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Just because an idea is held by the masses, does not make it true.
Indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind,
an idea that is widely held is more likely to be false than true.
~ Bertrand Russell
The line up at McDonalds is certainly NO sign of societies demand for quality.
Put differently, just because there are a lot of people paying attention to something, does NOT signify the value of that something.
In fact, if there is a large following for something, chances are that that something is designed for mass consumption, which means it caters to mainstream, which means NOTHING profound, deep or transformative.
For example, marketers of today are the same as they have always been. They understand that people buy things based on emotionality, so they simply find ways to exploit basic human desires and insecurities, push their buttons, then offer a solution that never addresses the REAL problem.
The desire to be valued, loved, respected etc is very BASE, or low on the ladder of human function. But for most of us we simply spend our lives catering to these surface desires, rather than diving deeply to see what is really going on here.
All the hoopla about ‘The Secret’ is a good example of this, catering to society’s shallow value systems. On the homepage very close to the top is says:
“This is The Secret to everything – the secret to unlimited joy, health, money,
relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted.”
Yawn! Looks to me like that list that supposedly includes EVERYTHING is missing one thing that over-rides it ALL. What is that one thing?
Understanding.
When you understand who you are and what really matters, that list that supposedly includes EVERYTHING, only includes everything an adolescent or immature adult could ever want. Child’s play. Halfway up the ladder of development. Halfway up the hierarchy of needs. Halfway up the stairs of wisdom. Halfway through the door of profundity. Halfway.
Seeing so much attention given to something so small, makes me want to laugh, cry and gag.
The Secret…. A new spin on an old, new-age principle that belongs in a box in a garage sale with other ‘classics’ such as The Celestine Prophesy, What The Bleep Do We Know? and The Power of You.
The Secret is the McDonalds of wisdom teachings. Fast food teachings with lots of calories but little nutrition.
If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it’s still a foolish thing.
~ Bertrand Russell
If you’ve read my book, Waking Up to Life!, you’ll know that I like to walk/jog/run through Kin Canyon. Kin Canyon is an amazing small canyon that runs through the southern half of Red Deer Alberta, the beautiful city I have lived in for 6 years.
Today, as I was alternating between jogging and fast walking, I noticed I was also alternating between periods of silence and fast thinking. The thoughts were random and for the most part spontaneous rehashing of past events or imagining of future possibilities.
When the silence was noticed and allowed to permeate my experience, I found myself to be moving between two worlds.
In one world, my mind was spewing chaotic storylines interspersed with images and a voice of unreason.
In the other, real world, everything was what it was. The direct smell of pine, movement without thought, sound of snow crunching, spaciousness, openness, and a forest unburdened with mental chatter.
One moment I’m imagining: “I wonder what she’ll say when I …”
The next: Direct seeing, smelling, hearing …
One moment I’m remembering: “That was sure a stupid commercial …”
The next: Silence, stillness, openness …
One moment I’m judging: “Those rotten kids were at it again…”
The next: Acceptance, curiousity, wonder …
One moment: “Bla blabla, Bla blabla …”
The next: Amusement, love and joy …
How easy is it to be in love with a world made of color, light, movement and play, instead of a world that revolves around an itsy,
bitsy,
teeny,
weeny,
me?
Many people, myself included, will oftentimes kill a spider, mosquito or fly out of fear or disgust, without a moments hesitation. One moment there is Life, the next there isn’t. One moment there is the Life force animating and expressing a miraculous creature, the next it is snuffed out of existence because … because why?
How quick are we to destroy Life, to eradicate a living thing that contains the same flame of existence as you and I. How mindlessly will we anhihilate billions of years of evolution, all because of a simple conditioned reaction?
Sort of like a dog that salivates at the sound of a bell.
A murderous dog…
Yesterday, while I was running through the park, I came upon a heartwarming scene.
There before me was a young mother on a cell phone, yelling at her helmet-wearing leash restrained toddler, who was struggling to get to the rubber coated playground in Kin Canyon.
“Wait for mommy!” she repeated with exasperation.
When he was finally set ‘free’ he made a beeline for the slide, with mom in hot pursuit.
“Be careful sweetie” she repeated with every fearful move he made. “Be careful….”
Although he seemed very coordinated to me, his uncertainty was palpable. His every move screamed “Be careful…”
I know I spent more than a decade riding a bike without a helmet as did most people my age. I would not suggest helmet wearing is a bad idea, I only ask what are the consequences of overprotection and fear spreading (s)mothering?
I have seen it often enough to know that the repeatition of ‘be careful, be careful’ can lead to a childs self doubt.
