The Desire to Understand Life

A curious mind is constantly exploring the world with the desire to know Life, and to understand Life.  It is only when you can understand life that you can make rational decisions with conscious control over your behavior.  Let me give you an example. 

You might spend the evening behind a tv or computer screen, but you will benefit if you stand up and try this exercise.  With your palm on one hand facing down in front of you and all your fingers together pointing in a forward direction, try to draw a perfect circle in the air.  Now try to draw that same exact circle perfectly at half speed.

If this is your first time trying this, your first circle was probably fairly decent, and you did it at a moderately fast speed that you are naturally comfortable with.  The second circle you drew was not nearly a perfect circle, and it was hard to control your speed to go so slowly.  This demonstrates that you do not have very much physical control of your body.  It can be learned however by drawing the slow circle many times until you can go even slower. 

If your mind does not have good control over your body, how can it have good control of your will.  This too can be practiced by resting the mind.  So, take a deep breathe to relax, and try the exercise above with the circles, because you will develop both your physical precison, and your mental willpower.

 You have just explored an aspect of life that helps you to understand Life.  Doing these types of activities (and 1000's of other similar activities) you begin to understand Life.  While you may never get to a true enlightenment, you make constant progress to getting closer to Life's meaning.  Approaching this understaning of Life, you begin to think clearly and can make more rational decisions while exercising your will.

There are those who don't want to understand life.  They are content to not know, and do not want to explore to get further answers or enlightenment.    It is simple enough to be led by the physical pleasures in life.  It is much more of an accomplishment to explore beyond the physical pleasures, and to be led by your sheer will.  So how do you get control of your own will?

Really this is a path that only you can go down, as the answer is different for everybody.  You need to explore life and figure that part out.  I can't tell you how to control your own will, but I can give you suggestions for things that have worked for me to understand life:

• Put yourself in an uncomfortable position and relax in it everyday.  I mean this both physically through stretching or lifting or doing some difficult exercise, and I also mean this in the other context of taking actions to expand your mental awareness.  Go somewhere you don't know the language, talk to a stranger, give somebody $100 out of the blue, go skydiving, etc.  
• Observe how nature works.  Nature is a complex entity, much more complex than our most advanced technology, and it works incredibly efficiently and resilliantly.  Go somewhere you can find a relatively undisturbed natural place and sit quietly while observing the interactions.  The longer you stay the better, whether its sitting quietly for an hour or for 3 days.  Observe how nature works and adopt its patterns into your life.
• Do opposites to acheive balance.  If you just lifted somehting heavy, lift somehting light.  If you were just angry, practice being calm.  If you've been calm all day, work on getting excited about something.  If you've been working for 70 hours, take a vacation. 

These are just a few of the exercises you can do, and the list is virtually limitless.  Be creative with your time as you only live once.  Please share a comment with the things that you do in your life to explore Life, because it can only lead to enlightenment.