[quote author=EyeAm link=topic=143.msg1871#msg1871 date=1240709393]
[quote author=Darza link=topic=143.msg1858#msg1858 date=1240560494]
Hi EyeAm, exciting times for sure.
I have just been informed of the latest plans of the people where i am living as a guest. They are going to roam the world in a camper starting july 1. From then on i will live somewhere else and have no idea where. A new reality is looming for sure. It feels like entering a vacuum, space for a new creation. The not knowing is so exciting, it brings so much focus, deepens the now. If i could speed the plans up i would because i know whatever new reality i will find myself in it will be an effect of my past actions. I am sooo curious as to what it will be. Maybe it is partytime already. Maybe 2012 is now.
Peace to all,
[/quote]
Hi Darza:
Interesting opportunities indeed. I've done it 4 times myself now. Walked away with nothing but the clothes I was wearing and let fate, destiny, sympathetic vibration and sheer will steer my course. I have slept under train bridges, in pool sheds, peoples garages, in a tent in the forest, an abandoned cube van in an industrial field and many other strange places that presented themselves as adequate to the task. As hard and depressing as it was on some of those occasions, it eventualy became a source of strength and self-reliance. I have proved to myself that I am a survivor under any circumstance and have come to understand that the most important person to prove that to was myself. I no longer fear loss as once I did.
I feel you are much the same way. I sense you reveling in the unknown excitement of the hidden road ahead. You bring with you the easy confidence of past experience and lessons well-learned. I hope this is not goodbye though, my friend, for many of us have come to care deeply for you. Good luck on your journey and may you get settled and back online in short order. Can the Master or the other students be of any assistance in your domestic affairs?
Flipside note;
I just bought a camper van and am currently exploring The Canadian Shield. Beautiful vistas in Algonquin Park. (Too bad 6Pence wouldn't join us. I believe she's familiar with the area)
[/quote]
[i]Can the Master or the other students be of any assistance in your domestic affairs?[/i]
I love the sharing EyeAm, you summarized your learning path and i recognize much. You inspired me to do the same.
August 1999 eclipse, sept 1999 changed carreers and employer, i worked 30 hours a week but still was not happy, i promoted myself downwards, easy money, little stress. Studied law at a university in the evenings. I had done all the yuppie things like having a big house and stuff, diving, skiing, climbing, kayaking etc. I was not happy. April 2000 i buy my sailing yacht. My dream come true. I had everything i wanted. If the boat was not rented out i went sailing upon every opportunity. I was happy for a few months then suddenly it hit me. There was still something not ok, i was still restless. I knew i had everything, now why was i still not happy? There was nothing in manifestation i could blame, it was me where the problem was. Collecting stuff cannot bring it unless i fix the actual problem which was my thinking. I decide to learn to meditate which i tell to my colleugeue. Turns out there is another collegue, one who seems happy always, always joking and smiling ( i just started out there) who was going to start a meditation class within a few weeks, after working hours, on the road to home, and the teacher was my collegue. How could i refuse? Impossible. Only an ignorant person would not go to this meditation class.
In the weeks leading to the first lesson this mediation teacher, Willem Appel, started to answer my question, giving tips, gave some stuff to read. He told me he was a student with a vietnamese teacher and if i wanted to learn to mediate fast, meeting this person would accelarate everything. I expected some vietnamese guy in a local flat somewhere. Turned out the collegue was an UE-student who was introducing me to master Dang. It was only little money and little time so i went to the basic class. Here my chakra's were opened/harmonized by Master Dang. I was like "yeah, right, lets see what to make of all these claims from Willem". If what he said was only a little bit true it would be my jackpot. On the way home after class, i knew that road well, it hit me. I saw more then before the opening. Like it had more color, depth, contrast, light. I knew what was the cause and effect. From that moment on i did not have a chance to avoid studying UE. I wanted more of from where that came from. In stopped studying law and focussed the energy that took on studying UE. Whatever i learned made me greedy for more. I went to the next class at the first opportunity. In the second half of that class a 13 younger, beautiful, belly-dance, psychology, outgoing, hindustani priestess sat next to me. In the first break she asked me to go for a walk. She offered me books and tapes on spirituality, when we were together we talked every second. She was soooo interesting. Few months later we are in love. From day 1 this was highly intense. Now i am living with an UE-student. She is deeply depressed and told me everything in advance. I came from a little town and had no idea what that meant. i never was depressed and did not have a clue. She was very challenging for my beliefsystem to day the leat. lol I learned lots of the meaning of love. I studied UE and UE is love. I had a crash course in romantic love. I surprised myself how much i could take because of this love.
Sept 2002 i quit my job, i am going to research this shift of the ages and UE stuff fultime. April 2003 leave my house and board my sailyacht together with Chan. I leave everything behind and sail into the unknown. May 15 passes and we live happily in "de Biesbosch" on our yacht. Very romantic.dec Sept 2003 i have this singular experience that confirms all the stuff in the holy books, a oneness experience. From then on i know everything is me, there is nothing but me, i am liberated from existing. I would never have had this experience if it was not for either master Dang, Willem and Chan. All UE-students.
Dec 2003 she throws me out for the last time, i have not spoke her since. She returned a few letters and then i decided to wait for her. Spend the winter in the harbor, totally alone at first, spring i went into the Biesbosch, living there, again alone. I had lots of food etc, survival gear, all according to the Zeta scenario. Turned out the boat i had and the collected stuff was not ideal, reality was different. I changed to a motorboat and redid the preparation thing with what i learned since the last time.
November 2004 i go to my last UE classes. There i get to hear i no longer need Master Dang to learn, i have my own linkup from then on...these abilities are transferred by energy. Not all students got that message but i did. I lived my winter alone on the boat, Sending and receiving energy, meditating, reading holy books, studying nature, studying my past, my experiences and how they related to the past events. I learned to love me.
I start to make friends, met lots of very nice beautiful humans. They let me be me end helped me to eat and party and how to live in nature. One was a nature guide, on other a butcher, or survivalist, they had all these knowledge and were more then happy to find an interested ear. I had many teachers teach me then, all on their specialities. I took what was interesting for me from all of them, like an investigating reporter. This was like university but then on the next level. learning from life itself!
At one point i meet Johan (Nahoj). We spend thousand of hours talking, talked many hours daily unless there where other visitors. Like my young friends. Sharing our daily troubles around a campfire for feedback from friends. Some boats exploding, one on fire. The local police pressures me to move. I had new experience all the time. learned about human nature so much.
April 2007 Johan goes to the basic class, check if what i told was true. and since then we talk UE. We compared how we understood the teachings etc, all summer long.
Dec 2007 Johan gets an spiritual experience in front of me. He talks to himself and all kinds of wisdom pours out. Days later the police take my boat. When the police comes Johan is there as a witness. Police leaves and what can Johan do but to offer to take me with him? How could i refuse? Start of the winter, living in nature without shelter and stuff was not appealing and he asked me. We were stuck with each other. Since then i lived in his house, he went trough all the classes and we talked everything over. he heals others, talks of spirituality with others and then we talk about how that goes etc. Since then he did all the classes and is now like myself and TFD an 13++ student. So from Dec 2007 till now i live with another UE-student. Johan's presence in my life was a blessing, i can say anything to him, test all my theories, provides for fast internet, a roof and food. Some weed now and again.
Johan and his mother are now choosing for freedom. Lets say i do find that a disappointing result, i am free myself. I see them shaping life towards freedom. I see little more i can do for them.
The planning is july first. I did not worry. I know i will be ok, UE provides for me, i let UE do the planning. If it would abandon me that would not be very motivational for others to go and have a look themselves, to follow my energy to its source. I have many dates before juli first on which can happen anything which again changes reality completely. Then last Saturday i go an invitation from another UE-student to be its guest. Within days of hearing i am going to be homeless i get an invitation from a fellow UE-student with who i get along great. This person has a strong awareness already, helped me a lot already, has all the hallmarks of a true lightworker. Strangely we never met in the flesh. Accepting that invitation looks extremely promising and exciting.
Yesterday i spend letting go of the reality i kind of accepted as fact. That Johan and me would be together during the tshts-phase, if that should happen. Looked reasonable enough. Johan still sails so i am still linked to my friends in the Biesbosch. I know enough STO'ers there to start a commune when the time is there.
"Coincidentally" from where i got this invitation is closely to the Biesbosch. All signs which prevent refusing. I do not have a choice in this. My only choice is to accept this invitation, If i would use my free-will to refuse this i would have to go insane first.
What will happen next i do not know. I make an effort not to count on anything. I already decided November 2003 i was prepared to do what Lao Tse did and leave it all. Roam earth and see what happens next. I tried to give my sail yacht early 2004 to charity but that bounced. So though i am ready to live on the streets, following my signs does not seem to make that happen. Maybe something happens and the invitation no longer stands? Maybe we have a timeline merger prior? I do not control all that directly but indirectly. By studying UE and me i get all the interesting experiences. That is what i long for, to have more experience.
So to answer your question on the lodgings. The last 2 people i shared a house with where UE-students and looks like the next will be too. This is how UE takes care of students. The school does not have a hotel or an ashram or something. It is to become sovereign, absolute free beings. Being part of the UE-school means to have 4 million brothers and sisters. They are all helpers. I feel honored to be a part of that. yes of this thread too. lol
zondag 26 april 2009
vrijdag 24 april 2009
Welcome to the Evolution: Mayan Calendar Comes North 3
Last one:
[i][b]Entrainment[/b]
You know what the word entrainment is? Entrainment is the automatic syncopation of life forms, or even
mechanical objects. Science doesn’t have a good idea of why it happens but they sure know it happens. One
example is a baby and a mother when they’re nursing; her and the baby’s hearts go into rhythm, they beat at the same time. That’s called entrainment. The natural matching up. It works for objects too. If you take cuckoo
clocks, at a clock shop, for instance, and they are all ticking at different times; within a week or so they will all be ticking and tocking at exactly the same time. It’s called entrainment. What this is (Codex) is a tool to entrain your consciousness to the flow of creation. 13 and 20, 13 and 20 and it goes 1 through 13 and it goes through these different aspects of creation all 20 of them and it starts again; so it’s a weave of those two numbers. And you can go way into thinking about it and it will do you no good what so ever. It’s only what you don’t think about it, but end up just knowing from inside that does you any benefit. I know that sounds completely backwards from anything you were ever taught in school. Well, we’re not in school are we?
[b]Consciousness, Noticing Differences[/b]
A side note, a part of this is that consciousness as the awareness of being aware, and we’ve been talking about the mind as a tool that consciousness uses to see the similarities and differences between things. Consciousness overall has a job to do. Consciousness divides creation. It divides it. Have you ever noticed that when you are really conscious, you can see the veins in a leaf, or you can see the different colors on a butterfly’s wing? Or you can count the stars. But when you’re upset, and maybe not so conscious, everything kind of looks the same. Have you ever noticed that? The more conscious you are, the more divisions there are in your experience, and the less conscious you are, the more prejudice you are. Have you noticed that? Where everything and all the experiences with all the people, look the same. The job of consciousness is to notice the differences. That’s how you count your blessings; that’s how you appreciate the experience, by looking and picking out the differences.
So consciousness divides and the Mayan Calendar says it divides by 13. All consciousness is divided by 13,
in increments of 13 and 13 and 13. And 13 is the number by which consciousness operates; no wonder 13 is
unlucky and satanic. Hmm. Well, creation has a job, too. Creation, I mean all of creation, multiplies and all of
creation multiples by the factor of 20. 20 times. Has anybody here studied biology? I mean the very beginning — from the single egg and on, it multiplies by 20. That’s how you got so big; is through multiplication of your own selves and it does it in factors of 20 from top to bottom. Interesting, huh? So by following how this weave goes of 13 and 20, basically that’s what we’re talking about; this rectangle, just by being aware of that, it entrains your consciousness to all of the interplay of consciousness and creation. And there is nothing you can think about it that’s going to help. It’s just what you end up knowing, your intuition kicks in and you end up in the right place, meeting the right people, doing the right thing. That’s what’s going to get us all through this. I’m not saying that this is the only way to do that; I’m saying that this one works all the time. And that’s why this is important.
[b] Peace of Mind[/b]
There is something else I want to do and I want to do it for the camera. I want to do a formula, because
everybody desires this one thing. Look at the basis of all desires, this has got to be the one that’s the strongest. Everybody wants Peace of Mind, don’t they? Peace of Mind. Peace of mind has lots to do with intuition. When you have peace of mind, intuition occurs. In fact, in order to have peace of mind, the only time you can possibly have peace of mind is when you are centered. Isn’t that true? It’s only when you are in this position (center point) that you can have peace of mind. Okay. How do you get centered? There is only really one time that you can be centered; that’s when you are certain. When you are certain then you are centered. Okay. Where does certainty come from? There is only one source for certainty: the recognition of patterns. The recognition of patterns.
Remember the first time that you were trying to learn how to drive? Did you have peace of mind? Were you
centered? Were you certain? You didn’t recognize the patterns yet, did you? Where does the key go; which way
do you turn it; which is the gas, which is the brake, which is the clutch? Which way do I move this lever, what is
this guy doing stopping right in front of me? All of those are patterns. Anybody taken dance lessons, 2-step? I did. Square dance, tango? The more you recognize the pattern, the more certain you get, the more centered you are on the dance floor, to where you have peace of mind dancing in front of your friends, hundreds of people. It’s what you’ve been doing your whole life, in every case to learn something, you’ve got to recognize the pattern; to become certain, become centered and to have peace of mind about that subject.
[b]Being Certain[/b]
Now we have the pattern that we can prove, so you can be certain. Of course, it takes your own (certainty),
I’ve got mine. I have studied and have my own certainty about this pattern, centering and peace of mind about it. But it’s now available. A pattern of the last 16.4 billion years of everything that’s happened, and in fact the
pattern shows that things are getting better and better. No matter what it looks like at the time, we are evolving. And the situation is getting better and better and better. That will go forward into our future, too, because ethics is scheduled to overcome power, just like power overcame law. Have you recognized that? Law overcame reason didn’t it? Didn’t it? We studied the law quite a bit just previous to coming here – for about 20 months, and there is very little reason or sanity in the way laws are written. Laws overcame reason. Actually I should point this out. During the 4th day of this cycle (Planetary) Law overcame reason. During the 4th section of this right here (Planetary) from 1874-1894, was the 4th day, this is when power overcame law. That’s when Rockefeller and Carnegie and Westinghouse all were becoming corporate powers that overcame the laws of nations and people. So we have ethics coming in right now and during the 4th day – which is 2005, ethics will overcome power. We are just watching the throws of a dying animal right now. It’s going to look bad, but there is lots of goodness past it. So, peace of mind comes when you are centered, centeredness comes from certainty and certainty comes from the recognition of these patterns. So you can look out there and see what’s going on and know with certainty that things are getting better. It’s going to be very important. You’re outnumbered. There are more people worried than certain. There are more people afraid of the future than looking forward to it. That you know. You are outnumbered, so it is very important that you have this as down as you can get it. In our web page, and we have a web page are articles and dates and places to look up data and match the dates so that you yourself can do the research and don’t rely on me or anyone else. It’s your certainty you’re looking for, not mine. Does that make sense? Here’s the web site: www.mayanmajix.com . You can go to the learning lab; there’s a little button that says learning lab. That’s where you’re going to find lots of information, articles – we have something like 3,500 articles. Have fun. I know the winters are long here; have fun reading.[/i]
[i][b]Entrainment[/b]
You know what the word entrainment is? Entrainment is the automatic syncopation of life forms, or even
mechanical objects. Science doesn’t have a good idea of why it happens but they sure know it happens. One
example is a baby and a mother when they’re nursing; her and the baby’s hearts go into rhythm, they beat at the same time. That’s called entrainment. The natural matching up. It works for objects too. If you take cuckoo
clocks, at a clock shop, for instance, and they are all ticking at different times; within a week or so they will all be ticking and tocking at exactly the same time. It’s called entrainment. What this is (Codex) is a tool to entrain your consciousness to the flow of creation. 13 and 20, 13 and 20 and it goes 1 through 13 and it goes through these different aspects of creation all 20 of them and it starts again; so it’s a weave of those two numbers. And you can go way into thinking about it and it will do you no good what so ever. It’s only what you don’t think about it, but end up just knowing from inside that does you any benefit. I know that sounds completely backwards from anything you were ever taught in school. Well, we’re not in school are we?