Hopefully, thanks to a Moms well meaning but fear inducing neurosis like this, soon they will invent a personal bubble that all helmet wearing fearful children can be raised in.
That way we can be absolutely sure that we can go about our lives in a way that demands absolutely no attention but assures absolute safely.
Ya gotta love them Moms
(Sorry Mom)
At any given moment, there are ‘things’ occurring within the open space of awareness. Sometimes there are inner ‘things’ occurring; a fleeting thought, a welling up of an emotion, a physical sensation. Sometimes there are outer ‘things’ occurring; an interaction, a perception of an event, an experience of some sort.
Things happen. Occurrences occur. Happenings and occurrences are simply movements and moments which take place within the open space of awareness. The open space of awareness is the not-so-obvious but oh-so-necessary ground and flavor of each and every ‘thing’ that occurs or happens. Awareness is the backdrop against which, and within which, all things appear and disappear. Things always appear and disappear. Always.
Most ‘things’ that occur are just plain unnecessary. Almost all happenings are unnecessary. Most movements, moments, or happenings that occur within awareness are non-essential, non-mandatory, interchangeable, or simply unnecessary. The ‘things’ we are aware of are simply the ‘things’ we use to create our life story, our personal identity, our obsessive drama. The degree to which a ‘thing’ interests us is the degree to which our attention will attend to it. When attention is stuck or fixated, the natural unbound openness of awareness is shrunk to the size of our obsession. Pitifully, pathetically, shrunken.
One moment it’s a thought: “hmm, I sure am hungry…I wonder what’s in the fridge.”
Or anger, fear, or uncertainty.
Another moment, a pang of loneliness overcomes us.
Or jealousy, concern, or sorrow …
Now, attention locks onto an outward event.
Then this, then that, then this, then that ….And on it goes.
Distraction, reaction, obsession …
Awareness shrinks to the size of whatever our obsessed attention is riveted to, for as long as it remains interesting. It’s all so unnecessary.
When happenings and occurrences are seen to be unnecessary, attention can be freed to relax as the openness of awareness itself, without ‘doing’ anything at all.
Occurrences will always occur and happenings will always happen.
Giving life permission to be exactly as it already is, by saying ‘yes’ to ‘what is’, is to live life without resistance. To resist ‘what is’ is to resist reality and is the fundamental cause of suffering in life. To resist ‘what is’ is insanity. At times, we are more insane than at others.
But as we live our life, we can feel a ‘great yes’ swelling in our chest. Allow yourself to feel an open acceptance of what is, without any resistance or reservation what so ever.
Give up. Just stop it now, and relax. Give up.
What is, already is!
Resistance is futile.
She is the maker and wearer of all masks
Donning all expressions of Life
Painting all pictures
Singing all songs
She has never been merely one, but always and forever All
Her faces are constructed of the myriad moments of the unfolding Mystery –
Always masquerading as Mystery… always!
Cloaked in a coat of curiosity
Parading as the puzzle of paradox
Shimmering within a sublime sheath of secrecy
Her many garments are woven of the silent transition points
between here and there –
Yes and no –
Light and dark –
This breath… and the next…
She arises from the cracks between the shadows
The spaces within the openness
The essence within the emptiness
The stillness of the void
What She is can never be isolated or conceptualized
One moment – She is transparency…
The next – a living display of color unlike this world has ever seen
Or will ever see again
Her gifts are endless
Abundance is Her name
Multiplicity Her flavor
Unfathomable Her depth
She is as the untraceable fingerprints of Life
Leaving Her mark-less mark on all She touches
She is as the autumn leaf falling
Living, dying and rebirthing once again as new gestures and patterns
Flowing in and as the endless seasons and cycles that She also created
She is as newborn snowflakes
Falling through the Night Sky of Life
Embodying infinite shapes and forms -
No two alike and none to fall twice or ever to return
She stops me with a glance
Leaving me undone
She is also the deepest part of me
And She will never be found as mere flesh or form
This I know of Her with such certainty
That as I speak these words
The whole Uni-verse shudders in agreement
Then comes to rest in the home of Her Heart
As familiar as the taste
Of my own
tongue…
All of the great wisdom teachers of past and present, point to the tremendous affect our belief systems have in determining the quality and trajectory our our lives.
As we believe it, so it will seem.
As it seems, so we will act accordingly.
For example, one whom is mentally ill and suffering from delusions may believe his hamburger from Micky D’s has been poisoned and therefore refuse to eat it. They may even become more ill, to the point of starvation.
