Inspiration Archives: Dennis Waite

You can only achieve so much in life. There will always be someone who can run faster, write better, or make more money. You may realize your ambitions but this only ever raises the barriers. Science continually discovers more and more, but the horizon recedes, the expanding knowledge bringing the realization that we know even less now than we thought we did before.

Whatever we do in the world can only bring temporary satisfaction.

Our bodies may be all that we could wish for - whether it is physical prowess that we desire or attractiveness to the opposite sex (even if only at the expense of steroids or plastic surgery). But it is unavoidable that such physical attributes will decline - weakness, wrinkles, disease and death are inescapable facts of life.

Mind too may retain its acuity, and memory its accessibility and reliability, for only a while before the aging process exposes their fallibility.

This being the case, how can we motivate ourselves to 'live to our full potential' or 'fully live our dreams'? It seems inevitable that any attempt to do so is doomed to ultimate failure.

And so it would be, if it were not the case that the way in which we are looking at the situation in which we seem to find ourselves is entirely mistaken. We are looking in the wrong direction - out into the world that we believe to be the reality instead of inwards to discover who we really are.

How would it be if we are not the physical body or the mind at all, that we do not actually 'do' anything? We may complain if we are obliged to wear old clothes but we never make the mistake of thinking that we actually are the clothes.

If you think back to a memorable moment in the past, can you remember how it felt to be 'you'? Is it not the case that your body now is quite different from what it was then? It doesn't just feel different; most of the cells literally are different. How, therefore, can you be the body?

And it is the same with the mind. How many times have you changed your opinions? You now know many things that you didn't as a child (and have quite possibly forgotten much more). 'You' can see your body and thoughts - how can you be them? And is it not the case that 'you' feel exactly the same as you did then?

Bodies in themselves are inanimate - just visit a mortuary if you have any doubts. Every 'thing' in the universe consists of inert molecules, which are made up of atoms and, in turn, sub-atomic particles. By giving a name to a particular form of matter, we as though imbue it with a separate existence. But this is a delusion.

The only reality is the consciousness that effectively 'creates' this universe. In fact, there is ONLY this consciousness. This is our true nature. And what could be more inspirational than that?