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Thought Recognition
Do you ever find yourself in the throes of an ego-tantrum, and then recognize that your monster ego is in charge, and then still continue feeding your ego with the negative energy it requires to stay viable? I do it all the freakin’ time and it always leads to feelings of post-tantrum guilt. The reason guilt invades my psyche is because of the fact that thought recognition has taken place. If that didn’t happen, then there would be no guilt. In the “old days” prior to starting my search for spiritual advancement, I had no thought recognition skill. Not one iota. Thus, there was no post-tantrum guilt.
So, in this case, is ignorance bliss? Would you rather be ignorant of when your ego is wreaking havoc, or would you rather be cognizant of the fact? Assuming that you chose the latter, do you think you could stop the ego-tantrum dead in its tracks when (external?) thought recognition occurs? If so, what’s your secret?
Why?
“Why are you behaving this way”? I’ve been asked that question quite frequently – mostly by a person higher up in a chain of authority with an approved title. My stock answer has always been something to the effect: “to expose errors, ambiguity, and mistakes so that they can be corrected and the whole can grow, develop, and temporarily arrest the growth in entropy that eventually destroys all closed systems“. Even though that response has often stunned the questioner into a frozen silence, it’s never been enough to counter the pre-conceived opinion they have formed: “I’m a bad person who doesn’t care about the feelings of others“. Bummer.
Most of the time, I’m fully prepared for the external “asshole judgment” and it bounces right off of me. At other times, and thank god (little “g” in “god” on purpose) it doesn’t happen that often, it pierces my heart and triggers a massive case of angst and discomfort. It sux to be human, no?
How about U? Do U ever get asked asked about your deviant behavior from the norm by those that are charged with judging U because of the inherent design of CCH bureaucracies? If not, why not? Is it because U are a saint who gets along with all souls? Is it because you suppress your individuality in order to conform to what is expected of good little children? What’s your story?
Make Vs Create
After overcoming the religious specificity in which “A Course In Miracles” is written, I’m finding that it is a deeply moving piece of spiritual work. One of the profound and simple (being a simpleton, I love profound and simple) insights communicated to me is the difference ‘tween making and creating. According to the ACIM authors, human beings “make” out of necessity (to get paid, to solve a problem, etc) but “create” out of love (art, music, children, etc). Before this discovery, I thought that “making” and “creating” were cut from the same cloth.
The story behind the making of ACIM is remarkable:
A Course in Miracles began with the sudden decision of two people to join in a common goal. Their names were Helen Schucman and William Thetford, Professors of Medical Psychology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. They were anything but spiritual. Their relationship with each other was difficult and often strained, and they were concerned with personal and professional acceptance and status. In general, they had considerable investment in the values of the world. Their lives were hardly in accord with anything that the Course advocates.
Schucman writes:
The head of my department unexpectedly announced that he was tired of the angry and aggressive feelings our attitudes reflected, and concluded that, ‘there must be another way.’ As if on cue I agreed to help him find it. Apparently this Course is the other way.
I was still very surprised when I wrote, “This is a course in miracles.” That was my introduction to the Voice. It made no sound, but seemed to be giving me a kind of rapid, inner dictation which I took down in a shorthand notebook. The writing was never automatic. It could be interrupted at any time and later picked up again. It made me very uncomfortable, but it never seriously occurred to me to stop. It seemed to be a special assignment I had somehow, somewhere agreed to complete.
I remember hearing Eckhart Tolle elaborate on how “The Power Of Now” came into existence. A former PhD student himself, Eckhart described the content as “coming through” him and not “from” him. Michael Jackson, when asked in an interview how he created his best work, stated that the music “came through” him.
I’d love for some creation that’s beneficial to mankind to “come through” me. How about you?
RIP, Dear Syd
From an acquaintance on LinkedIn.com, I just found out that Sydney Banks died in May. Syd was a simple and under-educated man who didn’t strive for fame and fortune. He was the first spiritual teacher whose words of truth penetrated my thick Newtonian thinking skull. I’m very sad to see him go.
