Understanding: Mind, Consciousness, Thought

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Mind: All human beings share in being a part of, and connected to Mind, the universal Life energy and source of intelligence beyond the brain. Because of Mind, we share in an endless flow of wisdom—each of us equally capable of being wise.

Consciousness: All human beings share in the principle or fact of Consciousness. We experience life. We also experience life from different levels of consciousness—from truncated and fear-based, angry and insecure “levels” to grounded, secure, safe, wise and even enlightened states (Buddha Mind, Christ Consciousness, the “Father within,” the Kingdom of Heaven.) If humans lived even a little more often in this last state of mind, the impact on world peace, from a personal to a global level, would be significant.

The principle of Thought, as a universal function, guides humans either toward or away from non-violence, love and compassion. The existence of a personal thought system, or “ego”—which we see as simply being a sticky attachment to, or identification with thoughts—trips up our noble aspirations for peace. Yet we have found that teaching people about the neutral fact of Thought, and how it creates reality for each of us (rather than attempting to change “content”), allows people to shine the light of this principle on all their thinking. Levels of consciousness jump as people gain understanding about the formless source of all ideas, beliefs and opinions.

When humans understand that a thought is just a thought, just a creation from formless energy, the iron grip the ego can have on us begins to lessen. Lighter, gentler, more inspired feelings arising from impersonal, or universal thoughts create kind and selfless behaviors. We begin to realize we are so much more than our limited thoughts. So much more than we ever “thought”! While respecting our own and others’ traditions, cultures and preferences, we see beyond the forms that humans have created—and to the deeper truth of our common divinity, our shared existence in universal Mind, Consciousness and Thought … or in Life. From this vantage point, there is no reason to argue, to fight, to hurt another. When I hurt you, I diminish me.

So, our personal answer is to share with people these simple principles that govern their states of mind. Because, beneath it all, all humans are already wise, good, generous, kind and even enlightened. When the clouds of thought begin to part, they each take their unique and radiant place in being one in “six billion paths to peace."

What do YOU think?

Artwork:  Ronald D. Isom  Many thanks.

See also Sydney Banks, “The Missing Link: Reflections on Life and Philosophy” & other works.

http://www.centerforsustainablechange.org/principles.php

Participating in Possibility Brings Freedom

The United Nations has a declaration of human rights that states in the preamble:  "This Universal Declaration Of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction."

It has 30 sections, and the 27th states:  "Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits."

This got me thinking about what it means to participate in life.  Certainly, it means different things in different spots around the globe.  And, I can appreciate the United Nations boldly stating the ideal for humankind that includes freedom and choice.  But I wonder what it really means to participate in life, especially since in my current life stages, I have given up the ideas of goals and long term plans and surrendered, for the most part, to the calling of the moment.

I say this with the understanding that what calls me in the moment is a direct result of my life's work, my faith and my internal environment (thoughts, feelings, relationships, attitudes.)  This is to say that we never come completely fresh to each moment, we come as we are.  Yet, it seems to me, how we present ourselves to each moment allows possibility for change, growth, freedom, love...

What do YOU think?

Artwork by David Walker.  Many thanks.

The Landscape of Facing Death

I watched my friend Chris Bernard face his eminent death with love, courage and dignity. While participating in this with him, I wondered, what is the state of mind that death requires of us?

What can we bring to it to ease our own suffering at the moment of death? Should we rage against the dying of the light like Dylan Thomas? Should we reach out for spiritual support, ask forgiveness, say farewell? What do YOU think?

The Union of the Sacred and Secular

Sacred and secular…can they co-exist and where do they meet? As we increase our material wealth and extend ourselves with technology, do we have a tendency to lose our sense of what is sacred in the world?

Some say that sacred, or holy, practices are a product of the past that will be outgrown in modern society, and see sacred associated with religion, whose role in the world is currently changing.

Secular is usually associated with bureaucratization, rationalization, urbanization, industrialization, and seen in terms of historical revolutions.

Most of us live with a tension between the two, as sort of being “in the world, but not of the world.” Is it possible to live in integration of the two, with no separation between the sacred and the secular?

American Sociologist C. Wright Mills summarized this process: “Once the world was filled with the sacred – in thought, practice, and institutional form. After the Reformation and the Renaissance, the forces of modernization swept across the globe and secularization, a corollary historical process, loosened the dominance of the sacred. In due course, the sacred shall disappear altogether except, possibly, in the private realm.”

