THE RIGHT TOOLS

You want to bake a cake. There is no electric mixer. No problem. You’ll do it by hand. People used to do it that way; it will just take longer and be a bit more work.

There is no eggbeater either, so it takes extra long to get the eggs incorporated. The recipe calls for one cup of white sugar, but all you have is a bit of brown and some powdered sugar. You use it anyway, hoping it won’t affect the cake’s texture adversely.

When it is time to put it into the oven, you have no cake pans, so improvise with a casserole dish. There is no non-stick spray, so you use a bit of oil, although it never works as well.

One who is serious about a job has the right tools

How much more pleasant it is to cook in a well-stocked kitchen! How much more easily everything goes with the right tools! Everything is done properly, expeditiously, right the first time. There is no hit and miss.

With the right tools the job is done once, perfectly

Open the tool box

MEDICINE NO ONE WILL TAKE

What do we have to take the stupid medicine FOR?

There was pandemonium at the pre-school. It was medicine day. The babies were running around with fear written all over their tear-stained faces.

I’m never going to take the medicine

One girl was more composed. “I’m never going to take the medicine,” she explained. “No one expects me to. My mother never did it either, or anyone else in my family. So there.” And she went on coloring happily.

A boy in footed pajamas and a red, angry face kicked the wall. “What do we have to take the stupid medicine for, anyway? How will it help us in our lives? What good is it?” A giant kick. The anger he was building would keep him from the medicine for a long time, perhaps until he was an old man and died.

A round-faced, earnest girl was lost in thought, going over the steps in her mind one last time. The tongue and the spoon, the tongue and the spoon. She had practiced hard and faithfully, and felt cautiously optimistic. But with her the result was always the same. When it was her turn to take the medicine she blanked out, was thrown off. There was a trick question. Was it the spoon first? Or the tongue? And back she’d go to her studies, redoubling useless efforts.

Photo credit: Glenn Carstens Peters

Some of the children made a ritual out of the preparation. They set intentions, made resolutions, crossed items off lists and generally did all they could to fill their minds with business. This kept them eternally at square one, but with a sense of purpose.

The teachers tried to help. “Look, we know this is hard for you. But remember, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Practice makes perfect. It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop. We’ll break this down into a hundred tiny steps and practice each one until you can do it in your sleep.”

Everything sounded good when they said it, but who had time to practice that much? Besides, what if you did and it still didn’t work? You’d have wasted all that time and then, where would you be, with even less hope?

Photo credit: Henrikke Due

Yes, there had been success stories, but so few and far between they took on the quality of myth. Occasionally, a new, unknowing child would step up to the line with no sense of apprehension, put out his tongue, and take the medicine. Those children were like the Japanese prisoners of war who didn’t know the war was over until years over, or like Rip Van Winkle waking up after a sleep of twenty years. But who could knowingly cultivate such oblivion? It belonged to some original condition that you could never access with eyes clouded by fear. You could forget about asking them how they did it either; after they took the medicine they slipped silently away, dolphins sliding into a different sea.

So round and round the babies went, fretting, fussing and fearing, throwing themselves to the light like so many moths at a flame. Ninety-nine out of a hundred fell each time, to drag themselves back up exhausted, to try again. Their efforts seemed useless, but to stop was to give up.

* * * * * *

You are on a stage in a great auditorium with a sea of smiling, well-wishing but anxious faces in front of you. Here you are to receive a great prize, recognition of your efforts in propagating peace and joy in the world. You walk onto the stage to a thunderous ovation, which slowly turns to intense quiet as the crowd strains to hear what you are about to tell them. How can you help them? They are desperate to know. How can you lift them up? You step forward to the microphone to speak.

You open your mouth. You put out your tongue. You take the medicine.

