Since I haven’t written about what I’m up to for a while, I’ve decided to make this post about this subject.

This article is different from the video. Here I write about a few spiritual developments in detail, whilst in the video I touch on more happenings from my life without expanding on them.

As I’ve anticipated, life in this Lithuanian village is peaceful. Especially now, when it’s autumn time, almost no one remains in this area. In the summer sometimes people listen to music and they trim their lawns, but when it’s autumn, almost everyone leaves. So days are absolutely noise-free, with the exception of pleasant nature sounds.

In the above video I told that I’d been living in this village for three months now. But now, as I’m counting, I realize that it’s actually four. Four months without travel sounds incredible. Compared to the lifestyle that I led, this is a huge change.

The mind always tries to trick you into thinking that the grass is greener anywhere else but where you are. So I’ve found my mind doing that as well.

It sometimes dwells on India as though that time was somehow better than the life that I lead now. But that’s only a trick. This is how the mind works, making people always chase after something they don’t have, and not appreciate the things that are right in front of them.

It’s sometimes tough for me because of this tendency of the mind. I don’t allow my mind to fool me into thinking that the grass is greener somewhere else. I know it isn’t, my travels proved it. Yet, like it is typical for all humans, the mind tries to convince you that life is better anywhere else but where you are at the moment.

So when you know those mind tricks, you quickly arrive at a painful realization that this life is devoid of the ideals that you hold in your head. You go through a sort of grieving process when you arrive at that stage, because you let go of faulty concepts and you have to face the reality of the situation. You have cherished those faulty concepts maybe all your life, so when they are dying, it’s painful.

The law of compensation is always at work. Anywhere you are, there will be an equal mix of good and bad. But you sometimes focus only on the bad, and sometimes only on the good, so you may miss this inescapable law.

For example, many Indians dream of living in the US and see India as an undeveloped country to flee from if at all possible. They chase this dream hard. Some of them succeed, and some – don’t. When the lucky ones eventually move to the US, they often find it very difficult to deal with the diametrically opposed culture with totally foreign values.

This creates immense inner tension in them – I know this because I had many Indian friends when I was living in the UK, and they opened up to me. They grow to really dislike the culture of developed countries, and their lives usually become all about earning money rather than really enjoying what this new experience has to offer.

They might be better off financially in the US, but many grow cold towards mostly all the new country is about.

This trade off will always be, because of the law of compensation.

I can give another example from my own life. When I was staying in different hotels and was traveling all the time, I found such a life exciting for many years. But it was also stressful. I had to worry about not overstaying my visa, it was expensive to buy flight tickets, get visa extensions and pay hotel bills.

Plus, you cannot even relax when you’re out anywhere in India, because locals will always be curious about you. I, as a private person, would rather blend in not to be noticed at all, so it was tough to always be in the spotlight, so to speak. Since, being a blogger, I’m a public personality already, it’s important for me to balance that by being not recognized or paid attention to at least where I live.

Now when I live in this village, I don’t need to worry about visa extensions or flight tickets, and life costs less. I feel completely at peace here because I look like other Lithuanians (obviously), so there’s no special attention. I feel happy to be able to freely ride my bicycle to another village, without being the center of attention. I’m joyful to just do work in my garden, without anyone looking at what I’m up to. (For those who lived in India for a while – you know what I mean!)

Yet it’s impossible to escape the negative aspect of this experience, due to the mentioned law of compensation. I always stay in the same place, which is something I’m not used to. So the craving for the variety sometimes arises.

Also, although I received unwanted attention in India, people were generally kind and polite. Not in Lithuania. It’s difficult for me to deal with innate negativity, aggressiveness and cold hearts that many people have in Lithuania, which makes me want to avoid any sort of conversation with people here if at all possible.

Yet when I think of a possibility to live in India again, I know that I would not want that. And when I think of the possibility of traveling all the time again (which I could do even owning land, of course), I know that I no longer want such an active life. I no longer feel excited to sleep in ever-different-hotels and visit different countries. This excitement wears off after much traveling, until you no longer find the experience pleasant.

So that’s the nature of the mind – it always wants you to believe that the grass is greener anywhere else but where you are. However, when you objectively analyze all those other possibilities, you realize that your grass is as green as the grass of any other place!

At the beginning it may be painful to finally understand that there isn’t a dream place to go to, or a goal the achievement of which will make you absolutely content. You cannot escape the true nature of the reality once you see; you cannot unsee when your blinders are off.

