OBSERVABLE FACTS

There seems to be a problem of communication here. Sometimes you are using different sets of facts. More often are you using different words to describe the same observable facts. It may feel as if you are partaking of a different reality than some of your neighbors. You start to question up and down, right and wrong, black and white.

You are questioning

Perhaps we could go back to that idea of “observable facts”. Is there an objective reality that we can all independently observe? If we are going to live together in a harmonious way, there must be certain facts that we all agree on. Is it possible to agree on certain basic facts? What are the observable facts?

We already know we might have a hard time agreeing on the “why” of certain facts, with our tendency to get mired in anger and blame. This only keeps us endlessly in the past. Could we rather start with the observable facts, what any two reasonable, independent observers would agree upon.

Examples of observable facts:

There are not enough jobs, in this country and the world, for all the people we have now, and technology is only taking away more.

The wealth of this country, and the world, is apportioned strangely, in a lopsided, unequal way.

Whatever happens to our country, we all wish it to succeed beyond the founders’ dreams, and to maintain the moral power it derives from the constitution.

We wish all our transitions could be gentle.

These are facts we could all agree upon. Let us begin with observable facts, is in essence saying, let us begin with agreement.

Let us begin with agreement

In the past, our acknowledgement of observable facts led us to chasing scapegoats, ever more vehemently, ever more violently. This led us to be always dwelling in the past, raking it over, keeping its resentments and dominance games alive. There is no future in this.

There is no future in dominance games

Or, to put it another way, if you continue to chase the scapegoats of blame, your future will look exactly like your past. Bitter division.

When is the best time to step away from a failed strategy?

Let us begin by agreeing; let us begin with observable facts. If we continue in pragmatism and common sense, with the constitution as our guide, friends, what can stop us?

BIGGER THAN OUR INSTITUTIONS

We are questioning our faith in our institutions. Was the election rigged after all? Should the FBI have gotten involved so close to the end? There were so many hacks this time…foreign trolls…we don’t know who to trust…we don’t trust the media…they didn’t do their job…and so on.

The foundation of faith in our institutions has cracked.

No matter what we think the system is, too many of us feel that we cannot trust it. We think the system is rigged. We feel despair, which spirals outward in anger and fear, horsemen of the apocalypse unleashed.

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Viktor Vasnetsov

Hold that thought a minute.

Hold that thought

You are bigger than your institutions. You think of your institutions: the FBI, the electoral college, the Supreme Court, the World Bank, the European Union, and so on, as huge blocky monoliths, pieces in a giant chess game. And this chess game goes back and forth, as any play of power always must. One side dominant, then the other, never resolved, always ongoing.

The only way to win this game is to refuse to play. Realize that you are bigger than your institutions. They only exist with your permission. It is your collective belief, and voluntary servitude to your belief, that gives your institutions what validity they have.

Refuse to play games

But you could just as easily shift your attentions, and create other institutions. What if you created communities of ideas, instead of countries? Commonwealths of love? You could endow them with the qualities you have come to yearn for, by their absence. You could create institutions embodying world order and peace.

Or you could transfer your positive attention to the institutions you already have, and restore honor to them. Bring justice, impartiality, tolerance and fairness to all, back into your institutions. How? By becoming the kind of people to take this as a given.

Or you could go within, where everything originates. Mentally create that country you wish to live in. Need it be a country, as you presently understand that? Not necessarily; it is up to you. What state would you like to live in? Which condition? How is it you wish to feel? What is important to you?

When you have answered these questions for yourself, the questions will be answered for you.

If we can begin to open our perspective and discover new dimensions of space within our immediate experiences, the anxiety and frustration which results from our sense of limitation will automatically be lessened; and we can increase our ability to relate sensitively and effectively to ourselves, to others, and to our environment.

