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Summary: You may be stupid, you may be doing stupid and you may not know it. The biggest breakthrough for a stupid person is to declare that they are stupid. Why? Because it would force them to look before they label, act, talk, argue, say yes, or say no… Stupid is a state, not an ability…
So, what is the state of a stupid person? They think that they understand everything. They think that what they see is what’s there…
Koan: For you Everything is the same as everything else … except not always
This belief, that you know everything, is an entirely mind-based concept. It is based on something tricky: that your understanding of words, connections, contexts, is accurate.
You can be certain that those understandings are NOT correct. It is a childish and arrogant thing to think that your understanding is correct and that looking at other people’s teachings through your current understanding is going to give you an accurate view of what they are saying.
I’ll give you two examples, but before I do that, consider the saying:
When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail… we’ll get back to this later.
Here are examples from just the last 24 hours:
my website says: How to book an 1-on-1 call with me: look at my calendar. Pick one or two time from my availability that you can be certain you can keep.
Then email me with the request for a specific time and length of time.
Some people email me back complaining that the calendar is not interactive.The above text does not say: book an appointment… it says ‘pick a day and time’.
The client assumes that all calendars are interactive, or that picking a time means clicking.
Assumptions make you stupid.
If you question your assumptions, you will see, from the context, that you were wrong. But once you are sure that your assumptions are always correct, i.e. that you know everything, you won’t see anything that proves your assumption wrong.
Every assumption is a frame, a context through which you look. What you will see in one context is strikingly different from what you see through a different context.
Beware of your context!
By the way, just a minute ago I found myself in the same ‘stupid’ mode:
I wanted to make tea, put tea in the electric pot, and waited… after about a minute, I realized I didn’t turn the pot on… you see how insidious it is?
First Example of stupid:
Participant: Sophie,Just recently I heard you say something new about Source. Can you clarify? Maybe you will in an upcoming post. So source is not only not a person, source is not even ‘out there,’ but within? I have heard of the Higher Self, and the Witness, of course, but this seems to go beyond that.If Source is within me, do you and I connect to the same Source?
If Source is within me, how do I know I can trust it in an objective way?
When you tell me that Source is directing you (teachings, etc…verified through muscletesting) is that something I can trust for me? Or do I also need to connect and confirm for myself? Are we going into Neal Donald Walsh territory?
My mind has been blown a little, but I am still hanging on to my saddle for the journey. This seems to be another adult conversation like Empty and Meaningless. And for right now, I am not making it mean anything.
Me: > just do what you need to do. this is your mind getting again all
> involved
Participant: Very good advice.
Me: > one more thing: read what you read again… you are replacing words in
> what I say, and then you think I said that.
Participant: Sophie,
I have to be able to ask questions, and to question everything put before me, or to test it. I can become more coachable regarding a practice or method. Taking on a belief is not being coachable, it’s something else.
I do think I’m smart. Did any of your other students catch what I did? Did they question you? You don’t want weak sheep, but you can’t stand being challenged, either. I’m not signing up for another religion.
me: it looks like you are heading towards good-bye again.
Participant: Sophie,
It’s going to be your decision. Or mine. I need answers.
There is a difference between being coachable regarding methodology, and being uncritically accepting of doctrine.
I have no doubt that what you have discovered makes sense to you, and that you have tested it, and it works, for you. I cannot stay in a system that asks me to accept the personal revelations of the teacher uncritically.
You don’t like to be challenged. You might have to find a way to separate your teacher function from your prophet function. It’s fine, it’s your revelation, teach it and share it any way you like.
Let us be clear that you are asking me to leave your programs because I am asking too many questions.
I had to publish the whole conversation so the mischief, the fixed context can reveal itself: the participant looks at everything as religion.
And we are back to the question: what does it mean, ‘when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail‘?
It means that you are wearing a filter, that you are looking at the world through a fixed context… regardless of reality.
Second Example: the three challenges joke:
A guy walks into a bar and drinks about twelve beers, then notices a huge jar of cash on the table. He asks the bartender what the cash is for.
The bartender says it’s the $2,000 prize money for whomever can complete his Three Challenges. ‘What are the three challenges?’ The bartender gives him another beer and says,
- ‘First you have to knock out Candy, a 300-pound former football player.
- Then you have to pull my pet man-eating wolf’s loose tooth out,’ the bartender continues, and he points to a room with a vicious wolf inside.
- ‘And finally you have to screw Big Bertha,’ and he points to a 500-pound woman.
The guy has yet another drink and says, ‘I’ll do it!’ So he goes up to Candy and knocks him out in one hit! Then he goes into the room with the wolf and shuts the door. Everyone in the bar can hear the wolf howling as if in agony. The man then walks out of the room without a scratch on him and says, ‘Okay! Now where’s that lady with the loose tooth again?’
You’ve been screwing wolves… thinking that’s the assignment!
That is what I mean by being stupid… you didn’t even know.
I am a recovering ‘stupid’ myself… and about 80% of the time I manage forcing myself to look again, read again, look again and read again… so I can be intelligent.
Interestingly, when you use the Effortless Abundance Activator, you find it easier to look again. When you go from zero to even 10%, the world will start to look a lot more friendly than it’s now.
What’s the truth about you?
Being right is another booby prize. I know how to be right, and it usually gets me nothing. It is difficult to remain open and coachable. I seem to be throwing one major temper tantrum each week. It feels good while I’m doing it. Am I smart enough to learn something new rather than defending what I already know? The jury is still out.
When you are in a relationship that you would be embarrassed to tell your family about because you are hoping to get something out if it but secretly feel like you are engaging in magical thinking and secretly feel like you are being abused, that’s a problem.
Religion, cult, mind control, submission of will, coaching, authoritarianism, I don’t know what you call it when the leader wants to do the thinking for you, and works to make you more compliant.
don’t participate with a leader like that. Those are not leaders, those are despots, tyrants, and totally dark side.
what’s the context inside which you are asking this question? do you think feeling abused equals being abused? Maybe you call something abuse that isn’t… conversely, many women call abuse and expression of love.
When I was young, I considered attention=love, and being beaten up was attention. When, rarely, my parents ignored me, I thought that they stopped loving me… lol… talk about a skewed set of glasses.