Tons of people come to my site to read my valuation of many gurus’ vibration. When they are done, they choose… How they choose, what they choose says everything about them, not about the guru, not about the method, not about the modality… but about them.
It tells ME what life-philosophy they subscribe to, by what ideology they live their lives. And also how happy they are…
Some ideologies are life affirming, others aren’t.
I spent some time today looking at certain things through this new concept: the fixed mindset.
What triggered this inquiry is the idea that humans devolved into being of fixed mindset. That humans, somewhere in their history, were suggested that you are born to be a certain way, and you cannot change that. You’ll die in that same way. That certain things you can’t change.
My hunch is that this happened concurrently with the suggestion that you should live in your mind, on the Tree of Knowledge, some 7,000 years ago.
The first question I asked: how would you choose what cultural tradition to follow? Ideology, religion, thought processes.
I had this idea that the way I choose mine is so eclectic, that it doesn’t seem to be any guiding thought.
When I went to my first 12-step program meeting, back in 1988, I was asked to choose what I was going to honor as Higher Power, given that I was an atheist. I chose, without much thinking “Whatever works”… And I am still walking this meandering path… I always choose what works. What produces results. What forwards the action.
Were I asked to say what I would NOT choose, I would have an easier time.
- I would not choose any god-centered philosophy.
- I would look at the land where many people practice a philosophy and I would look if their lives work or not. If they are stagnant, I would be sure NOT to choose that land’s philosophy
For example, looking at any of the Indian traditions, philosophy, guru culture, I would refuse to consider anything suitable for my “whatever works” criteria, given that people in the Indian cultures are poor, soft, live in their heads, self-indulgent, and are fatalists. 100% fixed mindset. 1
Looking at the Chinese culture, Japanese culture, I see that the segregation between lords and serfs is sharp, and I would not want guidance from a culture based on birth… ugh. 100% fixed mindset.
Now, I have pointed out two types of cultures that I would want to have nothing to do with. 2
I would not want to have been part of their ruling class, and I would not want to have been part of their oppressed serf classes.
My ideal is philosophies or philosophy that allow for growth, allow for evolving, allow for you rising to the top of your own abilities… through your own effort.
- I am enamored with the Scots after reading their history. 40% fixed mindset
- I am also a fan of Genghis Khan. 30% fixed mindset.
- But I am the most likely to be a follower of Kabbalah… the non-religious Jewish philosophy. Not the mystical part, THAT is catered for divination, certainty, and duping.
But if I look at the culture of religious Jews, as far back as I can see it, I see people working their asses off to cultivate their minds, to cultivate their professions, and to grow.
30% fixed mindset.
The fixed mindset number is an average. And each person is also an average of the fixed mindset in different areas of their own lives.
I am at 10%… and let me tell you, it has taken an awful lot of willingness to change.
Changing is risky. While you change, you have to consider that there is no life on the other side… At least that is how it feels and felt every time; I have crossed that divide many times. It is very clear to me that it is a moment of choice… that it takes, sometimes, years to get over.
I call it The Valley of the Shadow of Death.
I remember the Ulpan, the language school I attended in Jerusalem, taking us to a historical site, the The Kidron, The Valley of the Shadow of Death
I don’t remember what they said about it… but I remember sitting there, very present to the fear of death.
Of course I have found out that the valley has a significance for billions of Christians… but you know my relationship to Christianity… not good, not good. lol.
But it is clear to me that..
unless you are willing to go through small deaths, the death of good ideas, the death of your fixed identity, the death of fears, the death of desire traps… you can’t really switch to a mindset that is growth oriented…
…a mindset that can make you happy and fulfilled by liberating you to consider yourself nothing fixed. Not smart, not talented, not beautiful… but someone becoming… Every moment of every day.
Scary thought, eh?
Yeah, that scary thought is what I am talking about.
I say that is a strong correlation between your fixed mindset number and your “I am afraid” number…
And obviously your TLB number is a perfect match to how much inconvenience, unpleasantness, challenge, adversity you are willing to face and maybe even enjoy.
Every number on the Starting Point Measurements can be raised by you. Guaranteed. I am here to help, but it is you who needs to cross the divide, the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
Every number requires work on your side, and the willingness to partake in a journey through The Valley of the Shadow of Death… by changing your mind, letting go, and considering that some things are possible only if you give up something else. Hurts, doesn’t it?
There are only about a thousand people on Planet Earth who ongoingly practice a life of growth. Even the Jews have devolved into the fixed mindset. So did The Kabbalists. So did The Kabbalah Centre.
If you manage to become one of those people living a life of growth, who become an Expanding Human Being, the rewards are tremendous.
When Thoreau said “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.” he observed the life that is the life of mostly “fixed mindset.” 3
Interestingly Thoreau didn’t have the distinction “fixed mindset” and therefore could not shift his own mindset out of the fixed mindset… And what he said about the mass of men, was true about himself.
I cannot emphasize enough that not having the word, the accurate diagnostic expression, label, for the cause of what you see will never allow you to make a difference even if you can see the effect clearly.
Just simply knowing that there is such a thing as fixed mindset will allow you to choose and choose and choose… and grow.
- I have also experienced their sex centered existence when I did the countries’ activation a few years ago. I had never been so appalled and so afraid before that.
- I did not mention American Indians’ culture… But it is not a good pick either… not at all… Romantic, yes, but not helpful if you want to become someone bigger, better than you are. The same is true about the shamanic cultures of Central and South America or Russia.
- Here are more quotes from Walden (1854)
- Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
- The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
- None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.
- Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
- Men remain in their present low and primitive condition; but if they should feel the influence of the spring of springs arousing them, they would of necessity rise to a higher and more ethereal life.
- Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at.
- If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.
- There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.
- I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
- Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.
- Simplify, simplify.
- If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours … In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.
- Commonly misquoted, converted to imperative mood, as “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler”.
- A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made. Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
- Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
- Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
