Is There Another Way?

Wipe the slate clean.  This is the admonition I am giving to me now that I’ve planned the year ahead according to the way I have done it for many years.  Now is not the time to go into the history of the planning process so I am not going to revisit any of that as I go forward.
 

When I say wipe the slate clean, I mean throw out all of the preconceived notions about what is and isn’t, or what I would like it to be and do a recalculation based on some desires that are yet to be discovered or defined.  What could they be?  By definition, I don’t know.

This is where I found myself many years ago when I took control of my activities to some extent.  Now I want to revisit that frame of mind and see if it results in anything new or different.  It is going to be tres difficile because I am surrounded by the results of where we’ve been and how we got to where we are.  This house and our belongings all reflect the choices made over the past many years.

In fact, however, we are always at a place where we can do differently with or without the aid of a disaster that takes away what we have amassed.  A disaster can be simulated by simply walking away from what we have and what we are doing.  This was the advice I heard given by a psychologist on a radio talk show to a person contemplating suicide; she said to give everything away.  Thinking about that, it would certainly simulate suicide.

I have often looked at what I have and wanted to discard what I thought was not useful anymore.  It is difficult to throw something away.  Things I haven’t used for years appear to be easy targets until I am in the act of discarding them and then all of a sudden they become difficult to toss.

This is the same with my life as I am living it now.  I want to get out of the traces but thinking about actually doing it gives me pause.  So, I’ll fool myself by saying it is an exercise in imagination; a stroll down a different path for life and living.  Would it be so difficult to stop doing what I am and do something different?

Reflecting on the past several years I would say that I've done this and continue to do so even though I have this regimented approach to life.  There are some things I am doing now that I wasn't doing 5 to 10 years ago such as acting and playing competitive pool, so it isn't as if I am in some sort of rut when it comes to endeavors. 

There are other things that I have been doing continuously for years and years such as writing, golf, and horseback riding with only slight improvement.  Other things have clicked, such as cooking and entertaining, and have shown marked improvement.  Some endeavors have been abandoned over time such as management, sailing, and Dale Carnegie training.  One can objectively say, therefore, that some evolution of activities has taken place.

If I am going to change the direction and focus of my life, I will have to start back at the beginning of the planning process and go from there. What I have now is integrated for Planning Categories, Life Categories, and Traits and Features. Endeavors are consistent with all of these and…”De lawd smiled down on de whole persession.”

As I sit here and muse about it, I can readily see that just like going through my clothes closet I am not going to throw away what I have and start over again.  Even doing so would retrace what I've done so far and would lead me back to the same place where I am right now.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s say we lock up the house, cars in the garage and leave it along with all of our possessions for an indeterminate period of time, taking only our ATM card and whatever cash we have in the account. 

We could keep up with our mortgage and other payments using library PC’s wherever we are, move about using public transportation such as planes, trains, buses, and rental cars, buy whatever clothes we need as we need them and discard whatever we aren't wearing or using.  By necessity we would have only what could be carried along in a small case.

Where would we go, what would we do, and why?  This leads me back to where we are now.  We are limited now by our lack of imagination and would again be so limited if we were to abandon all and go away. 

Would we wind up in a homeless shelter or sitting for hours on a park bench trying to think of the next thing to do or place to go?  How is that so different from what we do now?  Then as now we would be only limited by our imagination.   No, starting out without a destination is not possible or is it?

Starting out without a destination requires that one be open to any and all possibilities that come up during the course of events.  It would require that one meet all circumstances with an attitude of acceptance of people and events, making the most of the opportunities that present themselves.

The allure of it is the uncertainty; waking up in the morning with only the knowledge that something will happen and looking forward to participating in it whatever it may be.  This can happen under this current structure if only I go out there and intercourse with others.  I have a daily that says, “Getting out more,  I make myself available,” but I don’t.  After all of this, here it is; this is it.  Now do it!

The Last Word of the Year

One must keep in mind that these essays are written for the writer and aren’t necessarily meant to be instructive for others.  It’s been almost 10 years since the first of the “morning pages” was written and 5 years since this blog was opened.

It was stated in the beginning what the ground rules were for this blog; 1000 words or less, sometimes random thoughts, always thoughts that were in the fore of the writer’s thinking at the moment.  Many of the entries are developmental in that they are an expression of what is on the mind of the writer at the time he is writing and not the finished product of analysis.

