The World of the Senses

The World of the Senses

I've been in KL for almost three weeks already and I think it's probably time for me to start packing for another trip. I've been spending too much time working from all the Coffee Beans and Starbucks around town. Another trip overseas will help me to freshen up mentally. But it also means that I'll come back with even more work.

I haven't been jogging for over a week now. I'm itching to resume tomorrow morning, if I can only pull myself out of bed early enough. When it comes to exercising it is very easy to lose your momentum. Once you stop, it takes enormous willpower to start again.

I mentioned before that when it comes to time, we are all born equal--all of us have 24 hours a day. Some of us make better use of it than others. Perhaps some people have the luxury of having more free time because they don't have to work so hard for a living. But free time is useless if it is simply wasted away satiating the cravings of our senses. Work can also be useless if it doesn't contribute to our growth.

Even when one has already possessed every material want, one still has room to grow--emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. The soul is always growing because it is its nature to do so. At some point, it will come to some religious awakening--a flowering of consciousness.

This could be a good or bad thing, depending on how the person handles it. I've likened it to the experience of first love. It is at this very point that some fall by the wayside to become bigots and extremists.

Every good and bad experience in life contributes to our growth. How much we grow depends on how well we distill the wisdom from our experiences. We always think of knowledge and wisdom as a some kind of content that we slowly accumulate in our brains. It is not. It is actually a process of clearing away the cloud of illusion that hides us from the truth.

And as the haze of ignorance is slowly dispelled, we begin to catch a better glimpse of our divine nature. Ultimately, everything we seek for is already inside us, shining with crystal clarity. We are simply too engrossed in our world of senses to see it.

So we go about our lives, seeking ever more gratifying experience from our senses and wallow in its endless stream of pain and pleasure.