The above statement, in the title, may or may not be true.
I am most interested not in what is true and false, but what is useful or what is not useful.
Thinking, believing that the answers are within makes you search your memory banks for answers.
And it is never there… You never knew the answer, so it won’t be in your mind.
You may have heard what could be an answer, but it didn’t look like the answer, so it is filed away as something else. So even finding it won’t be useful: it will still look like a useless piece of trivia, and not the missing piece of the puzzle.
If I tell you: the answers are not within, you, hopefully, won’t go into your memory storage… you’ll stay outside.
What happens when you go into your memory stores?
The same that is happening in your life right now: unimportant busy stuff is using your life. Not what matters.
And that is not what you intended, is it? You intended to build a good life, a life you can enjoy.
But you have big chunks of knowledge missing… where and how are you going to get them.
Have you heard about putting something on the back burner, and the brain works it out without any help from you?
It is true, on condition that you are not hellbent about getting the result of that.
I use this process, the back burner method, allowing the brain to come up with stuff that I can’t consciously get, and I use this method all the time.
I call it meditative living.
The essence of meditative living is to never narrow the cone of vision so much that the rest of the world is shut out.
The opposite of focusing.
The opposite of trying to remember, trying to understand.
A touch of aloofness, a touch of detachment.
No survival, no competitive plane, no hurry.
The difference between cooking in an open pot and in a pressure cooker…
This is how I write articles, this is how I read, this is how I learn Hebrew… this is even how I watch a movie.
I can stop at any moment, without effort. I am never pulled in too deep.
This is even how I coach. This is how I lead a webinar.
I push away all hooks, all seductive stuff… and stay aloof.
I am sometimes called egoist, of nasty for this when I dismiss people from my webinars.
I am there to teach, to coach, to be available, not to be bogged down by someone’s inattention or inability to get a working headset. You take care of your end, I’ll give you all I got… but if you can’t take care of your end, or won’t… I’ll either ignore you if I know what is the issue, or remove you. But won’t be forced to be anchored by you.
I am saying this to explain some of my least popular behavior.
Notice that as a client, as a student, you want full, 100% attention on you, instead of the issue you came to my site, or to me to solve.
If I give you all my attention: who or what is going to find the answers to your problems?
But, of course, you have no idea, because you are not in the habit of solving problems, you are still in the phase of “baby crying for the bottle”. It’s OK, but I can’t work with you.
I haven’t been a mother, so I don’t know. But I have had cats, boy friends, demand my full attention, and my life was falling apart.
To solve problems you need to be able to stay unattached, floating, fuzzy eyes.
If you knew Eastern warrior traditions, this is the same as the way to fight: be able to stay fuzzy and not get hijacked by an emotion, or even an intention.
The opposite of what you think you should do.
But what you think may be the opposite, and yet. You get lost in the menial, useless, or even useful activities of yours, and that is the way to go down the wrong path… because you are within… and completely ignore the without.
Life is happening while you are busy doing other things. And if your busy-ness robs you of getting the information while you are busy, you’ll do stuff that is misdirected, and life is passing you by… You may get creamed. Or just busy doing stuff that don’t matter.
Then you, maybe, sit down to meditate.
And do what you did all day: force yourself to do something that is useless. You attempt to shut out the world, and you think that it is useful.
Many years ago I paid an ungodly amount of money to be taught Transcendental Meditation, TM.
It wasn’t my idea of money well spent, but I yielded to my boy friend’s wishes.
I hated it. Now I know why? I was doing it like I thought I was supposed to, like I did everything else: forcefully.
As I am sitting here, pondering and writing, pondering and eating breakfast, pondering and making tea… I see why some people got rich and innovative from doing TM, and why I suffered.
In TM they give you a mantra. The purpose of the mantra is to create the center of attention, not to occupy your whole cone of vision.
The mantra prevents you from being all over the place. It serves as the front burner, while the whole world conspires to get you what you need.
I play freecell while I can even observe the attention going on exploration parties. I play freecell while I am watching a movie. I play freecell while I listen to you.
So I can bring fuzzy attention to all-of-it.
My brain knows, because I have been training it for at least 10 years, that playing freecell means there is a piece of the puzzle is missing.
I don’t know what’s missing. I only know that something is missing.
And my brain goes out and find it for me. Eventually.
Because often what is missing is in a book. Or in a movie. Or in a conversation with someone I don’t want to talk to. So I follow the guidance, and get the book, watch the movie, and call the person I don’t want to talk to.
Maybe write an email. Write an article to sharpen the question to the brain.
The distinction: you don’t know that you don’t know is the key here.
When you go to your memory banks, you suppose that you know what you don’t know… and all the answers you find there are not answers.
When you research to find what you don’t know: ditto… What you don’t know is something that you don’t know what it is, where to find it, whether they drink it or eat it. It is, for you, can only be found in the infolded part of the universe.
YOU cannot unfold it. Consciousness can. But consciousness first needs to find it. Without your help. Because what would drive you, if you tried to guide consciousness, is Tree of Knowledge… The hell on earth.
Obviously the first art you need to master is letting go. Allowing consciousness doing the work. Allowing ego to say: let the smarter win. And deal with the anxiety, that is inevitable.
If you had to create a life from what you already know… you would be unhappy, unaccomplished, and boring.
Oh, you are? Now you know why.
You were given consciousness but you are suppressing it, oppressing it, and you are worse off for it.
Consciousness, of course, is non-physical. But you can get a glimpse of it here and there.
- When you can speak and listen at the same time.
- When you can be with people and yet see the whole room
- When life doesn’t disappear because you are doing something…
That is when consciousness is detectable, and that is when it is doing its work.
Practice. It is your birthright to have consciousness serve you.
By the way: did you hear that I didn’t say: consciousness is doing a running commentary, i.e. words?
Consciousness is non-verbal. Your inner monologue is not consciousness.
Did I just given you the death-blow? I apologize. But you needed it.
It is either consciousness or talking machine… I do have a preference.