[b]Consciousness, Noticing Differences[/b]
A side note, a part of this is that consciousness as the awareness of being aware, and we’ve been talking about the mind as a tool that consciousness uses to see the similarities and differences between things. Consciousness overall has a job to do. Consciousness divides creation. It divides it. Have you ever noticed that when you are really conscious, you can see the veins in a leaf, or you can see the different colors on a butterfly’s wing? Or you can count the stars. But when you’re upset, and maybe not so conscious, everything kind of looks the same. Have you ever noticed that? The more conscious you are, the more divisions there are in your experience, and the less conscious you are, the more prejudice you are. Have you noticed that? Where everything and all the experiences with all the people, look the same. The job of consciousness is to notice the differences. That’s how you count your blessings; that’s how you appreciate the experience, by looking and picking out the differences.
So consciousness divides and the Mayan Calendar says it divides by 13. All consciousness is divided by 13,
in increments of 13 and 13 and 13. And 13 is the number by which consciousness operates; no wonder 13 is
unlucky and satanic. Hmm. Well, creation has a job, too. Creation, I mean all of creation, multiplies and all of
creation multiples by the factor of 20. 20 times. Has anybody here studied biology? I mean the very beginning — from the single egg and on, it multiplies by 20. That’s how you got so big; is through multiplication of your own selves and it does it in factors of 20 from top to bottom. Interesting, huh? So by following how this weave goes of 13 and 20, basically that’s what we’re talking about; this rectangle, just by being aware of that, it entrains your consciousness to all of the interplay of consciousness and creation. And there is nothing you can think about it that’s going to help. It’s just what you end up knowing, your intuition kicks in and you end up in the right place, meeting the right people, doing the right thing. That’s what’s going to get us all through this. I’m not saying that this is the only way to do that; I’m saying that this one works all the time. And that’s why this is important.
[b] Peace of Mind[/b]
There is something else I want to do and I want to do it for the camera. I want to do a formula, because
everybody desires this one thing. Look at the basis of all desires, this has got to be the one that’s the strongest. Everybody wants Peace of Mind, don’t they? Peace of Mind. Peace of mind has lots to do with intuition. When you have peace of mind, intuition occurs. In fact, in order to have peace of mind, the only time you can possibly have peace of mind is when you are centered. Isn’t that true? It’s only when you are in this position (center point) that you can have peace of mind. Okay. How do you get centered? There is only really one time that you can be centered; that’s when you are certain. When you are certain then you are centered. Okay. Where does certainty come from? There is only one source for certainty: the recognition of patterns. The recognition of patterns.
Remember the first time that you were trying to learn how to drive? Did you have peace of mind? Were you
centered? Were you certain? You didn’t recognize the patterns yet, did you? Where does the key go; which way
do you turn it; which is the gas, which is the brake, which is the clutch? Which way do I move this lever, what is
this guy doing stopping right in front of me? All of those are patterns. Anybody taken dance lessons, 2-step? I did. Square dance, tango? The more you recognize the pattern, the more certain you get, the more centered you are on the dance floor, to where you have peace of mind dancing in front of your friends, hundreds of people. It’s what you’ve been doing your whole life, in every case to learn something, you’ve got to recognize the pattern; to become certain, become centered and to have peace of mind about that subject.
[b]Being Certain[/b]
Now we have the pattern that we can prove, so you can be certain. Of course, it takes your own (certainty),
I’ve got mine. I have studied and have my own certainty about this pattern, centering and peace of mind about it. But it’s now available. A pattern of the last 16.4 billion years of everything that’s happened, and in fact the
pattern shows that things are getting better and better. No matter what it looks like at the time, we are evolving. And the situation is getting better and better and better. That will go forward into our future, too, because ethics is scheduled to overcome power, just like power overcame law. Have you recognized that? Law overcame reason didn’t it? Didn’t it? We studied the law quite a bit just previous to coming here – for about 20 months, and there is very little reason or sanity in the way laws are written. Laws overcame reason. Actually I should point this out. During the 4th day of this cycle (Planetary) Law overcame reason. During the 4th section of this right here (Planetary) from 1874-1894, was the 4th day, this is when power overcame law. That’s when Rockefeller and Carnegie and Westinghouse all were becoming corporate powers that overcame the laws of nations and people. So we have ethics coming in right now and during the 4th day – which is 2005, ethics will overcome power. We are just watching the throws of a dying animal right now. It’s going to look bad, but there is lots of goodness past it. So, peace of mind comes when you are centered, centeredness comes from certainty and certainty comes from the recognition of these patterns. So you can look out there and see what’s going on and know with certainty that things are getting better. It’s going to be very important. You’re outnumbered. There are more people worried than certain. There are more people afraid of the future than looking forward to it. That you know. You are outnumbered, so it is very important that you have this as down as you can get it. In our web page, and we have a web page are articles and dates and places to look up data and match the dates so that you yourself can do the research and don’t rely on me or anyone else. It’s your certainty you’re looking for, not mine. Does that make sense? Here’s the web site: www.mayanmajix.com . You can go to the learning lab; there’s a little button that says learning lab. That’s where you’re going to find lots of information, articles – we have something like 3,500 articles. Have fun. I know the winters are long here; have fun reading.[/i]
Welcome to the Evolution: Mayan Calendar Comes North 2
Lungold continued:
[i][b]If Not the Mind, Then What?[/b]
I would venture to guess that this is different from what you expected. We were going to talk about the
Mayan Calendar. We are not talking about Indians in the pyramids. No, we are talking about what’s going on in
our lives today and what’s going to happen tomorrow. And we are going to go into, from this point on, how to
resolve the situation that we’ve discovered and how you can take this out to your friends and neighbors and how you can help them resolve it, too. You want to have some company, don’t you? So we have this situation and I think it’s all registering on you, isn’t it? So, now, it’s pretty evident that we are all going to be going completely out of our minds. It’s gonna happen. So we might as well go ahead and look at what’s out there, outside of your mind. What’s out there is your intuition. What is outside of your own mind is your Intuition. Your own personal knowing. Your own personal power. Intuition—your own knowing without having to rely on any outside information or evidence whatsoever—was given a death sentence by the Catholics during the Inquisition. They murdered over 4 Million women for having intuition. [There was a news story, where the Pope was asking for forgiveness for what the Catholic Church had done during the Inquisition.] Should we go ahead and forgive them? I think so. Those 4 million women, anybody, anybody who professed to know something without first producing the actual physical evidence on how they came to know it, was declared a witch and they were burned and dragged and stabbed. They were persecuted. As a result, intuition went out of style. We just put it on the shelf. The Catholics knew what they were doing because this is your personal power, it’s your own power, and you know the law of supply and demand. If everyone’s got power then what’s mine worth. If nobody’s got power and I’ve got it, mine’s worth a whole lot more. And that’s what they were doing to everybody. And that caught on and has been brought forward to the situation we’re in right now. And thank you Pope for asking for forgiveness; it’s about time.
Actually it’s the perfect time, because we can now afford to forgive them, because there is a larger
understanding of what has been going on over all this period. There is no fault here. There is a process. Hitler was just doing his job. Bushies, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft — all those guys are doing a great job; they really are. Anybody want their jobs? Go guys. They are tearing down everything that the power structure stands for in record time. Go guys. We’ve got to get this stuff out of the way. And they are doing a wonderful job of it.
[b]Intuition[/b]
You know we pay athletes a lot of money, don’t we? To play silly games, don’t we? It’s almost ludicrous,
almost crazy, millions of dollars a year to go out and play a game. Are we nuts? Maybe not. Because you see
these athletes when they’re out there under very stressful conditions; playing for a national championship, with all kinds of money and your next year’s career on the line and all kinds of endorsements and all that; under tremendous stress. Instead of going into the fight or flight syndrome, which would have them kicked off the court or off the team, instead of doing that, these guys routinely go into the zone and they make the spectacular play. Under tremendous stress, with everything happening all at once, they just go step back, see and know everything about the moment. Have you read any of those interviews with the quarterbacks or hockey players who see the play in slow motion? Have you heard about that? That’s how they stay in the game, by being in the zone, riding their intuition. There is no time to think about it; if you think about it, you’ve lost. (He’s lost,) when a quarterback starts thinking about the game, his second string, third string and out there making commercial.
Being in the zone, being in their intuition is why we pay them the money, because they are doing something
that we know is vitally important, something that we admire. We admire it; that’s why we pay for it. Those
clothes that you’re wearing, I bet that at some time or another you bought them. And the reason you paid anything for them is because you admired that apparel. And the more you admire something, the more it is worth to you, and the more you will pay. And that’s really the basis of all exchange; is how much it is admired. You can even admire how much you hate something, or how much distaste you have for it, or how ugly something is, can’t you? Ugh, that’s ugly. It’s an amount of admiration. In fact, it’s what beings exchange. Beings exchange admiration rather than money or thoughts or communication. They really exchange admiration between one another. If you want to know where the economy is moving to, it’s moving away from money, isn’t it? It’s moving into the exchange of admiration, rather than physical goods.
But this intuition, being in the zone is very, very important. And, since we are all going to be going out of our
minds...oh, you’ll still have one. It’s sort of like you still have bodies; we’re using those as a vehicle. You’ll still
have a mind, you can still add 2 and 2 and that kind of thing. But when it comes down to dealing with changes,
and the amount of rapid change that is coming, this is the only thing that will work (Intuition). We will not have
time to think it through, you will only have time to take the action. And when you’re thinking, when you’re using
the mind, what’s also in there is all the fears, doubts, worry. Big clue, how do you know it’s your intuition and not your mind? Your intuition is always, no matter the circumstance—and you guys that were in the accidents,
remember—when you are engaged in your intuition, there is no fear. There was a calm certainty a knowing of
what to do. There was no time to worry about whether you were doing this right or wrong; it was direct action.
Your intuition no matter what or how dire the circumstances, your intuition will always be calm and knowing.
Your mind, on the other hand, will throw in the kitchen sink. I’ve talked to some people who have shared
experiences about these accidents and whatnot, they made it through the experience and other passengers or companions didn’t survive the situation. And these people knew exactly why the passengers didn’t survive and they did. It was because they personally stayed right there in the moment. While the passenger was going... “Oh, no, I’m denying this is happening at all.” They were in their mind; the survivor was in their intuition. That’s how important this is.
9/11 – it’s a big topic. Who survived and who didn’t? The people who followed their intuition and went fishing that morning instead of to work, survived. The people who got down out of the building when the first
plane hit, and including the second tower, the people who got out the building, followed their intuition, took a
break, went home, they survived. The people who got out of the buildings, then heard the all clear and their boss reminding them that they had customers on the west coast that they should be selling stuff to, and then got back into the elevators and went back up into the building, didn’t survive. What was the difference? The guys that went back up in the building had a reason. They had reasons for going back into the building. I’ve got to make my mortgage payment. You know the kid’s got to go to summer school. They had reasons; I would get fired if I didn’t go back. They had reasons and they were in their minds, rather than following their intuition. Just some examples. But this is going to become more and more critical as we go forward from here. More and more critical.
[b]
Staying in the Zone[/b]
Now, next problem. How do you find your intuition and how do you keep it tuned in? Because of course we
have all had the experience of our intuition. Usually it’s fleeting; it’s a little thing and then it goes away, and then it’s clouded by all this doubt about was that even my own, and all that stuff. The mind just jumps right on you. This mind thing is not your friend, friends. It’s a parasitic self-indulgent, self-preservation mechanism. It would rather be right than you be alive. The mind. You’ve probably had friends who denied there was anything wrong with them, because the mind said that can’t happen; that can’t be there; it’s not right; wouldn’t go for treatment, let alone alternative treatment. And, they aren’t here anymore. They were right until they kicked it. This is not a fairy tale; the mind would rather be right in a lot of people than be alive.
So getting a good grip on this thing is really important and having this (intuition) engaged really puts the
mind in its place, where it becomes just a tool rather than an identity. So, how do you do that? Well, intuition is
your own personal knowing, right. And all knowing, all knowing comes from a source, we don’t have to give it a
name, it just comes from somewhere. It comes in a flow of creation. See the source of this flow would necessarily be the source of all knowing, because it’s the source of all that exists is coming this way. So here we have your consciousness in this flow of event. Quicker and quicker and quicker. Your consciousness is oriented by time and place in this flow. Have you noticed that when you’ve had an intuitive moment that time doesn’t go by at all? Until way later and you go, where’d all the time go? But for that time you were just being there. In one moment it was a flow. This is the schematic of how this works. (see Figure 1, last pages)
When you are in your intuition, you’re centered in that flow of information. The trick is to stay there. It’s not
so easy, with everything that’s going on and with the mind preying on you, but the Maya had two things on their side; one, things were going slower. But they had a couple of other orientations. Our consciousness, our society is oriented by time and place, time and place, physical, physical, physical. The Maya had some more help. They had this orientation right here which is called personal intent, one through thirteen. Have you ever been some place that you didn’t really intend to be, like at school or work, or the middle of an argument? Did you feel centered or did you feel un-centered? Did you feel centered or were you off-centered? Me, too. When I was some place I didn’t really intend to be, I felt off-centered. These guys (Maya) knew their personal intent; they had that orientation. So it was easier for them to recognize when they were doing what they were intended to do for this lifetime. That would help keep you centered wouldn’t it? Right away, if you felt that wasn’t happening, you’d get back on to what you were suppose to do. Okay.
They also had this major orientation right here called the Divine Plan. In our civilization there is no plan. It’s
been 16 billion years of happy little accidents that ended up with you sitting on that chair. That’s the way our
science looks at it. It might as well have been an explosion in a chemical factory that produced you here. There
was no divine plan. These guys had a divine plan; they knew that there was 20 different aspects of creation.
Geometry – 20 sided figure. This personal intent and this orientation to the divine plan, that is the recognition of your part in the divine plan; that produces a symbol in the Mayan civilization; this diagram has a name, it’s called the “Eighth Division Sky Place.” And that symbol stands for heaven. You’ve been there; there are moments in your life when you were oriented by time and place, you knew you were doing what you desired or wanted to do and you knew you were part of something much larger than yourself. Felt cool, didn’t it? Heavenly, huh? This is the importance of this calendar (Codex). The Mayan Calendar was never about time. It was always about measuring and keeping track of the flow of creation, and the intent of creation and the aspect of creation every single day. Remember there is one law in the universe: what you pay attention to you, become conscious of. So what if every day you were paying attention to the energy of this flow of creation? What would you become conscious of? So, would it be easier to have your consciousness attuned to your intuition? Easier isn’t all that good a word; it’s automatic – without any effort, without any thinking about it at all; I mean no meditating, I mean, just forget it. You look in the morning to see what the intent of creation is for that day, then you go and live your life. The Maya woke up every morning and celebrated the day for the purpose it served on creation and then went and lived their lives. Every day.
[/i]
[i][b]If Not the Mind, Then What?[/b]
I would venture to guess that this is different from what you expected. We were going to talk about the
Mayan Calendar. We are not talking about Indians in the pyramids. No, we are talking about what’s going on in
our lives today and what’s going to happen tomorrow. And we are going to go into, from this point on, how to
resolve the situation that we’ve discovered and how you can take this out to your friends and neighbors and how you can help them resolve it, too. You want to have some company, don’t you? So we have this situation and I think it’s all registering on you, isn’t it? So, now, it’s pretty evident that we are all going to be going completely out of our minds. It’s gonna happen. So we might as well go ahead and look at what’s out there, outside of your mind. What’s out there is your intuition. What is outside of your own mind is your Intuition. Your own personal knowing. Your own personal power. Intuition—your own knowing without having to rely on any outside information or evidence whatsoever—was given a death sentence by the Catholics during the Inquisition. They murdered over 4 Million women for having intuition. [There was a news story, where the Pope was asking for forgiveness for what the Catholic Church had done during the Inquisition.] Should we go ahead and forgive them? I think so. Those 4 million women, anybody, anybody who professed to know something without first producing the actual physical evidence on how they came to know it, was declared a witch and they were burned and dragged and stabbed. They were persecuted. As a result, intuition went out of style. We just put it on the shelf. The Catholics knew what they were doing because this is your personal power, it’s your own power, and you know the law of supply and demand. If everyone’s got power then what’s mine worth. If nobody’s got power and I’ve got it, mine’s worth a whole lot more. And that’s what they were doing to everybody. And that caught on and has been brought forward to the situation we’re in right now. And thank you Pope for asking for forgiveness; it’s about time.