In the bible, Paul writes, “To the pure, all things are pure” (Titus 1:15) Finding the sacred in the secular might just be the way to go. But it is not easy to do as we watch the evening news.

What do YOU think?

Artwork Playing With Possibilities by Ron Isom

The Keyless Entry of Self Image

Self-image is the personal view we have of ourselves. It is our mental image or self portrait. Self-image is an internal dictionary that describes the characteristics of the self, including concepts like intelligence, beauty, kindness, selfishness or insensitivity. These characteristics form a collective representation of our assets and liabilities as we see them. Relationships reinforce what we think and feel about ourselves. Self-image is important because how we think about ourselves directly affects how we feel about ourselves and how we respond to life.

How we think and feel about ourselves influences the way we react or respond to life stressors. A hopeless self-image can lead to suicide. Self-image possessing body strength and health can lead to wellness. A loving self-image can lead to a life full of loving relationships. An angry self-image can lead to a life of isolation. A fearful self-image can lead to a life of suffering. In these ways, self-image can determine the quality of our relationships with others.

How we imagine ourselves to be can be different from how we witness ourselves to be, but ultimately the two will become the same if our desire to be as we imagine is unwavering. Depending on the beliefs we gather throughout our life, our self-image can bring us success and happiness, or, on the other hand, failure and misery. But this image can change, if we start questioning our beliefs about our selves and our lives. When our belief system falls apart, we are ready to receive a greater truth, and resurrect belief, born anew with possibility.

What do YOU think?

Let It Be

To be or not to be, that is the question. What does that mean - being? It is something most of us take for granted. We don't have to know or even question the nature of our being to be. Popeye's famous saying, "I am what I am and that's all that I am," may be the quintessential statement on being. What more is needed?

Contemporary philosophers tell us that the term "I am" has no meaning by itself; it must have an action or relation appended to it. Hegel distinguished between the being of objects and the being of people, but thought being stripped of all predicates is nothing.

Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) exploits the version of Husserlian intentionality by insisting that human reality (Heidegger's Dasein or human way of being) is "in the world" primarily via its practical concerns and not its epistemic relationships.

Emmanuel Levinas (1923 - 1995) in his ethical phenomenology, asks the question, why is there Being instead of simply nothing? His "first philosophy" is responsibility that unfolds into dialogical sociality and is based on our transcendence through relation with other. His "being" is the exploration of sensibility as the locus at which "inside" and "outside" merge. The exploration of the self, minus the intentional ego, through an affective complex, unfolds in a language that is best communicated through enactment. It can be likened to prophetic witness. It is as though Levinas were describing the affective investiture of a subject called to witness.

Levinas' study brings us closer to the theological view of being, like Hermetic philosophy, which relates man as microcosm to the macrocosm in a direct covenant with the Creator of life, who is defined as God. This is seemingly an abstract definition, if we take the word as it is. Its effectiveness, however, changes entirely if we see it as Creation and as force, indeed as energy in which and through which all aspects of life come into being, and man, the very crown upon Creation, is brought into being.

The Buddhist terms it Nirvana; and the period of which it is the termination is called by the Hindus, Kalpa, a word signifying Form. And they hold that the universe undergoes a succession of Kalpas, being at the end of each reabsorbed into Deity, Who then rests awhile prior to the next manifestation, reposing upon Sesha, the celestial serpent, or living circle of Eternity, the symbol of essential Being, as opposed to existence in its strict sense of manifested Being.

The Hindu Vedanta gives a spiritual interpretation of the Ultimate Reality, the meaning of creation, and the human individual. Its view of the cosmos is one of organic wholeness that includes all beings and things. Things and beings in the realm of maya are not non-existent, though they are illusory. The beings and things of the relative universe appear real because they reflect the light of the Absolute.

The Essenes believe that consciousness is being, and there is no mode of matter in which the potentiality of personality, and therein of man, does not subsist. For every molecule is a mode of the universal consciousness. Without consciousness there is no being.

What do YOU think?

The Marriage of Shiva and Neville's Imagination

When our world seems to fall apart and things start going wrong, what do we do? Do we blame ourselves or someone else? Do we start searching for causes and solutions? Do we hold on to our faith in Divine Will and believe that it will all work out?

The notion of the old dying and giving way for something new is as old as the ancient Hindu traditions, where Shiva is the destroyer of the world, following Brahma the creator and Vishnu the preserver, after which Brahma again creates the world and so on. Shiva is responsible for change both in the form of death and destruction and in the positive sense of the shedding of old habits.

