There is the doing aspect, being in the moment, but what of planning the events and adapting to situations where it arises? That’s its own doing, and your quality of thinking will be much better if you allow your mind events to process as they inevitably will. This will reduce a lot of the clouding and anxiety that makes perception narrow so badly.

I’m reminded of Star Wars’ Yoda: Do or do not. There is no “try.” That’s a totally appropriate connection.

Bruce Lee said: At the start, I knew nothing, so I studied. Then I knew something, so I taught. But only later, when I knew nothing again, I mastered. The teacher teaches by being present for the doing. A karate teacher doesn’t teach you by doing the karate for you, they teach you by doing karate and communicating their state of being as they do it, including their intention.

So to say “I tried and I failed” and then to give up as a result of that self-judgement is actually a very big self-deception? It’s a huge self deception.

I have been working with a bio-feedback device lately, for personal reasons and amusement, and it has illustrated my mental functions quite visibly. I find I concentrate at my fullest only when I’m “not trying”, otherwise my neural function is too unstable. The strain scatters my energy. That scattered state is never necessary. Even in instinctive fight or flight response when “higher” functions are suspended, you still aren’t scattered. You are very focused. The scattered state is arrived at only by low grade thinking.

The scattered state may be at the core of regrets? It is regret. Doubt. Is it functional? For myself, I suffered a huge delay in progress on my path. I became very scattered because of environmental reactions and conflicting data I was trying to reconcile. But I started with a realization about my own mind which was “disturbing”, so naturally I sought answers and went everywhere; religion, philosophy, art, science. The artefacts of the human mind were the stones that bruised my feet, and I left none unturned. Only when the pain was so great I felt like I would go mad, did I give up and find my answer.

I didn’t have to go there, but as strange as I am, I have always been sentimental and wanted very much to believe some body of knowledge had my answer. I am not empty handed and all this searching did matter, but my answer was in the non-doing.

So the time it took for me to get here? I could focus on that and regret it, or just notice that I am here and allow myself to be in this state / process. I choose the latter.

Would you say that time of striving grounded you in a way? Yes, so it did have value. It was necessary. I was where I was, and I am where I am now. I can be at peace with this.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~