Actually it’s the perfect time, because we can now afford to forgive them, because there is a larger
understanding of what has been going on over all this period. There is no fault here. There is a process. Hitler was just doing his job. Bushies, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft — all those guys are doing a great job; they really are. Anybody want their jobs? Go guys. They are tearing down everything that the power structure stands for in record time. Go guys. We’ve got to get this stuff out of the way. And they are doing a wonderful job of it.
[b]Intuition[/b]
You know we pay athletes a lot of money, don’t we? To play silly games, don’t we? It’s almost ludicrous,
almost crazy, millions of dollars a year to go out and play a game. Are we nuts? Maybe not. Because you see
these athletes when they’re out there under very stressful conditions; playing for a national championship, with all kinds of money and your next year’s career on the line and all kinds of endorsements and all that; under tremendous stress. Instead of going into the fight or flight syndrome, which would have them kicked off the court or off the team, instead of doing that, these guys routinely go into the zone and they make the spectacular play. Under tremendous stress, with everything happening all at once, they just go step back, see and know everything about the moment. Have you read any of those interviews with the quarterbacks or hockey players who see the play in slow motion? Have you heard about that? That’s how they stay in the game, by being in the zone, riding their intuition. There is no time to think about it; if you think about it, you’ve lost. (He’s lost,) when a quarterback starts thinking about the game, his second string, third string and out there making commercial.
Being in the zone, being in their intuition is why we pay them the money, because they are doing something
that we know is vitally important, something that we admire. We admire it; that’s why we pay for it. Those
clothes that you’re wearing, I bet that at some time or another you bought them. And the reason you paid anything for them is because you admired that apparel. And the more you admire something, the more it is worth to you, and the more you will pay. And that’s really the basis of all exchange; is how much it is admired. You can even admire how much you hate something, or how much distaste you have for it, or how ugly something is, can’t you? Ugh, that’s ugly. It’s an amount of admiration. In fact, it’s what beings exchange. Beings exchange admiration rather than money or thoughts or communication. They really exchange admiration between one another. If you want to know where the economy is moving to, it’s moving away from money, isn’t it? It’s moving into the exchange of admiration, rather than physical goods.
But this intuition, being in the zone is very, very important. And, since we are all going to be going out of our
minds...oh, you’ll still have one. It’s sort of like you still have bodies; we’re using those as a vehicle. You’ll still
have a mind, you can still add 2 and 2 and that kind of thing. But when it comes down to dealing with changes,
and the amount of rapid change that is coming, this is the only thing that will work (Intuition). We will not have
time to think it through, you will only have time to take the action. And when you’re thinking, when you’re using
the mind, what’s also in there is all the fears, doubts, worry. Big clue, how do you know it’s your intuition and not your mind? Your intuition is always, no matter the circumstance—and you guys that were in the accidents,
remember—when you are engaged in your intuition, there is no fear. There was a calm certainty a knowing of
what to do. There was no time to worry about whether you were doing this right or wrong; it was direct action.
Your intuition no matter what or how dire the circumstances, your intuition will always be calm and knowing.
Your mind, on the other hand, will throw in the kitchen sink. I’ve talked to some people who have shared
experiences about these accidents and whatnot, they made it through the experience and other passengers or companions didn’t survive the situation. And these people knew exactly why the passengers didn’t survive and they did. It was because they personally stayed right there in the moment. While the passenger was going... “Oh, no, I’m denying this is happening at all.” They were in their mind; the survivor was in their intuition. That’s how important this is.
9/11 – it’s a big topic. Who survived and who didn’t? The people who followed their intuition and went fishing that morning instead of to work, survived. The people who got down out of the building when the first
plane hit, and including the second tower, the people who got out the building, followed their intuition, took a
break, went home, they survived. The people who got out of the buildings, then heard the all clear and their boss reminding them that they had customers on the west coast that they should be selling stuff to, and then got back into the elevators and went back up into the building, didn’t survive. What was the difference? The guys that went back up in the building had a reason. They had reasons for going back into the building. I’ve got to make my mortgage payment. You know the kid’s got to go to summer school. They had reasons; I would get fired if I didn’t go back. They had reasons and they were in their minds, rather than following their intuition. Just some examples. But this is going to become more and more critical as we go forward from here. More and more critical.
[b]
Staying in the Zone[/b]
Now, next problem. How do you find your intuition and how do you keep it tuned in? Because of course we
have all had the experience of our intuition. Usually it’s fleeting; it’s a little thing and then it goes away, and then it’s clouded by all this doubt about was that even my own, and all that stuff. The mind just jumps right on you. This mind thing is not your friend, friends. It’s a parasitic self-indulgent, self-preservation mechanism. It would rather be right than you be alive. The mind. You’ve probably had friends who denied there was anything wrong with them, because the mind said that can’t happen; that can’t be there; it’s not right; wouldn’t go for treatment, let alone alternative treatment. And, they aren’t here anymore. They were right until they kicked it. This is not a fairy tale; the mind would rather be right in a lot of people than be alive.
So getting a good grip on this thing is really important and having this (intuition) engaged really puts the
mind in its place, where it becomes just a tool rather than an identity. So, how do you do that? Well, intuition is
your own personal knowing, right. And all knowing, all knowing comes from a source, we don’t have to give it a
name, it just comes from somewhere. It comes in a flow of creation. See the source of this flow would necessarily be the source of all knowing, because it’s the source of all that exists is coming this way. So here we have your consciousness in this flow of event. Quicker and quicker and quicker. Your consciousness is oriented by time and place in this flow. Have you noticed that when you’ve had an intuitive moment that time doesn’t go by at all? Until way later and you go, where’d all the time go? But for that time you were just being there. In one moment it was a flow. This is the schematic of how this works. (see Figure 1, last pages)
When you are in your intuition, you’re centered in that flow of information. The trick is to stay there. It’s not
so easy, with everything that’s going on and with the mind preying on you, but the Maya had two things on their side; one, things were going slower. But they had a couple of other orientations. Our consciousness, our society is oriented by time and place, time and place, physical, physical, physical. The Maya had some more help. They had this orientation right here which is called personal intent, one through thirteen. Have you ever been some place that you didn’t really intend to be, like at school or work, or the middle of an argument? Did you feel centered or did you feel un-centered? Did you feel centered or were you off-centered? Me, too. When I was some place I didn’t really intend to be, I felt off-centered. These guys (Maya) knew their personal intent; they had that orientation. So it was easier for them to recognize when they were doing what they were intended to do for this lifetime. That would help keep you centered wouldn’t it? Right away, if you felt that wasn’t happening, you’d get back on to what you were suppose to do. Okay.
They also had this major orientation right here called the Divine Plan. In our civilization there is no plan. It’s
been 16 billion years of happy little accidents that ended up with you sitting on that chair. That’s the way our
science looks at it. It might as well have been an explosion in a chemical factory that produced you here. There
was no divine plan. These guys had a divine plan; they knew that there was 20 different aspects of creation.
Geometry – 20 sided figure. This personal intent and this orientation to the divine plan, that is the recognition of your part in the divine plan; that produces a symbol in the Mayan civilization; this diagram has a name, it’s called the “Eighth Division Sky Place.” And that symbol stands for heaven. You’ve been there; there are moments in your life when you were oriented by time and place, you knew you were doing what you desired or wanted to do and you knew you were part of something much larger than yourself. Felt cool, didn’t it? Heavenly, huh? This is the importance of this calendar (Codex). The Mayan Calendar was never about time. It was always about measuring and keeping track of the flow of creation, and the intent of creation and the aspect of creation every single day. Remember there is one law in the universe: what you pay attention to you, become conscious of. So what if every day you were paying attention to the energy of this flow of creation? What would you become conscious of? So, would it be easier to have your consciousness attuned to your intuition? Easier isn’t all that good a word; it’s automatic – without any effort, without any thinking about it at all; I mean no meditating, I mean, just forget it. You look in the morning to see what the intent of creation is for that day, then you go and live your life. The Maya woke up every morning and celebrated the day for the purpose it served on creation and then went and lived their lives. Every day.
[/i]
Welcome to the Evolution: Mayan Calendar Comes North
I am going to post some stuff from Ian Lungold. It is from a transcript from his talk in 2004. It is about the relation between the mind, its limits, intuition, accelerating changes and the evolution of consciousness.
The transcript and the vids of the talk (Welcome to the Evolution: Mayan Calendar Comes North (Condor Flies to the Eagle) can be seen here: http://www.mayanmajix.com/lab_F1.html
[i][b]The Mind[/b]
Now remember 2 million years ago we picked up this tool called the mind. Well we’re going to have a little
bit of problem with that thing and I want to talk about that right now. The mind is a tool and it’s a tool that
consciousness uses to distinguish similarities and differences between things. Okay. It is a tool like a hammer or a saw. A carpenter doesn’t think that he’s his hammer. Well, not most of them. I know some guys that think they are their cars, but that’s not true. Some people think that they are their mind; get over that right away. You are not your mind or any of your thoughts. If you do hold to that, you are going to be in big trouble and I’m going to show you. See the mind...you don’t hear about this is in school, especially (you) don’t hear about (this) kind of information. I took psychology classes and no one in college ever talked to me about the flicker frequency. Have you ever heard of it? The reason you haven’t heard of it is because this flicker frequency is very, very important in subliminal advertising. Which of course you would never have experienced yourself. The mind works on a series of pictures. Special effects people know all about this. The flicker frequency is 24 frames per second. That’s how fast your mind works. Your mind has a speed limit. Your mind can only think 24 thoughts in one second. It can only make this action (similarities and differences) 24 times per second. It goes like a flip card, a strip: here’s a ball, the ball is coming, it bounces and then it’s going to bounce again. That’s how the mind actually works.
Has anybody here been in an accident? I don’t want to bring up bad times, but something that was really
dangerous and you could have died? Did you see time slow down when you were in that accident? Yeah.
Anybody see it go to stop motion? That was serious. What you just witnessed...and maybe some of you have
some of that and maybe not...I’m telling you and you guys can confirm it, these were peak experiences in your
life. You still clearly remember exactly what happened, don’t you? And, the reason it was so powerful an
experience is because it was a demonstration that you are not your mind. (It demonstrated) that your
consciousness, your consciousness is not limited to how fast this thing works (the mind). Very powerful
information. This flicker frequency, 24 frames per second, is as fast as your mind can work.
[b] Stress[/b]
The mind is a tool that’s suppose to do its job: seeing the similarities and differences so that you can make
decisions concerning your survival. Now when the mind—which is a self-preserving mechanism—when the mind
understands that it can’t do its job, or its not adequately able to make good decisions about your future, it’s got a built in, evolved in, safety over-ride system. And it goes in stages. The first stage of that safety over-ride is called stress. When your mind is not sure of what’s coming, it sends your body a signal. This is your walk-away response. You’re supposed to get up and walk away. Animals have this down really good. A dog will smell something weird and will just get up and leave. Us on the other hand, we have had parents and teachers and now employers who would not have us just get up and walk away, right. So, we have adapted to stress; as a matter of fact, stress is a character evaluation on you. How much stress can you handle?? That’s right, because if you could handle more stress, you’d go further up the corporate ladder. That’s really what the glass ceiling is on each person; how much stress can you handle? [I was just going to say that most disability companies no longer accept stress as a reason for being away from work. You cannot get that coverage anymore, as of 2 years ago.] Right.
Meanwhile, doctors, the AMA, proclaims that 80% of everything that goes wrong with your body begins with
stress. Stress is such an epidemic proportion that all the benefits that used to be afforded to workers for stress have been cut off. Everybody’s got stress; it’s a pandemic. Now you guys kinda have a clue as to why.
If you make a telephone call, you’re hooked up to computers that are making something like 4-5 billion
decisions per second. Your mind is doing 24. Consciousness is moving at at least 5 billion decisions per second.
Do you understand that consciousness is as fast as you can realize, so now we’re talking about nano-seconds
which is one hundredth thousandth of a second. Wow. Consciousness has just sped away from your mind. It used to be, when this territory was settled the people who settled it built everything in their house from the foundation, to the floor, to the windows, to the bunk beds, to the chairs, to the tables. Everything they built with their own hands didn’t they? Except maybe the pump and the skillet; everything else, they built it. They even had a certain amount of knowing about how to do it; they knew how to do it. Go ahead, go home and build a light bulb. That kind of thing is a source for stress. When your computer goes down, there’s a whole lot that the mind doesn’t know about, and it generates this stress. Like I said it’s a pandemic everywhere.
[b] Fight or Flight[/b]
Okay so you’re supposed to handle the stress; you’re suppose to adapt to stress and the stress builds and as we’ve just seen that this acceleration continues to accelerate. So what’s next, if you don’t handle the stress, then you go into this. The mind goes into the fight or flight. Now here, all logic is suspended. There is no similarity or difference any more. It’s just a drop of adrenaline in your system and the body is supposed to either run away or fight its way out to preserve your way of survival. That’s the mechanism. This though, this fight or flight, this is desk-rage, this is road-rage, this is Columbine High School, this is terrorism and all wars. That’s what this is. And that is on a massive increase, isn’t it?
[b]Going Unconscious[/b]
So what happens if you can’t fight your way out and you can’t run away? For instance, if you go in and punch the boss in the nose or your teacher, you’re going to end up in jail or at least out of a job. Right. So if you can’t fight your way out and you can’t run away, what’s left? There’s one last ditch effort on the part of the mind to survive this: unconsciousness. If you can’t run away or fight your way out, what are you supposed to do if a bear attacks you? You’re supposed to play dead. Maybe he’ll only eat your arm. You’ve seen other animals use that technique, haven’t you? They get caught and they just turn over on their back with their belly up and they play dead. It is a survival tactic. It also happens to be the mother of all addictions and the father of all suicides. Basically this is the denial of experience. And the southern belle done faint dead away. What happened here, someone clubbed this woman in the head? She just decided to deny the experience. Didn’t she? All addictions are a person’s chosen method to remain unconscious. And it doesn’t matter if it’s alcohol or drugs or work or gambling or shopping or sitcoms. All addictions are a chosen method to stay unconscious. And how many people do you know, yourself excluded [laughter], are stuck in that sort of thing? A whole bunch of people, huh? You’re starting to get the impact of what this acceleration means. 400 years ago, people had lots of time to sit and ponder things, before they changed. And 400 years ago, you had lots of 24ths of a second to work it out. Now it’s not that way and it’s going to get faster and faster on everybody you know, including yourself. This is a serious situation; this is why the world looks like it’s going to pieces, because it is. The mind was not built for speed. It was evolved when things were going a lot slower. Trying to keep your mind up to speed is sort of like taking your donkey for a run behind the family station wagon at 75 miles per hour. It’s just not pretty. But that’s what’s happening to everyone and it’s going to get even more dramatic in the future.[/i]
The transcript and the vids of the talk (Welcome to the Evolution: Mayan Calendar Comes North (Condor Flies to the Eagle) can be seen here: http://www.mayanmajix.com/lab_F1.html
[i][b]The Mind[/b]
Now remember 2 million years ago we picked up this tool called the mind. Well we’re going to have a little
bit of problem with that thing and I want to talk about that right now. The mind is a tool and it’s a tool that
consciousness uses to distinguish similarities and differences between things. Okay. It is a tool like a hammer or a saw. A carpenter doesn’t think that he’s his hammer. Well, not most of them. I know some guys that think they are their cars, but that’s not true. Some people think that they are their mind; get over that right away. You are not your mind or any of your thoughts. If you do hold to that, you are going to be in big trouble and I’m going to show you. See the mind...you don’t hear about this is in school, especially (you) don’t hear about (this) kind of information. I took psychology classes and no one in college ever talked to me about the flicker frequency. Have you ever heard of it? The reason you haven’t heard of it is because this flicker frequency is very, very important in subliminal advertising. Which of course you would never have experienced yourself. The mind works on a series of pictures. Special effects people know all about this. The flicker frequency is 24 frames per second. That’s how fast your mind works. Your mind has a speed limit. Your mind can only think 24 thoughts in one second. It can only make this action (similarities and differences) 24 times per second. It goes like a flip card, a strip: here’s a ball, the ball is coming, it bounces and then it’s going to bounce again. That’s how the mind actually works.
