Since the coming down of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the unification of East & West Germany the world changed, in that the information age had then started. What we experienced as humans had been the birth of the Internet & email, and the world had thus shrunk, & slowly the world as we know it, underwent a globalization. We started to find on the Internet an evolution of information, an increase in information, and it was easier to sell information via the Internet, and thus it had become much easier to obtain information & more accessible to us all – things which were previously more cumbersome & sometimes more to access.
As life became even more demanding, we as humans had started searching for more help & more assistance, to aid us in our daily living. Stress & anxiety in daily life had always in any event been perennial, and became even worse. We as humans sought answers & ways to cope – some were already used & accustomed to mediation, some sought help in medication & psychological counseling in their pursuits to find either relief from pain, recovery from tragedies, dealing of fear, dealing with fear, reducing anxiety… the list is endless.
And what did we discover? The ‘short & sweet” of it: there was an evolvement of well-intended ideas, concepts & aids to help us which we had indeed discovered, and which indeed helped most of us who had found ourselves in the midst of anxieties, stressful living etc.
It first started out, more or less, with books on how to “only think positive”. That did not work, as we as humans will always find it possible only to think positively – it is after all impossible to do. To only force oneself to think positively creates an immediate imbalance, which caused by the “enforcement” of thinking positively, becomes even more of an imbalance, and can create confusion.
The “Secret” then dawned on us, that took the world by storm. The “Law of Attraction” became the in-thing, for very good reason, as we needed an attraction after all, especially after the turmoil & pain the world had endured ever since 9/11. We needed something new. It was perfect for its time.
Self-help books, aided in distribution by amongst many others, Amazon (Amazon.com), flooded the world, and truly did aid us as humans in finding meaning, relief from pain, means to recover & to improve ourselves & our own individual performances, in our work we do, our calling, and basically, to live our lives with more peace with Life itself, & obtaining more prosperity. It was, and still is what we need.
What most of us humans know too, is that the word “balance” has been perceived by many, until this very day, as the “most important word in the English language”. Truly so, as nature itself, the interchange within each of us of our own unique light & dark nature being continuously at play, has an effect of taking us all out of & into balance all the time – it never ends.
“Emotional intelligence” has quite necessarily become a very important concept & condition we as humans had to engage in, and we became aware of its dynamics & effects, also for very good reason. Leaders in the world of work & in communities will all agree that it is an essential awareness to have & to practice continuously.
A book was then written called “Beyond Positive Thinking” by Dr. Robert Anthony, a remarkable American philosopher – a most stunning & insightful book, and I strongly recommend that you read it. In that book he teaches the reader, amongst many other things, how to live & think consciously. It is indeed one of the most amazing pieces of literature I have ever read in my lifetime. The awareness on the thinking processes of any human, is a most remarkable awareness any human being can actually obtain – it can indeed change the way in which you think & live, forever.
The Law of Cause & Effect? We all want to “make a living” – in fact, we as humans are after all being put on earth to learn – plain & simple. We thus learn from a young age, through preparation education for the adult world to do just that… just more or less though. But what about “learning to live”? What about THIS skill? Why has this skill not significantly & intensely been taught in schools? We were inundated by the Law of Attraction since “The Secret”, but think about it: the “LoA” as it is known by its abbreviated, commercial name, is an acronym that actually should stand for the “Light of Awareness”. In any event, we can only attract through an in-depth awareness of that which we want to attract to ourselves & into our lives, for ourselves, for our own wellbeing & for our own abundance & happiness – there is no other way around it. And furthermore, ENERGY has to be expended in the process, so that attraction can indeed take place. There is also no other way around that either. So, what we think about, will come about, and thus the Law of Cause & Effect, the REAL name of the “Law of Attraction” is a Law as real as the Law of Gravity – it affects every human being, every day, every moment, everywhere. There is no escaping it at all.
A further involvement which I had found most astounding too, was a concept & practice of another American philosopher, Karen Kane, the owner of Still Point Leadership. Amongst many other things she teaches her clients for optimal performance in work & life, is the practice of practicing “A Centered Presence”. It was after I had studied her most brilliant concept of this practice of a centered presence, that I realized that “balance”, as important & essential it indeed still is, has to be aided with the practice of being & remaining in a centered presence too. I strongly recommend that you visit her website & check it out (www.stillpointleadership.com) – it facilitates significantly for those who truly want to learn how to effectively live, through optimal performance.
