BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE TO FLY
A New and Radical Approach
To Spiritual Evolution
By Stephen Davis
Smashwords Edition,
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INTRODUCTION
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Sweet freedom whispered in my ear
You're a butterfly
And butterflies are free to fly
Fly away, high away, bye bye
~ from Someone Saved my Life Tonight,
music by Elton John, lyrics by Bernie Taupin
George had a
problem.
Although he hid it fairly well, George was basically
unhappy. He was feeling unfulfilled; his life had become dull and boring; he
hated his job; he was probably going to be fired soon because of the economic
recession; his relationship with his wife had gone south; he couldn’t
communicate any more with his kids; he had no real life except working, eating,
watching TV, and sleeping; he could count his real friends on one finger; and
he saw no real way of changing anything, of making anything better.
But that wasn’t George’s biggest problem at the moment. His
most pressing concern was that he had begun to walk in his sleep.
One night while George was out sleepwalking, he fell into a
very deep hole. When he woke up, he discovered he was lying on the bottom in
just his pajamas, and there was nothing in the hole except him. He looked up
and saw the morning sky above him, with a few bare branches of trees
overhanging the perfect circle of sunlight at the top. It was early spring, and
there was a chill in the air. He saw no one, but he could hear the faint sound
of voices.
He knew he had to try to get out; but the walls of the hole
were straight and slippery and high, and there was nothing to use for climbing.
Each time he tried, he fell back to the bottom, frustrated. He started crying
out for help.
Suddenly, there was a man’s face peering down at him from
the top of the hole.
“What’s your problem?” the man asked.
“Oh, thank God,” George cried. “I’m stuck down here and
can’t get out!”
“Well, then, let me help,” the man said. “What’s your name?”
“George.”
“Last name?”
“Zimmermann.”
“One ‘n’ or two?”
“Two.”
“I’ll be right back.”
When the face disappeared, George wondered what was so
important about the spelling of his name; and then the man was back.
“This is your lucky day, George! I’m a billionaire, and I’m
feeling generous this morning.”
The man let go of a small piece of paper he was holding in
his hand and it floated slowly down into the hole. George caught it and looked
up again. The man was gone.
George stared at the piece of paper. It was a check for a
thousand dollars, made out in his name.
“What the hell? Where am I going to spend this down here?”
he thought to himself. He folded it and put it in his pajama pocket.
Then he heard another voice coming.
“Please help me,” George yelled to the empty space at the
top.
A second man’s face appeared, a kind and compassionate face.
“What can I do for you, my son?”
George could see the man’s clerical collar as he leaned over
the edge.
“Father, help me get out of this hole… please.”
“My son….” The voice was soft and loving. “I must perform
mass at the church in five minutes, so I can’t stop now. But we will say a
special prayer for you today.” Then he reached into his pocket. “Here, this
will help,” and he dropped a book into the hole before leaving.
George picked up the Bible, studied it and tried to imagine
any possible way to use it to get out of the hole. Eventually he gave up and
tossed it aside.
The next passerby was a woman. When she understood George’s
predicament, she threw down some organic vegetables, along with vitamins and
herbal supplements.
“Eat only these,” she said.
George put them in a pile on top of the Bible.
A doctor stopped and donated a few bottles of the sample
medications he was being paid to peddle that week.
A lawyer came by and talked for a while about suing the city
for not putting a fence around the hole. He left his card.
A politician promised to pass a law to protect sleepwalkers
if George would vote for him in the election tomorrow, assuming he could get
out of the hole.
By this time George had taken a seat on the bottom of the
hole, shivering slightly from the chill, starting to give up hope that anyone
would help him get out. He felt lonely, helpless, and a little fearful. He
moved the drugs aside, picked up an organic banana off the pile and took a
bite.
“I can help you get out.”
He heard a strong, convincing, powerful female voice. He
wasn’t quite sure…. Did he recognize that voice? Had he seen her on TV or
something?
“You just need to let go of all your negative thinking,
learn to visualize, and then use the ‘Law of Attraction’.”
“But that’s exactly what I’m doing – trying to attract
someone to help to get out of this hole!” George protested.
“You must not be doing it right,” came the response.
She tossed something thin and square that landed at George’s
feet.
George yelled up to her, “But… wait!” There was no one there
to answer.
He picked up the DVD, still shrink-wrapped, and stared at
the cover. The Teachings of Abraham Master Course DVD Program.
“At least you could have thrown down a portable DVD player,”
he said quietly, to no one in particular.
In a little while a Zen Buddhist sat down in a lotus
position at the edge of the hole, wanting to teach George to meditate. “If
nothing else,” the Master said, “if you practice long enough, you’ll feel
better about being in the hole. Who knows, you might even be able to levitate
your way out in a few lifetimes.”
George was about to resign himself to being in this hole
forever when he heard the voice.
“Can you move over a few feet, out of the way?”
George looked up. “What?”
“Could you please move away from the center of the hole?”
George stood up and took a few steps back toward the side.
“Why?” he was about to ask, when the man jumped into the hole, landing at
George’s feet.
“Are you crazy?” George exclaimed as the man got up and
brushed himself off. “Now we’re both in this hole together. Couldn’t you just
throw me a rope or a ladder or something?”
The man looked at him gently. “They don’t work.”
“How do you know?” George asked incredulously.
“I’ve been here before, and I know the way out.”
* * *
I assume you’re asking for help, or you wouldn’t be reading
this book. Something’s not right in your life and you want to change it.
So I’m about to jump into your hole, but not because I feel
any desire or obligation to help anyone. Helping someone else is one of the
biggest traps anyone can get caught in.
I also have no intention of becoming a teacher – yours or
anyone else’s – or a guru, or a mentor, or a coach, or someone who pretends to
have any or all of the answers.
If you want, you can think of me as a “scout” – like a scout
on a wagon train in the Old West, whose job it was to ride ahead looking for a
way over the Rocky Mountains to reach the Pacific Ocean, finding a path for
others to follow with relative safety and security against the elements and the
Indians.
I’m not the only scout out there, and I don’t claim to have
reached the ocean yet. But I’m the only one who has taken this particular
route, which turned out to be a very effective way to go and safe enough for me
to return to talk about it.
On my journey, I explored some very radical territory and
collected a lot of information about which paths work and don’t work that might
benefit someone else. That’s the main reason I’m writing this book, to pass on
that information, knowing there are others – not that many, but some – who want
to go where I’m going and where I’ve been. Maybe you’re one of them.
You hired me to be your scout (whether you’re conscious of
it or not), but you should know that it doesn’t matter to me what you think
about this information, or what you do with it. You can take it or leave it. My
only job – and my total joy – is to report back to you what I’ve found.
So I’m jumping into your hole because it seems like fun and
in alignment with what the universe has in store for me at the moment.
However, maybe you don’t want me in your hole. You should
really think about this. If you keep reading, there will come a point where
there’s no turning back. In a way, switching metaphors, it will be like
climbing Mt. Everest. The journey can be very difficult, physically and
emotionally; and it takes a while.
As I said, I’m not yet at the summit, but it’s in sight.
I’ve reached a point high enough along the way that the appreciation, the joy,
the peace, the serenity of being are already beyond expectation. What I know
with certainty – and confirmed for the most part by eye-witness reports from
other scouts – is that arriving at the peak is definitely worth the effort of
getting there.
You may or may not want to go all the way. I will let you
know when we reach the place where you can only go on and not back.
On the other hand, you may decide you don’t want to leave
your hole at all. If so, you should stop reading now. There is nothing “wrong”
with your staying there. You’ll have enough money and good organic food and
books to read and DVDs to watch and drugs to take to keep you occupied and
entertained.
It’s your choice.
THE MOVIE THEATER
METAPHOR
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This is the only radical thinking that you need to
do.
But it is so radical, it is so difficult,
because our tendency is that the world is already
“out there,”
independent of my experience. It is not.
Quantum physics has been so clear about it.
- Dr. Amit Goswami
PREFACE TO PART ONE
There are three
things you should know before we begin our journey across the Rocky Mountains….
ONE: Although this book carries a copyright, you are
hereby granted permission to print it, copy it, share it, give it away to anyone
else, quote it, do anything you want with it – except you cannot sell any part
or the whole book, or make money from it in any way, or assist anyone else in
making money from it in any way. I feel very strongly that the information in
this book should always be available for free to anyone who wants to read it.
TWO: It seems many scouts encounter things that are
hard to explain when they return to the group. It’s not easy trying to get
people to understand something they have never directly experienced.
So from time to time I will use quotations from other sources.
These quotes are not there to prove I am “right” just because someone else whose
name you might recognize said the same thing. They are included mainly to try
to further explain a concept which can be difficult to grasp and offer another
viewpoint using words different than mine which you may relate to more easily.
With very few exceptions, all the quotes and
many other references have footnotes to give you the opportunity to check out
my sources for yourself. Simply click on the purple footnote number and that
will take you to the footnote which will contain an active Internet link. If
you want, you can then click on the Internet link to go directly to the source
material in your Internet browser. Then click on the word “reading” in the
footnote to return to the point you were reading in the text and continue. Try
it here by clicking on the number1
There are also links embedded in the text to various videos
to watch as you read. As usual, click on the purple hyperlink. I have also
included some Hollywood movie suggestions at the end of a few chapters from
time to time. These movies are not supposed to be viewed as perfect examples of
the information you just read, but close enough to the subject matter to be
interesting and pertinent as well as entertaining.
THREE: People apparently learn
most easily when they can compare something new to something they already
understand, called by some a “datum of comparable magnitude.”2
For example, if I were to try to tell you about a new game I
saw while I was out scouting called “Blat-Blop,” and suggest you might enjoy
playing it, you’d most likely have many questions before being willing to
engage and ask for further explanation.
But Blat-Blop cannot be explained directly. It’s different
than anything other game known to man. So what do I do?
I tell you that Blat-Blop is like American football, except
there’s no ball and no goal posts.
Now, at least, you have some idea of what I’m talking about,
as crazy and incomprehensible as it sounds. Your mind probably pictures a bunch
of men running around a field all dressed up in heavy pads and helmets, which
is true in Blat-Blop; but you still have no idea what they’re doing or why.
When I said “Blat-Blop is like American football,” I was
using a simile, comparing two different things to create a new meaning.
There’s something else called a metaphor. A metaphor
is a figure of speech using one thing to mean another and makes a comparison
between the two. For example, Shakespeare's line, "All the world's a
stage," is a metaphor comparing the whole world to a theater stage. A metaphor
is a lot like a simile, but without the direct comparative wording. We could
turn Shakespeare’s metaphor into a simile by adding the word “like”: All the
world is like a stage.
On the other hand, an analogy shows similarity
between things that might seem different – much like an extended metaphor or
simile. But analogy isn't just a form of speech. It can also be a logical
argument: if two things are alike in some ways, they are alike in some other
ways as well. Analogy is often used to help provide insight by comparing an
unknown subject to one that is more familiar.
Then there is something called an allegory, which is
a one-to-one comparison or substitution of something figurative for something
literal. While this is very similar to a metaphor, allegories are usually more
subtle and a lot more involved, taking up entire books and pieces of art.
I say all of this for two reasons.
First, I’m forced to use a lot of similes, metaphors, and
analogies in this book – and begin the book with an allegory – to try to
explain what I’ve seen as a scout that is difficult at times to describe, and
very new in many cases. I wish there were words and ways to say exactly what
I’ve found without having to make these comparisons, but there aren’t. It’s
that simple.
Secondly, I apparently have a small brain malfunction. (Maybe
it’s the mad cow.) Despite all previous efforts and diligent study, and the
definitions and differentiation I wrote above between metaphor and analogy,
I still can’t tell the difference. So I warn you right now – and any English
teachers who may be reading – that I might confuse those two words. If you
wish, any such error can simply be chalked up to my personal weakness in this
area.
Just be prepared for a lot of metaphors and analogies,
whichever they may be.
Like…
FOOTNOTES
PLATO’S CAVE
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Imagine that
for your entire life you have been sitting in a chair in a movie theater. The
place is dark, like all movie theaters; but you can feel…
No… wait! Before we go there…
There’s a famous allegory called “Plato’s Cave,” written of
course by Plato. It’s a fictional conversation between Plato’s teacher,
Socrates, and Plato’s brother, Glaucon; and, essentially, the first part of the
allegory goes like this…
Socrates asks Glaucon to imagine a cave inhabited by
prisoners who have been chained and held immobile since childhood. Not only are
their arms and legs held in place, but their heads are also fixed so all they
can see is a wall directly in front of them. Behind the prisoners is a large
fire, and between the fire and the backs of the prisoners is a raised walkway.
As people and animals travel over the walkway between the
fire and the backs of the prisoners, the light from the fire casts their
shadows on the wall in front of the prisoners. The prisoners can only see the
shadows, but they don’t know they are shadows.
There are also echoes off the wall from the noises produced
on the walkway. The prisoners can only hear the echoes, but they don’t know
they are echoes.
Socrates asks Glaucon if it is not reasonable that the
prisoners would think the shadows were real things, and the echoes were real sounds,
not just reflections of reality, since they are all the prisoners had ever seen
or heard.
Socrates next introduces something new into
this scenario. Suppose, Socrates surmises, a prisoner is freed and permitted to
stand up and move around. If someone were to show him the actual things that
had cast the shadows and caused the echoes – the fire, and the people and
animals on the walkway – he would not know what they were and not recognize
them as the cause of the shadows and sound; he would still believe the shadows
on the wall to be more real than what he sees.1
The allegory goes on, but I want to stop here. (If you are
interested, you can watch a three-minute animated video at PlatosAllegory.com).
Now…
Imagine that for your entire life you have been sitting in a
chair in a movie theater. The place is dark, like all movie theaters; but you
can feel there are restraints – shackles – over your wrists and ankles, making
it difficult to move your arms or legs. The back of your chair is high, rising
above your head so it is impossible to look behind you. All you can see is the
movie screen in front of you and the people sitting next to you in the same
condition.
In front of you, sweeping around on all sides of the theater
as far as you can see, is a gigantic IMAX 3D screen. You sit there watching
movie after movie, and it seems as if you’re part of the movie itself, fully
immersed in it. (Click here for Woody Allen’s example of a total immersion
movie, from The
Purple Rose of Cairo.)
Like the shadows and echoes in Plato’s Cave, these movies
are all you have ever known. They are, in fact, your only reality, your life.
The actors are good and the scripts well-written, and you
get emotionally involved in these movies, feeling anger, pain, sadness, regret,
joy, enthusiasm, antagonism, fear, and a wide range of other emotions depending
on the storyline. You have your favorite characters – family members and
friends, for example – who show up often, and others you despise and wish would
not appear at all.
Some movies are pleasurable to watch, even beautiful at
times – happy, poignant, satisfying, enjoyable. Others are dark and ominous,
disturbing, painful, producing reactions inside you which aren’t very comfortable.
You resist watching those and wish you didn’t feel what you were feeling. You
close your eyes at times, wanting the script to change.
But you’re content to stay there and watch, because you’ve
been told – and have come to believe from experience – this is the only reality
there is, and you have to accept it.
The vast majority of people – 95% of the Earth’s population,
if I had to guess, maybe more – will die sitting in that movie chair.
For the others, something interesting will happen one day.
In a particularly uncomfortable movie, you might scream
“No!” and forcefully twist your body in the chair. Suddenly you’re aware that
you no longer feel the shackles on your wrists and ankles, and you realize you
can now move your arms and legs. You use your hands to feel around and discover
the shackles had no locks on them – ever – and your panicked movements simply
pried them open. All along you had just assumed – believed – you were a
prisoner, like a dog who stays clear of an invisible fence.
You wonder what to do next. You realize you no longer have
to sit there and watch the movies if you don’t want to. You could get up; but
you don’t, not right away. You might lean over to the person next to you and
start telling them there are no locks on the shackles, but all you get is a
“Sshhhh” in response.
The fear of standing up is enormous; the thought of walking
away goes against everything you have been taught. Finally – maybe it’s
curiosity, maybe it’s anger, maybe it’s just that you can no longer stand to
feel what you’re feeling – you decide “to hell with the fear.” You get up. Nothing
happens. No sirens go off, no one comes to make you sit down again, and you
begin to think maybe there was nothing to be afraid of.
So you decide to walk. As you move down the row toward the
aisle, saying “Excuse me, excuse me,” people look at you in astonishment and
wonder and dismay. Some even tell you to sit back down, get out of the way,
behave. It’s clear they all think you’re crazy. But there’s something inside of
you that feels excited despite the fear and urges you on.
Finally you make it to the aisle, turn and see that it leads
up between the seats; but you can’t yet see the rear of the theater. What is
clearer now is that the movie screen continues all the way around the building,
360 degrees; and hanging down from the ceiling in the middle of the theater is
a large black ball. Out of the ball very bright light is streaming toward the
screen on all sides. You have no idea what it is, or what it means.
As you walk up the aisle, you bump into a couple other
people going in your direction, and some others returning to their seats. The
ones heading back to their seats give you a dirty look, almost hateful, mainly
terrified, and someone warns you not to go any further. But you’ve gone this
far, you think, and decide you want to find out what’s at the end of the aisle.
When you finally make it to the back, you can see the entire
design of the circular theater. In one half are the seats from where you came,
all facing in one direction, filled with people staring straight ahead at the
movie screens; and behind the seats is a large space where people like you are
walking around. You also see a door in the middle of the far wall with a sign
saying, “Do Not Enter – Extremely dangerous.”
Since the IMAX 3D screen continues all the way around the
structure, there’s no way to escape the movies that are playing. In other
words, your reality, your life follows you everywhere. But something’s
different, even if you can’t say what at the moment. The movies haven’t
changed, but you have, in some way you can feel but don’t yet understand.
There seem to be little groups of people gathering here and
there – others like you who had gotten out of their chairs and made it to the
back – discussing something that sounds important. It’s all so new, so strange,
so difficult to understand, so frightening, so… “unreal.” You think for a
minute about going back to your seat, back to the reality you know so well.
Then you decide not to, to stay a little longer, at least for now.
You stop for a moment at the back of one group and ask,
“What’s going on?”
“We’re trying to change things,” is the answer.
“What do you mean?” you ask.
“We don’t like the movies that are playing. We want
different ones,” the voice clarifies.
While seated in the movie theater, you never considered the
idea of changing the movies. You didn’t know it was possible. But now it’s an
interesting thought, and you admit there were movies you wish you hadn’t had to
be part of, aspects of your life you would have preferred not to watch and
experience.
You eavesdrop on another group in time to hear a man say,
“Yes, this is reality. But there’s a better place we will all go to when we
die, if you just have faith and follow a few simple rules….”
There’s a Guru in the next group admonishing his followers,
“Yes, we can leave this reality, but we must all go together. Have compassion
for those left watching the movies….”
As you continue your trek around the back of the movie
theater, you catch bits and pieces of other comments, like “This doesn’t have
to be your reality. You have the power to change it, and I can show you how;”
and “Love is all there is;” and “Quiet your mind.”
In all the confusion, it finally occurs to you for the first
time that you have the choice of what to do next, and it feels exciting as well
as scary, because you’ve just taken the first step toward self-responsibility
and self-realization.
* * *
Once again, let’s stop here for a minute.
In Books Two and Three of his Enlightenment Trilogy,
Jed McKenna makes the distinction between a “Human Child” and a “Human Adult.”
This idea is worth playing with, especially in light of our Movie Theater
Metaphor.
First of all, being a Human Child or a Human Adult has
virtually no relationship to physical age. The vast majority of the world’s
population are Human Children, most of them older than twenty.
“Most human beings cease to
develop at around the age of ten or twelve. The average seventy year-old is
often a ten year-old with sixty years time-in-grade…. We must learn to see the
difference between a Human Adult and a Human Child as easily and unmistakably
as we see the difference between a sixty year-old and a six year-old. … Our
societies are of, by, and for Human Children, which explains the
self-perpetuating nature of this ghoulish malady, as well as most of the silliness
we see in the world.”2
Human Children are the ones sitting in their chairs in the
movie theater. They might complain a lot about the movies they’re watching, but
they continue to watch without doing anything about it. They’re convinced they
are kept in their seats by some powerful, external force, and that they are
helpless to change anything. In fact, they believe the thing that needs to
change is “out there” – someone or something they have no control over. Even
voting is an act of a Human Child, a statement that change is only possible by
changing “them.” They’re convinced the movies they’re watching are “reality,” life
as it has to be; and they take no responsibility for their condition.