Has anybody here been in an accident? I don’t want to bring up bad times, but something that was really
dangerous and you could have died? Did you see time slow down when you were in that accident? Yeah.
Anybody see it go to stop motion? That was serious. What you just witnessed...and maybe some of you have
some of that and maybe not...I’m telling you and you guys can confirm it, these were peak experiences in your
life. You still clearly remember exactly what happened, don’t you? And, the reason it was so powerful an
experience is because it was a demonstration that you are not your mind. (It demonstrated) that your
consciousness, your consciousness is not limited to how fast this thing works (the mind). Very powerful
information. This flicker frequency, 24 frames per second, is as fast as your mind can work.
[b] Stress[/b]
The mind is a tool that’s suppose to do its job: seeing the similarities and differences so that you can make
decisions concerning your survival. Now when the mind—which is a self-preserving mechanism—when the mind
understands that it can’t do its job, or its not adequately able to make good decisions about your future, it’s got a built in, evolved in, safety over-ride system. And it goes in stages. The first stage of that safety over-ride is called stress. When your mind is not sure of what’s coming, it sends your body a signal. This is your walk-away response. You’re supposed to get up and walk away. Animals have this down really good. A dog will smell something weird and will just get up and leave. Us on the other hand, we have had parents and teachers and now employers who would not have us just get up and walk away, right. So, we have adapted to stress; as a matter of fact, stress is a character evaluation on you. How much stress can you handle?? That’s right, because if you could handle more stress, you’d go further up the corporate ladder. That’s really what the glass ceiling is on each person; how much stress can you handle? [I was just going to say that most disability companies no longer accept stress as a reason for being away from work. You cannot get that coverage anymore, as of 2 years ago.] Right.
Meanwhile, doctors, the AMA, proclaims that 80% of everything that goes wrong with your body begins with
stress. Stress is such an epidemic proportion that all the benefits that used to be afforded to workers for stress have been cut off. Everybody’s got stress; it’s a pandemic. Now you guys kinda have a clue as to why.
If you make a telephone call, you’re hooked up to computers that are making something like 4-5 billion
decisions per second. Your mind is doing 24. Consciousness is moving at at least 5 billion decisions per second.
Do you understand that consciousness is as fast as you can realize, so now we’re talking about nano-seconds
which is one hundredth thousandth of a second. Wow. Consciousness has just sped away from your mind. It used to be, when this territory was settled the people who settled it built everything in their house from the foundation, to the floor, to the windows, to the bunk beds, to the chairs, to the tables. Everything they built with their own hands didn’t they? Except maybe the pump and the skillet; everything else, they built it. They even had a certain amount of knowing about how to do it; they knew how to do it. Go ahead, go home and build a light bulb. That kind of thing is a source for stress. When your computer goes down, there’s a whole lot that the mind doesn’t know about, and it generates this stress. Like I said it’s a pandemic everywhere.
[b] Fight or Flight[/b]
Okay so you’re supposed to handle the stress; you’re suppose to adapt to stress and the stress builds and as we’ve just seen that this acceleration continues to accelerate. So what’s next, if you don’t handle the stress, then you go into this. The mind goes into the fight or flight. Now here, all logic is suspended. There is no similarity or difference any more. It’s just a drop of adrenaline in your system and the body is supposed to either run away or fight its way out to preserve your way of survival. That’s the mechanism. This though, this fight or flight, this is desk-rage, this is road-rage, this is Columbine High School, this is terrorism and all wars. That’s what this is. And that is on a massive increase, isn’t it?
[b]Going Unconscious[/b]
So what happens if you can’t fight your way out and you can’t run away? For instance, if you go in and punch the boss in the nose or your teacher, you’re going to end up in jail or at least out of a job. Right. So if you can’t fight your way out and you can’t run away, what’s left? There’s one last ditch effort on the part of the mind to survive this: unconsciousness. If you can’t run away or fight your way out, what are you supposed to do if a bear attacks you? You’re supposed to play dead. Maybe he’ll only eat your arm. You’ve seen other animals use that technique, haven’t you? They get caught and they just turn over on their back with their belly up and they play dead. It is a survival tactic. It also happens to be the mother of all addictions and the father of all suicides. Basically this is the denial of experience. And the southern belle done faint dead away. What happened here, someone clubbed this woman in the head? She just decided to deny the experience. Didn’t she? All addictions are a person’s chosen method to remain unconscious. And it doesn’t matter if it’s alcohol or drugs or work or gambling or shopping or sitcoms. All addictions are a chosen method to stay unconscious. And how many people do you know, yourself excluded [laughter], are stuck in that sort of thing? A whole bunch of people, huh? You’re starting to get the impact of what this acceleration means. 400 years ago, people had lots of time to sit and ponder things, before they changed. And 400 years ago, you had lots of 24ths of a second to work it out. Now it’s not that way and it’s going to get faster and faster on everybody you know, including yourself. This is a serious situation; this is why the world looks like it’s going to pieces, because it is. The mind was not built for speed. It was evolved when things were going a lot slower. Trying to keep your mind up to speed is sort of like taking your donkey for a run behind the family station wagon at 75 miles per hour. It’s just not pretty. But that’s what’s happening to everyone and it’s going to get even more dramatic in the future.[/i]
woensdag 8 april 2009
Diamond Sutra Chapter 3.
Diamond Sutra
Chapter 3.
"All living beings, whether born from eggs, from the womb, from moisture, or spontaneously; whether they have form or do not have form; whether they are aware or unaware, whether they are not aware or not unaware, all living beings will eventually be led by me to the final Nirvana, the final ending of the cycle of birth and death. And when this unfathomable, infinite number of living beings have all been liberated, in truth not even a single being has actually been liberated."
"Why Subhuti? Because if a disciple still clings to the arbitrary illusions of form or phenomena such as an ego, a personality, a self, a separate person, or a universal self existing eternally, then that person is not an authentic disciple."
http://www.diamond-sutra.com/diamond_sutra_text/page3.html
Chapter 3.
"All living beings, whether born from eggs, from the womb, from moisture, or spontaneously; whether they have form or do not have form; whether they are aware or unaware, whether they are not aware or not unaware, all living beings will eventually be led by me to the final Nirvana, the final ending of the cycle of birth and death. And when this unfathomable, infinite number of living beings have all been liberated, in truth not even a single being has actually been liberated."
"Why Subhuti? Because if a disciple still clings to the arbitrary illusions of form or phenomena such as an ego, a personality, a self, a separate person, or a universal self existing eternally, then that person is not an authentic disciple."
http://www.diamond-sutra.com/diamond_sutra_text/page3.html
Ego vs Self
Ego vs Self
Review Data On the Ego
The negative ego is; a piece of the mind, (mostly causal body), that is caught in a grid of fear, lack, powerlessness and separation from Source. It interprets your experiences from it's fear based perspective and reacts to those interpretations with agendas called "ego missions."
At the heart of every ego mission is the need to GET something the ego feels it lacks and the means will always be some form of domination of self and others.
Once it has formed these reactive perceptions, ego screens out everything that contradicts what it believes and selects and delivers to you the information that supports and reinforces its interpretations.
The ego commandeers, (you allow it), your mind, emotions and body to serve its fear based agenda. Your entire life can be about serving your fear based ego drives, rather than your soul's purpose.
Towards this end, the ego is a perpetual motion machine. It keeps you on automatic, going through the motions of its program. The more you are in ego, the more mechanical, dull and numb you'll feel. It doesn't want you to stop and ask "Why am I doing this?" "Am I happy?" "Is this fulfilling?"
The ego never truly grows or changes. When you are in ego you feel stuck, caught, stagnant.
It drives you with its incessant ultra negative talk, ("I'm a worthless piece of crud. No one could ever love me"), and ultra positive talk, ("I am the BEST! I am THE GREATEST! I don't need your lowly love!") Its voice is the constant yammering in your head that drowns out the voice of the soul and the self.
The ego knows it's not equipped to run your life. It always feels inadequate and in a panic.
Your ego always makes promises it can never deliver and you keep buying it.
Review Data On the Self
The self is the soul extended down into and expressing through the lower vehicles of mind, emotion and body. The self is the vehicle of the soul in the world this lifetime.
The self functions in dominion rather than domination. Rather than forcing others to give you what you want, you, as self, source, create and earn your own.
The self can learn from every experience and use it to grow. The self is non-reactive, self responsible and at cause and is, therefore, ALWAYS growing.
The self serves the soul's mission and is able to be still, focus within and hear the soul's voice.
The self is inspired to do, not programmed to do.
The self is authentic, with no need to hide certain qualities and display others. Self is capable of honest self assessment of strengths and weaknesses.
The self is capable of deeply creative thought, feeling and action.
The self is capable of giving and receiving true, unconditional acceptance and love. The self is capable of great intimacy, caring and vulnerability. The self is able to deeply connect with God, others, Life.
The self seeks to express its excellence and uniqueness, rather than to be perceived as superior and special.
The core of the self is the soul, but your uniqueness as a self is determined by how your soul translates into human experience this lifetime; The knowledge, skills, talents, interests, passions, ethics, beliefs, traits and idiosyncracies that are distinctly, uniquely you.
The self experiences esteem, worth, confidence, peace, sufficiency and personal power and joy.
c.Lyran Sun 2000
Review Data On the Ego
The negative ego is; a piece of the mind, (mostly causal body), that is caught in a grid of fear, lack, powerlessness and separation from Source. It interprets your experiences from it's fear based perspective and reacts to those interpretations with agendas called "ego missions."
At the heart of every ego mission is the need to GET something the ego feels it lacks and the means will always be some form of domination of self and others.
Once it has formed these reactive perceptions, ego screens out everything that contradicts what it believes and selects and delivers to you the information that supports and reinforces its interpretations.
The ego commandeers, (you allow it), your mind, emotions and body to serve its fear based agenda. Your entire life can be about serving your fear based ego drives, rather than your soul's purpose.
Towards this end, the ego is a perpetual motion machine. It keeps you on automatic, going through the motions of its program. The more you are in ego, the more mechanical, dull and numb you'll feel. It doesn't want you to stop and ask "Why am I doing this?" "Am I happy?" "Is this fulfilling?"
The ego never truly grows or changes. When you are in ego you feel stuck, caught, stagnant.
It drives you with its incessant ultra negative talk, ("I'm a worthless piece of crud. No one could ever love me"), and ultra positive talk, ("I am the BEST! I am THE GREATEST! I don't need your lowly love!") Its voice is the constant yammering in your head that drowns out the voice of the soul and the self.
The ego knows it's not equipped to run your life. It always feels inadequate and in a panic.
Your ego always makes promises it can never deliver and you keep buying it.
Review Data On the Self
The self is the soul extended down into and expressing through the lower vehicles of mind, emotion and body. The self is the vehicle of the soul in the world this lifetime.
The self functions in dominion rather than domination. Rather than forcing others to give you what you want, you, as self, source, create and earn your own.
The self can learn from every experience and use it to grow. The self is non-reactive, self responsible and at cause and is, therefore, ALWAYS growing.
The self serves the soul's mission and is able to be still, focus within and hear the soul's voice.
The self is inspired to do, not programmed to do.
The self is authentic, with no need to hide certain qualities and display others. Self is capable of honest self assessment of strengths and weaknesses.
The self is capable of deeply creative thought, feeling and action.
The self is capable of giving and receiving true, unconditional acceptance and love. The self is capable of great intimacy, caring and vulnerability. The self is able to deeply connect with God, others, Life.
The self seeks to express its excellence and uniqueness, rather than to be perceived as superior and special.
The core of the self is the soul, but your uniqueness as a self is determined by how your soul translates into human experience this lifetime; The knowledge, skills, talents, interests, passions, ethics, beliefs, traits and idiosyncracies that are distinctly, uniquely you.
The self experiences esteem, worth, confidence, peace, sufficiency and personal power and joy.
c.Lyran Sun 2000
ASTAVAKRA GITA
ASTAVAKRA GITA
Translation by John Richards
I
1. Janaka said: How is knowledge to be acquired? How is liberation to be attained? And how is dispassion to be reached? Tell me this, sir.
2. Ashtavakra said: If you are seeking liberation, my dearest one, shun the objects of the senses like poison. Draught the nectar of tolerance, sincerity, compassion, contentment and truthfulness.
3. You are neither earth, water, fire, air or even ether. For liberation know yourself as consisting of consciousness, the witness of these five.
4. If only you will remain resting in consciousness, seeing yourself as distinct from the body, then even now you will become happy, peaceful and free from bonds.
5. You do not belong to the brahmin or warrior or any other caste, you are not at any stage, nor are you anything that the eye can see. You are unattached and formless, the witness of everything - now be happy.
6. Righteousness and unrighteousness, pleasure and pain are purely of the mind and are no concern of yours. You are neither the doer nor the reaper of the consequences; you are always free.
7. You are the one witness of everything, and are always totally free. The cause of bondage is that one sees the witness as something other than this.
8. Since you have been bitten by that black snake of self-opinion - thinking foolishly that ‘I am the doer,’ now drink the nectar in the fact that “I am not the doer”, and now be happy.
9. Burn down the forest of ignorance with the fire of understanding. Know ‘I am the one pure awareness.’ With such ashes now be happy, free from distress.
10. That in which all this appears is but imagined like the snake in a rope; that joy, supreme knowledge and awareness is what you are; now be happy.
11. If one thinks of oneself as free, one is free, and if one thinks of oneself as bound, one is bound. Here this saying ‘Thinking makes it so’ is true.
12. Your real nature is one perfect, free, and actionless consciousness, the all-pervading witness - unattached to anything, desireless, at peace. It is illusion that you seem to be involved in any other matter.
13. Meditate on yourself as motionless awareness, free from any dualism, giving up the mistaken idea that you are just a derivative consciousness; anything external or internal is false.
14. You have long been trapped in the snare of identification with the body. Sever it with the knife of knowledge that “I am awareness”, and be happy, my dearest.
15. You are really unbound and actionless, self-illuminating and spotless already. The cause of your bondage is that you are still resorting to stilling the mind.
16. All of this is really filled by you and strung out in you, for what you consist of is pure awareness - so don’t be small-minded.
17. You are unconditioned and changeless, formless and immovable, unfathomable awareness, imperturbable- such consciousness is unclinging.
18. Recognise that the apparent is unreal, while the unmanifest is abiding. Through this initiation into truth you will escape falling into unreality again.
19. Just as a mirror exists as part and apart from its reflected images, so the Supreme Lord exists as part and apart from this body.
20. Just as one and the same all-pervading space exists within and without a jar, so the eternal, everlasting Being exists in the totality of things.
http://www.celextel.org/othervedantabooks/astavakragita.html?&searched=astavakra&highlight=ajaxSearch_highlight+ajaxSearch_highlight1
Translation by John Richards
I
1. Janaka said: How is knowledge to be acquired? How is liberation to be attained? And how is dispassion to be reached? Tell me this, sir.
2. Ashtavakra said: If you are seeking liberation, my dearest one, shun the objects of the senses like poison. Draught the nectar of tolerance, sincerity, compassion, contentment and truthfulness.
3. You are neither earth, water, fire, air or even ether. For liberation know yourself as consisting of consciousness, the witness of these five.
4. If only you will remain resting in consciousness, seeing yourself as distinct from the body, then even now you will become happy, peaceful and free from bonds.
5. You do not belong to the brahmin or warrior or any other caste, you are not at any stage, nor are you anything that the eye can see. You are unattached and formless, the witness of everything - now be happy.
6. Righteousness and unrighteousness, pleasure and pain are purely of the mind and are no concern of yours. You are neither the doer nor the reaper of the consequences; you are always free.
7. You are the one witness of everything, and are always totally free. The cause of bondage is that one sees the witness as something other than this.
8. Since you have been bitten by that black snake of self-opinion - thinking foolishly that ‘I am the doer,’ now drink the nectar in the fact that “I am not the doer”, and now be happy.
9. Burn down the forest of ignorance with the fire of understanding. Know ‘I am the one pure awareness.’ With such ashes now be happy, free from distress.
10. That in which all this appears is but imagined like the snake in a rope; that joy, supreme knowledge and awareness is what you are; now be happy.
11. If one thinks of oneself as free, one is free, and if one thinks of oneself as bound, one is bound. Here this saying ‘Thinking makes it so’ is true.