Tarthang Tulku

WITHIN: WHERE CHANGE HAPPENS

The same battles in different contexts

Most people go through life fighting the same battles in different contexts. If you believe you’re basically worthless, this will find form in every context of your life. So you might be dealing with relationship problems, or addictions of every kind from shopping, to talking, to oxycodone and everything in between. You might have problems in your work history, unable to get along with other people, or you might have an uncanny instinct to sabotage yourself at the point of success, or you might just have a general apathy about life. You are not surprised when things go wrong.

All of the above are just different contexts for the manifestation, the acting out, of your core belief, “I am basically worthless.” There is an endless array of negative beliefs you cling to, but they’re only different flavors of the core belief, “I am basically worthless.”

You could spend your life, as so many of you do, in trying to rearrange its different contexts. You could seek advice, follow it, you could go to counseling, read a book, confront people, manipulate, ignore, or antagonize them. All these things, and many more, could you do. Read any advice columns to see the myriad of contexts representing core beliefs.

You could make yourself very busy in what you like to call the “real world”, pushing and pulling, rearranging, trying to cause one thing and prevent another. But really, what are you doing with all of this activity? You are distracting yourself. You are looking away.

Away from what?

What compulsive behaviors do you have? Where do you spend a lot of time? What are you avoiding?

Instead of spending all this negative energy trying to rearrange reality, which you cannot do, why not agree to one simple, profound change? Begin with the inner world. Take a few moments to access it now. Breathe in for a slow count of four, hold for five, and exhale for nine. Align your breathing with this new thought: Let me begin with the inner world. Let me go within.

Let me go within

With just one change to your idea of who you are, a change that no one but you can make, you can bring transformative change to every context of your life. Transformative change in relationships, work, play, love, in every context of your life.

Who would not want this?

How may such change be achieved?

Go within, be quiet, create sacred space, be receptive. Simply affirm, “I am valuable beyond measure. God created me like Him, perfect. I am simply perfect.”

People try to get away from it all – to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like

By going within

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

PRACTICE PRESENCE

You say someone is emotionally unavailable, as if it were a bad thing.

Might it not also be a good, a necessary thing?

As long as you are emotionally available to other people, you are allowing them to have an input into you. You are making them important. You are in some way trying to please them, or at least get their attention.

Do not try to please anyone. Do not try to get anyone’s attention. Be the same to all. One is not different from another. To believe so is to become the prophet of division. Go not down this road.

What is this about? What are you trying to tell me?

To thine own Self be true. To the extent that you are trying to flatter, or impress, or control, or in any way care about the outcome of another person, to that extent have you given up common cause with your most holy Self, which has always been created, and has no need to flatter, cajole or browbeat anyone, having no needs. You mistake who you are when you try to please.

You mean not to care about the outcome of your own family members?

Not to care means not to be vested in any particular outcome. It is of course possible to love deeply and not be attached to any particular outcome.

What is an outcome but a potential future? If you were to live only in the present moment, with no regard for past or future, no time spent thinking about either one of them, you would be freed from outcomes, would you not? You would be freed from the fertile field of all your fears.

Would you not do this?

I invite you today to the present. What if you, today, were to practice the present moment?

How is this to be done?

In the midst of a routine activity like brushing your teeth, drying your hair, doing dishes, stop, put down all utensils. As slowly as you can count to ten. Doing this creates a space for new thought to come. It enables consciousness. It enables all kinds of good that you yet have no name for, having yet to feel.

One technique practiced fifty times, is better than fifty techniques attempted once.

Practice Presence

TRANSFORM YOUR RELATIONSHIPS

It is fun and interesting to put yourself in the place of another human being. To stand in their shoes, look out through their eyes, and imagine what they see. That hotel clerk you talked to last night; you cut off his speech to ask what time breakfast was, and if you’d only listened, you’d have heard it at the end. How many people must do that? What must he wonder about people in general? What behaviors does he see all of the time? People getting angry when they don’t get what they want? What does he think when he sees this?

You have only to ask

Transform all your relationships. This is a big promise; how often can you transform anything at all? With all your pushing and pulling in your real world, how many outcomes have you brought about or prevented?

