Nature plays a playful hide and seek game, when we try to understand it, and take control. There may not be anything visibly magical about it. But that is your ego center observing.

The ego center is all about cutting pieces from one continuous sheet. This moment (which is flowing to another moment) is a continuous membrane, which we are all part of. Ego, when taken out of proportions, misses this continuous membrane. That ego center itself is a part of the continuous membrane, but does not understand it. The ego center has a role. To help our survival. You don’t have to bring it out, it will automatically jump out and take control of you when needed.

But that is all ego center is meant for. If you live all of your life in the ego center (even when survival is not at stake), you will fragment your existence into so many pieces that one day, it stops helping your survival. It suffocates the life out of you.

So after a certain limit, and a certain level of awareness that you can build by paying loving attention to your experience, the fragments that were created by that sniping scissor of yours will soon start to fade. It won’t be as you want it to though. Hence saying this to someone will not directly change their reality. But with awareness and with the flow of moments, unnecessary layers of ego will peel of. Ego will resist, it will bring despair. But the awareness knows too much, and eventually the despair brought about by ego’s layers will be revealed to be futile and it peels off. And then a new reality. But ego has several unnecessary layers. They will peel off just like this in time.

Have you noticed how everything happening around us has something in common? Regardless of whether it is a person walking, or a bird flying, or a breeze blowing, or distant sounds of vehicles, or the whistle of the wind.

All of this is happening in the now. You can add things happening inside you to that list — insights, judgments, emotions, sensations. Have you ever considered for a moment that everything is connected by this moment? In this moment, someone had to drive, a bird had to soar up, and thoughts had to bubble up. If you take away the moment, you take away the link between a gazillion things.

What if all that you know, see, hear, experience, all that complexity is just layers of complexity on top of something really simple. What if that bird soaring above you or that car passing by you, or that thought bubbling up in your head are deep down just this moment. What if all that is just the ripples on the surface of a common ocean. Or branches, twigs and leaves of a tree. At the surface those ripples have variations, character. Those branches and leaves have forms. But it all came from the root.  If you can observe the synchronicity in everything with their own character, you can see how they are all connected by this moment.

Could we simplify our lives by reminding ourselves of this ocean or tree which we are all part of? This moment. Loving attention to it. Instead of remaining in the complexity at the surface. After all, everything is deep down fairly simple. This moment with a gazillion layers of character on it. Those gazillion layers of character are just for the collage, and the real thing is this moment.

We were born naked and helpless. In no time, life progressed, and we are where we are. We are not here forever. When it is over, we will go just as we came.

Life is an incredibly amazing thing. We can never escape that we are an expression of life. And there should be no reason to escape. That is who we will always be. It is just an illusion when we think we are separate from the rest of life. We forget that something is helping us. It has always been helping us in one way or another. Life itself is helping us. Every experience, every emotion, every thought, every physical sensation, every interaction. We have tried to understand, to take control, but we will never be free from the flow of life. Regardless of the illusion of what we have achieved, or what status we have, we are nothing but it – life.

Life flows. You can never hold on too long. You cannot hold on to happiness nor sadness. Nor can you hold on to control, or social structure. Definitely not hold on to fears too long. But what you can do is love and be grateful and trust in this process. Attachments are a tricky thing. Letting go of attachments does not mean breaking a relationship or changing something externally. It is actually no longer being consumed by whatever fear led to that attachment. We forgot along the way the natural process of life. We forgot to be grateful and loving to every moment. Even the most creative, innovative things we have done, have come out spontaneously. It was life expressing itself.

No matter what, remember that life knows a way, it flows.

Who are we? Are we our clothes? Our names? Our thoughts? Our emotions? Feelings in the body? You know it, we are none of that. Because we can shed all of those in one go as a crab can shed its shell or a snake can shed its skin. Are we our bodies?

You know who you are. You always know it. The one that writes honestly in a diary, the one that chooses to wear a certain pair of clothes. The one that secretly likes someone’s personality, but may not be able to express it. The one that has obscure feelings. The one that feels something amazing watching a baby lion and a baby chimp and a baby dog play together. Unfortunately, as time passes, this you gets tied to the shell, all around you. Most of us never really fully shed this shell. As time passes, your consciousness evolves, but the shell around you can remain.

Most of us never get to the point where we can even be aware of the shell. We are so lost in it, that we get in touch with the real us, only at the end of our lives or in moments where we are completely awestruck, and realize the beauty of something that gives us goosebumps. I have good news. It doesn’t have to be that way. But it takes work. You have to first get to the point where you can see the shell. Meditation. Any self awareness practice. Observing things from a place of non-judgement as they are. This will get you 99% of the way. You will see the shell. Not just that, you will have to do this over a period of time to be able to see that the shell is limiting you. And even more time to feel the pain that the shell is causing you. And a little more time to see, that you are sub-consciously holding onto the shell. Those tightening sensations, underneath those emotions, are your cues. When you can be aware of it, and let go of that pull from those invisible little threads in the different parts of your body where you feel it, holding you like a puppet, you can walk out of the shell — fresh and whole. It is like working with muscle memory, when you learn to skii, or learn a new sequence of body movements.

