One of the most difficult concepts to master is this: life flows inside out.
Literally, everything is in your mind.
I find this maddening sometimes because not being enlightened, and completely pure of mind, virtually fear-free, the fears in my mind distort reality and create illusions. These illusions seem disturbing, persistent and quite alarming but I created the illusions in my mind (because of fear in MY mind and MY mind alone) and I am slowly but steadily learning not to create this chaos, seeing the neutrality of it all, more often.
The world and everything in it is neutral as is. Every person is neutral as is. Your mind adds:
- judgment
- labels
- flavors
to the neutral event of life, as it is, courtesy of your fears.
Literally, everything is in your mind because life flows inside out. The life you experience is the life you first create in your mind, via your thoughts and feelings. This actually sounds quite liberating, and it is. Mastering your mind helps you live life by design. Mastering your mind also helps you overcome suffering, aids you in becoming more fearless and goads you to dive into deeper fears as you become more comfortable with being uncomfortable.
The downside is facing, feeling and releasing the fears in *your* mind again, and again and again. The humbling, agitating and sometimes maddening aspect of living life inside out is taking 100%, full, complete ownership of the truth that your life experience flows inside out, from *your* mind.
Most human beings lose it the moment you offer this ownership perspective because most people choose to blame people, circumstances and events for their lot in life, choosing to fill their mind with the idea of being a victim, versus facing, feeling and releasing their fears fueling their victim mentality.
Anybody can be free by mastering their mind. But few choose to walk through the mental jungle because feeling your deepest fears to rend the veil of illusion becomes a highly uncomfortable experience from time to time. I had to sit, observe and feel fear in my mind related to:
- my mother's terminal illness
- past trauma from childhood
- various deep fears
Various fears still arise in my mind. Feeling fear is never pleasant but the only way to be largely serene, calm, happy and grateful amid any local or global circumstances is to feel and release fears in your mind to step out of these illusions into the reality of love, unity and peace.
Ditto for interacting with scared, afraid, pained people. Clearing fear from your mind lets you see angry, scared people through a compassionate, loving, caring lens. No longer do these people upset you; there is no deep fear in your mind to strike an uncomfortable chord with this crowd. No downsides exist to mastering your mind save feeling highly unpleasant emotions from time to time but the upside is liberation, freedom and dissolving the illusion of fear we see on micro and macro scales around the world today.