Experience & Now

Spirit can only be experienced and experience can only happen now. We can re-experience spirit and other things now, but that is merely a memory of the past not an experience. We can know and experience our spiritual reality, quietly and effortlessly, only now, in this moment.  If we are experiencing fear, worry or urgency, we are not in the now, not with spirit, but with ego thinking about the future.

 

Now is an empty space, a blank page, a clean slate—a place to be open and receptive to the still small voice of spirit within, an opportunity for new beginnings. Often, the emptiness is frightening and our ego selves rush to fill it with hopes, dreams, fears and worries.

 

But if we—Republicans and Democrats, men and women, can have faith in our reality as spirit, stay with the emptiness and let our bloated nothingness go, we are blessed with the experience of grace; rewarded with the experience of effortless, quiet wholeness – the quiet knowing that we need not worry, rush or suffer; that if we get out of the way, get our ego selves out of the way, our Self, will come thru with exactly what we need, when we need it.

Now

The past was reality. But it does not remain reality.

 

The past is only real and with us now, in the present, because we choose to make it real. Now is all there is, the only time there is.

 

If now we choose to remember the past and choose to believe we are the products of our upbringing, then we are giving our power away and not being responsible. And how accurately do we remember the past? Are we remembering everything about a particular situation that is important to us, or only some things? If we selectively perceive the present, paying attention to some things and not others, how much more do we selectively perceive the past?

 

Don’t believe now is the only time there is?  Try breathing for five minutes ago…or five minutes into the future.

 

It is in this moment we choose, only this moment.

 

The ego would have you believe that if you are unhappy now, it is not because of a decision you are making, now. No, not at all. You didn’t ask for this. You are simply the innocent victim of the past. And even if you did do some terrible thing in the past and it cannot be undone, or some terrible thing happened to you and it cannot be undone, now is still the only time you can make amends or forgive yourself and others.

 

Now is all the time there is, the only time that matters. Try breathing for five minutes ago…or for five minutes into the future….

Quiet Knowing

 

Another way of thinking about loose/tight thinking is as a quiet knowing.

 

Quiet knowing dawns on our awareness gradually, like a sunrise. As in a sunrise, the darkness of fear, doubt, blame and exclusion slowly give way to the certainty of love, strength, courage and creativity. But unlike the sunrise which must come (we hope!), quiet knowing though also inevitable, may be blocked and delayed. Our ability to choose cannot keep the sun from rising, but it can keep quiet knowing from dawning.

 

With quiet knowing as our compass we come to understand that it is not only what we, believe, say or do that matters, but the purpose of what we believe, say or do - our intention, that matters.

 

This is how so-called ‘tough love’ works. If quiet knowing reveals that our purpose and intention is to bless and heal, than blessings and healing flow from what we believe, say or do. The words and actions may seem harsh from a surfacey ego perspective, but when guided by quiet knowing and the intention to heal and bless, the effect of the words and actions is anything but harsh.

 

Spirit can use anything and everything in our hearts, minds and behaviors, whatever we believe, say or do, even when those things seem the complete opposite of what the ego labels ‘spiritual’. Only choose spirit and quiet knowing first then give spirit the lemons in your life and experience spirit making lemonade.

Loose/Tight Thinking

The kind of ‘thinking’ I’ve been writing about, is the so-called ‘loose/tight’ kind, the kind in which you hold your usual, habitual ways of thinking loosely, but cling tightly to your ideal spiritual vision. The habitual ways you want to hold loosely are: pessimism, fear, pre-emptive attack, blame, hyper-vigilance and business as usual planning. The ideal spiritual vision you want to cling to is: optimism and a vision of an inclusive world that works for everyone and everything in it. We need not know how, and indeed can not know how to bring such a world about, but only that we desire it, believe such a world is possible and are willing to take the next step, the step that feels right, that we are guided to take.

 

‘Loose/tight’ thinking is more intuitive than rational, more inner than outer. It involves both sides of our brains, the rational analytical left side and the intuitive visionary right side. It is ‘whole brain’ thinking, both/and thinking, in which we use all of our mental capacity. It emphasizes the intuitive and visionary, because normally we de-emphasize these. 

