Your Political Consciousness is Showing!
The motivation for the way a person votes says a lot about their level of social and moral consciousness or development. Ken Wilber has written a book called The Integral Vision where he lays out a comprehensive “map of consciousness" which enables you to see for yourself at just what stage or level of consciousness you are presently residing in the various aspects of your life. By looking at your political leanings, for instance, and applying this map you can learn heaps about yourself and others.
In his book, he uses a very simple model possessing three stages or levels of consciousness: Egocentric (me), Ethnocentric (us), and World-centric (all of us). The egocentric is the first stage of consciousness in this model. Looking at a person's social and moral development at the egocentric (me) stage, we see a person who is primarily concerned with his or her own survival needs. A self-absorbed person would also fall into this category. An ethnocentric (us) would be someone who has expanded out enough to be concerned with his tribe, group, clan or nation. At this stage we are concerned with our relationships, shared values, mutual interests, common ideals, and shared dreams. We can put ourselves in the roles or shoes of others and feel what it might be like to be them. Our identity expands from me to us, a move from egocentric to ethnocentric. With a further expansion in consciousness, we begin to care for all peoples, regardless of race, color, sex, creed or country and we open to a worldcentric (all of us) stage. At this stage, our own desires are tempered by the welfare and well-being of all others.
Locating where we fit within this model is a valuable exercise. This model not only shows us where we are in any aspect of life we may apply it to, but it also gives us an idea of our next stage and exercises to help us evolve to that level.
While listening to people talk about their political ideas and beliefs, it becomes clear, quite quickly, where their beliefs fit in this model. If you care mainly for your pocketbook, for example, you voted to keep your taxes low, or you are self-absorbed and don’t care particularly one way or another about the election, then you might want to check out ways of expanding your social and moral consciousness into the second level. If you think your "party" is the right one, no matter what, and you are voting party lines, or you think the color of a candidate's skin or their gender indicates inferiority, then you might want to think about expanding into the third level. If you are ecstatically in the third level or world-centric and know that this was perhaps the most important election in the history of our country, indicating a giant leap in conscious for the nation and possibly for the planet, then you are probably already working on expanding your consciousness to attain the next stage as an Integrated Being.
Sidebar: Please do note that your consciousness can be high in one aspect of your life and low in another. This "map" is just a tool to help you locate which areas need a little lift.
Showing posts with label consciousness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consciousness. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Thoughts Are Things
Thoughts are things. We create the quality of our lives by the thoughts we entertain, whether consciously or not. We don't create our thoughts, they just arise as possibilities in the cosmos which we then attract by our energetic vibration and cultivate into our life experience. Just like people passing us on the street, some look interesting and some do not. For example, a drug addict may look very interesting to another drug addict who is experiencing similar needs, perhaps a fix. Whereas, a mother with a child may be repelled by this same person. A math professor engrossed in solving a problem may not even notice the drug addict.
We are all in our own, self-created worlds. These worlds may interconnect with one another on many levels, but nevertheless be radically different, experientially. When we become conscious of this, we can begin to create our lives in alignment with our desires and eliminate unpleasant aspects which we are creating from our conditioned minds.
What power and freedom we actually have! Unfortunately, it is common in those of us who experience unpleasant situations to reject the notion that we are the creators of our circumstances. It's understandable that we are reluctant to admit we have done these unpleasant things to ourselves. So we project outward onto someone or something else and say they did it to us. Maybe we say God did it to us. This gives all our power away and leaves us feeling like a victim. Whether it is a physical illness, an emotional struggle, or even a war between countries, we are creating our experience of it. Notice I did not say creating IT. I am saying we are creating our EXPERIENCE of it.
Life happens! It is very important to not get stuck in the guilt trap, which is probably why anyone would reject this idea in the first place. It's how we interpret, spin, and deal with what happens that creates our experience of life. This is quite clear when we see someone who "has it all" and is miserable, or vice versa. I know people who are experiencing life-threatening illnesses who spend little time talking about it, are vibrant and inspired by the challenge of the "project". I know others who verbalize every ache or pain they experience and look beat down and victimized by their own incessant "verbage".
We're all just creating our own experience of what's happening. Those of us who moan and groan do so because we're not conscious of the negative effect it's having on us. When we become conscious and realize, without guilt, just what this behavior is doing to us, we have a choice! And what is really cool, is that we can change our experience and make it one that feels good!
Imagine a world in which every one of us is taking radical responsibility for our own happiness and well-being and turning each experience into a joyful one of love and gratitude. That would surely put an end to war and bring about world peace. Let's do it!
