Being...

What is this catch phrase in our society? 

Can we really be in the now?  

What does it mean to just be? 

 "To be, or not to be, that is the question." -Shakespeare, Hamlet

So I have to ask myself, did Shakespeare understand this in the way that we now can view it?  Perhaps to a degree when he thought about it in context with Hamlet's dilemma in the epic play.  It was important for Hamlet to embody his full self and take control over his destiny, so in that sense, be the person he was meant to.  To be in the full expression of yourself is indeed a major undertaking and most definitely a life goal if ever there could be one.  How does one even know what their "fullest" or "highest" expression could be? 

How do we know if we have self actualized?

Looking at our being-ness in this light we can examine Maslow's study of the hierarchy of needs and his analysis of peak experiences marking this point of self actualization.  He described a peak experience as being in a state of bliss, almost effortless joy and success as things happen for you because you are totally aware and awakened to all aspects of oneself.  It is being in that child-like state of wonder and open perception where things flow and happen because you are putting forth the fullness of yourself. 

So...  Where does one go to find such a place anyway? 

And how can we make it so we never leave there once we find it? 

Maslow did say that a person can be on multiple levels of his hierarchy of being simultaneously, which makes sense and also validates the idea that we can experience these euphoric states of oneness and then the next moment be back in the hum-drum banter of life. With so many avenues of experience and dimensions to our interconnection with this world it goes without saying that we can be on multiple levels a the same time.

David Hawkins' work, Power vs. Force, is filled with explanations of the varying levels of experience we are exposed to and how it is never just black and white.  His ranking of awareness he complied through his research breaks up the states of being and what emotional patterns we express the more or less we are conscious or aware.

A popular Buddhist saying goes something like, " Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."  This just illustrating that even with all of the amazing energy and power one may exude when in that state of all-being, there is still the part of us that chooses to come back to help others out of Plato's cave, or to come back into the cave to pay our bills.  It also acknowledges that we can still revert back away from our enlightened state even when we are at our greatest growth and expression of our energy...

Let's take a journey then and see how we can get ourselves there in an easy, stress-free way...

Noticing our place in the universe is a start, for it gives us our first three dimensions of experience,length, width, and depth. The difficulty lies in finding our awareness of the illusive fourth dimension we all know is a part of our reality.  This dimension I am referring to is time.  We all sense time as it is a driving force in our lives, calling us to action or requiring that we wait. 

Can we access it from a fifth dimensional perspective?

The best way to reword this question more simply would be to ask, "Can I step outside the traditional way we look at the world in order to affect change to all parts of myself in order to free my experience from this dimensional prison we lock ourselves in?"  Well that didn't quite get any more simple did it?  I hope that description helped clarify it a little though at least.  It is a pretty intricately deep idea though which requires that we suspend our understanding of the universe and our entire perception of reality.  So let's try to see what it feels like and maybe we'll revisit this concept again soon in another post in more depth.

P.D. Ouspensky, Russian philosopher/mystic and student of G.I. Gurdjieff, defined this feeling with a thought experiment he describes in his book Tertium Organum.  In the book he invites us to visualize what it would be like to be in and to fully perceive that 4th dimensional state.

He has the reader close their eyes and see themselves in a room and to picture a cube floating in the middle of the room.  Now the trick of it is to close your eyes and be there and then to see the cube floating in the air from all sides simultaneously.

This perspective he is trying to get the participant to be a part of is that ubiquitous feeling of being everywhere at once, of being in the moment by being the moment. 

The simple act of noticing and being in a quiet stillness is an easy way we can be in our now without having to become time.  In previous posts I have detailed the practice of noticing as well as a visualization to perceive our stillness away from the clouds of our thoughts from our ego mind.

Stepping away from the controls of our perception periodically other than when asleep can help you to regain that quiet stillness and will help you to be in your true state of being...

A light for your path...

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Mirroring our truths out in all directions

What are we but mirrors...

If it is indeed true what science as well as the quantum gurus of our time have come to recognize and indemnify, then we are indeed mirrors of the reality around us under the assertion of the idea that this is definitely a holographic universe. 

A hologram is a three dimensional projection coming from a specially designed plate with light being sent through it.  The essence of this is that the holographic plate is a mirror of the whole in both directions from the micro to the macro extending out in fractal patterns. This is saying that in every piece of this echo of reality therein contains all aspects of itself.

So how does this fit into our mirror?

Our perception is looking out at this mirror of infinity only to see itself, so then the bigger question is, "How then do we not all see ourselves as this infinite, beautiful, magnificent perfection?"

This calls into the idea that our mirrors we are shining out to reflect back are dirty and blemished by our experiences and thoughts and views on the world.  This causes us to see just that, a world sullied and damaged by our own perceptions.  The clarity of the whole is marred by our picture of it.  Our perception, as the buddha said, is our reality.  So our reality is, in effect, as though we are looking through a shattered splintered mirror of ourselves.  What we are seeing is this vision of who we perceive ourselves to be as we project that system of judgments on someone else, someone outside of ourselves.

So everyone we see and interact with is never seen as they are truly, they are merely seen as we are and judged accordingly. 

We are our worst critic whether we admit it or not.  Take a second to recall your past session of self talk.  Were you encouraging yourself or berating yourself for doing something that made you upset or experience difficulty?  Now think back to the last time you said something positive to yourself, not just pride for an accomplishment, but expressing gratitude for efforts or just a happy sense of well-being about who you are as a person.  Most of us really have to search for such a moment if we can indeed find one at all.

So how do we shine up our mirror so it can show all that there is?

An often difficult first step to this goal lies in cleaning out our inner potty mouths.  We almost have to think of it like washing our mental mouths out with soap.  The negative thought we have form our negative words and this spiral extends outward as it affects each person we interact with and so on and so forth.  These words repeated enough form our actions which is what people base our character and personality on. 

It is not that we are what we have said or done, it is that our actions reflect out to the world our true nature.

So let's clean up those dirty mental mouths...

An easy but arduous task to accomplishing this soaping of our mind is a simple method called noticing.  Noticing involves just that, noticing or focusing on our internal monologue as it is happening by creating a conscious effort to pay attention to it.  Building this awareness of your own mental process will help you to free your thought patterns of the same negative degrading thoughts. 

The trick to making it work and not getting drawn into the thought patterns themselves involves two aspects, intention and detachment. 

For it to be effective one must strive to see it in an objective or detached way, to just see the thoughts as things and nothing more.  The intentional aspect of it comes before, when you decide on how you will do it.  Creating an intention to do it sets your ego mind up to be ready to be observed.  Once you have this intention in place being able to separate yourself from your mental chatter and your tape of thoughts you play over and over again will be just that much easier.

Realize that you are not your thoughts, and that you are not your feelings attached to them.

You are but the observer in this reality, just looking at the moving pictures as they dance by as shadow's in Plato's "Allegory of the Cave."  Step back from the chains in the cave and realize they are but illusions to soil your mirror.

Realize that the mirror points out of the top of the cave, to the stars shining so brilliantly in the sky.

Let's go for a walk now, out of our caves...


Light for your path...


Just be.

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Plato-s-Allegory-of-the-Cave-357719728

by Tara Shaffer