Balanced Thoughts | Balanced Behaviour
Skilled People Need Knowledge, Focus and Practise
Importance of Balance
Relatively few people develop advanced skills that come from years of study and disciplined practise. They, like us, are influenced by education, peers, friends, family and media tinsel just as we are, but they manage to focus on what they want to achieve.
There's no reason why you and I can't do the same, but we may be preoccupied with developing a career, gaining an income and raising a family. If we are preoccupied in this manner we may be less aware of what can be achieved by mental focus and disciplined training, especially if our thoughts are not focused on a specific goal.
When we become more aware of our thoughts we increase our awareness of the influences that are driving our behaviour. In Eastern thought, especially in India, the energy that drives human behaviour is thought to be in 7 areas around the spine, the chakras.
The Materialism Chakras
The lower centres below the navel are focused on survival, security, sexuality, and self-esteem. The behaviour of this energy is used to find food, shelter, and sex. So the lower chakras are focused on service-to-self behaviour.
Above the navel around the spine level with the heart there is an energy centre that is focused on our ability to give and accept love and compassion. It is the centre that makes us aware of beauty and more sensitive to the needs of other people. We may think of it as a bridge energy between basic survival and spiritual energy.
As we age and search for understanding we discover, among many other things, the concept of balance. That self-pleasing service-to-self thoughts need to be balanced by thoughts and intentions of helping others.
Know a Tree by Its Fruit
A small change in awareness can have far reaching consequences. Awareness of other people around us frees energy for the benefit others.
This leads me to a wider awareness of planet Earth. I think of it as a shared facility. A beautiful blue space craft containing many interesting life forms which live, learn, share and grow and die. It's a complete eco-system of which we humans are a significant part.
Planet Earth as a Space Craft
There's nothing on this blue 'space craft' that's worth fighting over and claiming bits as 'mine' or 'yours'. Fighting creates imbalance, but you, I, and all the world's armies, are simply travellers who at some point arrive at a personal destination when we depart. We just happen to be travelling together in the same craft for a while.
So let's take the opportunity to look around and become conscious of the fact that it's an amazing craft that we are travelling in. Some of our co-travellers are a little difficult to live with. They are noisy and don't seem to have much respect for the other passengers, or even for the craft that's carrying them silently through space and time. Others, however, are delightful to be with.
A Different Perspective
If you're interested in martial arts then you may appreciate this short combat video clip. It's not a particularly beneficial use of the Creator's energy, but it demonstrates an aspect of the amazing source-energy that is accessible to us through disciplined thought.
To balanced that somewhat aggressive video you like to listen to this short music-video clip. The words are from the book, Ami, Child of the Stars ... It's the same thought-behaviour topic, but with a layer of sugar coating to entice you to consider an unusual set of thoughts.
Short Music Clip - Ami "Child of the Stars"
Think Deeper | Look Beyond the Obvious
James