People
Walk around
All day long
Revealing the Mystery
Though they don’t
Know It
Their words
Reflect their confusion
Which is why
It’s so easy
To hide
The obvious
The universe is not to be narrowed down to the limits of our understanding… but our understanding must be stretched and enlarged take in the image of the universe as it is discovered. – Sir Francis Bacon
Follow up to Friends –
Good friends are a JOY!
Leave a comment or two about Friends, Your Friends, or Friendship.
The type of friends we choose says a lot about us. Our friends support us, influence us and hopefully challenge us.. The best friends are those that are willing to hold our feet to the fire when we’re not being authentic. These friends are not only there for us when times are tough, they’re there for us in the worst of times.
As human beings, we all make mistakes. Sooner or later, we are going to let someone down or hurt someone’s feelings. Friends know this, but don’t excuse our actions. Friends are willing to be straight with us and in return, ask us to be straight with them.
A compassionate friend during times of grief or sorrow is a blessing. A warrioir friend who helps us to cut through our own bullshit is a Godsend.
Friends are precious. Friends are dear. Sometimes we choose our friends. Sometimes they choose us. Sometimes the universe just throws us together.
Friends and friendship deserve some contemplative time, some deep thought, some emotional and spiritual exploration. Limiting our understanding of friends to a surface understanding, brings no honor, limits the appreciation and depth possible.
The universe affirms itself into manifestation through a dynamic that can be partially expressed in the phrase – I AM. I Am, is existence itself. The I AM contains everything, all potential, all possibilities, all completion.
Knowing the nature of the self is the affirmation that matters for the evolution of conscioiusness. One intention, one aim – one question – What AM I?
“It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perceptions.” – Albert Einstein on his Theory of Relativity
In Hawaii they have a saying. They say “be akamai”. It means, just “be smart.” And what it means to me is, it means “pay attention”. Pay attention to what is going on around you. – Terence McKenna
(Image by Martin Murphy 1998)
Early on in the process of seeking change, we come across the notion of using affirmations to effect change. The basic idea is that if we tell ourselves the same thing over and over: it will change us; change our attitude; change our world view; or attract the “right kind” of positifve energy and manifestation into our life.
One only has to look at the sales figures for the Secret to see that this idea is a perennial favorite in the self-help, self-growth movement.
My observation of over 35 years of working on my self and watching others work on themselves is that affirmations generally don’t work. There are a lot who will disagree and argue and throw out all kinds of examples, but we’re talking apple and oranges.
One reason affirmations usually don’t work is that affirmations engage the neo-cortex of the brain in an effort to influence the limbic center of the brain or even deeper to the brain stem. This involves the theory of humans being a triune brain animal. This is an impossible scenario as it involves trying to use a later evolutionary part of the brain to affect an earlier one.
Another way to look at it is in terms of ego structure. You have the ego (external consciousness) trying to influence the id (the unconscious). Again, generally a losing proposition because most of us don’t want to look very far into the dark corners of our psyche.
To put the crux of the problem in layman terms – we try to tell (convince) ourselves that we are different than our unconscious beliefs about ourself. The unconscious has much more power than the conscious and can resist this process for a lifetime or two or three.
Here’s another rub, (and many will argue with this, too) – engaging in affirmations begins with rejecting our experience in the moment.
All of this adds to conflict already abiding in the psyche.
This post is probably too much for some. It’s certainly not extensive enough to do much more than confuse or stir the pot. The Theory of Holes is a good place to start.
Next post – Affirmations, Why They Work
I often find myself stumped when people ask me if I’m happy or if I like one thing or another. I never knew why I was stumped, but I knew that these questions often don’t make sense to me.
Today, in a meeting with one of my teachers, he asked me if I liked a particular thing and I had that experience of the question not making much sense. As I inquired into my experience of feeling stumped, I realized that whether I like something or not, whether I’m happy or not – is not how I measure the value of my experience.
Of course, this means I usually hear those questions coming from a place of wanting me to rate my experience. My experience is my experience – here’s a great image and a quote from A.H. Almaas that I put with it to create a card.
Now, don’t get me wrong – like every other person on the planet, I prefer pleasure over pain, but I find most of life interesting if not down right intriguing. But, I can be in the middle of something confusing, boring, painful or exciting – and a part of me is fine with them all. They each have their story to tell and wisdom to pass along.