Some Human Children might actually have discovered their
shackles were not locked and they were free to stand up and walk whenever they
wanted. Perhaps a few might have stood, even fewer took a few steps toward the
aisle. But the fear soon becomes overwhelming, and back they go to their seats
to put their shackles on again, comforted by the fact they are in such good and
plentiful company.
“Human Childhood is the ego-bound
state. It is, in [actual] human children, a healthy and natural state. In human
adults, however, it’s a hideous affliction. The only way such an affliction
could go undetected and unremedied is if everyone were equally afflicted, which
is exactly the case. No problem is recognized and no alternative is known, so
no solution is sought and no hope for change exists.”3
Many people are happy to spend their entire lives as Human
Children, settled into their chairs, immersed in their movies; and I’m not
trying to suggest there is anything “wrong” with that. There isn’t. It’s
exactly how it should be for them, and there is no reason at all to try to
change their minds or make them into Human Adults, as we will discuss later.
But I assume you’re not one of them, or you wouldn’t be
reading this book. You’ve stood up, made your way to the back of the movie theater,
and started to behave like a Human Adult. This book is for you – about you –
not them.
* * *
In Plato’s Cave, the Human Adult is the freed prisoner who
now stands behind the rest, sees the fire and the men walking, casting shadows
on the wall. But, as Socrates points out, the shadows still represent
“reality,” and the fire and men and animals on the walkway remain some kind of
unexplained mystery.
At a minimum, a Human Adult has become aware there is
something “wrong” with the life it has been experiencing through the total
immersion movies and is not willing to accept that “reality” at face value any
more. In the classic 1976 movie Network, news-anchor Howard Beale
expresses what a number of new Human Adults feel when he rants, “I’m mad as
hell and I’m not going to take it any more!”
A Human Child lives in ignorance, thinking they are awake
with their eyes open when in fact they are sound asleep with their eyes closed.
A new Human Adult has taken the first step of opening their eyes, even though
they are still asleep and do not understand what they are now seeing.
Just so no one gets confused, Human Adulthood is not the
state of so-called “spiritual enlightenment,” although it’s what most “seekers”
are actually looking for and most “gurus” are actually selling. (We’ll talk
more about this later as well.)
“The difference between Adulthood
and Enlightenment is that the former is awakening within the
dreamstate and the latter is awakening from it…. Shallow,
early-stage Adulthood is often mistaken for, and sold as, Spiritual
Enlightenment, but it’s not. It’s just the first real glimpse of life.”4
Have you ever had a dream in which you wake up and realize
it’s just a dream, but you’re actually still dreaming and never really woke up,
that waking up in the dream was part of the dream itself? That’s what Jed is
talking about. A Human Child is asleep and dreaming, but thinks it's awake and
thinks the dreams are real. A Human Adult is asleep and dreaming and wakes up
as part of the dream, but doesn't wake up from the dream itself. Like a Human
Child, it thinks it's awake, but it's really not.
The next step – actually waking up from the dream – is what
this book is about.
Being a Human Adult is not a “bad” way to spend your life,
especially if you compare it to Human Childhood. But it does have its limits.
As a Human Adult, you might be able to figure out how to
better cope with the movies coming at you that define your life. There are all
kinds of groups in the back of the theater claiming to be able to teach you
various methods of filtering or improving or avoiding or denying or processing
or dealing with the emotions that arise as a result of your immersion in your
reality. We’re going to look closely at some of these groups in the next chapter.
But becoming a Human Adult is not the end; it’s really just
the beginning.
* * *
I don’t know whether it’s helpful to remember when you
transitioned from a Human Child to a Human Adult, getting up from your chair in
the movie theater. Stories abound about life-changing car accidents, sudden and
unexpected divorces, the loss of a loved one, a near-death experience,
drug-induced glimpses of another world, and the like.
For me, it was very clear.
I was in my second semester at a small
southern college, saying I wanted to become a doctor, but actually more
interested in philosophy and religion. Two years prior a friend of mine in high
school had recommended a book called There is a River: The Story of Edgar
Cayce, by Thomas Sugrue.5 One day during the
semester break at college, I suddenly remembered it while browsing through a
bookstore in New York City.
Back at school I cut classes for a week and read and re-read
that book. It blew my mind. Until then, I had been asleep – sound asleep. My
childhood and teenage years were spent being “normal,” like everyone else.
Well, maybe my family was slightly more dysfunctional than most; but still, I
was seated in my chair, watching the movies, experiencing all the discomfort,
wishing things “out there” would change, and trying to find as much pleasure as
I could to compensate for the pain.
There is a River ended with about 30 pages of
philosophy from what are called Cayce’s “Life Readings.” It talked about the
origin and destiny of humanity ("All souls were created in the
beginning, and are finding their way back to whence they came.");
about reincarnation and astrology; about universal laws (“As ye judge
others, so shall ye be judged."); about meditation and extrasensory
perception; about body, mind and spirit ("Spirit is the life. Mind is
the builder. Physical is the result."); about Atlantis and Earth
changes; and about the unknown life of Jesus, whom Cayce called our “elder
brother.”
My life changed overnight, in the same way Cayce predicted
one day northern Europe would change “as in the twinkling of an eye.” My
fraternity brothers didn’t know what to do with me. For one thing, I stopped
eating pork, which had been my favorite meal and I would literally live for
Wednesdays when pork chops were served for lunch at the frat house. I also
spent the next summer working for Cayce’s son, Hugh Lynn, at the Association
for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach.
I stayed in school another year after reading the book,
although I stopped going to classes. As one cleaning woman once told me, “Don’t
worry about it none! What they’re teaching you here ain’t right anyway.” I was
now a Human Adult, although I would need time to adjust to my new
surroundings.
The consequences of getting up and walking to the back of
the movie theater seemed overwhelming for me. My mother, of course, was against
it. So was my girlfriend. I would be wasting a lot of money already spent on an
education and maybe never get a diploma. I would most certainly never become a
doctor. I had no idea of what I would do next, no prospects on the horizon. I
would be leaving all my friends and a life that contained some moments of joy
and pleasure for… what?
And perhaps most critically at the time, I would lose my
college deferment and be subject to the draft, most likely ending up as a
soldier in Vietnam, a war I opposed from the beginning.
In the end, however, my discontent and discomfort with
sitting in my chair in the movie theater won out over the fear of leaving it.
FOOTNOTES
JOINING TOGETHER
Back to the Table of Contents
New Human
Adults who have just made it to the back of the movie theater will usually
display some common personality traits.
First, they begin to understand there are possibilities that
were inconceivable to them as a Human Child. Even their freedom to walk around
is a new sensation that takes some getting used to. Being up and out of their
seats has given them new hope and new energy. They don’t necessarily understand
what’s happening, but it excites them to find out, to exercise this freedom and
explore these possibilities.
Secondly, anger might come to the surface for all the time
they spent sitting in their chairs as a Human Child – anger and resentment
toward those who had put and kept them there. It doesn’t matter that the shackles
were never locked; there can still be the feeling of having been a victim of
external forces, for it’s way too soon for a new Human Adult to take full
responsibility for their condition as a Human Child.
Next might come defiance, a determination never to go back
to their seat. They could if they wanted; it’s not too late. But like the freed
prisoner in Plato’s Cave, it’s seems unimaginable for a new Human Adult to
consider voluntarily returning to their shackles, chained to their seats,
seeing nothing again except the movies playing out in front of them. “I’ll be
damned if I’m going back there,” although some eventually do.
And fourthly, they make a decision to change things. What
they decide to change – themselves, or what’s “out there” – can depend on a lot
of factors; but their defeatist attitude of “can’t change things” as a
Human Child becomes an overwhelming obsession of “must change things” as
a Human Adult. The movies that make up their life are still playing all around
them, the 3D pictures enveloping them, immersing them, coming at them from all
angles; and they still view these movies as the only “reality” there is, like
the shadows on the cave wall. They also have virtually the same emotional
reactions they’ve always had to the movies, which reinforces their need to
re-write the scripts.
As a new Human Adult, you most likely experienced at least
one or two of these feelings, if not all of them.
A fairly good example of this was the
Hippie Movement. The Vietnam War playing out on the movie screen was the
catalyst that led a lot of Human Children to stand up and shout “No!” As they
walked to the back of the theater (they called it “dropping out”), they soon
discovered there were other possibilities of how to live and began
experimenting with their new-found freedom. There was anger about the war and
the people in charge who were making the movies. There was a defiance to no
longer be part of that movie; and there was a decision to make things change. “We
Can Make It Better, We Can Change the World Now, We Can Save the Children, We
Can Make It Happen,” sang Chicago in 1972.1
As far as I can tell, the Vietnam War/Hippie Movement of the
late 1960’s and early ‘70’s provided the incentive for more new Human Adults
than any other event in recent history. Young people by the thousands stood up
in their chairs and started walking out. The Movement died fairly quickly; but
a lot of people woke up swearing never again to return to their seats, and it
left a huge legacy in the back of the movie theater.
The Hippie Movement is also a good example of another common
trait of a new Human Adult – the longing to be part of a group. In many cases,
it’s more than a longing; it’s a necessity. After all, you’ve spent your entire
life surrounded by other Human Children and took comfort in being part of the
group. In all the strangeness and newness of the back of the theater, you now seek
solace and support as a Human Adult; you search for others wanting to change the
same things you do; you start looking around for a new group to join.
Fortunately the back of the movie theater is full of groups
consisting of Human Adults who have found others of like mind and banded
together for a common cause. Perhaps you might wander around for a little while
first, standing on the edge of various gatherings, listening, seeing if you
agree with what’s being said by the leader, looking for just the right one. But
very soon, you join one of them. You must. You feel too alone and you need
camaraderie, other people around you who will let you know you’re not crazy to
have left your seat, new friends who will help you change things.
* * *
The year I stayed in college after reading There is a
River, I passed the time playing golf, playing bridge, and going to frat
parties. In other words, I spent a year roaming around the back of the theater,
just trying to escape the movies somehow.
Shortly after my twentieth birthday I
joined my first group and participated in the creation of a musical
extravaganza to become known as Up With People.2
The idea was to change the world through music and an ideology called Moral Re-Armament.3
Moral Re-Armament was based on a certain
level of self-responsibility, believing the movies – the world, life, reality –
could change if everyone would adhere to a strict moral code of absolute love,
absolute purity, absolute honesty, and absolute unselfishness. It was our duty
to live that way ourselves, and then go out and get everyone else to live that
way as well. We decided to present our cause through a highly entertaining and
professional musical, couching our morality in clever and catchy song lyrics
such as “Freedom Isn’t Free” and “What Color Is God’s Skin?”4
For almost two years I gave it all I had,
24/7/365; and I had a hell of a lot of fun and did things and saw places and
had experiences that were way over the top. I still have many friends from
those days, and some of the lyrics and music Up With People created were
very powerful. “Coming Home,” “Where the Roads Come Together,” and “Moon Rider”5 will probably always move me to tears of joy and
appreciation for this time of my life and this group.
It was so much fun that I was able to
overlook the glaring inconsistencies and errors in groupthink.6 For example, in 1966 I was the only one who was against
the war out of hundreds directly involved in the program, even in the light of
“absolute love.”
But as was inevitable in those days, I was drafted and
offered an all-expenses-paid, one-year-long tour of beautiful downtown Vietnam as an Army medic in 1969 – which means I missed Woodstock. I also missed out on the
drug scene. In fact, I was in uniform for the major part of the Hippie Movement,
which would have been a very interesting group to join had I been able.
Basically, I had three choices when I was drafted,
considering my opposition to the war. One, I could flee the country and go to Canada or Sweden, remaining as a Human Adult and joining the group of other young men doing
the same. But I was afraid I might never be able to return to the U.S.A., a country I loved and did not want to leave forever.
My second choice was to go to jail as a war resister, again remaining
as a Human Adult and joining a group of other young men also choosing incarceration
to being a soldier. But I was afraid in this case I would lose the support of
my girlfriend and my mother and other friends who simply could not or would not
understand. This choice also generated many very big questions about how this
jail time could affect my future.
So in the end, and based on my fears, I voluntarily gave up being
a Human Adult, left Up With People, went back to my seat in the theater,
became a Human Child once more, and spent the next three years immersed in a
war movie. The minute I was honorably discharged, I bolted out of my seat again
and ran to the back of the movie theater.
Lying on my bunk in Vietnam I had made a decision not to
return to Up With People when I got out of the Army, but to get elected
President of the United States instead. As President, I figured I could really
make some changes; so I joined a political group, starting my career by getting
elected to the Arizona state senate at the age of twenty-eight. However, one
term as a senator was all I needed to realize that not only did this group have
no chance of changing anything, but that government the way it is practiced
today is actually the cause of most of the problems in the first place and the
thing that requires changing the most.
I ran for re-election anyway, not knowing what else to do;
but I made sure I lost with some conscious decisions that could have no other
outcome, like dropping my affiliation with any major party and running as an
Independent, not campaigning, and taking a woman who was not my wife to the
Grand Canyon in full public view.
I nearly won despite it all; but late on election night, as
it became clear I would lose, my friends started to file out of the hotel room
where we were watching the returns, expressing their condolences and even
crying for my loss. I tried hard to look disappointed, but inside I was
relieved and happy as I could be.
That’s when I realized there was something wrong with me
I should probably address before continuing to try to change the world. I had
just thrown away a brilliant political career as the new “darling” of the
Arizona Republican Party, and yet I was utterly thrilled with the outcome.
That, to me, was completely illogical and inexplicable.
So I started looking for an explanation, searching the back
of the theater for a group who could help me understand, and ended up joining
one of the most controversial and radical groups I could find: the Church of
Scientology. It didn’t take long to make my way to the top, as an OT6 and a
Commodore’s Staff Aide to L. Ron Hubbard. I will talk more about this
experience in a different context a little later. For now, all I want to say is
that my stint with the Church lasted less than two years.
* * *
This can be quite common among Human Adults, to go from one
group to another, staying only a limited time. In the last forty years, since
the Hippie Movement and the resulting large influx of new Human Adults, more
and more groups have sprung up with a wide variety of different approaches and
techniques for changing things; so when one group turns out to be
unsatisfactory for some reason, another one is always there waiting for you.
Today the back of the theater is overflowing with them, and I want to take a
closer look at some of these groups and their characteristics.
In general we can say the basic difference between a Human
Child and a Human Adult is the demand for change, coupled with a
self-determined action on the part of the Human Adult. Human Children might complain
about the movies and their predicament, but they will never do anything about
it, paralyzed instead by fear.
Therefore, for a group to last any length of time in the
back of the theater, they must cater to and satisfy the Human Adult’s need to
be part of a group and their obsession to change things. So they all promise
certain very specific things to their followers…
1. They claim they can teach a Human Adult how to change the
content of the movies they are watching – how to change their life, their
reality – OR
2. They claim they can teach a Human Adult how to change
their emotional reactions to the movies they are watching, even if they can’t
change the movies themselves – AND
3. They claim their followers will be happier, more
prosperous, more loving, more peaceful, more wise, more powerful, more of
everything “good” if they follow the group’s instructions.
It’s not possible to talk about all of the individual groups
– there are far too many of them – but there is some value in looking at a few
of the general categories you have to choose from.
First, there are the “Activists.” These are
the groups whose intent is to change the movies themselves by actually doing
something: animal activists, environmental activists, political activists,
social activists, black activists, human rights activists, consumer activists,
women’s activists, peace activists, intentional communities, Save the Whales,
Save the Children, Save the Planet, and so on. For example, over the last fifty
years there have been more than eighty anti-nuclear groups operating in the United States alone.7
Then there is a category I will call “altered states of
consciousness.” In this group you can find meditation, hypnotherapy, breathing
techniques, yoga, prayer, the 12-Step programs, all kinds of prescription and
illegal drugs, biofeedback, stress management, laughter therapy, tantric sex,
and more. The goal of all these groups is to change the way you view your
movies – your life, your reality – by changing your awareness, or in some
cases, by escaping the movies entirely through greater unconsciousness.
The third major category is the New Age, which includes a
whole slew of yogis, shamans, swamis, and gurus, along with meditation,
Abraham, The Secret, the “Law of Attraction,” A Course in Miracles,
HeartMath, dolphin-assisted therapy, light and color therapy, Reiki, Emotional
Freedom Technique, Electromagnetic Field Balancing (EMF), magnetic field
therapy, Thought Field Therapy, Psych-K, channeling, Native American teachings,
and the list goes on seemingly forever. These groups attempt to give you some
sort of control over your life by offering techniques, ceremonies, and rituals
designed to produce an alternative reality, if used correctly – to change your
perception about your reality.
And then there are the “Eternal Bliss
Seekers,” which can also be called the “Heart-Centered Approach,” touting
meditation, positive thinking, compassion, salvation, love, happiness,
abundance, prosperity, goodness, beauty, mindfulness, inner tranquility, peace
on earth and good will toward men. The basic idea of these groups is that “negativity
is bad computer programming”8 that can be removed
through “a powerful journey of the heart in which we come to understand the
role each of us plays in creating the life – and the world – we long to live
in, the one perfectly designed to help us live in happiness, fulfillment, and
bliss.”9
(You’ll notice that “meditation” appears in each of the last
three groups. It’s the technique of choice for many Human Adults – ancient, but
very popular these days – and offered as part of the agenda of a number of
different groups with different goals – like a cure-all.)
* * *
To be clear and complete, I also need to mention some groups
you won’t find in the back of the theater. For example, you won’t find
groups representing the world’s major religions – Christianity, Islam,
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism (which comprise about three-quarters of the
world’s population). Instead, they are part of the movies playing out on the
screen. While these religions might pay lip service to greater happiness in the
“here and now,” their underlying and ultimate message is that their followers
should not expect any real improvement in their lives – any real change in
their reality – while alive, but focus on adhering to various rules and
regulations of beliefs and behaviors with the hope of being rewarded later –
most typically after they die. This kind of message is perfect for the Human
Children sitting glued to their chairs, but not at all acceptable to a Human
Adult who wants change NOW!
That doesn’t mean there are no Human Adults involved in
these major religions. There are, some. Often they are kind and loving and
compassionate and well-intentioned, and have chosen to go back into the seated
portion of the theater to minister to the Human Children.
What you more commonly find in the back of
the theater are splinter groups of these religions – much smaller clusters of
Human Adults who claim to have found new ways to lessen the pain and suffering
of life in the moment while clinging to the basic tenets of their faith, such
as Zen Buddhists, Baha’i, Advaita Vedanta, Christian Scientists, to name just a
few. There is also a very long list10 of other
splinter groups, commonly called “cults” (depending on who’s doing the
calling), that attract those Human Adults who have given up on conventional
religion but still need some kind of organized system of morality. Scientology
and Moral Re-Armament, my personal choices in the past, fall into this
category.
The same thing holds true for politics. In the United States, major parties such as the Republicans and Democrats are in the movies you
watch. But in the back of the theater you’ll find the Libertarians, the Green
Party, the Constitution Party, the Tea Party, America’s Independent Party, and
so on, that afford a Human Adult the opportunity to join a political group as
their method of trying to change things, despite the odds, and knowing full
well they are up against a well-entrenched two-party system whose real goal is not
to change anything (which is why they are preferred and maintained by the votes
of the Human Children).
Conventional medicine is also part of the
3D movies, since its main focus is on suppressing symptoms pharmacologically
rather than changing the cause of any disease. However, in the back of the
theater you’ll find over one-hundred alternative therapy groups such as
acupuncture, Alexander technique, AK, aroma therapy, ayurveda, Bach flower
remedies, body work, chelation therapy, Chinese medicine, chiropractic,
craniosacral therapy, crystal healing, and that’s just through the “C’s” in the
alphabet.11
Heterosexuality, marriage, and the nuclear family are part
of the movies as well, and these haven’t changed at all in human history. But in
the back are groups practicing homosexuality, swinging, polygamy, polyamory,
free love, BDSM, voyeurism, exhibitionism, and celibacy, for example.
