How to live a simple life?
The most basic question is why do we long for a simple life? The answer would be – peace of mind. Hectic schedules, deadlines, financial liabilities and relationship issues can haze your life completely. There is a deep longing in all hearts for simplicity and yet we go on complicating our lives.
Some people get so fed up of their frantic lifestyles that they give it all up and end up at a silent retreat taking up the path of spirituality. But then they notice that they are now craving for enlightenment and that’s complicating their life.
Many end up living frugally giving up all luxuries and comforts in the search for a simple life. They give up their regular jobs, live in a small house, take up a simple job that gets them just enough income to pay their bills, eat frugally and spend sparingly in the hope of living a simpler life. Then they find out that a frugal life is not necessarily a simple life because they are still embroiled in their problems and miseries.
Life is not external it’s internal
What you think is what makes up your world. In other words, the world you see is nothing more than a bundle of your perceptions and beliefs. If you are living a hectic and complex life it would just be a reflection of your mind activity. Your inner world of the mind reflects externally as the outer world of perception.
This is not philosophy, it’s the truth of life. You can see this for yourself and you don’t have to take anyone’s word for it. Compare your external life situation with your inner world of thoughts and beliefs. Doesn’t your external world reflect your deeply held beliefs?
The way you perceive the external world is filtered through your beliefs and hence what you see is always congruent with your beliefs. If you wear red colored glasses on your eyes you will see red all over.
So if you want to live a simple life you need to simplify your mind.
How to simplify the mind?
Mind is nothing but conditioned thoughts – Our conditioning created our thought patterns and beliefs. There is no truth to any of your beliefs because it’s just one of the many perceptions people have about life. No perception is ultimately true. Even the most developed mind cannot understand the totality of life.
Negativity is rooted in the mind – Once you really understand the behavior of a human mind, you will no longer be enticed by it. A mind is just a bundle of thoughts and it has nothing to do with who you are in essence. The more you are caught up in your mind activity the more complex your life becomes. The problem is that the mind is always thinking negative thoughts with some rare moments of positive thinking.
Be less attached to your thoughts – Ramana Maharishi, a great sage from India, believed that simplicity is the measure of how unattached you are to your thoughts. What ever be your present life situation, you can make your life really simple and beautiful by distancing yourself from your thoughts.
Simple life happens beyond the mind – Your mind creates situations and circumstances, like a dream state, but the reality is that life has nothing to do with your thoughts. Life is simply the present moment, effortlessly flowing all the time. Your mind comments on each moment of your life and thus complicates it. The moment by itself is always simple.
Just be in the now and enjoy life – The secret to living a simple life is to be in the now and just deal with what life brings to your present moment awareness. Initially it will be really hard to ignore the mind that wants to plan for the future and muse about the past, but with time you will see through its insanity. All you have to do is deal with the present moment. Just be aware of the reality of the present moment instead of living in your mind.
Life is extremely benevolent and simple in the now – The mind creates harsh realities, it conjures up a fearful future and dreadful past. In reality these are just thoughts. In Hindu religion the world of the mind is called “Maya” or Illusion. The mind always dreams and so its world is one of illusions. The reality however has nothing to do with the mind. Life in the present moment is always simple and very helpful.
You don’t have to do anything to make your life simple – The beauty of life is that it is inherently simple, so you don’t have to do anything special to make it simple. Just become congruent with life, in other words just stay in the now and enjoy your presence. It requires some effort to stay present and not be pulled in by thoughts, but you will also realize that the sense of effort is also just a thought created by the mind.
All “life situations” are just in the mind – The actual “life” is always the simplicity of the moment. Life exists only in the present and nowhere else. The past and future are just dream states created in the mind, the past existed as the present at some point and now it’s only a memory trace. The future is just a projection with no reality to it. You can see this for yourself. You can go the wilderness or become a recluse, but your mind will bring its problems and conditioning anywhere you go.
Once you start living in the now, avoiding the dream state created by the mind, you will notice that your life becomes really simple on its own. External circumstance may change but they are not important anymore. The secret to live a simple life is to realize that “life” is always simple it’s only the “mind” that makes it complex – no mind, no problems.
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