themes | essays
believe in what you do = know and trust yourself
you know when you believe in what you do just as you know when you've fallen in love.
true, just as you can learn to love, you can begin to believe in what you do over time... but why learn to accept something that doesn't resonate with who you know you are?
are you not good enough to have what you want in this life? do you not trust yourself enough to hold out for what you believe in? why invest your heart in something you don't believe in from the beginning? do you not know what you believe in... or what you want?
ah, the other side of the coin...
pragmatism tells you that the way things have been done is the way things ought to be done because there are quantified visible results of those things. getting a job that pays well is difficult enough and everyone has to work their way up the ladder and money and family and suv and newtonian physics and the american medical association and the media survey said it and it's always been this way and on and on and on... the soothing sound of the practical sleeping mind lulling you back into the endless maze of average self-disempowered illusion.
this diverse world has an almost infinite offering of interesting things for a person to devote their lives to. if you can't find something that turns you on then you can create something.
but what DO you want to do? what do you want? this little function of who you fundamentally are will kill any hope of a creative and/or passionate life if you can't identify at least one answer. and guess what? i know few, few people who know what they want. i am met with skepticism and doubt when i tell people what i want out of life. perhaps what i want is unconventional or perhaps a person can't enter my context because they don't believe what i believe. fine, but the greater and only real problem is often that they don't know what they want and that prevents them from moving toward it. then they perform the classic move: project their dissatisfaction with themselves onto the world around them through any random emotional or communication mechanism to gain some sort of power leverage over it which helps them obscure and bury their personal dissatisfaction they probably don't even realize they have. ugly.
knowing what you want becomes defined as you begin to know yourself. this is a lifelong work which takes devotion and practice. perhaps it is as simple as knowing what you don't want but even then you must have some fundamental insight into yourself or you will find it acceptable to repetitiously do something which you don't believe in, without even knowing it.
believing in what you do from a place of self or universal awareness is empowering and ultimately serves a goal far greater than ourselves. it contributes to the awareness of the universe. the evolution of consciousness through awareness... the song of the universe. if you look at our little world from a distance, the greatest leader in the lands becomes infinitesimal and utterly unimportant in their individuality. she/he is another tic in the heap of humanity. imagine 6 billion of those... knowing not who they are or what they do. what hope can any introspective, self-aware person have of their vision of an enlightened universe realizing itself if 97% of their fellow species walks around in a trance? scooping chicken shit could potentially be as enlightening and important as being president of the united states if done with belief in the purpose of it and from a place of love and awareness. perhaps it would be so if beings more advanced than ourselves were to look upon this world and determine just w hat it is that we believe in. do you see how it might be extra important to believe in what you do? real belief. belief in yourself and your contribution to the next stage of human development.
how? know yourself. honor yourself. love yourself and find what it is that you want and do it with joy in your heart.
happy new year. i guess. i don't love to say that....
it's a symbolic rebirth. it's an opportunity to reimmerse yourself in yourself (for the sake of spiritual awakenings of course ((meditation)) ). it's an opportunity to recommit to contributing love to the world and nothing but... to find within yourself the way to peace, to identify the things which don't serve your highest purpose and that of the earth and it's denizens and re-shape it into service to the higer purpose and nature in everything. yes, these things and more. perhaps service to the evolution ---> enlightenment of every last sentient being?
when i was younger, new year was a time for getting ripped and going for sex... or some variation on that topic. as i look out on the world, i see that playing out as if it were all that really mattered to so many. that and of course the endless march toward money. it's not bad it just is. and it will be eternally until each individual begins to stir in their roost and identify the meaninglessness of the reality that most people exist and labor without awareness to attain yet more money. or perhaps just enough money to survive.
war is among us and treachery, mistrust and manipulation serve the great mechanism which enslaves the mind to the end that the only "freedom" it might attain is some moderate supply of currency.
i can certainly seem nihilistic or at least cynical and.. wait... yes, i suppose to the extent that from within my world it appears that so many earthlings seem to have no interest in creating something of lasting love and peace on this earth i am. but in my heart i have an agreement: i have made a commitment to the service of every one of you in proceeding toward spiritual evolution. or, call it what you may. for the sake of objectivity, let's call it union with the "_____"ness which exists beyond all manifestations yet is everything manifest and unmanifest. and of course, as that "___"ness is not without subtle irony,, all of this can not be believed or perceived to any real extent without an experiential component. and this experiential aspect of it all can not be tasted without waking up from the deep sleep of the zombie body which is constantly at the whim of the mind and it's endless cravings.
how to wake?
