Human beings want to understand everything. Yet there comes a point when mental understanding becomes detrimental to our simple enjoyment of life and to our appreciation of the deep beauty which exists beyond the thinking mind.

And the truth is, almost everything exists beyond the thinking mind! Yet we allow the realm of thought to become our entire world by limiting our perspective to such a degree that we often find it difficult to see past it.

It is like getting lost in watching a television screen. Essentially, you are staring at a piece of glass with moving coloured lights behind it. These lights form images which stimulate your mind, captivate your attention and lead you to completely forget the outside world as you get absorbed in the content being shown on the screen. It takes you into an illusory realm which is so compelling and interesting, that you just keep on watching it. There is drama, sometimes laughter, happiness and sadness – all range of human emotions are evoked by what is on the screen – and the body feels it all as if it were really happening.

In this way, our feelings are very much at the mercy of what is being shown and told to us, like a news report showing pictures of unhappiness and suffering, whilst informing us that unhappiness and suffering is becoming more widespread, and that we should become concerned about our own safety and well being, as everything is unstable and there is potential threat everywhere around us. This is not ‘the truth’, it is just a perspective, a lens through which we can view the world, if we choose to believe it.

When we finally switch off the television, its effect Still remains in our consciousness. We go outside and instead of fully seeing the beauty of the natural world, the potential for growth and change that exists absolutely everywhere, we continue to be influenced by the negativity that we absorbed from the television. It literally clouds our perception of reality.

The commentary from the television becomes the commentary of our own mind. It is like we super-impose the reality from the TV screen over everything, and it becomes the lens through which we view the world. Thus, we see a world of threat, of suffering and unhappiness. Even when we are in a beautiful place, surrounded by beautiful sounds, feeling the beauty speaking to our heart, our mind will try and invalidate and spoil it with negative ways of thinking, bringing back into our awareness the negative information that we have previously allowed into our consciousness at some point.

With this negative perspective of the world, the mind tries to undermine any real experience of beauty and happiness because it simply cannot accept that the world is a safe place, that the deep beauty of the world has any real value to us, when it seems that our existence, our happiness and our well-being is constantly at threat. We live in anxiety about what may happen, when we could just as easily live in peace.

In this way, the mind tries to dominate our life with its perpetual insecurity about everything: our safety, our health, our finances, our social position, our appearance, our personality… in fact, absolutely everything. Because it is the lens through which we are looking that affects what we see. Looking through a lens of insecurity and fear, we feel that nothing in the world is enough, including ourselves. An almost imperceptible veil of darkness appears over everything, making us blind to the reality which is not dark at all, but in fact full of light.

The clear lens of our mind, which perceives the true light and beauty of reality, is tainted and coloured by the negative perspectives which are encouraged in our mind through the “bad news media” – on the television, radio and in the newspapers. Even if we don’t take it too seriously, it still affects our consciousness. The wisest thing to do would be to no longer subject yourself to its influence by removing negative media sources from your life.

Given its highly compelling nature, especially when shown on a screen in dramatic fashion, we need to be strong enough to move our attention elsewhere, away from the drama, sensationalism and endless negativity of the bad news media, which can be very convincing. It is insidious and specifically tailored to grab our attention and to not let it go, lest we switch off the TV or throw away the newspaper and go outside into nature and experience what is truly real, and let that influence us instead.

If everyone would make this choice, much of the negativity that exists in society would vanish very quickly, to be replaced by the harmony and sense of well-being that the natural world always inspires within us.

On a personal level, we can all do this. Instead of spending our spare time in front of the television or computer screen, or reading newspapers and magazines, go out into nature at every available opportunity. Even if it looks grey and miserable through your window, the harmony of nature is always present, irrespective of the weather, and it will always speak to your heart. It is our heart that needs to be nourished.

Much of the information that we are presented with – through the media, the internet and the advertising which is seen almost everywhere in most towns and cities – speaks to our mind. Our mind is fed and encouraged to be opinionated and filled with thought, and as a result we experience a sense of ‘top-heaviness’ as our head dominates our life, while our heart takes a back seat, strapped in tightly, lest it climb into the front and take the steering wheel!

If only we would allow our heart to fully guide us on our journey through life, we would experience what life is truly about. We would see and feel the greater depth that is present in everything, the joy inherent in being alive, the perfect harmony and timing in which existence operates, in which we are constantly invited to participate.

We only need to bring our mind out of the clouds of thought, to feel our heart and see, through a clear and uncoloured lens, the light which shines through absolutely everything. This is Reality.

Alexander Bell

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