When we observe what happens inside ourselves as we live each day, from relational interactions to resting in silence, there is a unique opportunity for seeing how our experiences offer insight into how people, places, and things are shaped by their cultural context in that moment. Culture, and therefore also these lived experiences, are subject to flux and interpretation. I don’t think of culture as “bad” or “good,” but I see it for what it is, at least to me. It’s just a construct. Reality is something else, something much more immediate. Reality is closer to the heart.
And this is not what I would call philosophical theory. To me, it’s feelingful and woven into living here and now. And it’s possible, in my firsthand experience, to be fully engaged with living and stay curious about what is happening at the same time. This is meant in a beautifully practical, relational way that offers us continual doorways to connect with our own intuitive insights.
Does living this way require anything? Only a willingness to simply be. Some call it living headless. For me, this means living according to divine guidance through the vibe in each moment and responding from the Heart, if a response feels required. There can also be silence.
Before, I used to feel irritated by people in the marketplaces trying to sell me things I didn’t need. I looked deeper at myself and felt something was off in my perception. The problem was my conditioning, I found. How? When I sense divisive energy at play, my awareness tends to sharpen and shifts its focus back onto myself. Why? I don’t know. Maybe because deep inside me, I know there is conditioning or ego afoot creating these perceptions of separation, which the heart knows is bogus.
The ego doesn’t want us to look inwards. But by grace, it can happen nonetheless. The only thing is to stay with it and face ourselves. This has saved my life from believing other people’s stories, and my own. My life turned towards vibration and simplicity after that. The gratitude is immense, and there can be no effort, I realize.
Now, when I’m in the marketplace, I see something different. I see people doing their upselling scripts because that’s what our culture has produced. It has nothing to do with the individual. So I just observe and don’t feel bothered. Neither do I intervene because I have learned that each of us will unfold on a unique timeline that is beyond me.
So I mind my own business, and my life is colorful that way.
So when we feel that phenomena around us shouldn’t be this way or that, it’s not really us. It’s conditioning or ego. There is a way out of that loop: we can recognize that what is happening in our experiences of daily living are inroads to insights about what our cultural contexts have been producing in and around us all. The blame then ceases, on all fronts. Acceptance happens. Silence and gratitude follows effortlessly.