The wisdom of inconsistency

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love that quote. It turns consistency on its head. Most of us think of consistency as something very positive and important, and certainly there are instances where it's necessary to maintain a consistent attitude. But here's where the contrarian in me slips out. Rather than becoming more and more consistent as I progress through life, I'm instead starting to celebrate and encourage my own inconsistency.

To maintain a "foolish consistency" is to rigidly stick to your beliefs, ideas and opinions without ever questioning them and without venturing out of your little mental cul de sac, which may be comfortable, but is nevertheless a prison. Too often consciousness gets trapped in crystallised mental formations: rigid, dogmatic beliefs, inflexible opinions, erroneous viewpoints and countless unconscious habits and patterns.

To live like this is to not live at all. We just sleep-walk our way through life, habitually, unconsciously and automatically reacting to life and other people. The masquerade of our "social self" is something contrary to what might be called our "essential self", which is what we really are: unconditioned awareness, free-flowing consciousness.

I'm wary of beliefs. I know it's almost impossible to exist in this world without forming myriad beliefs about this, that and the next thing.

But beliefs are constraining and, loathe though we may be to admit it, are largely erroneous. We tend to mistake our belief about a thing as being the thing itself. We also have a tendency to worship our own beliefs and belief systems, as they form the basis of our "self-identity". People are literally prepared to kill and be killed for their beliefs, simply because a threat to their belief system is a perceived threat to the essence of their identity (a totally fabricated, mind-created identity at that, but that's the topic of another discussion).

Furthermore, to quote Robert Anton Wilson (I'm an all-round quoting monkey, I know):

"Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence."

Perhaps now it's easier to see what Emerson was getting at. Stubbornly clinging to our beliefs and viewpoints and thus upholding a "foolish consistency" reduces us to nothing more than walking sets of conditioned behaviour and belief systems.

We close ourselves off to life, content to remain in a cosy yet blinded little mental bubble. It's a sorry way for consciousness to exist, for it's trapped and limited when it yearns to be free and to flow like water. Rather than existing in a state of vast expansiveness like the ocean -- a true reflection of our essential nature -- we become nothing more than little isolated rock pools filled with stagnant water.

That's why I now actually see inconsistency as a positive thing (although, like anything in life, moderation is the key). Why be consistent in my opinions, viewpoints, tastes, likes and dislikes? I no longer take my opinions quite as seriously as I used to. I still have them, and I express them when I feel the wish, but I no longer see them as absolutely important or everlasting. Some of my beliefs and viewpoints are very static, such as those relating to topics such as human and animal rights. Others are changing all the time, week by week. Music and food I like this month, I might be less keen on the following month. Artists I always loved might begin to hold less appeal, and those I was never into might suddenly 'click'. One week I announce I'm having a break from blogging because I've run out of things to say, then the next day I write two or three new blog entries. It might confuse others, but embracing this 'internal inconsistency' rather than trying to uphold rigidly consistent viewpoints makes life much more more fun and interesting.

If you're really honest with yourself, I'm sure you can see how your opinions, viewpoints and beliefs are changing all the time. They're not generally as static and set in stone as you might like to believe. The opinions and beliefs you now hold are no doubt different in subtle or major ways to those you held when you were a child, or those you'll hold as an elderly person. In fact, they might even be different to those you'll hold next week or next month.

Observing the natural inconsistency of our mental content frees us from overly identifying with it. It's still there, but we can take it less seriously and perhaps be a little more open-minded, freer in our opinions and find it easier to consider alternative viewpoints.

And also, here's a very important point -- the less meaning we invest in our thoughts, beliefs and opinions, the less we identify with them and invest our sense of 'self' in them...the less we suffer!

Life becomes a little easier, more peaceful and it flows just a bit more. Consciousness is freed from its prison and that's one of the greatest steps to finding inner peace and joy. Consciousness just wants to flow freely and be unobstructed and unconstrained. If we allow it to flow, and follow it wherever it wants to go, then we can be amazed at the sheer feeling of liberation and exhilaration we experience.

So, my invitation is to stop being "foolishly consistent". Allow yourself to be inconsistent whenever you damn well feel like it. We may tend to be "creatures of habit", but there's no fun in that and it kind of deadens us to life. Instead be open, aware and see every moment as new and fresh. Allow yourself to relate to life in different ways. Always be prepared to re-evaluate your opinions, beliefs, ideas and even your tastes and preferences. Celebrate inconsistency! Have fun.

The origin and nature of THOUGHT

Have you ever stopped to wonder where your thoughts come from? Or are you so taken in by every movement of your mind that you’re barely even aware that you’re thinking most the time? 

WHO is that thinks -- and who is it that’s aware of what's being thought? Do you think, or do your thoughts essentially just think themselves? These are all very important questions, and the answers might well surprise you.

I invite you to investigate for yourself. A great practise is simply to sit and observe your thoughts. Ask yourself, “I wonder what my next thought will be?” Then sit quietly, alert and attentive, watching and waiting. You’ll likely come to some really interesting conclusions. 

