What you want the next level of evolution to be
If you take a close look at your fantasy of what it’s like to be “enlightened”, where you want to be, you’ll probably imagine white robes, no pain, no illness, no anger, no fear, no anxiety.
You won’t see, in your imaginary ideal world, work, you won’t see controlling spouses, or dirty dishes piling up, teenagers mouthing off, smog, car pile-ups, murder, or traffic jams.
I don’t want to continue, because the list is endless… in short:
You don’t see, in that ideal world, your life and yourself as human.
You want to reach the next level of evolution by ceasing being human. The way pictures show heaven… tell me if I am wrong.
What clued me in, you ask? Thank you for asking.
I noticed, from people’s remarks about me, from the reverence people crave to show to other “gurus”…
From the long robes people wear when they want to be near enlightenment, in pretend worlds, like an ashram.
From the soft voice people use when they want you to think that they are enlightened… it’s all about love and luv, and unity, and oneness… but it’s all romanticizing, it’s all fantasy…
The real next level of evolution
The next level of evolution, the Human Being level, is mainly different in how people (YOU!) relate to the world, to themselves, to others.
The next level of evolution is an inner change… But people will be still people. They will get angry, they will get afraid, they will get frustrated.
They will yell, maybe even obscenities… they will be snippy, they will, maybe, gasp, be harsh, like me.
Emotions on the next level of evolution
Emotions are normal. But what you feel now as emotions are the emotions while you are struggling with them… Not the accepted emotions, accepted as normal, part of life.
The next level of evolution, the Human Being level, will remove some or all the b.s. that was layered on you 1 , that you should never feel bad, that you should never get angry, anxious, worried, grieving, sad, and depressed.
Before this mind virus of how you should feel was distributed by the Dark Side people, people felt mad, and anxious, and angry, and afraid, and then it was gone.
How it was before the ‘positive thinking’ trap
People had, 90% of the time, no feelings, they just went around doing what they did.
Struggling with the feelings, trying to not feel them, trying to conquer over them, trying to hide them made the length of time you have bad feelings now 90% or maybe more of the time.
The biggest difference between the current level of humanity and the next level is acceptance, responsibility, integrity, and the ability to tell what is you and what is not.
Anything that you relate to that should not be has control over you.
Anything you can accept allows you to be free. What you allow, allows you to be. Without the need or compulsion to change reality, change what you feel, change any of the circumstances. The need and the compulsion… I repeat!
A dog is free to wag its tail. But if you grab the tail of a dog, the dog is now controlled by the tail. The feelings, the thoughts are the tail… and now they are wagging you.
Freedom: is there any? Do you have any freedom?
My spiritual work for this week was to acknowledge people for the freedom they have, for being free. Why do that? Why acknowledge that? Because I can’t see that people have freedom. And, supposedly, when I acknowledge what I can’t see, eventually I will see it. It hasn’t happened… instead…
What I saw, while I leaned closer and examined it, was interesting. On one hand people want to be free, free from the misery of their own self-induced struggle-fortified emotions, on the other hand they are like the monkey that can’t let go of the banana. 2
Instead of wanting to be free of the emotions, instead of wanting to be free of the struggle, they run… but the emotions go with them. Unless you stop the struggle, unless you stop wishing away your emotions, your struggle and wish trap you like the banana trapped the monkey. It’s not the emotion, it’s the struggle, the imperative to do away with the emotion that is the banana.
My first step towards Human Being, 30 years ago
Some 30 years ago, my first step towards becoming a Human Being was this: I was a “phone solicitor” for Landmark Education 3 and I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know how to say it, so I was afraid. The fear was so strong, I was dizzy. So, instead of fighting the fear, instead of excusing myself and going home, instead of pretending to do the work, I had a heart to heart with the fear and made a deal: ‘I let you be, I take you with me, I won’t ignore you.‘ I didn’t ask for anything in return. I really promised what my attitude was going to be towards fear. I talked to fear as if it were a small child. A small child that the moment you ignore him, he acts up, grabs your skirt, and gets under foot.
