Vanity, your favorite sin

If you scour the pages of most of the social networking websites, you will see your friends, family, and acquaintances all doing something great, looking their best, going somewhere exciting.The plethora of everything fantastic is all you see. If you examine this idea with any of the hot selling magazines ( for men and women) you will note the same. Models looking fabulous, with an unrealistic image of what their employers are portraying with photoshopped make up and modified bodies. It leaves the readers in awe  but at some level wanting for more, craving for a better life in comparison, and a feeling of a life unfulfilled. Why can I not goto those places? Why can I not look like that person? Why can  I not do that? Will I be able to afford those items? All these questions torment us at the subconscious level. What is this obsession with perfection? Vanity. 

There are multiple different kinds of "sins" in various religious texts leading to a hierarchy of bad consequences for the soul. Some are classified as the cardinal sins, some as the 7 deadly sins, but regardless of the categories, I think they all stem from some aspect of us. From the deepest recesses of our subconscious, where the true You is hidden under layers of shadows, disappointments,  rejections, and failures comes our reaction to the outside world. The only part that we allow the world to see, is the part that is not even us. It is our image of us, that is a fake and encased in pride it comes out, vanity, our favorite sin. 

This vanity keeps us from progressing forward as it slithers from person to person making us remain in fear, and in envy of others. You do not see something ugly in a fashion magazine, or some bad posting on a social network website, as why would we want any one to have a different image of who we are. Why would we want anyone, let alone ourselves get to know our true selves? So we disguise it in clothing, make up, and tell glamorous  stories of our exploits to make others like us, and the bragging continues burning furiously like the sun until its own fuel runs out, and the truth is known. This truth is usually known by you, when you get dejected, unmotivated, and realize that your life you are living is not what you had intended, and at the high school reunion you awaken to the fact that many of your dreams and aspirations you had in school are far from being accomplished. But instead your life has taken twists and turns to penultimately lead you to your present day. Few are those who live their life in true freedom and do what they set out to do, probably because they have seen who they are and accept themselves for who they are and then are not bogged down with spending their lives to gloss up their self image, but spend their time acting out their chosen realities. 

Comparing yourself constantly with another only sets you back from your true purpose. It generates inferiority, jealousy and envy that then is outbalanced by a surge of vanity to over compensate, or it simply demoralizes you to the point of no hope of reprieve.  My personal view on social networking is more along the lines of keeping in touch with friends, and being pleased that they are happy   or happy that they feel pleased to share something about their lives with everyone, pretense or not. Everyone has a dark corner where they keep what they do not want known hidden, behind the curtain of vanity. But if you draw back that curtain you might just find a gem of a being waiting to shine with effulgence of greatness. Letting go of vanity is hard, since we live in a world that revolves round the supporting the vanity of others. We are pressured to be someone we are not.  Do you dare to look yourself in the mirror, and stare in to your own eyes, your own window to your soul, and ask yourself  " Who are you? and What do you want to do with this life?"

Vanity, it is yours to do with as you please. Keep it up and it will shroud your world in darkness. Shed it, and reveal your true magic to the world. 

Waiting to die?

It is inevitable. Death is the end of this life and a beginning in many cultures to another. We are so concerned about our own mortality that we forget that we are hurtling towards it with great speed, without awakening to the life that we have here and now. Someone once said that life is what you do while you wait to die. That is true, but I think it is what you do in this life to make it count when you die. Try a little exercise for yourself. If you are ever told  that you have either one week, one month or 6 months or 1 year to live. You would still have your mental and physical accuities, what would you do? Make your own bucket list for each timelines. Now I am not referring to the madness of maxing out your credit cards and blow all your money in Vegas ! ( but if that is what you wish to do it is to be respected.)

 

Are we waiting to die, or learning to live? We live our lives in fear. We are afraid of losing the tangible, be it possessions, career, or persons, but ever think about the fact that the fear inside you is in fact afraid of YOU? It needs you to survive. Our lives are bombarded with sensations that only drive us to fear. Since we are all lead to believe that the universe needs to be perceived by only our eyes, and since we cannot grasp  the enormity of it, we believe that we are all alone and so we must try to control our own life and its future, and most of the controlling is done in fear. This obsession of control and fear drives us through the madness of a perishable reality to an end without really living or making a life. If you take the above lists that you have made for yourself, and honestly see what you can incorporate into your daily lives, from moment to moment you might just find that your life is not as bad as you think it is. The true living comes from living moment to moment, and being at one with the rest of the universe. The Source, the universe, the positivity is actually ever present to support you, and not destroy you, thereby making your life a better experience. These culminate to the end when death is only a transformation from one energy to another and the journey continues.

 

With the realization that death will occur in one of those timelines mentioned above, you immediately prioritize to the things in your life that you are actually passionate about, as there is a sense of loss if those things are not completed. Certainly household chores or working longer at the office will not fit that list !! So why not do the same thinking as if you are going to die tomorrow or the next day. By this you refocus what is important to you, and then bring forth your purpose, you bring forth your calling. With this also comes a deeper understanding of how to live a healthier, a more productive and peaceful existance when a timeline is given. You will probably forgive your debtors, let go of your anger towards a former friend, or ex-lover, appreciate someone else for there ignorance, and tolerate pain a lot better with a greater sense of calm as you are forced to dump all the extraneous noise in your life. What makes humanity sustainable is its ability to be compassionate, loving, peaceful, adapt, forgive. What makes humanity great is its mortality. Knowing that an end will come but not knowing when, allows creativity to flow freely.

 

Through meditation, and visualization of the moment, allows the perspective of the future to materialize and then your own mortality becomes a friend. Embrace your fear of death, and your life becomes worth living, as you have taken out your stop gaps. Life is a journey, and so death becomes just another milestone. Peace, happiness and gratitude bring about the harmony that enstills a more awakened and powerful life experience. Practiced with patience, you gain greater  focus by letting go of your control of your daily grind. Your fear of death evaporates and your life opens up with the exhilaration just as it did with the first day when you began this adventure.

 

Waiting to die or waiting to live? The choice is yours, choose wisely.