I came to realise that 'WE’RE' not actually the thinker! Oh, sure, if we want to reflect on something, we can consciously direct our thoughts with our intention. But most of the time, we’re not the ones doing the thinking. If we were, then we’d always be able to control and predict our thoughts, but we can’t. Thoughts just happen, in awareness, like clouds of vapour rising up from the ocean, existing for a limited lifespan, then dissolving away again. Try the above practise, and keep doing it -- it’s fun, relaxing and liberating. You’ll see that you’re not actually the one doing the thinking. It’s more like the thinking is doing you.

Thoughts just seem to rise and fall. ‘We’ are not the thoughts, for we cannot be that which is observable -- we are obviously the subject, not the object. That said, when we’re in our ‘normal’ mode of consciousness, we tend to get completely consumed and caught up in our thinking, automatically believing in and identifying with every thought, investing our very sense of self and being in these fickle movements of mind.

But if we’re not our thoughts, then what are we? 

Investigate for yourself -- what is it that’s watching and is aware of the thoughts...?

No word or description is adequate for it, but it might be referred to as the 'watcher', the 'witness' or simply pure awareness. This, I believe, is our natural state, and it’s always with us, throughout our entire lives. No matter what’s happening outwardly or inwardly, no matter what our thoughts and beliefs are and no matter what configuration our personal psychology assumes, that pure space of awareness is ALWAYS there in the background, underlying our every experience in life. Without it, we’d simply cease to be. It’s like the paper on which the words (our thoughts and experiences) are written. Take away the paper and there’s nothing. But that’s a whole other discussion.

Back to thoughts. Upon observation, you can see that thoughts are like clouds passing across the sky of your mind or awareness. Sometimes they’re light and fluffy and other times they’re thick and stormy, covering the whole sky. Sometimes they move across the sky quickly, chopping and changing, and other times, such as in meditation, sleep and times of deep relaxation, they slow down and perhaps even subside for a time.

So where do they come from? I don't believe thoughts 'magically' arise out of nowhere, although it might seem like that. The activity of our minds and the overall structure of our psyche is largely driven by what what in Sanskrit is called 'vasanas', or mental tendencies. Vasanas are like grooves that are created in the mind, much the same way as water flowing down a mountain carves grooves and channels in the rock. 

You might think of consciousness as being like water and it tends to flow along these grooves and this is what largely determines the content of our mind and pysche. Of course, it's possible to create new grooves and new vasanas by redirecting our consciousness and focussing on different thoughts, but that takes conscious effort. Outside of the 'base light' of awareness (the ‘paper’ on which the content appears), people's personalities and the structure of their minds are largely just vasanas and conditioning in operation, influenced by other factors such as environment, heredity and culture. 

This is what brought me to the realisation that it's not really 'me' that thinks all the thoughts that ripple across my mind. Upon investigation I came to see that the thinking just seems to flow of its own accord, as consciousness moves along those grooves. Kinda groovy, huh?

So thoughts just tend to occur, driven largely by our conditioning and vasanas. They don’t have any independent existence/intelligence of their own, as they’re just the flow of consciousness assuming certain configurations. 

This isn’t to say we need be slave to these thoughts. On the contrary, when we realise that they’re just thoughts, movements in consciousness, then we can experience a tremendous amount of liberty and freedom from them!

I used to suffer depression for several years, and I can see now how it was caused by the thoughts that were habitually occurring in my mind. I no longer take my thoughts nearly as seriously, because I’m very clear that they’re just thoughts -- they’re not reality, just crude (and very often distorted) reflections of reality. The depressed thoughts were just a kind of weather-front passing through me. When I learned to dis-identify from it and just witness it, I began to transcend it -- and it passed. 

I highly recommend the practise of simply observing your thoughts. It creates a healthy detachment. Rather than being helplessly buffeted by every thought that crosses your mind, you come to realise that they are just the dream-like movements of consciousness and they have only the meaning you ascribe to them. They just rise and fall. They might be part of a chain of thoughts (clusters of thoughts can form and create big entangled structures that become beliefs, habitual thoughts and/or preoccupations) or they might be totally random. 

When we're 'unconscious', which means automatically buying into every thought that passes our mind, then we’re a slave to our thoughts and they can make us suffer -- and how! But when we simply observe and allow consciousness to flow as it does, without grasping onto it or obstructing it, then there's a tremendous freedom and liberty. 

Nisargadatta said something that really stuck with me: he advised us to see the content of our consciousness -- our mind, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, etc -- as being something foreign or alien to us, something that's NOT 'us', but a process that's happening within us ('us' being, at the deepest level, the space of pure awareness I spoke of). This might be a radical notion to many, but I've found it very helpful. I still experience occasional low moods like everyone else, but I find it virtually impossible to be depressed these days, because I no longer unquestioningly BELIEVE all the thoughts that cross my mind, or give them an importance they simply don’t warrant. 