The common denominator obviously, in all the above as mentioned, is the issue of the establishment & requirement of healthy relationships, and to perpetuate them successfully. Nothing of significance & value can ever exist, and no person can ever be effective as a leader in any event without healthy relationships, and through the intensive perpetuation of such relationships. Fact.
Hence the recurring theme? The power of positive thinking? It is easy to summarize: the message is clear: if you want a positive experience of life, then you must think positive. Correct? Wrong…!
So, let us start again: why “wrong”? Of course, the way this message has been conveyed varied from book to book – some books used psychology-based reasoning, others, spiritual reasoning – some talked about the “loa”, about the success mindset & others, but it always boiled down to think positive. The indirect message that these books conveyed was to suppress anything that felt negative either through control-based techniques or distraction. There would also be a lot of talk about success in these books where examples of men who made it big were touted as evidence of the power of positive thinking. Also, the definition of success was usually given in a narrow manner of having lots of money, friends & great relationships, traveling a lot, being a leader, being ambitious, being a go-getter – of course there is nothing wrong with any of these, and all of these can make for some good fun & entertainment, but to specify it as the goal of life is like putting on blinders on a horse to give it tunnel vision. Some deeper questions about the reality of life would inevitably start to come up, in the lives of all such people living this supposed idyllic life. And these questions start arising when we start to let go of trying to suppress the fear of feeling meaningless & the deep emptiness/void within, and of feeling alone, clueless – I had sensed that the moment I let go of trying to think positive or trying to keep myself goal-oriented, I quite naturally started sensing a deep emptiness within, which is what I was trying to avoid all along, which is what all humans try to avoid using some means to cover it up, to ignore or suppress it. It was scary to allow this feeling of emptiness as it seemed to engulf my past mindset – it felt like a strongly depressive energy – it felt dysfunctional & exhausting as the mind was fighting it constantly.
I continued to allow what was arising even though it was unpleasant to do so, and the momentum of the mind kept fighting against this emptiness that seemed to come up. While allowing this emptiness, a lot of questions came up – questions about life & about realities that I felt I could no longer ignore or conveniently suppress through the refuge of positive thinking. Some of the questions were as below:
Why am I trying to think positive – is it just because I do not want to feel bad? What is wrong with feeling bad?
What does “positive” really mean? Is it not some means of adding a perception onto reality in order to give it some imposed meaning? If I do not feel naturally positive about something why should I try to impose a positive thinking about it?
Why do I keep “trying” to find a meaning & purpose in life? Is it not because it gives me some pseudo sense of security that I am doing something worthwhile?
How can I know if, what I desire, is what is right for me? What if my desire itself is coming from a place of misunderstanding or a place of ignorance?
Feeling like a separate individual is what I feel naturally, so why should I force myself to feel “one” with everything?
Why should finding peace be so important – is this not the very mindset in opposition/resistance to allowing what is naturally happening or arising?
Why is bliss deified as the highest feeling to achieve? Would I not get bored if bliss is all I had?
Is there really any meaning to life, any end point to reach, any real destination to conquer? Or is life just about experiencing?
Why is losing interest in material things (physicality) considered a “better” state to reach in spiritual circles? It may be a part of evolution of a soul but how is it a “better” state? Is it not just another state?
Why are we taught to be loving instead of just allowing what we naturally feel – is it not what we naturally feel, the most authentic experience of the moment?
These are just some questions that came through, and as you can see, there is tint of darkness inherent in all of them. I could sense that I naturally stopped feeling so light-natured about life, the moment I stopped trying to impose that idea (the idea of wanting to feel good about life). Initially, there was this sense of strong fear about feeling dark about life – it felt like a sacrilege, a blasphemy towards life, and yet I could not stop myself from feeling this way as this is what I felt quite naturally – as I had let go of trying to impose anything on myself I was just allowing what was coming up naturally. Having read loads of literature on the loa I had felt that these dark feelings that were arising, were going to attract a lot of negative reality in my life – I wanted to get back to feeling/thinking positive, but I just could not – and at 1 point I simply surrendered to allowing what was arising – if life was going to get negative, I was fine with it (by fine I do not mean I was happy with it – I was just fine with it like I stopped being afraid of the negative). With time, I noticed in this surrender that, rather than becoming negative, life actually seemed to become more balanced – I could sense an emotional stability within me that I had never felt before – I could feel that I was no longer dictated by any belief, feeling or thought – I could sense my personality changing in terms of an integration of power & objectivity that was missing before – I could sense that I had developed an independent thinking which was free of the influence of any books I had read or any teacher I had listened to – for the 1st time I actually felt an originality in me that I never did before (all my life I had only tried to copy others, to the extent that I always sought happiness outside myself).