BULLOCK: THE THOUGHT OF CHANGE

Photo credit: Ana Cernivec

A bullock trudged along a dusty path, which harbored the occasional sharp stone just where he least suspected it. The stiff wooden yoke was positioned just so that he could not look easily from side to side, and though he must necessarily look then to the front, the cruel engineering of the yoke decreed that he could not raise his line of sight enough to see the path ahead. Added to that, his burden weighed heavily, occasionally shifting uncomfortably. The bullock had no control over any of this, and there seemed nothing to look forward to.

From where did his next thought come? Surely not from the recesses of his previous thought patterns, which, like a factory, could churn out only more of the same. It alit suddenly, like a butterfly from a far off place. Who knows whence it came? Perhaps it was wished on him from some long-dead person’s prayer, or was the winged remnant of some past good deed, now finding form.

A brown and orange butterfly perched on a bright orange flower

Photo credit: Yuichi Kageyama

The thought: there is another way. It did no more than fly into his thought patterns and let itself be recognized. There is another way. It occupied his thought pattern for an entire heartbeat. It was enough.

I throw off all restrictions now

There was then seen a glimpse of green off to one side. As he allowed his eyes to stray there, he no more noticed the yoke. It let go its hold like releasing hands; without missing a beat his footsteps swerved straightly towards the green. Then his burden fell off, melted away, and was no more, as before him a vista opened itself.

Below the path and spreading out into a far infinity of soaring mountains, there lay a green and grassy meadow. There was a stream, a pool, and a fountain of sparkling fresh water. Grass grew sweet and long.

Everything I want is here, he realized. I can stay here forever. The air smelled of flowers, animals, and earth. Trees gave shade.

He ate and drank unhurriedly. There would always be plenty and abundance; what need to hurry? He lay down under a tree. He sank into thankfulness and peace.

The thought of change is change

REALITY WORTH CHOOSING

What is reality? Is it this day to day world that you live in, that you call life? Waking up to vague anxieties, raging fears, or black sadness, limping through the day with this heavy crow of misery on your shoulder? Look at the faces you pass in the street; are they happy faces? They are pinched in despair. Is this reality? Do you want it?

A grandmother and her three young granddaughters, carrying bunches of bananas on their backs. The colors are grey and muted; the faces are hesitant, open yet unsmiling.

Photo credit: Zeyn Afuang

Many of you go to work you did not choose, working long hours with no choice of your own as to how you spend your days. Is this life? Is this why you were born here? Fear, despair, pain and suffering; they seem to be universal. Is this what you want?

Photo credit: bantersnaps

Is reality only what can be apprehended by the five physical senses? Is reality only what you can see, hear, smell, taste and touch? Why do you give so much validity to the physical body, as though it should always know more validly than the other part of you? The other part of yourselves is everything you feel to exist, but which is not physical. That would be your minds, your psyches, and your souls.

Why have you set the body’s little knowledge higher than the knowledge that the soul has? This is truly backwards. It must be the work of the ego. The body says, “Trust me that only the evidence of your senses is real.” Who is the body speaking for but itself?

Photo credit: Richard Jaimes

But the body always follows the mind, friends. The mind is stronger than the body. Therefore, we should define reality as what can be perceived by the soul alone. That would be love, hope, compassion, peace and joy. This is a reality worth choosing.

Reality chosen by the soul

Photo credit: Gus Howie

FAITH IS INNER VISION

Faith is belief in things unseen. Do not rely on the body’s eyes to see. They seek out only what the mind has sent them to find.

If you believed in only what you could see with the body’s eyes, nothing would ever change. You would be telling yourselves that only what the physical eyes can render is real, that only what you see before you, on this plane of experience, is real. This is just a way of continuing the status quo. It is a way of keeping you eternally at square one.

Who would want this?

Smash it today, this idea that reality consists of only what you see before you. It is too limiting for you. You are a creator. You belong to the species that made “War and Peace”, the Panama canal, “The Marriage of Figaro”, non-violence, meditation, and all healings that ever took place.

