Recently I wrote a post titled 'The Story So Far' which gave a brief outline to my current thinking and, basically, why I had thrown in my job and house and made a complete 'shift' in my life affairs. It was all about trying to position myself in a place/space more suited to the direction I wanted my life to go in. Over the many years of my own research - my traveling and working abroad included - as well as the nearly 6 years of this blog I have generated a shift in my own perceptions. I see the world very differently from how I did those years ago. Yet I came to a point where 'something' in me needed change to such a degree that a cable snapped. I knew that I could not continue as I was doing: if I did, I would just be treading water and doing a great dis-service to my Self.
I had read so many books over the years that I finally ran dry in my inspiration for what to read next: an old Eastern proverb says that a donkey may be carrying many books yet it is still a donkey. I have been carrying these books for a long time now. I understand that the world - our reality - is not what it appears to be: that the reality-consensus everyone 'agrees' to is an energetic matrix of lies and falsehoods. I grew more 'aware', yet I was still firmly strapped in my canoe without a paddle. So I decided to make a change in my position; to 'shift my assemblage' as Castaneda/don Juan would say. Instead of pacing up and down the wall, carrying a lantern often, I took a step sideways.
The 8th Century Persian Sufi Rabia, from Basra, was asked one lovely spring morning by a friend to come outside to see the works of God. She replied, "Come you inside that you may behold their Maker. Contemplation of the Maker has turned me aside from what He has made"
The external world is an extension of the internal: the source of our connection then is through our internal relations. Real change comes through spring-cleaning our own house. This includes cleaning our energies and being mindful of our 'produce': ie. thoughts and emotions.
Rabia also famously commented:O Lord! If I worship you from fear of hell, cast me into hell. If I worship you from desire for paradise, deny me paradise.
This is indicative of how we often position ourselves based on conditioning: our desires for heaven or fear of hell. Yet all these desires are themselves programmed positions and implanted veils.
In order for myself to be 'allowed' to think anew, I had to change my physical life positions. I had to act so that my mental, emotional, and physical energies were taken out of their habits and made fluid once again. This was to be a stimulus to change rather than the change itself. Too much talking had already been engaged with:
The learned man who only talks will never penetrate to the inner heart of man - Saadi of Shiraz
To break the spell requires that one penetrates to the heart of themselves. From here, there can be more profound action upon the world - as the world is energy and the human heart is energy. To live a life without profundity is to miss the point, I feel. Yet one's life cannot be measured by external social status, or 'coffee spoons' as in TS Elliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock':
We must find our own positioning of meaning in order to organise our own inner worlds. From this we are better equiped to deal with the consensus reality.
In the next post I will lay out a few points that have helped me to re-organise my positioning and break the spell.
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I had read so many books over the years that I finally ran dry in my inspiration for what to read next: an old Eastern proverb says that a donkey may be carrying many books yet it is still a donkey. I have been carrying these books for a long time now. I understand that the world - our reality - is not what it appears to be: that the reality-consensus everyone 'agrees' to is an energetic matrix of lies and falsehoods. I grew more 'aware', yet I was still firmly strapped in my canoe without a paddle. So I decided to make a change in my position; to 'shift my assemblage' as Castaneda/don Juan would say. Instead of pacing up and down the wall, carrying a lantern often, I took a step sideways.
The 8th Century Persian Sufi Rabia, from Basra, was asked one lovely spring morning by a friend to come outside to see the works of God. She replied, "Come you inside that you may behold their Maker. Contemplation of the Maker has turned me aside from what He has made"
The external world is an extension of the internal: the source of our connection then is through our internal relations. Real change comes through spring-cleaning our own house. This includes cleaning our energies and being mindful of our 'produce': ie. thoughts and emotions.
Rabia also famously commented:O Lord! If I worship you from fear of hell, cast me into hell. If I worship you from desire for paradise, deny me paradise.
This is indicative of how we often position ourselves based on conditioning: our desires for heaven or fear of hell. Yet all these desires are themselves programmed positions and implanted veils.
In order for myself to be 'allowed' to think anew, I had to change my physical life positions. I had to act so that my mental, emotional, and physical energies were taken out of their habits and made fluid once again. This was to be a stimulus to change rather than the change itself. Too much talking had already been engaged with:
The learned man who only talks will never penetrate to the inner heart of man - Saadi of Shiraz
To break the spell requires that one penetrates to the heart of themselves. From here, there can be more profound action upon the world - as the world is energy and the human heart is energy. To live a life without profundity is to miss the point, I feel. Yet one's life cannot be measured by external social status, or 'coffee spoons' as in TS Elliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock':
For I have known them all already, known them all-
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
We must find our own positioning of meaning in order to organise our own inner worlds. From this we are better equiped to deal with the consensus reality.
In the next post I will lay out a few points that have helped me to re-organise my positioning and break the spell.
-