Just like a crab sheds it shell several times, so can you. There is no one all conquering moment. There is just a realization that the real you exists, and you can observe the shell, and shed it when you have reached the point of having outgrown your shell.

This is the secret to opening up. And that my friend is the entirety of this blog.

Ok, I will write more. Just to have a conversation. But that thing above was all I had to say. So you want a story. Well look at every story you can imagine. The climax is always feeling emotions.

So what happens when you don’t feel emotions. You close. It can show up first as tightening of the different parts of your body. Then, rationalizing. Creating judgments. Adding more layers as you don’t want to feel even more emotions. You can go years like this. And during this period, there are parts of your life that are closed, off limits to you. And yes, parts of your body are also closed. And that my friend is how you shut out life.

How do you feel emotions again? When you notice yourself ruminating, trying to run away from something (and survival is not at stake), feeling persistent anger, fear, jealousy, low self esteem, over confidence, urge to criticize, that is your cue. Stop, and notice what is going on. Notice your breath. And when the momentum has calmed down, allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling. You will have a tendency to believe this is not right. Just remember that this is your muscle memory at work. This is how you have rationalized not feeling so many emotions. There is no danger/risk anywhere. It is just emotions and they pass through.

As you open up more to them, you will literally feel your entire senses being pervaded by the feel of that emotion. That is a great thing. Just stay there. 10 minutes, half an hour, you will notice changes. Perhaps more emotions you have been resisting. The process goes on. If you stick with it, sometime set aside everyday, you will feel lighter. You will get a realization that emotions are temporary. They pass through. Most negative behaviors are a result of an impulsive attempt to not feel that unwanted emotion.

Eventually you will feel more present. More constructive. Connect with people better. You will feel life. And nothing comes close to it.

As I was getting deep into personal development, and becoming more and more conscious about little things in my daily life, I was often a little confounded by the spectrum of my beliefs.  On one end, there was “how you feel inside shapes your experiences” and “you should enjoy good social connections”, “you should sleep well”, and on the other end was “be open to your present experience”.

Lets take the simple example of sleeping well. It seemed pretty straightforward. Do all the right things to help sleep better. Try to go to bed at a predetermined time everyday, so that your body develops a habit of sleeping at a certain time. Try to figure how to minimize noise in your sleep environment. Exercise early in the day. Eat light dinner, and at least 2 hours before your bed time. Avoid drinking too much water close to bed time. Make sure your sleep environment is cool. The list kept going on, and you can see it is not trivial to ensure all the requirements. While building a habit of going to bed at a predetermined time is doable over a stretch of time, minimizing noise and maintaining a cool environment is not that easy to control. While it is possible to eat smaller portions for dinner and preferably 2 hours before bed time, but depending on how the rest of the day went, this can be easily missed.

I struggled to keep this simple goal of sleeping well. In fact, sleeping became harder the more conscious I became of my struggle with sleep, and how I would miss the requirements. I was only able to regain my sleep composure by realizing that being open to the present experience was the best thing I could do. If I don’t sleep well, be open to it. It is life. Everyday is different. At least this way, I was not adding undue stress.

This made me look back at every little thing I would call a success in my life. Did I anticipate it? Usually not. Sometimes yes, but a lot of times no. Did I work for it? Yes. Was I lucky? Yes. What was the biggest hurdle to success? Was it not working for it? Sometimes. Was it thinking about the result? Sometimes. Was it just bad fortune? May be a few times. When did I have most success? When I worked hard, but also tempered expectations. When did I work hard and also tempered expectations? When I was open to the present experience.

Being open to the present experience is actually a pretty smart way to live life. In fact what other option do we have. What is here is here. If we don’t accept it, we will spend a lot of time in our head ruminating, complaining about the present experience over and above our original worries. If we accept it, we are lighter. We keep moving, and we actually become more in sync with life as a journey, enjoying the subtle flavors and getting aha moments every now and then and less obsessed with imaginary goals. And yes, with the load unloaded, it is easier to be happy. Are we being a negligent by accepting the present moment? The opposite. We are accepting what is already here, how is that negligent? What about goals? What about them? Well if we value them enough and they mean enough, we would have values that steer us in the direction of the goals, given our present reality. It doesn’t have to come by ignoring or running away from our present experience. Definitely not by adding whole layers of undue stress.

And in hindsight, things usually just work out this way, whether we want it to or not. Look back at your life. You were never 100% in control. Not for long periods of time at least, or not without a lot of undue stress that ruined your health later on.