Basically, if you turn on the TV any day of the week and
watch the soap operas, you’ll see what’s in the movies keeping the Human
Children entertained and pacified: conventional religions, conventional
politics, conventional medicine, and conventional sexuality. What you won’t
see in the soaps are the groups available to Human Adults in the back of the
theater – with the exception of some mocking and fleeting reference in a movie
or two to make sure the Human Children don’t believe any of the promising
rumors that might find their way around the theater.
I don’t mean to imply you can’t be a Human Adult if you are
a monogamous Republican who still goes to church and sees a doctor.
Conventional religion, conventional politics, conventional medicine, and conventional
sexuality are the four cornerstones of the movies – the life, the reality – all
Human Children and Adults are immersed in every moment of every day, no matter
where they are standing or sitting in the movie theater. The “conventional” is
all they have ever known, never really questioned, and therefore find them hard
to leave. This is especially true of new Human Adults who need to belong to a
group and have not yet found sufficient replacements in the back of the
theater.
What I am saying is that this will change over time.
As a Human Adult becomes more comfortable in its new surroundings and finds new
groups to join, conventional religion, conventional politics, and conventional
medicine will be replaced by groups in the back of the theater, while
conventional sexuality hangs on for dear life.
* * *
Obviously, there are many, many more
groups for Human Adults to join than I have mentioned – literally hundreds,
probably over a thousand of them now, some of which do not fall into one of my
main categories, either. For example, there are more than two dozen “UFO
religions” listed in the Wikipedia12 that
can be found in the back of the theater. So this was not meant to be a complete
list of groups or categories, but intended to give a cursory idea of the kinds
of opportunities available to a new Human Adult; and I don’t know any new Human
Adult who has not joined at least one of these groups within a short time of
leaving their chair.
After Scientology, I joined the Chiropractic group, who
quite clearly state their goal is to change the world by correcting vertebral
subluxation, one person at a time; and I stayed connected with this group for
more than twenty years.
The fun part is that you can join more than one group at a
time if both groups will permit it. While part of the Chiropractic group, I
also later belonged to Loving More, Applied Metapsychology, the Royal-Priest
channeling group, Al-Anon, and the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the
HIV/AIDS Hypothesis.
While not actually joining officially, I also “audited” groups
connected with the “Seth” books, with Walsch’s Conversations with God
and Sitchin’s Earth Chronicles, with A Course in Miracles, Urantia,
meditation, numerology, astrology, Tai Chi, Focusing, and Rosicrucianism. I
attended numerous self-help seminars and workshops, tried The Secret,
listened to Abraham, watched What the Bleep!? – Down the Rabbit Hole,
and read everything I could from Peter Marshall, John Bradshaw, Sai Baba, Ayn
Rand, J. Krishnamurti, U.G. Krishnamurti, Deepak Chopra, Eckart Tolle, Mahatma
Gandhi, and others.
Then in 1993 I joined one of the most
radical and promising groups I ever encountered in the back of the movie theater.
It was an intentional community called ZEGG that had a ten-year history before
I joined, now located about an hour outside of Berlin, Germany. I was attracted to this group by their Twelve Theses for a Non-Violent Society13, written by Dieter Duhm, and their practice of free
love. ZEGG no longer promotes the writings of Dr. Duhm, nor do they practice
free love any more. The majority of people I knew there during the 1990’s have
since moved on to create another intentional community called Tamera in
southern Portugal, which I’ll talk about at a later time. But for more than a
decade I thought this group was really going to change things and I was excited
to be part of it.
Which group(s) did you join?
FOOTNOTES
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
Back to the Table of Contents
Virtually all
Human Adults have gathered together in various groups in the back of the
theater, each group trying to discover how to change their reality, usually
with a leader providing guidance to the followers, often with some written text
or rules or guidelines. Each Human Adult has achieved at least a modicum of
self-responsibility at this point; and some of the groups even give lip service
to “individual change,” although the main focus is still on “them,” “out
there,” who continue to involve people like us in movies full of pain and
suffering.
But as I said earlier, being a Human Adult is not a “bad”
way to spend your life; and there are some amazing results that can be achieved
by belonging to one or more of these groups.
It’s possible, for example, the content of the 3D movies in
which you are still immersed might appear to change slightly after applying
something you learned in a group. Some Human Adults might see more changes than
others.
It’s also possible the movie content doesn’t change, but you
find certain techniques of how to better deal with the pain and suffering
inflicted by the movies. Some Human Adults might learn to deal with it better
than others.
You can even have all kinds of mystical or extrasensory or
paranormal or psychic experiences, moments of “union with God” or “oneness with
All That Is” or “cosmic consciousness” or so-called “enlightenment.” You could
learn to control your heart rate, lie on a bed of nails, move objects and bend
spoons, make parking spaces appear where you want them, do psychic surgery,
have out-of-body experiences, become telepathic or clairvoyant, even levitate.
If these are your goals, you can accomplish them all as a
Human Adult in the back of the movie theater, assuming you find the right group
and apply yourself diligently to the task.
But there’s a problem. A big one. Several big ones, as a
matter of fact.
When they arrive at the back of the movie theater, most
Human Adults believe, ultimately, life should not include any pain and
suffering at all, that your reality could actually be one of constant and
abiding joy, abundance, power, and love – Heaven on Earth, if you will. But
you’re not there yet, despite all the work you’ve done and all the techniques
you’ve learned and all the meditating you’ve “satsang” through.
Why not?
For two reasons. One is the belief in life without pain and
suffering is just that – a belief; and there’s no evidence this belief
is true. Have you ever met – I’m not talking about hearing or reading
second-hand stories from the past – have you ever met anyone in present
time living in constant and true and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love?
(“Constant and true and abiding” eliminates those few who spend their lives trying
to fake eternal bliss.) If it were possible, don’t you think it would have
happened just once to some Human Adult in the back of the theater whom you
know, or your friend knows, or your friend’s friend knows? After all, many of
these groups claim it’s possible for everyone to achieve.
The second reason is that life inside the movie theater is
not designed to include constant and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love,
as we’ll see in a later chapter. It will never happen there.
True, you might be able to have more financial success, for
example, as a result of joining some group; but your love life then goes to
hell. Or you might find your “soulmate” and have years of marital bliss, but
for some reason you can’t make enough money for the things you want. Or many
circumstances around you can seem to be going well, but then you or a family
member or a loved one suffer an unexpected accident or illness and everything
changes again. You might even develop a mystical power or two and have moments
of “oneness,” only to have the high wear off eventually and discover you’re
still not happy with your life most of the time.
The truth is, as a member of a group in the back of the
movie theater, you will never change the basic storyline of the movies, at
least not in any significant and lasting way, or in the way you think you want
to. Many have tried, but virtually none has succeeded; so you’re not alone in
your desire or in your frustration.
Put very simply, a Human Adult in the back of the movie
theater can never get all its ducks in a row at one time, no matter what it
does or believes or pretends. It’s just not possible.
Why?
The first huge problem is that none of these groups actually
work – none of them produce the results they claim they can.
Before you slam this book closed and try to defend your
personal choice of a particular group or two, please take an honest and
objective moment to consider…
~ when you look at the world today, do you really think the
human race as a whole is more peaceful, more loving, more tolerant, more
fulfilled, happier, safer, better fed and better housed than it was ten years
ago? Or fifty or a hundred years ago? When you watch the evening news, doesn’t
the opposite appear to be true? Doesn’t it seem like the world – as portrayed in
the 3D movies surrounding you – is heading in the “wrong” direction, away from
constant and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love and into greater depths of
pain and suffering despite all the efforts of all the different groups that
have grown exponentially over the same period of time?
~ after hundreds upon hundreds of years, of hours upon hours
of meditation by millions upon millions of people, not much has been achieved,
other than maybe a few very isolated cases. After that much meditation, where are
all the so-called “enlightened ones,” and why don’t they comprise a bigger
percentage of our population?
~ if The Secret or the “Law of Attraction” actually
worked, we should see a large number of their followers manifesting wonderful
things in their lives on a regular basis. I wouldn’t even require a 100%
success rate to consider these kinds of techniques effective. If The Secret
or the “Law of Attraction” worked 50% of the time for 50% of the people who
tried it, I might deem it worthy of attention and praise. But when only a very
few people get results only a very few times out of many when they use these
techniques….
~ after all the positive thinking and compassion and
pilgrimages and prayers and altars and sweat lodges and stone circles and
ceremonies and rituals and sit-ins and demonstrations and protests and endless Course
in Miracles’ meetings, we’re still no closer to peace on this planet than
we’ve ever been. Even the Hippie Movement had little or nothing to do with
ending the Vietnam War, and at the moment we’re involved in two more wars just
like it.
~ all the profound changes in human history have come from a
single individual, not a group – both “good” (Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Moses,
Confucius, Martin Luther, Copernicus, Einstein, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham
Bell, and Cai Lun – who invented paper in China in 105 AD) and “bad” (Ghengis
Khan, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.).
I repeat, none of the groups in the back of the movie
theater produces anything close to what they claim for the overwhelming number
of their followers. I do not say any of this judgmentally; I am not blaming
them, or criticizing them, or saying they are “wrong” for their lack of
success. (In fact, I know their lack of success is perfect for the way the
movie theater is designed.) I am merely stating fact, pointing to the elephant
in the room, explaining that the emperor is naked.
Nor am I saying none of these groups work because they
didn’t work for me. As you read, I was involved with a lot of so-called
spiritual and self-help groups for more than forty years, involving hundreds if
not thousands of people. I have never met one person out of those
thousands whom I would say has achieved what the group promised. Have you?
I also want to remind you that I decline to be a guru,
teacher, coach, mentor, or leader of any group, so I have no vested interest in
making them all “wrong” and myself “right” in order to get you to follow me
instead. I am not interested in “followers,” so I am completely free to tell
you the truth as I see it, and as anyone else can see it if they look closely
and carefully and honestly.
* * *
Some of the groups conveniently explain why they are so
ineffective, offering reasons like, “No pain, no gain,” or “It takes years and
years, and even lifetimes, for our technique to work,” or “You must be doing
something wrong,” or “Your desire is not pure and sincere enough,” or “You’re
not spiritual enough to make it work,” or “Remember, there are sixty-four
levels to go through to be enlightened.”
The most common excuse a group makes for its ineffectiveness
is, “we don’t have enough people in our group to make it work.” So every once
in a while, one or more of these groups will go back into the main theater and
try to get some of the Human Children up out of their seats to join them, with
some success some of the time, on the theory more members in the group will
make it more effective. Occasionally a few new Human Adult recruits make their
way to the back of the theater as a result, but not enough to make any
difference.
My biggest objection to things like The Secret and the
“Law of Attraction,” for example, is that when they don’t work, we feel like
it’s our fault, that there’s something wrong with us. After all, there
are supposedly all these other people who use them successfully, so it must be
me. I’m not good enough to make it work. I’m doing something wrong. I’m
worthless. I’m a failure. The problem is “all these other people who use them
successfully” don’t exist either. Sure, there are isolated cases where someone
used The Secret and “manifested” a new car – we’ll find out later
whether that was actually true – and, of course, Rhonda Byrne probably
“manifested” a lot of money for herself when she made up The Secret.
The Truth is there is nothing wrong with you, and
there never has been; the error is with the group and its philosophy,
technique, ceremony or ritual. They simply don’t work consistently for even a
small fraction of their followers.
If any group in the back of the theater were really successful
in producing constant and true and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love,
don’t you think word would get around quickly and everyone else would leave
their group and join that one? If any one of them were even moderately
successful in changing the movies or a person’s reaction to them, thereby
providing real relief from the pain and suffering – rather than being just a
temporary and well-marketed fad – don’t you think most Human Adults would be
beating down their door to join? Instead what we see are new groups popping up
like popcorn in our movie theater. What more proof does anyone need that the
existing groups don’t work?
When Human Adults can step back from the groupthink and be
honest with themselves, they know their group doesn’t work. The problem is we
don’t want to admit it, because one of these groups has to work. We want
them to work, very badly. We need them to work. We have to
believe the group we’ve joined offers us the relief we seek from the pain and
suffering. If none of the groups work, we’ll feel hopeless – no better
off than the Human Children still sitting in their seats – and that’s the worst
feeling in the world, to be avoided at all costs.
There comes a time for many Human Adults when they cannot
escape or deny the obvious forever and decide the particular group they belong
to at the time is not working – is not successful in creating the change they
want. At that point they will simply move on to a different group, still
convinced some group must work and all they need to do is keep looking
for the “right” one. Over the lifetime of a Human Adult, they might belong to a
few, if not dozens, of these groups, trying desperately – and futilely – to
find one that works, that does what it says it can do, that offers constant and
true and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love.
* * *
Jed McKenna doesn’t have very nice things to say about the
yogis and swamis and shamans and gurus and leaders of all these ineffective
groups, calling them “snake oil salesmen,” as if they were doing something
“wrong.”
“Gurus and meditation and
spiritual teachings are all gentle deceptions meant to soothe the inner coward,
not forge the inner hero…. Gurus are the worst egotists the world has ever
seen. All gurus are welfare organizations providing petty experiences to their
followers. The guru game is a profitable industry: try and make two million
dollars a year any other way.”1
While all this might be factually accurate, I don’t share
Jed’s judgment that goes along with it. Yes, maybe there are a few leaders of
these groups who are out to make a name and fame and fortune for themselves,
and realize leading a group of Human Adults in the back of the theater can
produce exactly that for them, even if the group doesn’t produce any results
for its followers. But even that isn’t “wrong.”
On the whole, I like to think many of these leaders are
sincerely trying to find some answers. After all, someone has to be able to
figure this out, don’t they? Please?
But all leaders of all groups end up hitting an impasse,
mainly because their philosophy or technique or practice contains major and
irreparable inconsistencies.
There is a theory in social psychology
called “cognitive dissonance2,” which is “an
uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously.
The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational
drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors,
or by justifying or rationalizing them.”3
As a Human Adult, for example, you may be opposed to cruelty
to animals, but you still want to eat meat. This causes you a problem you must
resolve in your mind somehow.
“An early version of cognitive
dissonance theory appeared in Leon Festinger's 1956 book, ‘When Prophecy Fails.’
This book gave an inside account of belief persistence in members of a UFO
doomsday cult, and documented the increased proselytization they exhibited
after the leader's ‘end of the world’ prophecy failed to come true. The
prediction of the Earth's destruction, supposedly sent by aliens to the leader
of the group, became a ‘disconfirmed expectancy’ that caused dissonance between
the cognitions, ‘the world is going to end’ and ‘the world did not end.’
Although some members abandoned the group when the prophecy failed, most of the
members lessened their dissonance by accepting a new belief, that the planet
was spared because of the faith of the group.”4
Jed McKenna suggests a Human Adult will experience something
similar which he calls “Spiritual Dissonance”….
“A common example of Spiritual
Dissonance would be: If God loves us, why does He allow so much suffering? The
certainty of God’s love is the internal belief. The obviousness of human
suffering is the external reality. Is God unable to end suffering? No, we must
answer, because He can do whatever He wants. Therefore, He must allow or even
cause suffering. But how can that be if He loves us? Something somewhere has to
give or, preferably, we avoid asking the question in the first place.”5
Different groups offer different solutions for this
Spiritual Dissonance. One common technique is to create a new belief that
builds a bridge between the two conflicting ones:
Internal belief: “God loves us.”
External reality: “There is suffering in the world.”
Bridge belief: “We only suffer because we are not
worthy of God’s love.”
Or…
Internal belief: “We were made in the image of God,
who is perfect in every way.”
External reality: “We do bad things as human beings.”
Bridge belief: “Life is a school, a training center,
where we are supposed to learn and mature into perfect souls.”
My favorite example comes from my recent experience in the
intentional community of Tamera in southern Portugal. One of the spiritual
leaders there knows, deep in her heart, “judgment is wrong” – her first
contradiction, for to say “judgment is wrong” is a judgment itself. But because
of her compassion for others, she wants to change the world and make it a
better place to live. She’s smart enough to realize wanting to change the world
is a judgment things are wrong and need to be changed, so she comes up with a
solution: “We must accept things just as they are, without judgment, and then
we can change them.”
What ?! Simple logic says if you don’t judge something as
“good” or “bad,” or “right” or “wrong,” you will see that “something” as
perfect exactly the way it is. Any action you then take will not be motivated
by the need or wish to change it at all. (We’ll talk a lot more about this
concept in later parts of the book.)
But none of the groups in the back of the theater is
completely logical. Glaring contradictions show up very quickly in all the
groups when an honest and objective mind shines the light of reason and
discernment on them.
Some groups simply pass off their inconsistencies to a
higher authority: “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” or “It’s the job of the
clergy to grapple with such imponderable issues.” Or they tell their followers
to ignore the tough questions altogether, or deny them, or simply stay occupied
and distracted so these kinds of questions and countless others like them can
never gain a foothold in our awareness.
The main objective, however, is to stop the discomfort….
“The most sincere seekers are …
not seeking truth or answers; they’re seeking relief from Spiritual Dissonance.
Providing this relief is the lifeblood of the religious and spiritual
marketplace. It has nothing to do with truth or awakening. In fact, just the
opposite. In the final analysis, stripped of all its holy pretensions, the
entire spiritual marketplace is really nothing more than an existential
quick-lube shop, and while there may be an endless variety in packaging, there
is really only one product. Spiritual Consonance is what all seekers seek; an
end to discomfort…. But the consonance they seek can only be found in deeper
unconsciousness…. To the best of my knowledge,
spiritually-inclined people, from all walks and disciplines, at all stages, are
really doing nothing more than maintaining or deepening their entrenchment, and
maybe piddling around with mildly altered states.”6
I still have many, many people I call my friends in all of
the groups I’ve belonged to – intelligent, well-meaning, well-intentioned Human
Adults who care a lot about this world, probably a lot like you; and somehow it
becomes easy to overlook these contradictions in order not to rock the boat the
group is sailing in. The truth is we don’t want our group to have
inconsistencies and contradictions; so they don’t, as far as we are concerned,
even though they are written all over the elephant in the middle of the living
room.
Recently one of the leaders of a group I belonged to
declared its Jewish members should no longer observe Shabbat, supposedly to
help them break old patterns of religious tradition on the way to creating a
new culture. However, the main group itself – basically Christian – continued
to hold their Sunday morning services, complete with Amazing Grace as a
hymn, and even called one of their daily meetings the “Gospel Hour.” No one
spoke up or asked questions or issued a yellow card for hypocrisy.
When you’re outside one of these groups looking objectively
at their beliefs, it’s relatively easy to spot many of the inconsistencies and
contradictions. When you’re inside the group, however, it’s very difficult not
to succumb to groupthink. After all, there has to be some group that can
produce what they claim, doesn’t there? You’ve looked everywhere and decided
the group you’re in is the best you’re going to find, so who are you to
question the wisdom and authority of the group leader, even in the face of
obvious illogic? And you still have an overwhelming need to be part of a group
and not be “out there” all alone, so you will swallow almost anything that
sounds half-way plausible in order to justify and explain away the fallacies in
their thinking.
One of the best techniques any group can use to cover up
their inconsistencies and contradictions is called “Crimestop,” as defined by
George Orwell in his novel 1984….
“Crimestop means the faculty of
stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous
thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to
perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are
inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought
which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short,
means protective stupidity.”7
* * *
Can all these groups be “wrong” about everything all of the
time? On the surface, that sounds quite ridiculous and impossible. But think
about it for a minute.
Imagine you’re trying to solve a long and involved math
problem, and the first equation is “2+2=?”. If you get that answer wrong, every
other calculation you make after that is going to be wrong, too.
Well, technically I guess that isn’t exactly true. There may
be other equations within the problem that don’t depend on your first answer,
and you could get them right. You could also make other mathematical mistakes
in the process and just happen – by chance – to arrive at a right answer along
the way.
But your final answer is always going to be wrong. There’s
no way around that. In other words, if your basic premise is faulty, all
subsequent results that depend on that basic premise will be faulty as well.
