Our Natural State - OR - Choosing Illusion

    In my previous blog, I tried to summarize some of the key aspects of Sydney Banks' insights that have helped me "feel nice" - Banks' name for "uncaused joy" that is, feeling peaceful, happy, loving independent of circumstances. This arises from within - 'an inside job' or an inside-out process - the opposite of how most of us incorrectly assume things work ie that our circumstances directly determine our mood. Actually, all it takes is choosing to not entertain oneself with negative thoughts. 
    Open your mind & heart to these valuable mystical insights, and you too may be surprised to feel sustained gratitude, peace, happiness, kindness ...

 

    “I thought that ‘All we are is peace, love & wisdom, and the power to create the illusion that we’re not,’ was sufficiently simple. 
    But recently I realized that, at any moment, we are either in our essence, or we are in illusion. Now I’m not saying that we ever lose our essence, but I’m saying that we don’t have an experience of our essence. SO we are EITHER having an experience of our essence - being in pure peace, love & wisdom, for example OR we are caught in the illusion that we have inadvertently created for ourselves with this incredible gift of the power of thought.” 
    Jack Pransky "Things That Have Been on My Mind – A Three Principles Keynote" - Viva 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kni9VRMIuD4 .
    Jack Pransky "Somebody Should Have Told Us! : Simple Truths for Living Well" CCB Publishing, 2011. 

Phenomena are preceded by the mind,
ruled by the mind,
made by the mind.

If you speak or act
with a calm, bright mind,
then happiness follows you,
like a shadow that never leaves.
Dhammapada 2 

 

 

“… a Sioux friend told me: 
The Creator gathered all of creation and said, 
‘I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. 
It is the realization that they create their own reality.’ 
The eagle said, ‘Give it to me, I will take it to the moon.’ 
The Creator said, ‘No. One day they will go there and find it.’ 
The salmon said, ‘I will hide it on the bottom of the ocean.’ 
‘No. They will go there too.’ 
The buffalo said, ‘I will bury it on the great plains.’ 
The Creator said, ‘They will cut the skin of the earth and find it even there.’ … 
Then Grandmother Mole … who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, 
said, ‘Put it inside them’ [for that is the last place they will look.] 
The Creator said, ‘It is done.’”                                                         Gary Zukav

 

“Suffering is not enough. Life is both dreadful and wonderful. 
To practice meditation is to be in touch with both aspects. 

Smiling means that we are ourselves, that we have sovereignty over ourselves, 

that we are not drowned in forgetfulness. 
How can I smile when I am filled with so much sorrow? 
It is natural – you need to smile to your sorrow because 
you are more than your sorrow.”

Thich Nhat Hanh 

 

"A true healer simply remains fully present as the storm of healing rages, providing a safe field in which unfamiliar and intense energies can be felt, bound-up emotions can be released, and we can come out of time together, out of the drama and chaos of My Life, and breathe into our bodies, fall into our own being, reset, recharge, simplify, rest.

Healing is not a destination, nor a special power in the hands of a few. Healing means recontacting That which is already whole, beyond the healer and the healed - our true nature, simple and beautiful and ever-present.

In this field of true healing, we can truly meet..."
Jeff Foster


“Everyone in mental institutions is sitting in the middle of mental health 

and they don't know it.” 

Sydney Banks


“You can’t get wisdom from another person. 

You can only find it deep within the quiet of your own being.” 

Sydney Banks

 

 

    "When you stop thinking about yourself, all that’s left is all there is. And that aliveness bubbles up through your pores, it bubbles up through your eyeballs. It bubbles out into the world because it awakens the aliveness in the people that you are with, and they begin to change, they begin to see differently, they begin to see through their own story, to see beyond the limits they’ve made up about themselves – no matter how cool those limits are. The best version of you that you can make up in your head, is not a patch on the infinite potential of life."
    Michael Neill "Can a TEDx talk really change the world?" TEDxHSG 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv0EH93k8QY

 

    “Not knowing how long we have here makes today extraordinary. Here. Now. A shocking gift. A humbling gift. Inhabit your days, friend. Step into them. Let them step back into you. Reach towards life and let life reach back into your soul. If you are reading this, you have today! Let today matter, deeply. Let today steady you. Let it bring you back to the ground. Let it breathe you awake. Again and again. Let today be the day you finally stop waiting to live.” Jeff Foster 

 

    A number of modern thinkers have reflected on how our Earth has an incomprehensibly huge array of features (eg gravity, oxygen, humidity, temperature, etc, etc, etc,), each set at an incredibly narrow range, that precisely allows life to flourish. No clear-thinking person would call this 'mere chance.' Then to be born a human being on Earth is, again, an incredible gift. As Iain McGilchrist, in one of his wonderful interviews recently said, the only reasonable response to our Earth, and our gift of life, is awe and gratitude. 

