Egyptian Mind

Is the world ugly or beautiful? Is life exciting or boring? Are there enough interesting things to do out there or is living just meaningless?

Life is all that, all the time, and all in the very same moment! It just depends who’s looking at it? Who’s having the experience, and when!

For you and for me, we probably have experienced all those opposite views of life at some point. We’re depressed, and the whole world becomes dull and boring and empty! Then we’re happy, and we sing: It’s a beautiful life!

This has only one indication, life is neutral! It has all possibilities, and it can be beauty or ugliness. It’s our mirror, and will just reflect what we’re projecting into it.

There are as many worlds as there are people. And they don’t start far from us, the world is born in our heart and mind. It’s all those pieces that come our way, and we can make them into an ugly chaos or into a piece of art! The human inner world is the most powerful of all, and it’s the only that really exists, for every one of us, separately!

If the World happens within us, then we need to look inside when we look at life. If we say life is boring, we better realize that we really mean: We are boring! When we think it’s limited, then we better know that we should expand from within!

The World is just a decision of the heart!

I once heard Dr Wayne Dyer say a very interesting definition of depression. The beautiful thing about this definition is that it reveals both the cause of depression and the possible cure for it. He simply put it this way: depression is the opposite of expression.

Expression here refers to expressing one’s self. Expression has various forms and tools. We express ourselves in words and in actions. Expression requires a clear understanding of ourselves, and a course of actions and a life style based on that understanding.

I know first hand, for one example, how depressing it is to do work that’s not expressive of who we are, our natural talents and our interests. Many people find themselves in this situation, mainly because sustaining life requires things that only money can buy, ranging from the very basic (food, shelter) to the less basic (paying your bills!).

Expression requires freedom. Financial freedom and freedom from other obstacles to expressing ourselves. That’s why we can also say that lack of freedom surely leads to depression. We don’t like feeling forced to do anything. If we feel unfree in too many areas of our life, we will inevitably be depressed.

A worthy pursuit is therefore to free ourselves, to try and create ways for us to do things we really believe in. When looking for a job, income shouldn’t be where we look first, but more important is how expressive the job is of our interests.

We also need to simplify our life, to lessen the clutter and the things that we don’t really need, which will free space, time and resources for the things that really express who we are. We’re not this extra shirt, this new car, that new piece of furniture that we want to add to our superficial experience of life. Those things can only limit our freedom, add financial burdens that won’t help liberate us or allow us to connect to our true purpose.

The Prophet Muhammad once said something that goes like this: everyone will find it easy to do what he was created for. We find resistance when we do things we don’t like. This resistance is the same depression that’s opposite of expression. When we do things we like, they happen easily. Time goes by light , and we have delight! It’s an indication that this is what we were “created for”. It’s in harmony with our purpose.

This is the path to happiness: make it a priority in choosing your life to express yourself, to do what you like and what interests you, what feels so easy that you’ll know it’s something you were created to do!

I was sitting in Cornell University, Ithaca, when this bird came and stood there, looking at the horizon! Luckily, I had my camera, so I could make this moment eternal!

Birds have other ways to learn than go to college. Granted, they can visit and fly around, but they have no need for classes and textbooks, like we humans do. They come with all their knowledge already programmed into them, and most important of all, they seem to be happy! It’s not because they can fly as we might think, we humans already make planes and we can somewhat fly, but this didn’t change much in the quality of out “inner” existence. Birds are happy because they are natural, or spontaneous. They live in harmony with their nature, and with Nature itself. We humans have a greater task; it’s a quest for our true nature, and another quest for living in harmony with, or connected to it!