“In life, contradictions do not
exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises.
You will find that one of them is wrong.”8
“It means there aren’t millions
of things wrong, just one, right at the source, and everything else that
appears wrong stems from that single core error.”9
This is not just true of math problems; it’s also true of
every religion, philosophy, spiritual practice, self-improvement technique,
belief system, ceremony and ritual.
Every group in the back of the theater is “wrong” and cannot
and will not produce the results they claim they can; and the simple reason is that
they all begin with the same incorrect premise. In the next few chapters, we're
going to find out what that incorrect premise is.
* * *
Everyone is looking for solutions to lessen the pain and
suffering of life, to change the reality they feel subjected to in the 3D
movies surrounding them. The problem is those answers cannot be found in the
movie theater. Some have come close at times, but no one has put it all
together, because it cannot be put all together. No Human Adult is going to
find constant and true and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love as long as
they are in the back of the movie theater. It doesn’t work that way.
I’m sure by now you have figured out the most important
reason why: All the Human Adults and all the groups they belong to are still inside
the movie theater. Not one freed prisoner has ever left Plato’s Cave at
this point in the metaphor; and with very few exceptions, everyone still
considers the shadows on the wall – the 3D movies they are watching – to be
“real.”
Once in a while, someone will look up at the black ball
hanging from the center of the movie theater and see those bright lights
shooting toward the wrap-around screens, wondering what the hell that’s all
about. But almost no one seems to know.
And the sign on the door in the back wall says, “Do Not
Enter – Extremely dangerous.”
FOOTNOTES
THE LIBRARY
Back to the Table of Contents
There are three
other doors in the back of the movie theater I haven’t mentioned. One has a
sign saying, “Men’s Room;” another says “Ladies Room;” and above the third door
is a sign saying, “Library,” and that door is never closed.
In between groups, or as I began to realize the particular
group I belonged to at the time wasn’t going to produce what they were offering
and my membership was coming to an end, I would go into this Library and read,
looking for new inspiration and hope. I’ve mentioned in passing some of the
titles and authors I spent time with, and I had the chance to study many of the
texts written by the founders and leaders of various groups, saving me the
trouble of actually joining that group in order to discover its inconsistencies
and contradictions.
Most of the books in the Library aren’t worth mentioning, at
least in this discussion. But there is some very important information I
discovered while reading you should know about, if you don’t already –
information absolutely critical to anyone wishing to change their reality.
So I’m going to make a big jump right now from philosophy
and religion to science, from metaphors and analogies to cold, hard scientific
experiments. The subject is quantum physics and what has become known (and
widely misunderstood) as the “Holographic Universe” – monumental discoveries
made in the last few decades which literally change everything we have believed
about our physical universe.
Don’t worry. I’m not going to get scientifically technical
or say something any Human Adult couldn’t understand. But if you are still not
satisfied with any of the groups you’ve joined – if you’re looking around
trying to find out why none of the groups have produced anything close to what
you want to experience and what you think is possible to experience – then you
should spend the next few chapters in the Library with me; and bring your
computer.
I want to say at the outset I am not an expert in quantum
physics, so I have invited the real experts – Ph.D.’s in physics, professors of
quantum physics at major universities worldwide, authors of many books – to
speak to you directly by using a lot of their written quotes and video interviews.
Basically, I want to assure you that what you will be reading will not be my
opinions, but those of the people who really know what they’re talking about.
I’ve included a number of links to videos to watch, and I
strongly suggest you visit those links and watch those videos as you read.
Okay. Here we go…
* * *
We’ve known for a long time – at least, I was taught in
school more than fifty years ago – the physical world around us is not as
“solid” as it looks and feels. In fact, the universe is made up of mostly empty
space.
This becomes very clear when we take a ride on a rocket into
outer space and see so much “nothing” between a few particles of matter called
stars and galaxies. As the technology has improved and we have gone deeper and
deeper into “inner space” as well, we find the same thing in the atomic and
sub-atomic worlds – mostly “nothing.”
The very best and most fun way to experience this for
yourself is to watch a nine-minute video called Powers of Ten, from the
office of Charles and Ray Eames, which they produced for IBM in 1977. You can watch it here.
There have been other videos made along the same lines: Cosmic Voyage (1996, produced for IMAX and
narrated by Morgan Freeman), and Cosmic Zoom
(1968, produced by the National Film Board of Canada.)
The most important thing to see in these videos is that
“outer space” and “inner space” look very much alike; there’s hardly anything
there except empty space.
For example, if you took the nucleus of a hydrogen atom and
blew it up to the size of a basketball, the electron that defines the outermost
“edge” of that atom would be twenty miles away from the nucleus. And in
between? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Just empty space.
“Within all the atoms and
molecules – all the space within them – the particles take up an insignificant
amount of the volume of an atom.”1
“In fact, the universe is
mostly empty.”2
So… the first thing we have to understand is that matter is
not “solid,” even though it looks and feels that way to us.
“Matter is not what we have
long thought it to be.”3
Matter is, in fact, full of empty space.
* * *
The Powers of Ten video ends at the limit of our
understanding at that time (1977), looking at a single proton in the nucleus of
a carbon atom.
But as the technology improved over the years, and
scientists were able to dive deeper and deeper into “inner space,” they
discovered the very small particles they found did not behave as they were
supposed to, at least not according to all the laws of physics we had believed
for the last hundreds of years.
The most famous experiment that caused a real commotion is
called the Double Slit. It was actually first done with light in 1801 by an
English scientist, Thomas Young. Young demonstrated that light was not actually
a particle, as had been believed forever, but acted like a wave instead.
Then in 1961, this same experiment was
performed with electrons rather than light4, and
finally in 1974 with just one electron at a time5.
Since then it has been repeated and refined and repeated again, over and over,
with the same result every time.
In September 2002, this Double Slit
experiment was voted “the most beautiful experiment”6 by
readers of Physics World, and noted quantum physicist Richard Feynman
has said “all of quantum mechanics can be gleaned from carefully thinking
through the implications of this single experiment.”7
That’s how important this experiment is, and how much it has
changed everyone’s thinking of how the world works.
So let’s take a look at how this experiment is done and why
its results are so startling….
We’re going to start by taking small pieces of matter, like
little BB’s, and shooting a stream of them out of a gun against a barrier that
has a single slit in it.
Behind the barrier is a sensitive screen, so when a BB hits
it, it makes a mark, like this….
Most of the BB’s hit the barrier, but the ones that go
through the slit hit the screen and make a pattern just like the shape of the
slit.
All that makes perfect sense. So now we’ll add a second slit
in the barrier…
…and shoot the BB’s at it again; and we get what we’d expect
to get: a pattern of two slits on the screen.
Okay, so far so good. Now, what would happen if we sent
waves of water toward the screen instead of firing BB’s at it?
With just one slit in the barrier, part of the wave goes
through the slit and forms a pattern on the screen that looks a lot like the BB
pattern with only one slit. The most intensity on the screen is where the top
of the wave hits, directly in line with the slit.
But if we put a barrier with two slits in
it between the waves and the screen, a completely different thing happens.
When the water goes through both slits, the new waves
created by the slits on the other side of the barrier hit each other on the way
to the screen.
When the top of one wave hits the bottom of another wave,
they cancel each other out. This is called “destructive interference.” You can
easily see this when you drop two pebbles in a pond some distance apart and
watch what happens when the ripples meet. So when we send waves through a
barrier with two slits, we get what is called an “interference pattern” on the screen,
like this….
The bright lines on the screen are where the tops of the
waves joined each other (constructive interference) and then made it
to the screen. The dark spaces in between are where the top of one wave hit the
bottom of another wave (destructive interference), canceling them both
out and never making it to the screen.
So, when we send “particles of matter,” like the BB’s,
through two slits, we get two definite patterns on the screen that look like
the slits they came through. When we send “waves” through two slits, we get an interference
pattern on the screen.
Simple enough. Now let’s try this experiment with electrons
instead of BB’s….
We have always thought about an electron as a really, really
small BB whirling around the nucleus of an atom – a very small “particle of
matter,” and solid, like a BB. So we would expect to see the same pattern on
the screen we got when we shot BB’s; and we do when there is one slit in the
barrier….
…and when we shoot a beam of electrons through two slits in
the barrier, we would expect to get a pattern of two slits on the screen just
like the BB’s.
BUT WE DON’T!
Instead, we get the same interference pattern we got when we
sent “waves” through two slits.
WAVES
ELECTRONS
Originally, scientists thought this might be because they
were firing a lot of electrons toward the screen at one time, and maybe some of
the electrons were crashing into each other on the other side of the barrier,
canceling each other out and not making it to the screen. By 1974 they were
finally able to develop a way to fire one electron at a time at the screen, so
there was no way possible for them to interfere with each other. But they still
got an interference pattern.
(To watch a short and well-done animated video of this Double
Slit experiment from What
the Bleep!? – Down the Rabbit Hole, click here.)
How is that possible? How is it possible to send one tiny
particle of “matter” at a time through two slits and have it form a wave
interference pattern?
There was only one explanation that made any sense: An
electron is a wave rather than a particle; it is not a solid piece of matter as
we have always thought!
More recent experiments have discovered the same thing holds
true for the nucleus of an atom, not just the electrons.
“Matter is not what we have
long thought it to be. To the scientist, matter has always been thought of as
sort of the ultimate in that which is static and predictable…. We like to think
of space as empty and matter as solid. But in fact, there is essentially
nothing to matter whatsoever; it’s completely insubstantial. Take a look at an
atom. We think of it as a kind of hard ball. Then we say, ‘Oh, well no, not
really…it’s this little tiny point of really dense matter right at the
center….’ But then it turns out that that’s not even right. Even the nucleus, which
we think of as so dense, pops in and out of existence just as readily as the
electrons do.”8
So the very building blocks of what we call our “physical
universe” – the nucleus and electrons of atoms – are not just particles of matter,
but in fact exist as waves. In quantum physics this is called “wave-particle
duality.”
That blew everybody’s mind; but it’s not the end of the
story….
FOOTNOTES
THE FIELD
Back to the Table of Contents
Electrons are
both waves and particles? One minute they act like a particle, and the next
minute they act like a wave?
At the time, no one could really believe any of this was
actually true. Something must be wrong, they thought….
So the scientists modified the experiment to “watch” (with a
measuring device) a single electron as it went through the double slits to see
if it really acted like a wave instead of a particle.
However, the moment they observed the electron, an even
stranger thing happened. They got a standard “particle” pattern on the screen
that looked exactly as if they had fired BB’s through the two slits.
The simple act of “watching” the electron meant it went back
to behaving like a particle instead of a wave, and therefore only went through
one slit, not both, and formed a pattern like the BB’s.
So… the final conclusion is this: In its natural state, an
electron is a wave rather than a particle, until it is observed. Then
it becomes a particle with a fixed position in space and time.
“The electron is very peculiar
in the sense that when you’re not looking, the electron can be here, can be
there, or can be over there…. It can be all over this room, so to speak. But
whenever we look – this is the strange thing about this electron – we always
find them to be in one particular Geiger counter, although we have a room full
of Geiger counters. This is the fundamentally important stuff about the
electrons.”1
“There is compelling evidence
that the only time quanta* ever manifest as particles is when we are looking at
them. When an electron isn’t being looked at, it is always a wave.”2
(*In the early 1900s, scientists had
started using the term “quanta” referring to the energy associated with an
electron bound to an atom (at rest) which results in the stability of atoms,
and of matter in general. So the term “quantum mechanics,” and now more
commonly “quantum physics,” has to do with the study of electrons and their
energy. “The word “quantum” is also synonymous with “wave/particle,” a term
that is used to refer to something that possesses both particle and wave
qualities.”3)
Now this was truly radical – an electron is a wave until it
is observed, and then it becomes a particle!
The ramifications are enormous. It means reality – the
physical universe which we have always thought of to be “solid and predictable”
– is not “real,” not “solid and predictable” at all, because the basic building
blocks of that universe are not particles of matter, but waves of possibilities
– waves of potential locations where an electron might appear as a particle
when it is observed.
But who is this “observer?” And how does an observer change
the electron from a wave into a particle?
The first question is not easy to answer completely at the
moment. The “observer” can be a human being looking at something; it can be a
machine or a device set up to watch, record, or measure something; it can
literally be anything that attempts to “see” something “out there” in the
physical universe. But there is another level to the answer which needs more
information before it can make sense; so we’ll just have to wait.
Right now it’s worth repeating the inescapable conclusions
of the Double Slit experiment: According to quantum physics, the atoms (nucleus
and electrons) that make up the physical universe we consider to be so solid
and so real only appear to be solid and real when they are being observed. When
they are not being observed, they return to a wave state of infinite possible
locations.
(To watch a short and well-done animated video of how an
“observer” affects the Double Slit experiment, from What
the Bleep!? – Down the Rabbit Hole, click here.)
So now let’s talk about how an observer changes an electron
from a wave into a particle….
Wait a minute! No one really knows the answer to the
question of how – or why – the observer changes an electron from a wave into a
particle. The experts can only speculate….
“Particles aren’t really what
they seem to be. They’re momentary manifestations, momentary ‘poppings’ of this
quantum wave function in which there is no particle – there’s just this
waviness which can spontaneously pop out as particles.”4
In other words, when an electron is viewed by an observer,
these waves of possibilities “pop” and assume a specific location in space and
time, which is what we see as “reality.” This is called “collapsing the wave
function.”
“Collapsing the wave function” can be very successfully
explained and predicted mathematically, using complex quantum mathematics; but
it’s very hard to describe in simple English. Basically, it means an electron
normally lives in a wave state (a wave function) that includes many
possibilities of where it could end up as a particle; and when the electron is
observed, those multiple wave states are “collapsed” to one state, the state of
being a particle in a specific location.
Physicist Nick Herbert says this sometimes
causes him to imagine that, behind our back, the world (where we are not
looking and cannot observe) is always “a radically ambiguous and ceaselessly
flowing quantum soup.”5 But whenever we turn
around and try to see the soup, our glance instantly freezes it and turns it
back into “reality.” Herbert believes this makes us all a little like Midas,
the legendary king who never knew the feel of silk or the caress of a human
hand because everything he touched turned to gold. “Likewise humans can
never experience the true texture of quantum reality because everything we
touch turns to matter.”6
So where are these electrons living as waves of
possibilities when no one is observing them and collapsing their wave function
into a particle?
The answer to that question has gone through a lot of
revision over the years, and has been called a lot of things as the research
has progressed, including:
~ the “Planck Scale” (by the physicist Max Planck)
~ the “implicate order” (by the physicist David Bohm)
~ the “vacuum state”
~ the “quantum wave function”
~ the “zero point field”
~ the “superstring field”
~ the “M” field
~ the “unified field”
Today it is mainly just called “The Field.”
In her book, The Field, Lynn McTaggert defines it simply as “a
field of all possibility.”7
Everything you can think of, and everything you can’t think
of, and everything no one can think of already exists in this Field as waves of
possibilities.
Dr. John Hagelin explains…
“Progress in our understanding
of the universe through physics over the past quarter century has been
exploring deeper levels of natural law, from the macroscopic to the
microscopic, from the molecular to the atomic to the nuclear to the subnuclear
levels of nature’s functioning…. and what we’ve discovered at the core basis of
the universe, the foundation of the universe, is a single universal field of
intelligence…. So all the forces of nature, and all the so-called ‘particles’
of nature… are now understood to be… just different ripples on a single ocean
of existence…. It’s called the “unified field,” or “superstring field,” at the
basis of everything – mind and matter…. That field is a non-material field.
Planets, trees, people, animals, are all just waves of vibration of this
underlying unified superstring field…. It’s the fountainhead of all the laws of
nature; all the fundamental forces, all the fundamental particles, all the laws
governing life at every level of the universe have their unified source in the
unified field…. It is pure abstract potential, which rises in waves of
vibration to give rise to the particles, to the people, to everything we see in
the vast universe…. This isn’t the world of electrons; it’s the world of
potential electrons…. And that’s what we’re made of.”8
…and Dr. Fred Alan Wolf puts it this way…
“Physicists give this a name;
they call it a ‘quantum wave function,’ because it seems ‘wavy.’ However, this
wave function isn’t just a wave of matter, like an ocean wave or a sound wave,
or any kind of wave of matter. It’s a wave of possibility; it’s a kind of
‘thought’ wave. And because it is a wave of thought, or possibility, or
‘not-matter,’ it’s invisible to us. But we can’t explain what we do see as
matter…unless we picture that these matter particles somehow come out from or
emerge from these thought-wave patterns.”9
(You can watch a video interview about The Field with Drs.
Hagelin and Wolf from What
the Bleep!? – Down the Rabbit Hole by clicking here.)
The problem is no one can prove that The Field exists. You
can’t see it; you can’t photograph it; you can’t measure it; you can’t hold it
in your hand. But when quantum physicists assume The Field is there, they can
make incredibly accurate mathematical predictions about the physical universe
and how it behaves, which they can’t do without taking The Field into account.
As Fred Alan Wolf said, “We can’t explain what we do see
as matter…unless we picture that these matter particles somehow come out from
or emerge from these thought-wave patterns.”
Think of it as electricity. You can’t see electricity
itself; you can only see what electricity produces. One American comedian joked
that he wouldn’t pay his electric bill until the company showed him the
electricity he was paying for.
But we can see the light electricity makes, and the power,
and the other effects we count on every day and now take so much for granted;
and when we see those effects, we know electricity must exist.
The same thing is true for The Field. Even though we can’t
prove it exists scientifically, nothing makes sense without it in light of the
results of the most recent experiments.
Another example might help make this clearer….
If you were an Aborigine living in the Outback of Australia
with no contact with the outside world, and someone brought you a radio, you
might wonder how it works when you hear music coming out of the box. You might
even take it apart, looking for an orchestra of very little people inside
playing the music you hear. But after a while, you’d realize the only way to
explain the music is to assume there are invisible radio waves in the air, and
this box simply captures those waves and translates them into sound – even
though you couldn’t prove it.
We have finally reached the point of human understanding –
now supported by scientific evidence – that there are waves all around us. But
this time they’re not radio waves, they’re not ocean waves; they’re waves of The
Field. They’re waves of potentiality; and when they are “observed,” they turn
into the physical universe we see.
I’ll talk a lot more about this concept in later chapters.
For now it is enough to know The Field must exist, it is outside of space and
time, and it includes an infinite number of possibilities, but only in wave
form. This field does not contain particles; it is not matter; it is not part
of the physical universe. Instead it is what the entire universe is made from –
from these waves of possibilities.
But how did this Field come into existence? Who made it?
Where did it come from?
Science has no answer for these questions. They only know The
Field must exist. So I will not speculate about how The Field was created, or
who might have created it, or how it already contains all possibilities,
because… well, simply because there is absolutely no way a Human Adult can
understand or have a direct experience of anything that happens on the other
side of The Field. This will also become clearer in later chapters.
The next question we can ask, though, is: How is
“physical reality” created from this Field?
FOOTNOTES
THE HOLOGRAM
Back to the Table of Contents
How is
“reality” created from The Field?
Most quantum physicists agree it is a very similar process
to the creation of a hologram. In other words, the universe we see is a
“holographic universe.”
“When we look at some of the
scientific views of ‘reality’ that have tried to get down, down, down to the
nitty-gritty, we see at its ultimate level… that reality is not solid – it’s
mostly empty space – and whatever solidity it has seems more to resemble a
hologram picture rather than material, harsh, solid reality.”1
“University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes… that despite its apparent
solidity, the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly
detailed hologram.”2
Let’s back up for a minute….
Quantum Physics is actually a science of mathematics, and it
is the most accurate mathematical science to date to explain what we see in our
“reality.”
“Quantum mathematics – which
is, in our belief, the most fundamental mathematics, the most accurate
mathematical description of nature that we have discovered – this mathematics
shows us clearly that the movements of objects are describable only in terms of
possibilities, not the actual events that happen in our experience.”3
The mathematics used in quantum physics to “describe nature”
and explain the behavior we see in our “reality” is also the same mathematics
used to create a hologram. This is why quantum physicists say the universe
seems to be more like a hologram than solid reality.