Unlike theses and dissertations, these entries are the informal thoughts of a traveler along the path in search of reasonable answers to the meaning of life and living.  The path is long and meandering, sometimes to the point of making the reader doubt the veracity of the writer.  In this the reader is not alone, sometimes the writer, reading the essays, doubts what was written.  The essays nonetheless are an honest expression of what was on the writer’s mind at the time.

The question of atheism comes up in the mind of the writer.  It can be concluded that the concept of God is a handy cop-out to real thinking about what is and has been going on for millions of years, as near an eternity as there is.  As a matter of fact, if you ask 10 people to tell you what is God you will get ten different answers.  They may all have similarity but there is no definitive statement as to what is God.

As for creation or evolution; life on the planet today is the result of incremental intelligent choices made by organized life as it reproduces.  Just as one can look back on the results of any organization, be it a company or a government, and plot the evolution of thinking that took it to where it is today, so too can one do this for organized life.

There is only the choice made in each reproduction; in the analogous organization, the choice made in each decision.  There is no way of knowing what will happen next, only what has already happened.

Just as all of life is only one generation from extinction, so too it is changing incrementally based on reproductive choices.  That is evolution; it is guided only by the intelligent choice made at the time of reproduction.

Since it is my contention that there is a spiritual side to beings, it follows that just as that side manages the day to day activities of the being it also manages the reproductive choices that are made.  And furthermore, the beings in question are all of organized life from the simplest to the most complex and not just we humans.

All of life exists on the surface of the Earth in a layer from the highest to the lowest level of 11 miles thick on a sphere that has a radius of 4000 miles or 0.00275; on a sphere with a diameter of a foot, that would be 0.0169 inches about 1/64 of an inch; not very much.

It can also be noted that life has not been definitively found elsewhere in the universe but is unique to this planet.  Is it an accidental phenomenon or the result of some spiritual, in the sense of not physical, influence that occurred on the one planet that could support organized life as we know it?

Once begun, the intelligent choices made by reproducing organisms have brought us to where we are today.  Looking back on the record, the argument for evolution is made but looking ahead one can see the argument for incremental intelligent choice.

Those same choices, made by a multitude of predecessors and contemporaries, make it possible for me to sit here and record these thoughts and, perhaps, for a reader to be stimulated to think for himself.

On Matters Sexual

There are in each of us personae who are masculine and those that are feminine.  Our bodies are one or the other except in rare instances but the personae are not physical and may be either.

There are probably many personae of each persuasion.  And to call the tendency masculine or feminine may be erroneous but there is not a better terminology to use.  There are tendencies toward active and passive, hard and soft, tough and tender in response to situations but even these don't give a satisfactory frame of reference so we use masculine and feminine and all that these terms imply.

There are cases where the male body has a predominance of female personae to the extent that he takes on the personality of a woman and vice-versa.  There have been physical sex changes for some of the more extreme cases.

There have been, in my experience, instances where hormonal balance was slightly out of kilter and women have had to shave what can only be described as whiskers off of their faces and men have taken on the bodily characteristics of women due to sebaceous fat.  It only stands to reason that after a trillion or so iterations that there are anomalies of varying degrees.

Often told that there is a feminine side to all men and a masculine side to all women by authors and therapists and coming slowly to admit it after observing it in me and others; I've finally arrived at an understanding of it.  Rather than try to express it here and open Pandora’s Box, I will simply say that I understand it and leave it at what has already been written.

The Sexual source of the brain-body, as with the others, is affected by external impressions and internal physical conditions that cause personae to be stimulated.  For men the conditions could be a full supply of semen and associated hormonal levels that illicit pressures for ejaculation; and for women ovulation and the secretion of hormones associated with that event could illicit what is felt as a need for fulfillment.  Thus it can be reasoned that the need for sexual expression may be induced by imagination or by bodily conditions or both, one preceding the other depending on the circumstances of the moment.

The chain of events may also be put into motion by genetic memory of another who by chance is encountered in a present life but was also a partner in a relationship in a past life.  This is reasonable but  arguable but nonetheless needs to be stated.  One could surmise that "love" could occur for this reason as well as many other reasons related to current and past existences.

Feed Me!

We have discussed appetites in a previous entry and the appetites of which we wrote are all of them, the sensual pleasures that are sought.  As long ago as Aristotle, the need for moderation was seen.  As one looks around the world today, one can see that many, many individuals have thrown out the notion of moderation.

