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Self-entrapment of Our Soul

We're all self-motivated individuals. We like to outgrow our boundaries and intensely believe we serve a higher purpose in life. Whether it is taking care of your children or building a skyscraper. We're all attracted towards a higher calling in life. Knowingly or most of the times unknowingly we do serve the higher purpose in our lives. 

Everyday tasks we do, whether those are brushing your teeth, reading a book or meditating are small steps towards a higher realization of our conscious! Well the point is we're all smart individuals yet we fall in a trap that we create and it leads to a miserable life at best. This can be called a self-entrapment of human soul (in case you don't believe in soul substitute it with conscious/brain).

Stage 1

Recently I got a chance to mentally observe myself as I was writing a poem. As any individual engaged in a creative activity one needs to start with a mental freedom and a sense of humility. Its equivalent is I-don't-know-but-I-can-try attitude. And as you begin with this simple premise things begin to flow in from unknown origins. That's stage 1 - 'I don't know but let's try'.

Stage 2

Then as the creative juices begin to flow (or as other call it 'being in the zone') the soul begins to enjoy the activity. It almost becomes an auto-pilot of mental activity. We begin to join the dots and a bigger picture emerges that we like and enjoy. We're the most happy here and let's call it stage 2 - 'I'm enjoying and doing well'.

Stage 3

Most of our activities which we put our metaphorical heart into do come up to stage 2 and the lucky ones just keep on living in the moment. However a lot of times we snap out of this stage and into a stage where we begin the comparison. It is the 'Am I doing better than others?' i.e. stage 3. This isn't entirely bad for us as it holds the potential to take us to the higher revelation. 

Evaluating Stage 3        

Stage 3 can also be a booby trap where the comparison could be so overwhelming so as to cause disorientation from the goal itself. It is easy to self-criticize harshly and lose the mental freedom we so laboriously garnered in the stage 1. We've to snap out of this as soon as possible.

Stage 4

The worse is yet to come! The spiraling staircase that takes us down from stage 3 can quickly open the doors for stage 4 - 'are others admiring my good work?’ That's where the humility is lost too and the pride kicks in. We begin to attach others' opinion as a scale to measure our process and goals. This is the death of the star that started shining in stage 1.

My 2 cents

Of course people will always bring the argument that in today's competitive world we need stage 3 and stage 4 for survival and growth. But my question to them is how many of those tasks do we put our heart into? If it is for heart we can do away with unnecessary pressures of stage 3 and stage 4 and just enjoy the raw emotions that come to us. Thanks for reading my blah-blah.

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