So, to understand the “holographic universe,” we have to
understand how a hologram is created. But first, a very brief background….
Holography was invented by a Hungarian physicist, Dennis
Gabor, for which he received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1971. But it was not
until the laser was invented in 1960 that holography became workable and
practicable. Today it is used for many things, including credit cards and
product packaging.
There are actually three different kinds of holograms, some
using lasers and others using white light. But let’s talk about the basic laser
process for creating a hologram, in simplified form.
The first thing to understand about creating a hologram is
that it is a two-step process.
The first step is that you shoot a laser beam out of a gun,
and then immediately split it into two beams. One half of the original beam (called
the “reference beam”) is directed toward a special holographic film (or plate).
The other half of the original beam hits and bounces off an object, and then
goes to the same piece of holographic film.
At this point, what you’ve got is a holographic image (a
pattern) on the holographic film; but you can’t see the image of the object. If
you look at the film, all you can see is a bunch of nothing – indiscernible
waves.
You may remember a craze in the 1990’s about so-called “3-D
pictures.” These were pictures where, if you looked at them normally, all you
could see was… nothing, really. Just a bunch of wavy lines.
Looking at the original image on a piece of holographic film
after Step 1 is very similar. You really can’t see anything.
But now let’s do Step 2. If you take the reference beam from
Step 1 and shine it on the holographic film again….
…out pops the object from Step 1. This would be the
equivalent of changing your focus to have the 3-D picture pop out as a
discernible image.
Now, the most interesting thing about this holographic image
of an apple that pops out in Step 2 is that it looks very real and very solid –
so real that your mouth can water, and you want to pick it up and take a bite.
But if you try to pick it up, your hand will go right through it, since there’s
nothing there.
“Creating the illusion that
things are located where they are NOT is the quintessential feature of a
hologram…. If you look at a hologram, it seems to have extension in space, but
if you pass your hand through it, you will find there is nothing there….
Despite what your senses tell you, no instrument will pick up any energy or
substance where the hologram appears to be hovering. This is because a hologram
is a virtual image, an image that appears to be where it is not.”4
So how can quantum physics say we live in a holographic
universe? That doesn’t make any sense. What we see and touch looks and feels
very real and very solid. We can reach out and grab and eat the apple we see in
front of us; so how can it be a hologram? We also don’t fall through the floor;
nor can we walk through walls (well… the vast majority of us can’t).
The first answer is to say that many quantum physicists
don’t actually say our physical reality is a hologram; they say it acts like a hologram, since the
mathematics used to explain both is the same.
But more and more scientists are now going
further and suggesting we do, indeed, live in a hologram, based on the most
recent experiments. For example, in 2008 Craig Hogan, director of Fermilab’s
Center for Particle Astrophysics, said, “If the GEO600 result is what I
suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.”5
“The idea that we live in a
hologram probably sounds absurd, but it is a natural extension of our best
understanding of black holes, and something with a pretty firm theoretical
footing. It has also been surprisingly helpful for physicists wrestling with
theories of how the universe works at its most fundamental level.”6
And according to Dr. Jacob Bekenstein,
Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, “An
astonishing theory called the holographic principle holds that the universe is
like a hologram…. The physics of black holes – immensely dense concentrations
of mass – provides a hint that the principle might be true.”7
So at this point I would simply ask you to suspend all
judgment and consider the possibility we live in a holographic universe, as the
scientific results of quantum physics suggest. You don’t have to “believe” this
forever; just try it out as an experiment. I admit this is a radical way of
thinking; but after all we’ve been through trying to find “the truth” – most of
which didn’t work very well – maybe it’s time to get a little more radical.
“It is relatively easy to
understand this idea of holism in something that is external to us, like an
apple in a hologram. What makes this difficult is that we are not looking at
the hologram; we are part of the hologram.”8
* * *
If we look around carefully and pay attention, there are
“clues,” or “hints,” we’re being given all the time about how this universe
actually works. I’m going to mention a few of those hints over the course of
this book, and I’m going to be suggesting some Hollywood movies for you to rent
and watch. Now you might say, “That’s all just fiction; it’s just a movie;” and
you would be right. But fiction and movies can also give us hints about what is
really going on.
Especially science fiction. When I was
young there was a comic book called Dick Tracy, and Dick had this
really incredible wrist-watch-two-way-radio-thingy. I say “incredible” because
in the 1950’s it was pure science fiction. Today it’s a reality.9 I could – and you could – list hundreds of things in
the field of technology, for example, first mentioned in some artistic medium that
have come true in the last few decades, not the least of which are George
Orwell’s 1984 and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged – unfortunately.
So there are two short videos on YouTube I want you to watch
to get a better idea what this whole holographic concept is about, and how real
a hologram can seem.
One is a scene from the movie, The
Thirteenth Floor. In this movie, a German scientist figured
out how to create a full-blown hologram that one can become part of, like a
total immersion movie. But the scientist gets murdered, and his friend and
partner (Douglas Hall) wants to find out who did it. So Douglas gets in the
“hologram machine” and enters into a hologram of Los Angeles in 1937 where the
scientist had left him a clue about his murder.
The scene you will watch is Douglas’ first time in the
hologram machine. Please note how he reacts to being in a hologram and his
astonishment at how real it looks and feels to him.
Click here to watch the video.
The second video clip is from Star
Trek: The Next Generation (Episode 16, 11001001).
Since the Starship Enterprise was traveling around the universe all the time,
they had to figure out how to make it possible for the crew to take a vacation.
So they created the Holodeck – a room where any hologram could be requested and
created for their relaxation and enjoyment.
The scene you will watch is Commander Riker asking to spend
time in New Orleans playing some jazz, with a very interesting audience. Again,
notice how surprised he is that the woman looks and feels and smells so real.
Click here to watch the video.
But if all of this is possible, the question then arises:
How is our
holographic universe created for us to experience as the physical universe?
FOOTNOTES
THERE IS NO “OUT THERE” OUT THERE
Back to the Table of Contents
Dr. Karl
Pribram has had a long and illustrious career. Born in Austria in 1919, Pribram is both a neurosurgeon and a neurophysiologist who spent many
years trying to find out where memories are stored in the brain.
The problem was that in the 1920’s a brain
scientist by the name of Karl Lashley had found “no matter what portion of
a rat’s brain he removed, he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to
perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery.”1 So
Pribram set out to solve the mystery of memory storage that seemed independent
of brain cells (neurons).
But it wasn’t until he met David Bohm, one
of the pioneers in quantum physics, that Pribram found his answer. “Bohm
helped establish the foundation for Pribram’s theory that the brain operates in
a manner similar to a hologram, in accordance with quantum mathematical
principles and the characteristics of wave patterns.”2
Technically, “Pribram believes
memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in
patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the entire brain in the same way
that patterns of laser light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece
of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the
brain is itself a hologram.”3
Memory storage is not the only thing that becomes more
understandable in light of Pribram’s theory.
“Another is how the brain is
able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses
(light frequencies, sound frequencies, etc.) into the concrete world of our
perceptions. Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram
does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device
able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent
image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses holographic
principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through the
senses into the inner world of our perceptions.”4
In short, Pribram believes “our brains mathematically
construct ‘hard’ reality by relying on input from a frequency domain.”5
Okay. Let’s translate all of this into simple English.
According to Karl Pribram and the results of many scientific experiments, the
human brain itself is a hologram. Its function is to receive holographic wave
frequencies and translate them into the physical universe we see “out there.”
And now the fun begins….
I want to talk about two specific scientific experiments –
out of many – that not only seem to prove Pribram’s theory, but go beyond it to
an amazing conclusion.
The first began in the 1970’s with a researcher in the
physiology department of the University of California, San Francisco, Dr.
Benjamin Libet. Put very simply, Libet would experiment with brain surgery
patients during their operations. The patients’ brains were exposed and they
were fully conscious, having received only local anesthetic.
Libet would, for example, stimulate the patients’ little
finger on one hand (like a pin prick) and ask the patients to tell him when
they felt it. Then he would stimulate the area of the brain associated with
that little finger, and ask the patients to tell him when they felt that as
well.
Before I tell you what he discovered, we need to understand
how we feel things, like a pin prick. The stimulus (pin prick) is transmitted
from the location on the body where it happened to the brain, and then the
brain lets us know about the sensation. Technically, we don’t actually “feel”
things where they happen; we “feel” them in the brain.
So it would make sense that if you stimulate someone’s
little finger, it would take time (fractions of a second) for the nerves to
move that sensation to the brain where it would be “felt,” since the physical
body is limited by space and time and nothing in the physical universe
(according to Einstein) can travel faster than the speed of light. Basically,
it would take time for a stimulus on the little finger to get to the brain and
for the person to then become “aware” of it.
On the other hand, it would also make sense that if you
stimulated the brain directly at the exact location where the little finger
sends the sensation to be “felt,” the person would be “aware” of it
immediately. In other words, there would be no time delay since the brain
already has the information about the stimulus and only needs to alert the
person to the sensation.
What Libet found, and others after him, was that the exact
opposite was true. In fact, you will probably read many times in this book that
the information we’re getting from the scientific research in quantum physics
is proving that the opposite of a lot of what we have always believed is true.
Libet’s patients would tell him instantly (no time delay)
when he stimulated their little finger, and yet there was a delay when he
stimulated the brain directly. (Watch a video here.)
Libet was flabbergasted. He tried to find
an explanation, as did many other scientists; and the prevailing theory became
that time can travel backwards. It’s called the “time reversal theory,” or
“subjective backward referral,” or “antedating.” However, after trying to prove
this and failing, Libet himself later said “there appeared to be no neural
mechanism that could be viewed as directly mediating or accounting for the
subjective sensory referrals backward in time.”6
In other words, there is no evidence in the brain for time reversal as the
explanation for this phenomenon.
For now, just file that information away and let’s talk
about another experiment….
This one started in the 1990’s conducted by Dr. Dean Radin
and other colleagues. Dean Radin is a Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, on the Adjunct Faculty at Sonoma State University, and part of
the Distinguished Consulting Faculty at Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center. He earned an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and both a master’s degree in electrical engineering
and a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He worked at AT&T Bell Labs and GTE Labs, mainly on human
factors of advanced telecommunications products and services, and then held
appointments at Princeton University, Edinburgh University, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, SRI International, Interval Research Corporation, and the
Boundary Institute.
I say all that because Radin’s research is admittedly not
widely accepted by the mainstream scientific community, which is why you may
have never heard of it, although his credentials are beyond question. Here’s
why his results are so hard for some scientists to swallow….
Radin would hook a person up to various machines to measure
a number of different bodily responses, such as heart rate, EKG, skin
conductants, the amount of blood in the fingertip, and respiration.
The person then sits in front of a computer screen with a
button in their hand. They’re told to press the button whenever they’re ready,
and five seconds later the computer will randomly select a picture and display
it on the screen.
There are two different types of pictures the computer can
choose from. One group of pictures will evoke an emotional response in normal
people – like a picture of violence, or war, or rape, or ugliness, or the Twin Towers coming down on 9/11. The other group of pictures are designed to be neutral, to
normally not have any emotional impact when viewed, like a scene of a city
street in Anytown.
We already know what happens in the body when people see an
emotional image – what happens to their heart rate, to their EKG, skin
conductants, the amount of blood in the fingertip, and respiration. They
“spike.”
We also know what happens in the body when people see a
neutral (non-emotional) image. They remain “calm.”
When the person in this experiment pushes the button, the
computer has not yet chosen which picture to display, or from which group, and
will not make that decision until five seconds later when it immediately puts
the picture on the screen.
Now here’s the amazing thing: The person’s bodily responses
being measured would occur before
the computer chose the picture and displayed it on the screen. In other words,
the person’s heart rate, EKG, skin conductants, the amount of blood in the
fingertip, and respiration would all spike prior to the picture coming up if the picture were
an emotional picture, and the bodily responses would all remain calm if the
picture about to appear would be neutral.
To repeat, all of these bodily responses
(or lack of bodily responses) would occur before the computer had even chosen which picture
to put on the screen. The only conclusion that makes any sense is that the brain
knows what picture is coming before the person is aware of it – indeed, before
the computer has even chosen which picture to display – and the body is
responding accordingly!7 (Watch a video here.)
* * *
The very latest evidence (July, 2010) comes from a BBC documentary called Neuroscience and Free Will. Here’s the setup….
The subject lies in a CT scanner holding a button in each
hand. All the subject has to do is decide to press the button in his left hand
or the button in his right hand, and then press the appropriate button
immediately while the CT scanner records his brain activity.
The result is that the brain clearly shows up to 6
seconds in advance which button the person will press - left or right. This
is 6 seconds before the subject consciously decides which button he will
press. The brain activity is so clear and 100% consistent that the technician
watching the scanner could easily predict with absolute certainty which button
the subject would press before the subject makes his own conscious decision.
You really need to watch the
video to believe it!
This gives further proof of the Radin experiments and
verifies what Dr. Andrew Newberg says….
“There have been other studies
that have shown that when people are beginning to move a hand, or beginning to
say something, there is actually activity in certain nerve cells of the brain
even before they become consciously aware of
what they’re trying to do.”8
* * *
What does all this mean?
Before I answer that question, I have to
introduce one last scientific concept called “Occam’s Razor,”9
a principle that’s been hanging around for almost seven-hundred years. It is
often paraphrased as, “All other things being equal, the simplest solution is
the best,” although that’s technically not the correct interpretation of
Occam’s Razor. It is also called the “scientific principle of parsimony,” which
is a “preference for the least complex explanation for an observation.”10 The general rule is that the best answer requires the
least number of assumptions and postulates the fewest entities.
There have been many different attempts to explain the
results of these brain experiments, by as many different scientists. But the
simplest and most logical explanation – the one that seems to satisfy Occam’s
Razor the best – is that the brain knows what is going to happen before it
happens “out there” in the physical universe. The sequence, apparently, is that
the brain receives holographic wave information, and then sends it “out there,”
creating a physical universe for the person to perceive and experience.
For example, in the Libet experiments, the brain “knew” the
little finger was going to be stimulated before the actual stimulation took
place, and therefore there was no time delay for the person to become aware of
it. However, when the brain was stimulated directly – as if a new hologram was
being downloaded to it – it took time for the brain to send the sensation out
to the little finger and bring it back to the brain to be perceived.
In Radin’s experiments, the only thing that makes sense is
that the brain knew what picture would appear because it was creating the
reality that was about to happen, not simply responding to a reality after it
happened.
Let me repeat that, because it is so critical to
understanding how the Holographic Universe works…. the brain knew what picture would appear because it
was creating the reality that was about to happen, not simply responding to a
reality after it happened.
So let’s put this together with Pribram’s holographic brain
model….
Pribram says the human brain is itself a hologram, and it
will “mathematically construct ‘hard’ reality by relying on input from a
frequency domain.”
Remember The Field? The Field is Pribram’s “frequency
domain” – an infinite number of possibilities existing as waves of frequencies.
So Pribram is saying the brain receives wave frequencies
from The Field, which it then translates into “’hard’ reality” – what we
normally call the physical universe. In fact, all these experiments suggest
your brain receives a hologram in wave frequencies from The Field, collapses
the wave function and converts them into particles to create physical
“reality,” and then sends that “reality” “out there” for you to experience.
This is confirmed by the CT scan experiments in the BBC documentary, Neuroscience and Free Will. In fact, if you watch the video, you can even see
the exact area of the brain where it is converting the downloaded wave
frequencies into the hologram that six seconds later will be projected “out
there” for you to become aware of and experience.
It means, first of all, the human brain is the “observer”
that “collapses the wave function” that I talked about in Chapter Five, since
quantum physics says it is the “observer” that changes an electron from a wave
into a particle.
Put more simply, it’s the brain that takes those wavy 3-D
pictures….
…and converts them into something we can see.
(actually hidden in the 3-D picture above,
from MagicEye.com)
It also means our senses – seeing, hearing, tasting,
smelling, touching, etc. – are not really sensing some independent “reality”
“out there,” but in fact are projecting that reality so it appears to be “out
there.” In addition to being “receivers,” then, our eyes are “projectors,”
since your brain knows what you are about to experience before you perceive it
with your senses.
Apparently, once our brain converts the wave frequencies
from The Field, it projects them “out there” and makes it appear we are
surrounded by a “total immersion movie.” Then, and only then, our senses “read”
what has been projected “out there” and bring that information back to the
brain.
“David Bohm had suggested that
were we to view the cosmos without the lenses that outfit our telescopes, the
universe would appear to us as a hologram. Pribram extended this insight by
noting that were we deprived of the lenses of our eyes and the lens-like
processes of our other sensory receptors, we would be immersed in holographic
experiences.”11
I don’t think anyone knows exactly how this works right now,
but I feel confident as the research in quantum physics continues, someone will
discover the process.
Meanwhile, we have been given a big clue – one of those
“hints” I talked about in the last chapter – in the form of the modern
computer….
Most computers currently use what is
called “binary code,” which is made up of nothing but zero’s and one’s.12 If you look at the zero’s and one’s themselves, they
look random and chaotic, like the 3-D pictures.
But inside every computer is a CPU – a Central Processing
Unit – that acts as the “brain” of the computer. This CPU receives the binary
code in sequences of zero’s and one’s, translates that binary code, and
projects the results onto a computer screen where we can see it in a form that
makes sense to us.
A computer also has its own sensory perceptions, which
include things like a mouse, a touch screen, a microphone, a video camera, etc.
When we interact with the computer through one of its senses – like clicking
the mouse – that message gets sent back to the CPU for further processing.
Therefore, in the same way a computer’s CPU receives its
binary code, translates it, projects the results onto a screen, and then
processes the inputs that come back through the mouse and other sensory perceptions,
our human brain receives wave frequencies from The Field, translates them into
particles by collapsing the wave function, projects the results “out there,”
and then processes the inputs that come back through our own sensory
perceptions.
I invite you to try an experiment yourself. Go outside, or
just look around wherever you are, and imagine for a moment you are not looking
at some independent or objective reality “out there,” but you are projecting
that reality “out there” much in the same way a projector puts a movie onto the
theater screen.
“If the holographic brain
model is taken to its logical conclusions, it opens the door on the possibility
that objective reality – the world of coffee cups, mountain vistas, elm trees,
and table lamps – might not even exist…. Is it possible that what is ‘out
there’ is really a vast, resonating symphony of wave forms, a ‘frequency
domain’ that is transformed into the world as we know it only after
it enters our brain?”13
David Bohm said “the tangible reality
of our everyday lives is really a kind of illusion, like a holographic image.
Underlying it is a deeper order of existence, a vast and more primary level of
reality that gives birth to all the objects and appearances of our physical
world in much the same way that a piece of holographic film gives birth to a
hologram.”14
“If the concreteness of the
world is but a secondary reality, and what is ‘out there’ is actually a
holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only
processes some of the frequencies out of this blur, what becomes of objective
reality? Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. Although we may think we are
physical beings moving through a physical world, this is an illusion. We are
really ‘receivers’ floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequency.”15
In other words, as Fred Alan Wolf and
Lynne McTaggert both say, “there is no ‘out there’ out there, independent
of what is going on ‘in here.’”16 (Watch a
video of them from What
the Bleep!? – Down the Rabbit Hole by clicking here.)
“What is ‘out there,’”
says Michael Talbot, “is a vast ocean of waves and frequencies, and reality
looks concrete to us only because our brains are able to take this holographic
blur and convert it into the sticks and stones and other familiar objects that
make up our world.”17
“What is real? How do you define ‘real?’ If you’re
talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and
see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”
- Morpheus, from The Matrix
* * *
Time to sum all of this up in a nice neat little paragraph…
What we have always thought of as our life, our reality, is
not real – according to quantum physics – but actually a holographic 3D movie
we have been immersed in, whose wave frequencies have been downloaded from The
Field to our brain, where they are translated into particles located in space
and time and projected “out there” for us to perceive through our senses.
What this means is that there is no independent, objective
reality “out there,” but a wholly subjective reality created totally dependent
on what’s “in here.”
In short, there is no “out there” out there.
