It appears to me that there are two different ways of living. The first is living where in we keep seeking different outcomes. The seeking of different outcomes is founded in our conditioning. For example, when we go for a trip to a tourist place, we talk to friends who have visited the place earlier, look at the Google to suggest the places to visit and also take help of the Local guide. All these things put together form our desired outcomes for the trip. When we reach the destination, we start moving from one desired tourist spot to the other. We measure the success of our trip by the number of points we have covered during our stay at the tourist station.
The other way of living is living in the process. Taking the example of visit to a tourist place further. Someone may reach a tourist place without any googling or feedback about the station, or any local help. Such a tourist may just enjoy the process. He may look around at the nature, open sky, stars, flora, and fauna of the place, local culture, architecture, food, climate, and so many other things which are unknown to him. There may not be any fixed plans or fixed points to cover and yet every moment maybe full of exploration.
Probably, Life is also also like that. Most people live life to achieve different outcomes, which they fix in their mind as a result of the conditioning of their brains by the society, family, and colleagues since childhood. They set different targets in order to achieve these desired outcomes, such as getting admission to a reputed college, Building carrier in particular field, marrying, having kids, getting power and position, etc. In addition to these primary outcomes, there are many secondary outcomes such as having fun, entertainment, friends, network of relationship and so on. Life for most people is just a race to run after one or the other outcome. The moment a particular outcome is achieved, there is a momentary pleasure like having covered a tourist spot. Soon, the pleasure disappears and the desire of the next outcome makes the person run again in order to achieve the next outcome. Thus, there come short moments of pleasure followed by long periods of anxiety, stress, frustration, etc, till the time next outcome is achieved. This is how most of us live our lives.
However, there are some who live life as a process. They live life in the present moment being fully present in the moment they are living. While studying, they give complete attention to the subject in hand. While cooking, they give complete attention to the process of cooking. While doing the work with Office, they give complete attention to the work in hand. While talking to friends, they give complete attention to understand the mindset, perspective, context, and the viewpoint of their friends. While reading a book, they give complete attention to the perspective of the author of the book. While being in nature, they give fullattention to the nature to understand and appreciate the wideness of the nature.
Living life as a process makes life fulfilling for a very basic reason that we don’t live in such case for few moments of achievement of pre fixed outcomes, rather we live life in every moment since we enjoy whole of the process. However, for the mind, which is obsessed with the outcomes, living life as a process seems not only an impossibility but also a stupidity. The conditioned mind feels that happiness lies in achievement of the outcomes. However, it fails to realise two very fundamental truths. First, all these outcomes have been fixed by a limited mind. There are so many things which we don’t know that we don’t know. For example, until we have experience a particular climate or culture, we don’t know that we don’t know such a possibility exist. For example before coming to Leh, I didn’t know that I didn’t know a possibility of existence of such a climate and terrain. How can a mind which does not know the existence of all these possibilities set it target? Even if it sets the target, the target would be limited and would need a lot of improvisation as we get new inputs. The second reason why the outcome based living is flawed is that the achievement of outcomes takes place only in a moment and the rest of it is a process. If we don’t live in the process, rushing for the outcomes, we miss significant portion of our lives unattended. How can such a life be fulfilling?
That is the reason why we need to shift to the process of life rather than focusing on fixed outcomes, set by our condition mind. However, it requires truthful examination of our lives so far. The moment, we set truth at the centre of our lives, rather than the acquired knowledge and information, it becomes clear to us that it does not matter what course we take in our lives. Every process may be equally enjoyable if we are attentive in the present moment. Outcomes are natural by products. We need not make any specific effort for the outcomes, if we remain attentive to the process. Every processing , such as different carriers, works, talking to different people, observing the nature, observing their own body, and mind, analysing different thoughts, and perspectives, etc, maybe equally enjoyable if we are completely attentive to the process at hand and not fixated on the outcomes set by the limited mind.
Comments