Please, don't pay me too much attention. You're sure to have guessed by now my shadow, like that of TEL is pure public performance. If you knew me at all you find me rather ordinary. Isn't it odd to realize just how much controversy there is going on inside yourself? If it is as I suspect, there's a continuous war being waged. Sometimes it seems to take on the theater of the whole world. Certainly in Hitler's case it did.
And so what about people like Hitler and Napoleon, Caesar and Stalin? There are numerous others I could mention many others, including our contemporaries, both East and West, whose internal battlefield, like that of Arjuna and Lawrence, projects itself most profoundly onto the world stage. So what do we do? Point the finger and condemn, send assassination parties, occupy, drop a bomb? Well, of course not. We learn to understand and love them while they learn to understand and love themselves. They are not who they appear to be, but all our greatest fears incarnate: a monstrous incarnation of them ready to attack and kill if they are not significantly integrated into the personality of the whole universe.
Prisons are full of mistaken identities.
Take Israel for example, a nation of the so-called chosen people. They are no more chosen than you and I. We are all chosen, after all, we're all here, aren't we?
While Jews and Arabs, or anyone else for that matter, continue to see themselves as victims they will be victimized. These are strong words I know, and possibly dangerous, but could they be any more dangerous than the situation we have now? Lawrence foresaw problems for Israel and Palestine too, and tried doing something about it, but the situation was beyond his control. My solution is not terrorism and attack, or even negotiation, but education and self-realization. Who wants conflict except the ego? The coiled serpent in the garden is still tempting us.
Let's just stop the nonsense!
Personality
The loaf is halved, two loaves, two halves,
flour, water, kneading were the same.
Peanut better on one, jam on the other,
is there any way to understand the other?
Who spreads the peanut butter?
Who spreads the jam? "
Tis I," said the Father. " I am that I am."
Who prefers which flavour?
Only Mankind will know.
God is so busy making more dough
The basis for the next fit of self- indulgence is this, if you continually surround yourself with negative thoughts you will be surrounded by negative thoughts; in other words, become a glutton for punishment. Alternatively, if you surround yourself with positive thoughts then you will be surrounded by positive thoughts and become a self -fulfilling prophecy. It's really very simple. Just take another look at Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Now there's a man who knows his own mind! And notice the number seven turning up again. Seven and twelve are very interesting numbers aren't they? They would make worthwhile subjects for another New Age thesis like this one.
Scientific method is to the scientist,
as meditation is to the mystic,
where both bring forth,
the imperfect truth,
inadequate, inescapable and infinite.
All of the above is virtually useless if it doesn't come with a sound, scientific basis. I could write seductive slogans, pompous poetry, espouse insulting personal opinion, show-off and tease you now until doomsday (and I might just do that!), but that won't solve our problems. I admit this is the tricky part and therefore the most stimulating. However, if you stay with me, the Tree of Knowledge might just bear fruit.
Mutations are biological,
questions philosophical,
resulting in new creations,
temporary at best.
Earlier we came to the conclusion that the universe is in a state of flux and that nothing is for certain. We also concluded that for all we know we still know relatively little. Although we can utilize the scientific knowledge we have we still can't get to the bottom of what really drives the universe. The Atomic Theory has waned and Quantum Theory has taken is place, but even that is insufficient to explain the nature of reality and the origin of the universe. Some suggest, and in particular the metaphysical (psychological) religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, that try as we might, the origin and continuation of life as we know it will never be found anywhere except in our own thoughts. They imply that we can't get away from them.
And what is this business called meditation?
Well it's a way of stilling the mind, or as the Buddhists like to term it, bringing the mind home.
Now let's try something. Read this and then give it a go. Close your eyes and think about what you see. My guess is that you see nothing. That's good. Now try to picture your favourite thing. It might be your husband, your wife, your lover, a block of chocolate, a BMW, raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens. Your choice does not matter, what matters is that you can think it and perhaps even picture it inside your mind. Now answer me this, when you picture your favourite thing are you seeing it, or are you the picture you see? Or are you just thinking it?
What a silly question you say. But really, is it so silly?
Think about it. What you want to see you can project onto the screen of your mind, therefore there must be something behind the screen that's projecting or thinking it. And what is that thing which is projecting the picture of your favourite thing? None other that your mind itself. It's a bit the same with dreams. While their occurring we think they're real. In daily life also we're conscious of being conscious. This is the very thing that separates us from animals and endows us with free will and establishes our humanity. If this wasn't the case then you could not see, or bear witness to your own reality, nor would you have the capacity for making choice. Instead animal instinct would rule. Up until now what has been misunderstood by countless mystics and scientists, except perhaps by Plato, is that neither our studies in cosmology or psychology provide complete answers to all our questions. Instead they must be used together, or more specifically, as guides for revealing and understanding each other.
What we experience materially is indicative, symbolic if you like, of deeper and more complex cosmic meanings and mechanisms. In a sense our psychology is God's cosmology, where His creation is but a shadow of His infinite self, as is our own psychology a clue to, or shadow of our own reality. Essentially duality and relativity, including perceived good and evil, is the fascinating/confusing/uncomfortable result of this divine method of creation with the ultimate aim being perfection (unification/integration) on all cosmic fronts; personal, planetary and universal. No matter what, everything we think and do carries with it it's own shadow or universal repercussion (karma). Free will or choice is the activating agent for all future eventualities. So, you see, as we unfold (evolve), so will our particular universe.
