A House of Cards
It is interesting for me to observe those people I am in contact with and their passage through life as seen from my perspective which is a result of my passage through life.
I have come to understand that everything we think, that we do, that we say is a product of that which went before. So the type of life you lead as a child, an adolescent, an adult are all product of whatever went before.
How far back do we need to go to understand the origins of our way of being? And, no matter how far back we go, and it may be a long way, we can never truly understand because the person looking for answers is limited by being locked into a particular belief about who and what they are. This belief prevents any real knowing because of the ‘self imposed’ limitations of our belief systems that cannot be observed by an individual objectively.
For this reason, and several others, I do not find it to be of any value trying to understand who, what, why or when. Even if we did come up with an answer that we could, temporarily, hold onto, what good does it do us? Does it really help for you to believe, rightly or wrongly that all of your troubles are due to a traumatic childhood? Or whatever!
Some of the problems I have with this are. Did it really happen this way, or is it just my memory of events? How accurate is my memory? Was I reading the information correctly at the time of the ‘trauma?’ Is this my memory or someones else’s? And why do I even have this particular memory? What were the conditions that allowed this to be present in my past? Do I have to go back even further?
Here I call upon the words, supposedly, of the Buddha:
“The objective world arises from the mind itself.”
Or Erwin Schrodinger:
“Every man’s world picture is and always remains a construct of his mind and cannot be proved to have any other existence.”
Just think about these comments for a moment for if they are true, as I suspect they are, then on some level we have been responsible for creating the world in which ‘we’ live.
One more from the Buddha:
“Since everything is a product of one’s own mind, empty of meaning like a magicians illusion, having nothing to do with good or bad – right or wrong, one might well burst out in laughter.’
Think on that one for a moment, or two!
I do question this ‘mind’ they refer to? Recalling the work of Dr. Larry Dossey, in his book “Recovering The Soul,” talks about his findings that indicated ‘mind’ was non local. You know what that means right? The mind cannot be isolated in time and space, it is not contained with a body, it is everywhere, all of the time. Then what is ‘my’ mind? And where is it? What if… What if we do not have a mind, we simply have the tools to access this non local mind, we then mistakenly take it for our mind?
Now, how is the world, in which ‘we’ live created if not by ‘our’ thoughts, our words, our actions. Even by the shadow of which Jung speaks, the hidden, the unaccepted, the ‘dark side of the self. A combination of this shadow side and the known, accepted side create an energy field that projects out into the mind (the non local one) and returns as that which we believe to be reality. This would explain why situations arise that challenge us, that we are not comfortable with. The shadow playing out.
Now we have to question what it was about our past that we still hold onto, that we judge, blame or still strongly identify with? When we can see that any continued identification with this so called past, is simply perpetuating or prolonging, that charge we hold related to that past. So, while we continue to explore possible reasons for our current condition we are simply acknowledging that as being real, when in fact it too was a product created out of the shadow and projected into the non local mind that created that which we believed to be real. All the time we give energy to the past the past will continue to show up. How mad is that?
The answer? Make every effort to bring yourself into this moment, to notice what the body feels / experiences, right now. Do not try to understand why, do not go looking for reasons and others to blame for your condition but accept some responsibility for this creation that you were involved in. Simply accept what the body is feeling. Recognise it for what it is, a memory that we still identify with. Also understand that if indeed you are continuing to create your reality by where you energy goes then see that by diverting your energy you can create something different. If there is a problem with the body your sense of who you are will dictate what you do to ‘fix’ it.
Some people see this power of creativity as a tool to gain more power, more wealth, more, more – more. Yet it is so much more than that and until you can let go of the past your goals, your motivation, your fears or desires that arise out of a misunderstood past, will continue to rule the game and you will remain a victim to your past conditioning.