meditation. deep prayer if the idea of meditation seems demonic to you. if meditation seems insurmountable to you, sit down close your eyes and count four breaths repeatedly only concentrating on those breathes and 1... 2... 3... 4... 1... 2... 3... 4... there. you have meditated. you will be bombarded with thoughts. after maybe ten days of this practice of anywhere between 5-30 minutes the mind will begin to understand who daddy is. then, you are beginning to awake. some people don't want this because they can't tolerate one minute without letting the mind take them wherever it wishes, or labelling everything in their path or simply because they can't tolerate one moment of simply being with themselves and no one else and not a single thought. this can actually be a terrifying experience for some of us.
anyway, i'm heading to a movie with my friend frank. (frank is my spades partner. we play yahtzee a lot and he believes in science and is much smarter than your average joe.. or frank for that matter). so, maybe this year make a new commitment to something you hardly believe in. make the mystic real. smile, make people laugh, say i am not real and I WILL DIE. what is the purpose of me? who am I? make love in public... actually that might be too extreme. question war, endless striving for money and product and anything which is fundamentally at odds with your beliefs. then, *very important* question your beliefs.
so i guess i don't like saying happy new year because it feels empty to me. i would rather hug you, look you in the eye and ask if you have made a commitment to something of value for everyone. in any event, all the best for 2008.
symbolic interpretation of writing, thought and life part 1
most of us write lists and generate words and writings essential for the satisfactory completion of our jobs, or perhaps even journal to document our emotions and journeys chronologically, but how often do we write as a process to process our emotions? how often do you write or brainstorm to look for hidden connections in your life events, hidden and unknown paths and possibilities in your life, ways to improve or refine the things you do repeatedly without fulfillment, or for critical analysis of problems or decisions? how about creative writing to stimulate long dormant areas of your mind?
watching a person's eyes when they speak can tell you what color their eyes are. similarly, writing down a thought or idea can be the same as having an average thought or simply seeing the color of someone's eyes; superficially, totally overlooking the vastness of information actually available. the information is understood and acknowledged rationally and literally, acted on or not, memorized or forgotten. noting in what direction a person's eyes look when the person is speaking can tell you how they are accessing the information they are giving you and perhaps if they are constructing the information creatively or accessing it from memory. similarly again, developing a thought in writing, improvisationally, without an attachment to it's form, syntax or purpose then seeing it symbolically for the themes it contains or acknowledging the symbols you believe you perceive in it rather than reading it off the paper the same way you wrote it there can allow you access to "hidden" messages that have nothing to do with the obviousness of literal, insight-less thought. it can initiate a chain reaction of thoughts or insights which, when left to evolve without your rational mind or ego stepping in, can weave a grand web of your life and thoughts and allow you to see very clearly the multidimensional aspects of everything in your experience and realize previously unrelated connections. you can then see a picture or collection of symbols which, when interpreted as a dream might be, can give you insight into yourself or your life beyond that which you might get from literal translations of the millions of "thoughtless" thoughts you have.
this idea of symbolic interpretation of reality is not specific to writing. it can be accomplished by seeing and interpreting life in a different way regardless of what you look at. it can be achieved through meditation, reflection, prayer, dream interpretation and more. this process of "seeing" life or writing or thought symbolically is similar to comprehending the spiritual insights or lessons in a parable, decoding an encrypted message, using a chrome rod or hangar to find water in the earth, telling someone's fortune with a deck of tarot cards, interpreting the symbols of the collective unconscious or dreams to give insight into life or help resolve problems or just plain thinking outside the "box". i've always liked to think of it as finding crumbs and then following them to the loaf- the crumbs of course representing seeing the symbols of life lead me to the various way points of happiness, revelation and fulfillment on the journey to the loaf of enlightenment.
necessarily, one must have a desire to refine themselves or find something new in their life to have need or motivation to investigate or interpret personal symbols. then again, if there is never creative investigation into one's self or interpretation of symbols, there is never the realization that there is this need. living life without looking beyond the superficial, obvious meaning of its events and experiences is analogous to watching a film and seeing only a colored conglomeration of moving shapes on a rectangle.
next time you have a problem, idea, or question drink some coffee or tea, write down a thought in relation to it and then close your eyes and let images, symbols and\or words form in response to the thought. write down ideas as they come in relation to this and again close your eyes and let the symbols come. they may be pictures or words or ideas depending the way you access information but write them down with words in a way which does not require thought and embodies the mind stuff conceptually with as few words as possible. repeat the process until you have a fair amount of information in front of you all related to the initial thoughts or problem. viewing the words and ideas on the paper in front of you at this point should give you some fairly interesting and oblique responses to the initial question. reflect on those words and an answer, insight or new idea will certainly be there.
may you find your loaf!