When our focus is freed from the movements of our mind, it can be redirected to the witness -- the awareness -- the sense of being, or whatever you want to call it. And in that core level of awareness, is an incredible sense of peace, contentment and joy. It’s the happiness we spend our lives seeking in the outer world and in other people, but which can only ever truly be found within us. This is probably the most important discovery we’ll ever make.

So, try it. Watch your thoughts. Go beyond your them and trace them to their source. Be open, curious and aware. You might be amazed at what you discover.

The Future

“I used to think about the future and then it became the present, so I thought about it quite often then and then it was in the past, so I didn’t think about it that much.”

Father Ted

One of the things that has frequently tripped me up over the years is the notion of future. It’s easy to get lost in it and for concerns and insecurities about the future to overwhelm us, causing untold stress and turmoil. In fact, when it comes to mindstuff, the ‘future’ can be like a gaping black hole, ravenous, all-consuming and virtually impossible to escape.

The ego loves its security and in a world where security is ultimately an illusion (after all, anything at any moment could compromise your sense of security), that can be something of a problem. The future is the great unknown and that is something that utterly terrifies the ego!

To minimise this sense of unease we adopt all kinds of strategies for trying to control circumstances and outcomes as much as possible. Again, going back to what I wrote previously about control, that can only work to a limited extent. We can pursue the things that we think will bring us fortune and security and we may even succeed; but even when we do, it’s rarely enough to dispel our fears and insecurity. This is because our insecurity is a structural component of the ego.

In a sense, our insecurity over the future is a legitimate concern, because we really don’t know what the future holds. Bad things can and frequently do happen. I think it’s likely our fear of the future/unknown is a survival mechanism that’s developed to protect us from potential harm by always keeping us on our toes. Yet in our modern world, where our immediate physical survival isn’t usually an issue, this survival mechanism has become a stress mechanism.

In this media-dominated information age, it’s virtually impossible to escape the news and the news is rarely good. We don’t just leave it at that though. We take what’s happening and project it into an imagined future, playing out all kinds of horrific scenarios in our minds. Sometimes it’s necessary to project ahead in this way as it allows us to make prudent choices that avert unnecessary catastrophe. If I’m walking along a train track and a train appears in the distance, it’s prudent that I project into the future and realise that if I don’t step aside, I’ll get squished.

There are times when this is a useful practise and times when it becomes highly dysfunctional. For we tend to get lost in our imaginings, creating entire alternate realities in our minds. We forget that it’s just fantasy and actually believe that what we’re imagining is real. I believe it’s this tendency that creates much of our anxiety and fear over the future.

Two things have helped me to deal with this. The first is the recognition that the future is actually an illusion of the mind; and so, for that matter, is the past. The only thing that actually exists is the present moment and that present moment NEVER ENDS. In spite of this concept we have of past, present and future, there’s never an instance where the present becomes the past, or becomes the future. It’s a continuing, unbroken, unfragmented whole.

The present moment just IS -- and it always will be. Of course the CONTENT of the present moment is always changing and it is from this that we’ve derived the notions of ‘past’ and ‘future’. But past and future don’t actually exist. However hard you were to look, you could never actually find them because the only place they exist is in the mind; the past as memories and the future as imagination, expectation or anticipation.

What a terrible mess we get ourselves in over something that exists nowhere other than our own minds! However long we wait, the future will never arrive. All we have is this moment, this timeless, eternal moment, the form of which is continuously shifting and changing.

The second thing that’s helped me deal with this structural insecurity is the recognition that I’m not what I think I am. Along with the concept of time, another core human assumption is that we are our bodies. I’m not going to go too deeply into this for now and I’ll assume that if you’re reading this you’ve already got some sense that what you are is something more than just a bag of bones, tissues and liquids.

But even when, on a conceptual level, we know that we are something deeper than the surface-level appearance, it takes a while for us to fully embody and integrate that realisation. In other words, we usually still act and react as though we are just our bodies. And because we know that ultimately our body is going to die, we have a fundamental insecurity that underlies every second of our existence, whether we’re aware of it or not. I’d even go so far as to say that the root of our fear of the future is fear of the termination of the body.

But when the realisation that we are something far transcendent of form takes root not just in our head, but in our heart and our gut, this underlying existential insecurity begins to loosen its grip. When we truly know with the entirety of our being that we are eternal and deathless, then we cease to fear the inevitable dissolution of our form. Our bodies change throughout the course of our lives and the content of our minds and psyche changes from moment to moment. But this timeless awareness that we are remains unchanged.

If you’ve ever explored and moved into this primal awareness, you’ll notice that it at its core is a deep and expansive acceptance. It doesn’t hold life to ransom and it doesn’t have demands or like and dislikes or even goals and directives. It just allows life to be as it is. It remains open, untouched and untouchable.

