Month: February 2019

This is a bit of a continuation from the last blog. Rather than re-reading it I am going to give a different example to explain what I am on about.

Has someone ever told you that you repeat a certain saying or a word time and time again? I personally have had many different friends over the years bring this up with me. And although this can lead to a little frustration I have been thankful in the end for others making me aware of it.

To stop repeating the same word over and over again takes focus and time, you can’t just stop it. You have to catch yourself out within the act each time. Being stressed or frustrated about the fact that you repeat a certain word doesn’t help. Frustration is not needed to make this change. Simply being aware of the problem (if you choose to believe it is a problem) makes you properly motivated to change. And from here, all you need to do is be aware (or present) when this word comes up. It then occurs that when the word does come up, slowly and over time you can laugh at yourself and come up with different words to replace it. Eventually, after catching yourself out about 10 times your mind will automatically shift without using conscious thought.

Now it’s time to take this example to a larger place. The mind likes patterns, paths and justifications. There is nothing worse in this world than someone telling us that our reality is incorrect or that we are wrong. Take politics, religion, or any heated debate you have seen or been a part of recently. Reality is hard to dismiss, we just forget that just because we see reality through our perspective it doesn’t mean that others see it in the same way.

Over the last couple of blogs I have been saying the following. Once you realise something within yourself that you might not like you can set an intention to change it and then forget about it and let it change naturally. This of course only happens when the intention is wanted, needed and or desired. A question like ‘do I want a coke or a Pepsi’ is not something your mind will give two shits about. It has to be purposeful otherwise it’s just surface (frontal cortex or conscious mind) stuff that you really don’t care about and eventually will forget about. BUT, if you have the desire and passion to change something in your life then setting an intention and letting it go is an effective technique to use. If it’s important enough your mind will seek answers well beyond that moment without you ever realising it.

A disclaimer on the above… For this to work you want to be in a good place with limited frustrations or distractions. The above works because your mind is seeking verification from its surroundings in your daily life. If you are panicking about some other area of your life you won’t be looking for verification because there are other more important pressing matters. The brain needs to be free to search for possible connections to justify its path with limited interference.

As much as I respect religious beliefs, when a devout follower finds a burn in their toast in the shape of Jesus I do have to wonder why God or Jesus would have done such a thing. Maybe he is telling the person they are earning too much dough 🙂 Yet to the religious excited person on the 6pm news it has been the answer to the prayers they were waiting for. It’s a message! It’s a sign! Then the person allocates what that sign is and makes it their life’s purpose. And as stupid as this might sound to some readers you might want to re-think your judgement as you yourself do the same thing, just in a different way.

What I am trying to say here is that the mind will find answers where ever they may be. Sometimes you have to dig into your past, sometimes you have to look at your present, and sometimes a bleeding obvious fish smacks you across the face and gives you a reality check. The old saying is ‘you seek and you shell find’ which is really true given the level of ‘importance’ you apply to what you are seeking. And no, it may not work with picking a hot blond to have sex with (mainly because you are also trying to influence others), but it may help you find a deeper purpose and make a desired change to your thinking. And maybe you will read the signs incorrectly and it will lead you down the wrong path, yet if you are committed, in the end, you will say that this was part of the journey to get to your final destination. Please read ‘The Alchemist’ if you would like further reinforcement on this.

I have a mate who has just followed his heart to Bali where he stayed for 5 months, just to follow his heart once again to China for a further 6 months. It hasn’t been an easy ride for him although he did it anyway because he followed the signs. He was willing to take the risk to live in another country which he had no idea about, yet at the same time he was smart enough to avoid the edge of a cliff. This is me saying ‘don’t be stupid’ which is the disclaimer for this blog.

The Point: The mind is always active and it is searching for patterns and meaning. Hence if you seek something the mind will find an answer whether it is true or not. And this is the weird bit. If the mind thinks that it is right then it is until it decides that it is not. Hence, if you believe that your emotional baggage came from seeing a bug being squished when you were 12 years old the you are right, at least until the mind say’s it is not.