But the good news is, that after the grieving process – after realizing that the grass is the same everywhere – you arrive at the state of being totally at peace with all the decisions that you have made. So you have a firm base to work from, rather than having a shaky ground of ideals and dreams that are only valid in your mind.

When I look back at those days when I was just starting to break out of the mass-conditioning, and my days were filled with dreaming about success and taking action to achieve it, I was led by that hope of success. When I achieved what I wanted, the mind quickly jumped to searching for something else to aim for!

This is the nature of the mind. It makes people run after this or that goal all their lives. This thirst for life is called trishna in Pali. It’s what makes us reincarnate. It’s the driving force not only of humans but of all beings – the thirst for life makes this physical existence continue.

Everyone thirsts for something. Even spiritual people thirst for spiritual understanding or liberation. That’s why in some Eastern occult schools it is taught not to thirst for anything because as long as you do, you cannot see clearly.

Some truth-seekers in India understood this profound teaching wrongly, interpreting non-desire to be non-action. Some sects in India firmly believe that if you take no physical action, you will become enlightened! They still have the goal in mind, they still chase after that elusive end-result, and as long as they do, liberation will escape them.

All is a play. In this world nothing is real. I can see now that even spiritual search is just a pattern some persons follow. As long as any kind of desire exists, one will miss the door to liberation.  Yes, a thirst for liberation will get you on the path, but it will have to drop for you to finally arrive.

So if you imagine yourself a sanyasi somewhere in Himalayas, or meditating in a Buddhist temple, you are still chasing after a dream which prevents you from fully waking up.

How easy it is to say such words, but how few will really understand them. And there’s really nothing much you can do if you aren’t yet ready to wake up. You cannot make a flower bloom if it’s not its time yet. The time will arrive, however, whether in this life or in future ones, enabling you to see this world for what it is.

The world’s a stage, and we are all actors. All of us play a certain role, and the difference between those who are awake and those who aren’t is that the awake ones know that they play those roles, that they aren’t those personalities that they happen to be born as at this time; unawakened ones, on the other hand, are fully identified with their personalities.

So if a person thinks himself to be a spiritual teacher personality, or a meditator personality, he’s still trapped in Maya.

This subject is so simple, but only those who are ready will truly understand what I’m saying. And I don’t really think one can fully understand it until they go through this experience. It feels like death when you arrive at this realization, but you have to die to the faulty view of things in order to be resurrected to the truth.

Now I understand why Krishnamurti said that there is no goal. There really isn’t. Life is what you make it. Being stuck in any belief system, even if it’s yoga, Buddhism or anything else, will prevent you from fully seeing.

Yes, some systems of belief may show the way, but at the end they are pointers and not the destination. Such realization isn’t a happy state to reach, but it’s a necessary one. Like a newborn babe, with the mind empty of preconceived notions, you need to learn what this world is really about.

My restrictions are falling away. My beliefs are melting. I feel so free. Now I understand that it’s so dangerous to get stuck into any belief system – this will keep you partially blind, no matter how spiritual the belief system is.

That’s why archons work hard to get any truth-seekers who strive to free themselves into religions, sects or certain belief systems. Because they know that as long as you are a new-ager, a Buddhist, a yogi, a meditator, or whatever other label you apply to yourself, you will still stay in their grip because you are caged in a concept.

What I’m going through now, therefore, is difficult. But it’s necessary. I see my past self as close-minded but I don’t feel any regret because it was an unavoidable stage of growth. I was identified with the spiritual archetype, looking at others through this system of beliefs and judging them accordingly. How blind I was.

I could have learnt so much faster were I to simply listen to those who thought differently to me. As I’m open now, my learning is in leaps and bounds. I let people be as they are so that I am also allowed to be as I am.

There is no perfect state of the world to arrive at, because that’s impossible. The world will always maintain the ratio of 50% good and 50% evil; even with 1% imbalance the world would cease to exit.

There is really no dream country or ideal lifestyle that would solve all your problems, and no goal the achievement of which would put an end to all desires.

There’s really no end goal, nothing to aim at that has the potential of making you totally fulfilled. People will continue chasing goals and dreams, and that is fine; but this can never lead to liberation. Only when one is no longer thirsty for life, and drops all the beliefs and looks around, will they understand.

Hi, I'm Simona Rich, the author of this site.

I'm from Lithuania, though most of the time you'll find me somewhere in Asia.

I write about spirituality and self-improvement, and consult on those topics.

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