Awareness… When you are here: be here. But you aren’t

If you found out in which quadrant you chose to live in, beauty, truth, goodness or power… and now try to argue, or you are worried, or you are resigned… consider that you are just doing what you are doing: you want to be where you are not… or more precisely: you never what to be where you are, you never what to think what you are thinking, you never want to feel what you are feeling.

So you do what you are doing, think what you are thinking, feel what you are feeling only so-so… A student of mine coined the phrase: in the neighborhood of truth.

If you can’t physically stop doing what you are doing, etc. then you withdraw into the cave of your mind, and languish there.

It is a safe prison… more like a tomb. You don’t have to be with yourself.

Why don’t you want to be with yourself? Because when you look into yourself, you find evil inclination, you find ugly, and ultimately you find empty. Not empty as in nothing, but an abyss. You get scared and you run back to your periphery, where it is so busy, you don’t have time to even contemplate that there is nothing inside… that there is no you.

One of the big interruptions, potentially, are the times when you get sick.

When you are sick, your job is to be sick. And be sick. Allow the body to do the work, it is equipped, 90% of the time, to do the work with proper nutrition, proper hydration and no medication, not even herbal.

In some cases the body tells you not to eat, and it is wise to listen to the body.

Most people, when they are sick, they want to do the things they normally don’t want to do… just to avoid being with themselves, alone. Or watch TV and videos. Anything to not have to be present, aware, absolutely anything.

Even work.

That is probably the worst distraction, because when you are sick your brain isn’t working properly (if it ever does!) and you will regret doing most everything you did, while you were sick. I tested this… and I am about half as smart as I normally am since I got sick about a week ago.

As I said, after I finished The Fountainhead, I started to read again Osho… The Awareness book.

And did find something I find interesting enough, relevant enough to share it here.

To the degree that you identify with things on the horizontal plane, to that same degree you are miserable, and can’t be in the present moment.

Surprisingly, maybe, the number in the Starting Point Measurements, the “about you” score is the same as to what degree you identify with whatever anyone says, whatever you read, your religion, your nationality, your personal and racial history, etc.

You are not your feelings, not your thoughts, not your history, you are, if you have a Self already developed, a Self. A consciousness.

Before that you are seeking to fill that empty space that should be you, every opportunity you have.

It fills the space with “not you”… so it was a mistake.

Things inform you, but if and when they make you… you are not a person, sorry to say.

Same thing is happening with the quadrants of Beauty, Truth, Goodness and Power. You are identifying with it, or arguing with it.

Here is Osho

The East has a totally different outlook, first, it says no problem is serious. The moment you say no problem is serious, the problem is almost 99 percent dead. Your whole vision changes about it. The second thing the East says is that the problem is there because you are identified with it. It has nothing to do with the past, nothing to do with its history. You are identified with it — that is the real thing. And that is the key to solving all problems.

For example, you are an angry person. If you go to the psychoanalyst, he will say, “Go into the past … how did this anger arise? In what situations did it become more and more conditioned and imprinted on your mind? We will have to wash out all those imprints; we will have to wipe them off. We will have to clean your past completely.”

If you go to an Eastern mystic, he will say, “You think that you are anger, you feel identified with the anger — that is where things are going wrong. Next time anger happens, you just be a watcher, you just be a witness. Don’t get identified with the anger. Don’t say, ‘I am anger.’ Don’t say, ‘I am angry’ Just see it happening as if it is happening on a TV screen. Look at yourself as if you are looking at somebody else.”

You are pure consciousness. When the cloud of anger comes around you, just watch it — and remain alert so that you don’t get identified. The whole thing is how not to become identified with the problem. Once you have learned it … then there is no question of having “so many problems” — because the key, the same key will open all the locks. It is so with anger, it is so with greed, it is so with sex. It is so with everything else that the mind is capable of.

The East says, just remain unidentified. Remember — that’s what George Gurdjieff means when he talks about “self-remembering.” Remember that you are a witness, be mindful — that’s what Buddha says. Be alert that a cloud is passing by — maybe the cloud comes from the past, but that is meaningless. It must have a certain past, it cannot come just out of the blue. It must be coming from a certain sequence of events — but that is irrelevant. Why be bothered about it? Right now, this very moment, you can become detached from it. You can cut yourself away from it, the bridge can be broken right now — and it can be broken only in the now.

Going into the past won’t help. Thirty years before, the anger arose and you got identified with it that day. Now, you cannot get unidentified from that past — it is no longer there! But you can get unidentified this moment, this very moment — and then the whole series of angers of your past is no more part of you. You will not have to go back and undo whatsoever your parents and your society and the priest and the church have done — that will be a sheer waste of precious present time. In the first place it has destroyed many years; now, again, it will be destroying your present moments. You can simply drop out of it, just as a snake slips out of the old skin.