As discussed in the Perception and Focus chapters, if you focus on hate you will walk out into the world and find hate in every corner, not because it’s all that is around you but because it’s what your subconscious is looking for. The same goes for love. So, what I am saying here is that if you believe that a cause is important enough and you set that intention in your mind, you no longer have to freak out about it. If done correctly (and I am not saying this is easy) the process will implant in your subconsciousness. It is then that when your consciousness finds evidence to back up or follow this new belief system that it will do so naturally without you having to push it. You will suddenly go ‘WOW’ this must be a sign!

There are books out there that take this belief to new levels. ‘The Secret’ is one and ‘E Squared’ is another. These books are hard to read as they are Oprah recommendations (which can be seen as commercial) and of course, they are often linked to spirituality with no proof. Furthermore this doesn’t work unless you follow the writer’s beliefs blindly and commit to believing everything these books say which is always a dangerous premise. Yet as I have discussed above the spirituality belief can be explained from a psychological standing point. At least, this is what I have attempted to do during this blog.

 

Later I will be writing a full chapter on emotions because… well… it’s bloody important, and it is our emotions which dictate how we perceive our reality.

Being present is not just about being calm and relaxed, and although in Yoga and Meditation classes you may be told to accept incoming thoughts (and emotions) before letting them go, this isn’t necessarily what you do outside of these environments. Well… It is and it isn’t…

Being present to the world is only one element, you also need to be present to your emotions as well. This means paying attention to when they arrive and acknowledging them when they do. At times the emotions that are brought up are from small incidences that happened throughout the day, yet why have they come up again? Why did they have a lasting impact? And why has such a strong emotion attached itself to this one event? These are all important questions.

There is no point in stressing about these emotions or why they are lingering. Acknowledgement and acceptance are the key factors here. You can accept them and let them go, but, be open to the message they may be conveying and don’t fear (if you’re in a safe mind space to do so) what the mind might want to bring up. Essentially, giving your mind permission to bring up your baggage (if it wants to and you feel safe to do so) is key. You don’t need to search for it, it’s there and it’s waiting for you to be ready, and when you are, look out! You’re up for a wild ride.

I say the above because this is exactly how my journey worked. Seeking to resolve my past and being mentally ready to do so are two different things. The mind will stop us from going too far if we are not ready, which is why people might suggest further meditation. Stressing about finding an answer does not aid that answer to come faster either, you should have already learnt this lesson from your school exams. Yet, being open to an answer coming, doing a little thinking, possibly research (depending on the situation you are relating this to) and then letting it go will release a cause set in motion. This actually works spiritually and psychologically. I will describe how this works in the next chapter.

 

Okay, so there is no need to explain this question in much detail. The principle is simple. If no one is around the tree to hear it crash then does this mean that the sound ever existed?

Now in today’s age you will have to forget about sound waves from the sound which ripple onward through the world and beyond crashing into other soundwaves. And let’s also forget about the obvious bugs and microbes that would also be able to hear/feel the impact of the fall. Or… Do we forget?

This within itself is a wonderful insight to the fact that this world is more than just humans. It also contains living things so small that they can not be seen with the naked eye. In fact, in Quantum Mechanics life is particles, and therefore everything is life. We never truly die as we ourselves are made of particles and these particles don’t die just because our body breaks down. Particles go on and on. They are not fixed in time and they do not work to our laws of physics. The very thing that we are made of and that everything is made of is beyond our comprehension. Therefore, bringing it back to the tree, we must acknowledge that we are never truly alone when life is active 24/7, even if it is so small that we can’t even comprehend it. So, does that blow your mind? No! Okay, I’ll try harder.

The real point of this tree question is to get you to a point of true wonder, that moment of inspiration where pure insight smacks you across the face like a cold fish. I am sure you have had multiple of these moments across your life. You probably have received it by thinking about how small you are in the universe or possibly how you don’t have all the answers to life. Or maybe it’s not so bold, it’s possibly just a realisation of who you are or how you perceive a part of your reality. Maybe it’s a reflection of how short life is or how fast time fly’s by, but regardless,  it’s a moment when you have true insight and presence which makes you forget about everything else. It’s like the world just opened up to you for a split second which was enough time for you to get interested yet not enough time to hold onto. It’s an amazing experience.

