The Contemplative Life — A Journey Beyond Suffering | Ponder Struck (KDPS01)

Words: 2548 ⁘ Length: 15:59 min
⁘ Created: 2025-11-30 ⁘ Updated: 2026-01-21
The Contemplative Life — A Journey Beyond Suffering | Ponder Struck (KDPS01)Play

🪼 Enter the first Ponder Struck anthology! We bring you a collection of core contemplations, exploring four major themes at the heart of wisdom traditions across the ages. Why do we suffer — and where all does it happen? Can one remain grounded while reaching beyond? How do we reach lasting fulfillment? Can mystic systems of awareness actually help you? This is the uncut full story. For an overview and the sources — see the leads below!

⁘ Life of Avoidable and Unavoidable Suffering (PS001) We meet with suffering in our lives. Some of it is unavoidable. Some of it is avoidable. When you try to avoid the unavoidable, reaching for a make-believe world that runs counter to actuality, you generate avoidable suffering. Your physical body is a source of suffering. Your negative emotions generate suffering. Your rational mind suffers with conflicting thoughts. 🎞️ Source: https://youtu.be/eWvF4cih-oA

⁘ Grounded Transcendence • Holding Your Integrity (PS002) Hey you spiritual person. You are not this body — so give me all your money. Oh okay then. That's obviously not how any of this works. But transcendental dissociation and loss of footing in this world is all too common. Double-check your roots. Your physical being, your emotions, your reason, and your roles in life — these are vehicles for your consciousness. Guard their integrity. 🎞️ Source: https://youtu.be/E4qM6gFS-Hg

⁘ Never-Ending Quest for Fulfillment @ Elon, Mark, Donald & Vladimir (PS003) How many roads must a man travel down... In quest for hollow fulfillment? Elon seeks to conquer Mars. Mark seeks to rule your minds. Donald seeks the prime deals. Vladimir seeks the broad throne. Big boys with big games on the grand stage. Even if you accomplished it all. A gaping void would yet be screaming in the dead center of your reality. 🎞️ Source: https://youtu.be/Rc4v9GvaaLk

⁘ Lost in Esoteric Models? Use Your Own Awareness (PS004) Making sense of esoteric models and mystic diagrams? Chakras, Sefirot, Neidan — confused on how to approach it all? Fair enough. Don't stress your brain trying to download and force install external maps. Have a look at the living landscapes of your awareness. 🎞️ Source: https://youtu.be/z3jXdc6G5t0

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Who does not ponder, leads a hollow life of shallow bearings. Like an automaton, moved by habit, deprived of inner depth and true freedom. As we contemplate, reaching breakthroughs in insight and wisdom, we may be what one calls "Ponder Struck". Jolted from our stupor, our eyes peeled, our lives transformed.

But tell me, my friend, what should one ponder on? In today's four-part anthology from the "Ponder Struck" series, we look into avoidable and unavoidable suffering, into remaining grounded in our transcendent pursuits, into the never-ending quest for fulfillment, and into dabbling in esoteric models of awareness.

Lead-In — The Realities of Suffering

In our first installment, the grinding core topic of suffering, as it happens on the different planes of our being, some of it avoidable and some of it unavoidable.

1. Life of Avoidable and Unavoidable Suffering

There's suffering, right. And most of us would like to avoid it. However, what exactly is this suffering — and is it avoidable to begin with? Let's take a moment to ponder.

So there are indeed two types of suffering. One that is inherent and embedded in all things and unavoidable — and another arising from misconceptions that is quite avoidable. The unavoidable suffering we encounter on many planes of our existence.

This physical body of ours, with all of its pains, aches, ailments and urges, is a source of suffering. No matter how well we may take care of it, supplement, pamper, live impeccable lifestyles, it will still dish out a serving of suffering for us.

Then, in our emotional being, we have our joys and sorrows, excitements and disappointments. There as potentials, catalysts for our progress. Our primary emotions arise naturally from encounters with the environment, and they are unavoidable. There for the worldling, there for the enlightened one. They are a part of our living reality.

Then, in your rational being, your process of thought-formation, there is suffering there with all the conflicts you encounter. Granted, in time, as your awareness and your frame of thinking organizes into a more harmonic whole, there will be a reduction. But suffering and collisions there will be — unavoidably.