Knowing what we are and questioning the content of our minds lead us to a deeper and infinitely more secure state of being. Life still happens around us and at times it’s distressing and grim, but when we’ve removed some of our investment of ‘selfhood’ from what is ultimately transient and insubstantial, we experience far greater freedom than ever before.

The need to desperately control the future lessens. We come to see the primary importance of living well in the present moment. We can surrender to a greater intelligence, of which we are an inextricable part, and allow that intelligence to guide us rather than our fears and doubts.

When we surrender to the flow of life, we come to see that that no matter what the ‘future’ (or, rather, the forthcoming configuration of the eternal present) holds, we will be fine. That which we are is ultimately untouchable. Whether our future contains fortune or misfortune, we will be fine. We will always be fine.

When we’ve let go of our insecurities, our attachments and our desperate need to control life, we’ve let go of the very obstructions that make life difficult in the first place. And when we do encounter life’s inevitable challenges, we deal with them with greater ease and grace, always returning to our innate sense of balance and wellbeing.

I believe that when we’re in this Tao-centred state of being, connected with the flow of life and the truth of what we are, then life is often kinder and gentler. Moreover, our state of being has a positive effect on those around us and the world at large.

So why worry about the future when we can instead move our attention inward and allow life to guide us? We can flow gently and smoothly with the current of life and be led exactly where we need to be.

Maybe life really CAN be that simple? Even if I’m wrong, what a way to live!

Byron Katie

I originally posted this on my old myspace blog, but I have re-posted it here on the off-chance it might be of help or inspiration to others.

THE WORK OF BYRON KATIE

I'd like to talk about a woman named Byron Katie, an incredibly inspiring woman who has achieved a remarkable degree of 'enlightenment' and a total peace and oneness with life. More than that, I want to share a simple process she calls 'the work', a process that has helped me immeasurably. Whereas once I used to suffer depression at various times in my life, I now find that depression is pretty much impossible. And although challenges and stressful things continue to happen in my life (for such is the very nature of life), I find that things simply don't 'get to me' like they used to. I don't get hooked and pulled in by them nearly so often and even when I do, I usually manage to re-align myself pretty quickly. The key thing I learned from Katie was to question my thoughts. The core of her teaching is that when you unconsciously believe every thought that passes through your mind (especially the negative ones!) you suffer. When you learn to look at them objectively and question them, you're no longer at the mercy of them. You are at peace with what is. Katie's process of 'enquiry' is an incredible tool that anyone can use and which cuts through suffering like a sharpened blade...

It's helpful to consider Katie's own story. As her website explains:

Byron Katie became severely depressed in her early thirties. For almost a decade she spiraled down into depression, rage, self-loathing, and constant thoughts of suicide; for the last two years she was often unable to leave her bedroom.

Then one morning in February 1986, she experienced a life-changing realization. There are various names for an experience like this. Katie calls it "waking up to reality."

In that instant of no-time, she says,

"I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn't believe them, I didn't suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. That joy is in everyone, always."

She realised that what had been causing her depression was not the world around her, but the beliefs she'd had about the world. Instead of hopelessly trying to change the world to match her thoughts about how it should be, she could question these thoughts and, by meeting reality as it is, experience unimaginable freedom and joy. As a result, a bedridden, suicidal woman was instantly filled with love for everything life brings.

The essence of Byron Katie's teaching is that suffering is the result of waging our own little war with reality. Not only is it a war that we'll never win, but it's one that will inevitably cause us suffering. "Any thought that causes stress is an argument with reality. All such thoughts are variations of a theme: 'Things should be different than they are.' 'I want...', 'I need...', 'he should...', 'she shouldn't...' It always hurts when you argue with what is.'

You stop arguing with reality by using a process of self enquiry called 'the Work', in which you identify any thought or belief that is causing you pain or suffering, and use four questions to examine it. Whenever you feel upset about anything, you can ask yourself 'what would I have to believe in order to be upset about this?' Ultimately we confuse our thoughts and beliefs and interpretation of reality as being reality itself. Believing that we know best, that are supreme arbitors of what 'should' and 'shouldn't be' is the ultimate delusion and it's a recipe for a life-long dose of suffering, because we suffer each time life doesn't match up to our mentally-fabricated story of how it should be.

"As you inquire into your own thoughts, you discover how attachment to a belief or story causes suffering. The mind's natural condition is peace. Then a thought enters, you believe it, and the peace seems to disappear. You notice the feeling of stress in the moment, and the feeling lets you know that you are opposing what is by believing the thought; it tells you that you are at war with reality. When you question the thought behind the feeling and realise it isn't trye, you become present outside your story. Then the story falls away in the light of awareness and only awareness of what really is remains. peace is who you are without a story, until the next stressful story appears. Eventually, inquiry becomes alive in you as the natural, wordless response of awareness to the thoughts that arise."

It's not about ridding your mind of thoughts; that would be like emptying the sea of water. It's simply about being aware which thoughts work for you and which don't. If a thought brings peace, it's working for you. If it doesn't, identify it and question it.