The past and its conditionings do exist — but they exist either in the body or in the brain; they don’t exist in your consciousness because the consciousness cannot be conditioned. Consciousness remains free — freedom is its innermost quality, freedom is its nature. You can look — so many years of repression, so many years of a certain education. In this moment when you are looking at it, this consciousness is no longer identified; otherwise, who will be aware? If you had really become repressed, then who would be aware? Then there would be no possibility of becoming aware.

If you can say “I spent twenty-one years in a crazy educational system,” one thing is certain: you are not yet crazy. The system has failed; it didn’t work. You are not crazy, hence you can see the whole system as crazy. A madman cannot see that he is mad. Only a sane person can see that this is madness. To see madness as madness, sanity is needed. Those twenty-one years of crazy system have failed; all that repressive conditioning has failed. It cannot really succeed — it succeeds only in the proportion that you get identified with it. Any moment you can stand aloof… it is there, I am not saying it is not there: but it is no longer part of your consciousness.

This is the beauty of consciousness — consciousness can slip out of anything. There is no barrier to it, no boundary to it. Just a moment before you were an Englishman — understanding the nonsense of nationalism, a second later you are no longer an Englishman. I am not saying that your white skin will change; it will remain white — but you are no longer identified with the whiteness; you are no longer against the black. You see the stupidity of it. I am not saying that just by seeing that you are no longer an Englishman you will forget the English language, no. It will still be there in your memory, but your consciousness has slipped out, your consciousness is standing on a hill looking at the valley — now, the Englishman is dead in the valley and you are standing on the hills, far away, unattached, untouched.

The whole Eastern methodology can be reduced to one word: witnessing. And the whole Western methodology can be reduced to one thing: analyzing. Analyzing, you go round and round. Witnessing, you simply get out of the circle.

Analysis is a vicious circle. If you really go into analysis, you will simply be puzzled — how is it possible? If, for example, you try to go into the past, where will you end? Where exactly? If you go into the past, where did your sexuality start? When you were fourteen years of age? But then it came out of the blue? It must have been getting ready in the body, so when? When you were born? But then when you were in the mother’s womb, wasn’t it getting ready? Then when, the moment you were conceived? But before that, half of your sexuality was mature in your mother’s egg and half of the sexuality was maturing in your father’s sperm. Now go on … where will you end? You will have to go to Adam and Eve! And even then it does not end: you will have to go to Father God Himself — why in the first place did he create Adam? …

Analysis will always remain half, so analysis never helps anybody really. It cannot help. It makes you a little more adjusted to your reality, that’s all. It is a sort of adjustment, it helps you to attain a little bit of understanding about your problems, their genesis, how they have arisen. And that little intellectual understanding helps you to adjust to the society better, but you remain the same person. There is no transformation through it, there is no radical change through it.

Witnessing is a revolution. It is a radical change from the very roots. It brings a totally new human being into existence, because it takes your consciousness out of all the conditionings. Conditionings are there in the body and in the mind, but consciousness remains unconditioned. It is pure, always pure. It is virgin; its virginity cannot be violated.

The Eastern approach is to make you mindful of this virgin consciousness, of this purity, of this innocence. The Eastern emphasis is on the sky, and the Western emphasis is on the clouds. Clouds have a genesis; if you find out from where they come, you will have to go to the ocean, then to the sun rays and the evaporation of the water, and the clouds forming … and you can go on, but it will be moving in a circle. The clouds form, then again they come, fall in love with the trees, start pouring again into the earth, become rivers, go to the ocean, start evaporating, rising again on sun rays, become clouds, again fall on the earth … It goes on and on, round and round and round. It is a wheel. From where will you come out? One thing will lead to another and you will be in the wheel.

See how different his approach is from the Western fix-it, self-reflection, endless “me-me-me”.

While you and most everyone refuse to do the work of witnessing, and being in the preset, the process of living.

Obviously I am still sick. So this article is a little disjointed. I apologize for that.

I was going to be well by today, but then I ate… fish, nothing heavy, but it set me back several days. So I am still sick.

Compounding interest… the secret of exponential growth…

There is a controversial saying by Charlie Munger, who said: to get what you want, you need to deserve what you want.

This is controversial, because the verb, deserve, is bastardized in our culture. What he should have said:

to have a chance to get what you want, you need to earn what you want. And then say: to earn what you want, you need to become the person who can  earn what they want.

Continue reading “Compounding interest… the secret of exponential growth…”

Everyone wants to be self-confident why? how? What you need?

Confidence: firm trust, a sense of self, appreciation someone’s proven track record

If you look up the word in the dictionary, that is not what you find.

