Getting real or still dreaming about paradise?

Getting real or still dreaming about paradise?

Getting real or still dreaming about paradise?

‘Can this be it?’ many of us have asked of life.

Most have, at some time or other, clocked that our world could be a far more harmonious and enjoyable place than it is now. And while we may experience times of great happiness and celebration, these moments do not last, and most are aware of an underlying restlessness, dissatisfaction or tension which signals that the world and the way we live life is clearly not it.

How do we know this? Simply because deep down we are truly intelligent beings who can feel that there is something more to life… something far more.

In the light of this, do we choose to explore this glimpse of awareness or do we push it aside and begin to dream about an alternate reality, a paradise even?

There continue to be countless social experiments to set up alternative ways of living by constructing an enclosed ‘paradise’ for an exclusive set – monasteries, gated communities, artist’s colonies, communes... to name a few. These alternative communities, by and large, have aimed to provide a ‘better life’, an escape and refuge from the mayhem and misery of the ‘outside world’, but in this, ultimately disregard the rest of humanity.

Some recent attempts at reproducing a ‘paradise’ for the A-list elite stem directly from their ancestral model – the fortressed, moated castle. Such ventures are hell-bent on creating theme park gated enclaves for the rich, phantasmagorical duty-free city-states in deserts, and off-shore gilded archipelagos for the super-elite... unfettered by tax law and state regulation.[1]

These examples may look ‘way out’, but are they, in reality, just a more extreme version of our familiar day-dreaming – the idyllic holiday longed-for while at work, the desire to cultivate the paradisiacal garden on an acreage, the ‘good life’ – as relief from the drudgery which we often accept as part of our everyday life?

These constructed alternate realities are an attempt to create an ideal world – some ultimate earthly paradise. But does anyone ever consider how these ‘paradises’ are created and maintained; with workers imported for their construction sleeping in shipping containers, the servant class in these ‘utopias’ subjected to near-slavery conditions – some sleeping in chicken coops on the roof... and closer to home, is not Australia’s border policy and the setting up of Nauru and Manus island to indefinitely detain refugees yet another symptom of the desire to create a world of walled city-states?[2]

Could it be that the desire to construct these ‘paradises’ is in fact a blind and misguided attempt to bury an enormous angst that the way we live as humanity is not it?

The thing is that when we succumb to corralling our group off from the rest of society, desiring to be immune from the world and from true concern for the welfare of the broader public, the ‘whole’ in which we all live is ignored. This causes a rift, a separation, the beginning of a ‘wound’ in society that leads to a diseased state. Is not the separated paradise just like a mutating cell in the homogenous climate of the physical body?[3]

The irony of it all is that the ideal of ‘paradise’, consisting of a conglomeration of images, creates a seductive story that fools us into setting out to make it happen, to achieve it, to build it... and to override any ‘obstacle’ to create it. Yet when we finally get to ‘it’ we find ourselves feeling just as empty as when we started out, simply because the day will never come where we will be satisfied by the search for something outside of ourselves. Yes, we will be distracted for a while in the ‘creating’ process, but in the end we will feel the same emptiness.

This immense investment in a life-style geared to control, protection and excessive consumption ends up serving the interests of a relatively small group of people at the expense of the rest. Such a creation is a falsely-lit cocoon and cannot come from common sense or any real consideration, let alone true love.

Great philosophers like Pythagoras, Francis Bacon and many others, have presented possible lifestyle models that humanity could look at, knowing that the way we are living is not true. In his The New Atlantis (1624) Bacon presents a new world, an evolutionary society, Bensalem, which is based upon its citizens’ brotherly love, true discernment and their inner-council of wisdom.

All the while the world as we know it is totally set up for us to try and build something special ‘out there’, when in fact the very opposite is what is required for a fulfilling life.

What is required, now as then, is that we simply and humbly return to essentials and re-look at how we are living with ourselves and others. Deep down we all know love. Are we connected to our innermost, a space of exquisite stillness, that delivers a powerful awareness for knowing how to proceed with a loving life? Our re-connection to this place, which Serge Benhayon calls ‘the innate sanctuary of our extraordinariness’, holds the key to the kingdom.

It is this inner connection to our innate divinity that lights the way to building true community. When observed more closely, are not the majority of the very rich just as unhappy as the poor and starving? The level of comfort of the rich and the poor may appear to be vastly different, but the energy or fuel underpinning both scenarios is, for the most part, sourced from the same pool – human misery. ‘Paradise’ might look ‘better’, but as with all ideals, an investment in it creates an energetic containment, isolating us from receiving the full nourishment, wisdom and joy from our inner source, which is available free and gratis to everyone.

What if the way forward is not to island ourselves off into safe, controlled environments and dreamed-of paradises, but to be real, stay living together and re-connect with each other and our own inner truth, ready to participate in our society together and feel the full extent of what is going on in ourselves and our world and start an honest conversation.

Do we really want to live in a fool’s paradise that will only retard our extraordinary potential?

Do we really need to construct another ‘last resort’?

As each one of us accesses the riches of our innermost this quality will infuse our systems and structures with true vitality and workability.

No, we will not have ‘paradise’, we will have something far greater. We will feel truly amazing and alive, as we choose, day by day, to be inspired from the ‘un-gated’ glorious inner-kingdom to live on earth.

"A true sociological study will find that humanity is in deep distaste of the society in which it lives. These words come from a basis of what life can be, ought to be and one day will be with respect to living human life impulsed by our Soul instead of the waywardness of our spirit."

Serge Benhayon Time, Space and all of us – Book 1, p 292


References:

  • [1]

    See Mike Davis & Daniel Bertrand Monk, eds. Evil Paradises, The New Press, New York & London, 2007

  • [2]

    Jeff Sparrow,’ What’s the end game for Australia’s border policy – a world of walled city-states?’ The Guardian, 8 May, 2016 retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/06/whats-the-end-game-for-australias-border-policy-a-world-of-walled-city-states

  • [3]

    This fact is actually well-known to us, as demonstrated by Richard Brooks when he wrote about tax havens in The Guardian, ‘To tackle the cancer of corruption at the heart of the Global financial system, tax havens need not just to reform but to end.’ from ‘Tax havens don’t need to be reformed They should be outlawed’ The Guardian, 5 April, 2016 Retrieved from http://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-guardian/20160405/282200830067653/textview

  • [4]

    Serge Benhayon, Time Space and All of Us, Unimed Publishing, Goonellabah, 2015, p.264

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IllusionHarmonyAnxietyGentle breathPhilosophySon of God

  • By Lyndy Summerhaze, PhD, BA (1st class hons; University medal) Dip.Mus.Ed, Practitioner of Universal Medicine Therapies, EPA Recognised

    Lyndy loves truth, people, and great conversation. She works as a tutor in English Literature and is a practitioner of the healing arts.

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