Living big dreams in the now
Most of us have dreams and visions, and I have a few that don’t let go of me. One such dream of mine is to build a place where people from around the world can experience deep personal transformation. In my mind, this place will be nestled in the lush nature of the Himalayas, and I’ll create it together with a community of people who resonate with my vision. We’ll build it based on permaculture’s regenerative principles of “Earth care, people care and fair share”, we’ll work synergistically with the local community, and we’ll live and work together practicing mindfulness and authentic communication. Now this is a very ambitious dream and it’s easy for me to slip into hopelessness, thinking, this is impossible considering where I am right now. I’ve just moved back to India and know a handful of people, and I’ve nowhere near the finances needed to establish something of this scale.
I think one of the reasons we find big dreams intimidating is that we tend to think linearly. For example, to make this dream come true, linear thinking would say I first have to acquire large amounts of funds, meet the right people, find the land where to build, and incrementally design and build this space. Going by this way of thinking, I may start saving money by working a job that isn’t necessarily connected to my dream, but is well-paying. I may also start networking online starting to look for like-minded people in the little free time I have, while living with people who may not be able to relate to my thoughts. Problem is, while I’m doing these things, I would very likely lose touch with the reasons why this dream is important for me. I might work hard and feel depleted in my job, and surrounded by people who have no common interests, I might start thinking that my dream is unrealistic, impractical, or even stupid.
Now a radically different way to approach big dreams is to start living a mini-version of your dream in the present moment. According to David Bohm, a renowned quantum physicist, we live in a holographic universe where each part is connected to and contains information about the whole. So according to this theory, how you live each moment has a profound influence on the whole of your life! So if you’re slogging away at a job you dislike, thinking you’re saving money for a future dream, you may inadvertently be writing the script for slogging away your life. Instead, what if you pause and ask yourself the questions- What about my dream is particularly important to me? Which of these aspects can I start living today with the resources I already have at hand? Once you find the answers, you could get creative and design one piece of the hologram in the present moment, which represents the entirety of the dream in miniature.
For example, when I asked myself the first question, I discovered that what’s most important to me about my big dream is to live in the midst of nature in the Himalayas, eat local food, practice permaculture principles of regenerative living in daily life, and practice coaching and holding retreats which transform other people’s lives. When I asked myself the second question, an option opened up for me. Though I cannot start my own retreat centre right away, I knew of a mountain eco-village, where I could volunteer and experience living in the midst of nature, eating local food, and practicing permaculture and regenerative living. I could start offering coaching sessions and retreats from there that would transform lives. And I could do that now!
Living my dream in miniature in the present moment has helped me stay connected to it. I wake up each morning with gratitude for the bounty of pure nature around me and have discovered that I truly enjoy it. I learn each day how to interact with a team of mountain village people, and I’ve started designing and learning from mini-projects related to regenerative living, such as building a spiral-bed garden for herbs and making cleaning products out of fermenting lemon peels, jaggery and water. I’ve been keeping my coaching practice alive by holding online sessions as well as in-person sessions with people visiting the eco-village. It’s also brought several challenges my way- for example, I need to hike 8 km up and down the mountain to have reliable access to internet! So I’m learning that the location where such a place is to be built is absolutely critical. The experience has also shown me that though I love interacting with people, I don’t enjoy coordinating organisational details. It’s too soon to predict where this life experiment will lead, but I can tell you that it’s teaching me where I reach my personal limits and where I need to grow and be more committed. And it keeps my focus consistently on my dream.
So my question to you is- which big or little dream have you been putting away, thinking now’s not the right time? Are you thinking that you have to first earn enough money, have more time, or meet the right people before you can start? What possibilities open for you when you ask yourself the two questions I’ve written above and start designing and living a holographic miniature of your dream today? Now remember, it doesn’t have to a big step for it to keep your dream alive. Even the tiniest version of your dream that fits into your current life will serve the purpose.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below. Sharing your dream with others and your path forward can be vulnerable but extremely powerful, so I really hope you’ll do so!
Warmly,
Sharmishtha
p.s. Thanks to Shruti Bapna for the beautiful cover photograph
12 Comments
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My dear Sharmishtha, thank you for this wonderful article! Let’s stay in touch about your vision, which is also part of mine. Love, Holger
Yes, dear Holger, let’s stay in touch about this! Love, Sharmishtha
This is awe-inspiring.
Thank you Mani! You’ve been a big part of me being able to live my dream in the now 🙂
Loved it! I’m positive you realize the obvious next nuance — that there really is no “big” dream; the “miniature” microcosm *is* the complete/d dream, and in being so, is immediately as big as the big dream. What we perceive as bigness is only scale in the material reality, which is an inevitability once the “miniature” is wholly appreciated. Appreciation in both its meanings, just like a fixed deposit appreciates, appreciation = multiplication/scaling of (joy) investment! 🙂
Beautifully described, thank you! Yes, “bigness” is the illusion our mind creates. And complete immersion, appreciation and acceptance of the present manifests both big and small- there’s no difference
Sharmishtha, I love this thought! Right now I am working on figuring out what my big dream is, because I don’t quite know! There are many competing dreams 🙂 But I do know what some of the common/fundamental pieces are, and have been working on starting on them already. Reading this, I feel, has given me more clarity on how to do that – and will surely lead my thinking in new and interesting directions. Thank you!
Hi Yael, so good to hear that the thoughts I expressed here brought you clarity! Do write about your big dreams and share if you can. It has an amazing and mysterious effect. For example, right after I wrote this article I totally randomly met a woman and a man in the town of Rishikesh I’m moving to, who’ve been talking about starting a permaculture-based project in the Himalayas. I met the woman completely coincidentally outside a bakery, who then introduced me to the man. The guy is a yoga teacher and has the ability to buy land in this area. And the woman has years of permaculture and holistic plant-based therapy experience. And now we’re talking about starting this project together! In my experience, such synchronicities and manifestations really happen when clarity arises in your mind and you put your thoughts in words 🙂
Dear Sharmishtha, your blogs are always so inspiring and authentic. I had read this blog article sometime back when I was quite overwhelmed by how do I achieve this ‘big dream’ that I have? I will have to quit my job, take the kids out of school, move to India and start in a field that I am not an expert by any means…it was discouraging and depressing, to say the least. I read this blog back then and even though it make sense to me intellectually, I didn’t know where to start making those ‘small’ changes and couldn’t really grasp what those ‘small changes’ mean.
Fast forward to the present and I realise that I have been doing exactly that without me noticing it! I have taken small steps in living my dream, and suddenly I feel hopeful, happy and the present circumstances are a blessing, not a drag. Things have started coming together and the universe has started changing to fit my dreams and not the other way around. And your blog suddenly makes complete sense:-)
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. You touch more people than you realise.
Dear Sonali, thank you SO much for sharing your experience and your revelations with this article. It is true that I don’t realise how many people I touch, and I feel really blessed when I receive a message like this one. It inspires me to keep writing and sharing openly and vulnerably, as I realise that it serves a purpose. I’m so glad to hear you’ve been taking small steps and experiencing the mysterious support that the Universe tends to give us all when we begin to have faith. Wishing you the very best in your big dream, which will no doubt make this world a brighter place to live in, Sharmishtha
Hello Sharmistha Jee, This article gives so much clarity, and atleast the point where i can relate myself, reason of my personal pain, Thank you
Dear Vivek ji, Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I am very glad this article gave you clarity. Warm regards, Sharmishtha