At one time none of these wonderful manifestations existed to the body’s eyes or ears. It took someone not using the physical eyes to see and hear them first, and, becoming quiet, to tune into them, becoming their essence by simply thinking about them, creating with thought. Then they became sound, word and deed, visible to the body’s eyes and audible to its ears.

This is how creation is done, friends. Repair into yourself, close out the distractions of this world, quiet yourself, and be at ease. Summon to your mind images of what you want to create. How will the finished creation look? Spend time there.

The mind of the world can render only the sight of the present world.

Faith is belief in things unseen

Treat yourself to vision. Describe what you want to see, lovingly and carefully. Be at home here. What are the feelings that will surround your finished creation? Ah, here is a lovely place to be. Be consumed with love. How will you feel when you look upon your finished creation? Let yourself be transformed in thinking of it.

You can live in whatever world you want. When you call on higher help, a way is made.

Faith uses inner vision

BELIEF IS YOUR CHOICE

What is a belief but a practiced thought? It is an idea you picked up some time ago, and accepted. Once you accept an idea, your mind, your vision, your physical eyes, all are now primed to find confirmation of the belief. So primed, you see it everywhere. This makes it seem even more true to you, since it is constantly confirmed.

A statue of a cheeky cherub, chin resting on hand, lying among pine needles, as though he is observing humans with amusement

You choose what you see

Did you ever have the experience of learning about a new concept, such as “cognitive dissonance”, or “survival of the fittest”, or “magical realism”, and then see examples of it everywhere? Friend, these examples were there all the time. Remember that everything exists all at once but you choose what you see.

You didn’t see them before because you didn’t have a name for them. Now that you know what to call them, you will see them. This is how ideas are formed, and given birth into conscious recognition. You name something, you frame it, define it as you wish. Secondly, you practice it in your consciousness. It takes only seventeen seconds for a new connection to form.

Of course you choose your beliefs. If you didn’t choose them, it would not be possible for people to have differing beliefs. You have to assent to them before you can start giving them form and repetition. The longer you have held a belief, the more obvious and irrefutable it will seem to you. You will wonder how any reasonable person could disagree with you. You will find many opportunities to reaffirm your beliefs. Most of you will do this for a long time.

You can challenge any belief

The problem is that you often choose your beliefs in a very flimsy, haphazard way. Some other person may say or act out fearful thoughts: one race is better than another, violence can be used in the service of peace, compromise is weak. Very often, without one second of conscious examination, without holding them up to the light, you accept these ideas. After that, it is all about the polishing of them into firm beliefs.

We all think our beliefs are right and true, and that the one who disagrees with us is wrong.

How dangerous it can be to pick up an unexamined belief! It’s like eating any old piece of garbage you found on the ground. You don’t know where it came from.

A large question mark looming over a dark background

All questions enable consciousness

What if you picked up, “All men are cheats”, or, “I can’t do anything right”? You would be programmed to see evidence of those beliefs everywhere you looked. How chaotic and upsetting life would be. If you have a belief that is not serving you well, hold it up now to examination for seventeen seconds, or even longer. All questions are good, because they all enable consciousness.

Take the belief, “I never have anything to say.” Have you always thought this? Can you remember a time when you didn’t know this? Have you heard any other person voice this belief about you? In what situations do you notice this belief? Perhaps at gatherings where there are people you don’t know. How do you appear to others at those gatherings? What are you thinking in those moments? Do you have fearful, paralyzing thoughts? Could you see yourself without this belief?

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could see it as something separate from yourself, a piece of ragged, useless clothing that you could easily discard? You could be free of this thought, if all you do is invite it out into the light and examine it every time it occurs to you.

Apply the same examination to every new belief that suggests itself to you. Ask yourself: will this belief serve me well? Take only the beliefs that will serve you and your brothers well. “Together we can do anything.” “Inclusion is always better than exclusion.” “Peace in the world will come when we have inner peace.”

And polish them.

I want to be different

Multi-colored night sky merging with sea and receding fingers of land.

Photo credit: Kristopher Roller

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Transformational change: the least you need to know