Half closed eyes of Buddha

Photo by Nandha kumar PJ on Unsplash

 As a piece of text in our recent song says: “This world is illusion, illusion to conquer.” the life seems to be exploration which starts like a tabula rasa, an empty chalkboard.

 As a new born child human being is being written on its chalkboard of consciousness, allowing and needing input of mother -father interaction, siblings, bigger family, language, sounds, food, colors of their home, explored spaces.

As children we are opening our mind eyes to the world and like a sponge we are feeding on impressions in a process of becoming a “formed person".

This is a process of education, beside just formal one also experiential, the one which builds our character based on imprints of the world.

Eyes wide open

My father was a second world war refugee. As a 12 year old he experienced a horror of war as his village was being surrounded by the soldiers and burned down. He and his mother got captured with thousands of other civilians from his and nearby villages and were brought to a death camp.

His younger brother run in the woods and was found couple of years later in the Red Cross collection camp.

They stayed in death camp for three days and was than separated from his mother and transferred as a slave to a settlers family of occupied side. Those settlers were good people, he felt protected and they treated him well. His mother was placed in a nearby village and died of typhus couple of months later.

Than one day a radical fighters of the occupying side came to the same village and collected all the previously captured civilians. Those had to dig their own grave and were lined up in front of machine gun.

As the machine gun started firing and as poor people were falling in the mass grave he let himself fall in that hole a second before bullets came to place where he was standing. He got covered with dead and wounded people. As the officer took a pistol and killed the wounded my father pretended to be dead. He crawled out of the death pit and started running away across the fields. More shoots were fired in his direction but they missed their mark. He run back to a village to his good caring family and they gave him cover until those extremist did not leave the village.

The life on Earth can be brutal and my father had experienced it first hand 70 years ago. No wander that, despite a beautiful and caring wife he found in my mother and producing miracles with his hard work he later started drinking.

If his eyes of mind could look inside and deal with war trauma, his life could probably get better. Due to traumatic events his eyes to the world stayed wide open and he was never able to look deeper in the layers of his consciousness as he stayed firmly grounded in this physical reality.

Eyes wide shut

On the other side for the couple of people I know exploring the world went another path. They tried to conquer their demons by leaving all material things behind and looking predominantly inward. Some of them were neglecting body and taking too much inner sight opening substances. In that process some of them lost all their property and means of financing. Some of them tried to live solely from prana but became under nourished and left this Earth.

Although deep inside we all carry the seed of Divine, it is our possibility and responsibility that this seed grows naturally. We could be a good gardener or the one which puts too much water or too much Sun on the flowers of our soul.

By looking only inside our eyes to the world could became closed. And in that search for deeper Self we should not loose that important touch with reality.

Half opened eyes of Buddha

There is a middle way, maybe a wiser approach to life, where, on one side, we gather experiences of the world and we stay proactive to keep the wheel of life spinning.

Having firm grounded feeling is important and this one is made of couple of things like warm shelter where we feel free to arrange place like we want.

A stable source of income as an employee or entrepreneur doing at least the job which mission is closer to our life mission. Another part of this one is having power to find out what your life mission is and than pursue it ferociously.

A friend which can support us with a talk over cup of tea or coffee.

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Second part of this approach is good food. There are three types of food: the one which makes us more acidic, neutral and the one which makes us more alkaline.

We do not have to be fanatical about it but taking in consideration that there are also other things which makes us acidic like air pollution and stress it might be a wise choice.

Also when we think of the planet the biggest source of CO2 is animal farming and adding ethical note to it: it is not nice to kill all this animals for food when there are other, much healthier plant based sources of protein.

Green Leafy Veggies are source of vitamin A, B, E, folic acid and minerals iron, calcium and phosphorus that is vital for the system to perform normal operations and build a strong immunity.

Lungs like looking Cauliflower, Broccoli and Brussels sprout contain vitamins A, C, k and folate and phytochemicals. Those vegetables support lungs function during inflammation and was especially helpful during C19 and omicron pandemic.

Root vegetables like beets, radish, sweet potato and carrots are an amazing source of alkaline foods which facilitates to keep up the pH balance. Here we can also add pumpkins like Hokkaido pumpkin.

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Third is having a mind rooted in positive, upbeat mindset. As I mentioned at the beginning of this article we just recorded song “5thRule” with of the band of mine. The song talks about don Miguel’s Ruiz approach to life based on teachings of his Toltec ancestors. In his book “The Four Agreements” he proposed following agreements with yourself:

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions.

4. Always Do Your Best.

Later in his book “Fifth agreement” he added the 5th one:

5. Be skeptical, but learn to listen.

Having a moral compass in life is good, it is understanding that whatever we do create waves and sooner or later this waves will come back. A basic concept of karma.

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Fourth brings us closer to what content of mind do we carry. We can be surrounded with shiny things but still carry lot’s of garbage inside. Luckily there are methods to clean our inner dirty clothes and generally speaking it is called regular meditation, with stress on regular.

Meditation is like cleaning windows of our soul allowing appearance of the bright light of our inner Sun or Over Soul. I would say, based on my own research, that it is more like an ocean of white light made of energy cells of pure unconditional love.

Some would called it transcendental bliss.

At the end of this gradual journey of going deeper inside there is grand prize which awaits every human being: nirvana— a state of constant enjoyment of our own Nature given existence. It is like having picture of things big and small at the same time, like entering Ali Baba’s cave filled with all riches, enjoying it all but without attachment.

In my, Croatian and also in similar group of Slavic languages, if somebody is rich, we say “bogat”. It comes from a word bog = God and means “the one who is filled with God”.

So knowing truly who we are is true richness which is not influenced by swings of value like stocks, cryptos, precious metals, real estate, vehicles, gadgets or review of your current job performance score. All this has time of creation and if not constantly taken care of and if there is no upgrading it will decay.

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Finally we are coming back where we started: As the world is keeping us entertained with numerous impressions, interest, desires and obligations it is imperative to go a step deeper, beyond the layers of thoughts — into the deep.

Taking deep breath in, holding and diving. Passing by the whales of our big dreams and sharks of our hungry demons, going deeper and deeper into the big unknown until we see the light of another dimension of who you are. Beyond friends and enemies, beyond fears and daily stress. Deeper into relaxation. Who am I? Why is everything created? Why the Universe exist? What is the essence of me as a human being?

Staying focused on one point, fully awake. Staying in peace of seated position with relaxed muscles but firm and straight back. In a state of waiting for arrival of unknown but very known.

The state of pure being with full readiness to act in the world.

A state of half closed eyes of Buddha.

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This article is also published on Medium and in the book Radiant Souls on Amazon.

Article written by Svemir Vranko, holistic Deeper Life Coach