“There is evidence to suggest
that our world and everything in it – from snowflakes to maple trees to falling
stars and spinning electrons – are only ghostly images, projections from a
level of reality so beyond our own that it is literally beyond both space and
time.”18
Even Einstein is reported to have said, “Reality is
merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“This is the only radical
thinking that you need to do. But it is so radical, it is so difficult, because
our tendency is that the world is already ‘out there,’ independent of my
experience. It is not. Quantum Physics has been so clear about it.”19
* * *
MOVIE SUGGESTION: The Thirteenth Floor, starring Craig Bierko (1999)
FOOTNOTES
THE BREAKOUT
Back to the Table of Contents
As I walked out
of the Library into the back of the movie theater again, I looked up at the
black ball hanging from the center of the ceiling with its bright lights
streaming toward the wrap-around IMAX screens.
Finally, I knew with certainty what the ball was. It was
projecting the images of the 3D movies onto the screens, creating the holograms
we are all part of, totally immersing us, making them appear to be our lives,
our reality.
In fact, Pribram said that black ball was a human brain – my
human brain – and the movies it produced were not real at all. According to
quantum physics, nothing is “real,” as we have always understood that word –
not just the shadows on the wall of Plato’s Cave, but also the fire and the men
on the walkway that produce the shadows, and the Cave itself as well. It’s all
a hologram, popping in and out of existence as I observe it; and by definition,
a hologram is not real.
But all of this brought up a lot more questions than it
answered....
~ Who or what is creating the holographic movies I’m
experiencing as my reality?
~ If the movies I’ve been watching and thinking were my life
aren’t real (along with the movie theater itself), then what is real?
~ Why do the movies seem to contain so much drama and
conflict and pain and suffering, both internal and external?
~ What does it all mean in the end?
And perhaps even more importantly, in light of the
discoveries in quantum physics, I had to rethink all my previous answers to the
questions:
~ Who am I, really?
~ Where did I come from?
~ How did I get here?
~ What am I doing here?
I stood there staring at the black ball hanging from the
ceiling as if it would suddenly and magically speak and give me the answers I
needed.
* * *
I was about to turn sixty-two years of age, sitting in my apartment
one day when I realized…
~ I had no job. I had responded to a few want ads that would
have been perfect for me, but no one wanted to hire me.
~ I had no money and didn’t know how I was going to pay the
next month’s rent.
~ I had no relationship, no one to love, no female who
wanted to be part of my life in an intimate way.
~ I had two marriages, both of which failed after 15+ years
because of my own issues.
~ Although I had a few close friends, none of them lived
within a thousand miles of me at the time.
~ I had a wonderful family, including three fantastic
grandchildren; but other than my daughter and her husband, I hardly got to see
them.
~ I had written two books about AIDS and HIV no one was
buying and apparently no one wanted to read.
~ I had no future plans, no idea how anything would change.
…and I thought to myself, “My life couldn’t get any more….”
The word I used, if I recall correctly, started with an "F."
But as I sat in the apartment that day taking stock of my
life and realizing how limited it had become, I did not feel any depression,
any regret, any sadness or loneliness at all. It wasn’t apathy or resignation,
either. The “F” word was just a habit with no emotion behind it. Instead, it
was a moment devoid of all judgment or resistance to my situation – a moment as
if I were suspended in time and looking at myself from afar, a moment in which
I completely surrendered to "what is" without any desire or need to
change it.
If I had any reaction at all, it was more like, “Oh. So
that’s the way things are;” and what I felt the most was gratitude for still
having a roof over my head and enough food to eat.
* * *
When it wouldn’t speak to me, my eyes finally left the black
ball and came to rest on the door at the back of the theater, the one with the
sign saying, “Do Not Enter – Extremely Dangerous.”
I knew the answers I wanted – I needed – were not going to
be found inside the movie theater, or in any group, or in the Library.
I knew my life had reached a turning point, perhaps like an
alcoholic or drug addict who hits bottom and takes an honest and dispassionate
look at his life.
I knew I was tired of fighting, joining this group and then
that one, trying to make things happen, working hard to make things go right,
only to end up here. I had been there, done that, and brought home both the
t-shirt and the hat, neither of which fit.
I could feel something inside me literally pushing me toward
that door, almost as if I had no other option. There was nothing left in the
movie theater for me, so why should I stay when there was somewhere else to go
I had never been, and staying here made no sense at all.
It was with both fear and excitement that I walked toward
the door, opened it, and went through.
* * *
The rest of this book will be my written report to you as
your “scout” of what I found on the other side of the door.
At this point I want to repeat and expand on something I
said in the Introduction. I am not writing this book to try to talk you into
anything. I am merely passing on information I have discovered during my own
journey. Whether you believe that information or not is none of my business or
concern, and I am not interested in convincing you I am right. If at any time
it sounds like I am arguing a point to try to get you to believe it, rest
assured that is not the case. My only job, as I see it, is to try to pass on
the information as clearly and completely as possible, and sometimes that isn’t
easy. I will often go to great lengths to make sure I have expressed the
information in a way you can at least understand what I am saying, whether you
agree with it or not.
I also promised you in the Introduction I would let you know
when we reach the place in the book where you can only go on and not back.
We’re there.
Of course, you can keep reading the rest of the book out of
pure curiosity, maintaining some distance, not getting too involved, never
going through the door, not reading as if the book were about you and your own
spiritual evolution. There’s no danger in that. Do whatever you want, and
remember you can never do anything “wrong.”
But I have to warn you, if you keep reading, the information
is going to make its way into your mind and will stay there forever. You can do
your best to ignore it and return to your life as a Human Adult inside the
movie theater, but eventually it will begin to have its impact, maybe a little
bit at a time. That’s fine, too. I suggest, however, if you really don’t want
to let this affect your life in any way, you stop reading now, put the book
down, and walk away. This book will always be there in the Library in the movie
theater, if and when you decide you want to pick it up again.
All but a few Human Adults spend the rest of their lives in
the back of the movie theater belonging to some group; and they die there as
well. Most have no idea there’s an alternative, so no one can blame them.
Besides, the sign on the door says, “Do Not Enter,” and Human Adults have a
tendency to respect authority. The sign also says, “Extremely Dangerous,” and
most Human Adults are still controlled by their fears.
But maybe you’re not one of them, and now you know there is
an alternative.
* * *
I want to give you as much information as I can for you to
make a decision about how you want to proceed; and at this point I’m going to
introduce a new metaphor, apparently a fairly common one….
“The complete metamorphosis of a
butterfly has been used as a metaphor for eternal life, as the ‘earth-bound’
caterpillar transforms into the ‘ethereal butterfly’,” says the New World
Encyclopedia.1
I said before that the Universe provides many hints and
clues in plain sight for us to see and understand when we’re ready. The
butterfly metamorphosis is one of them, so it doesn’t surprise me that various
writers have picked up on it from time to time.
Once again, however, their metaphor is wrong because it’s
based on a faulty premise.
The metaphor of metamorphosis has nothing to do with
“eternal life.” It has everything to do with becoming a butterfly in the here
and now.
Let’s first understand that “metamorphosis” is actually the
whole series of changes an insect undergoes from egg to adult. Metamorphosis
commonly has four stages, which we can easily equate to our discussions about
the movie theater…
Stage One: The embryo or egg, i.e., the Human Child
Stage Two: The larva, i.e., the Human Adult
Stage Three: The pupa, i.e., what comes after “the door”
Stage Four: The adult or imago, i.e., the so-called
“spiritually enlightened”
What we’re talking about at the moment is going from Stage
Two, a Human Adult, into Stage Three, the pupa. That’s precisely what happens
if you walk through the door at the back of the theater.
In insect metamorphosis, the pupa stage is when the
caterpillar transforms into its adult form (the imago).
“It is during the time of
pupation that the adult structures of the insect are formed while the larval
structures are broken down. Pupae are inactive, and usually sessile (not able
to move about). They have a hard protective coating and often use camouflage to
evade potential predators.”2
This “hard protective coating” takes different forms in
different insects, but is most commonly known as a “cocoon.”
Technically, most butterflies do not have a “cocoon.”
Instead, they have a “chrysalis.” A “cocoon” is a silk casing spun by a
caterpillar which totally encloses them during their transformation into a
moth, for example. A “chrysalis” is created when a caterpillar that will become
a butterfly sheds its outer layer of skin, leaving a hard shell hanging from a
leaf or twig in which it is encased for the transformation.
But I’m going to take some literary license here and from
now on use the word “cocoon” rather than “chrysalis” in my butterfly
metamorphosis metaphor. After all, it’s just a metaphor, and “cocoon” is a lot
easier to type and pronounce, and much more commonly understood.
So… if you decide to walk through the door in the back of
the theater, you will be leaving Stage Two and entering Stage Three, stepping
into a cocoon; and one of the reasons I like this metaphor so much is that
there are many similarities between a caterpillar cocoon and what’s on the
other side of the door. Here’s what you can expect, should you take this step….
A cocoon is small and confining and desolate and lonely and
dark, and it means the death of the caterpillar; and that’s exactly where you
will find yourself. Know right now that you will not be walking into the
blinding white light of eternal bliss. Instead, things will look pretty much
the same as they always have in the first few days; it will take you some time
to realize just how different they are, as you begin what has been referred to
(but ultimately misunderstood) by various religions inside the movie theater as
the “dark night of the soul.”
“’Dark night of the soul’ is used
to describe a phase in a person's spiritual life, marked by a sense of
loneliness and desolation…. It is referenced by spiritual traditions throughout
the world..... The term ‘dark night (of the soul)’ is used in Christianity for
a spiritual crisis in a journey towards union with God…. Typically for a
believer in the dark night of the soul, spiritual disciplines (such as prayer
and consistent devotion to God) suddenly seem to lose all their experiential
value; traditional prayer is extremely difficult and unrewarding for an
extended period of time…. The individual may feel as though God has suddenly
abandoned them or that his or her prayer life has collapsed…. Rather than
resulting in devastation, however, the dark night is perceived by mystics and
others to be a blessing in disguise, whereby the individual is stripped of the
spiritual ecstasy associated with acts of virtue. Although the individual may
for a time seem to outwardly decline in their practices of virtue, they in reality
become more virtuous, as they are being virtuous less for the spiritual rewards
obtained and more out of a true love for God.”3
Let’s just say in your cocoon on the other side of the door,
you will experience situations that will challenge every single belief, theory,
opinion, judgment, and attitude you ever had and held sacred; and none of your
prior training in any spiritual philosophy or self-help technique will do you
the slightest bit of good.
For example, spiritual philosophies or self-help practices
designed to alter your state of consciousness, such as meditation and breathing
techniques and dream analysis, are the last thing you will want to do inside
your cocoon, because you need to be in full and conscious control of all the
faculties of your mind. (I’m not saying you will “think” your way into being a
butterfly, but you’ll quickly learn that any technique or practice you may have
learned in the back of the movie theater that involved closing your eyes was
actually leading you in the exact opposite direction of where you wanted to go.
Everything you will need to become a butterfly will appear right there in front
of you, and you’ll want to be wide awake and fully focused on the here and
now.)
“Just hypothetically, what if you
found out that in order to achieve the enlightenment you speak of, you had to
reject all the teachings you’ve ever received. Could you abandon all this
knowledge you’ve acquired?”4
How “dark” will this “dark night” be? That depends on you.
All I can say right now is that the intensity of the “darkness” will depend on
how resistant you are to letting go and dying, in the same way a caterpillar
could make his transformation a living hell if he fought it inside the cocoon.
What else can you expect if you walk through the door? To be
totally alone. Every caterpillar has its own cocoon, and so will you. That
doesn’t mean you have to disconnect from family or friends and go off in the
woods somewhere by yourself, although some have; but your family and friends
will not be able to help you, nor will they understand what you’re doing or
why. Only those who have gone before you – the scouts – will have any idea what
you’re going through, and contact with them only happens rarely while you’re in
the cocoon. It means there will be no group to support or comfort you like
there was in the back of the movie theater; you’re on your own.
Will the movies you’ve been watching in the theater change?
Not really, not that much in the beginning; but there is definitely a change in
their purpose, from leading you into more limitation in the movie theater to
giving you the opportunity to eventually break out of your cocoon as a
butterfly. You’ll have to read the next part of this book to fully understand
that concept.
Perhaps the most disturbing prospect of walking through that
door into your cocoon is your certain death. A caterpillar must “die” in order
to transform into a butterfly. You, too, must die – that is, the “you” you
think of as “you” must die. It is only through this death that you can discover
who you really are.
How long will you stay in the cocoon?
“Pupation may be brief, for
example 2 weeks as in monarch butterflies, or the pupa may enter dormancy or
diapause until the appropriate season for the adult…. Pupation may last weeks,
months or even years.”5
From reports of two other scouts and my own experience, I
can say you will probably stay in the cocoon about two to three years. Not all that
time will be the “dark night of the soul;” it gets easier as you get closer to
the end. But you should be prepared not to emerge as a butterfly any time soon,
like next week or next year.
It all sounds like a lot of fun, doesn’t it? Actually, it
is, or it can be once you get the hang of it. (No pun intended… a chrysalis hangs
from a leaf or… oh, never mind.)
But consider this… if you decide to climb Mount Everest, you
should be prepared for a lot of hard training and difficult conditions in order
to reach the summit. If you want to be an Olympic swimmer, there’s years of
sacrificing a “normal” life and hours a day in the pool and weight room just to
try to qualify; and then there’s no guarantee of a medal.
I doubt any good coach or trainer would sugarcoat all the
preparation you must go through if you want to achieve such lofty goals. The
same is true in this case.
On the other hand, no one attempts to climb Mount Everest or win Olympic Gold or do anything challenging without knowing the end result
is worth the effort. That would truly be insane. In this case, what awaits you
as a butterfly is constant and true and abiding joy, abundance, power, and
love. Well, maybe. I’m still in the last part of my cocoon stage, so I won’t
guarantee anything. What I can say from my current position is that I am
experiencing all the things I wished for and believed possible while still in
the movie theater as a Human Adult: true contentment, peace of mind, more
abundance than I could have imagined, total relief from worry and stress, more
fun and excitement than I ever dreamed of, with virtually no drama and conflict
or pain and suffering, and much more love and appreciation for myself and
everyone else and the Universe as a whole.
Plus, I have the answers I needed to my questions; and
perhaps more importantly, I have no more doubts.
To me, that alone makes the journey worthwhile, and I’m not
yet at the final destination.
* * *
I found it amusing that in his Enlightenment Trilogy,
Jed McKenna spent the entire first book telling you all about what it’s like to
be “spiritually enlightened,” painting a very wonderful, accurate, and
appealing picture. Then in Book Two, he made it very clear how difficult and
demanding it is to get there, using examples of Julie’s spiritual autolysis and
the travails of Captain Ahab in Moby Dick. But in Book Three Jed seems
to go to great lengths to try to convince you not to go there, but to
stay in the movie theater as a Human Adult.
“Who wants to be cast permanently
adrift on a shoreless sea? Who wants to spend the rest of their life tumbling
through infinite space? No one, of course. What’s the point of pointlessness?
How can you want nothing?”6
It’s true. So-called “spiritual enlightenment” is not at all
what people have dreamed it to be; and despite what some teachers and gurus
have said, it is not something that happens overnight in a blinding flash of
light, or as the result of a special meditation session where all of a sudden
you commune with God. Getting there is extremely difficult and demanding,
but so is reaching the summit of Mt. Everest. Sure, you could stay in Base Camp
and enjoy the view and appreciate the beauty and have a fairly decent life. Or
you could climb to the top.
Why would anyone do that? Because it’s there, of course; and
because you simply cannot not do it. Because there’s something inside
you that says you absolutely must go through that door.
For some people the choice is clear and easy. What’s the
point of staying inside the movie theater when you know it’s not real and the
answers you’re seeking can’t be found there?
For others, the choice can be really tough, especially for
younger Human Adults (in chronological age) who have their entire lives ahead
of them. I wonder whether it takes a certain amount of time spent in the movie
theater before one is ready to consider another option. After all, there’s a
lot of fun and enjoyment and pleasure to be found as a Human Adult – limited
and restricted though it is – that someone in their twenties or thirties might
not be so anxious to miss out on. The thought of leaving your group and ending
up totally alone before getting to experience everything the Cave has to offer
might not be that appealing.
Of course, it’s also possible the younger ones don’t believe
me that the answers they’re seeking can’t be found inside the theater. Perhaps
they don’t want to believe me, having just joined a group they think can
offer them the constant and true and abiding joy, abundance, power, and love
they’re seeking, and want to give it a go. I’m all for it – give it all you’ve
got for as long as you can. Nothing you do will be “wrong;” the door at the
back of the theater will always be there.
But I have often thought while writing this book that I
could be talking almost exclusively to the Baby Boomers, the former Hippies now
in their late 50’s and 60’s who have spent enough time in the back of the
theater to fully appreciate its limitations and have virtually nothing to lose
by going through the door. We’ll see.
* * *
So, there it is. That’s everything I can think of to help
you make your decision.
The door is standing there right there in front of you,
unlocked and ready for you to walk through it. (By the way, did I mention that
once you walk through, it closes and locks behind you, and you can never change
your mind?)
As I said in the beginning, it’s your choice.
* * *
MOVIE SUGGESTION: The
Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey (1998)
FOOTNOTES
INSIDE THE COCOON
Back to the Table of Contents
There is nothing in a caterpillar
that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.
~ R. Buckminster Fuller
PREFACE TO PART TWO
Welcome to your
cocoon!
The sound you just heard was the door closing and locking
behind you, so let’s not waste any time….
(By the way, what often happens first as you enter your
cocoon is that you get a gift from the “Universe,” a little “reward” for taking
your first step toward self-realization. This will be different for everyone,
so you’ll want to be open and alert and on the lookout; and it helps to express
some appreciation – to no one in particular, if you like – when the gift
arrives.)
* * *
Before we start there’s an important distinction that must
be made between a “belief system” and a “model.”
A model is defined as “a schematic
description of a system, theory, or phenomenon that accounts for its known or
inferred properties and may be used for further study of its characteristics1,” and “a systematic description of an object or
phenomenon that shares important characteristics with the object or phenomenon.
Scientific models can be material, visual, mathematical, or computational and
are often used in the construction of scientific theories.”2
There’s a simpler definition at Answers.com
that says “a scientific model is a representation of an object or system. An
example of a scientific model would be a diagram of a cell or a map…. even a
model rocket!”3
In other words, a model takes the evidence already at hand –
in our case, the results of the scientific experiments in quantum physics and
brain research – and develops a theory or representation of how that evidence
might be applied if taken to the next level.
A model is designed to be tested and challenged to see how
well it performs.
On the other hand, a “belief system” is often formed in
contradiction to the evidence at hand, and cannot withstand testing and
challenging. In fact, a belief system tries to avoid being tested or challenged
at all costs.
The remainder of this book will be talking about models, not
belief systems – models that have been tested and found to work.
You are not going to be asked to believe anything. Instead,
you are invited and encouraged to test these models for yourself.
All I can say as your scout is that the models I will
present worked for me and got me where I am today – standing here looking at
the Pacific Ocean, a truly amazing place I am very happy to be.
FOOTNOTES
THE CONSCIOUSNESS MODEL
Back to the Table of Contents
Ramana
Maharshi taught that you could achieve the stage of butterfly if you simply “Ask
yourself again and again, ‘Who am I?’”1
“The inquiry 'Who am I?' will
destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning
pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise
Self-realization.”2
That’s much more easily said than done; and like any other
teaching in the back of the movie theater, if it worked, there would be a lot
of butterflies populating the Earth by now.
So you’re going to take a little different approach that does
work. For approximately the next two years in your cocoon, you’re going to
focus on answering the question, “Who Am I not?”, along with the
question, “What is true?” At least, that’s what worked for me and a few other
scouts and got us where we are today.
Basically, before you can find the true answer to
“Who Am I?”, you have to strip away all the false answers you’ve
collected during your lifetime, especially those you picked up belonging to
various groups in the back of the movie theater.
Remember that in order for a caterpillar to transform into a
butterfly, it has to first realize it’s not a caterpillar any more.