So science and the spiritually symbolic nature of the universe, leads us right to the bittersweet end. If God is indeed the Ultimate Observer, the Absolute, the Cause (thought/word), then life, the universe and everything is the Effect (shadow).
It follows then that Cause and Effect, Karma, Causation or whatever fancy scientific/religious title you choose to give it, it is the Father, the Cosmic Mind, the Absolute, the Alpha and the Omega. It is God.
There is nothing else.
It seems we just can't help ourselves. The whole nature of the universe in which we live appears competitive, dualistic. In order to experience life we have to compare ourselves with something. To know we feel happy we have to know sad. To be hot we have to know cold. To know what's good we have to know what's bad. To know right we have to know wrong.
To be, or not to be, that is the question.
In order to exist we must be able to experience ourselves, and we do it through the mirror of our mind. And so does God. We are His mirror, His reflection, His manifestation and His personification. He's dreaming a dream and we're in it. Dreams are us! When he sees us he's looking at us he's looking at his own thought. He's looking at Himself.
God created life to experience it. The experience of life is God.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1: 1 – 2
So, with the nature of reality taken care of, I can breathe a sigh of relief. If you feel inclined, jot down the thoughts that are running through your head right now on a scrap piece of paper. I, for once, need a break.
I was thinking the following, one after the other. Another cup of coffee would be nice, can I do this thing I'm trying to do without making a proper fool of myself, of course I can, I have a mild headache, hope my boys are happy at school, and what's my husband up to?
As each thought arrived it was replaced by another in smooth progression with no discernible gap in between. They can be represented as a series of overlapping circles, something like a spiral or a vortex.
Some thoughts come with a particular surge of emotion, which is also a thought form, such as the one about my boys. As concerned for them as ever, the emotion was concern. So it follows that emotions are just thought forms too. Also somewhat strange is that when I'm not thinking about my mild headache, I don't have one. And while I'm working on this I'm thinking about it. Now all this seems perfectly logical, and so it is, but if we take one more step we all of a sudden realize that we are what we think. We're addicted to certain modes or patterns of thought.
For years I've been fascinated by our compulsion to judge, classify, categorize and stereotype. Our need to find patterns and label them has resulted in a startling phenomenon called education. For me the study of geography was especially frustrating. Even when no particular repeating physical pattern was discovered it was described and named. Names, labels, classifications, categories and stereotypes are habits. They reinforce what may or may not be really there. And once accepted they grow in strength and power and influence. They become dogma and inspire institutionalization.
Patterns are politics.
The flow of thought, be it fast or slow, logical or illogical, arriving with or without emotion, is still just a thought pattern that is in a continuous state of flux. It's totally unstable and prone to change. It's a flux that never ceases except perhaps when we're asleep, but even then we assume that we have to maintain our body and identity thoughts so we can assume the mind doesn't rest even then. After all, we remember who and where we are as soon as we wake up…usually.
As I said before, this transition from one random thought pattern to the next is really our impression of time. If our thoughts are enjoyable time moves quicker, if they are miserable then time can seem to move slower. Like time our thoughts are relative. How many times have enjoyed something and then not enjoyed it the next time? We're such capricious creatures aren't we?
Please consider this:
Time is thought randomly represented and destiny is the manifestation of the appropriate.
As good a definition of time and karma as any, isn't it?
Think of some famous people. How many of them were single-minded about getting to the top in their chosen field? How many had a dream and stuck to it? How much time did they spend thinking about and working towards their goals? Then again, how many of us spend far too much time thinking about the negative aspects of life? Isn't it any wonder we project a negative environment, end up lonely and depressed, sick and sorry for ourselves?
As a young man Lawrence had a dream to lead a national movement. This is what he wrote in the Seven Pillars of Wisdom about his dream of leading a people to freedom.
All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did.
Except in his case I believe he confused physical freedom with spiritual freedom, that is, Jesus of Nazareth's Kingdom of Heaven.
How many of us don't have a dream and life just seems to drift by? It all boils down to the same thing. The payload of thoughts which predominate take form in some way or other. I'm sure this is why new theories, scientific and otherwise arise, because scientists constantly think about them and strive to find them. It might be concluded that they make them up themselves. Didn't Jesus say, ask and you shall receive?
I recall striving to know the truth about TE Lawrence.
The Law of Karma is one of cause and effect, give and take, the law of causation or alternately what goes around comes around. You try thinking of some others. My mother thought of as you sow, so shall you reap. The universe is full of symbolism and imagery, analogies and metaphors, clues, for us slow learners. After a while you see everything as synchronized and subtle, significant and heroic. Biography is alive with meaning. Life becomes poetry.
Life is channeling the universe.
So what do you think happens when we fill our heads with negative, unforgiving thoughts?
We eventually get what we, consciously or unconsciously ask for.
And how can we improve things?
It's simple. By thinking positively.
Now why didn't I think of that?
Come to think of it, I did.
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