Quickstep part 2
Quickstep to Enlightenment Part 2
progress towards Self-Actualisation
By David West
Contents
14 The need to demonstrate mastery
20 Final Words
11 - Extra-sensitive
Once our awareness has blossomed, and we are receiving a variety of inputs, then we will find that some of these new inputs hit particularly tender areas, and result in our intense feelings of guilt or disappointment.
We must not allow ourselves to make mountains out of molehills. New sights of reality cause much of this guilt, and we are unable to understand why we had been unaware of them before.
This is in itself a mind-opening realisation. The realisation that we generate our own guilt out of nothing, as a result of new awareness. Whenever this guilt builds up to interfere with our normal meditations, then we take a few deep breaths, and blow them onto the "over-sensitive-due-to-rebirth" situation
12 Beginning to meditate
Having accepted the fact that our self-image is merely an outer shell generated by the bumps, knocks, pleasures and joys which have befallen us, then we are able to smile at our own reactions to certain instances, as we watch the menagerie of wild animals in our mind performing their tricks.
The more we watch, the more we are able to anticipate, and the easier it becomes to control or disregard them. Once we are able to recognise our own menagerie there are fewer surprises, and we are more able to stay calm.
Remaining calm sounds a boring thing to do after all of the excitement that we have experienced in life so far, when our most blissful moments would not be described as calm! However, this is the most noticeable change, where we become less interested in excitement of the body, and more interested in enabling our mind to penetrate deeply inside in order to provide a better understanding of ourselves. We experience bliss in the mind as we meditate. We discover a little more about ourselves each day, as we spend just a few minutes being completely calm.
The important thing, like sleep, is to put our body into a position that allows our mind to meditate if it so wishes. The mind cannot meditate deeply while it has to take care of our mobile or excited body, so first we calm the body with hatha yoga or prana yama or Tai Chi. A clean body is essential to avoid those troublesome itches that arise when we first begin to meditate - however it is pleasant to note that these go away after just a few sessions. For me the most difficult thing was finding a way of sitting on the floor, as I had never done this.
I started by training my body to accept the thunderbolt position, and in doing this, I learned much about pain and the exercise of consciousness in order to remove it. The thunderbolt position is kneeling, sat on our heels. We can all do this for a few seconds, and overcoming the pain caused by extended periods teaches one how to overcome all pain. Two different people can translate the same sensation as, for example, a tickle or an itch, where one considers a tickle as pleasant, and the other considers an itch as unpleasant.
Soon the itches and the aches recede, and we have taught the body to be quiet for a while. Now we have only the mind to distract us. In order to prevent the mind doing its usual monkey tricks, and making us sad or happy as it meanders through a myriad of pasts and futures, then we need to concentrate on something. Some call this training in concentration. For others who already have the ability to concentrate, then a target is useful, so we concentrate on the effect of our inhalation and exhalation on our nostrils. Much concentration is required to detect the subtle sensation, and this eliminates outside and inside interference. With practice and honing, we become able to achieve lengthy periods of total concentration, and the mind crystallises with this ability.
One has to have achieved a certain evolutionary level in order to be able to concentrate deeply.
Does the ability to concentrate determine a person’s evolutionary status? I believe that the answer is yes, and I believe that this is how we can measure the fact that society is devolving. All indications are that the population is losing its ability to concentrate.
13 Reincarnation
Most authorities on the subject appear to agree that we are reborn many times. One wonders why any doubt remains when one examines the volume of literature on the subject.
The opinions within the common consciousness include: -
Do not know
Non-believer
Possibly
Probably
Certainty
Ability to see the big picture
Those who have never lost consciousness between one rebirth and the next (e.g.Tibetan lamas).
The money-planet revolves around a fundamental level of fear.
The third paradigm that has just ended was about fear and money, and the new fourth paradigm is about love.
Unconditional love is not possible in the presence of fear. Once all fear is overcome and understood to be purely a product of a crippled mind, then we can see how it is possible to love people outside the family in the same way that we love people inside the family.
How can we love all men and women in the same way that we love our spouse - even ugly men, or dogs and pigs and chickens and mosquitoes and trees and bees and everything in the one creation?