The Work involves taking a stressful thought and applying four questions and a turnaround. This is best done in writing rather than in your head (because as you know it's easy to go around in circles in your head, but on paper everything is given concrete clarity).

Stressful thoughts might include: 'he shouldn't have spoken to me like that', 'this shouldn't be happening,' 'I'm so useless,' 'I'm too fat,' 'my mother never loved me,' 'my sister should be more supportive,' 'I should have a better job by now.' You might already have a truckload of justifications to support each one, but let go of all your stories. You have to have an open mind to do this and you have to want to know the truth more than you want to keep holding onto your story. Hold the thought or belief and ask yourself:

1. Is it true?

2. Can I absolutely know it's true?

3. How do I react and feel when I believe that thought?

4. Who would I be without that thought?

You can then turn the original thought around; for instance, try on the exact opposite and see if you can come up with at least 3 reasons as to how this new thought might be as true as or truer than the original.

It's amazing how you can simply transform even deeply-entrenched thoughts and beliefs that you might have been holding for years. Holding them up to the light of truth you might immediately see how thoughts like 'nobody likes me' are ridiculous generalisations and yet you've believed them for years. Then there's the realisation that if we are really honest, we see that there are very, very few things we can be absolutely certain about in life...

When we realise that holding onto a thought that we probably don't even know is true causes suffering and letting go of it enbales peace and freedom, we can go onto the turnaround, in which we identify the opposite of your original thought and find at least 3 ways in which the opposite is truer or just as true than the original statement.

The process is elaborated more fully on Byron Katie's website (www.thework.com) and in her books 'Loving what is,' 'I Need Your Love, is that true?' (an excellent and ground-breaking look at relationships) and 'A Thousand Names for Joy'. The latter is the first book I read of hers and is an extraordinary portrait of a woman who lives at total peace with life. It's not as though she has had an easy ride either; she has suffered from Fuch's dystrophy, a corneal disease that rendered her intermitantly blind and in constant pain. The way she dealt with that was a total revelation to me. Inspiring isn't the word.

I hope that this has given people some food for thought. I really recommend that anyone uses the four question process anytime you are dealing with difficulty in life. I have found it incredible. When feeling very ill and down about it, I realised that the thoughts 'I shouldn't be ill' and 'this shouldn't be happening' were causing more suffering than the actual illness. I questioned them and let them go and felt a peace in spite of the physical symptoms. It didn't mean I didn't want to get better (don't confuse acceptance with apathy and giving up), because I still did everything I could to get better, it just meant I was at peace with what is - and that sense of peace surely did more to help my immune system than all the stress and frustration.

In closing, here are some quotes by Katie which I love:

Peace doesn't require two people; it requires only one. It has to be you. The problem begins and ends there.

The mind's job is to validate what it thinks.

There is nothing that isn't true if you believe it; and nothing is true, believe it or not.

When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.

I realised that it's insane to oppose it. When I argue with reality, I lose—but only 100% of the time. How do I know that the wind should blow? It's blowing!

Peace is our natural condition. Only by believing an untrue thought is it possible to move from peace into emotions like sadness and anger. Without the pull of beliefs, the mind stays serenely in itself and is available for whatever comes along.

Who would you be in people's presence without, for example, the story that anyone should care about you, ever? You would be love itself. When you believe the myth that people should care, you're too needy to care about people or about yourself. The experience of love can't come from anyone else; it can only come from inside you.

I can find only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours and God's. Much of our stress comes from mentally living out of our business. When I think, "You need to get a job, I want you to be happy, you should be on time, you need to take better care of yourself," I am in your business. When I'm worried about earthquakes, floods, war, or when I will die, I am in God's business. If I am mentally in your business or in God's business, the effect is separation.

Nothing can cost you someone you love. The only thing that can cost you your husband is if you believe a thought. That's how you move away from him. That's how the marriage ends. You are one with your husband until you believe the thought that he should look a certain way, he should give you something, he should be something other than what he is. That's how you divorce him. Right then and there you have lost your marriage.

No one has ever known the answer to why? The only true answer is because. Why do the stars shine? Because they do. Why is the glass sitting on the table? Because it is. That's it. In reality, there is no why. It's hopeless to ask; the question can't go anywhere--haven't you noticed? There is no ultimate answer to anything. There's nothing to know, and no one who wants to know. Just have fun with the asking, because there are trillions of answers, as many as the stars in the sky, and not one of them is true. Enjoy the stars, but don't think that there's anything behind them. And ultimately, do you even care about an answer?