Modern theories of deconstruction include Phenomenology, the philosophy founded by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, who say that the method of defining phenomenon includes three steps -- reduction, construction, and deconstruction -- and they explain that these three are mutually pertinent to one another. In the deconstruction, every object shows itself as a set of possibilities, not merely as a determinate thing. To see a particular object is to see it in terms of possibilities.

So while it seems that our experience is falling apart, possibility is also arising. If we can focus on the new possibility coming into our experience, instead of focusing on the old that no longer serves us and will fall away with change if we allow, we can see that all experience is experience of more, of possibility.

Neville Goddard believes that once we recognize the possibility, imagination is the key to creating our best possible lives. In his book, Awakened Imagination, he says: "The world presents different appearances according as our states of consciousness differ. What we see when we are identified with a state cannot be seen when we are no longer fused with it. By state is meant all that man believes and consents to as true. The world is a revelation of the states with which imagination is fused. It is the state from which we think that determines the objective world in which we live. If we detach ourselves from a state, and we may at any moment, the conditions and circumstances to which that union gave being vanish. The imaginative man does not deny the reality of the sensuous outer world of Becoming, but he knows that it is the inner world of continuous Imagination that is the force by which the sensuous outer world of Becoming is brought to pass."

What do YOU think?

Artwork by Robert Parker Many thanks.

Making the World a Better Place

Social responsibility is on the minds of many of us. How can we make the world a better place? Is this our duty, as Jean Paul Sarte and the existentialists believed? How can we fit our contribution to the greater community into our busy lives as we struggle with survival and self expression, daily?

Clare W. Graves, Ph.D, was a visionary thinker who began laying the groundwork for the theory behind the Spiral Dynamics application in the 1950s. His theory suggests that every individual or collective consciousness falls somewhere in, between, or among these various levels of being which are not types of people but ways of thinking about a thing.

Graves breaks it into one of nine groups called MEMEs, and assigns a color to each. Beige is the first, this group is involved solely in survival and would have no time to consider social responsibility. The green MEME has the greatest involvement in social issues, as their survival needs are met and their main concerns are harmony/love; joining together for mutual growth; awareness; belonging. The last MEMEs up the spiral, turquoise and coral, go beyond the physical social involvement and contribute to society in ways that involve consciousness more than doing. According to Graves, all groups contribute to life as we know it in valuable and significant ways. It is the dynamic between that creates the life spiral known as evolutionary consciousness.

Future By Design, an organization dedicated to reformulating the operation definition of a better world by introducing coherent planning strategies that are applicable to global and small groups alike, is a good example of green MEME work. Their credo: To constantly maximize existing and future technologies with the sole purpose of enhancing all human life and protecting the environment.

A good example of the work of the turquoise MEME is Dr. Bruce Lipton, the biophysicist who identified the two way communication of unique signals from our cell membranes into our experiential awareness.

An example of the coral MEME would be Neville Goddard, twentieth century mystic, who taught self realization through recognition: "The ideal you seek and hope to attain will not manifest itself, will not be realized by you, until you have imagined that you are already that ideal." We hold the space, imagine the world of our desire, and live from our awakened imagination. What do YOU think?

Forgive and Live

There seem to be many faces to the process of "forgiveness" being worn these days. Many books, lectures and workshops are available to help us contemplate and adopt forgiving behaviors. We are all taught as children that forgiveness of friends and family is an important part of social life. What are YOUR thoughts on forgiveness? How do you make it work for YOU?

William Blake tells us: "In heaven, the only art of living is forgetting and forgiving."

The process that Neville Goddard presents as forgiveness, takes us beyond separation and cause, and requires that we simply see everyone in their highest potential: "What we mean by forgiveness the identification of the other that we would forgive with the ideal that other wants to embody in the world. And so we do to him what we expect or would like the world to do to us. So whatever I myself would like to embody that is the vision that I must hold of every man that I meet in my world; that no man is to be discarded, every man is to be redeemed, and my life is the process whereby that redemption is brought about. And I do it by simply identifying the other with the ideal I want to externalize in my world" and you find yourself then not justifying but forgiving, and you will realize that freedom and forgiveness are indissolubly linked. You cannot be free and not forgive, for the one that you would bind and judge and condemn anchors you by your own judgment of him--for he is in you. And so by identifying him with the ideal you want to really realize you free yourself."

What do YOU think?