Then, your sense of identity, the egos you latch onto. Now there's a significant source of suffering. When your sense of self is challenged by the world, begins to crack at its seams. no longer holds together by the glue you've used to patch it together. Now, there is a suffering without a parallel. This existential anxiety, your compulsion to preserve your finite sense of self, is a claustrophobic torture chamber of some proportions. With the last of our quatrait of sources of suffering, we are approaching the realm of suffering that is avoidable.

Your physical being, it aches as it aches until you die. Your field of emotions, bouncing positive and negative, in diverse flavors, as the environment makes you reflect. Your rational mind, making sense of the world you encounter, there is a certain grind there. Your identity roles, the aggregations of your living experience, they too have a certain imperative for self-preservation. Naturally. So that's all there, and those are the unavoidable sufferings.

The avoidable suffering, the greatest of all sufferings, is overcome by dispelling your illusions and living in raw actuality. Not clinging to a sense of permanence in a world where there is none, where all things are in constant change. When you allow for the natural passage of all things, you eliminate the suffering born from your attempts to freeze the flux of time. And when you yourself are flexible, a fluid self-construct, consciousness cycling through a spectrum of roles, embracing and releasing as required. With that your self-born suffering itself is released and eliminated.

Then in short, there is unavoidable suffering inherent to the different planes of your being. Embrace those as a matter of your evolutionary catalysts. Then avoidable suffering, born of your clinging to deceptions and hallucinations — do try to overcome those. You need not add to the burdens of life by living in a network of lies. Let the truth of actuality itself, seen plainly, raw, things as they are, relieve you from the burdens born of hallucinations.

Lead-In — Dissociation vs. Integrity

In our second installment, on remaining grounded in our transcendent pursuits, remaining integrated and operational in the world, even as we reach beyond our finite concepts of life and existence.

2. Grounded Transcendence — Holding Your Integrity

As we reach beyond the finite self, exploring awareness broader and deeper than our day-to-day lives, how do we ensure that people and the world do not just walk all over us? It's actually quite common, this sort of dissociation that makes you vulnerable. A certain leap to a false transcendence — premature, ungrounded.

Someone comes to you — you are not this body, you are of transcendence, this world is an illusion, therefore give me all your money. Well okay then, here you go. That's obviously not the way it can function.

Let us then recognize that yes, there are planes of awareness beyond your physical identity and your presence in this world, and at the same time this world too has a certain identity, presence and reality. Each one of your planes of being, physical, emotional, intellectual and even your identity, they have a certain presence and a certain integrity that deserves to be maintained. It's simply that we are not obsessed by them anymore. Mesmerized and entangled.

Instead we are operating them, we are in them. We are not them, in themselves, as our genuine permanent being. It's not that, just because I am not my vehicle, you get to scratch it at will, or hijack it and drive it against the wall. That's not the way any of this works. It's not that detachment means letting go of it to be freely scavenged and exploited by others.

Whatever the witness, the observer, the consciousness beyond may be, the fact remains — your body, your emotions, your thoughts, your roles in life, are the mediums and vehicles for its expression. Into those its attention flows and in those it operates. Then this path leads you not to a loss of integrity in your concrete life. Rather it leads to increased, enhanced integrity. Simply with the release of reactivity and obsession.

There is simply a release of obsession in using all of this to frame yourself and identity. Each of your planes operates as they must. They change as is required, adaptive, reactive, in tune with actuality — what is. Rather than your ideas of how it should be in order to make you feel better. That's the difference. So next time someone comes and wants to clean your pockets because you are such a spiritual person, keep that in mind.

Lead-In — Our Hollow Pursuits

In our third installment, into the never-ending quest for elusive fulfillment, and how even the mightiest of men remain dissatisfied, even having attained the fulfillment of their desired objectives.

3. Never-Ending Quest for Fulfillment @ Elon, Mark, Donald & Vladimir

How far must one truly go in this never-ending quest for fulfillment? Elon Musk is chasing his mantle of titanhood by the conquest of Mars. Mark Zuckerberg seeks to subjugate the collective mind with his algorithmic network. Donald Trump hopes to be forever famous by making the ultimate deal. Vladimir Putin will not rest until he's crowned the sovereign of the great Russian Empire.

Should they all, one day, meet the consummation of these pipe dreams, they would still be left with a gaping void in the middle of their being.

