Treasures Within

It's early morning and the sun is rising over the hillside just beyond me. Shadows stalk the trees and the birds are just about awake on a chill day. Another day begins.

The room that I live in has a calming aspect to it. This is my world, small, secure and very much like a monk's cell. A laptop provides me with the opportunity to link across the world, connecting through the social media with people who are my friends but many of whom I have never met.

For the majority of the last few years, I have lived in a single room with access to shared parts of a house for cooking. The arrangement suits me fine but I would have rejected that at one time. However, it is the accepted way of living for many in south east Asia (where I lived for a long time) and I have become accustomed to it.

The result is that the changes to my Western life style have forced me to go within, as it is there that I find the broad limitless vistas of my imagination stretching out before me, inviting me onward. 

As you change to live an essentially spiritually based existence, you are still required to live in the physical world. To make any form of progress in both, you have to seek the truths that lie hidden within you. These are out there, somewhere over the horizon, waiting to be discovered in the vistas of your psyche.

Carl Jung referred to his shadow self. We all have one but it is in the shadows of our soul that the full meaning for our life is hidden. However, we can only journey there if we have the means and the will to do so. 

Of course, for those who are living full and committed lives, it does not occur to many that this is an exercise of exploration that will bear any benefits, if at all, to their everyday lives.

That is what I thought once, as I struggled with the pressures of career and family. On reflection, I now realize that if I had taken a more balanced approach in recognizing that there are many aspects that make up the person who is 'me' - the spiritual and the physical - I might have avoided some of the pitfalls that I have so painfully encountered.

Of course, at that time, I lacked the understanding, the comprehension of the importance of what 'lay within' waiting to be developed, as you need the discipline and the tools to unlock the treasures that lie within.

Throughout Life we have to develop new skills. Perhaps, this blog is your call to make some changes to your life too.

Food for thought!