Two worlds

I feel very much like I’m at a crossroads. It almost feels as though I stuck between two worlds (and I’m talking subjective, abstract worlds here!). I have a foot in both worlds but I don’t permanently reside in either; I’m just stuck between the two in a state of constant flux and it’s extremely uncomfortable, confusing and disorienting. I know it’s time to stop trying to reconcile these two separate worlds - being caught between the two is actually quite painful and unhealthy. The word ‘stress’ actually means being pulled in two or more different directions...and I get that, really I do. I know I have to make a choice now as to which world I’m going to step into and permanently reside in. The question is; which one? I think one of these worlds is the world of duality; “the world” as most people perceive and experience it. It’s the world of getting ahead, forging your way, caring a little too much about what other people think of you and basing all your actions and choices upon this ‘presentation of self’. It’s the ‘worldly world’, the rat race, the ego’s top choice...because it’s all really about ego - ego management, ego enhancement, ego damage limitation. The other world is a much more subjective and individualistic realm; it’s the realm of following your heart and daring to do what you really KNOW to be true deep within you. Contrary to the other world, the prerequisite for entering this world is to leave your ego at the door. It’s necessary to let go of all concern of what ‘others’ think, and to fearlessly, relentlessly follow your own path regardless of all criticism, judgement and misunderstanding that might be thrown in your direction. It’s the scarier path to take in some ways, as we all have an innate ‘need’ to be validated and approved of by others. But, I keep asking myself - at what cost? To paraphrase a very famous quote: ‘what does it profit you to gain the approval of the world when you’ve lost your own soul?’

Most people, in the grips of their ego, base their every action upon the perceived reactions of others. This unconscious need to be validated and approved of drives so many people’s every action....unbridled people pleasing on a grand scale. I love Byron Katie’s book “I Need Your Love - Is That True?” In it, she gets us to question some of the underlying assumptions we unconsciously carry with us, assumptions which render our lives little more than continued and insipid attempts at mass people-pleasing. For some people it’s actually like a religion. But do we really need everyone - or as many people as possible - to approve of our every action? Can we absolutely KNOW that we need that? Are the opinions of faceless strangers really more important than following what we, ourselves, know to be true? Katie relates an amusing story about a woman who bought a magazine and then left it in the waiting room at her doctors surgery. The woman knew she wanted to go back to get the magazine, but she got all flustered and rehearsed and delivered a speech just so everyone else in the waiting room - none of whom she actually knew - would know she wasn’t stealing the magazine. Because the opinions of strangers are just so darned important!

I laughed at the story but could recognise all the ways in which I’ve given the opinions of others (or my PERCEPTIONS of what their opinions might be) so much credence that I couldn’t sleep at night. It’s crazy actually - particularly when I suddenly realised that I DIDN’T “need” other people to approve of me. Sure, it’s nice to feel approved of, but it’s not a necessity in life and besides, no matter how much energy and effort you expend, there will always be people that don’t approve of you. I should have learned that by now. In fact, being gay is a tremendous lesson in letting go of the need to have absolutely everyone understand and approve of you, because no matter how hard you try to be a wonderful person, there are sadly many very unconscious and bigoted people out there that will automatically disapprove of, and even hate you. Not because of you per se, but simply because of this dehumanised label and concept they automatically have of you. Besides, it’s sad that a great many people don’t have clear vision; their experience of reality is clouded and filtered by a great deal of erroneous and downright toxic mindstuff. Desperately seeking the approval of people that are actually very mentally dysfunctional is...in itself very mentally dysfunctional.

“Be true to yourself”, goes the cliched - but very salient - saying. Because being true to anyone else is actually quite impossible.

So how does this relate to my crossroads between worlds? Well, basically I’m feeling that in one world I can live after the world’s opinion, as I have done in the past for very many years. I can try to do and be what I think ‘others’ think I should do and be. I can try to make myself as ‘cool’ as possible, as ‘successful’ as possible and I can try to create and project the ‘ideal me’ as I would like the world to see it. But the more and more I think about that option the more it seems hollow, vacuous and totally unfulfilling. It’s how a great many people live their lives (and I mean that with absolutely no judgement, for a lot of the time it’s a very unconscious motivation). The other world, to which my heart really calls me, is one in which I really don’t give two hoots what “the world” thinks of me. In this world, I just follow my heart. I do what feels right to me and what I feel called to do without the need to ‘spin doctor’ everything. I can really do and be what I feel I was born to do and be: I can be a crazy artist, an inspired writer, a natural-born mystic. I don’t have to subscribe to the ‘general consensus’ of “what goes” and I’m not bound by the hegemonic notions of “the way things are”. Hah, I realise that I already inhabit this world on a part-time basis anyway. But I feel I have to inhabit it fully and unapologetically. By virtue of keeping a foothold in the other world (perhaps “the road more travelled”), I’m still filled too much with fears about how I appear to others and what people would think if they really got to know the ‘real me’. So what if more ‘normal’ people think I’m a nutcase? I’d actually like to give myself permission to be a nutcase if that's what I feel like being.

