You can’t catch what you don’t see
Gratitude is a capacity. You can’t fake it, like you can’t fake riding a bicycle.
Appreciation is another capacity.
Appreciation means: seeing value. Gratitude means: acknowledging value.
There are three levels of values:
- Cultural or systemic values. 80% of people see those. They are different culture by culture. But most of them are universal… meaning they are in all cultures… These values are binary, like an on/off switch.These are the “two drawers” the book The Art of Hunting Humans talks about, loser/winner, sad/happy, good/bad, useful/useless, smart/stupid, right/wrong, etc.
- The second tear is the value, extrinsic value, the use value humans place on things: they are personal values, mostly… They are closer to what people pay for, with money or reciprocation: tasty (food), a nice conversation (companionship), useful, interesting, beneficial, etc.A bowl of soup, a wedding ring, a Thanksgiving dinner, a nice conversation…Anything will have, albeit not acknowledged, not noticed value on all three levels.
- The third level is the godlike level, the intrinsic level, and most people don’t notice it, don’t value it, don’t provide it… Even if they know the words… but they are like appreciation: you can say the word as much as you want, the word does not create appreciation, the capacity creates the being.The capacity of appreciation is, like everything in reality, can be expressed in percentages… capacity not on is zero, fully open is 100.
It is one thing to appreciate the obvious, and quite another thing to appreciate what is not obvious… because in the moment it is not visible yet where the value is, or it doesn’t FEEL GOOD…
Too much, too strong focusing on systemic value robs a person of their ability to have spiritual, third level, godlike capacities: generosity, love, enthusiasm, creativity, intuitive, etc.
In this work of transformation… transforming humanity from the evolutionary level of homo sapiens to human being, the work gets done on all levels of value… and cannot be done without the capacity being open.
The capacity to see intrinsic value where the value may be negative on the lower levels of value, systemic, or extrinsic, is a godlike capacity: you need a spiritual capacity to be open and used for that.
This is the situation where you don’t see an immediate benefit to yourself, you don’t like it, it doesn’t do anything for you, you wouldn’t pay for it… but the value is there. But your about-me score is so high that you can’t even consider that you can’t see it.
You can’t catch what you 
can’t see
The people who do worst in my Playground, or in any of my programs, are people who are most rigid about not wanting, not being able to see value where there seems to be no immediate personal benefit to themselves, or their ego.
When the lower self dominates a person’s choices, even if they seem to be saintly outwardly… they don’t have the capacities, the higher, the spiritual capacities open. They may talk about them… but talking doesn’t make it true, doesn’t mean that they can recognize them. Many gurus belong to this group, by the way.
Osho, who was my access to this world of “spirituality” talked a good game. But he didn’t see value, the capacity was not EVER open for him. He had the capacity to talk a good talk, but not appreciation, gratitude, love, compassion… None of that.
You find this out when the circumstances, the news, the situation isn’t pleasant… watch the person and you’ll see. If they get upset and stay upset, their capacity is not open. When the “wrong” thing remains “wrong” even after saying a hundred times: “there is nothing wrong in reality.”
These are the people who say: In MY reality it is wrong… and they continue to suffer.
You can’t catch what you can’t see
In the Playground, in the weekly Partner Calls, each participant shares an incident or a situation, where that is exactly the case: the situation isn’t, or wasn’t pleasant, and they are asked to attempt to transform themselves (NOT THE SITUATION) to be able to see value for themselves.
Being able to see the essence of something THROUGH a capacity, from a higher vantage point.
If you are able to transform yourself to a higher vantage point (higher vibration) to look at life, the value reveals itself through seeing the strings of the underlying mechanism of the human condition, the invisible mechanisms I teach in the 53 invisibles course.
It is impossible to see value without seeing the underlying mechanism.
You still won’t like what you don’t like. You’ll still see ugly, disgusting, etc… But it won’t effect you.
The most frequent two underlying mechanisms are
- identity (the precious I) and
- racket.
Those invisible mechanisms say about most of what happens in the world “that is wrong.”
It is important to remember that the invisibles are like a machine… and that the machine’s nature is to run where it wants to run… misery. A machine needs to be controlled, directed, managed, or it will run to where it is programmed to run: to misery. A misery filled life.
You also need to get that you can’t do away with the machine. Can’t get rid of the machine.
If humans were designed, the invisible machine is part of the design.
If you don’t know the design, you can’t drive this machine that you are to where you want to go… it will go where it wants to go.
In this article I want to talk about the racket. Everyone has it.
The racket has four necessary components, two are visible, two are invisible.
The two visible components are
1. a complaint
2. an emotional reaction… we call it the fixed emotion. this fixed emotion will give the name of the racket.
There are angry rackets, victim rackets, worthless rackets, not-loved rackets, confused rackets, clueless rackets, etc.
As many rackets as many emotions, but for a person the racket is fixed, that is why we say the emotion is fixed.