We are all in our own, self-created worlds. These worlds may interconnect with one another on many levels, but nevertheless be radically different, experientially. When we become conscious of this, we can begin to create our lives in alignment with our desires and eliminate unpleasant aspects which we are creating from our conditioned minds.
What power and freedom we actually have! Unfortunately, it is common in those of us who experience unpleasant situations to reject the notion that we are the creators of our circumstances. It's understandable that we are reluctant to admit we have done these unpleasant things to ourselves. So we project outward onto someone or something else and say they did it to us. Maybe we say God did it to us. This gives all our power away and leaves us feeling like a victim. Whether it is a physical illness, an emotional struggle, or even a war between countries, we are creating our experience of it. Notice I did not say creating IT. I am saying we are creating our EXPERIENCE of it.
Life happens! It is very important to not get stuck in the guilt trap, which is probably why anyone would reject this idea in the first place. It's how we interpret, spin, and deal with what happens that creates our experience of life. This is quite clear when we see someone who "has it all" and is miserable, or vice versa. I know people who are experiencing life-threatening illnesses who spend little time talking about it, are vibrant and inspired by the challenge of the "project". I know others who verbalize every ache or pain they experience and look beat down and victimized by their own incessant "verbage".
We're all just creating our own experience of what's happening. Those of us who moan and groan do so because we're not conscious of the negative effect it's having on us. When we become conscious and realize, without guilt, just what this behavior is doing to us, we have a choice! And what is really cool, is that we can change our experience and make it one that feels good!
Imagine a world in which every one of us is taking radical responsibility for our own happiness and well-being and turning each experience into a joyful one of love and gratitude. That would surely put an end to war and bring about world peace. Let's do it!
Monday, December 18, 2006
What You Focus On Expands and What You Resist, Persists
As the song goes, "you gotta accen...tuate the positive, elim...minate the negative and latch on...to the affirmative, don't mess with Mr. Inbetween."
Life cycles in a spiraling, wave-like fashion toward evolution. Our consciousness follows this same pattern of cyclical, spiraling waves. Some of us resist the pull toward evolution and some of us move consciously and with ease toward the pull. However we move forward emotionally, we all experience the wave-like ups and downs or lows and highs of our cycles. Depending on our habits of focus, we create and live in a particular emotional range, the character of which determines the quality of our lives.
If we pay attention to our thoughts and emotions, we quickly notice which part of the "wave" we are in at any given moment. If we habitually give attention to the negative or lower aspects of our cycles, then our emotional environment will spiral toward the lower ranges such as suffering and depression. If we maintain positive habits of thought, our cycle will spiral toward the higher ranges of happiness and well-being. In other words, if we live our lives focusing on the positive and transforming negatives into useful information, then we tend to spiral upward into higher consciousness. I say higher because positive focus leads to expansion of consciousness whereas negative focus leads to a contraction of consciousness, a pulling backward.
This brings me to a second principle: what we resist, persists. If we are resisting, we are focusing on the negative. We are thinking something is not right, it should be different. This is being at war with conditions or circumstances as they are. This resistance focuses attention on something and therefore feeds it. As long as we nourish the situation it will continue. Forward movement toward evolution is slowed down by our anchor of attention on the negative. Ironically, we perpetuate the very condition we dislike. This leaves us operating in an unpleasant reality and results in limiting the expansion of awareness. This does not mean we passively stick our heads in the sand and do nothing. It means we turn our focus to what we want to see rather than what we are currently seeing and disliking.
There are over 6 billion people living and experiencing their own versions of reality based on their habits of focus. We all have a choice to choose a particular spin on what we are seeing at any given moment. If we are conscious enough, we can notice the nature of our focus and ask ourselves if it produces feelings we would like to expand upon. For instance, if someone says to me, "I really like what you wore yesterday", I may hear that and react in dramatically different ways, depending on how I'm feeling. I may spin it as a compliment and be pleased or, if I'm in a lower part of the cycle, I may think they must not like what I'm wearing today. If I observe that I took it positively, I can then acknowledge I'm in a positive part of the cycle and just let it be, or enhance my position to consciously feel gratitude. If I notice I took it negatively, I can note that I am most likely in the negative or lower part of the cycle. As I become aware of this, I can consciously spin the comment toward the positive without reacting. This will send me on an upward spiral in my cycling and create a pleasant and satisfying emotional environment. We can consciously choose the way in which we focus our attention at any given moment. As a result, we can create a quality of life full of well-being and immense gratitude. This is the essence of free will.
Life cycles in a spiraling, wave-like fashion toward evolution. Our consciousness follows this same pattern of cyclical, spiraling waves. Some of us resist the pull toward evolution and some of us move consciously and with ease toward the pull. However we move forward emotionally, we all experience the wave-like ups and downs or lows and highs of our cycles. Depending on our habits of focus, we create and live in a particular emotional range, the character of which determines the quality of our lives.