Transform all your relationships

How may this be done, you wonder? Not piecemeal, as in one at a time, ever-improving. This is promise, not change. No, transform means to change completely, as in, turn into something else entirely different. You transform your relationships by changing your inner I am, your conception of yourself. This causes you to change into something entirely different.

I am lonely. I am anxious. I am subtle. I am sophisticated. I am hardworking. I am a victim.

Whatever. On and on.

Once you have accepted an I am, you will be drawn to situations and people that allow you to bear it out, to illustrate it. If you have I am worthless, your relationships will give evidence of that. You will seek others who are emotionally distant, unavailable, unkind, or not what you want in a myriad ways.

If you have adopted I am clever, you will be drawn into situations which illustrate this. That you are clever, or think or wish you were, will be something that people know about you. This will be borne out in your relationships. You will value people differently according to how clever you think they are. You can use whatever criteria you want to decide if they are clever or not. You can spend a lifetime in this pursuit.

But why would you?

Relationships are transformed by transforming your conception of yourself. Begin by examining different I ams that you have taken to heart. Separate emotion from this process and it is more effective. No shame and no guilt as you unearth your I ams.

Do you find any that serve no good purpose? I am always late. How is this helping your cause?

I am confused. Why would you keep this?

I am nervous in front of people. Is this a role you want to play? Is this something you want to live out?

A monarch butterfly emerging beautiful and new from its chrysalis

Photo by Bankim Desai on Unsplash

Dismiss what does not serve

Are there some other I ams that you could embrace now? You choose. Begin by consciously deciding which I ams are deserving of your increased attention. I am always calm. I am peaceful. I am happy. I am beloved.

And as you pay attention here, turning inward your focus and your light, so do these I ams become rays of light emanating outward from your being, attracting like and transforming every relationship you have.

A lighthouse standing against stars in a dark sky, sending forth beams of light

Photo by Nathan Jennings on Unsplash

IMAGINE YOUR LIFE BEGAN TODAY

Having just arrived here

Imagine your life began today. You woke up in this whatever-year-old, whatever-gender-you-are body, in the place where you presently are, in the midst of a collection of shauris whose import you understood not at all, having just arrived here.

Look about you. Could you find anything to be grateful for in the circumstances that surround you?

Thank you for space. I have lots of space. I have physical space to stretch out, I have spaces of time in which to do nothing but contemplate.

Thank you for space

I have the power of choice. The fact that I am able to observe the goings-on about me tells me this. When I observe something going on about me, I am the presence observing. Since I can observe this situation, at once this tells me that I am bigger than it, and I could also choose not to observe it.

If your life in this body started today, if you were transported from greater reality into this physical dimension today, the last thing you would have would be emotion. Pain, anxiety, stress, blame and so on. These are all learned behaviors that don’t belong to your pristine self.

Curiosity: the first thing

The first thing you would have would be curiosity. It would be like setting foot in a brand new country that you knew absolutely nothing about. Everything could well be different. You would decide to pay attention and learn as you went along.

If you woke up here in this body today, you wouldn’t have any personality traits at all. You wouldn’t be silent, you wouldn’t be loud, you wouldn’t be shy, you wouldn’t be depressed, you wouldn’t be overbearing, possessive, disturbed, handicapped, or hopeless. You would not know what any of them meant. You would be nothing but consciousness observing. You would understand that you were consciously observing, and that what you chose to notice would increase.

Seeing the vault of heaven for the first time

Let me adopt this posture when things start to get difficult for me. When I start to feel fear for any of the reasons I have practiced, or when I am observing a situation and feeling anxiety, worry, stress and fear hovering around. Instead of this micro involvement, let me dissolve these emotions at once, and instead imagine myself as a channel between the observed situation and divine energy, who was waiting to bless it, but lacking only a channel.

Let Me Maximize You

Transformational change: the least you need to know