And I did what I promised. I took the fear with me. It was quiet, contented, even while I was doing the calls. Even while I did things (start a business with no money, write articles with broken English, drive a car without a license, sell advertising, start a magazine while I had nothing to say, invited people for dinner into my one room efficiency apartment, stuff that scares the Bejesus out of people… including me.)
The state of Human Beingness after 30 years of practicing
I don’t fight my fear. I don’t fight my anger. I don’t fight frustration. I accept it, I make room for it, I watch it curiously. I also don’t fight pain. Some pain inflicted by others is so strong, I can’t move. So I don’t. I know it can’t last forever.
I don’t find insomnia, I don’t try to fall asleep… I will when I do. In the meantime I enjoy the ride.
Being a Human Being looks pretty much the same as being human… it feels different though.
Statistics show that people work one hour of the eight they are paid for. If they are supervised, that may go up to two hours.
Human Beings can work eight hours without feeling deprived, without feeling that they need to take a break, they need to surf the web, watch some youtube videos, or go for coffee, gossip, and such escapist avoiding behaviors.
Big difference, wouldn’t you think?
Why doesn’t everybody practice this?
To tell you the truth, it is hard. In our generation positive thinking is the norm, and fighting any emotion is therefore the rule. So you are swimming against the prevailing culture when you allow, when you make room for the so called negative emotions. But it is possible. And it gets easier by practice.
But, although it is possible, this way of being needs to be learned first on the conscious level, and then sublimated, so it becomes unconscious competence.
ACT and Russ Harris
A therapy method, ACT, teaches it, and best at teaching it is Russ Harris, a British doctor now living in Australia.
But, I am afraid, his excellent method in both the Happiness Trap and the Confidence Gap, become just another method that doesn’t, can’t become part of the lives of humans… what is missing is the practicing, the conscious practicing, the practicing that makes a wobbling bicyclist an expert one.
I thought, until about a week ago, that I was the only person on the planet who knew what works… but I discovered that ACT and Russ Harris have done it, and done it before I even consciously knew what I was doing. Wonderful… Now I don’t have to do the translating of what I do to teaching… I don’t enjoy that part anyway, translating innate stuff to words.
Now I can start teaching ACT, have others teach it… ultimately the method doesn’t require you to become an empath.
I can even train practice leaders, and we can, in earnest, start training for the next level of human evolution: the level of Human Being.
Will I still have classes to dig up an examine the past, our false beliefs, our delusions, our attitudes?
By all means. Those classes require the talents I have, and I love using those talents. They, combined with the ACT practices will do the job of creating Human Being level participants.
Why is it necessary to go to the past?
Why digging up stuff? Because buried stuff, like undigested stuff is toxic and has a tendency to pop up and poison your life. Poison your attitudes, poison your relationships, take away your money, your job, your health.
So, in my view, both are needed.
The two method, combined, may lead to immortality… but if not that, the enjoyment of the time you have.
Because it is not how long you live, it is how much you live while you are alive.
In one of my favorite jokes, the Jew goes to the Rabbi and asks: ‘Rabbi: what is the secret of long life?‘ The rabbi answers: ‘the secret, my son, is to get up in the morning, kiss your wife, have breakfast with her, go to work, return home, kiss your wife, go to sleep, and do this every day.‘ The Jew asks: ‘Rabbi, if I do this, if I follow this regimen, will I live long?‘ The Rabbi answers: ‘I don’t know, son, if you will live long, but it sure will feel long.‘
- by the positive thinking religion, the positive thinking mind virus, that is the foundation of the so called law of attraction, by the way
- The way to catch a monkey is to put a banana in a box where the hole is just big enough for the hand of the monkey to go in and out, but not big enough for the hand grabbing the banana… The monkey can’t let go of the banana and you can easily catch the monkey
- Then Werner Erhard and Associates