If we pay attention to our thoughts and emotions, we quickly notice which part of the "wave" we are in at any given moment. If we habitually give attention to the negative or lower aspects of our cycles, then our emotional environment will spiral toward the lower ranges such as suffering and depression. If we maintain positive habits of thought, our cycle will spiral toward the higher ranges of happiness and well-being. In other words, if we live our lives focusing on the positive and transforming negatives into useful information, then we tend to spiral upward into higher consciousness. I say higher because positive focus leads to expansion of consciousness whereas negative focus leads to a contraction of consciousness, a pulling backward.
This brings me to a second principle: what we resist, persists. If we are resisting, we are focusing on the negative. We are thinking something is not right, it should be different. This is being at war with conditions or circumstances as they are. This resistance focuses attention on something and therefore feeds it. As long as we nourish the situation it will continue. Forward movement toward evolution is slowed down by our anchor of attention on the negative. Ironically, we perpetuate the very condition we dislike. This leaves us operating in an unpleasant reality and results in limiting the expansion of awareness. This does not mean we passively stick our heads in the sand and do nothing. It means we turn our focus to what we want to see rather than what we are currently seeing and disliking.
There are over 6 billion people living and experiencing their own versions of reality based on their habits of focus. We all have a choice to choose a particular spin on what we are seeing at any given moment. If we are conscious enough, we can notice the nature of our focus and ask ourselves if it produces feelings we would like to expand upon. For instance, if someone says to me, "I really like what you wore yesterday", I may hear that and react in dramatically different ways, depending on how I'm feeling. I may spin it as a compliment and be pleased or, if I'm in a lower part of the cycle, I may think they must not like what I'm wearing today. If I observe that I took it positively, I can then acknowledge I'm in a positive part of the cycle and just let it be, or enhance my position to consciously feel gratitude. If I notice I took it negatively, I can note that I am most likely in the negative or lower part of the cycle. As I become aware of this, I can consciously spin the comment toward the positive without reacting. This will send me on an upward spiral in my cycling and create a pleasant and satisfying emotional environment. We can consciously choose the way in which we focus our attention at any given moment. As a result, we can create a quality of life full of well-being and immense gratitude. This is the essence of free will.
Friday, December 1, 2006
Surrender
We live our lives based in fear. We are exploited and controlled because of and by this fear. Why is this? It all stems from the illusion that we are the drivers in this vehicle we inhabit and through which we experience the world of manifestation. Somewhere deep within, we know that we don’t have all the information at our disposal to make the decisions necessary to live our lives based on our true desires. At least that is what the little mind thinks and it is quite accurate. This keeps us feeling unsettled and uneasy about our future, which we feel we must design or prepare for. But the Truth is, we do have all the information at our disposal, just not from the part of our consciousness through which we normally see the world and use for all our strategizing.
One day I was driving in my car (literally) and I heard a voice inside my head say, “If you will just let go and let me handle everything, I will do such a better job you will be absolutely amazed.” Well, I was already pretty amazed just to hear that voice let alone the promise, so I decided to actually try it. At this point in time, I was already familiar with the concept of surrender. I had been to the brink once before when I had no other choice than to throw my hands up in the air, absolutely lost to solutions regarding what felt like the most important aspect of my life. The result was an almost immediate movement from desperation to a sense of effortless flow. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Solutions I would never have thought of were not only appearing in my realm of consciousness, but I was effortlessly moving on them as if a power larger than me was carrying me fearlessly along. I was in flow. This lasted for a few months when I slipped back into my strategies and began life as usual again. Then about two years later I heard the voice while driving, for no apparent reason. I decided to listen and bow to the invitation of surrender again, this time from a place of conscious choice rather than desperation. What followed was an ever-increasing sense of wonder and awe and a deeper alignment with my true purpose and joy.
Surrender is a concept, which is not held favorably by the ego and for good reason. Fortunately we have two selves. The True Self, which we are born as, and the egoic self made up and conditioned by our perceived experiences. The egoic self is very necessary as it is from this separated sense of self that we are able to realize the True Self. It is as if we need to go out and look back to see whom we are. The problem is that we get caught out there in the illusion. The ego does whatever it can to keep us caught in order to stay in charge. But we are far more than the mini me we feel ourselves to be.
