In the new Social Media age, it’s a lot easier to see really what these NBA players have regarding both material wealth as well as fame wealth.
Social Media followers, likes, shares, comments, and hearts show fame on a scale like never before.
Cars, homes, boats and other materials show fortune on a scale like never before…
It is one thing to be in all the movies, Netflix series, ESPN highlights, but now, we see ALL that PLUS the millions of followers via Social Media outlets like Facebook and Instagram.
However, for those of you who are desperate for fame, fortune, followers, and engagement, just PAUSE for a quick moment.
And let’s take a look at what the NBA Commissioner Adam Stern had to say regarding NBA Players.
“We are living in a time of anxiety,” Silver said, via ESPN. “A lot of players are UNHAPPY.”
I’ve heard a lot about a lot of rich people being in the top 1% of the world financially. Now, I’m not sure what financial bracket NBA players in, but it’s likely they are somewhere around the .001% of the wealthiest people in the world.”
Now, what about the fame bracket?
NBA players are some of the most famous people in the world. They are up there with the world’s most famous by a long shot.
So, players likely have close to the most material wealth, the most fame, the most financial wealth, close to the most followers, AND YET A LOT OF THEM ARE UNHAPPY?
Does that mean that they cannot be happy as NBA players?
Well, for one, the terms happiness and unhappiness don’t really have any clear definitions to make that claim.
How can one be something when there is no clear definition as to what that even means?
Sometimes things happen in my life when I am unhappy for that moment. Does that mean I’m an unhappy person?
Sometimes things happen in my life when I’m feeling happy. Does that mean I’m a happy person?
Or does it mean that all experiences are coming and going, and our emotions fluctuate depending on what’s going on, how we are interpreting them based on an infinite number of different factors that have conditioned our perception?
There must be something more concrete that every human being on the planet is truly looking for.
Something that is a lot more stable than the appearance and disappearance of happiness and unhappiness.
I will tell you what every being is looking for without thinking twice about it.
Peace
I had someone in a Facebook group recently ask me how I could assume to know what EVERYONE wants on this planet?
He was clearly referring to the subjective and opinionated difference in our perception of wants and desires. So, how could one person make such a claim for all 7.5 billion people on this planet?
The reason why I can say this, is because in order to find this peace, you mind look beyond the subject/object and see that which is one awareness.
So, I’m not speaking from a subjective standpoint, but having known the most unbelievable peace in every cell of my body, which required me to look past the separate self, and to see from that which is one.
Peace is the natural state of every human being on this planet, regardless of the perception, perspective, opinion, or outlook.
But don’t believe me, see for yourself.
However, in order to see for yourself, you must know who you are beyond name and form.
Peace exists in the brain, in the nervous system & on a cellular level. It’s not something to be believed in, but to be known, in the here and the now.
In the here and the now, AS the here and the now.
What every human being truly wants is to know his/her natural unconditioned state.
It is the conditioning in the mind that says, I want fame, I want fortune, I want followers, I want more than what currently is. And when you want more than what currently is, then there is pain.
Your natural state is free from desire, free from projection, and thus, completely free.
The reason you may be unfamiliar with your natural state is described in a great way in the book Perfect Brilliant Stillness.
“Edwin Abbott’s Flatland became popular among students. The small book was originally written in 1884, but it found a new interest and several reprintings as it resonated with the counterculture and mood of the Nixon years.
Flatland is a two-dimensional universe inhabited by two-dimensional beings who know only width and length, such as the stick figures you might draw on paper.
Imagine this stick figure is trying to be described in-depth as a person.
Existing on the flat plane of the paper, they know nothing of height or depth, which do not exist in their world.
Consequently, they have never thought of these ‘unreal’ directions or dimensions and have no words for them; our words “height” or “depth,” “above” and “below,” as well as the ideas or concepts which these words represent to us, do not exist in their world.
The book narrates the experiences of one such two-dimensional being, a square, when his comfortable two-dimensional life is invaded one day by an incomprehensible creature from another dimension: a sphere. Only gradually was the square able to come to comprehend the initially disorienting experience of a third dimension.
Needless to say, a great difficulty arose when the square tried to express his experience to other two-dimensional figures like himself.
How does one describe “above” in a context where there exists only forward, back, and two directions of sideways?
The square tried using existing words “forward, but not forward, a different forward,” and tried using new words he had learned from the sphere, but “above” was only nonsense syllables to the Flatlanders.
So, the square, who knew he had had real experiences of this third dimension, found himself being regarded as an idiot talking nonsense.”