In the space/time before we reincarnate as a human being, we decide which lessons we need to learn. Our DNA is programmed with the vibrations necessary to attract these lessons.
Our reason for incarnation is to evolve the soul, and all else is merely ego-amusement.
Nothing happens by chance. All movement of energy, or vibration, is a result of a catalyst, or cause, and our DNA programming acts as a catalyst towards events in our lives.
Circumstances occur which provide us with the opportunity to learn the next lesson in spiritual advancement, and this lesson will keep arising until we learn it. It is up to us whether we learn quickly or slowly from our lessons.
14 The need to demonstrate mastery
The need to demonstrate mastery is innate.
We have to demonstrate our mastery over animals, over the countryside, and over other human beings.
When we grow out of that, we decide that we would like to be master of ourselves, and are able to advance.
Of course, some characters never grow out of the stage of having a need to master others, and they continue to grow with an ever-expanding need to control the planet. The human being has a need to discover its boundaries, and this discovery phase is what teenage rebellion is all about. Teenage rebellion, gently elbowing its ways into society, causes society to evolve.
Therefore, we see the conditioning of our teenagers as the forerunner of the conditioning of society. If absent masters condition our teenagers to be subservient, then it becomes easy for just a few people to condition the whole of society.
Just tiny changes in mental conditioning can retard, or even reverse evolution. The problem of allowing oneself to go within, is that there are resistance factors in the subconscious that are quite aware of the approaching dangers.
We all have this thing called an ego, being a mental construct of our own that decides how we behave and do not behave. We are all capable of adjusting certain parts of our mental construct as and when needed, and therefore, adjusting the way in which we behave.
It is but one small step to view the larger picture, and see that this mental construct is like a cloud that floats around us, and is not a part of us at all. We are able to see that we can leave this dirty yellow shroud behind. By letting it trail on the ground as we walk, and by relaxing and opening our arms and our heart, we allow gravity to create the glue which sticks the shroud to the ground. We turn around after a few paces, and stare at what we have left behind, like a scab off some dirty wound. Then we realise that what remains are tender sore spot that needs careful attention as we birth ourselves into a new uplifted environment.
Some see this shroud as a beast crawling into their canoe, and some see it as rubbish left behind them, dependent on which path they have walked. However, once we have met our beast or left behind our outer skin, we realise that we are all walking the same path and that we ease our progress if we share our adventures. We do not all have to meet everybody's beast, and walk through everybody's rubbish.
There are no beasts, or rubbish ahead of us. We have reached the land of truth, where only real things exist, and the people are not afraid of unreal things.
Being afraid of real things is not a real fear, but merely a prompt to observe more carefully.
15 Daily Catalyst
Each day, we become more adept at processing catalyst, and therefore, each day, we experience more catalyst. We begin to struggle to find sufficient meditation time in which to process our daily catalyst.
Soon we see that much of the catalyst is purely confirmation of earlier work, but improved and more magnificent.
In the next stage, we then learn to extend our new-found knowledge in all directions in order to manifest the total change created by new learnings. By doing this each day, we broaden the scope of our considerations, and along with the increased speed given by the clear out of muck from the mind, we are able to command a much broader view of all-that-there-is.
16 Coloured by the actions
When we have mislaid something, our mind conditioning kicks in, and determines how long it will take us to find the lost object. Sometimes we never find it. As we improve, objects are lost less often, as we become more mindful, and more organised. When objects are lost, they become more serious, because we begin to notice that we have been mindless, which is more important than the mislaid object.
Suddenly we realise that we really are responsible in all ways for everything that happens to us. Our magnetic vibrations have attracted whatever comes. I had read those words a hundred times, and could never understand how it worked, and therefore never truly believed it. Slowly, I think I worked it out.
Placing ourselves in our mind’s eye as if we were a body is what creates the problem. Whenever we picture ourselves doing anything, we see a body. However, we have already learned that we are more than just a body. Now, instead of a body, I picture myself as a rainbow-coloured bubble that can stretch, mould, bend, and twist. This bubble, me, has electro-magnetic properties, which change from time to time and mood to mood.