12. Your real nature is one perfect, free, and actionless consciousness, the all-pervading witness - unattached to anything, desireless, at peace. It is illusion that you seem to be involved in any other matter.
13. Meditate on yourself as motionless awareness, free from any dualism, giving up the mistaken idea that you are just a derivative consciousness; anything external or internal is false.
14. You have long been trapped in the snare of identification with the body. Sever it with the knife of knowledge that “I am awareness”, and be happy, my dearest.
15. You are really unbound and actionless, self-illuminating and spotless already. The cause of your bondage is that you are still resorting to stilling the mind.
16. All of this is really filled by you and strung out in you, for what you consist of is pure awareness - so don’t be small-minded.
17. You are unconditioned and changeless, formless and immovable, unfathomable awareness, imperturbable- such consciousness is unclinging.
18. Recognise that the apparent is unreal, while the unmanifest is abiding. Through this initiation into truth you will escape falling into unreality again.
19. Just as a mirror exists as part and apart from its reflected images, so the Supreme Lord exists as part and apart from this body.
20. Just as one and the same all-pervading space exists within and without a jar, so the eternal, everlasting Being exists in the totality of things.
http://www.celextel.org/othervedantabooks/astavakragita.html?&searched=astavakra&highlight=ajaxSearch_highlight+ajaxSearch_highlight1
Ego - The False Center II
How can you miss knowing it? It is impossible! A conscious being - how can he miss knowing that this ego is just false? And then others say that there is nothing - and whenever the others say that there is nothing they hit a wound, they say a truth - and nothing hits like the truth.
You have to defend, because if you don't defend, if you don't become defensive, then where will you be?
You will be lost.
The identity will be broken.
So you have to defend and fight - that is the clash.
A man who attains to the self is never in any clash. Others may come and clash with him, but he is never in clash with anybody.
It happened that one Zen master was passing through a street. A man came running and hit him hard. The master fell down. Then he got up and started to walk in the same direction in which he was going before, not even looking back.
A disciple was with the master. He was simply shocked. He said, "Who is this man? What is this? If one lives in such a way, then anybody can come and kill you. And you have not even looked at that person, who he is, and why he did it."
The master said, "That is his problem, not mine."
You can clash with an enlightened man, but that is your problem, not his. And if you are hurt in that clash, that too is your own problem. He cannot hurt you. And it is like knocking against a wall - you will be hurt, but the wall has not hurt you.
The ego is always looking for some trouble. Why? Because if nobody pays attention to you, the ego feels hungry.
It lives on attention.
So even if somebody is fighting and angry with you, that too is good because at least the attention is paid. If somebody loves, it is okay. If somebody is not loving you, then even anger will be good. At least the attention will come to you. But if nobody is paying any attention to you, nobody thinks that you are somebody important, significant, then how will you feed your ego?
Other's attention is needed.
In millions of ways you attract the attention of others; you dress in a certain way, you try to look beautiful, you behave, you become very polite, you change. When you feel what type of situation is there, you immediately change so that people pay attention to you.
This is a deep begging.
A real beggar is one who asks for and demands attention. And a real emperor is one who lives in himself; he has a center of his own, he doesn't depend on anybody else.
Buddha sitting under his bodhi tree...if the whole world suddenly disappears, will it make any difference to Buddha? -none. It will not make any difference at all. If the whole world disappears, it will not make any difference because he has attained to the center.
But you, if the wife escapes, divorces you, goes to somebody else, you are completely shattered - because she had been paying attention to you, caring, loving, moving around you, helping you to feel that you were somebody. Your whole empire is lost, you are simply shattered. You start thinking about suicide. Why? Why, if a wife leaves you, should you commit suicide? Why, if a husband leaves you, should you commit suicide? Because you don't have any center of your own. The wife was giving you the center; the husband was giving you the center.
This is how people exist. This is how people become dependent on others. It is a deep slavery. Ego HAS to be a slave. It depends on others. And only a person who has no ego is for the first time a master; he is no longer a slave. Try to understand this.
And start looking for the ego - not in others, that is not your business, but in yourself. Whenever you feel miserable, immediately close you eyes and try to find out from where the misery is coming and you will always find it is the false center which has clashed with someone.
You expected something, and it didn't happen.
You expected something, and just the contrary happened - your ego is shaken, you are in misery. Just look, whenever you are miserable, try to find out why.
Causes are not outside you. The basic cause is within you - but you always look outside, you always ask:
Who is making me miserable?
Who is the cause of my anger?
Who is the cause of my anguish?
And if you look outside you will miss.
Just close the eyes and always look within.
The source of all misery, anger, anguish, is hidden in you, your ego.
And if you find the source, it will be easy to move beyond it. If you can see that it is your own ego that gives you trouble, you will prefer to drop it - because nobody can carry the source of misery if he understands it.
And remember, there is no need to drop the ego.
You cannot drop it.
If you try to drop it, you will attain to a certain subtle ego again which says, "I have become humble."
Don't try to be humble. That's again ego in hiding - but it's not dead.
Don't try to be humble.
Nobody can try humility, and nobody can create humility through any effort of his own - no. When the ego is no more, a humbleness comes to you. It is not a creation. It is a shadow of the real center.
And a really humble man is neither humble nor egoistic.
He is simply simple.
He's not even aware that he is humble.
If you are aware that you are humble, the ego is there.
Look at humble persons.... There are millions who think that they are very humble. They bow down very low, but watch them - they are the subtlest egoists. Now humility is their source of food. They say, "I am humble," and then they look at you and they wait for you to appreciate them.
"You are really humble," they would like you to say. "In fact, you are the most humble man in the world; nobody is as humble as you are." Then see the smile that comes on their faces.
What is ego? Ego is a hierarchy that says, "No one is like me." It can feed on humbleness - "Nobody is like me, I am the most humble man."
It happened once:
A fakir, a beggar, was praying in a mosque, just early in the morning when it was still dark. It was a certain religious day for Mohammedians, and he was praying, and he was saying, "I am nobody. I am the poorest of the poor, the greatest sinner of sinners."
Suddenly there was one more person who was praying. He was the emperor of that country, and he was not aware that there was somebody else there who was praying - it was dark, and the emperor was also saying:
"I am nobody. I am nothing. I am just empty, a beggar at our door." When he heard that somebody else was saying the same thing, he said, "Stop! Who is trying to overtake me? Who are you? How dare you say before the emperor that you are nobody when he is saying that he is nobody?"
This is how the ego goes. It is so subtle. Its ways are so subtle and cunning; you have to be very, very alert, only then will you see it. Don't try to be humble. Just try to see that all misery, all anguish comes through it.
Just watch! No need to drop it.
You cannot drop it. Who will drop it? Then the DROPPER will become the ego. It always comes back.
Whatsoever you do, stand out of it, and look and watch.
Whatsoever you do - humbleness, humility, simplicity - nothing will help. Only one thing is possible, and that is just to watch and see that it is the source of all misery. Don't say it. Don't repeat it - WATCH. Because if I say it is the source of all misery and you repeat it, then it is useless. YOU have to come to that understanding. Whenever you are miserable, just close the eyes and don't try to find some cause outside. Try to see from where this misery is coming.
It is your own ego.
If you continuously feel and understand, and the understanding that the ego is the cause becomes so deep-rooted, one day you will suddenly see that it has disappeared. Nobody drops it - nobody can drop it. You simply see; it has simply disappeared, because the very understanding that ego causes all misery becomes the dropping. THE VERY UNDERSTANDING IS THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE EGO.
And you are so clever in seeing the ego in others. Anybody can see someone else's ego. When it comes to your own, then the problem arises - because you don't know the territory, you have never traveled on it.
The whole path towards the divine, the ultimate, has to pass through this territory of the ego. The false has to be understood as false. The source of misery has to be understood as the source of misery - then it simply drops.
When you know it is poison, it drops. When you know it is fire, it drops. When you know this is the hell, it drops.
And then you never say, "I have dropped the ego." Then you simply laugh at the whole thing, the joke that you were the creator of all misery.
I was just looking at a few cartoons of Charlie Brown. In one cartoon he is playing with blocks, making a house out of children's blocks. He is sitting in the middle of the blocks building the walls. Then a moment comes when he is enclosed; all around he has made a wall. Then he cries, "Help, help!"
He has done the whole thing! Now he is enclosed, imprisoned. This is childish, but this is all that you have done also. You have made a house all around yourself, and now you are crying, "Help, help!" And the misery becomes a millionfold - because there are helpers who are also in the same boat.
It happened that one very beautiful woman went to see her psychiatrist for the first time. The psychiatrist said, "Come closer please." When she came closer, he simply jumped and hugged and kissed the woman. She was shocked. Then he said, "Now sit down. This takes care of my problem, now what is your problem?"
The problem becomes multifold, because there are helpers who are in the same boat. And they would like to help, because when you help somebody the ego feels very good, very, very good - because you are a great helper, a great guru, a master; you are helping so many people. The greater the crowd of your followers, the better you feel.
But you are in the same boat - you cannot help.
Rather, you will harm.
People who still have their own problems cannot be of much help. Only someone who has no problems of his own can help you. Only then is there the clarity to see, to see through you. A mind that has no problems of its own can see you, you become transparent.
A mind that has no problems of its own can see through itself; that's why it becomes capable of seeing through others.
In the West, there are many schools of psychoanalysis, many schools, and no help is reaching people, but rather, harm. Because the people who are helping others, or trying to help, or posing as helpers, are in the same boat.
...It is difficult to see one's own ego.
It is very easy to see other's egos. But that is not the point, you cannot help them.
Try to see your own ego.
Just watch it.
Don't be in a hurry to drop it, just watch it. The more you watch, the more capable you will become. Suddenly one day, you simply see that it has dropped. And when it drops by itself, only then does it drop. There is no other way. Prematurely you cannot drop it.
It drops just like a dead leaf.
The tree is not doing anything - just a breeze, a situation, and the dead leaf simply drops. The tree is not even aware that the dead leaf has dropped. It makes no noise, it makes no claim - nothing.
The dead leaf simply drops and shatters on the ground, just like that.
When you are mature through understanding, awareness, and you have felt totally that ego is the cause of all your misery, simply one day you see the dead leaf dropping.
It settles into the ground, dies of its own accord. You have not done anything so you cannot claim that you have dropped it. You see that it has simply disappeared, and then the real center arises.
And that real center is the soul, the self, the god, the truth, or whatsoever you want to call it.
It is nameless, so all names are good.
You can give it any name of your own liking.
From Beyond the Frontier of the Mind by Osho
You have to defend, because if you don't defend, if you don't become defensive, then where will you be?
You will be lost.
The identity will be broken.
So you have to defend and fight - that is the clash.
A man who attains to the self is never in any clash. Others may come and clash with him, but he is never in clash with anybody.
It happened that one Zen master was passing through a street. A man came running and hit him hard. The master fell down. Then he got up and started to walk in the same direction in which he was going before, not even looking back.
A disciple was with the master. He was simply shocked. He said, "Who is this man? What is this? If one lives in such a way, then anybody can come and kill you. And you have not even looked at that person, who he is, and why he did it."
The master said, "That is his problem, not mine."
You can clash with an enlightened man, but that is your problem, not his. And if you are hurt in that clash, that too is your own problem. He cannot hurt you. And it is like knocking against a wall - you will be hurt, but the wall has not hurt you.
The ego is always looking for some trouble. Why? Because if nobody pays attention to you, the ego feels hungry.
It lives on attention.
So even if somebody is fighting and angry with you, that too is good because at least the attention is paid. If somebody loves, it is okay. If somebody is not loving you, then even anger will be good. At least the attention will come to you. But if nobody is paying any attention to you, nobody thinks that you are somebody important, significant, then how will you feed your ego?
Other's attention is needed.
In millions of ways you attract the attention of others; you dress in a certain way, you try to look beautiful, you behave, you become very polite, you change. When you feel what type of situation is there, you immediately change so that people pay attention to you.
This is a deep begging.
A real beggar is one who asks for and demands attention. And a real emperor is one who lives in himself; he has a center of his own, he doesn't depend on anybody else.
Buddha sitting under his bodhi tree...if the whole world suddenly disappears, will it make any difference to Buddha? -none. It will not make any difference at all. If the whole world disappears, it will not make any difference because he has attained to the center.
But you, if the wife escapes, divorces you, goes to somebody else, you are completely shattered - because she had been paying attention to you, caring, loving, moving around you, helping you to feel that you were somebody. Your whole empire is lost, you are simply shattered. You start thinking about suicide. Why? Why, if a wife leaves you, should you commit suicide? Why, if a husband leaves you, should you commit suicide? Because you don't have any center of your own. The wife was giving you the center; the husband was giving you the center.
This is how people exist. This is how people become dependent on others. It is a deep slavery. Ego HAS to be a slave. It depends on others. And only a person who has no ego is for the first time a master; he is no longer a slave. Try to understand this.
And start looking for the ego - not in others, that is not your business, but in yourself. Whenever you feel miserable, immediately close you eyes and try to find out from where the misery is coming and you will always find it is the false center which has clashed with someone.
You expected something, and it didn't happen.
You expected something, and just the contrary happened - your ego is shaken, you are in misery. Just look, whenever you are miserable, try to find out why.
Causes are not outside you. The basic cause is within you - but you always look outside, you always ask:
Who is making me miserable?
Who is the cause of my anger?
Who is the cause of my anguish?
And if you look outside you will miss.
Just close the eyes and always look within.
The source of all misery, anger, anguish, is hidden in you, your ego.
And if you find the source, it will be easy to move beyond it. If you can see that it is your own ego that gives you trouble, you will prefer to drop it - because nobody can carry the source of misery if he understands it.
And remember, there is no need to drop the ego.
You cannot drop it.
If you try to drop it, you will attain to a certain subtle ego again which says, "I have become humble."
Don't try to be humble. That's again ego in hiding - but it's not dead.
Don't try to be humble.
Nobody can try humility, and nobody can create humility through any effort of his own - no. When the ego is no more, a humbleness comes to you. It is not a creation. It is a shadow of the real center.
And a really humble man is neither humble nor egoistic.
He is simply simple.
He's not even aware that he is humble.
If you are aware that you are humble, the ego is there.
Look at humble persons.... There are millions who think that they are very humble. They bow down very low, but watch them - they are the subtlest egoists. Now humility is their source of food. They say, "I am humble," and then they look at you and they wait for you to appreciate them.
"You are really humble," they would like you to say. "In fact, you are the most humble man in the world; nobody is as humble as you are." Then see the smile that comes on their faces.
What is ego? Ego is a hierarchy that says, "No one is like me." It can feed on humbleness - "Nobody is like me, I am the most humble man."
It happened once:
A fakir, a beggar, was praying in a mosque, just early in the morning when it was still dark. It was a certain religious day for Mohammedians, and he was praying, and he was saying, "I am nobody. I am the poorest of the poor, the greatest sinner of sinners."
Suddenly there was one more person who was praying. He was the emperor of that country, and he was not aware that there was somebody else there who was praying - it was dark, and the emperor was also saying:
"I am nobody. I am nothing. I am just empty, a beggar at our door." When he heard that somebody else was saying the same thing, he said, "Stop! Who is trying to overtake me? Who are you? How dare you say before the emperor that you are nobody when he is saying that he is nobody?"
This is how the ego goes. It is so subtle. Its ways are so subtle and cunning; you have to be very, very alert, only then will you see it. Don't try to be humble. Just try to see that all misery, all anguish comes through it.
Just watch! No need to drop it.
You cannot drop it. Who will drop it? Then the DROPPER will become the ego. It always comes back.
Whatsoever you do, stand out of it, and look and watch.
Whatsoever you do - humbleness, humility, simplicity - nothing will help. Only one thing is possible, and that is just to watch and see that it is the source of all misery. Don't say it. Don't repeat it - WATCH. Because if I say it is the source of all misery and you repeat it, then it is useless. YOU have to come to that understanding. Whenever you are miserable, just close the eyes and don't try to find some cause outside. Try to see from where this misery is coming.
It is your own ego.
If you continuously feel and understand, and the understanding that the ego is the cause becomes so deep-rooted, one day you will suddenly see that it has disappeared. Nobody drops it - nobody can drop it. You simply see; it has simply disappeared, because the very understanding that ego causes all misery becomes the dropping. THE VERY UNDERSTANDING IS THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE EGO.
