Now we’re starting the mastery / mindset subsection of this. Why do I want to always feel motivated to do what I want to do?
Is this a simple case of desire? Well it’s not a ceiling on desires. What I had misunderstood or misinterpreted in that saying growing up. There’s a balancing act between having no desires / just being myself / my true nature and having only worldly desires direct my actions. I get both sides of it.
One side being that if I have a purpose then I don’t need any worldly desires. But isn’t a purpose a desire? Of why I want to live. Of who I want to be. It’s a higher level desire.
So is desire necessary to live? There is a desire to do things that move us away from discomfort. But I believe there is also a type of desire that moves us towards discomfort. That is someone who seeks growth intentionally rather than someone who gets growth haphazardly.
Is comfort a mental state? I think it’s mental, physical, emotional, spiritual. All of the above. But aren’t we also simultaneously moving towards a place of less discomfort when we welcome in more discomfort? A seeming paradox.
The difference is in the types of comforts and discomforts we encounter. Now what if we view the comfort zone (building on some of my previous entries) as starting somewhere in the “middle” of this sphere. We view the comfort zone, and then we have to go beyond someone who we currently are to grow. And that’s true for some people. AND I think for others the learning zone is going inside them. So it contracts / expands inwards. AND it expands outwards. This keeps happening until we’re in comfort with ourselves and the world.
The inward expansion is progressing towards comfort of the self. Of who we are. The outward expansion is progressing towards comfort of the world. Internal comfort. External comfort.
No matter the external circumstances, we have comfort of who we are. No matter the internal circumstances, we have comfort of being in the world. So it’s a dual exploration of the world and ourselves to fill in “our hole” and to expand “the whole.”
It’s like a hollow plastic ball when we’re born. Over time we’re making it more solid AND expanding its size to a baseball size, then to a basketball, to a big beach ball, etc.
Is this what Baba meant by “Expansion is my life”?
Expansion of our comfort zone to encompass more and more of what life is. Obviously not the only answer but I think it’s an answer.
So why do I always want to feel motivated to do what I want to do? Because there will always be more expansion inwards of discovering who I am. The limit going to 0. Then there is expansion outwards of discovering the external world.
But by definition, it’s infinite. And the expansion will never get to infinity. So the motivation will be the desire to continue expanding in both directions.
Now there is a framework to think about this that “both directions” is actually the same direction?
Will understanding more of who I am as an introvert / self-explorer lead to extroversion / external-exploration? And the opposite question of someone who is an extrovert in a general sense: will they understand more of who they are by experiencing more of the world? I’d say so.
Hmm, in this axis, there is a center point let’s say of (0,0). The issue I think is we have a positive number line with the top, right and forward directions of this axis. But we have a negative number line associated with the bottom, left, and backward directions of the axis. Then people associate negative numbers, which are completely arbitrary in this case, to negative movement or lack of growth.
So instead of that, why no label them as I for inward and O for outward. So for people who naturally learn about the world through introspection or being alone or who get energy naturally that way (a general description for which I’m using introvert here), learn as much as you can about yourself as quickly as you can to get more confidence in your place in the world. For people who naturally lean towards learning about themselves through experiencing life with others, getting energy when being with others, etc. (a general description for which I’m using extrovert here), have as many external experiences with others as quickly as possible to have more confidence in your place in the world.
Of course, there’s a seeming contradiction here with non-duality. But there isn’t. These are just two ways of looking at the same thing. Of knowing who we are and knowing the Universe. Just “two” different paths. There aren’t just 2 paths, there are infinite. And people aren’t ‘introvert’ or ‘extrovert’ categorically. It’s fluid.
You can do both simultaneously. In a 2D framework, it’s like a flywheel. One helps the other. In a 3D framework, it’s a bubble / sphere.
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