Everything else that has materialised on this planet is also a rainbow coloured Electro-magnetic bubble, but the more gross objects like rocks and earth reflect only a small section of the spectrum. All human beings have many slightly varying colours, and can be seen to be all the same (a bubble), yet all different, like a snowflake. Imagine yourself, your bubble, you, as it slides along the main street, being attracted to this, and disgusted by that, and moulding to fit between other bubbles travelling in different directions.
The vision is not a difficult one, and with just a little practice, we can superimpose this type of vision over the physical things that we see around us. We are able to see the effects of one energy on another, and to see how the arrival and leaving of a person affects the remaining group. We are also able to see how the reactions of one person are "coloured" by the actions or words of another.
Experiencing these bubbles enables us to see the shade of bubble that indicates the mood and intention of the person travelling inside the bubble.We begin to gain the ability to read the aura of others.
17 Biased
We are now aware that we make our own problems. Even where no problem exists, then we still try to imagine problems, using the intellect in combination with the imagination to try to draw the most fearful scenario.
The reason why we see things as problems is that the media and the presentation of daily information is designed to make us afraid. We begin to see problems everywhere, and rarely see any good in anything.
We know that whatever is under consideration is neither good nor bad; it just is, but it is very difficult for us to feel what we know - or to know what we feel. As soon as we experience something new, we are either pleased by it or displeased, before we have time to make a conscious judgement.
What we show of our emotion is under conscious control, but the initial attraction or repulsion is outside of our physical or mental control.
We base our mental process on comparing one thing with another. When we see something for the first time, we will draw to mind the nearest similar thing that we have previously experienced. We make a comparison of bigger or better or smellier or another judgement of the attribute of the object in question. If the base line to which we are comparing has been shifted to the left or right, away from centre, then our decisions and thought processes will also be biased to the left or right. If we associate with a group of people on a regular basis, then we will begin to share the views of the group. This pulls us either left or right.
The process under way is to push the norm further away from the centre, such that the majority of the population considers the true norm as an extreme. Vaccination is not normal, or natural. Pesticide is not normal or natural.
Governments are not normal or natural. Nation-States are not normal or natural. Yet, most of us now consider them normal and natural.
What is natural?
One who practices right speech, speaks the truth and is steadfast in truthfulness, trustworthy, dependable, straightforward with others. He reconciles the quarrelling and encourages the united. He delights in harmony, seeks after harmony, rejoices in harmony, and creates harmony by his words. His speech is gentle, pleasing to the ear, kindly, heart-warming, courteous, agreeable, and enjoyable to many. He speaks at the proper time, according to the facts, according to what is helpful, according to Dhamma and the Code of Conduct. His words are worth remembering, timely, well-reasoned, well-chosen, and constructive.
(Extract taken from The Art of Living).
18 What are you doing?
"What are you doing?”
"I am entertaining myself"
"So entertainment is important then?"
"I guess so".
"So, if entertaining is important, why be selfish about it?"
"What do you mean?"
"You said that you are entertaining yourself".
"Is it a now a crime to entertain myself?"
"Almost".
As a personality scales the evolutionary heights of many lifetimes, some places along the path have viewing points. From each of these points, one is able to look backwards at the heights already scaled, and one is able to look forwards to the peaks towering ahead. There comes a point very early on the path where we realise that there is no going back. Things will never be the same again. The back door is closed. Changes have taken and are taking place everywhere except in our memory. This is why the memory can be such a dangerous tool; because we remember things how they used to be, which is not of much benefit to a newly evolved situation.
At school, we learn how things used to be as if they are still the same scores of years later. One benefit in going to school is to discover the conditioning of others. By discovering the conditioning of others, we are able to discover our own conditioning. This is the aim of meditation - to help us to examine our own mind, to discover our own pre-conditioning, and to remove it.
At first, we feel that the preconditioned mind is "we" - as if it is a part of our inner selves. Later we find that our inner selves are far subtler than the coarseness of the conditioning of the material world.
We find that many of our habits and personal traits are because we have avoided something, as opposed to making reasoned or sensed choices. Before realising this, we cling to these traits as if we were clinging to our arm, not realising that these very habits and traits are preventing our evolutionary progress.