In this state of openness I also got the answers to my questions (cited above) – not answers that I wanted to hold on to, but answers that just felt like a knowing. These were the answers (to each of the questions I mentioned above, sequentially):
Q: Why am I trying to think positive – is it just because I do not want to feel bad? What is wrong with feeling bad?
A: There is nothing wrong with feeling bad – it is just natural to feel bad as we are sensitive beings. Trying to suppress these bad feelings is unnatural, and is done either out of fear or out of some external conditioning. Feeling good is just 1 experience – it is not everything – not a higher state. Being human, being life-energy, includes feeling good & bad – the light & dark. The problem is with imbalance – when you suppress bad feelings or try to cling to good feelings, you create imbalance – this imbalance gathers momentum, and this momentum is what becomes disturbing.
Q: What does positive really mean? Is it not some means of adding a perception onto reality in order to give it some imposed meaning? If I do not feel naturally positive about something why should I try to impose a positive thinking about it?
A: In the light of aligned understanding (clear awareness), you feel neither positive nor negative about life – you sense life in its beauty, ordinariness & limitation, in its pros & cons, in its mix of light & dark nature. You neither feel a sense of awe, nor depressed about anything. It is a neutral place of functioning – but not a dull neutrality – rather it is an objective/reality-based neutrality – the neutrality that allows for wisdom to operate – the neutrality that makes you mature where you cease being naïve, where you stop craving & stop holding rigid views.
Q: Why do I keep trying to find a meaning & purpose in life? Is it not because it gives me some pseudo-sense of security that I am doing something worthwhile?
A: Life has not inherent meaning except that it is following its nature. The nature of life is rooted in a desire for growth, self-expression & self-experience.
You can never stop this nature in you – the desire for growth-, expression- & experience in you. It is ok if you want to give a meaning to your growth or expression, but it is not really the meaning that drives you – it is your very nature to be driven. You will be driven even if you let go of trying to associate meanings or purpose – you can never reach a place of doing nothing – you will always do something or the other.
Trying to be blank, or being blank, is just a temporary state of experience (and it is also a doing) – it is not some ideal state to achieve or stay in.
Q: How can I know if what I desire is what is right for me? What if my desire itself is coming from a place of misunderstanding or of ignorance?
A: I can never know if what I desire is right for me, so I am open to allowing the collective wisdom of life to operate instead of trying to force my specification. If a desire finds fulfillment it is fine – if it does not, it is fine too – it is no longer that important to meet a desire, and they do not invoke the same craving energy that they did in a state of delusion. Desire is just a thought towards a certain expression/ experience/growth – nothing more, nothing less – it is natural to desire, as it is inherent to our nature – it is just 1 part of living.
Q: Feeling separate is what I feel naturally, so why should I force myself to feel “one” with everything?
A: Though we inherently come from the same space/source of life, we are separate beings – each of us – and we cannot ever feel 1 with each other totally – we will always be separate beings eternally. Each of us has our own expression to live, our own experiences to have & our own growth path to traverse. Each of us has our own pace of evolution – and although eventually, we all evolve in the same way towards the same maturity, our experience of our journey will always be personal to us – no one can ever know you the way you know yourself, only you can meet yourself 100%.
This means that you will always feel alone in some way, and it is best to connect with this aloneness instead of fighting it. Though we are all made of the same “one life-energy”, we are all separate in our mix of personality (not just as humans but also as non-physical beings) which also keeps getting moulded through our experiences. Feeling separate is a reality of your life as a being – it is best to embrace the sense of your individuality instead of trying to dissolve it. However, just because you feel separate does not mean you cannot be sensitive to others – we are all connected as life-energy (connected & yet separate), and hence can “sense” each other.
The balance of this reality of oneness & separation is of essence – to just focus on oneness can lead to a disconnection with your individuality, and to just focus on separation can lead to insensitivity towards the outside.
Q: Why should finding peace be so important – is this not the very mindset in opposition/resistance to allowing what is naturally happening or arising?
