What a great word. The ability to empty your mind from the useless thoughts, to concentrate on just living, truly, fully and with honest. How often do we meditate? Is this natural for the human being? Let’s take a look at the children for example. They are so sweet, so innocent, but are these abilities that make them happy? Haven’t we seen children trying to lie, to mislead or to express negative emotions through a selfish way? Even this kind of events do exist we keep characterizing them as innocent. But why?
Because of the simple way that children have to acquire happiness! The first motive of a child is the will to just be happy, just to be recognized by the social circle, just to be rewarded, so their self can be positively determined within a game they just had the opportunity to meet – life! And wisely society tends to blame “others” when it comes to a classification of a child’s behavior. Because “others” represent a false system, and unhealthy society and do not blame the individual about this, as the individual has one and only motive: to survive happily! But this perspective definitely changes when it comes to an adult’s behavior. And this is a great contradiction of the “common sense” that our current social system implies! Because we keep blaming the subjects instead of finding out why a negative behavior occurs, or even deeper why we believe that if we do not blame the subject his, let’s say “free-will” of adopting a negative behavior will make him act so! In simple words, if someone has the opportunity to do whatever he wants avoiding rules and laws he will choose the negative, selfish path! And even that this is a very complicated topic of discussion, comes down to one simple question: Why a healthy, happy, able to love and be loved, inspired, creative and fearless, without negative emotions person which trusts an honest system of society would ever adopt such a behavior? There is no impulse to respond negatively when you are not forced to live in a way that does not make your heart fly. And when you are push-motivated, when you are forced to do things, to wake-up in the morning and act as you have been told, negative things happen sooner or later. And these negative things can either reflect inside or outside of the person, and this is not an undefined philosophical term, it is very specific: illnesses, physical stress and mental inconsistencies, which are socially acceptable, or violence, rudeness, inactivity, passivity or criminality, which are socially unacceptable.
And there comes meditation, this silent harmony-bringer. So how this condition of human existence binds with all these stuff? This is where the children come into the debate. Children have this special ability to meditate without thinking about it! When they play, when they are active, when they socialize, when they hug their parents or dancing around they have this simple attitude against life. They just be! They do not force themselves to be, to produce or to consume, to be a “useful member of society”. What does this even mean? And all the problems come when society tries to standardize this pure energy of life! Instead of cultivating it, helping it to fulfill children’s existence and cover the natural questions that arise simply from the consciousness and self-consciousness of an intellectual being or even better to re-create the knowledge and the creativity of exploring and discovering within each person’s mind, we “educate” them! What a crime! And an accepted one! So we have the obvious result! The spontaneity of experiencing the life, emptying the mind with the sense of a happy existence and expressing the natural need of learning, understanding, creating and studying only when this is occurs with a personal interest and passion, are oppressed by the education needs and the fast pace of humanity, and terms such as “effectiveness, healthy antagonism/competitiveness, productive stress (this terms drive me so crazy!) etc.” are presented as natural evolution of human society!
So people forget how to meditate, how to love thyself, how to prioritize the real needs and of the fake ones. This is how people get old, because they are forced to! They gradually get used to sit work and pass through life without being inspired. The most crazy thing is that those who are inspired in life and work at thing they love they are exceptions of this insane system! The “lucky” ones! And there occurs the working-thing, the occupation which is supposed to provide us the opportunity to live in a very-very simple way: if you do not work the system believes you are lazy, as this is a natural condition you’ve been born with! So there comes the force! You are threatened to lost everything, your health, opportunity to learn things, to experience things and even survive nowadays, if you do not fulfill the working-way of living. I live in a country that is very oppressed financially and socially these days. If you have a job, whatever job, you are the lucky one! You have to be grateful you greedy son of a bitch! You do not have the right to seek a better life, working while inspired. You just have to work! Even if you have studied things that maybe inspired you in a way, or practicing things that give your heart butterflies, or even worse you just want to explore the world and what truly makes you inspired, you do not have the permission to do it! Look around you! So many young people without jobs! Without insurance! Without future! And you dare to complain, to try to find a happier way!
The country I live is Greece, and recently I was thinking about the word “job”. There are two words mainly used in Greek that mean “job”. The most common is “δουλειά” which is written in the exact same way as the word “δουλεία” (mind the small thing that changes place – it is called tone and changes the pronunciation in Greek). Could you guess what this word means? Slavery! And the relative verb “δουλεύω”, which means "I work" in modern Greek, in ancient Greek means being a slave and to submit. So this is the society that tells us not to fool around, to educate ourselves and to work! And the inspiration, well being of body, soul and mind comes to the second place.
So let’s live as children, play as children and meditate as children. Prioritizing our targets in life, having at the top smiling, sharing – moments, sympathy, sunsets, smiles - and well being. Living honestly, truly, in terms of spirit and body. It is the first step to the path of our freedom. In great eras, where crisis is everywhere and chaos makes you worry and fear, when you do not have anything to lose, you can choose to chase the stars! After all we all have something good that shines within us, we just have to cultivate it well.
