What is Your Most Profound Realisation?
By derek_a
@derek_a (10873)
June 17, 2007 6:34am CST
I began meditation when I first became a therapist, as I found it was a great way of managing stress that is inevitable in everybody's life. What I didn't realise at the time was that I was to embark on a truly spiritual journey and get many profound realisations on the way. And what amazed me in those early days, was that all this came about from stilling the mind, focusing on the breathing and aiming to exclude all other thoughts. A Zen meditation, that isn’t claimed to be meditation at all, it’s called zazen.
The first realisation was simple and yet seemed to change my life. I realised that “I am” without anything added or taken away. Just a simple “I-ism” – not of the ego, but a simple being-ness. Nothing else was needed at all. It was as if I knew this “I” but couldn’t remember where I had met “myself” before. Then as suddenly as this awareness appeared, it vanished. What was also so incredible was that this had all happened within a minute or two, yet it seemed to be ageless and forever, outside of the concept of time. I got the feeling that I just had to now get on with whatever I had to get on with in life, but something had changed forever, even though everything was still the same.
Sharing it here again, seems to bring it closer, so please feel free to share your experiences. And please share if such sharing is in any way re-creating that reality for you:-)
1 person likes this
4 responses
@zed_k4 (17589)
• Singapore
18 May 09
I love soul-searching at times too; it gives us a certain perspective on things and life on the whole, in our eyes, in society's eyes and in general. There are too much expectations nowadays, too much hopes lost, some hopes gained, some wishes granted and not, and all in all, everyday seems like a new perspective journey for me. For instance, I might be happy today and wanting to seize this opportunity and wanting to keep at it, but then, tomorrow I get depressed all of a sudden. I tried to control it, and I know I can, but the feeling of forlorn and foreboding is there and it keeps coming at times. It is such a hassle because most of the contributory effects are outside forces which could affect me. I try not to let those get to me, but who am I kidding. I appear controlled, cool, calm and collected on the outside only but sometimes it's easy to give in and crumble inside.
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@derek_a (10873)
•
18 May 09
Thank you for sharing. I don't always like it, but what I see is that life is a series of opposites - a roller coaster ride. If we are to feel good, we can only know this by having experienced bad. When I get depressed, I go with the experience of it. Whilst I don't like it, I find the entire process somewhat fascinating. I cannot find a reason for feeling low sometimes, it is just there. Sometimes when I do find a reason to feel low, I can recognize that I am happier to find that reason than just let it be a natural occurrence like the changing of the seasons and everything else in the universe in which change occurs - and that is everything. We get to feel low with or without a reason.
In Zen, the aim is to transcend the changeable (or karma) and recognize that state of "no-mind" where reason, therefore judgement and opposites do not exist. 
- Derek
- Derek@zed_k4 (17589)
• Singapore
19 May 09
You are absolutely right. Why let something so remote and negative bringing us down. Getting affected by negatives talks, comments and whatnot is just not the best way to handle it. It will bring us down further, into the deep pit of darkness and we will be brought to a whirlwind of more depression and getting nowhere out of it. I would so prefer to be positive all the time. I'm still trying to find that niche to heck care on what people said. It is easy to ignore, but their lingering words sometimes do bother me. I just feel like the Devil is there to whisper and let me be reminded by their negative words. Am trying my best to churn out more positivity from the negativity.
@jakill (835)
•
10 Apr 09
I think my most profound realisation came to me in my thirties. That was when I realised that there is no logic in life. We all have to live with so many paradoxes, and we have to learn to live with them. For example, many people continue to believe that God is caring and all-powerful, even though s/he allows so many horrendously cruel things to happen, sending floods and earthquakes, as well as wars and atrocities perpetrated by humans.
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@riyasam (16556)
• India
10 Apr 09
i have come to realise that the life given to me is mine alone and that nobody else but me have to live this life.it is always better to have positive thoughts as negative thoughts are depressing to you as well as to those around you.
@margaux08 (1094)
• Philippines
8 Apr 09
Hi derek,
It is only now that I have this self-realization that I can do some things that I thought I am not able to do with out any help from others. Before I used to cling to some body because I felt that I cannot do one thing without some body by my side. But now, I think, though not fully convinced, that I can do some things without the help of other people or not having any inspiration.
Keep posting more of these. Thanks...
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