The old world of ‘normalcy’ or ‘averageness’ has lost its appeal. If I stay there I’d lose all inspiration and drown out the voice of my soul...my art would dry up and all these ideas I have for bright, bold paintings and all the books I want to write would scatter in the wind. I’d be too busy trying to fit in and be like everyone else - and that, I know from experience, uses up a heck of a lot of energy - in order to pursue my creative dreams. I know to which world my heart is calling me...so perhaps it’s time to move out of the crossroads and go where I need to be going. Which is really just to ditch all concerns and fears about what others think, and to just unapologetically be what, in my deepest heart, I truly want to be.

Maybe you’d care to take this journey with me??

Rule Number 6

Love this little parable, which I saw in a Wayne Dyer book called 'The Power of Intention' some years ago. Came across it again and it's so true. Makes me laugh - a very good one to keep in mind whenever you get stressed out......

Two prime ministers were sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fists on the desk. The resident prime minister admonishes him: "Peter," he says. "Kindly remember Rule Number 6," whereupon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologises and withdraws.

The politicians return to their conversation, only to be interrupted yet again 20 minutes later by a hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying. Again the intruder is greeted with the words: "Please remember Rule Number 6". Complete calm descends once more and she too withdraws with a bow and an apology.

When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: "My dear friend, I've seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of Rule Number 6?"

"Very simple," responds the resident prime minister. "Rule Number 6 is don't take yourself so Goddamn seriously."

"Ah," says his visitor, "that is a fine rule." After a moment of pondering, he inquires, "And what may I ask are the other rules?"

"There arent any."

----------------

I'll explain why I found that story so good. It cuts through the ego; it cuts through the mind-stories we tell ourselves. Most the suffering of our life is actually in our heads ("this shouldn't have happened", "how dare she speak to me like that", "it shouldn't be raining today"). We take these mind-stories so seriously, so often. Many people worship their stories and get so caught up in them that they utterly mistake their interpretations and stories about life with life itself. This is the ego, I believe: identifying with the content of your mind, investing it with a sense of self and a solidity and realness it doesn't inherently possess. When you cease to cherish those thoughts and stories, when you stop taking yourself so seriously......wow. You actually begin to taste freedom, and become more in touch with life than ever before. You realise that the thoughts you've been terrorising yourself with in your head are just thoughts, just clouds passing through the sky of mind.

When you do that you disidentity for the 'little self' and can access the 'True Self', whatever you want to call it. So, for some people - particularly those who are deeply engrossed in the 'little self' and the content of mind - this story can be a very helpful pointer. For others - perhaps those who already have a degree of freedom from mental bondage - it's not as appropriate. For others, who are completely unawakened and totally identified with mind, telling them to 'stop taking themselves so seriously' would get you a punch in the face, because they really believe they have every right to take themselves that seriously.

Ultimately, we might be the centre of our own universes, and we might often think that our problems and issues and stories have absolute importance. The reality is they only have relative importance - relative to us. And what are we but tiny sub-microscopic particles on a world that's smaller than a grain of sand in all the beaches in all the world. Whenever I remind myself of this vastness, my problems immediately shrink and I immediately jettison my self-importance and so slip out of the realm of 'little self' and into the province of the 'big Self'. As the little self we're actually totally insignificant because it's only an illusion of mind; as the true Self we're...everything.

Make the dream sweet - or wake up

There has been a lot of stuff going through my mind lately. Thankfully I’ve learned not to take all of it seriously or give undue importance to the joys of what I’ve unceremoniously labelled ‘mindcrap’. Much of it is complete baloney, and yet unfortunately most people - myself included at times - treat it with the utmost seriousness. Some people even end up worshipping their mindcrap. What’s your religion? Why it’s the thoughts and beliefs in my head. Uh huh. But It’s really not funny. It’s the cause of so much misery on this planet.

I was listening to an interview with Zen/Advaita teacher Adyashanti, who spoke very eloquently of what 'enlightenment' or 'awakening' truly is. Basically, the way he defined it was simply as seeing things as they really are...as opposed to seeing things as we THINK they are. Most people live their lives with a mental commentary running in their heads. Every single experience, individual, occurence and situation is thereby filtered through a screen of mind; processed through a filter of our thoughts, beliefs and prejudices. Every experience of ‘reality’ is in fact quickly and neatly packaged into a story in our minds. We so rarely experience ‘reality’ as it is; instead we’re stuck in our interpretation, our story of what we THINK reality is.

The example he gave was if someone says something that we don’t like; our reality becomes “that person shouldn’t have said that”. We take THAT to be reality; when in fact, that’s simply a story we’ve spun in our minds. The reality was, simply (and it always is so much more simple than we make it) - that the person said such-and-such. Doesn’t really matter whether or not we liked what they had to say; that’s merely subjective interpretation. What is, I guess, IS. We have an in-built spin doctor living in a portion of our brain that is perpetually taking our experience and turning it into little stories and narratives and what’s ‘good’, what’s ‘bad’, what ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ be happening...and we tend to utterly fall for that and see it as ‘reality’ when in fact it’s merely a phantasm, an illusion of mind that filters our perception of reality.