Why must you seek so far, Elon? Conquer the planets of your mind. You will be a titan extraordinaire. Why must you seek to control the minds of others, Mark? Establish the absolute network of your own mental patterns.

What deal do you hope to make, Donald, when you are yet to negotiate peace between the polarized parties of your own being. And Vladimir, old comrade, why not become the lord sovereign of the United States of Awareness instead?

Here we are. Establishing meta-cognitive colonies on the planes of our awareness. Programming the reconciled matrix of interconnected awareness. Making the ultimate deals for balance and liberation. Ascending as the sovereigns of our unconditioned awareness.

Then, please. Elon, Mark, Donald, Vladimir, all you big boys with your big games. Sometime, turn your efforts inward, face the void that you pursue out there. Your pursuits out there will only ever be consummated in fine form when the inner blueprint has been perfected.

All these grand operations out there, they are simply metaphors for our awareness. The processes we undergo to fulfill ourselves and reconcile our own existence. I do thank you for these fantastic dramas. May they catalyze the minds of many in a quest for true fulfillment.

Even there, in the absolute consummation of our inner workings, we must yet resign from ownership, from trying to jail all of that into our subjective prisons. There is only ever peace when you resign from the finite self and its agendas, releasing yourself with your all into a natural expression of what is. Like an immaculate mirror of reality.

Design not yourself, make not too many designs. Allow for the natural emergence of the fullness of potentials that you carry. That's all folks, keep it real.

Lead-In — Of Mystic Systems

In our fourth and final installment, into dealing with esoteric models of insight. From psychosomatic energy centers to angelic trees of life and mappings of internal alchemy. If we engage them, then let us seek the living essence they encode — not weaving imaginary worlds disconnected from what is.

4. Lost in Esoteric Models? Use Your Own Awareness

Mystic maps and diagrams, esoteric flow charts, depictions of dimensional cosmology — it all makes you ponder. We meet the chakras, psychosomatic centers, typically in neo-yogic traditions. We have the Sephirot in the tree of life from Kabbalah. Neidan and the microcosmic body from Taoist sources.

So much of this out there. What do we make of it? Now in principle, that's all potentially useful, especially if we are looking at classical schematics. On the other hand, if we are looking at upcycled modern creations, inspired spin-offs, those are potentially very confusing.

The bottom line is, these are all fields and dynamisms of awareness itself, consciousness and its descent into the realm of forms. Even mythic creation narratives, metaphysical emanation frameworks, these deal less with cosmogenesis and more with cognogenesis, the origins of awareness itself.

Where it all goes sideways and becomes unrooted is when people begin to develop these in the fields of their imagination and intellect, rather than taking them as substance to be explored, experimented and directly witnessed in the laboratory of your consciousness.

Do not look at these mappings as external blueprints, something you should download and program into your consciousness. No, take it the other way around, start looking into what is in your consciousness and how it correlates with these mappings. That will help it all make a world more of sense.

Our archetypal fields of awareness, primary facets of consciousness, they do fall into a basic lay of the land, as all things do. On the horizontal plane, in the realm of processes, we have cascades, something was before something followed after. On the vertical axis, we have the parent operators, on a plane more abstract, and we have the children, progeny, compositions from particular fields.

And with all of this, there are sequences and there are pairings, couplings, contrasts and complements. Then find these interrelations, map the connections between your fields and nodes of awareness. Then look at them in terms of basic dynamisms. Expanding, contracting. Splitting, joining. Open, closed. Excessive, deficient. Increasing, decreasing. Or balanced, in a stable state.

When the innate framework of awareness itself becomes your instrument for reading and recognition, all the million esoteric schematics will make a world more sense to you. Do not depend on them, use them for supplementary information. Just as in driving a vehicle, you would be looking at the road ahead of you, not just the map.

Further, allow the big picture of your awareness and existence be self-emergent, rather than prescribed by a particular schematic. There's no telling if it's actually accurate or not. Better you rely on what you can directly experience. It's ever a work in progress. Just enjoy the unfolding. Do not crave for the big picture all at once. Real big picture only ever unfolds when you've rotated through the entire spectrum of your living experience.

In Summary — Into Contemplative Life

With this, our anthology from "Ponder Struck" in four parts is a wrap. We've touched on the nature of suffering, on integrated transcendence, on genuine fulfillment, and on esoteric guidelines. Plenty there to ponder on. May these seeds lead to ever-brodening and deepening realizations. Be well!