So the point of this was that although you may not be aware of the bliss, the peace, and aliveness, as a result of not knowing your natural state does not mean that it is not already looking directly through your eyes right now.
You can only know your natural state by knowing the present, through the body.
The now that can be felt through the body, but cannot be understood, grasped, or interpreted by the thinking-mind JUST as the squares could not understand above, below, height, or depth.
But UNTIL that square was capable of being able to know above and below, it would be in a similar rut as the NBA player making $40 million/year between his team contract and NIKE/Adidas deals, subconsciously wondering why there exists the feeling of pain in his experiences on such a consistent basis.
The square (or the human mind) can ONLY grasp past and future.
It is not until the human being is able to FEEL the present throughout the body, to stop thinking, will it be able to make it off of this hamster wheel of hanging onto the past, and trying hard to get to the future.
Just as the square, who had awakened to the third-dimensional experience, was not able to describe above and below to the other squares, PRIMARILY because words are still stuck in the two-dimensional plane.
No word that I can use can make you stop thinking, can make you feel the ABSOLUTE ALIVE PRESENCE that is running through every one of the particles of your body.
I’m not a biologist or expert on the human body, but it’s almost as if, because we have been interpreting life ONLY through the mind, our brain cells have fused to only what the mind can comprehend, which are past experiences and future projections.
So, without knowing who you are, in the absolute sense, in the here and the now, as the here and the now. This will keep the brain prepared to FOCUS HARD on what happened and what’s going to happen.
So, it’s not even that NBA players and whomever else is unhappy, it’s that they are going through pain because whatever they are achieving is not showcasing them the timeless awareness that can be known through the body.
A lot of “spiritual” gurus will say that you are not the body, and of course, this is true, and yet it is only through the body that you stop believing and start BE-ING.
Hence, the reason we are called Human-Beings.
The human part is survival, which is the number one goal of the mind; it is the being part where we can only know that we are alive in the here and the now, without a SINGLE thought about it.
It’s not to single NBA players out, you can be a famous actor/actress, writer, any sports player, or icon, anything at all and if you had not come to know the natural state of all humans, there will always be a feeling of unease even in the greatest accomplishments.
This, of course, does not mean that if you have fame and fortune, you cannot know your natural state. It means they continue WITH all of that, but with a grounded sense of presence throughout all situations.
Knowing your natural state does not mean that, although it can, your life does not have to change in any way, shape, form, or fashion. It means that you are just more peaceful, more alive during all of your experiences.
Now take a look at this person with eyeglasses on.
Now imagine if this person felt, for whatever reason, that he could NEVER be fulfilled UNTIL he found his eyeglasses.
These eyeglasses were the key to all the abundance, fame, fortune, 100 million followers, all the material wealth one could imagine.
And he thought he had dropped these eyeglasses in the past somewhere. So, the past continued to haunt him and give him nightmares every night.
He searched and searched, anticipated a future over and over again in which he could have these eyeglasses.
He thought to himself.
“Once I get my hands on my eyeglasses, THEN I will be fulfilled, then I will be free, then I will be ALRIGHT.” The thought “then” was always keeping him away from being free.
Meanwhile, he had the eyeglasses on the ENTIRE TIME. He just couldn’t find them because he was looking THROUGH them. And you, who you are in the absolute state, is looking through your eyes.
“Don’t let your mind see through your eyes.” – Mooji
He could never find them materially, experientially & in a person. In fact, he couldn’t ever find them period, because all he just had to do was realize he was already seeing through them.
You are already here, your natural state is already here, you’re already fulfilled, you’re already free, you’re already peaceful and you’re already alive, without needing ANOTHER thing to happen.
In fact, those squares that the sphere saw weren’t really squares. They just thought they were. They weren’t even three-dimensional, they were beyond any name, label, or shape that can be understood or grasped by thought.
To know your natural state, you will have to know that you are shapeless, characteristic less, and objectless.
“Authentic consciousness sees only a radiant infinity in the hearts of all souls, and breathes into its lungs only the atmosphere of the eternity too simple to believe.” – Ken Wilber
Beyond the imagination, beyond any thoughts about other universes or wonderlands, you don’t need to wonder what else is out there, or imagine what could be, or theorize about how the world could look someday.
Just pure thoughtless awareness through the body, right now, and you will know that some abstract concept or idea of happiness does not even matter.
Peace will not be something you believe in, it will not be an idea. Peace will be floating through every one of your cells, and it is the cells that will come ALIVE!
And that vibrantly alive peace is already here now.
Each
And
Every
Move
Is
Complete
Full
Stop.
The
End.