From the conditioned point of view we don’t see the big picture. At any moment in time we are looking at just a small piece of the painting. We may be looking at an ugly black glob. Or we may see a beautiful golden streak. What we see affects us depending on our past conditioning. Some of us have such an unpleasant experience in the separated identification that a spontaneous awakening to Truth occurs out of sheer despair. Some of us have glimpses of Truth and the curiosity pulls or drives us to realization. Some of us exist stubbornly in the delusion despite hints pointing otherwise. And then some of us are just asleep and never question. When we come into conscious awareness that we are seeing and reacting to only a limited point of view, we can loosen our grip on the story we are telling ourselves.
Surrender is the way to realization of the true master within. The true master awaits the invitation. The invitation is the surrender. It is in surrender that the struggle ends and joy begins. When we come into conscious awareness and surrender to the True Self whose view is complete, we experience an effortless alignment with our desires, and trust in the process of life unfolding perfectly as it should. We can then relax in knowing we are completely safe and enjoy the glorious ride.
One day I was driving in my car (literally) and I heard a voice inside my head say, “If you will just let go and let me handle everything, I will do such a better job you will be absolutely amazed.” Well, I was already pretty amazed just to hear that voice let alone the promise, so I decided to actually try it. At this point in time, I was already familiar with the concept of surrender. I had been to the brink once before when I had no other choice than to throw my hands up in the air, absolutely lost to solutions regarding what felt like the most important aspect of my life. The result was an almost immediate movement from desperation to a sense of effortless flow. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Solutions I would never have thought of were not only appearing in my realm of consciousness, but I was effortlessly moving on them as if a power larger than me was carrying me fearlessly along. I was in flow. This lasted for a few months when I slipped back into my strategies and began life as usual again. Then about two years later I heard the voice while driving, for no apparent reason. I decided to listen and bow to the invitation of surrender again, this time from a place of conscious choice rather than desperation. What followed was an ever-increasing sense of wonder and awe and a deeper alignment with my true purpose and joy.
Surrender is a concept, which is not held favorably by the ego and for good reason. Fortunately we have two selves. The True Self, which we are born as, and the egoic self made up and conditioned by our perceived experiences. The egoic self is very necessary as it is from this separated sense of self that we are able to realize the True Self. It is as if we need to go out and look back to see whom we are. The problem is that we get caught out there in the illusion. The ego does whatever it can to keep us caught in order to stay in charge. But we are far more than the mini me we feel ourselves to be.
From the conditioned point of view we don’t see the big picture. At any moment in time we are looking at just a small piece of the painting. We may be looking at an ugly black glob. Or we may see a beautiful golden streak. What we see affects us depending on our past conditioning. Some of us have such an unpleasant experience in the separated identification that a spontaneous awakening to Truth occurs out of sheer despair. Some of us have glimpses of Truth and the curiosity pulls or drives us to realization. Some of us exist stubbornly in the delusion despite hints pointing otherwise. And then some of us are just asleep and never question. When we come into conscious awareness that we are seeing and reacting to only a limited point of view, we can loosen our grip on the story we are telling ourselves.
Surrender is the way to realization of the true master within. The true master awaits the invitation. The invitation is the surrender. It is in surrender that the struggle ends and joy begins. When we come into conscious awareness and surrender to the True Self whose view is complete, we experience an effortless alignment with our desires, and trust in the process of life unfolding perfectly as it should. We can then relax in knowing we are completely safe and enjoy the glorious ride.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Radical Responsibility
Radical responsibility is not just taking responsibility for what you say or do, but for anything and everything that comes into the field of your awareness. You are responsible for anything you see or hear in your life, including the war, terrorism, politicians, sickness (in yourself and in others), poverty, hunger, etc...What a concept! This brings meaning to the adage: "You are not in the world, the world is you."
I had just begun to have glimpses of this truth when I came upon an article written by Joe Vitale. He tells the story about a psychologist who, using the ancient Hawaiian spiritual practice of cleansing called Ho'oponopono, cured an entire ward of very difficult and criminally insane inmates at a state hospital. He did this by looking at their charts and then cleansing himself using four sentences:
I'm sorry. Forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
He never actually saw any one of the inmates face to face. He was so successful that the ward was closed.
I have been using this technique in my life for everything that causes me even the least bit of suffering. The results are remarkable!
I had just begun to have glimpses of this truth when I came upon an article written by Joe Vitale. He tells the story about a psychologist who, using the ancient Hawaiian spiritual practice of cleansing called Ho'oponopono, cured an entire ward of very difficult and criminally insane inmates at a state hospital. He did this by looking at their charts and then cleansing himself using four sentences:
I'm sorry. Forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
He never actually saw any one of the inmates face to face. He was so successful that the ward was closed.
I have been using this technique in my life for everything that causes me even the least bit of suffering. The results are remarkable!
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