Looking beyond our basic everyday perception is something that can be challenging to our psychology. This is why we hang out in similar groups and with others that agree with our belief systems. We are more comfortable having others reinforce that we are correct. Yet if we are willing to go beyond this, think a little bit harder and challenge the fundamentals of our core beliefs, well, then that is when true insight comes.

Knowing everything is knowing nothing. Whilst finding ourselves or following a spiritual path (or whatever it is that people decide to do) it is important to remain open minded. Our path is defined by our perception and our beliefs, therefore, the more walls you break down the more doors that open up. Spirituality leads this line of thought yet as already discussed above, science also follows the understanding that many things (at this stage in human evolution) are far beyond our comprehension.

So the point of this blog is this. If you are willing to do so it is great to play with your perception. Seeking unanswerable questions and then pondering on them is not a waste of time yet a learning lesson in life. The more eureka moments you have the more open you become and the more you expand past your own limitations. It’s basic growth of the mind. Putting up walls (Donald Trump might want to be aware of this) is nothing more than fearing truths that are beyond your own understanding. It takes true courage to embrace differences of opinion and perception rather than just preparing for your next argument about how you are right. There is no right or wrong in the end, there is just being open to the world or shutting it down.

 

Within the hippy field I heard a few people discuss the complexities of the saying ‘I think therefore I am’. The basic perception was that Descartes was alluding to the fact that only animals and humans think therefore nothing else is alive, cutting out the possibility of things such as trees and plants as being labelled living. Unfortunately, those having this discussion got it wrong. The saying was not alluding to this concept at all. In fact the argument regarding this saying is quite complex and very difficult to explain. Yet this is why I am here, so let’s see if I can dumb it down a little (for both of us).

Descartes had a philosophy (which was listed as radical thought at the time) that what we perceive or sense is not necessarily true. The only thing that is true is that our mind or consciousness may doubt or believe in its perception. Therefore the statement ‘I think therefore I am’ is actually not saying that just because I think I exist, it’s stating that because we think, we believe we exist.

From what I can comprehend the main issue that people debate is more to do with how you decide to read the above statement rather than the statement itself. To be truthful, it was hard reading highly educated philosophy students debate the finer lines between Descartes’s overall belief system and this specific saying. And although I have high respect for those that have chosen philosophy as a line of study I find the debate gets caught up in semantics rather than just taking this saying for what it is. But, as this saying is about perception I guess that was the point in the first place. Soooooooo, how do I break this down?

Philosophy – it’s dependent on how you want to interoperate the saying based on the knowledge of the philosophy of Descartes himself and reflective of your own or other philosophical beliefs.

Hippies – It’s true, just because we think it doesn’t put us above other life forms on this planet, yet, this is not exactly what the statement was meant to convey therefore you may want to re-read this chapter again.

Science Nerds – Quantum Mechanics shows that life is all around us and that light and energy is life. We are one with it as it is one with us. We are star stuff as popularly discussed. Therefore, because our human perception is so limited we actually have no idea what reality actually is.

Religion – You think because God told you to (if you are religious and read this blog I hope you have a great sense of humour).

Jo Blow – There are a lot of cool things that are out there that can make you question your reality. Try looking up black holes and quantum for instance. Reality is your perspective as I have repeated time and time again. Truth is a matter of what you believe in. The way that the human consciousness accepts reality is through an extremely small and limited viewpoint. And for this reason people somehow are able to believe that the world is flat, smart woman are witches, the dress was white and gold (not blue and black), lizard people run the world and of course, aliens abducted 50% of the population in the 80’s (they must of gotten tired of us after that). Anyway…

So there is a great chance I missed the point completely regarding ‘I think therefore I am’ in this blog, but, this is my perception and in many way’s that was the point… Right?… Yea, High five! Who’s with me?…. Ummmmm…… Anybody?….