How do you feel right now? Frequently checking in on your mood is a valuable practice, because, whenever you find that it's low, and you feel grumpy, irritable, pessimistic, sad, sarcastic, etc - it's not caused by your circumstances, but by broken thoughts. And positive thoughts are instantly available - just one thought away.
This is not how we usually see it. We're used to seeing things from the outside-in: our external circumstances, be it pleasant or unpleasant, makes us feel accordingly.
Broken thoughts are the natural spawn of broken worldviews. And more of us than we realize, at least subconsciously hold bleak worldviews. Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) understood that the most important question we each need to answer, 'Is the universe a friendly place or not?' IF we believe it's unfriendly ... peace is elusive at best." Joan Borysenko. “Fire in the Soul. A New Psychology of Spiritual Optimism.” 1993. So broken worldviews beget broken thoughts & broken moods.
Michael Neill spent the first 25 years of his life as a "reasonably successful victim." He writes: "I did my best to fight back against the victim voice inside my head with a cacophony of plans and schemes designed not so much to create things in the world as to take me away from my own unhappiness & insecurity. Studying the personal empowerment and success literature, led me to better understand the path he imagined as a continuum from left to right:
HELPLESS --------- EMPOWERED
But as we become more conscious of our role in creating our experience of life, we realize that we aren’t really helpless victims and we begin to see that even in the direst circumstances we do have some choices, although we may not particularly like any of the ones we’re currently able to see.
The further we go toward the right of the continuum, the more empowered we feel and the more choices we become aware of until we realize that in any situation we have a nearly infinite range of choices. There are not only innumerable actions we could take (though some of them may take great courage), but we also have choices about our attitude and the meaning we ascribe to whatever it is that’s happening.
This would seem to be the pinnacle of possibility on the empowered path of life.
Victim Creator
Fear Courage
No Choice Choice
Compared with the quiet desperation of being a victim, the testosterone surge of empowerment felt amazing. I set my direction, planned my work, and worked my plan. Yet in the back of my mind, I knew something was off. I was beginning to meet with some extraordinarily successful people. Many of them were just like me – happy & confident when things were going well; petty & desperate when they weren’t. We wore masks of arrogance or indifference to hide a head full of insecurity & fear.
But some people I met seemed to be on a different path, even though they had many of the same things that I was working so hard to achieve. As I looked to see what was different about them, I realized they were following inner wisdom instead of outer goals. They still wound up getting somewhere in the game of life. It’s just that it didn’t matter so much to them where that happened to be.
Instead of striving to be the predominant creative force in their life themselves, they delighted in being conduits for a creative force – the principle of Mind – that existed far beyond the consciousness of the fragile ego-mind. In short, they allowed their life to unfold from a place of connection with a deeper wisdom that seems to be an innate part of the human potential.
This opened up a new possibility for how to live in the world:
Victim Creator Conduit
Fear Courage Insight
No Choice Choice No Choice
I call this enlightened* approach ‘the path of the soul’ because I’ve learned that the moment someone begins to follow their inner promptings & live insightfully in the moment, their life begins to unfold with a beauty & perfection that their own best-laid plans never seemed to have. It’s as if their own soul is designing the perfect path and laying it out in front of them, one daily brick at a time.
When we begin to see the illusion of our thinking more clearly, we realize that in a world where our experience is being created from the inside out, mastering the circumstances of our life is the booby prize. That doesn’t mean we might not wind up with a big house or a nice car – there’s nothing wrong with tapping into the abundance of the universe if the opportunity comes our way. It’s just that we’re unlikely to spend too much time chasing the dream of success when we’re awake to the dream of life.
Once we start to recognize the feeling of our innate wisdom, we realize that when it comes to setting our direction in life, we don’t really have that much of a choice after all. This isn’t because we’ve gone back to being victims, but rather because we’re pretty much always going to go where that inner wisdom directs us. Not because we ‘have to,’ but because not going where the intelligence behind life wants to take us would be self-defeating and a little bit silly."
To derive maximal benefit from Neill's advice above, immerse yourself in Sydney Banks' mystical insights by way of his books & online interviews. Here are just a few:
• "Much of human suffering comes from the mistaken belief that we are fundamentally broken. We’re made of the intelligent energy that animates everything in life. So we’re actually made to thrive. We’re not born in original sin, we’re born in original grace, and then we learn all this other stuff that makes it really seem – because we’re living in the feeling of our thinking – like we are messed up, and we are problematic, and we do need to fix ourselves, and change ourselves in order to be okay.
• True spirituality is not something to attain, but something we already are
• Peace begins when we trust life more than the anxious strategies of the mind. When we get caught up in the machinations of the intellect it becomes considerably more difficult to hear the whispers of a deeper intelligence.
• When clarity & purity of thought are present, the answer you seek will present itself, for what you seek is with you and has been with your always.
• In the silence of our minds lies creative incubation, bringing the wisdom & joy we all seek.
• Everyone in this world shares the same innate source of wisdom, but it is hidden by the tangle of our own misguided personal thoughts.
• Healthy compounds – feelings, such as compassion, humility, love, joy, happiness and contentment – are all rooted in positive thoughts.
• Hate, jealousy, insecurity, phobias and feelings of depression are all compounds of negative thoughts.
• All feelings derive & become alive, whether negative or positive, from the power of Thought.
• Every human mind has direct access to its experience here on earth, and the human mind always has access to its own spiritual roots … from whence it came.
• The Universal mind, or impersonal mind, is constant & unchangeable.
• The personal mind is in a perpetual state of change.
• All humans have the inner ability to synchronize their personal mind with their impersonal mind to bring harmony into their lives.
• Some believe the brain and the mind are the same. But there has to be a power behind the brain to make it function.
• The brain and the mind are two entirely different things. The brain is biological. The mind is spiritual.
• An important thing to realize is that Universal Mind and personal mind are not two minds thinking differently, but two ways of using the same mind.
• The world in the form of Nature is a reflection of the human mind, which creates an illusionary gap between the spiritual and the physical. This gap, in turn, creates the duality of life. Trapped in this duality, our minds become full of disillusionment and lostness.
• As the human mind ascends in divine consciousness, the gap between subject and object begins to vanish and the oneness of life emerges.
• There is one Universal Mind, common to all, and wherever you are, it is with you, always.
• There is no end or limitation, nor are there boundaries, to the human mind."
Sydney Banks, "The Missing Link: Reflections on Philosophy and Spirit.” Lone Pine Publishing, 1998.
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| Kevin - P. Michael Lovas photo |
Dear John...Hello from Geri Wilimek....its been a long time since we connected. I very much appreciated this post! Geri
ReplyDeleteThank you kindly for your steadfast encouragement Geri!
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