Less baggage helps

Rajesh Bhola

Life is a matter of relationships and not accomplishments or acquisitions. Nothing brings greater joy in life than the people whom the Almighty has placed in our life journey. A child’s little hand on the back of the neck, the embrace of wife, interaction with friends, the laughter of home life, nothing compares to this. Relationships provide unparalleled fulfilment.

At the same time, nothing brings greater heartache than the breakdown of those relationships. Neither health problems nor financial difficulties hurt quite like conflict in a marriage, or the loss of a lifelong friend. When relationships do not work properly, the pain is indescribable.

It is, therefore, impossible to maintain right relationships with other people unless a person first has a right relationship with the Almighty. Fellowship with Him, the vertical dimension of life, is prerequisite to fellowship with other people on the horizontal plane. The horizontal dimension is the earthly aspect concerned with the preoccupations of money, relationships, work, security, advancement and all about having everything material in this consumer society. The vertical dimension is attainment on the spiritual front and a supremely important thought of being one with everything.

This meaningful thought takes us to a higher purpose of life and enables us to being rather than having, on the quality of our moment by moment living rather than quantity of what we are getting. Understanding the vertical dimensions of the personality is fundamental to our individual growth and evolution. This thought of great compassion helps us in leading a better life and to find the vertical dimension of existence.

In the flat world, more means better. The more we have, the happier we think we will be. That is horizontal thought. The spiritual path begins with giving some things up. On the vertical dimension, most of the things the horizontal lovers cherish seem like unnecessary burden. How can one rise to the heights while carrying so much baggage?

If everyone moves up on level of psychological and spiritual health and keeps this supreme thought of higher purpose in mind, we will be able to let go of all the trivia that otherwise would lead to greed, hate and conflict in our everyday life and would live in an entirely different world; that is when shift from the horizontal to the vertical dimension. That is enlightenment. In this life there are many ups and downs. This is a path which can be treaded passionately. That is what having a vertical dimension all about.

There is another aspect which tells us about how to achieve vertical dimension. In space consciousness there is no future and no past. There is only the present. This is what is called "emptiness." Because it is an opening into the vertical dimension, which has no limit. Problems need time, that is to say past and future, to survive. On the other hand, if we let our focus drift back to the past or forward to the future, we are functioning in the horizontal dimension, and this leads to an expanded differentiation of forms deriving from ego constructs.

Entering the vertical dimension requires a high degree of ‘presence’. The ‘now’ needs to be the main focus of our attention. But the point is not to be limited to that dimension alone. The arising of space consciousness, a shift to vertical rather than horizontal awareness, is the next stage in the evolution of humanity, and it is happening more and more as our awareness remains in the now moment.

A spirit of freshness of perception is possible to us that most people only rarely experience. Enhanced awareness of the immediate natural environment is a very powerful influence on the psyche. To be mindful is to keep in mind.

For all our delusion that we see on our planet in terms of the way human being behave, it is partly because human beings do not appreciate the incredible resources and beauty that exist within them, and in their relationships at all the realms of their consciousness: inside themselves, potentially in their relationship with other people, and super-personally in relation to the absolute or to the transcendent nature. If we realize that this earth is a Garden of Eden, on horizontal plane also, we have everything we need to become completely happy and blessed.