The racket is a shape shifting machine. It does that to avoid detection.
But at the root, all rackets are victim rackets. The easiest way to detect that the racket is running is to look into your feelings, and see that you feel like you are a victim of something or someone. That you are powerless.
The invisible parts of the racket are
1. the payoffs
2. the costs.
What makes the racket a perpetual machine is the payoffs.
No matter what is your vibration, no matter how many years you have spent actively in transformational work, how many times you have detected the racket and stopped it from running… the racket didn’t go away. It just went even deeper underground.
So this means: I have a racket… or as we’ll see, occasionally the racket has me.
Just like every living thing is a vehicle to the Selfish Gene (70% truth value), every human is a vehicle for the racket. Ugh, right? lol.
In the What’s Missing workshop yesterday, I did what I always do: demonstrated the process by working on my own life.
It is always a discovery: the discovery of the racket, yet again wearing a different disguise.
As I was sharing it, I immediately saw the racket and also the solution…
How you speak, how you share an incident is either to hide the racket, i.e. the payoffs are more important to you than the cost you pay, your health, your happiness, your relationships, your finances… or you share it the way I shared it: making sure that I cannot hide it any more, making sure that it is visible in all its “glory”.
- It is a rare person who can learn to see their rackets without help.
- It is also a rare person who chooses not to indulge the payoffs paying the high cost.
Until and unless you get to that level, you haven’t caused a transformation yet.
Transformation is not transforming an incident from horrible to OK, transformation is causing YOU to see the world differently, not just the incident.
Transformation is also causing you to see yourself differently. Causing you to see racket (or the other invisibles) everywhere, and have compassion AND power over it.
When I was participating in Landmark Education, I saw not-a-one person who was on that level, even though racket is taught on the first day of the first program of Landmark Education.
Not even one. Not even the leaders.
Which should tell you something: a racket is a real shape-shifter, and ongoing work and attention is required to keep it in check.
But first you need to see it, own it, or else… lol.
And that, seeing it, owning it, depends on your ability to consider “wrong” your ally. Appreciation. Seeing value.
There is only one way to grow… and it is through wrong.
And, of course, the “teachers” of the world, hired by the Dark Side (not really, but figuratively) teach you to try to grow yourself through the nice-nice.
Through your dark side. Fully seen (eventually) and fully acknowledged (eventually).
What I saw in yesterday’s What’s Missing workshop is how I look at stuff I do or don’t do that harm me and my life: as if I had no power over them. As if I were the victim of something… as an observer, not as a participant.
Drinking too many hot beverages, not cleaning my house, having too many appointments on the weekends… I have power over those… I have just been choosing being victim, not having to take full responsibility for my life (the payoffs), at the expense of self-respect and my health. Ugh… of course… ugly.
I sell the course, the 53 invisibles at an unheard price of about one dollar an hour… But I want to make the pie even sweeter…
If you buy the course before next Sunday, December 8, I will throw in a live webinar workshop, where I will work with some people, and demonstrate the process of getting to see the racket. I may even activate the capacity of appreciation… We’ll see.
It’s like adding another $100 value to the already high value of the program.
It is something I need to do anyway: my Playground people aren’t getting it… and this will, hopefully, help them to push over the hump. But normally I don’t invite people who are not in the Playground to a Playground session… but this session will be open to anyone who bought the program before the deadline.
If you bought the program before this week: you can upgrade to the level that includes the live webinar… I’ll send you an email with the payment link, so you can participate in the live workshop.
Go to step 2PS: just recalling in my mind this week’s partner calls, here is an insight:
Rackets, what you complain about, reveal the ugliest part of your personality.
Reveal that you want to do as little for your pay as possible, that you took on a job pretending you are one thing while you are really another, that you don’t take care of your own life, instead you go for kudos, and awards, and appreciation for things that anyone can do, while it is only you who can take care of your life, etc.
Ugly galore… no wonder you think you should hide it. But you cannot.
Until you choose yourself, choose your life, and unchoose the unwholesome payoffs, you’ll be unhappy, a wretch, and will have complaints instead of a good life.
PPS: I just measured a few health measurements… I noticed that everyone’s measures dropped dramatically this week.
Why? Because at Thanksgiving there is food that you should not eat. But it is on your plate… And you’ll eat it BECAUSE it is on your plate. BECAUSE that is the polite thing to do.
You assign responsibility and power to the plate, the social norms… politeness… and declare yourself powerless… Instead of being cause… and eat only what is on your food list… so YOU can be well. The plate won’t complain. The social norm will be all right, even if you… gasp… take care of yourself. Duh.
PPPS: This is for REALLY advanced students: The primary payoff is avoiding responsibility. No matter what is the “flavor” or the “theme” of your racket, it is YOU who makes it wrong… so if you took responsibility for everything that belongs to you, you would have no racket running.