Over ten years ago, I stumbled upon obscure Syd’s work while reading Richard Carlson’s not-so-obscure “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff — And It’s All Small Stuff”. When I read that small tome, the hairs on the back of my neck kept rising up and I found myself experiencing multiple simple, indescribable, and joyful moments of being. It was weird because the words were so simple, yet they were also very profound to me. I kept saying “WTF?” to myself as I turned the pages.
After finishing “Sweat“, I devoured all of the rest of Carlson’s books and they all had the same endearing effect on me. Curious as hell, I scoured the footnotes and bibliographies to find out where Carlson came up with such impactful and profound thoughts and words. Through at least one level of indirection, I discovered that Syd Banks was at the root of a whole ecosystem that revolved around his work: “The Three Principles – Mind, Consciousness, Thought“. Stunningly, West Virginia University, a stereotypical academic bastion of logical and mechanistic thinking, paid tribute to Syd’s spiritual work by initially naming the West Virginia Initiative for Innate Health after him.
I’m really thankful that I serendipitously discovered the work of Sydney Banks. Rest in peace my dear friend from afar.
Doing And Being
Echkart Tolle has stated that every human being has an inner purpose and an outer purpose. According to Mr. Tolle, our inner purpose is “being” and our outer purpose is “doing”. Along similar lines, Mother Theresa once said something to the effect that “the west is materially rich (from doing) but spiritually poor (from not being)”. I’m on-board with these related insights because I’ve realized them through personal experience. How about you?
A problem that I see with western cultures is that most people have their self worth totally fused with “doing”, while “being” is often disdained, looked down upon, and interpreted as sloth/laziness. There is no balance, and I’m one of those unabalanced (lol!) people. Do I have “factual evidence” to back this up? Of course not. I’m not a world renowned expert and I only speak from personal experience. Plus, I like to make stuff up.
Open, Closed, Inquiring
“Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.” – Bertrand Russell
Out of the chute, so to speak, we’re all born with open minds. As we age and accumulate one experience after another, we naturally start forming beliefs based on those experiences. The experiences of other individuals (like our friends and parents) and institutions (like our schools, our corpocracies, and our government) are also impressed upon us. The more similar our new experiences to our previous experiences, the more attached we become to our beliefs. Unknowingly, we’ve started to construct our own very personal “unshakable cognitive burden” (UCB) from the ground up.
As our attachment to (at least some of) those beliefs hardens through exposure to more and more confirming evidence, our minds close up and we start suffering more and more. We tend to conveniently ignore, or violently reject, disconfirming evidence to the contrary in order to preserve our hard earned sense of safety and security. Each subsequent experience causes a nearly instantaneous transition out of, and back into, the closed mind state. Once a core belief (the earth is flat, the sun revolves around the earth, “they” are always right, “—-ism” is infallible) has hardened, intellectual and spiritual growth stops. Stasis sets in. Bummer.
So, how does one break the infinite loop of self-transitions out of, and then back into, the closed UCB mind state? Does another more flexible state exist? I think one may exist- the “Inquiring Mind” state, but I don’t have a clue on how to make the jump to get there. In this state, beliefs still exist but our attachment to them is not absolute. Our level of attachment is fluid and ever changing. As a consequence, our suffering, and more importantly, the suffering of those around us, decreases. The world becomes a kinder and gentler place to live in. We start to recognize our connectedness to all “things” and we empathize with people who still hold fast to their core beliefs.
The state machine below shows one speculative way out of the closed mind state and into the inquiring mind state – the experience of an instantaneous, life-changing epiphany. It’s speculation on my part because I don’t know squat and it’s just a belief that is a brick in my UCB.
Let’s Be Careful Out There!
Based on a recommendation from fellow whack-job W. L. Livingston, I’m currently trying to read “The Theory Of The Leisure Class” by Thorstein Veblen (cool name, eh?). Man, this guy’s a tough read. The vocabulary that Thor(?) uses and his huge paragraphs often cause my CPU to overheat and spew blue smoke, but the self-imposed intellectual torture is worth the pain.
I love exploring the ideas and thoughts of guys like Veblen because they are so far off the beaten path and mind stretching that they cause new, but previously unused synaptic sub-networks to be instantaneously created in my brain. For me, spiritual and intellectual growth is painful but inspiring. The acts of continuously trying to widen my horizons, destroying old and obsolete mental models, and exposing myself to the ideas of others makes me feel vibrantly alive.
