Spirituality, finding your way, finding your self, the path to living a life worth living use different tools from science, schools, the mind, and ordinary thinking.
Not just different tools, but tools used differently.
If you haven’t found what you are seeking… if your seeking has taken you on a wild goose chase only to find nothing of value for yourself… then you owe it to yourself to learn to use the tools and to use them in new ways.
My second exposure to this was in a Peak Potentials’ training… and luckily it was worded so differently that I didn’t recognize the connection, otherwise I would have said: “Nah”… lol
We were sent out to the grounds to find the spaces in-between things. I saw, for the first time, maybe, the negative space between trees, the space between clouds, trees, blades of grass, between members of a marching colony of ants.
My eyes opened up. I knew it was a turning point, but no further teaching was forthcoming… and until today I didn’t know what I could have learned that day that would have altered my life…
I had the tool, I just didn’t know what to do with it.
Here, I am handing you the tool, and what to do with it…
I had an insight today: culturally you haven’t been taught the sculpture method, or the way I call it the method of the strait and narrow.
It is alien to the culture of humans, in spite of the fact that sacred books like the Bible work with the same method.
What is the method? It is defining something by what it isn’t.
A sculpture is defined by everything that is not the sculpture… the space around it.
Who you are is defined by the space around you, by what is “not-you”. Around your physical form, and around your Self.
Your brain, your mind, your scientists, your philosophers have always striven to define something by what it is, categorize, use bombastic words, and it has resulted in a culture that is unworkable, a culture with alienation, unhappiness, and seeking.
I suggest that you find by “successive approximation”… 1 you find the “not that” and get closer and closer to what is “yes, that”, instead of aiming to shoot a bull’s eye right away… You shoot around it, in an ever closer vicinity.
The Unconditional Love Activator, in fact all of my activators work on this principle… they attempt to take you on the closer and closer journey that is beautiful, enjoyable, gradual, and satisfying. Why? Because all your Self is concerned with is the direction… and the direction is upward and towards more joy, more self, more self-expression, more love, more everything that is worth having.
In the following examples you can witness how coaching that does the same thing as my activators. These are both examples from this morning:
Sophie, is there really a self that’s there to be distinguished, to be defined by what it is or what it’s not, or is it more dynamic than that?
In a strange way I’ve lived my life by moving away from a number of dissatisfactions. Things that I guess I could describe as not me. Jobs, situations, relationships. What I think complicates things for me is having so much of my experience filtered through the lens of my depression. I left some good jobs and situations quite possibly because I was dealing with depression; a way of looking at the world that could only leave me dissatisfied.
I find it daunting to attempt to find or describe my self in terms of that which I am not. It seems like there could be an endless list of things that I am not. I did a little sketch and what I liked was sense of me as the water flowing in between that which I am not. To see the self as the unencumbered flow; that is a visualization that I can relate to.
You said: “The most important job is to find the self, by distinguishing what is the driver of your actions.” In every way, as you also said, I could benefit by being more curious.
Is it wrong to use my life to attempt to find out what it means to be a human being for myself when I could take all of the recognized human values and serve them and serve other people and be of more practical benefit to the world? I know that’s a stupid question, a self-limiting question, but in some ways it’s one of the questions that runs me.
Part of my self is taking pleasure in the clever and the delightful. In another life I could have been a wonderful window dresser and I think I could have brought sense of joy and play to it.
What drives my actions? Fear, conformity, lack of applied imagination, received notions and limitations, passion, desire, a sense of play, some dutifulness, respect for life, A sense of wonder, some level of curiosity, a sense of humor, friendship, loyalty, respect for law and order, respect for health. A desire for autonomy, maybe mastery (passable mastery, passable competence), connectedness, recognition. Love. Being worthy.
OK, the self is wordless…
so all those things you list, or want to be, or deem that you are: are not-self.
Self has nothing to do with the outside, or depression, or jobs.
Self is all totally inside, and totally wordless. You can observe it, but the moment you call it (like what you call god) you commit blasphemy: because it is not that.
The way to miss it is to direct your word to it… or even your attention.
Much like the sun: you look into it and you go blind.
You can see it at its light, you can bask in its light, you can harness it, but cannot survive looking into it.
Words are arrows, and the kinds of words you are trying to use are aimed at superiority over the sun… so stop using them in this context… you are supposed to feel, distinguish. By pull, by behavior, by feel.
Did you notice (can you) that when I talk about my self’s emergence (for me) after my father bailed me out in school? I don’t call myself a name, one of those bombastic mistakes of Landmark Education!, I describe the pull, the motivation: “there is no way I am going to dishonor…”
That speaking, that kind of speaking, delineates the strait and narrow… instead of trying to shoot an arrow into the heart of it.
No.
What happens when you manage to create a word to pinpoint your Self?
The Mind takes over, and takes you… AWAY FROM THE SELF, back to the horizontal plane, the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
And here is a second example:
She says in her post…
(in the 67 steps) Some guidance offered to aid in the progress, and help ensure a successful journey include:
• Limit outside influences (narrative bias, media bias)
• Discover & build on your unique strengths, your natural destiny
• Make good choices based on your strengths; no right or wrong, other than its unique qualifications to my life
• Avoid oversimplification; there are no quick fixes; no quick success – none that will last
• Move patiently, astutely, efficiently, step-by-step towards your goal
• Grow determination, focus, dedication, and persistence in order to change habits that work counter to achieving the end-game
• And…I would add, be more present; bring awareness to the process – shine the light of presence in and around each step of the journey to bring to it the brilliance only you can bring to the processFor my journey I would take great care to
- pick the right seed (natural destiny),
- prepare the soil (abundance/wealth),
- plant in a good location (social),
- ensure sunlight, nourishment and water (health), and
- weed out harmful overgrowth (media-news-magazines-TV), and
- patiently maintain it as it grows into a sturdy plant, blossoming,
- producing, and ultimately exchanging life sustaining oxygen and
- other organic by products of photosynthesis such that it’s influence
- impacts all life; an ultimate end-game goal.
If you notice, she is using arrows to hit the bulls eye. That is how the world works, what everyone teaches, and why humanity is so alienated from what is inside, and what makes it worth to be alive.
My corrective post:
… you need to pick one or two strengths and bring it to all of life, not only the part of life where you are already using it.
Remember: on this second round just recanting the step the same way as you did the first time, won’t be sufficient.
Here you’ll cause what you see. What I suggest above is what I suggest you look for, bring your attention to…
It is neither positive nor negative. It is not judgmental, neither of you nor others… your judgmental base nature won’t like this one. It is the attitude of a scientist… identifying, distinguishing.
You always have to do the work this way: find one element of the step that distinguishes the land around the strait, and one element that distinguishes something about the strait.
avoid/strengthen
avoid/strengthen
avoid/strengthennot the sculpture/part of the sculpture
got it?
you can get it, muscletest says.
The tool and the way to use the method of seeing: seeing not the thing itself, but the space around it.
Priceless.
If you don’t understand this post, it is either because you are not ready for it, your mind is protesting, or I wasn’t clear…
Let’s discuss it.
- One example for successive approximation is a method they got to the number that starts with 3.14… the famous PI. They never got the number right… they are shooting closer and closer to what it is… tighter and tighter, but never at it. It is impossible to define… just like your Self.
