All we REALLY want to 'do' is rest

[relinquish]

We ALL have our own ideas about The Good Life. These ideas can differ WILDLY from body/mind to body/mind. However, every one of these innumerable, immeasurably different ideas all ultimately share one common basis. That is, the situation that one considers to be The Good Life is always that particular life situation in which (it is believed) there will be no further arguments against Reality. We REALLY don't like these arguments, because deep down we know that we will ALWAYS lose them. Fundamentally, these arguments are the state of 'inward' restlessness.

Basically, all we REALLY want to 'do' is rest. Now, this does not necessarily mean lying around in bed all day long doing nothing. THAT is the state of 'outward' rest, which often comes and goes hand-in-hand with inward restlessness. On the other hand, when the body/mind is in the state of inward rest, and it's energy is no longer being wasted on inward restlessness because the UTTER futility of it has been realized, vast amounts of free energy procede to emanate forth form it, which can often (yet not always) lead to the body/mind being MUCH more outwardly energetic, based on it's own conditioned preferences. In this way, play is rest.

ALL arguments against Reality are 'story' based. In truth, 'our' Self doesn't have a story. It is what rests forever outside of ALL stories, even though THAT TOO is a story.

All ideas about wanting The Good Life are THEMSELVES restless arguments against Reality, because their very presence indicates at least some amount of disapproval of and dissatisfaction with the present moment, which must obviously SEEM (when viewed through the filter of conditioned thought) to be 'The Bad Life', or even just 'The Not-Good-Enough Life'.

In the absence of this disapproval, in the inward rest that remains, no further ideas about wanting The Good Life need arise, and THIS is a tremendous relief!

This truth is meant to be FELT rather than thought about.

This life ain't so bad after all!



Peace

[Baile]

Originally Posted by relinquish

Basically, all we REALLY want to 'do' is rest.

That's an interesting way of putting it. I understand the concept, I guess I would use a different word to describe it. Because while I have learned to let go and physically relax in life - living an extremely stress-free lifestyle for example - I definitely don't "rest" when it comes to remaining attentive and active in my inner life. With regards to my degree of self-awareness and overall conscious awareness of how my thoughts and actions impact my life, I'm many times more active now than I was years ago.

[bluebinding]

I like it, makes me think of when we are living in the 'flow' and just being, without thinking about it. Effortless. Receptive. Very feminine energy feel.

[Jeremy Bong]

Relinquish,

To rest for me means a race against time of the refueling of our soul energy during that limited time of rest. Some may only rest for four to five hours per day in order not to waste too much time on sleep in a life time.

As for to rest from heavy work which sometimes is unavoidable to have a good rest at the weekend is necessary. Rest to have time for our family and children is essential for good lifestyle.

On our spiritual raising a rest may means to upgrade our level of thought towards spirituality. A stage to balance both our bodies and our minds/souls.

[vuelolibre]

Nice article, I can relate.

[shivatar]

For one who is agitated, all we want to do is rest.
For one well rested, all we want to do is become agitated.

What I think you are doing, is a very common mistake, and that is the old Sigmund Frued projection. We don't all want to rest, but you do, now.

[Somnia]

This is something I personally experience quite often...I call it "mental resting" meaning I do not stress, worry, or dwell about certain things the way I use to in the past...I may occasionally feel annoyed/agitated about something for a short period of time, but I quickly return to my state of "mental resting" where it doesn't bother me...

[shivatar]

"(it is believed) there will be no further arguments against Reality"

I feel like you are from the corner of the ring where people are like, "maya is illusion, God beyond the world of forms, God in the beyond state, that is true God, all else is illusion and maya" and that is where you are trying to go with this whole line of thought.

Perhaps. Since I cannot refute your ways to enlightenment, only remind you there are other ways, that do not say what is formless is the truth and what is form is illusion, and these paths also lead to enlightenment. So who is to say who is right or wrong? eh? We (me and you, not we as a race) are only here to remind each other when we forget that there are many paths, one destination.

And as I said earlier, the goal of all souls is not beyond, not rest. That is the goal of some, and for rest the goal of the weary. Be careful not to project your own story unto others, if you do and a person responds well, it is great, but if you do and they respond badly, it might pursuade you to practice spirituality a little less and that is a divine tragedy.

That belief is laying on the ground of the "beyond is truth, the world of form is illusion", which although leads to enlightenment, you have phrased your statement and possibly think to yourself your way is the only and true way to enlightenment. This inevitably leads one to pause in their growth, although you seem to be doing really great. Kudos.

[knightofalbion]

Earthly life is a 'school'. We may want to 'rest', but what we should be doing is learning!

And rendering Service, because this, at the end of the day, is what defines our life and us ...

[Jyotir]

Hi relinquish,

What we call ‘rest’, is really the intrinsic inertia of the physical, which requires the dynamic principle of the vital to animate it. We can see this ‘rest’ most authentically when the vital withdraws from the being upon death. In that sense, sleep could be seen as a regulated and conditionally ‘temporary’ death - a practical provisional necessity for Earthly life.

Meanwhile, there can be peace within dynamism, which is the emergence of even higher principle (than vital) in life. This is not ‘restlessness‘ (even if the vital proper can be quite restless) - but an innate spiritual aspiration which has its origin within the soul-force which is ever-present, but presently obscured within the being by our current limited self-cognition, although eventually emergent through its evolution.

Typically this emergence is deliberately invoked post-awakening, and experienced in meditation, but also typically, this poise is accumulated in and through an ongoing practice of meditation, and then increasingly expressed in mundane reality. It is the becoming of a dynamic poise of (static illumined Being represented by the soul) within and of the physical.

That reconciliation surpasses/transcends the apparent duality founded on, and focused primarily on the physical alone - one ‘mode’ necessarily excluding the other as in ‘either/or’ - peace or dynamism - when the higher principle becomes realized in the physical.

Rest (as discussed here) is the limited function of the physical when not informed/animated by, or identified with higher principle in which the physical becomes the instrument - not the (false) source or cause.


~ J