not about chastising worldly meaning in favour of a spiritual goal. It is not about giving up the pursuit of meanings and abolishing goals.
What it does mean, at this juncture of yet another written story of my life, is about having a framework to capture sustainable and superlative happiness in my life. It is all because happiness makes me feel good. In God-consciousness, the soul is the God within us and one of the qualities of God is perpetual Bliss. Bliss is that happiness which is of the highest order that is not dependent on anything else.
I need to take care of myself. To live a life travelling along a spiritual pathway. I need to realize that my physical body is the vehicle that has been loaned to me to live out my life in and to assist growing my spirit with. I need to believe that suffering and illness are bundled in with that package of my experiences. That it has an expiration date. But, I also need to know that my spirit does not expire.
My success depends on my attitude. It is far more important than facts. It is more important than my past, than my education, than my acquisition of money, than my circumstances, than my failures, than my successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skills.
I know I cannot change the past. I cannot change 95% of my accumulated Emotional Programming. I cannot change the fact how people will act, and react, in certain way. I cannot change the inevitable. But the only thing I can do is play on the one thing I have - my attitude.
Attitude is everything. Life is 10% what happens and 90% how we react to it. I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing that I can do, or any kindness that I can show, to any human being, I want to do it now and not defer it. For I shall not pass this way again.
![Ruby [November 2009]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sKwmASTmHItDm1ASsbD71jgYI9Tf0hqzy6DwAQ7D9kDjeAkgrbkud3WoxVNf4yz9QkP2vQMxlkaANcljeCQJqXoypmUEJ3121BZcFSoF8MsBc_bGKEzfmqjeZD8Z5bLQfVSX9Hmm58ZDjxpVT_pJoG=s0-d "Ruby [November 2009]")
I offer Reiki Distant Healing