And you are so clever in seeing the ego in others. Anybody can see someone else's ego. When it comes to your own, then the problem arises - because you don't know the territory, you have never traveled on it.
The whole path towards the divine, the ultimate, has to pass through this territory of the ego. The false has to be understood as false. The source of misery has to be understood as the source of misery - then it simply drops.
When you know it is poison, it drops. When you know it is fire, it drops. When you know this is the hell, it drops.
And then you never say, "I have dropped the ego." Then you simply laugh at the whole thing, the joke that you were the creator of all misery.
I was just looking at a few cartoons of Charlie Brown. In one cartoon he is playing with blocks, making a house out of children's blocks. He is sitting in the middle of the blocks building the walls. Then a moment comes when he is enclosed; all around he has made a wall. Then he cries, "Help, help!"
He has done the whole thing! Now he is enclosed, imprisoned. This is childish, but this is all that you have done also. You have made a house all around yourself, and now you are crying, "Help, help!" And the misery becomes a millionfold - because there are helpers who are also in the same boat.
It happened that one very beautiful woman went to see her psychiatrist for the first time. The psychiatrist said, "Come closer please." When she came closer, he simply jumped and hugged and kissed the woman. She was shocked. Then he said, "Now sit down. This takes care of my problem, now what is your problem?"
The problem becomes multifold, because there are helpers who are in the same boat. And they would like to help, because when you help somebody the ego feels very good, very, very good - because you are a great helper, a great guru, a master; you are helping so many people. The greater the crowd of your followers, the better you feel.
But you are in the same boat - you cannot help.
Rather, you will harm.
People who still have their own problems cannot be of much help. Only someone who has no problems of his own can help you. Only then is there the clarity to see, to see through you. A mind that has no problems of its own can see you, you become transparent.
A mind that has no problems of its own can see through itself; that's why it becomes capable of seeing through others.
In the West, there are many schools of psychoanalysis, many schools, and no help is reaching people, but rather, harm. Because the people who are helping others, or trying to help, or posing as helpers, are in the same boat.
...It is difficult to see one's own ego.
It is very easy to see other's egos. But that is not the point, you cannot help them.
Try to see your own ego.
Just watch it.
Don't be in a hurry to drop it, just watch it. The more you watch, the more capable you will become. Suddenly one day, you simply see that it has dropped. And when it drops by itself, only then does it drop. There is no other way. Prematurely you cannot drop it.
It drops just like a dead leaf.
The tree is not doing anything - just a breeze, a situation, and the dead leaf simply drops. The tree is not even aware that the dead leaf has dropped. It makes no noise, it makes no claim - nothing.
The dead leaf simply drops and shatters on the ground, just like that.
When you are mature through understanding, awareness, and you have felt totally that ego is the cause of all your misery, simply one day you see the dead leaf dropping.
It settles into the ground, dies of its own accord. You have not done anything so you cannot claim that you have dropped it. You see that it has simply disappeared, and then the real center arises.
And that real center is the soul, the self, the god, the truth, or whatsoever you want to call it.
It is nameless, so all names are good.
You can give it any name of your own liking.
From Beyond the Frontier of the Mind by Osho
Ego - The False Center
Ego - The False Center
From Beyond the Frontier of the Mind by Osho
The first thing to be understood is what ego is. A child is born. A child is born without any knowledge, any consciousness of his own self. And when a child is born the first thing he becomes aware of is not himself; the first thing he becomes aware of is the other. It is natural, because the eyes open outwards, the hands touch others, the ears listen to others, the tongue tastes food and the nose smells the outside. All these senses open outwards.
That is what birth means. Birth means coming into this world, the world of the outside. So when a child is born, he is born into this world. He opens his eyes, sees others. 'Other' means the thou. He becomes aware of the mother first. Then, by and by, he becomes aware of his own body. That too is the other, that too belongs to the world. He is hungry and he feels the body; his need is satisfied, he forgets the body.
This is how a child grows. First he becomes aware of you, thou, other, and then by and by, in contrast to you, thou, he becomes aware of himself.
This awareness is a reflected awareness. He is not aware of who he is. He is simply aware of the mother and what she thinks about him. If she smiles, if she appreciates the child, if she says, "You are beautiful," if she hugs and kisses him, the child feels good about himself. Now an ego is born.
Through appreciation, love, care, he feels he is good, he feels he is valuable, he feels he has some significance.
A center is born.
But this center is a reflected center. It is not his real being. He does not know who he is; he simply knows what others think about him. And this is the ego: the reflection, what others think. If nobody thinks that he is of any use, nobody appreciates him, nobody smiles, then too an ego is born: an ill ego; sad, rejected, like a wound; feeling inferior, worthless. This too is the ego. This too is a reflection.
First the mother - and mother means the world in the beginning. Then others will join the mother, and the world goes on growing. And the more the world grows, the more complex the ego becomes, because many others' opinions are reflected.
The ego is an accumulated phenomenon, a by-product of living with others. If a child lives totally alone, he will never come to grow an ego. But that is not going to help. He will remain like an animal. That doesn't mean that he will come to know the real self, no.
The real can be known only through the false, so the ego is a must. One has to pass through it. It is a discipline. The real can be known only through the illusion. You cannot know the truth directly. First you have to know that which is not true. First you have to encounter the untrue. Through that encounter you become capable of knowing the truth. If you know the false as the false, truth will dawn upon you.
Ego is a need; it is a social need, it is a social by-product. The society means all that is around you - not you, but all that is around you. All, minus you, is the society. And everybody reflects. You will go to school and the teacher will reflect who you are. You will be in friendship with other children and they will reflect who you are. By and by, everybody is adding to your ego, and everybody is trying to modify it in such a way that you don't become a problem to the society.
They are not concerned with you.
They are concerned with the society.
Society is concerned with itself, and that's how it should be.
They are not concerned that you should become a self-knower. They are concerned that you should become an efficient part in the mechanism of the society. You should fit into the pattern. So they are trying to give you an ego that fits with the society. They teach you morality. Morality means giving you an ego which will fit with the society. If you are immoral, you will always be a misfit somewhere or other. That's why we put criminals in the prisons - not that they have done something wrong, not that by putting them in the prisons we are going to improve them, no. They simply don't fit. They are troublemakers. They have certain types of egos of which the society doesn't approve. If the society approves, everything is good.
One man kills somebody - he is a murderer.
And the same man in wartime kills thousands - he becomes a great hero. The society is not bothered by a murder, but the murder should be commited for the society - then it is okay. The society doesn't bother about morality.
Morality means only that you should fit with the society.
If the society is at war, then the morality changes.
If the society is at peace, then there is a different morality.
Morality is a social politics. It is diplomacy. And each child has to be brought up in such a way that he fits into the society, that's all. Because society is interested in efficient members. Society is not interested that you should attain to self-knowledge.
The society creates an ego because the ego can be controlled and manipulated. The self can never be controlled or manipulated. Nobody has ever heard of the society controlling a self - not possible.
And the child needs a center; the child is completely unaware of his own center. The society gives him a center and the child is by and by convinced that this is his center, the ego that society gives.
A child comes back to his home - if he has come first in his class, the whole family is happy. You hug and kiss him, and you take the child on your shoulders and dance and you say, "What a beautiful child! You are a pride to us." You are giving him an ego, a subtle ego. And if the child comes home dejected, unsuccessful, a failure - he couldn't pass, or he has just been on the back bench - then nobody appreciates him and the child feels rejected. He will try harder next time, because the center feels shaken.
Ego is always shaken, always in search of food, that somebody should appreciate it. That's why you continuously ask for attention.
You get the idea of who you are from others.
It is not a direct experience.
It is from others that you get the idea of who you are. They shape your center. This center is false, because you carry your real center. That is nobody's business. Nobody shapes it.
You come with it.
You are born with it.
So you have two centers. One center you come with, which is given by existence itself. That is the self. And the other center, which is created by the society, is the ego. It is a false thing - and it is a very great trick. Through the ego the society is controlling you. You have to behave in a certain way, because only then does the society appreciate you. You have to walk in a certain way; you have to laugh in a certain way; you have to follow certain manners, a morality, a code. Only then will the society appreciate you, and if it doesn't, you ego will be shaken. And when the ego is shaken, you don't know where you are, who you are.
The others have given you the idea.
That idea is the ego.
Try to understand it as deeply as possible, because this has to be thrown. And unless you throw it you will never be able to attain to the self. Because you are addicted to the center, you cannot move, and you cannot look at the self.
And remember, there is going to be an interim period, an interval, when the ego will be shattered, when you will not know who you are, when you will not know where you are going, when all boundaries will melt.
You will simply be confused, a chaos.
Because of this chaos, you are afraid to lose the ego. But it has to be so. One has to pass through the chaos before one attains to the real center.
And if you are daring, the period will be small.
If you are afraid, and you again fall back to the ego, and you again start arranging it, then it can be very, very long; many lives can be wasted.
I have heard: One small child was visiting his grandparents. He was just four years old. In the night when the grandmother was putting him to sleep, he suddenly started crying and weeping and said, "I want to go home. I am afraid of darkness." But the grandmother said, "I know well that at home also you sleep in the dark; I have never seen a light on. So why are you afraid here?" The boy said, "Yes, that's right - but that is MY darkness." This darkness is completely unknown.
Even with darkness you feel, "This is MINE."
Outside - an unknown darkness.
With the ego you feel, "This is MY darkness."
It may be troublesome, maybe it creates many miseries, but still mine. Something to hold to, something to cling to, something underneath the feet; you are not in a vacuum, not in an emptiness. You may be miserable, but at least you ARE. Even being miserable gives you a feeling of 'I am'. Moving from it, fear takes over; you start feeling afraid of the unknown darkness and chaos - because society has managed to clear a small part of your being.
It is just like going to a forest. You make a little clearing, you clear a little ground; you make fencing, you make a small hut; you make a small garden, a lawn, and you are okay. Beyond your fence - the forest, the wild. Here everything is okay; you have planned everything. This is how it has happened.
Society has made a little clearing in your consciousness. It has cleaned just a little part completely, fenced it. Everything is okay there. That's what all your universities are doing. The whole culture and conditioning is just to clear a part so that you can feel at home there.
And then you become afraid.
Beyond the fence there is danger.
Beyond the fence you are, as within the fence you are - and your conscious mind is just one part, one-tenth of your whole being. Nine-tenths is waiting in the darkness. And in that nine-tenths, somewhere your real center is hidden.
One has to be daring, courageous.
One has to take a step into the unknown.
For a while all boundaries will be lost.
For a while you will feel dizzy.
For a while, you will feel very afraid and shaken, as if an earthquake has happened. But if you are courageous and you don't go backwards, if you don't fall back to the ego and you go on and on, there is a hidden center within you that you have been carrying for many lives.
That is your soul, the self.
Once you come near it, everything changes, everything settles again. But now this settling is not done by the society. Now everything becomes a cosmos, not a chaos; a new order arises.
But this is no longer the order of the society - it is the very order of existence itself.
It is what Buddha calls Dhamma, Lao Tzu calls Tao, Heraclitus calls Logos. It is not man-made. It is the VERY order of existence itself. Then everything is suddenly beautiful again, and for the first time really beautiful, because man-made things cannot be beautiful. At the most you can hide the ugliness of them, that's all. You can decorate them, but they can never be beautiful.
The difference is just like the difference between a real flower and a plastic or paper flower. The ego is a plastic flower - dead. It just looks like a flower, it is not a flower. You cannot really call it a flower. Even linguistically to call it a flower is wrong, because a flower is something which flowers. And this plastic thing is just a thing, not a flowering. It is dead. There is no life in it.
You have a flowering center within. That's why Hindus call it a lotus - it is a flowering. They call it the one-thousand-petaled-lotus. One thousand means infinite petals. And it goes on flowering, it never stops, it never dies.
But you are satisfied with a plastic ego.
There are some reasons why you are satisfied. With a dead thing, there are many conveniences. One is that a dead thing never dies. It cannot - it was never alive. So you can have plastic flowers, they are good in a way. They are permanent; they are not eternal, but they are permanent.
The real flower outside in the garden is eternal, but not permanent. And the eternal has its own way of being eternal. The way of the eternal is to be born again and again and to die. Through death it refreshes itself, rejuvenates itself.
To us it appears that the flower has died - it never dies.
It simply changes bodies, so it is ever fresh.
It leaves the old body, it enters a new body. It flowers somewhere else; it goes on flowering.
But we cannot see the continuity because the continuity is invisible. We see only one flower, another flower; we never see the continuity.
It is the same flower which flowered yesterday.
It is the same sun, but in a different garb.
The ego has a certain quality - it is dead. It is a plastic thing. And it is very easy to get it, because others give it. You need not seek it, there is no search involved. That's why unless you become a seeker after the unknown, you have not yet become an individual. You are just a part of the crowd. You are just a mob.
When you don't have a real center, how can you be an individual?
The ego is not individual. Ego is a social phenomenon - it is society, its not you. But it gives you a function in the society, a hierarchy in the society. And if you remain satisfied with it, you will miss the whole opportunity of finding the self.
And that's why you are so miserable.
With a plastic life, how can you be happy?
With a false life, how can you be ecstatic and blissful? And then this ego creates many miseries, millions of them.
You cannot see, because it is your own darkness. You are attuned to it.
Have you ever noticed that all types of miseries enter through the ego? It cannot make you blissful; it can only make you miserable.
Ego is hell.
Whenever you suffer, just try to watch and analyze, and you will find, somewhere the ego is the cause of it. And the ego goes on finding causes to suffer.
You are an egoist, as everyone is. Some are very gross, just on the surface, and they are not so difficult. Some are very subtle, deep down, and they are the real problems.
This ego comes continuously in conflict with others because every ego is so unconfident about itself. Is has to be - it is a false thing. When you don't have anything in your hand and you just think that something is there, then there will be a problem.
If somebody says, "There is nothing," immediately the fight will start, because you also feel that there is nothing. The other makes you aware of the fact.
Ego is false, it is nothing.
That you also know.
http://deoxy.org/egofalse.htm
From Beyond the Frontier of the Mind by Osho
The first thing to be understood is what ego is. A child is born. A child is born without any knowledge, any consciousness of his own self. And when a child is born the first thing he becomes aware of is not himself; the first thing he becomes aware of is the other. It is natural, because the eyes open outwards, the hands touch others, the ears listen to others, the tongue tastes food and the nose smells the outside. All these senses open outwards.
That is what birth means. Birth means coming into this world, the world of the outside. So when a child is born, he is born into this world. He opens his eyes, sees others. 'Other' means the thou. He becomes aware of the mother first. Then, by and by, he becomes aware of his own body. That too is the other, that too belongs to the world. He is hungry and he feels the body; his need is satisfied, he forgets the body.
This is how a child grows. First he becomes aware of you, thou, other, and then by and by, in contrast to you, thou, he becomes aware of himself.
This awareness is a reflected awareness. He is not aware of who he is. He is simply aware of the mother and what she thinks about him. If she smiles, if she appreciates the child, if she says, "You are beautiful," if she hugs and kisses him, the child feels good about himself. Now an ego is born.
Through appreciation, love, care, he feels he is good, he feels he is valuable, he feels he has some significance.
A center is born.
But this center is a reflected center. It is not his real being. He does not know who he is; he simply knows what others think about him. And this is the ego: the reflection, what others think. If nobody thinks that he is of any use, nobody appreciates him, nobody smiles, then too an ego is born: an ill ego; sad, rejected, like a wound; feeling inferior, worthless. This too is the ego. This too is a reflection.
First the mother - and mother means the world in the beginning. Then others will join the mother, and the world goes on growing. And the more the world grows, the more complex the ego becomes, because many others' opinions are reflected.
The ego is an accumulated phenomenon, a by-product of living with others. If a child lives totally alone, he will never come to grow an ego. But that is not going to help. He will remain like an animal. That doesn't mean that he will come to know the real self, no.
The real can be known only through the false, so the ego is a must. One has to pass through it. It is a discipline. The real can be known only through the illusion. You cannot know the truth directly. First you have to know that which is not true. First you have to encounter the untrue. Through that encounter you become capable of knowing the truth. If you know the false as the false, truth will dawn upon you.