Evidence to support this is observable in obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addiction, addiction to tobacco and the nicotine contained therein, dependency and, just to sum it all up in religious terms, unbridled participation in the deadly sins of envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth,  and wrath.

It isn't difficult to slip into this chasm of self-indulgence; it is encouraged by people who are selling things.  A whole profession, marketing, has sprung up with the specific intention of creating a desire for products and services; making it seem not only alright but downright advantageous to get whatever they are selling.  Just like at casinos, there are a number of people who succumb to the message in a fruitless effort to satisfy some missing ingredient in their life.

On the other hand, there is a mechanism in our brain-body that signals a need for something.  It can be on any level, intellectual, emotional, moving, social, sexual, or instinctive and it can be real.  It is when this need is felt that some action is taken.  When the being senses that safety and/or security is threatened it’s like a WWII navy movie when the command, "Man your battle stations!" is heard.  And even this response is emotional. Observing all of the actions taken, it is seen that the motivation for action is emotional. 

This is not a secret.  Salespeople the world over know that decisions to buy (act) are made emotionally; sell the sizzle not the steak, what color would you like it to be.  Yes a need is being satisfied, even if it is artificially stimulated, but the motivation to satisfy it is emotional. 

The emotional source is closely linked to the five senses of touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound.  And what need do we meet most frequently?  To eat.  The need for nutrition; we eat three, four, or five times every day of our lives.  We get hungry and we use any means available to satisfy that need and we use all of our senses to do it.

Hunger can stem from a nutritional need, and/or memory, a smell or picture recalls to us how great s.t. tasted; it can stem from a need for fats, carbohydrates, proteins, certain vitamins, minerals, and bulk that are lacking and signals via suggestions come to us to eat this or that.

A large segment of our society continues the age old industries of production, processing, marketing, distribution, preparation, and serving food.  And they do it using all the senses to gratify, satisfy, sate the hunger that each of us feels daily.

It is an interesting chain of events that leads to the table.  The farmer looks at a field of weeds but imagines the possibility of neat rows of vegetables, or looks at grazing land and imagines a herd of meat animals, or knowing the results plants an orchard for fruit or nuts.  His imagination starts with sight and he sees the results before even beginning the process and his harvest proves his vision to be correct.

Butchers look at animals on the hoof and imagine carcasses to be carved into cuts of meat that please the eye of the shopper.  Green grocers see bushels and piles and imagine the fruits and vegetables arranged attractively to please the eye of the shopper.  Processors buy bulk quantities of foodstuffs and produce colorful packages to attract the eye of the shopper.  Once more sight is the sense that is used to attract.

The cook selects meats, vegetables, fruits, fats, and staples that he/she knows are necessary for the preparation of the meal.  The selection at the market is based on sight, then touch, then smell.  Once the tests are satisfied, the foodstuffs are taken to the kitchen where the meal is prepared.

Sight, touch, taste, smell, and even hearing from time to time are used by the cook as the meal is prepared.  To achieve the desired end result he relies on his knowledge and experience as his senses affirm the satisfactory preparation of the meal.

Enter the diner.  Invited to a room that is suitably furnished with attractive furniture, table linen, china, silverware, and crystal, decorated with candles and flowers he or she takes a place at the table enjoying the visual presentation and the company of the other diners.   Wafting in from the kitchen are the aromas of the meal, causing the imagination to already begin salivation and enjoyment of the meal, even before the first course is brought in.

Then the food arrives displayed in serving bowls and on platters in an attractive way.  All that is necessary for an enjoyable and nourishing meal is available to the diner; besides the food there are various fluids that enhance the taste and ingestion of the meal.

At last, when appropriate to do so, the final sense is stroked, the sense of taste.  At the point of taking the first bite the diner has been tantalized by sight, smell, sound, and feel—now finally he receives the final grace, the taste.

And then it goes into the mouth where it is chewed, mixed with saliva, and becomes an unrecognizable mish-mash of pulp that is swallowed and staged to go into the stomach.  The allure of the senses is gone, now it’s down to the business of digesting, assimilating what is necessary, and discarding what is not.  It was all a ruse to get nutrients into the being.

What Dreams May Come

If one thinks of the being as comprised of spiritual and physical components, where the spiritual manifests an aim using the physical and that these manifestations are evoked by the secretion of various mixtures of bodily fluids, then one has a basic understanding of how it works.

