Trying to wear Dad's pants. Fake positive thinking vs. real perspective changing.

I asked the great spiritual teacher what to do about feeling like I have no time and no energy to do all the things I want to do, and the great teacher said: "change your psychology." And to elaborate, said, "stay in alignment" (her way of saying stay connected to, aware of, referring to and guided by source, God, spirit, high consciousness, higher vibration, whatever you want to call it).

And 'you are creating this with your thoughts, just stop saying, thinking all the mental chatter about not having time etc.'

I trust this teacher, but this last point is one that often rubs me the wrong way. I hear it bandied around all across the spiritual community. "think positive thoughts, don't let yourself think negative thoughts" and it strikes me as very insincere and weird. It sounds like I'm being asked to pretend that I don't think I'm super busy, which is basically lying to myself. Like trying to ignore a burning building and assuming that will make the fire go away. It sounds like the doublethink of Orson Well's 1986. It just generally seems unhealthy, inauthentic, weird and janky.

That's probably because it often is, in practice. But I'm sure that's not what the teacher would have wanted. There is another way to do it. But it requires the ability to pull back out of your own perspective and realize that your perspective is just one of many, and ultimately no more true than any other perspective. Most of the meaning in our lives (all of it?) comes from us, not some ultimate reality. A person dies and that means things to us that makes us cry. Another person dies and that means things to us that makes us relieved. The difference is not in the act: a person dying, but in the meaning we've attached to it. This person is dear, that person is terrible. This is bad, that is good. The act itself is meaning agnostic. Like a tree falling in a forest with nobody there to hear it. Except instead of "hear" we need to replace it with "give meaning to"

When you really see that, then it is no longer lying to yourself, to drop one perspective and meaning set, in favor of one that creates a preferable experience.

There do seem to be perspectives that are larger, more complete, and thus better models for the world. We function more smoothly, with less effort, and less suffering. We create more love and light in the world. It's not absolute truth, but it is closer to that ineffable light, and so more brightly expresses the qualities of it: love, peace, truth, etc. Like coming closer to the sun and getting more light and warmth.

So, I will try that. The teacher goes one step further, saying, these thoughts you have actually end up creating that reality for you. I suppose that's objectively true. Taking perspectives ends up having self-fulfilling effects. I think she means it even a step further, but that's getting quite far into the realm of "all is just the mind" and though that may be true, and I can intellectually grasp it, it's not quite my experience, so trying to live by it is like the five year old trying to wear dad's pants. kind of awkward, doesn't really fit yet.

OK, thus concludes this months post, only... what, 3 weeks late? I think I'll count anything in the same month as basically on time for this blog.

Until next time, one person who reads this ;D

Now

Even when you are short on time, it is super important to take moments to pause and just appreciate the life you have. You may be dead in twenty seconds, and then all your striving and planning will be for nothing. It seems hopeless or at least frightening, but the solution of the ancients was to do each action as a prayer, as an offering to God. Not just the seemingly important stuff like serving the sick or downtrodden. But even just sweeping the house clean. Making lunch. Ultimately it is all God, so there is no reason to parcel off certain sections and call them holy and the rest secular. God is in every particle, and can be experienced in exquisite beauty at any time. I may take practice, but the possibility is there, so why not at least attempt or practice taking advantage of that fact. No act is small really. It is only minds that are small, and in so being, make the act seem small. Or large, if the mind is that way instead.

This is important for me to remember, as I also strive to be more efficient, to get more done. Even that needs to be done ultimately as an offering to the most high imminent in all, more than as a means to an end. It will work, as a means to an end, but it will be a much richer life, if done in the mindset of journey, rather than destination. As offering, rather than clutching.

Time

I am two months behind.

I am behind in basically everything. I would love an extra two weeks where nothing new was required of me, so I could catch up on everything. But life doesn't tend to give us such things.

I am working on being more efficient, so I need less of that time. I'm working on organizing things better, so what I do takes less time. And I'm setting the intention and goal of leading a life where I do feel like I have plenty of time. Historically, when I do something like that, eventually, I succeed, so, it's exciting and joyful to think about how that will be, when I finally figure it out.

For now, it is nose to the grindstone, with a little extra grind and I try and take some time every now and then to work on improving things so I will eventually get to spaciousness.