Ego is a need; it is a social need, it is a social by-product. The society means all that is around you - not you, but all that is around you. All, minus you, is the society. And everybody reflects. You will go to school and the teacher will reflect who you are. You will be in friendship with other children and they will reflect who you are. By and by, everybody is adding to your ego, and everybody is trying to modify it in such a way that you don't become a problem to the society.
They are not concerned with you.
They are concerned with the society.
Society is concerned with itself, and that's how it should be.
They are not concerned that you should become a self-knower. They are concerned that you should become an efficient part in the mechanism of the society. You should fit into the pattern. So they are trying to give you an ego that fits with the society. They teach you morality. Morality means giving you an ego which will fit with the society. If you are immoral, you will always be a misfit somewhere or other. That's why we put criminals in the prisons - not that they have done something wrong, not that by putting them in the prisons we are going to improve them, no. They simply don't fit. They are troublemakers. They have certain types of egos of which the society doesn't approve. If the society approves, everything is good.
One man kills somebody - he is a murderer.
And the same man in wartime kills thousands - he becomes a great hero. The society is not bothered by a murder, but the murder should be commited for the society - then it is okay. The society doesn't bother about morality.
Morality means only that you should fit with the society.
If the society is at war, then the morality changes.
If the society is at peace, then there is a different morality.
Morality is a social politics. It is diplomacy. And each child has to be brought up in such a way that he fits into the society, that's all. Because society is interested in efficient members. Society is not interested that you should attain to self-knowledge.
The society creates an ego because the ego can be controlled and manipulated. The self can never be controlled or manipulated. Nobody has ever heard of the society controlling a self - not possible.
And the child needs a center; the child is completely unaware of his own center. The society gives him a center and the child is by and by convinced that this is his center, the ego that society gives.
A child comes back to his home - if he has come first in his class, the whole family is happy. You hug and kiss him, and you take the child on your shoulders and dance and you say, "What a beautiful child! You are a pride to us." You are giving him an ego, a subtle ego. And if the child comes home dejected, unsuccessful, a failure - he couldn't pass, or he has just been on the back bench - then nobody appreciates him and the child feels rejected. He will try harder next time, because the center feels shaken.
Ego is always shaken, always in search of food, that somebody should appreciate it. That's why you continuously ask for attention.
You get the idea of who you are from others.
It is not a direct experience.
It is from others that you get the idea of who you are. They shape your center. This center is false, because you carry your real center. That is nobody's business. Nobody shapes it.
You come with it.
You are born with it.
So you have two centers. One center you come with, which is given by existence itself. That is the self. And the other center, which is created by the society, is the ego. It is a false thing - and it is a very great trick. Through the ego the society is controlling you. You have to behave in a certain way, because only then does the society appreciate you. You have to walk in a certain way; you have to laugh in a certain way; you have to follow certain manners, a morality, a code. Only then will the society appreciate you, and if it doesn't, you ego will be shaken. And when the ego is shaken, you don't know where you are, who you are.
The others have given you the idea.
That idea is the ego.
Try to understand it as deeply as possible, because this has to be thrown. And unless you throw it you will never be able to attain to the self. Because you are addicted to the center, you cannot move, and you cannot look at the self.
And remember, there is going to be an interim period, an interval, when the ego will be shattered, when you will not know who you are, when you will not know where you are going, when all boundaries will melt.
You will simply be confused, a chaos.
Because of this chaos, you are afraid to lose the ego. But it has to be so. One has to pass through the chaos before one attains to the real center.
And if you are daring, the period will be small.
If you are afraid, and you again fall back to the ego, and you again start arranging it, then it can be very, very long; many lives can be wasted.
I have heard: One small child was visiting his grandparents. He was just four years old. In the night when the grandmother was putting him to sleep, he suddenly started crying and weeping and said, "I want to go home. I am afraid of darkness." But the grandmother said, "I know well that at home also you sleep in the dark; I have never seen a light on. So why are you afraid here?" The boy said, "Yes, that's right - but that is MY darkness." This darkness is completely unknown.
Even with darkness you feel, "This is MINE."
Outside - an unknown darkness.
With the ego you feel, "This is MY darkness."
It may be troublesome, maybe it creates many miseries, but still mine. Something to hold to, something to cling to, something underneath the feet; you are not in a vacuum, not in an emptiness. You may be miserable, but at least you ARE. Even being miserable gives you a feeling of 'I am'. Moving from it, fear takes over; you start feeling afraid of the unknown darkness and chaos - because society has managed to clear a small part of your being.
It is just like going to a forest. You make a little clearing, you clear a little ground; you make fencing, you make a small hut; you make a small garden, a lawn, and you are okay. Beyond your fence - the forest, the wild. Here everything is okay; you have planned everything. This is how it has happened.
Society has made a little clearing in your consciousness. It has cleaned just a little part completely, fenced it. Everything is okay there. That's what all your universities are doing. The whole culture and conditioning is just to clear a part so that you can feel at home there.
And then you become afraid.
Beyond the fence there is danger.
Beyond the fence you are, as within the fence you are - and your conscious mind is just one part, one-tenth of your whole being. Nine-tenths is waiting in the darkness. And in that nine-tenths, somewhere your real center is hidden.
One has to be daring, courageous.
One has to take a step into the unknown.
For a while all boundaries will be lost.
For a while you will feel dizzy.
For a while, you will feel very afraid and shaken, as if an earthquake has happened. But if you are courageous and you don't go backwards, if you don't fall back to the ego and you go on and on, there is a hidden center within you that you have been carrying for many lives.
That is your soul, the self.
Once you come near it, everything changes, everything settles again. But now this settling is not done by the society. Now everything becomes a cosmos, not a chaos; a new order arises.
But this is no longer the order of the society - it is the very order of existence itself.
It is what Buddha calls Dhamma, Lao Tzu calls Tao, Heraclitus calls Logos. It is not man-made. It is the VERY order of existence itself. Then everything is suddenly beautiful again, and for the first time really beautiful, because man-made things cannot be beautiful. At the most you can hide the ugliness of them, that's all. You can decorate them, but they can never be beautiful.
The difference is just like the difference between a real flower and a plastic or paper flower. The ego is a plastic flower - dead. It just looks like a flower, it is not a flower. You cannot really call it a flower. Even linguistically to call it a flower is wrong, because a flower is something which flowers. And this plastic thing is just a thing, not a flowering. It is dead. There is no life in it.
You have a flowering center within. That's why Hindus call it a lotus - it is a flowering. They call it the one-thousand-petaled-lotus. One thousand means infinite petals. And it goes on flowering, it never stops, it never dies.
But you are satisfied with a plastic ego.
There are some reasons why you are satisfied. With a dead thing, there are many conveniences. One is that a dead thing never dies. It cannot - it was never alive. So you can have plastic flowers, they are good in a way. They are permanent; they are not eternal, but they are permanent.
The real flower outside in the garden is eternal, but not permanent. And the eternal has its own way of being eternal. The way of the eternal is to be born again and again and to die. Through death it refreshes itself, rejuvenates itself.
To us it appears that the flower has died - it never dies.
It simply changes bodies, so it is ever fresh.
It leaves the old body, it enters a new body. It flowers somewhere else; it goes on flowering.
But we cannot see the continuity because the continuity is invisible. We see only one flower, another flower; we never see the continuity.
It is the same flower which flowered yesterday.
It is the same sun, but in a different garb.
The ego has a certain quality - it is dead. It is a plastic thing. And it is very easy to get it, because others give it. You need not seek it, there is no search involved. That's why unless you become a seeker after the unknown, you have not yet become an individual. You are just a part of the crowd. You are just a mob.
When you don't have a real center, how can you be an individual?
The ego is not individual. Ego is a social phenomenon - it is society, its not you. But it gives you a function in the society, a hierarchy in the society. And if you remain satisfied with it, you will miss the whole opportunity of finding the self.
And that's why you are so miserable.
With a plastic life, how can you be happy?
With a false life, how can you be ecstatic and blissful? And then this ego creates many miseries, millions of them.
You cannot see, because it is your own darkness. You are attuned to it.
Have you ever noticed that all types of miseries enter through the ego? It cannot make you blissful; it can only make you miserable.
Ego is hell.
Whenever you suffer, just try to watch and analyze, and you will find, somewhere the ego is the cause of it. And the ego goes on finding causes to suffer.
You are an egoist, as everyone is. Some are very gross, just on the surface, and they are not so difficult. Some are very subtle, deep down, and they are the real problems.
This ego comes continuously in conflict with others because every ego is so unconfident about itself. Is has to be - it is a false thing. When you don't have anything in your hand and you just think that something is there, then there will be a problem.
If somebody says, "There is nothing," immediately the fight will start, because you also feel that there is nothing. The other makes you aware of the fact.
Ego is false, it is nothing.
That you also know.
http://deoxy.org/egofalse.htm
Pagan warriorship
WARRIORSHIP
by Swein Runestaff
There has been much written on warriorship in recent times and i-nterest in the subject shows no sign of diminishing. As Pagans we must come to understand our warrior ancestry and, more importantly, adapt its principles to modern life. If we fail in this task, we face the prospect of becoming either meek and herded sheep, or branded outlaws,condemned as were our ancestors, for our heresy.
Although I have read widely on the historical evidence, my own u-nderstanding comes mainly from my training in a living Norwegian tradition and in the Rune-Gild. There are many academic theories and conjectures about the role of the warrior in Pagan society but very few academics who understand warriorship. We Pagans do not have the luxury of theorising, no matter how clever those theories may seem. If they are not of practical benefit to us in daily life, they amount to nothing more than intellectual wankery.
Paganism is about freedom. Freedom from dogma, freedom from our ne-gative conditioning, habits, and inhibitions, freedom from our self--limiting beliefs. We must not think that we can improve our situation if we break the bonds of the Judeo-Christian chastity belt merely to adopt fetters forged from the twisted scrap of a bygone age. Christianity became fossilised before it reached the wisdom and tolerance of maturity, let us not make the same mistake.
Paganism has always had its strength in its diversity and fluidity,constantly adapting according to time and location. The form is always evolving but the essence remains. This fluidity is indeed part of the essence, and differentiates us from the anachronists who seek only relief from reality. To the Pagan, reality is not the tiresome mud of everyday, but colourful clay to be moulded lovingly in our hands.
Paganism is our way and warriorship is our vehicle. Without warriorship, Paganism becomes quaint anachronism. In my tradition warriorship is not about aggression, in fact a warrior has gone beyond the need for aggression. Warriorship is actually magick, the art of manifesting the True Will. An aspect of this is illustrated in our understanding of the Berserk.
The word "berserk" comes from two words, "bare" and "sark" (a shirt). A berserk was originally one who fought without a shirt, bare from the waist up. Not only did they scorn body armour, they even went without the psychological advantage of a layer of clothing between their skin and the enemy's sword.
In our tradition, the symbolism of removing the armour is of great importance, but before it is safe to do so, one must be adept at doing battle with the armour on. Whether on the battlefield or in the marketplace we all wear some sort of armour against "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", or more to the point, the barbs of our fellow humans. In order to operate efficiently we must know our strengths and weaknesses, and become aware of the style and construction of our armour.
As our movements become increasingly efficient, we find that we can afford to shed some of our armour. We then find that our movements become even more efficient with the resulting freedom. Eventually we find ourselves totally open to the world. No longer encumbered with layers of protection we are free to be our true selves. Every act becomes a spontaneous and joyous act of pure will. We become a vortex of pure will force.
Paradoxically, while a novice stripped of armour would be instantly slain, an adept becomes impervious to steel. The berserk ceases to be a target by becoming as if devoid of gross substance. The Ynglinga Saga describes the Berserks when inspired by Odin, "They cut down the enemy, while neither fire nor iron could make an impression on them." That which offers no resistance cannot be cut. That which is flexible cannot be broken.
Anyone who has been in combat situations will realise that uncontrolled anger is rarely a friend in battle. Such emotion may well stimulate enthusiasm and fearlessness, but at the cost of judgement and precision. There is a Samurai saying- "The angry man will defeat himself in battle as well as in life." The true berserk rage is certainly not blind anger. An angry warrior may be frightening and deadly but is unlikely to come out of a battle alive, let alone unscathed.
The secret of the berserk's invulnerability is the ability to let the True Will flow unimpeded. This requires the warrior to be totally calm and centred while at the same time unleashing the destructive forces of the Will. This is a form of meditation infinitely more difficult than being calm and centred in a quiet room (something most people find almost impossible anyway). The slightest distracting thought can be fatal. By not letting thoughts interfere with the flow of Will, the berserk is always in the right place at the right time. Action flows, there is no rigidity or predictability there is nowhere a blade can strike.
The berserk acts without hesitation and is always in harmony with any situation. Harmony in this case means being true to the self and interacting with the situation in a way which is honest with the self. This can only be done when there is no barrier between the self and the situation. One becomes a fluid part of the situation without losing one's individuality, an indispensable and autonomous part of the whole, every movement being a vital adjustment of one's position in the universe.
It is only through warriorship that we will be able to practise our varied traditions without fear of persecution, for this fear betrays a lack of confidence in one's own magickal ability and in the power of one's tradition. Like the berserk, those who truly practise warriors- hip or magick will find themselves beyond the reach of any attack, and extremely unlikely to be attacked in the first place.
Judeo-Christian culture has taught us that we are powerless as individuals, that we must follow the mob to be saved. Pagan culture has always taught that we should accept responsibility for ourselves. Our power or lack of it is our own choice. Freedom is ours, taking responsibility for ourselves is the price. Many are not ready to pay it, let them join the sheep of a herd religion until they are ready, they too have a valid place in the greater whole. This is why Paganism does not seek to make converts.
Ultimately warriorship is a path of compassion. When we no longer fear others, we are free to sense their real needs. This is not sympathy or just being nice, sometimes a harsh lesson will be far more beneficial in the long run. Only fearless openness allows one to see the best way to interact. Without fear we can be more tolerant and less defensive, less inclined to take things personally, or become offended when others do things a little differently, or moralise and interfere with others because we feel threatened by their strangeness. Only fear prevents us from achieving our potential. Only warriorship will defeat the fears which divide us.
(Swein Runestaff is Steward of the South Pacific Region of the Rune-Guild)
[url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos478.htm]http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos478.htm[/url]
by Swein Runestaff
There has been much written on warriorship in recent times and i-nterest in the subject shows no sign of diminishing. As Pagans we must come to understand our warrior ancestry and, more importantly, adapt its principles to modern life. If we fail in this task, we face the prospect of becoming either meek and herded sheep, or branded outlaws,condemned as were our ancestors, for our heresy.
Although I have read widely on the historical evidence, my own u-nderstanding comes mainly from my training in a living Norwegian tradition and in the Rune-Gild. There are many academic theories and conjectures about the role of the warrior in Pagan society but very few academics who understand warriorship. We Pagans do not have the luxury of theorising, no matter how clever those theories may seem. If they are not of practical benefit to us in daily life, they amount to nothing more than intellectual wankery.
Paganism is about freedom. Freedom from dogma, freedom from our ne-gative conditioning, habits, and inhibitions, freedom from our self--limiting beliefs. We must not think that we can improve our situation if we break the bonds of the Judeo-Christian chastity belt merely to adopt fetters forged from the twisted scrap of a bygone age. Christianity became fossilised before it reached the wisdom and tolerance of maturity, let us not make the same mistake.
Paganism has always had its strength in its diversity and fluidity,constantly adapting according to time and location. The form is always evolving but the essence remains. This fluidity is indeed part of the essence, and differentiates us from the anachronists who seek only relief from reality. To the Pagan, reality is not the tiresome mud of everyday, but colourful clay to be moulded lovingly in our hands.
Paganism is our way and warriorship is our vehicle. Without warriorship, Paganism becomes quaint anachronism. In my tradition warriorship is not about aggression, in fact a warrior has gone beyond the need for aggression. Warriorship is actually magick, the art of manifesting the True Will. An aspect of this is illustrated in our understanding of the Berserk.
The word "berserk" comes from two words, "bare" and "sark" (a shirt). A berserk was originally one who fought without a shirt, bare from the waist up. Not only did they scorn body armour, they even went without the psychological advantage of a layer of clothing between their skin and the enemy's sword.
In our tradition, the symbolism of removing the armour is of great importance, but before it is safe to do so, one must be adept at doing battle with the armour on. Whether on the battlefield or in the marketplace we all wear some sort of armour against "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", or more to the point, the barbs of our fellow humans. In order to operate efficiently we must know our strengths and weaknesses, and become aware of the style and construction of our armour.