Spiritual is a word chosen without its religious connotations because there is the physical, i.e. matter and energy governed by the laws of physics, and there is the “non-physical,” that which is not and that is referred to here as spiritual.

These spiritual components can empirically be divided into intellectual, emotional, moving, social, sexual, and instinctive sources where each operates, more or less, independently of the other but the resulting secretions are a mixture influenced by all six. 

Some manifestations are heavily weighted toward one or the other of these sources but there are seldom, if any, times when a manifestation is caused totally one or even two of these sources but influenced by all in varying degrees.

Recalling the color palette, there are hundreds, even thousands of hues available from combinations of primary colors.  It is a simple step to realize the legions of reactions that are available from the mixture of six primary sources and that each reaction is a persona, created and stored for possible future use.  This lifetime is an expression of all of them.  For a thought provoking development of some of these sources, referred to as centers, read The Fourth Way by Ouspensky.

 

One will not find the aspect presented there of the spiritual/ physical dichotomy.  Nowhere in my reading of Fourth Way is the spiritual and physical dichotomy explained as the way Master, Driver, and Critic continue the development of the being.

Personae are created in order to cope with situations that are presented to the being and there are thousands of them created during a lifetime.  There are some that are used over and over; these become the recognizable personality of the named individual along with other recognizable features. 

Some personae become a permanent part of the being.  I’m not sure how or why this happens, but they become so much a part of the being that when the brain-body dies these, along with Master, continue to exist and may inhabit another brain-body to continue development until enough critical mass is achieved to move on to the next plane of existence.

In this lifetime, actions are taken by the brain-body because the spiritual component causes them.  This accounts for any and all actions taken.  The brain-body cannot in and of itself do anything.  Even the automatic body functions are the result of the spiritual component setting in place the mechanism by which they are accomplished.

It could be that the beginning of Master’s existence was with the first persona that became permanent; it could have been this lifetime or an indeterminate number of lifetimes ago.  That there has been more than one explains the incidents of “remembering.”

Genetic memory is another, and separate, phenomenon that is part and parcel of this wondrous being.  An example of this can be found in “A Parallel Life” posted on http://openfloodgate.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-parallel-life.html.

My normal posts are 1000 words, more or less, and there’s lots of room left here to continue to develop a new idea that is in process right now.

The idea of auto-suggestion, also known as self-hypnosis, also known as affirmation, also known as self-talk is presently at the fore for me.  The prospect of incorporating it along with these beliefs came through to me recently and there is a procedure that I am following.  How this works out will be seen in the future and it may be advisable for me to wait until I have the results to talk about it; but no, as usual I will forge ahead with my dissertation.

First premise: The dreams of the being are consistent with the development of Master.  Second premise: there is the above mentioned dichotomy between the spiritual and physical aspects of the being.  Third: the being is capable of stepping into the gap between the physical and the spiritual.

So this is the procedure:  Relaxing the brain-body, imagine that you are ascending along with all of the personae that you have and as you ascend, personae leave your company according to their most prominent feature.  At the first level, those associated most closely with the instinctive leave; at the second—the sexual, at the third—the social, the fourth—the moving, the fifth—the emotional, and the sixth—the intellectual.  Now as you, driver and critic without other personae, stand alone at the highest level in the vague presence of Master with a view as if from the top of the highest mountain, you repeat your dream.

The syntax of the dream is important only that it convey an accurate image of your dream.  Our brain uses words to evoke images; it is the image that we are creating that contains the dream and to which the spiritual component relates.  That image is what he will maneuver to realize.

Throughout this lifetime there have been images impressed upon me that were so strong that one day I realized that what I now had was the fulfillment of the image that I’d had.  The achievement of of what was necessary for that image to become real was not the result of a step by step campaign of which I was aware but rather a step by step campaign of which I wasn't aware except that deep in my mind there was that impression.

It is this impression that the procedure is meant to make.

My expectation is that it will and this is why I am now involved in making the effort.  By recalling my experiences above and linking them to my experiment, I firmly believe that this may be the secret to which “The Secret” refers.

  

My hypothesis is that the dream has to contain rich imagery, have content that has been experienced, even if experiences to date have to be extrapolated to the desired level, be as real as one can make them, and be taken-up one dream at a time to avoid confusion.

It would behoove one to have just a few important dreams to be realized until this capability is honed and then there is reason to believe that it could be used for many dreams.