Not satisfied with life? Does day simply drag into night; living is one huge bore? Why not consider exploring a path of wisdom, seeking knowledge of the whole self. Reading, studying, and mediating into deep levels of personal being are excellent means for expanding one’s intellectual capacity. They help build a platform for communicating with peers about the world in and about each one of us. This will lead to a contemplative inquiry of self, one’s complete being, mortal and immortal. Being able to discriminate between these two aspects of life is a necessary task for any wisdom seeker. On this path one will sooner or later come to realize that every individual is endowed with the necessary instruments, a body, a mind, senses, and a consciousness to understand and use them for whatever one’s desired goal.
This piece is a continuum of an earlier writing of this Introspection series in which Ye Scribe encouraged each individual to view his/her progression through life as if writing a novel about self. It begged the question; how would the story read. Hopefully each author is writing (developing each page) daily by doing his/her best at living a balanced and fruitful life. This is a matter of one’s consciousness, learning while progressing through life acquiring knowledge of body, mind, and sense functions as they are stimulated by and dependent upon actions. Actions are the result of thoughts. Thoughts are conceived by emotions. Emotions stem from desire. Desires arise from four primal urges all humans as well as creatures share. They are food, sex, sleep and self-preservation respectively. These are motivating factors of which humans,unlike creatures, have the ability to manage even though some person lack the know-how. Not understanding the impact these drives have on our minds and bodies is tantamount to living in torment, though not realizing the ignorance there of is a problem. How well can one expect to prosper if she or he cannot comprehend their basic needs?
These distinct urges are too vast in their intriguing complexities and beyond my capability for a detailed discussion in this space, except to spark a greater desire to understand them. As anyone can see, eating too much is a major problem in America. A primary cause is not giving one’s body the nutrition it needs. The more one overeats disagreeable food, the more the need for proper nutrition increases, thus feeding into a self-defeating and habitual cycle. The need for food as nutrition varies from individual to individual, but any person can train him or herself to regulate food as well as sex appetites.
The sex drives in animals are controlled by nature. In humans it depends more on stimulated senses; appeal, urge, drive and satisfaction, the results of which should be a calm energizing. Obsessions on brooding over one’s sexuality leads to over indulgence and emotional instability. If over indulgence is a problem study yoga particularly the chakras; learn how to meditate on controlling one’s sex drive.
When the part of one’s conscious mind, which functions with the eternal world grows weary of pressures and fatigues, the body becomes tired and the need for sleep arises. Do not fight sleep. Strengthen one’s willpower by making up the mind to sleep and awaken voluntarily.
Self preservation is a natural tendency to protect one’s self; fear being the foremost in the drive. Deepest in the minds of many humans is the fear of dying, which need not be. The adage, knowledge dispels darkness, means that acquiring knowledge of the immortal self will reveal how life is eternal; death is not the end. Ye Scribe believes it is closing one door and opening another in eternity.