As our movements become increasingly efficient, we find that we can afford to shed some of our armour. We then find that our movements become even more efficient with the resulting freedom. Eventually we find ourselves totally open to the world. No longer encumbered with layers of protection we are free to be our true selves. Every act becomes a spontaneous and joyous act of pure will. We become a vortex of pure will force.
Paradoxically, while a novice stripped of armour would be instantly slain, an adept becomes impervious to steel. The berserk ceases to be a target by becoming as if devoid of gross substance. The Ynglinga Saga describes the Berserks when inspired by Odin, "They cut down the enemy, while neither fire nor iron could make an impression on them." That which offers no resistance cannot be cut. That which is flexible cannot be broken.
Anyone who has been in combat situations will realise that uncontrolled anger is rarely a friend in battle. Such emotion may well stimulate enthusiasm and fearlessness, but at the cost of judgement and precision. There is a Samurai saying- "The angry man will defeat himself in battle as well as in life." The true berserk rage is certainly not blind anger. An angry warrior may be frightening and deadly but is unlikely to come out of a battle alive, let alone unscathed.
The secret of the berserk's invulnerability is the ability to let the True Will flow unimpeded. This requires the warrior to be totally calm and centred while at the same time unleashing the destructive forces of the Will. This is a form of meditation infinitely more difficult than being calm and centred in a quiet room (something most people find almost impossible anyway). The slightest distracting thought can be fatal. By not letting thoughts interfere with the flow of Will, the berserk is always in the right place at the right time. Action flows, there is no rigidity or predictability there is nowhere a blade can strike.
The berserk acts without hesitation and is always in harmony with any situation. Harmony in this case means being true to the self and interacting with the situation in a way which is honest with the self. This can only be done when there is no barrier between the self and the situation. One becomes a fluid part of the situation without losing one's individuality, an indispensable and autonomous part of the whole, every movement being a vital adjustment of one's position in the universe.
It is only through warriorship that we will be able to practise our varied traditions without fear of persecution, for this fear betrays a lack of confidence in one's own magickal ability and in the power of one's tradition. Like the berserk, those who truly practise warriors- hip or magick will find themselves beyond the reach of any attack, and extremely unlikely to be attacked in the first place.
Judeo-Christian culture has taught us that we are powerless as individuals, that we must follow the mob to be saved. Pagan culture has always taught that we should accept responsibility for ourselves. Our power or lack of it is our own choice. Freedom is ours, taking responsibility for ourselves is the price. Many are not ready to pay it, let them join the sheep of a herd religion until they are ready, they too have a valid place in the greater whole. This is why Paganism does not seek to make converts.
Ultimately warriorship is a path of compassion. When we no longer fear others, we are free to sense their real needs. This is not sympathy or just being nice, sometimes a harsh lesson will be far more beneficial in the long run. Only fearless openness allows one to see the best way to interact. Without fear we can be more tolerant and less defensive, less inclined to take things personally, or become offended when others do things a little differently, or moralise and interfere with others because we feel threatened by their strangeness. Only fear prevents us from achieving our potential. Only warriorship will defeat the fears which divide us.
(Swein Runestaff is Steward of the South Pacific Region of the Rune-Guild)
[url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos478.htm]http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos478.htm[/url]
Stages of Acceptance
Stages of Acceptance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND6iSRlG5m0
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying, Macmillan, NY, 1969
In the Kübler-Ross [b]Grief Cycle[/b], the first stage is one of immobilized shock. In order, the stages are: [b]Shock, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Testing, Acceptance.
Shock stage
Symptoms
The first reaction on hearing the bad news is one of classic shock. This initially may appear as if there is no reaction at all to the news. The person may nod and accept the news without appearing to be troubled by it. Inside, they have frozen out the news that has not really taken hold yet. To get the news through, they may need to be told several times.
This is followed by a more external shock, where there may be physical reactions such as paling of the skin, shortness of breath and physical freezing.
Treatment
When shock occurs, they may need to be sat down (to stop them falling) and given a drink of some sort (mostly as something to hold onto). Show them sympathy and acceptance. If the shock is not a short-lived one, help them get to a place where they can sit safely and let the news sink in.
You can pre-empt shock symptoms to some extent by taking the person to a place where they can safely hear the news. Especially if they are likely to move swiftly into more emotive stages, they will need to be in a private place, away from the embarrassment of public tears, and in the company of trusted friends or family.
Denial stage
Symptoms
After the initial shock has worn off, the next stage is usually one of classic denial, where they pretend that the news has not been given. They effectively close their eyes to any evidence and pretend that nothing has happened.
Typically, they will continue their life as if nothing has happened. In the workplace, they will carry on doing their job even if that job is no longer required.
A classic behavior here is a 'flight into health', where previously-perceived problems are suddenly seen as having miraculously fixed themselves.
Treatment
You can move a person out of denial by deliberately provoking them to anger. Hold up the future (sympathetically) so they cannot avoid or deny it. Tell them that it is not fair. Show anger yourself (thus legitimizing that they get angry).
This, to some extent, is done on daytime TV shows where people in precarious situations are prodded into emotional explosions that make good TV and (where sympathetically done) may even be good for them.
[b]Anger stage[/b]
Symptoms
The next step after denial is a sudden swing into anger, which often occurs in an explosion of emotion, where the bottled-up feelings of the previous stages are expulsed in a huge outpouring of grief. Whoever is in the way is likely to be blamed. In a company this includes the managers, peers, shareholders customers and suppliers. The phrase 'Why me?' may be repeated in an endless loop in their heads. A part of this anger thus is 'Why not you?', which fuels their anger at the those who are not affected, or perhaps not as seriously so.
Treatment
When they are angry, the best thing you can do is give them space, allowing them to rail and bellow. The more the storm blows, the sooner it will blow itself out.
Where anger becomes destructive then it must be addressed directly. As necessary, you may need to remind people of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Reframe their anger into useful channels, such as problem areas and ways to move foreword.
Beware, when faced with anger, of it becoming an argument where you may push them back into denial or cause later problems. Support their anger. Accept it. Let them be angry at you.
[b]Bargaining stage[/b]
Symptoms
After the fires of anger have been blow out, the next stage is a desperate round of bargaining, seeking ways to avoid having the bad thing happen. Bargaining is thus a vain expression of hope that the bad news is reversible.
Bargaining in illness includes seeking alternative therapies and experimental drugs. In organizations, it includes offering to work for less money (or even none!), offering to do alternative work or be demoted down the hierarchy. One's loyalties, debts and dependants may be paraded as evidence of the essentiality of being saved.
Treatment
When people are bargaining, you should not offer them any false hope. Although there may be practical things they can do which you can offer them, never offer them something that cannot be fulfilled.
Sometimes the best you can do at this stage is point even more at the inevitable, even though this may well tip them into depression (which may well be a necessary move).
When they are in a bargaining mood, sometimes there are things you can offer them, such as support for change or new opportunities. In these cases you may be able to strike a win-win deal, where they get an improved deal and you get collaboration or some other contribution. In a business setting, this may include finishing off some important work before they leave and receiving a special bonus for doing so.
[b]Depression stage[/b]
Symptoms
After denial, anger and bargaining, the inevitability of the news eventually (and not before time) sinks in and the person reluctantly accepts that it is going to happen. From the animation of anger and bargaining, they slump into a slough of despond. In this deep depression, they see only a horrible end with nothing beyond it. In turning in towards themselves, they turn away from any solution and any help that others can give them.
Depression may be seen in a number of passive behaviors. In the workplace, this includes physical absenteeism, long lunch breaks and mediocre work performance. It can also appear in tearful and morose episodes where the person's main concern is focused on their own world.
Treatment
The first thing you can do with people who are in depression is to be there with them, accepting them in all their misery. People who are depressed feel very much alone and you company, even though it may not seem that way, is likely to be welcome.
The second thing to do is to keep them moving. It is easy to get stuck in depression, and the longer they stay there, the deeper into the mud they are likely to slide. So keep up a steady stream of support, showing them that there is light ahead and encouraging them to reach towards it.
In the workplace, provision of professional coaching, counselling and other support can do a lot to help people recognize their depression and find a way to clamber out of the pit.
[b]Testing stage[/b]
Symptoms
Even in the pit of depressive despair, reality eventually starts to bite and the person realizes that they cannot stay in that deep, dark hole forever. They thus start looking for realistic things that they can do. These may be taken on as 'experiments' to see if doing these things help the situation in any way. As this activity starts to work, at least in some ways, it is found to be preferred to the depression and so the person crawls out of that dark hole.
This escape is often done with the support of friends, family and professionals who specialize in helping people in whatever situation this is. In medicine, hospices help the terminally ill face their short futures with courage. In organizations, counselors and outplacement consultants help individuals move on to other work.
Treatment
When they reach out towards the road to acceptance, they are at last on their way out of the mire. Help them try different solutions and to see that they can, after all, have an effect on their future. Hand as much control to them as possible, as this gives them a lifeline of stability on which to pull themselves forward.
[b]Acceptance stage[/b]
Symptoms
The final stage is back to one of stability, where the person is ready and actively involved in moving on to the next phase of their lives, no matter how short. The terminally ill person will be putting their life in order, sorting out wills and helping others to accept the inevitability that then now have countenanced and faced.
In the workplace, people who have lost their jobs will be actively seeking new work, whilst others who have had their work changed will be tidying up and getting ready to move on.
Acceptance is typically visible by people taking ownership both for themselves and their actions. They start to do things and take note of the results, and then changing their actions in response. They will appear increasingly happier and more content as they find their way forward.
Treatment
Help the person to establish themselves permanently in their new position. Fix them there, ensuring that there is no way back to the previous situation. Congratulate them on getting through the change. Celebrate the completion of their transition.
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/kubler_ross/shock_stage.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND6iSRlG5m0
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying, Macmillan, NY, 1969
In the Kübler-Ross [b]Grief Cycle[/b], the first stage is one of immobilized shock. In order, the stages are: [b]Shock, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Testing, Acceptance.
Shock stage
Symptoms
The first reaction on hearing the bad news is one of classic shock. This initially may appear as if there is no reaction at all to the news. The person may nod and accept the news without appearing to be troubled by it. Inside, they have frozen out the news that has not really taken hold yet. To get the news through, they may need to be told several times.
This is followed by a more external shock, where there may be physical reactions such as paling of the skin, shortness of breath and physical freezing.
Treatment
When shock occurs, they may need to be sat down (to stop them falling) and given a drink of some sort (mostly as something to hold onto). Show them sympathy and acceptance. If the shock is not a short-lived one, help them get to a place where they can sit safely and let the news sink in.
You can pre-empt shock symptoms to some extent by taking the person to a place where they can safely hear the news. Especially if they are likely to move swiftly into more emotive stages, they will need to be in a private place, away from the embarrassment of public tears, and in the company of trusted friends or family.
Denial stage
Symptoms
After the initial shock has worn off, the next stage is usually one of classic denial, where they pretend that the news has not been given. They effectively close their eyes to any evidence and pretend that nothing has happened.
Typically, they will continue their life as if nothing has happened. In the workplace, they will carry on doing their job even if that job is no longer required.
A classic behavior here is a 'flight into health', where previously-perceived problems are suddenly seen as having miraculously fixed themselves.
Treatment
You can move a person out of denial by deliberately provoking them to anger. Hold up the future (sympathetically) so they cannot avoid or deny it. Tell them that it is not fair. Show anger yourself (thus legitimizing that they get angry).
This, to some extent, is done on daytime TV shows where people in precarious situations are prodded into emotional explosions that make good TV and (where sympathetically done) may even be good for them.
[b]Anger stage[/b]
Symptoms
The next step after denial is a sudden swing into anger, which often occurs in an explosion of emotion, where the bottled-up feelings of the previous stages are expulsed in a huge outpouring of grief. Whoever is in the way is likely to be blamed. In a company this includes the managers, peers, shareholders customers and suppliers. The phrase 'Why me?' may be repeated in an endless loop in their heads. A part of this anger thus is 'Why not you?', which fuels their anger at the those who are not affected, or perhaps not as seriously so.
Treatment
When they are angry, the best thing you can do is give them space, allowing them to rail and bellow. The more the storm blows, the sooner it will blow itself out.
Where anger becomes destructive then it must be addressed directly. As necessary, you may need to remind people of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Reframe their anger into useful channels, such as problem areas and ways to move foreword.
Beware, when faced with anger, of it becoming an argument where you may push them back into denial or cause later problems. Support their anger. Accept it. Let them be angry at you.
[b]Bargaining stage[/b]
Symptoms
After the fires of anger have been blow out, the next stage is a desperate round of bargaining, seeking ways to avoid having the bad thing happen. Bargaining is thus a vain expression of hope that the bad news is reversible.
Bargaining in illness includes seeking alternative therapies and experimental drugs. In organizations, it includes offering to work for less money (or even none!), offering to do alternative work or be demoted down the hierarchy. One's loyalties, debts and dependants may be paraded as evidence of the essentiality of being saved.
Treatment
When people are bargaining, you should not offer them any false hope. Although there may be practical things they can do which you can offer them, never offer them something that cannot be fulfilled.
Sometimes the best you can do at this stage is point even more at the inevitable, even though this may well tip them into depression (which may well be a necessary move).
When they are in a bargaining mood, sometimes there are things you can offer them, such as support for change or new opportunities. In these cases you may be able to strike a win-win deal, where they get an improved deal and you get collaboration or some other contribution. In a business setting, this may include finishing off some important work before they leave and receiving a special bonus for doing so.
[b]Depression stage[/b]
Symptoms
After denial, anger and bargaining, the inevitability of the news eventually (and not before time) sinks in and the person reluctantly accepts that it is going to happen. From the animation of anger and bargaining, they slump into a slough of despond. In this deep depression, they see only a horrible end with nothing beyond it. In turning in towards themselves, they turn away from any solution and any help that others can give them.
Depression may be seen in a number of passive behaviors. In the workplace, this includes physical absenteeism, long lunch breaks and mediocre work performance. It can also appear in tearful and morose episodes where the person's main concern is focused on their own world.
Treatment
The first thing you can do with people who are in depression is to be there with them, accepting them in all their misery. People who are depressed feel very much alone and you company, even though it may not seem that way, is likely to be welcome.
The second thing to do is to keep them moving. It is easy to get stuck in depression, and the longer they stay there, the deeper into the mud they are likely to slide. So keep up a steady stream of support, showing them that there is light ahead and encouraging them to reach towards it.
In the workplace, provision of professional coaching, counselling and other support can do a lot to help people recognize their depression and find a way to clamber out of the pit.
[b]Testing stage[/b]
Symptoms
Even in the pit of depressive despair, reality eventually starts to bite and the person realizes that they cannot stay in that deep, dark hole forever. They thus start looking for realistic things that they can do. These may be taken on as 'experiments' to see if doing these things help the situation in any way. As this activity starts to work, at least in some ways, it is found to be preferred to the depression and so the person crawls out of that dark hole.
This escape is often done with the support of friends, family and professionals who specialize in helping people in whatever situation this is. In medicine, hospices help the terminally ill face their short futures with courage. In organizations, counselors and outplacement consultants help individuals move on to other work.
Treatment
When they reach out towards the road to acceptance, they are at last on their way out of the mire. Help them try different solutions and to see that they can, after all, have an effect on their future. Hand as much control to them as possible, as this gives them a lifeline of stability on which to pull themselves forward.
[b]Acceptance stage[/b]
Symptoms
The final stage is back to one of stability, where the person is ready and actively involved in moving on to the next phase of their lives, no matter how short. The terminally ill person will be putting their life in order, sorting out wills and helping others to accept the inevitability that then now have countenanced and faced.
In the workplace, people who have lost their jobs will be actively seeking new work, whilst others who have had their work changed will be tidying up and getting ready to move on.
Acceptance is typically visible by people taking ownership both for themselves and their actions. They start to do things and take note of the results, and then changing their actions in response. They will appear increasingly happier and more content as they find their way forward.
Treatment
Help the person to establish themselves permanently in their new position. Fix them there, ensuring that there is no way back to the previous situation. Congratulate them on getting through the change. Celebrate the completion of their transition.
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/kubler_ross/shock_stage.htm
Abonneren op:
Posts (Atom)