Another individual not suffering from a mental illness and not sharing that belief may be very happy to eat the McDonalds hamburger. In fact, they may even believe that the burger is chock full of beefy goodness and eat one, two or seven a day.
The point of the story is this: The first person’s beliefs caused them to starve. The second person’s beliefs got them obese. The distortion and harm caused by the beliefs was only one of degree.
So what?
Both of them were far away from reality, as every belief based life is.
To substitute one belief for another is to exchange one delusion for another, but reality has nothing to do with beliefs, delusions or McDonalds.
Living a deep life is not about beliefs, except for the ruthless plucking and discarding of them, one after another.
If you relax and allow your mind to go silent and experience the living breathing moment, beliefs are like wearing clothes.
We are hiding from our bear actuality, and though our clothes seem to offer us protection they are also sheilding us from the truth of our existence, which requires no beliefs whatsoever.
Naked and exposed, Life can touch us in ways a belief based life can only imagine.
Believe it, or not…
I just spoke to her on the phone, so why am I now getting a taped French recording when I call? I know she teaches French, but why am I hearing this?” After trying to call my sweetheart seven times over the course of a couple hours, I gave up.
When she called me later I asked her “What’s up with French recording?”
She had no idea what I was talking about and started to throw out a load of questions.
“How many times did you call?”
“How long has this been happening?”
“How many rings before the recording comes on?”
The last question was “What does the recording say?”
Anyone that knows me as well as she does, knows that my French is limited to frerajoka, and I don’t even know what that means.
“I have less than no idea.” was all I could muster in response.
Irritated after dialing an 11 digit number seven times, listening to french seven times, then a flurry of questions about her phone problem I said “call me when you have it figured out.”
Two minutes later she called back to tell me her daughter had no problem calling, so of course I tried again.
Turns out it was MY problem. My long distance line was out. I called her back from my cell to apologize and explain.
I love the moments when I am stopped dead in my tracks and given a good slap from Life. I simply pick myself up, laugh and hopefully move on a little more humble and alot more awake.
It isn’t out of maliciousness, but out of ignorance that we’re taught the delusions that persist in our lives today. Reality, for the most part, is not at all as we believe. Beneath our layers of belief about ourselves, others and the world, lies another reality far more magnificent than the one we have accepted as real.
We can’t really blame Mom and Dad. They were only passing on what they believed to be true. We can’t accuse society of a conscious collective conspiracy. Society is far to disorganized for that. No, the deception was passed on innocently enough.
Just because we might imagine that more people should have caught on to the frailty of a ‘belief based Life’ doesn’t make it so. After all, appearances are deceiving. It is certainly understandable how one could be fooled, accepting beliefs like hand-me-down clothes; outdated and maybe even silly. How could we know?
Beliefs hang in the musty closets of our mind. Long outgrown, yet difficult to part with because it’s all we have. Having long forgotten what it feels like to be naked in our experience, we instead clothe ourselves in the garb of belief, insulating ourselves from direct contact with the tender throb of existence. For that there is no need of belief. Only a willingness and an open mind.
Fear, uncertainty, comfort, familiarity. These are our reasons for refusing to stand free and open. These are our reasons for refusing to invite experience to touch us in ways we secretly dream of. These are our reasons for clutching beliefs that once comforted us, but now confine us. Although the cell is purely fictional, unreal, fake, it matters little. It matters little because it will take courage to step out and stand free, and that is a task for tomorrow.
Or is it?
In my new book, Waking Up to Life!I suggested that ‘high self esteem’,is a poor excuse for a lofty goal, worthy only of a minimal amount of time and effort. Once a good enough self esteem is acquired it’s time to move on todeeper ways of seeing and being.
As an analogy:
Infants learn to first sit up,
then crawl,
then stand,
then walk,
then run.
In route to be able to run we will have fallen many, many times. Even when we were learning to simply stand up, we probably fell down repeatedly.
Our parents helped us to stand again and again, so we could continue toward the further evolved ability of running.
Thankfully our parents and society did not promote standing as being the benchmark
of high functioning and deep development.
As you’ll see above, the skill of standing, is in the middle of that unfolding and to
promote it as a final goal is to abort efforts toward deeper skills such as walking,
running, skipping, dancing, and jumping.
It is in this way that I think society does itself an injustice when it promotes self-esteem as some sort of final goal. Self-esteem is an important developmental task, but it is far far away from the potential we each have as human beings.
Self-esteem is about half way up the developmental ladder, and promoting a half way point as if it is something extraordinary is a prescription for a culture of mediocrity.
