The modern world is full of confusion, stress, workload, emotional attachments, selfishness, jealousy, anger issues, Oedipus complex, childhood trauma, abandoned child syndrome, and whatnot. Human suffering has become a norm in our societies. We suppress our thoughts, ourselves. Yet the question arises, can we go beyond our sufferings? Can we break the matrix of all of it? I always ask myself this question. I always ask myself this question, as I am a seeker. I did not just limit myself to Hindu identity but also roamed everywhere irrespective of eastern and western. modern, traditional, and old; religious and spiritual; and so on. Ultimately I found the answer. The answer lies in knowing the self, sharing love, and giving back to nature, the universe, and human society by not expecting anything from it, simply by communicating your needs. That’s what breaks yourself free from any kind of barriers of the suffering.
Now that I know the answer to it, what actually helps to break the matrix? Self-care, definitely, yet how do you do it? Let’s break it down. Here is what I do.
The first step is to break down self-care into the three spheres, dimensions, or levels, however you want to define it. The first one is the materialistic level, the second one is the philosophical level, and the third one is the spiritualistic level.
The first general step, what I name the materialistic level of self-care, is simple. You need time for yourself, just for yourself, so that you can listen to yourself, your thoughts, and your body. To listen to your body, you can do yoga/meditation. How do you do it? Do Pranayam (breathing exercises, and it will help you to reduce your stress), or sit still without doing anything (focus on your body; the traditional will tell you to focus on your breathing, but it makes me nervous, so I focus on the whole body), closing your eyes or keeping them open, and do mudras (it will help you to be in the present), spend some more time in the shower, or be in the bathtub for a long time. FYI, these exercises will help you to deal with your external level of struggles.
Do you think you crossed that level? Do you think you can deal with your material gains and goals soundly? Well, not everything will be as expected as you want, yet the universe will adjust it. If the answer is no, then it’s better to remain in the first one, or else you will mess everything up. If the answer is yes, then deep dive into the second one. How do you do that? Ask yourself if your instinct says you are. Then hop on! Get ready for the philosophical sphere.
The philosophical level is quite interesting. It is an amazing journey to know yourself. The first step in this level of self-care is to know yourself. How do you know yourself? Start questioning yourself. if you think you live on your thoughts. Wake up every day and set the right set of questions every day. For instance, “Who am I? What is my purpose in the world? How am I going to serve in this world? How to break the matrix? How to make myself free from anything?”
If you are healed enough in the first level, the answer would appear automatically in your thoughts. You do not need to force your mind. All you have to do is to hold on. You will go through a lot of struggles; your mind will trigger you through guilt, suffering, traumas, panics, and so on. FYI, these struggles are not your external struggles anymore. It is your inner struggle that is pushing your boundaries to expand, to extend, and to be subtle.
The second step is to know the answers from your thoughts. Your thoughts will tell you why you are here, what your purpose is in this world, and what you are supposed to do. It is just that you need to listen to your tells. However, as you go through the inner world struggle, you need to relieve yourself differently. You can chant mantras, you can pray to your deity, and you can surrender yourself completely to the universe. You do not seek validation from the external world; you do not do people-pleasing anymore. You will be completely alone because you won’t try to please anyone but will be brutally honest. However, what you can do is to keep your temper lower and gently ask them even though they won’t try to understand you.
The philosophic realm will show you the multiplicity of the reality. You will notice split realities where you can separately distinguish simultaneously experiencing your inner world and external world. Your emotions would make a reading and translation of your realities. Try to listen to it subjectively or objectively. You will notice the meaning is coming out, and it will automatically be aligned to it. All you’ve got to do is collectively remember what you went through. Try writing your stories, listening to the tales of others, or perhaps anything you can relate to.
The philosophic realm before your spiritual realm will reframe your identity. So, choose your identities carefully. For instance, Puritanism can be a perfect example. I may not be puritan in a sense of identity framework or religious sense, yet I have a sense of puritanism, where I see babies as a form of puritanism. In this sense, I can sense my older soul rebirthing into a baby soul, where I am aging,, yet my soul remains childlike and playful as a part of my living being. You would notice people would judge you as immature, childish, and so on.
One of the interesting things in this realm is that you match energy, or, so to say, you can relate only to those who are on the same level of energy. You will experience their stories due to some sort of commonality between you both. It is like magic where you unexpectedly end up meeting. Besides, your aura becomes magnetic; any type of determined identity will match you to the same frequency-level souls.
What are the other things that you will notice?
You will see, you have a quite positive aura around you. Nature will feel close to you, animals would love to be around you, children would try to communicate with you, and strangers would stare at you and smile. at you, and so on. Yet those who are at a low frequency level would envy you, would try to snatch things from you, and try to destroy you both mentally and physically. Yet what you do is rather stay still and enjoy the changes in your life and be in motion with happiness. Hurrah! Then you have learned to take good care of yourself. You start to enjoy inner bliss, peace, and yourself. How does it feel? You would feel no necessity to react; you would rather be more empathetic, more open, more loving, less emotionally detached, less expectant, and more free and innerly content. Nothing at this level from the outer world would hurt. Because you will be subtle from deep inside.
The spiritual realm is the ultimate reality of the matrix. In this level, you will only focus on yourself. Not just the self, but a deep dive into the world of inversion. You will recognize the inverted world where you bring out the subtle versions of yourself as you would enjoy the varied levels of self. You will feel the need for authenticity then. Your inner child will tell you to be honest with your authentic self. The lotus of your life will start blooming, and you will see yourself within you. Ever watched the movie Inception? Just dream within a dream, the same way you will see the self within the self. What do you do in this level? Start exploring your inner world, your inner world where your voice, your aura, and your expressions come from.