“It is during the time of
pupation that the adult structures of the insect are formed while the larval
structures are broken down.”3
So we’re going to take a closer look at some of the beliefs
commonly held around the topic of “Who I Am” and whether they are true or not;
and one of the most common that has become very popular among New Age groups
is: “You create your own reality.”
But is that true?
First of all, since the New Age apparently never found out
that “reality” is actually a holographic image, and not “real” at all, the
saying is not true right off the bat. But that’s just a minor error, and I’m
very willing to amend their slogan slightly to conform to quantum physics and
say, “You create your own holographic universe,” so we can focus on the
important issues.
“You create your own holographic universe.”
Is that true?
If so, exactly who is the “you” who is creating your own
holographic universe?
Let’s find out by picking up where we left off in our study
of quantum physics in the last part. We said…
“What we have always thought of as our life, our reality,
is not real – according to quantum physics – but actually a holographic 3D
movie we have been immersed in, whose wave frequencies have been downloaded
from The Field to our brain, where they are translated into particles located
in space and time and projected “out there” for us to perceive through our
senses.”
…and the question we asked was, “Who or what is creating the
holographic movies I’m experiencing as my reality?”
You’ll remember that a hologram is a two-step process, and
in the second step the reference beam is directed toward the holographic plate
(or film) containing the object in order to get the object to pop out into
“reality.”
What we didn’t discuss yet is that a single
piece of holographic film is capable of storing many, many objects, and in fact
holography may soon replace other laser-based storage techniques because of its
capacity to hold so much information. (“The advantage of this type of data
storage is that the volume of the recording media is used instead of
just the surface.”4)
Which object or objects pop out when you direct a reference
beam at the film depends on the angle of the reference beam. In other words,
you can choose which holographic images to create by using different angles for
the reference beam to select the exact wave patterns you want that are stored
in the holographic film.
Now let’s apply that to our holographic universe….
Some sort of reference beam – we don’t know what yet – is
directed at The Field, which is like a gigantic piece of holographic film that
already contains all the wave frequencies required for an infinite number of
holograms; and out pops “reality.”
So now we can ask our question even more specifically: Who
or what is the reference beam that chooses certain wave frequencies from
The Field to create our holographic reality?
The best answer anyone has come up with so far is consciousness.
Consciousness is what chooses the precise wave frequencies in
The Field and downloads them to a human brain, which then converts them into
space/time particles and out pops our “reality.”
Of course, this process is not two-dimensional or linear as
portrayed in this picture. A more realistic depiction might be
three-dimensional concentric circles, with “reality” in the middle, The Field
around it, and consciousness around The Field.
You could think of it like a peach, where the peach pit is
“reality,” The Field is the meat of the peach that you eat, and consciousness
is the skin. However, we’re stuck with two-dimensional linear pictures right
now, at least until this book can be made holographically.
* * *
Consciousness is what chooses the
precise wave frequencies in The Field and downloads them to a human brain,
which then converts them into space/time particles and out pops our “reality.”
This is where quantum physicists split into two main groups.
One group – the “pure” scientists – cannot accept this answer, although it is
the most logical and the simplest, and therefore satisfies Occam’s Razor and
the principle of parsimony. That’s because consciousness cannot
be measured or dealt with in the normal scientific way. Consciousness
simply does not lend itself well to mathematical equations or statistical
research.
But there are a significant number of quantum physicists who
understand that consciousness is not only the best answer, but
also the most workable. One of those is Dr. Amit Goswami, in my estimation one
of the great thinkers of our time. Dr. Goswami is Professor Emeritus in
theoretical physics at the University of Oregon, Senior Scholar in Residence at
the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and author of eight books on Quantum Physics,
including The Self-Aware Universe and Science and Spirituality: A
Quantum Integration. Dr. Goswami says:
“Quantum Physics enables us to
see directly that we can make sense of the world only if we base the world on consciousness. The world is
made of consciousness; the world is consciousness…. Quantum Physics makes this
as clear as daylight…. Consciousness must be involved,… and so for the first
time, science encounters ‘free will.’ Consciousness is free because there is no
mathematical description of the subject in our science; only objects can be
described mathematically, and only to the extent that they are possibilities.
The question still remains paramount: Who is the ‘chooser?’ And when we see
that… we see that there is freedom of choice, and out of that freedom of choice
comes our actual experience.”5
Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, Teaching Fellow in Physics at Yale University, has these thoughts…
“If you put it that there is
an intangible world that effects the tangible world of our experience, and if
you then say, ‘That’s what quantum mechanics says,’ – and granted, that’s a
fair way of trying to put into English something which is very, very difficult
to grasp – but it then leads quite naturally to the conclusion that quantum
mechanics says that there is a spiritual world that makes this choice, that
there is another world that is intangible that effects and influences the
physical world. That intangibility, however, is itself the bedrock of physical
reality. It may be intangible, but it is – well, we can’t really say what it is
or why it’s there – but it is in fact the most fundamental feature of matter.”6
Fred Alan Wolf, theoretical physicist, puts it this way…
“Quantum Physics says that consciousness is playing a
role in the universe. It says that there is a secret underground that seems to
be effecting the reality we live in, and that this reality we live is not at
all what it appears to be.”7
And Dr. Andrew Newberg, Director for the Center for
Spirituality and the Neurosciences at the University of Pennsylvania, asks…
“Whether or not we’re just
living in a big ‘Holodeck’ is a question we don’t necessarily have a good
answer for…. It is conceivable that all of this really is just a great
illusion…. So what is the relationship between consciousness and material
reality – whether or not the material world can actually be derived from a
consciousness reality, or whether consciousness itself could even be the
fundamental stuff of the universe, so to speak, instead of the ‘cold, dark
matter’ or other aspects of matter that physicists have been looking for?…
Maybe it has something more to do with consciousness. In that regard, then, we really
can think about the universe as being more a state of consciousness… much more
so than the material reality that we normally look at.”8
So a number of highly respected and thoughtful quantum
physicists have concluded that consciousness is what chooses
the exact wave frequencies from The Field it wants to use to create our
holographic experiences.
However, just like The Field, no one can prove consciousness
exists. But also like The Field, when we assume “consciousness
must be involved,” as Dr. Goswami says, we can then build a very successful
model of how our world works and use that model in very practical and
successful every-day applications.
So the statement “You create your own holographic universe”
is not true, since the “you” you think of as you, the one on the
“reality” side of The Field, is not creating that reality. It might be closer
to the truth to say, “Your consciousness creates your own
holographic universe.”
But… what exactly is consciousness?
If you would like a good laugh, click here to
watch a short video from What
the Bleep!? – Down the Rabbit Hole, where some of the
brightest people in the field of quantum physics try to give an answer!
Now, after you’ve stopped laughing, please appreciate the
honesty and humility with which all those great minds struggled with the
question, because defining consciousness is not easy at all.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines consciousness
as “the quality or state of being aware, especially of something within
oneself.”9
In philosophy, “at its most basic
level, consciousness may be said to be the process of
a thinker focusing the thought on some aspect of existence.”10
“In human beings, consciousness
is understood to include ‘meta-awareness,’ an awareness that one is aware.”11
In many spiritual teachings, consciousness
is synonymous with the human soul or spirit, the immortal part of a human
being; and “higher consciousness – also called super consciousness (Yoga),
objective consciousness (Gurdjieff), Buddhic consciousness (Theosophy),
God-consciousness (Sufism and Hinduism), Christ consciousness (New Thought),
and cosmic consciousness – are expressions used to denote the consciousness of
a human being who has reached a higher level of evolutionary development.”12
But, “we may be forced to admit that
consciousness, like infinity and the particle-wave concepts in quantum
mechanics, is a property that cannot be made intuitively straightforward.
Consciousness – like gravity, mass, and charge – may be one of the irreducible
properties of the universe for which no further account is possible.”13
If you visit Answers.com and Wikipedia.com and search for consciousness,
you will find essay upon essay – dozens of them – from respected researchers
trying to explain what consciousness is, all with a little
different take on the word.
For me, the last quote is perhaps the most significant and
worth repeating…
“Consciousness – like
gravity, mass, and charge – may be one of the irreducible properties of the
universe for which no further account is possible.”
So I think it’s clear no one really knows exactly what consciousness
is or how to properly define it. The truth is we will never know; we only
know it must exist. We are, in fact, incapable of knowing, and always will be
incapable of knowing, simply because we are on the other side of The Field from
consciousness; and our brains – at least according to Pribram
– are designed as holographic receivers and translators, and have no capacity
or ability to access or process any information on the other side of The Field.
We do know that consciousness
is not the body, the brain, the mind, the intellect, or anything else in the
holographic universe. It is not a thing; it is the creator of things.
Am I saying that we – the “I” who is writing this book and
the “you” who are reading it – have no consciousness? No, I’m
saying the word consciousness has been applied to mean a great
many things in our holographic universe, and it’s very confusing to then use it
to describe what exists on the other side of The Field.
Yes, we – “you” and “I” – have a kind of consciousness,
which is self-consciousness. We are aware of our “selves,” and we are aware of
being aware; as the dictionary said, “the quality or state of being aware,
especially of something within oneself.”
That’s fine, but that’s not the consciousness
we’re talking about that chooses wave frequencies from The Field.
Rene Descartes said: “I think, therefore I am.”
Descartes lived inside the movie theater like everyone else, and as I mentioned
before, in quantum physics we are finding the opposite of what we have always
believed is actually closer to the truth: “I am, therefore I think.”
The consciousness we’re now talking about
is the “I am;” you and I and our self-consciousness are the “I think.”
* * *
For a long time I hesitated to do this, probably in reaction
to the two complete dictionaries of new words and meanings L. Ron Hubbard
created for Scientology. I don’t even enjoy reading poetry; I like to read
plain and simple English with clear and well-accepted words and meanings.
But because of all this confusion about the word consciousness,
and because this concept is so essential to understand on your path to becoming
a butterfly, I feel it’s necessary to come up with a new label to properly
describe the consciousness on the other side of The Field –
this “irreducible property of the universe” – and differentiate it from us on
this side of The Field.
I decided quite early I could not use terms like “higher
self,” “higher power,” “higher consciousness,” or “expanded self,” since they,
too, are so over-used and misunderstood; and frankly, they all take a Human
Adult in exactly the opposite direction of where you want to go if you want to
become a butterfly. We’ll see why shortly.
Likewise, I didn’t want to use “soul” or “spirit” or
anything else with any religious connotation. This isn’t about theology or
ascended masters or higher levels of spirituality.
I finally decided on the term, “Infinite I,” which
admittedly makes some assumptions, but in the end and for our purposes turns
out to be quite useful.
The assumptions are that whatever
consciousness exists on the other side of The Field has qualities and
attributes that are infinite, such as:
~ infinite joy
~ infinite abundance
~ infinite wisdom
~ infinite power
~ infinite and unconditional love
~ and an infinite desire to play and express itself
creatively14
This may or may not turn out to be the “Truth”; perhaps
we’ll find out when we die – or not. But for now it’s as close to the truth as
we’re going to get, and, like the concept of The Field, provides a very
workable model to continue our transformation into a butterfly.
It also serves the purpose of making a clear distinction
between the Infinite I on one side of The Field, and “you” and “me” on
the other side, walking around in holographic bodies on a holographic Earth.
Therefore, the Infinite I is not the “I” who writes these words, and
it’s not the “you” who reads them. (I’m going to give another name to that
“you” and “I” in the next chapter.)
I also want to emphasize that when I say
"Infinite I," I am talking about a single, individual consciousness
– not consciousness in general (as the word is sometimes used), or some
“collective consciousness,” or “cosmic consciousness,” or “God.” Each of us has
an Infinite I. (Perhaps the closest anyone in the movie theater has come
to this concept, as far as I can tell, is Jane Roberts in her novels, The
Oversoul Seven Trilogy,15 based on the “Seth
material.”)
So from now on I will refer to the Infinite I as the one who
chooses the precise wave frequencies in The Field and downloads them to a human
brain, which then converts them into space/time particles and out pops our
“reality.”
Before we go on, I want to be very clear about this Infinite
I, because I don’t want any confusion with other concepts you may have
developed inside the movie theater.
The Infinite I is not your “higher self” or “expanded
self.” There are two things wrong with the term “higher self;” one is the word
“higher,” and the other is the word “self.”
First, “higher” has no relevance here. It's a judgment word,
a comparison, and we will soon see that judgment is the glue that keeps the
illusions together inside the movie theater. The word “self” implies that what
we think of as our “self” has a higher version. But what we think of as our
“self” is not true – any of it. In fact, where we're headed with all this is
toward “no-self.” So the last thing we want to think of in terms of the Infinite
I is that it is some expanded version of us. It’s not.
Nor is the Infinite I some “advanced” or
“spiritualized” or “ascended” or “purified” or “better” version of you. It is
not some “enlightened” or “evolved” or “avatar” or “holy” version of you,
either. It is not something you will ever grow into being. You will never
“become” your Infinite I, no matter what you do, how “good” you are, how
much you meditate or eat only organic food, or pray, or perform certain
ceremonies or rituals.
It is not “God,” or “All That Is,” or Allah, or Jehovah, or
Yahweh, or “The Source” either.
It is also not your super consciousness, objective
consciousness, Buddhic consciousness, God-consciousness, Christ consciousness,
universal consciousness, or cosmic consciousness. Those are all movie-theater
versions of the truth, and therefore skewed. It is consciousness,
yes – your consciousness; but not the consciousness you
experience as a human being, which is self-consciousness.
Although you are in constant communication with your Infinite
I (whether you realize it or not), you and it exist in entirely different
worlds – on different sides of The Field. The best analogy I can think of is an
astronaut on the moon, representing “you,” and Mission Control in Houston, representing your Infinite I, with all that space (The Field) in between.
I like this analogy because not only did your Infinite I send you to the
moon in the first place, but it is also your best friend and partner in this
adventure.
But then what is the Infinite I, you ask? Good
question.
I don’t know. I know from direct experience of testing and
challenging the model that my Infinite I exists, and it created me and
your Infinite I created you. I can tell you what it’s not, but I cannot
tell you what it is yet; and as I said, I don’t think it’s possible for anyone
to tell you what it is, in truth, as long as we are on this side of The Field.
The only thing I can say in all my dealings and contacts with my own Infinite
I, it is something I would be proud to take home to meet the parents.
* * *
So here is the “Consciousness Model” in a nutshell….
Your Infinite I chooses an experience for you in the
form of wave frequencies from an infinite number of possibilities in The Field
and downloads them to your brain. Your brain receives those wave frequencies
and translates them into physical “reality,” and sends them “out there” for
your senses to perceive. You assign power to the holographic universe you
perceive to make it "real" and to the persons, places, and things you
see.
But this suggests that there is nothing you can see, hear,
taste, feel, smell, or experience in any way that your Infinite I has
not chosen for you to experience and then sent to your brain to process into
“reality.” Every moment of every experience you have now – or have ever had and
will ever have – has been carefully chosen and created for you by your Infinite
I, exactly the way it is and exactly the way your Infinite I wants
it to be, down to the smallest detail. Remember…
THERE IS NO “OUT
THERE” OUT THERE!
FOOTNOTES
THE PLAYER MODEL
Back to the Table of Contents
This is your
first opportunity to find out “Who am I not?”
You are not your Infinite I. You are not
the one who is choosing the wave frequencies from The Field and creating your
experiences.
You are not even infinite. Your body, mind, intellect, and
everything associated with them are part of your holographic universe. They
aren’t real, much less infinite.
Your Infinite I is the “I Am,” and you are the “I
think” part of the equation.
If you can really get this at the beginning of your cocoon
stage, your metamorphosis will be so much more fun and easy and enjoyable.
However, right now your ego – the false personality you’ve constructed over
time – is probably screaming in your ear that this is all bullshit and to close
the book quickly and stop listening to this lunatic; because your ego wants you
to think you’re something you’re not, something “more,” something “special”
that is in fact immortal. That way, as long as “you” never die, it doesn’t have
to either. But that’s exactly what needs to happen in the cocoon: you and your
ego must die just like the caterpillar.
I realize every religion and every
spiritual teaching I’m aware of in the movie theater – including the New Age –
preaches that you are really a spiritual being (your “soul”) having a physical
experience (in your body). Even Robert Scheinfeld, who was my mentor and fellow
scout, said your Infinite I (which he called your “Expanded Self”) is
“the sun of who you really are;”1 and if
everybody says it, why shouldn’t you believe it?
Because it isn’t true…
…and it is perhaps the greatest error inside the movie
theater that prevents all Human Children and Human Adults from becoming butterflies.
As an astronaut on the moon, would you say you were really
Mission Control, in charge of the mission?
If you were the right tackle on a football team, would you
say you were really the quarterback calling the plays?
If you were a trumpet player in an orchestra, would you say
you were really the conductor?
I’m sure you’d like to think you are your consciousness,
that you are the “I Am;” but the simple fact you’d like to think you are
your consciousness is evidence of which side of the equation
you are actually on.
In the end, all that can be known and said to be true is
that your Infinite I is the one on the other side of The Field who is
creating all your holographic experiences for you, and you are not your Infinite
I; and, really, that’s all you need to know.
* * *
What’s the big deal? What’s the problem if we want to think
we are our Infinite I’s, the one creating our holographic experiences?
If the astronaut on the moon thought he was Mission Control,
what do you think would happen to the mission?
If the right guard on the football team thought he was the
quarterback, how many games do you think that team would win?
If the trumpet player in the orchestra thought he was the
conductor, what do you think the symphony would sound like?
But more importantly, every moment you spend trying to be
your Infinite I is a distraction from the real job you were created to
do. Now that you’re in the cocoon, the sooner you can stop trying to be your Infinite
I, the more time you will have for finding out who you really are.
Let me use another analogy to make sure I’m being clear
about this. If an Infinite I saw the Atlantic Ocean and decided it
wanted to go swimming, it might first wonder about the temperature of the
water, and then decide to create a big toe on its right foot to test the water
before taking the plunge. The job of that big toe would be to have the
experience of immersing itself in the water of the Atlantic, and then sending
back its feelings to its Infinite I through the feedback connection.
You get the picture. You are the big toe. You are not the
whole body, or the brain, or the consciousness. You are the
big toe.
If this were the case – if you were the big toe – would you
go around telling everyone you were actually the Infinite I? If you
truly understood why you were created and your role in relationship to your Infinite
I, wouldn’t you be satisfied to do your specific job and do it well, and
not try to be more than you are?
But as long as you constantly try to claim you “really are”
your Infinite I, can you see you become more of a pain in the ass than a
big toe?
Your Infinite I has shown an infinite patience while
you have tried to take its job away your entire life, and in the process
ignored and denied your actual purpose for existence. But even that wasn’t
“wrong,” and worked perfectly for your experiences while in the movie theater.
It just won’t work well in the cocoon.
Some of this has to do with the ego, and some with being
told by all religions and spiritual teachings we aren’t good enough exactly the
way we are, that we’re more than “just” a big toe. If we didn’t feel such shame
about who we are, we wouldn’t need anything “better” or “higher” to be or
become. When you’re finished with this process in the cocoon, you will know who
you really are and be totally satisfied with that and not need to be
anything else. “Serenity of being” is what I call it.
* * *
Maybe you don’t believe there is anything other than
yourself and your own mind creating all your experiences – nothing “higher,” no
soul or spirit or anything like that. Perhaps while in the movie theater you
rejected any concept that suggested some “higher power” was at work in your
life. Denying the existence of your Infinite I is as much of an error as
thinking you are your Infinite I, and in direct conflict with
quantum physics and the human brain studies. It may have served you well as a
caterpillar, but not any more. However, I don’t blame you or judge you,
especially since the “higher power” everyone was trying to convince you existed
made no sense in the way they portrayed it. As Philip K. Dick said in his
novel, Valis,
“The Creator is insane.”
But there is no doubt something (what I am calling
the Infinite I) is on the other side of The Field creating you and your
holographic experiences. Frankly, it is only your ego that would like you to
believe differently, to think you – on this side of The Field – have the
power to create anything. You will have a direct experience of this truth in
the cocoon, if you can allow yourself to see it.
* * *
If you are not your Infinite I, then what are you?
And exactly what’s your relationship to your Infinite I?