 

    As Ram Dass famously advised, "Be here now" - remain lovingly, intimately engaged with present-moment reality, moment-by-moment-by-moment co-creating our ever-evolving reality.

    "The first gulp from the beaker of knowledge 
estranges us from God, 
    but at the bottom of the glass 
God is waiting for him who seeks."         Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker

 

"A person is not a thing or a process,  
but an opening through which the absolute manifests." 
    Martin Heidegger, widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century

Our Only Real Problem

     Ancient & current mystics, shamans, sages, prophets and other awakening individuals from all times, traditions & geographic locations, repeatedly assure us that life is dramatically different than our common understanding suggests. A classic example:
    "All shall be well, 
     and all shall be well,
     and all manner of things shall be well." Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English mystic

    Most of us are if anything, hyper-aware of how badly so many things in the world around us appear to be going, so statements about everything being rosy are at least puzzling, if not infuriating! 
    Closely associated, is the common assumption that our external environment directly determines our quality of life, and to ensure our survival, security & happiness, we must control & manage our external environment. Mystics call this predominant misunderstanding 'outside-in thinking.'

    A common characteristic of awakening people is that they have evolved to 'inside-out thinking':  

    “regardless of what ‘problem’ we think we have, our only real problem is ('outside-in thinking,' thus) feeling cut off from our innate wisdom & well-being. And the moment we reconnect to that source energy (by shifting to 'inside-out thinking'), our problems stop being so problematic and we move into a new reality.

    I call this natural state of connection to the whole ‘being online.’ It’s the space of relative clarity and well-being where we have access to both our personal database of knowledge & the deeper wisdom of Mind.

    When we’re online, we can be assured that whatever comes through us is likely to be of use. At these times, intuitions and insights flow through our mind like gigabytes through a data cable.

    When we’re offline, feeling uncomfortable, stressed, pressured, scared, or just numb, we get caught up in trying to figure things out, work them through, or overwhelm them with our brilliance.

    In simple terms, being online feels better – it’s that quieter, deeper feeling … People describe it as clarity, contentment, happiness, ease, well-being, or even peace. In the quiet of that deeper feeling, we can easily hear 'the still small voice' within. This is the way our mind is designed to work – as a clear channel to our higher wisdom.

    When we’re online, we see that any situation can be handled through a combination of common sense and insightful action. Any changes to be made become obvious, and while not always easy, remarkably straightforward. Life stops seeming so overwhelming, and the world stops seeming like a problem to be solved.  

    So how do we do it? How do we go online?

    As with so many of the things we’ve been discussing, there’s nothing to do: 

Being ‘online’ is our natural state. 

     We don’t need to worry about learning or practicing techniques to get or stay there, because the moment our mind clears, even if it’s only for a moment, we automatically return to our factory default.

    Understanding that we’ll always get back online when our thinking slows down takes the pressure off – it’s not up to us to manage our state. This allows us to take advantage of our state of mind when it’s high, stay in the game when it’s low, and not waste much mental or physical energy trying to change, control, or ‘fix’ it in between times. Meanwhile, we’ll do less damage in the world. In my experience, this is one of the most beneficial and least considered implications of the inside-out understanding – recognizing the role of Thought in creating experience makes us less inclined to run amok when we’ve gone offline. Instead of blaming our job, our partner, our kids, or the universe in general for our problems, we recognize that but for our thinking, we’d be having a completely different perception and experience of our situation. Consequently, there’s nothing to be done other than the basics of what needs doing.”

    Michael Neill “The Inside Out Revolution. The Only Thing You Need to Know to Change Your Life Forever.” Hay House, 2013. CLEAR, CONCISE, DEEP, VALUABLE! 

    “If you want to help people, you can try to help people. But if you really want to help people, show them a new world, a new reality, and get out of their way.” Sydney Banks