Is there then some truth in the ancient notion that everything we believe to be 'reality', is in fact just a dream? From what I hear, some quantum physicists actually purport that 'reality' is entirely dependent upon our perception of it; in other words, if we're not there to perceive it, then it no longer exists...that without our brain processing the information in a certain way, then it's all basically just quantum soup - patterns of energy and information with no inherent realness of its own. A possible implication is that with our minds, we create the world as we perceive it, in much the same way as dreams exists. It seems real to us while we're perceiving it, but ultimately we come to realise that it's simply just a dream.

Do you want to take the red pill or the blue pill?!

Now, I don’t suppose it matters a great deal if it's a positive, happy dream - and it will be if your mind-stories (the narrative and beliefs which drive your experience or reality) are of a positive and healthy nature. No one wants to be woken from a pleasant dream. If it works for you and you are happy, then that's wonderful. Positive people are much better to be around than negative people (unless, of course you’re a negative person in which case you probably find it mightily uncomfortable to be around people that don’t share your negative outlook).

If it’s an unhappy dream you're experiencing, then maybe you do want to wake up (unless of course, you’re addicted to the unhappiness, as many people unconsciously are - but that's another story altogether). That’s when you start looking at your mind-stories (“life is terrible and everybody hates me”) and question them. Dissect them. Tear it apart and see if this belief - this religion around which you base your entire experience of life - actually has ANY inherent truth in it. At first you’ll be convinced it does. As Byron Katie said, and I think this is as apt a desciption I’ve ever heard of mind:

“The mind’s job is to validate what it believes.”

You can see that anywhere; if someone really believes something then they’ll filter every aspect of their experience in order to validate those beliefs. When our outer experience doesn’t match up with our inner ‘map’ of reality, the result is psychological stress or what I believe is termed ‘cognitive dissonance’. It’s uncomfortable so we choose to tune out any experience that contradicts our deeply held ‘schema’ (or mental map of reality). Like the person who is convinced that everyone hates him - he might get ten compliments in a day, but he’ll filter those out and use the one negative comment he gets to validate and justify his belief that people hate him. That person isn’t going to change his experience of reality until he questions his underlying belief system. If the operating system has bugs or faulty programming in it, everything's going to be affected!

Waking up to reality is realising that the screen of beliefs and mind-stories with which we interpret, understand and relate to reality are illusory, fabricated and possess none of the inherent solidity or ‘realness’ we assume them to have. None!

I’m guessing most people aren’t ready to completely ditch all their belief structures. I’ve had a taste of that lately - and its disorienting, disillusioning, sometimes painful but at the same time very liberating. It’s not for the faint of heart.

For those that aren’t really committed to this thing called ‘awakening’, then it’s probably best simply to dream better. By that I mean, if your dream of reality (your beliefs, filters and mental maps) is negative and is causing you or others to suffer, then for goodness sake switch it to something more positive. It can be done - and it can be done quite easily. This is a revolutionary concept to many, who erroneously believe that what they believe is static and unchangeable, and that they are in essence a victim to this.

In reality, the mind is fluidic; and our thoughts and beliefs, no matter how solid and ‘real’ they seem to us are merely like clouds passing across the open expanse of sky that is mind. The problem comes when we forget that we are the sky and instead identify with the clouds; which is fine when the clouds are light and fluffy but not so good when they are dark, dense, stormy and violent. If you’re stuck with stormy clouds, then switch them to lighter, fluffier clouds; ones that don’t obscure the sunlight. And if you’re really really eager to get to the truth of reality, then ditch your identification with clouds altogether; realise that you are the essence, not the content. Clouds will still appear, just like shadows will always trail you on a sunny day. Clouds and shadows aren’t the problem; identifying your sense of ‘self’ with them is.

Long long story short: even when you no longer ‘fall’ for the content of mind (the mind-crap, stories and erroneous beliefs), mind has a certain momentum and will still continue to regurgitate all the old conditioned crap for, well, as long as it does. Imagine an experience of reality totally free of mental interference, with no labels such as ‘sky’, ‘tree’, ‘sun’, ‘grass’ to distance yourself from pure experience of what is. That’s something I really strive for. Its not so much about getting rid of mind - mind serves some very useful functions, clearly - as it is simply getting back in touch with the experience of BEING. Getting out of relating to life in conceptual ways, and simply being free to purely, intimately experience the totality of what is, now. Or as a definition of Zen simply, beautifully states; all life is about is - JUST THIS, NOW.

My mantra. It completely gets me out of mindcrap and back in touch with what is....

JUST THIS, NOW!

I hope those pointers mean something to you. Equally, they might be meaningless - but that kind of proves a point; something is only as meaningful to the extent that the mind and your mind-stories and mental map of reality make it meaningful. Remember - the mind’s job is to validate what it believes. Basically, my entire point is this - if your beliefs are good for you, that’s fine. If they’re bad, change them. And if you’re really, really curious, ditch all of them altogether. It’s scary but wondrous when you start to believe nothing, least of all your own thoughts...........