 

Loose/tight thinking is the kind of thinking that enables us to be aware of our intentions, will not engender blame or guilt when we ‘fail’ to meet them, but rather sees such ‘failures’ as opportunities for a necessary course correction. Loose/tight thinking is more about resonance than deciding. It’s like the way we appreciate a song, a painting or a sunset. The song just resonates within us and we like it. We don’t decide to like it, we feel we like it, we know we like it, we just like it.

 

So loose/tight thinking is the kind of thinking I’ve been writing about. Try it, it works, plus it’s a great freeing, empowering, more creative and less stressful change from our habitual ways of thinking.

What's the meaning of that?

When the words and thoughts come howling and roaring into your head, beware!

 

Think, reflect, consider before you act, consider even before you entertain those thoughts and words, think about them. The words, thoughts and ideas in your head are probably not even yours. They probably belonged to your mother or father, your holy person, your political party, your cultural traditions, and were handed down to you as they were handed down to the people who handed them down to you. But while the words and thoughts are in your head, you’re responsible for them! Will you hand them down, unexamined, or will you think, reflect, consider before you act?

 

Partial meanings, expectations and outcomes are in the words and traditions themselves. But these are only partial meanings. You complete them, you fill in the rest, you add your meanings. You can pass on and act on the partial meanings reflexively, without thinking, or you can take responsibility for what comes next. The words, thoughts and ideas may not have originated with you, probably didn’t, but while they’re in your head, you’re responsible for them.

 

Please, please, take that responsibility seriously. Look at it as a gift, an opportunity to see things differently, to think about thinking; go deep connect with your spiritual wisdom at share it.  The Course says the ego speaks first and is always wrong. So, when the words and thoughts come roaring and howling into your head, beware, pause, take a deep breath and think about what you’re thinking and the kind of world and experiences you really want.

Thinking About Thinking

Setting an intention, being aware of when we are not meeting it and then re-commiting to it, all without blame and guilt, is awkward. It is thinking about thinking, not something we’re trained to do. The more we do it however--think about how and what we’re thinking, the easier it becomes, and the greater the rewards. There’s a growing sense of self-mastery, clarity, less fear, doubt and worry, and even a greater sense of community, one’s purpose and connection to the whole.

 

We are the thinker, not the thoughts. Thoughts flow through us. It is our choice to entertain them; it is our choice as to which thoughts to entertain - those arising from spirit—intuitive, creative, fresh, innovative, inclusive and inspirational or those arising from the ego—fearful, anxious, punishing, exclusionary, legalistic. Setting an intention to think about thinking, being aware of when we are not meeting it and then re-commiting to it, all without blame and guilt, is awkward but worthwhile.

The Map Is Not the Territory

The map is not the territory, Alfred Korzybski wrote in 1922. We know this, but forget. The words--the maps we use are not the same as the feelings, facts and phenomena we want them to represent. As I wrote yesterday, words are but symbols of symbols, maps that are only rough approximations of the territory we want them to represent. We know this. Yet we still act as if the map is the territory, that our words are accurate descriptors.

 

We also know that meanings are in people, that the thing you see when you see the word ‘table’ is probably not the thing I see when I hear the word table. These two phenomena: the map is not the territory and meanings are in people, create a lot of our human conflicts, ineffectiveness and inefficiencies.  If we could stay aware of these two phenomena, be more careful and precise with our choice of words, then we would have less conflict, and be more effective and efficient.

 

One way to do this is to treat our beliefs and words as theories and hypotheses the way scientists understand theories and hypotheses as “more or less informed assumptions or inferences we make about what’s going on” both within and outside us, not as facts, not as Truth, but merely our perceptions and ideas about Truth, perceptions and ideas colored by our biases – cultural, religious, political and familial. “You are never upset for the reason you think,” The Course says.

 

Accepting our beliefs and words as theories and hypotheses about what’s going on internally and externally, means we are more open to corrections, more prepared to make adjustments in the light of new information. We are not as devastated and disappointed when our plans and expectations are not met.  When our theories and hypotheses are not confirmed we can build new ones more aligned with what’s really going on internally and externally. Accepting our beliefs and words as theories and hypotheses means we don’t always have to be right and can avoid the stress of always having to be right. We can allow life and love to flow thru us as they will, showing us wonders our limited thinking denied and kept from us. We can be expansive, creative and innovative, and experience much less fear, lack and limitation.