A: There is a huge difference between trying to find peace & being at peace with Life. When you are at peace with Life you are also at peace with not being peaceful – that is the paradox – once you get this, you will see how true it is. The peace that comes from the state of openness is not a temporary experience – it is simply a state of non-resistance to experiences – this peace is not like your imagination of the temporary experience of a static peace. The better word for this peace is inner wholeness – the state of inner wholeness is not like some experience of peace, but it is like an openness to allowing peace or activity (inner/outer movement) without resistance. So it is not about trying to find peace but about coming to a place of true openness – a person who is trying to find peace will always feel disturbed – however a person who gets rooted in openness goes beyond the disturbing effect of the disturbance.
Q: Why is bliss deified as the highest feeling to achieve? Would I not get bored if bliss is all I had?
A: Bliss/joy/pleasure/fun is just an experience of life, and all experiences are relative, which means that in order to experience bliss you also need to be aware of its opposite. Since your very nature is rooted in the desire for experience, it naturally moves/vacillates between opposites – the light & the dark experiences. You cannot ever stop the desire for growth & for experience – and thus the idea of finding some permanent experience is unreal. You will naturally get bored of 1 experience if it lasts too long. It may seem very ordinary that our movement in life is driven by our nature of getting bored of sameness, and yet this is the obvious truth.
Bliss only feels extraordinary to those who are imbalanced, just like the prospect of eating food feels extraordinary to someone who has been starving for a few days. For someone who feels balanced, the experience of bliss is not a big deal – as like someone who is affluent, does not perceive food as extraordinary.
Q: Is there really any meaning to life, any endpoint to reach, any real destination to conquer? Or is life just about experiencing?
A: There is no purpose to life – it is simply living its nature. There is no endpoint as our very nature is to desire growth & new expression. We can define purpose by giving it some relative/higher meaning but it is not important to do so, and it is only needed when you have a sense of narrow thinking or delusion.
If something feels right to you, then follow it, but let go of this idea that it is the ultimate right – it is just what is right for you in your current state of being. In fact, you do not have to feel good about something in order to do it – you can just do it as it is needed from a place of wisdom – for e.g. it may not feel good to you to kill a lamb, and yet you may do so to feed you & your family. To do what feels right or what feels needed/required & to do what feels good, need not always be the same. You do not have to define a high & mighty purpose for yourself – you can just follow what feels like the required deal for you in your current reality in all its ordinariness. To want experience is the purpose of life but it is not really a purpose – it is just a nature.
Q: Why is losing interest in material things (physicality) considered a “better” state to reach in spiritual circles?
A: You can always feel better through comparison but in reality there are no “better” states in life – there are just higher states of being in terms of evolution – also, higher does not always mean better – it just means higher in terms of a different level. “Better” is a relative term. Losing interest in material things is not a better state to reach – it can just be a state of evolution for you as a being where you no longer feel inclined towards the material realm (possibly temporarily). This does not mean that you are “better” – it just means you have chosen differently. From life’s perspective, nothing is better or worse – everything is a required experience – the feeling of being better is only an individual feeling created through comparison with others or with oneself (comparing yourself with how you were in the past). Also, just because you have found higher awareness or inner wholeness does not mean that you will lose interest in physicality – in fact you can find a new interest in it – physicality is not a limited realm – it has infinite depth & infinite potential to explore – if you have lost interest in physicality it could just be a temporary deal.
Also, there is a difference between losing interest & fearing – if you are afraid of physical living there is still an indirect interest which will keep you bound to it – to truly lose interest in physicality is a higher level of evolution in a being who has gone through all the physical experiences & expressions, and thus no longer finds interest in it (this can easily take several 1000 years of physical living). As a being you can have as much growth & enjoyment in physicality as in the non-physical realm – it just depends on your requirements for growth & desires.
Eventually you are bound to get bored of the sameness, and will want a different experience – this does not mean that you are “better” than others who are still enjoying the thing that you are bored of – it just means that you have moved to a different level, as in life, being like a “pac-man” game (a false sense of extra-ordinariness).
Q: Why are we taught to be loving instead of just allowing what we naturally feel – is it not what we naturally feel the most authentic experience of the moment?
A: Commandments/directives are needed/required/necessary for those who are at a lower level of maturity & not aware enough to make their own choices & thus need to be directed in some way. Directives that come from the outside are never going to feel totally natural to you, as they are not custom-made for you – they are just a general guideline. Depending on your level of awareness, you may feel secure, following some external directives or you may feel suffocated by them.
