Looking at The World Through The Eyes of The Inner Artist
Hello everyone.
Love is perhaps the highest defined vibration within this universe.
But what is love?
Love is pure positive focus.
When we are focusing positively towards something,
we are in a vibration of love.
And because this is such a high vibration,
and because focusing positively
enables you to hold this vibration,
I want to teach you a process today;
It's called:
Looking at the world through the eyes of the inner artist.
Everything in existence
is an expression and an extension of source.
And art is an expression.
So it can be said,
that all things in existence are art.
As an extension of source
you are imbued with the ability to create.
Every being in existence is therefore, at their core, an artist.
We are all artists.
An artist celebrates beauty,
an artist recognizes
the beauty even in the things that are considered unanimously, to be ugly.
An artist recognizes what is poignant,
even about the most mundane things.
Beauty is defined as a characteristic
that provides the perceptual experience of pleasure.
We can train ourselves to see beauty in everything.
We can view this earth
through the eyes of our inner artist.
I am convinced that this is one of the most essential
spiritual practices of all.
When we practice seeing the world in this way,
the entire world transforms itself into a work of art.
The movements of a crowd of people,
which once seemed erratic, begin to seem like a dance.
The person who once seemed obnoxious,
becomes a bell of mindfulness
that brings us back to the present moment.
You can use this process every day
to enhance what you're already enjoying.
You can use it
so that you can recognize the beauty in the mundane things
that you wouldn't have taken notice of,
and you can especially use it,
to eradicate resistance from your being.
When you feel resistance within you,
that is you're looking at something that is unwanted or unpleasant,
you can practice looking at that thing through the eyes of the inner artist.
Act as if you're going on a scavenger hunt
for that which is truly beautiful
about whatever it is that you're looking at, or thinking about.
This practice works towards everything,
including events,
people, feelings, objects,
circumstances, sounds... The list goes on.
It is perhaps the very best tool to use
when you are visually observing something
that you have resistance to.
I'll give you a personal example;
One day I was sitting on a park bench
and a man who walked by
flicked a used cigarette butt at my feet, on the sidewalk.
I was revolted at first.
To me it seemed like more evidence
that the world was forsaken.
But I had committed myself to the practice of non resistance,
and so, I reminded myself
that the feeling of resistance within me, was a call to ripen.
It was a call to ripen my perception.
Source does not recognize ugliness,
it recognizes only beauty.
Beauty even in the rotting and deformed and afflicted.
And so I made myself watch the cigarette butt, for a full hour.
It took 15 minutes to get past my resistance,
But once those 15 minutes passed by,
a greater truth was revealed to me.
That greater truth was beauty.
It was like a whole other world had been revealed to me,
a whole other possibility of perception.
I watched this object which is unanimously considered ugly,
but ugliness is no longer what I saw.
I watched it floating in the breeze back and forth along a sidewalk.
I watched it as it was crushed again and again
under the heel of many a tennis shoe.
Leaving little sprays of burnt tobacco on the cold cement.
I realized that disguised beneath the generally assumed ugliness
of this piece of garbage,
was the lesson of allowing.
The cigarette butt was completely absent of resistance.
It did not resist the dominance of the wind.
It did not resist the crush of the shoe.
It had given its life and service.
In fact,
its entire purpose for existence
was to offer someone a moment of relief.
And suddenly, I treasured the cigarette butt
that once I had been so repulsed by.
Now before you make the judgment that this last exercise
glorified litter,
I want to remind you that this is not about
condoning or not condoning something.
It's not about condoning
someone flicking a cigarette bud on the ground or not.
This is not about right or wrong.
This is a practice which is designed to enable you to release resistance,
within your being.
People make an inaccurate assumption,
and that is, that we must be horrified into action
or repulsed into action.
We attach very strongly to our resistance,
because we are convinced that resistance
will keep us on the path of righteousness.
This is inaccurate.
For example,
we do not have to be horrified into a state of resistance,
in order to take action to prevent child abuse.
We can instead, take action
to enable children to live safe, free, healthy lives,
from a place of inspiration.
We do not have to hate cigarette butts to pick litter up off the floor,
we can love a clutter free world,
to pick litter up off the floor.
And this is a very important distinction to make.
All resistance to something does,
is lend energy to that thing that is unwanted.
All resistance does,
is rot you from within.
Resistance is an affliction.
And it's an affliction which gives rise to great inner peace,
when we are able to look at the world
through the eyes of the inner artist.
You will feel the resistance inside you dissipate.
But I don't want you to wait
for something to have resistance towards,
to practice this particular process.
Use it whenever you're feeling really good,
to feel even better.
Use it to recognize the beauty in even the most mundane things.
For example, a pen.
Most of us are desensitized
to the beauty within the pen,
because this is a mundane object we are all desensitized to.
But if you take the time to look at the pen
through the eyes of the inner artist,
you start to recognize the craftsmanship of the ballpoint.
You start to recognize,
the amazing geometry involved
in the craftsmanship of the shaft.
You begin to notice the richness
and color of this ink,
which is inherent within the pen.
You begin to appreciate the fact
that this pen enables us
to maintain and to keep thoughts
which are fleeting.
It enables us to communicate meaning through symbols.
To see the world through the eyes of the inner artist,
is to see the world through the eyes of truth.
The being within you does not recognize ugliness.
Your true self only sees beauty in every single thing.
It recognises beauty even in the things which scare you,
even in the things which cause you pain.
We are in pain when we recognize something as ugly
and when we resist it,
because in that moment we have deviated
so very far from our true selves.
Those moments that we feel the most resistance to something,
are in fact the moments
which offer us the greatest opportunity.
It's an opportunity to see things clearer.
To see things as they really are.
To recognize the beauty within every single thing.
Have a good week.
Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte www.tanyaduarte.com