Manuel's Journal - Spiritual Wok / Emotional Healing / Financial Freedom & more

[manuel bon]

⚫ Journaling again

 

I'm not feeling great right now; today I didn't do much, after many days of work and study I got extremely exhausted, and I am kind of feeling sick. But I just need to rest.

I am keeping up with the meditation practice, and I'm happy I managed to do it also today that was more difficult than the other days. I stopped doing the Gateway Experience, unfortunately. It takes a lot, but I should still do it whenever I can.

[manuel bon]

🟡 Investment overview 

 

In the last few days, the company's stock is going down. I am not feeling great about it, but I know it's part of the process and I don't have to discourage myself.

[manuel bon]

🔘 Surroundings Observation

The whole sky is gray. In this, I see groups of small light clouds moving fast. In the grayness of the sky and clouds, I don't see any specific shapes, the wind carrying them away makes them change and more distant,

Today is cold and rainy, usually I don't like this weather, but now that I sit and observe it, I see something more in it: I see calm uncertainty, I see change in the stillness.

I hear cars passing by, which remember me of the fast paced world, running to chase something that is never found.

I see the light drops of water, that fall fast from the sky; they're tiny, almost impossible to see, but if you focus, you can perceive the movement.

In this moment of stillness I remember how difficult it is in this world to just stop.

But now, I did stop. And I'm grateful for these little moments.

[manuel bon]

🟤 Quote by Osho: Illumination

The moment you are illuminated, the whole of existence is illuminated. If you are dark, then the whole of existence is dark. It all depends on you

There are a thousand and one fallacies about meditation prevalent all around the world. Meditation is very simple: it is nothing but consciousness. It is not chanting, it is not using a mantra or a rosary. These are hypnotic methods. They can give you a certain kind of rest-nothing is wrong with that rest. If one is just trying to relax, it is perfectly good. Any hypnotic method can be helpful, but if one wants to know the truth, then it is not enough.

Meditation simply means transforming your unconsciousness into consciousness. Normally only one-tenth of our mind is conscious, and nine-tenths is unconscious. Just a small part of our mind, a thin layer, has light; otherwise the whole house is in darkness. And the challenge is to grow that small light so much that the whole house is flooded with light, so that not even a nook or corner is left in darkness.

Then the whole house is full of light, then life is a miracle, it has the quality of magic. Then it is no longer ordinary- everything becomes extraordinary. The mundane is transformed into the sacred, and the small things of life start having such tremendous significance that one could not have ever imagined it.
Ordinary stones look as beautiful as diamonds; the whole of existence becomes illuminated. The moment you are illuminated, the whole of existence is illuminated. If you are dark, then the whole of existence is dark. It all depends on you.

Edited Tuesday at 07:38 PM by manuel bon

[manuel bon]

🟤 Book "A Monk's Guide to Happiness" by Gelong Thubten

summary - Chapter One: What is happiness?

 

In today's fast-paced world, we seek instant hits of happiness through our technologies, and we are constantly chasing happiness as if it is something external to find when it is already inside of us: "[...] we are hard-wired for it at a deep level". With meditation and mindfulness, we can choose to be happy and be free. 

Everyone can meditate, there is no prerequisite, and it doesn't matter if your mind is more or less busy than others. "Meditation [...] is a way to connect with our essence and to become who we truly are. Mindfulness is how to bring awareness into every situation".

[manuel bon]

🟤 Book "A Monk's Guide to Happiness" by Gelong Thubten

summary - Chapter Two: Hard-Wired to be Happy

 

Our natural state of being, our essence is free, is to be happy, but since we get too caught up in our thoughts and feelings, we are not able to be the way our true nature is. We can then learn to simply observe our mind so that we can be aware of the "clouds passing by", but remain the free and still blue sky.

[manuel bon]

🟤 Book "A Monk's Guide to Happiness" by Gelong Thubten

summary - Chapter Three: Stress in the 21st century

 

Our society is based on doing, not on being. We constantly want to achieve something, and when we do, we move on to the next thing. We are scared of losing what we have and what we love, we have attachments to things that are not forever. Our food is filled with chemicals that make us eat the whole package, and want more and new food.

The more technology evolves, the more our stress level rises. We are working in and for a society where we constantly want to achieve something, likes, a certain status, or other. Meditation can help us tap into our inner-wired happiness, instead of looking for it outside.

[manuel bon]

🟤 Quote by Osho: Amateurs and Experts

All great discoveries are made by amateurs.

 

It always happens that when you start new work, you are very creative, you are deeply involved, your whole being is in it. Then by and by, as you become acquainted with the territory, rather than being inventive and creative you start being repetitive. This is natural because the more skilled you become in any work, the more repetitive you become. Skill is repetitive.

So all great discoveries are made by amateurs, because a skilled person has too much at stake. If something new happens, what will happen to the old skill? The person has learned for years and now has become an expert. So experts never discover anything; they never go beyond the limit of their expertise. On the one hand, they become more and more skillful, and on the other hand they become more and more dull and the work seems to be a drag. Now there is nothing new that can be a thrill to them-they already know what is going to happen, they know what they are going to do; there is no surprise in it.

So here is the lesson: it is good to attain a skill, but it is not good to settle with it forever. Whenever the feeling arises in you that now something is looking stale, change it. Invent something. add something new, delete something old. Again be free from the pattern that means be free from the skill-again become an amateur. It needs courage and guts to become an amateur again, but that's how life becomes beautiful.

[manuel bon]

🟤 Book "A Monk's Guide to Happiness" by Gelong Thubten

summary - Chapter Four: Meditation and Mindfulness

 

Nowadays we tend to blend the concept of meditation with the one of mindfulness, but in reality, meditation is when we sit down and use specific techniques to train our mind, while mindfulness is the awareness that we use to bring back our attention to the exercise, and this can be applied to the everyday life.

Meditation then is not about emptying our minds, but about being aware of its thoughts and not getting caught up in them; it's about leaning to observe what happens in our mind, and applying that to our day to day life means feeling our feelings and emotions but not getting attached ad carried away from them.