The teaching of be loving is 1 such directive, and it is meant for people /beings who just need an external dictate to hold onto, since they are not yet ready to sense their own inner wisdom or to connect with their natural state of being. As a being when you grow in awareness you will no longer be enticed by directives – rather you will naturally move towards independence & free thinking. You will find that the dictate of be loving is flawed in its own way as you cannot just be loving towards everyone/everything unless you try to impose such a mindset on yourself. Your very nature is rooted in seeking betterment which means that you have to dislike something/perceive something as a lesser, in order to move higher – so be loving does not fit in with your very nature. You can be loving towards a few things but not towards everything – and what you love, determines what you want to explore, and what you dislike also determines what you want to explore i.t.o. changing it. Also, as you grow deeper in maturity/awareness you naturally let go of holding on to being influenced by emotions like love or hate – rather you function purely from an objective standpoint – what needs to be done, what wants to be explored, what feels required, what feels responsible, etc. To just hold on to a dictate like be loving can severely block your ability towards connecting with your true personality as a being, and thus block your natural expression & objective wisdom.
Maturity Vs Positive thinking
As you grow in maturity (awareness) you are no longer attracted to notions of positive thinking simply as you do not really see anything as being negative – you just see everything in its state of growth. When you plant a seed it 1st grows into a sapling, it looks weak & vulnerable – would you call it negative or would you call it a phase in growth? This sampling slowly grows into a strong tree with deep roots – would you call it positive or would you call it a phase of growth? When you define something as positive you are bound to see something else as negative – this perception is rooted in a certain narrowness where you do not see reality in its big picture or the whole picture. When you see everything as a moment in growth there is no longer the need to label it as positive or negative – it is just a phase of growth.
There are no failures in life, there are just growth moments – there are no successes in life, there are just new platforms to grow – failure & success are both terms that have a tone of “finality” to them, and the truth of life is that there is no finality, no endpoint.
When a certain event happens in your life & you perceive it as negative, just look within towards what is the growth that it wants to invoke in you – if you truly do not find something within you that needs to grow, then look outside towards what the growth is with which you can assist in bringing forth – if you do feel that a growth is needed on the outside but do not feel like you can do much about it, then just let it be – it is not for you to do anything about it currently, however, if you sense a requirement for inner growth then it is totally your responsibility to stay committed to it until you bring it forth. Be willing to see reality as it is, and allow what you feel quite naturally, without trying to impose a feeling or trying to follow a dictate – if you feel hatred, allow that feeling instead of suppressing it by trying to follow some dictate about being loving. Of course you do not have to take action on spewing your hatred externally – you just have to allow the feeling internally without suppression. Your inner space is what needs to become open – only then can it become balanced, and it can only become open when you stop trying to suppress what you feel naturally.
I get the question quite often: when you say allow the feelings, do I go ahead & allow myself to express it to people? What is required to be understood is that the state of allowing is an inner work where you work on your inner-space – it is not about trying to influence the space of others. The reality is that when you try to influence others or express yourself to others, you also have to be open to their reaction (and there will always be a reaction of some kind) & be willing to deal with the consequences. It is best to express yourself to the outside from a place of inner balance so that the consequences are not imbalanced. When you express yourself from a place of inner imbalance you will naturally attract a response that amplifies/reflects that imbalance in some way.
The state of allowing is totally an inner work towards finding inner balance – once you find this inner balance you have the right foundation for an expression that does not invoke imbalanced consequences.
In most cases the so-called negative events bring forth more maturity than the perceived positive events, as pain creates a stronger push towards evolution than pleasure, until you reach a place where you do not have to be pushed by pain – rather you just have an objective wisdom to connect with the required growth without getting the hard knocks. Psychological suffering is only present as long as there are elements of inner imbalance in a being – once you hit inner wholeness you do not need the experience of psychological suffering – till then, it cannot be avoided. Imbalance & suffering go hand in hand – and this suffering is the motivation towards finding balance. Remember however that a realm like physicality is created with a certain design, with physical bodies of a certain makeup that actually allow for the experience of growth from being exposed to limitations & challenges of this realm – it is like life creating a realm of limitations & challenges with the intention of having this experience of growth, simply as it is the very nature of this life-energy that we are, to want this experience of growth – it cannot be helped. Once you truly get that sense of this nature of desiring growth in you, you will understand the logic of life – you will see that it does not have a purpose (positive/negative) – it is just satisfying & consummating its nature.