When you consciously choose to explore and probe weird and non-standard ideas that go against the norm, you’ve got to watch out for yourself. Internalizing and then subsequently espousing your new learnings in public can be detrimental to your health. If people are really set in their ways and you don’t take their feelings into account, you could trigger the fight or flight response in them. In one-on-one exchanges, the blowback that you experience may not be so bad. However, publicizing your new thoughts in a meeting with a group of clanthinkers can cause you considerable external and internal damage.
“Let’s Be Careful Out There” – Sergeant Esterhaus
Defense Is War
I love Byron Katie because her wisdom never ceases to amaze me. Check out this quote from A Thousand Names For Joy:
Defense is the first act of war. When people used to say, “Katie, you don’t listen,” I would immediately bristle and respond, “Of course I listen! How dare you say that! Who do you think you are? I listen!” I didn’t realize that I was the one making war by defending myself. And I was the one who could end it. It doesn’t take two people to end war; it takes only one.
Like most of what Katie says, this one really hits home with me because I often (waaaay too often) automatically and instinctively flip into defensive mode when someone criticizes me. The problem is that I don’t have a kloo on how to eradicate this pervasively destructive behavior. It’s so ingrained into my being that it would take a miracle to overcome this malady. However, Katie is a beacon of hope. If you read about her 10 year struggle with debilitating depression and her miraculous transformation, you’ll understand what I mean.
Oh Goody, A New Discovery
It’s funny how virtually every person has the tendency to constantly seek out references that confirm and validate his/her “beliefs”, while at the same time ignoring evidence to the contrary – no matter how strong the disconfirming evidence is. As a member of this non-exclusive club myself, the latest self-medicating anti-hierarchy book that I’m reading is called “The Age Of Heretics: A History of the Radical Thinkers Who Reinvented Corporate Management“. The content on changing corporate governance is interesting, but the multiple references to spiritual teacher and mystic G. I. Gurdjieff are what really kindle my curiosity.
Over the past 10+ years, I’ve read the works of many well known spiritual teachers in an attempt to counter my tendency to rely solely on a logical and mechanistic engineering mindset to travel through life. Since Gurdjieff is new to me, I’m gonna look into his work. Thus, the next book in my reading queue is titled Gurdjieff.
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Transcend AND Include
Before Newton, religion and superstition were used by most human beings to explain what they saw and felt day-to-day. Depending on what religion you subscribed to, all kinds of wild theories were proposed to explain events and happenings that were not easily understood. Then Newton came along and busted all the myths with his “principia”. Newton’s classical physics was relatively easily understood. Objective experimentation confirmed that it worked admirably in predicting the motions and positions of “macro” objects as a function of the forces acting on them. Classical physics “proved” that all material objects are separate and the only way one object can affect another is by impressing an external force on it. In addition, thanks to Einstein’s brilliance, forces cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Thus, two objects at the ends of the universe are independent of each other and effectively isolated from each other.
Then, along came quantum physics, which, as the picture below shows, was found to transcend and include classical physics. For macro-sized objects on the scale of the things that we experience, the rock solid and experimentally verified maths that underly quantum physics transform into Newton’s equations. Thus, Newton’s equations are not absolute; they are “approximations”. However, at the atomic scale and smaller, quantum physics busts the new, Newton-derived, myths that there even are objects.
According to Q-physics, everything is a superposition of continuous, non-local, spread out waves until a subjective conscious observation is made. The point at which a conscious observation is made is called the “collapse of the wavefunction”. WTF? In addition, any two “consciously observed” objects (remember, according to Q-physics there are no such things as objects until a conscious observation is made) that ever interacted, remain “entangled” and associated regardless of how far apart they are. An observation on one of them instantaneously affects the other – violating Einstein’s maximum speed-of-light discovery. Again, WTF?
The addition of subjective consciousness into the previously objective world of physics has thrown a huge monkey wrench into the world of science. Consciousness, which is subjective, has collided with science, which (up until now?) is purely objective. So, like Q-physics transcends and includes C-physics, does consciousness transcend and include Q-physics? If so, what will be the next discovery in the world of science?
Why am I here?
WTF?
Meh!
D'oh!
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