All dictionaries are now in step with the tendency to make words vague, not matching the reality… this word is a crucial word in your vocabulary. Unless you get this right, your chances of having a self, and thus the chance for self-confidence are between zero and none.

No one takes my Starting Point Measurements seriously. How do I know? Because I have literally haven’t had anyone ask clarifying questions about certain key concepts that will make or break you… Not even one.

For example, no one has asked me what is awareness really? Or what is trust? Or goodness… etc. Continue reading “Everyone wants to be self-confident why? how? What you need?”

What do you want, really? or asked differently What do you really want?

The answer is in the values you choose to love…

I have been harping on values… and it is as if I were speaking in an auditorium where my voice doesn’t, can’t carry… there is no echo. 1

Nothing and no one indicating that they are hearing me, that they are pondering, that the question is heard and taken on as a quest to answer, to ponder, to be taken with you to sleep, to your meditation, to your walks, so you eventually come up with something you value.

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers.

During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.

– Howard Thurman (1900 – 1981)

There are two kinds of values, temporary/transitory and eternal. Continue reading “What do you want, really? or asked differently What do you really want?”

You want a better life? Want to avoid a life of quiet desperation? Resignation? Here is your path…

70% of your life is made up of the things you do every day… your habits. The remaining 30% is what you don’t have control over.

But even that 30%, where you don’t have control over what happens: you have control over how you react, how you do what you end up doing, and what is your attitude. My next article is about that… the how of your life.

Most programs you can buy make up what to teach. Given that the average truth value of programs is around 2%, what they teach must come untried, untested, and altogether not true.

Tai’s approach (Tai Lopez, 67 steps) was different. He looked at, primarily, billionaires, secondarily at famous scientists or other authors.

The truths he gleaned from billionaires: 30% truth value, the truths he gleaned from authors: 10% truth value. Hm, interesting.

Where does the difference come from? Continue reading “You want a better life? Want to avoid a life of quiet desperation? Resignation? Here is your path…”

A roadmap to become all you can become… A roadmap…

I have given people driving directions in the ancient times where there was no gps and you could not google direction.

How did I do it? I drove the path several times, and took notes: what you see when you need to turn, what you see when you are still on the path, what you see when you went too far. Continue reading “A roadmap to become all you can become… A roadmap…”

If adaptability is the most fundamental predictor…

…then your most important concern should be: how can I can more adaptable … right?

In you our relationship to life so you can have more chance for a happy life.

Darwin said that the species that is the most adaptable to changes will survive.

One can also say that it is true not just for a species but also for individuals.

Adaptable doesn’t mean meek, doesn’t mean able to subsist in suboptimal circumstances, it actually means being able to thrive no matter what’s going on. Adapt and initiate. Continue reading “If adaptability is the most fundamental predictor…”

How to find your real self… Stop honoring your false self

As I have written before, the book I am reading now is the Metaskills.

The author is a designer, and looks at life through a designer’s glasses.

The article “You live in a world of your own design” is one of the favorite articles on my site. People want to design their lives.

The popularity of the program, Mind Movies builds on that desire to design… but the requirements for design are not there, not there for 99.99% of humanity… What is there is something else, something that doesn’t allow for design.

The basics of being a designer is what is most missing in life… if you really look, you can see it. Continue reading “How to find your real self… Stop honoring your false self”

You are convinced that you are smarter than me…

I have been holding off on delivering the promised READING class… Why?

There are so many factors that control how much you can do with the instructions I give you, that it is hard to know what I can teach to make a difference…

When you read my articles, when you listen to me (or to anyone else, by the way!) you think that you got 100%, and you maybe even think that you are smarter than me… OK, it’s not a maybe. You think you are smarter than me. And that you know everything. 1

How do I know you think you are smarter than me?

From your questions, from your requests.

Here is what you do that gives it away:

You ask me to muscletest things… but never ask me a question that would bring some clarity into your thinking. What got you where you are is the quality of your knowledge, the quality of your thinking. All within your power… but you accept and ask for no input from me… because, you know, she is just an empath, a tool.

So what makes one smarter than another?

Continue reading “You are convinced that you are smarter than me…”

How to take care of your emotions, the emotions that take care of you?

What takes care of you… that you can take care of?

I have told you how enamored I am with the principle “take care of what takes care of you.” 1

What I don’t elaborate about in that article, is how do you know if something takes care of you or not. How do you know if you CAN take care of something or not?

  • Especially because many modalities ask you to stop thinking, for example. Can you do that?
  • Or they ask you to think positive… don’t even sin in your thoughts, feel different, be happy, be appreciative, and things like that.
Do you have the power to take care of those?

Continue reading “How to take care of your emotions, the emotions that take care of you?”