19 Living here and now
Once we have begun to live in the here-and-now, we are able to see how the conditioning of others causes their judgement to take them in certain directions. Then one can see how one's own judgement has driven one's life in the past. It becomes an easy step to learn how our own judgement has been operating, and once we can see this, we can set about modifying our judgement to a more desirable arrangement.
In other words, by modifying what we presently consider as instinctive reactions, we are able to evolve ourselves.
The first thing to do is to learn about our most instinctive action and reaction - that of breathing.
Playing with the breath.
This exercise is one that we can use every day for the rest of our lives, even if just for a few seconds. All we need is to be in a situation that allows relaxation, preferably seated, with a straight spine.
1 - Make three very deep long breaths, pausing briefly between the in and the out breath, in order to open the chest and heart area.
2 - Consciously allow the body to relax until it feels comfortable, but hold the spine straight. Sitting in a chair is OK if this is the most comfortable position - we are not doing athletics! If we have a weak spine, then we support ourselves against a tree or pillar.
3 - Concentrate totally on breathing as gently, and as little, and as smoothly as possible, with as little effort as possible.
4 - As we feel the waves of relaxation, we go with them, letting every atom of the body relax, using energy only for breathing, and maintaining a straight spine.
5 - Stay there and learn about ourselves!
6 - Decide before starting how many "Stops" we are going to sit for. When we feel that we have had enough, and are about to finish the meditation, we do not finish. We continue, and count this as one "Stop". We now go through a severe test. Can we sit through the pain? The answer is yes, and we manage to do that for the predetermined number of "stops". We do not actually get up and walk about until we have reached our predetermined number of stops. This helps us to stay there for inordinately longer than usual, and brings us immense satisfaction with our progress.
This one works wonders for me.
By sitting for about ten minutes several times per day, we will discover that our lives take a miraculous turn for the better, as more and more reality replaces the illusory life which we presently lead. The Law of Cause and Effect takes on different proportions as we begin to understand the true effect of all of our thoughts, words and deeds.
By taking the time to process catalyst as it is presented, we perfect the process, and are able to process catalyst more rapidly. This is what allows us to see deeper into Cause and Effect and to be more able to control our own thoughts words and deeds.By interfering less in processes beyond our understanding, we are able to observe the processes as intended by The Creator in more detail.
We can see the effect of man, the effect of animals, and the effect of nature.We find that there are less "bummers” and more experiences of joy - we discover that it is possible to learn from pleasurable experiences, as well as the less pleasurable ones.We find it far easier to let things go, as we are dis-attached from anything impermanent.We welcome new situations, new people, and new things, and we leave ourselves open to new vibrations.We find new experiences in everything that is happening around us and we find that we need more time alone in peace to process the catalyst of the day.
Therefore, what we are doing much of the time is meditating, in order to learn about ourselves, so that we may be of more service to others.
QED
20 Final Words
By sitting for about ten minutes several times per day, we will discover that our lives take a miraculous turn for the better, as more and more reality replaces the illusory life which we presently lead.
The Law of Cause and Effect takes on different proportions as we begin to understand the true effect of all of our thoughts, words and deeds.
By taking the time to process catalyst as it is presented, we perfect the process, and are able to process catalyst more rapidly. This is what allows us to see deeper into Cause and Effect and to be more able to control our own thoughts words and deeds.
By interfering less in processes beyond our understanding, we are able to observe the processes as they follow their natural course.
We can see the effect of man, the effect of animals, and the effect of nature.
We find that there are less "bummers" and more experiences of joy - we discover that it is possible to learn from pleasurable experiences, as well as the less pleasurable ones.
We find it far easier to let things go, as we are dis-attached from anything impermanent.
We welcome new situations, new people, and new things, and we leave ourselves open to new vibrations.
We find new experiences in everything that is happening around us and we find that we need more time alone in peace to process the catalyst of the day.
Therefore, what we are doing much of the time is meditating, in order to learn about ourselves, so that we may be of more service to others.
Please see the Find Yourself Series (One published - six more coming.)