Using The Phenomenon Of Desiring To Save Others To Develop Ourselves

As we begin the process of developing ourselves, we naturally become more aware of certain subtler aspects of our own lives. This is a biproduct of us having become engaged with a process that helps us to become more conscious, and so by having become engaged with this process it is as if those subtler aspects of our lives come more firmly into our awareness. These subtler aspects of our lives were always there, only our less conscious interaction with the world kept many of these subtler details out of our awareness. Therefore, as a biproduct of our increasingly conscious mode of observation, and as a result of us engaging with this process at continually deeper levels, we finally become aware of certain patterns that exist in our lives.

It is these patterns that are often referred to in these writings as the ‘cycles of our lives’ and, although our whole life could be viewed as one large cycle from birth to death, this larger cycle can also just as easily be split up into a number of much smaller cycles. The much larger cycle of our lives should more accurately be thought of as being the aggregate of these smaller cycles. Although each of these smaller cycles may be constituted of a variety of different events and experiences, we often find that it is as if each of these smaller cycles has a predominant ‘theme’ running through it. These smaller cycles will also tend to overlap one another, meaning that a large number of them can be concurrently active at any one time in our lives. 

If we are actively involved with our self development, it is only then natural that we become aware of these underlying themes as the cycles unfold, as each of these themes are brought more clearly into our awareness by the various shifts that occur within our internal landscape. In many ways then, our resolution of any of the key aspects related to these themes represents the closing of a cycle for us. It may be easier for the reader to understand the idea being put forward if we were to create an analogy that can give them something which is practically relatable. At the foundation of this analogy we can draw a parallel between how we generally categorise films into genres and how each of these cycles has a primary focus or theme. 

We will typically identify and categorise one film as being part of a genre because a key aspect of its story relates to that genre. For example, we may identify a film as being a ‘comedy’ because many of the subjects and scenes contained within it tend to make people laugh. This is despite the fact that this film could have science fiction, action, romance and tragedy contained within its scope as well. We try to define films by genres so that individuals who are looking for a film to watch can pick a film that relates to the ‘type’ of story they would like to watch without having to know the full story before watching it. For example, as was mentioned before, although there may be some action, romance, drama and comedy in a film, we will label that film as being a ‘comedy’ when we think that the predominant theme running through all of its scenes is comedic in nature. This is what stands out in the film for us, like some thread that we can imagine existing throughout every scene. Therefore, someone looking to have a light-hearted and funny experience when watching a film is likely to choose something which has been identified as being part of the ‘comedy’ genre.

In some way then, we can think of each of these ‘themes’ and cycles in our own lives, from the perspective of our personal development, like a genre that has been identified as existing in all of the different ‘scenes’ of our life at that period of time. Although there may be many different themes playing out at that exact moment of our lives, the themes being discussed here would be the aspects of our lives which are most predominant. Additionally, as our conscious perception becomes clearer, we also find that we begin to be able to perceive additional themes which appeared to not exist before. The identification and resolution of each of these themes is a part of the total process of our personal development. Working through them helps us to resolve and remove the various blocks that already exist in our conscious perception. Depending on the nature of any particular theme, there will consequently be certain actions that we can choose to take in that cycle which will indicate the degree to which we have internally realised the key ‘lesson’ or theme unfolding in our lives as a lived experience at that time.