Beware of distractions which can short-circuit your path to a greater awareness of your Divine potential. Being distracted is the opposite of being focused. We can enter into a distraction purposefully, or we can find ourselves unwittingly distracted by allowing someone else’s intent to envelop us. The focus which we can achieve through the gateway of mindfulness and awareness is lost. The result is dissatisfaction and restlessness, which in turn hinder our ability to experience the Golden Wind. Escape into distraction is typical of our times, a modern ‘disease’.
We seem uncomfortable with mindful concentration. Theart of conversation is lost. People no longer listen to others they would rather speak about themselves. We feel powerless to remain focused, our fortitude and resolve is undermined by the pace and ‘noise’ of society. The marketing of products for diversion, distraction and relaxation is an enormous industry. We are seduced by offers of entertainment and attractions accompanied by stimulating but empty promises that they will satisfy us. If we are scattered, searching for we know not what and receptive to anything we believe will bring us relief, we are unlikely to say NO! We are easy victims.
How do we find our way through this confusing maze of possibilities? Simply ask yourself one question before initiating or accepting any distraction: “will this product, service or activity bring me peace?”
Beware! The Ego will resist. It does not wish to be limited in its exploration of new distractions. It wishes to rule! The dilemma here is that while we are the primary victims of our own Ego, it is the nature of the Ego’s influence to disguise its domination. The Ego wishes to convince us that we can achieve the entire spectrum of desirable qualities by following a path of doing, controlling and manipulating. But the qualities we value and desire to welcome into our life can only be realized by not doing, by being, allowing them to find us as we rest in the present moment. We pay a considerable price for allowing our Ego to dominate us. It is expressed in nervousness, meaninglessness, disorientation, anxiety, fear of loss, depression, burn-out and fear of death. We then attempt to alleviate these trying conditions by indulging in idleness, by scattering our resources and stimulating ourselves with meaningless and too often harmful distractions, indulging in excessive consumerism and abusing drugs and alcohol.
It is a great fallacy that once our profession is behind us in the third triad of our life that we can instantly rid ourselves of all the negative symptoms we have accumulated over a lifetime. The work may be behind us but we not only carefully preserve and carry forward all the compensation mechanisms we developed in order to help us cope, but we expand upon and strengthen them as we struggle to make the transition to retirement.
Well being can seem to be an impossible goal, and then desolation sets in. There is only one solution. We must open ourselves to the experience of the one reality in any and every moment of our lives. The revelation of this ultimate reality, our intimate interconnectedness with all of life, fills us with bliss. If you wish to welcome peace, silence, balance, serenity, kindness, charity, compassion, perseverance, harmony and happiness into your life, mindfulness is the key. Living mindfully in the present, fully embracing the here and now will give your life new meaning.
It will invite the Golden Wind into your life which will guide you gently back to your original home in the universe. If you can quiet all the external and internal ‘noise’ around and within you sufficiently that you can meditate, great! But if at this time in your life you lack the resolve and discipline to meditate, instead try entering into Spaces of Experience which interest and fulfill you, ones in which you can practice mindfulness. In time you will find that meditation comes calling, asking for a second chance!