The best answer is that you are a “Player” – and so am I – a
Player created by your Infinite I to play a game, which it loves to do.
(In the next chapter we’ll start talking specifically about the game you’re
playing.)
Shakespeare told us over four-hundred
years ago: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely
players.”2 Maybe we could have paid more
attention.
I have suggested, and will suggest often, there are “hints”
and “clues” all around us in plain sight about how this holographic universe
works. One of them is the computer video games that have become so popular.
If you’ve never played a video game, you should. They can
provide some very deep insights along with a lot of fun. I recommend going to Pirates of the Caribbean
Online, which is free from Disney and a good example of what I’m
talking about.
Most sophisticated video games, like Pirates, begin
by creating a Player to represent you in the game. In Pirates, you can
create a new Player from scratch, choosing the gender; the shape of the body;
the height; the skin tone; all sorts of designs for the face; the shape of the
jaw, lips, and cheeks; the eye color, eyebrows, and shape of the eyes; lots of
choices for the nose and ears; the hairstyle and color, including a beard and
mustache; and then all combinations of clothing. The last thing you do is
choose a name for your Player.
I still marvel at this technology! It seems as if you could
create an infinite number of variations of Players from all the different
choices.
Now go back to Pirates and create
another player (they let you create two for free). This time, however, imagine
yourself as an Infinite I who wants to play and express itself
creatively, and you want to design a player who will be your representative in
this adventure, since you can’t go inside the game and play it yourself.
The point is that you – and I – were created by our Infinite
I’s and custom-designed the way they wanted us to look, down to the bridge
of our noses. They even gave us our names. (For those who might still believe
what we were taught in school that our appearance is the sole result of DNA
inherited from our parents, I recommend The
Biology of Belief by Dr. Bruce Lipton.)
* * *
Am I saying you are totally “separate” from your Infinite
I? No, not at all; not any more than a big toe is “separate” from the rest
of the body.
A big toe has its separate function, its specific job to do,
but it is part of the whole. A big toe, however, would never think it was
the whole body. That would be delusion, which is what all Players in the movie
theater suffer from.
Instead, a big toe is constantly connected to its body, and
happily and willing receives commands from the brain. In the same way, you – as
a Player – are constantly connected to your Infinite I; and as soon as
you stop trying to be something you’re not, your connection to your Infinite
I will get a lot clearer.
* * *
By now you know I like to let you read quotes from other
people who are saying essentially the same thing but in different words, to give
you another perspective. In this case, I’m going to bypass quantum physics and
go instead to metaphysics.
Darryl Anka is a channel, and the entity who supposedly
speaks through him is called “Bashar.” Here’s what Bashar has to say on this
topic, which I really like even though he uses the term “higher self”….
“Most of you are familiar with
the idea that you have a physical consciousness – a personality as a physical
being – that you relate to as ‘yourself.’ But then there is this mysterious
idea of the ‘higher self.’ Simply put, most of you understand or at least
intuit that the so-called ‘higher self’ is … non-physical. Even more simply you
could say that there is a vibrational frequency above physical reality – just
beyond physical reality – in which resides what you might refer to as a
‘template’ for physical reality or upon which your physical experience is
constructed.
“It might surprise you to know, as personality constructs
– as physical minds – you do not conceive of any ideas. The personality does
not conceive of concepts. It perceives concepts; it does not conceive them….
The ‘higher self’ conceives; the physical brain receives; the personality mind
perceives. That’s all it does. Any idea, any inspiration, any imagination ‘you’
have ever had doesn’t come from the physical mind portion of you; it comes from
the ‘higher self’ portion of you through the receiver – the brain – and is
translated by the brain into a vibration that the physical mind then perceives
as a reflected reality.
“This may sound at first somewhat limiting, but in fact
it’s very, very freeing, because you can all stop thinking! You can all stop
thinking you’re in charge. You can all stop thinking that you have to think of
everything. You can all stop thinking you’re the one guiding the ship. You’re
not. You are just looking at the road. You’re just experiencing the path….
“The reason you get into trouble, the reason you feel
stuck as a physical mind is because you have been taught to believe that the
physical mind is the one coming up with all this stuff. And it’s not. So when
you try to manipulate it, it doesn’t work, because the physical mind is not
designed to create those concepts. It is only designed to perceive the effect
of the creation of [your ‘higher self’] through the receiver, the physical
brain.
“This allows you to lighten up your load, stop carrying
so much baggage, stop trying to do your ‘higher self’s’ job, and just do your
own. That’s why so many of you are so tired; it’s because you’re trying to do a
job you weren’t designed to do. That’s exhausting! Stop! You were not hired to
do that job. Your ‘higher self’ already has that job and it’s working for you
perfectly…. Just do the job you were designed to do, which is perceive.”3
* * *
Apparently Bashar, or Darryl, can mix metaphors as well as I
can! “You can all stop thinking you’re the one guiding the ship. You’re not.
You are just looking at the road. You’re just experiencing the path….” –
ship, road, path….
So let me say it this way: You are not the one driving the
bus. Your Infinite I “hired” you – created you – to sit in the back of
the bus and perceive and react and respond to the scenery as it goes by, and
that’s all. But you haven’t done the best possible job at that either, since
you’ve spent a lot of time up front trying to take the bus driver’s job away
from him.
You do not create the scenery (your holographic
experiences); you do not choose which scenery to look at; you do not decide
what direction the bus will travel. All those jobs belong to the bus driver,
your Infinite I.
Who am I not? You are not the bus driver. You are not
the one creating your reality. You – on the same side of The Field as reality
itself – have no power to create anything, as a matter of fact.
When you finally surrender and accept this fact, it should
actually come as quite a relief. After all, we worked very hard while inside
the movie theater to create our reality – a reality we wanted – thinking we did
indeed drive the bus and were responsible to decide what direction it took and
what scenery we would see; and, of course, it didn’t work. At least we didn’t
create a reality we really wanted.
Now we can sit back and relax and enjoy the ride, allowing
our Infinite I’s to do the driving and know our only job is to react and
respond to the scenery – to the experiences that pop up in front of us. “Go
Greyhound, and leave the driving to your Infinite I.”
* * *
A few people, when they first hear this, react angrily –
almost violently – to the whole idea, thinking I’m suggesting they are nothing
more than a puppet or a slave of their Infinite I, who pulls all the
strings and the Player dances accordingly. Nothing could be further from the
truth. That, in fact, would defeat the entire purpose of the game the Infinite
I has created you to play, which is coming in the next chapter.
In order for the game to work for your Infinite I,
you, as a Player, must always be free – must always have free will – not to
choose or create which holographic experiences you have, but how you will react
and respond to them. In fact, this is why you exist as a Player, to use your
free will to choose your reactions and responses, and to experience the feelings
associated with those reactions and responses. It’s the feelings the Infinite
I wants from you; and if you didn’t have free will to choose your feelings,
the whole point of the game would be moot.
So you are far from being a puppet or a slave, manipulated
by some Infinite I you can’t see and are not even sure exists. You are
an integral Player in the game, performing a valuable and unique service to
your Infinite I. Think about it… if your Infinite I has to focus
on driving the bus all the time, wouldn’t it make sense it would create a part
of itself, a representative of itself, to sit in the back of the bus to be the
one who could focus solely on the scenery, and then send the feelings from the
reactions and responses to the scenery back to the Infinite I through a
strong and constant connection?
Do you think the astronaut on the moon considers itself a
puppet or slave of Mission Control? Do you think the right guard on the
football team considers itself to be a puppet or slave of the quarterback? Do
you think the trumpet player in the orchestra considers itself to be a puppet
or slave of the conductor?
Obviously not. They know their role and execute it
willingly.
Another analogy just occurred to me. At DisneyWorld, Pirates
of the Caribbean is a real amusement ride – as compared to the online
version I spoke of earlier. You sit in a little boat and are taken on a journey
through a number of different scenes and experiences, all of which are designed
to give you an inner experience, which can range from joy and excitement to
fear and tension. The path of the journey and the scenes you see were created
by the designer of the ride, and you don’t choose where the boat goes or what
experiences you encounter. Your only job is to sit in the boat and enjoy the
ride, reacting and responding to what you see in any way you want; and, of
course, no reaction or response you might have could ever be “wrong.”
All the designer of the ride is interested in, and wants,
are your feelings to the experiences he has created for you; but I have
yet to meet anyone who thinks they are a puppet or a slave of the designer of Pirates
of the Caribbean.
It’s only your ego, feeling threatened, that is resisting
the idea of being a Player for your Infinite I, coming up with this
“puppet” and “slave” argument. It also has to do with being unwilling to
relinquish control. Apparently we all want to be the one in control of our
life, the Master of our Domain, even though we’d have to admit we haven’t done
a very good job of it so far, since no one seems very pleased with the reality
they already have.
But that’s exactly the way it was supposed to be as long as
you were in the movie theater. You had to believe – as every religion and
spiritual philosophy led you to believe – you were the one driving the bus. It
was perfect for that purpose.
You’ve left the movie theater now and want to become a
butterfly. An important and essential part of that process is giving up the
need and the desire to be in control – to let go of the steering wheel, to be
willing to do the job you were created for and not try to be the bus driver.
* * *
“Okay, okay. So I’m not a puppet for my Infinite I. I
still want to at least be a co-creator of my experiences,” my friend insists.
I want to be very careful with this one, because in a sense
we are co-creators – but not the way we normally think of that word.
However, it’s possible our reactions and responses to one experience can
have an impact on the next experience we have.
If my Infinite I is driving the bus, and I’m sitting
in the back reacting and responding to the scenery that goes by my window, I
might have a particular reaction or response my Infinite I finds
especially interesting and wants to explore. So it might turn around and drive
by that scene again, giving me the same experience; or it might drive by
another similar scene to see if I respond the same way. You could say my
reactions and responses to the first experience helped to “co-create” the same
or similar experience later.
For instance, if I react with fear to something in my
hologram, my Infinite I might decide to send me another very similar
hologram to see how I would react the next time. Maybe it was fascinated by my
fear, when it knows there was nothing to be afraid of in the experience it had
created for me and wonders why I was so terrified. Or maybe it wants to give me
the gift of discovering for myself there is nothing to be afraid of. Or maybe
it just wanted to feel my fear again vicariously (which we’ll discuss in the
next chapter).
Going back to our example of the Pirates of the Caribbean
amusement ride, if the designer were trying to create a successful ride, I
assume he would be very interested in the reactions and responses from the
participants to the scenes he created for them, and their feedback would play a
role in his evolving design – the path the boat took and the experiences they
had.
There are all kinds of possibilities. The point is that our
reactions and responses to certain experiences might influence the experiences
we are given in the future. So I guess you could say, technically, you were
“co-creating” those future experiences with your Infinite I as a result
of your reactions and responses to the present experience. But that’s
stretching the definition of “co-creator” as far as I am concerned; and it
doesn’t have to happen that way at all. Your Infinite I is always free
to create whatever future experiences it wants for you, regardless of your
reaction or response to the present one; and you are never in any way part of
the actual creation process of any experience itself.
Unfortunately, that won’t make my friend very happy, because
he wants to be a full-fledged co-creator of his experiences to satisfy his own
ego and maintain the illusion of some semblance of control over his life.
* * *
I consider L. Ron Hubbard to be both a genius and a madman.
Some of his Scientology techniques for letting go of the past can be quite workable
for a Human Adult inside the movie theater. But ultimately he committed an
“overt” (a wrong action) by telling his followers, “The supreme test of a
Thetan is the ability to make things go right.” (“Thetan” was his word for the
soul or spirit.)
Consider Hubbard’s two most “Valuable Final Products,” John
Travolta and Tom Cruise. I wonder… in light of the family tragedies and professional
pitfalls, do you think they feel like they are “making things go right” all the
time? How do you feel when you’re told you’re “less than” if you fail to
meet some arbitrary spiritual standard?
Inside the movie theater, not everything can “go right,”
ever; it was designed that way. John Travolta and Tom Cruise are no different
from any other Human Adult who can achieve a few spectacular things in some
areas of their lives, but can never get all their ducks in a row at one time as
long as they belong to a group in the back of the theater.
Not only is “making things go right” a judgment that keeps
Human Adults stuck in the movie theater, but as you now know, a Player has no
ability to make anything happen at all. A Player’s only job is to react and
respond to what is happening in the holographic universe created for them by
their Infinite I.
So you can stop working so hard trying to control your life,
trying to “make things go right,” trying to create and manage the holographic
images that make up your reality and your life. It’s not possible, it’s a waste
of time, and it will wear you out and leave you thinking you’re a failure.
We spent a lot of time as Human Adults in the movie theater
taking responsibility for things over which we have no control, and denying or
ignoring those things over which we do. The 12-Step program is very close to
the truth when it prays:
“God grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and
wisdom to know the difference.”4
You cannot change your holographic experiences, since
you did not create them.
You can change your reactions and responses to them.
You’re in the process of gaining the wisdom you need to know
the difference.
You can relax now and enjoy the ride; you are not
responsible for creating your reality, for making things go right in your life,
for you or anyone else. You are only responsible for your reactions and
responses to the life your Infinite I creates for you, one moment at a
time; and it turns out every single one of your reactions and responses as a
Player – even the ones you might consider “bad” or “wrong” – have been
valuable and cherished by your Infinite I since you were born.
Let me repeat that because it is so important: Every
reaction and response you have had to every moment of your life – the
holographic movies created for you by your Infinite I – has been “right”
and perfect. You have never done anything “wrong” or made any mistake – ever.
Your Infinite I wants each and every feeling you send to it, no matter
what that feeling is.
I can say all that, and you might understand it right now
intellectually – or not; but you will spend the next two years in your cocoon
processing it until you have it on a cellular and emotional level as well –
until you feel it as well as know it.
However, I imagine it might all make more sense if you know
what game you’re playing. So…
FOOTNOTES
THE HUMAN GAME MODEL
Back to the Table of Contents
“Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you
know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You felt it
your entire life – that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know
what it is, but it’s there like a splinter in your mind driving you mad.”
- Morpheus, from The Matrix
There is no way
any human being in this holographic universe can know with certainty why their Infinite
I created them. The story I am about to tell you, therefore, cannot be
called the Truth. Instead it’s a model (like The Field) that comes closer to
the Truth than any other model and is extremely workable and effective in the
metamorphosis to a butterfly.
And it’s high time for a new model. The models of how the
universe works we used inside the movie theater are no longer valid, all based
on the wrong premise that the movies we are watching are real. With the recent
results in quantum physics and other scientific experiments, we need to come up
with a new model that conforms to our new understanding of the holographic
universe.
Robert Scheinfeld1
was the one who introduced me to this model in my early days as a scout.
Although I have made certain modifications (which he may or may not agree with),
I want to give him the credit for it.
It’s called The Human Game Model.
Let’s eavesdrop on a couple of Infinite I’s who are
having a conversation….
“You know, I’ve been thinking…”
“Please tell me not to worry. You know what the Chief
said the last time…”
“Not to worry. This is different.”
“Right.”
“I’ve been thinking I want to go to the GAP tonight.”
“Where?”
“The Great Amusement Park.”
“Is that all? Then you’re on! All the different games and
attractions….”
“Yes, but tonight I want to tie one hand behind my back in
the dart game.”
“What?”
“Am I not speaking clearly? I said I want to tie one hand
behind my back in the dart game.”
“I heard you perfectly; you’re just not making any sense.
Why would you want to do that?”
“Well, I keep breaking all the balloons every time I play
and bringing home another stuffed animal. Now my closet’s full of them.”
“What else can you expect when you have infinite power,
infinite wisdom, infinite abundance….”
“But I want to experience something a little different for a
change – more of a challenge, maybe. I mean, a game you win all the time can
get a little boring.”
“So you’re going to throw darts with one hand tied behind
your back?”
“Yes. I thought I’d try it at least.”
“This I gotta see….”
“You know, I’ve been thinking….”
“Oh, no. Here we go again.”
“Throwing darts with one hand tied behind my back doesn’t do
much. I still break every balloon, and now I’ve got a second closet full of
stuffed animals.”
“I’m well aware of that. The second closet used to be
mine, remember?”
“So tonight I’m going to tie both hands behind my back.”
“I beg your pardon? How are you going to throw
darts with both hands tied behind your back?”
“I don’t know yet; but as you said, I have infinite power
and infinite wisdom, so I’ll figure something out.”
“This time I’m the one who’s been thinking….”
“About what?”
“About the fact that I had to build another closet for
your stuffed animals. Maybe tonight you should try throwing darts blindfolded….”
“Wow! Great idea!”
“This isn’t working, you know. It’s a good thing we’ve
got infinite space for an infinite number of closets.”
“Yes, I know. There’s gotta be a way….”
“A way to do what?”
“A way to experience what it would be like not to be so….
‘infinite,’ so…. ‘perfect’ all the time.”
“I’m not following…”
“I mean, here we are, with infinite joy, infinite power,
infinite wisdom, infinite abundance, infinite and unconditional love…. We’re
just so… so perfect. Well, maybe I want to feel what it would be like to miss a
balloon or two every once in a while – to experience what it would be like not
to be so infinite, just for the fun of it. Who knows, maybe I’ll even
appreciate my infinite nature more when I know what the opposite feels like.”
“But it’s not possible.”
“What’s not possible?”
“Not being infinite. I mean, that’s who we are… infinite
beings. It’s not possible not to be infinite.”
“Maybe not. At least, not for us directly. But what if we
create a new game, and then create a player to play it for us?”
“I’m still not following you….”
“You know the Tunnel of Love in the Park where we experience
those fantastic images from all the beautiful universes?”
“Oh, yes. It’s one of my favorite rides. I especially
like the music that goes along with it! Sing it with me… It’s a small world
after….”
“I’m not singing that right now. I’m trying to have a
conversation with you about creating a new game where we could experience what
it would be like to be limited instead of so bloody infinite and perfect all
the time!”
“Oh, we’re going to be serious, are we? Well, as I said,
it’s not possible. We’d always know we were infinite, so the game wouldn’t
work.”
“You’re right; it’s not possible for us to limit ourselves,
which is why I keep breaking all the balloons no matter what I do. As I said,
that’s why we have to create an attraction where we don’t actually go in and
play. Instead we create a player to go inside and play for us, to represent us
in the game.”
“How much fun could that be, if we’re outside and the
player is inside? Wouldn’t the player have all the fun instead? And if the
player is playing the game, how will we have the experience?”
“We stay connected to our player…”
“You mean, like we’re always connected to the InfiNet?”
“Yes, a lot like that; and the player would send back its
feelings through that connection while it was being limited, so we could
experience those feelings vicariously.”
“Let me see if I have this right… you want to create
something like a video game, with a player who you put through various
experiences in which they react to being limited, so they can send back to you
their feelings during those experiences of what it’s like not to be infinite.”
“Precisely!”
“I must admit it sounds like it could be fun, and
interesting. But how are you going to create these limiting experiences for
your player?”
“Oh, that’s the easy part. I’ll just go to The Field,
collapse some quantum wave functions and make some holograms.”
“The Field? Are you sure the Chief would approve of using
The Field to create a game where the goal was limitation rather than
expansion?”
“Why not? You know the Chief doesn’t consider one experience
to be ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than any other. All experiences are equal. And the
Chief created The Field – whose full name, just to remind you, is The Field of
Unlimited Possibilities – because it affords us unlimited possibilities to
play, which has to include the possibility to experience limitation as well as
expansion. Right?”
“You’ve got a point. But do you really think you can
create a holographic game so real, where the player will be so convinced they
are being limited, they will react with feelings you could experience?”
“Well, I’ve got some details to work out, but doesn’t it
sound like a blast?”
“I don’t know about a ‘blast’… maybe more like a ‘big
bang.’ But definitely very creative. I’m still not convinced it’s possible to
limit unlimited power or wisdom, so let me know how this works for you…”
“I’ve got a prototype.”
“For what?”
“Did you really forget our conversation, or are you just
jerking me around?”
“Remind me…”
“I’m creating a game where we can experience what it’s like
not to be so infinite.”
“Oh, yeh, that one.”
“And I created a player to play the game for me….”
“Really?”
“Yes. I went through a lot of trial and error, but I finally
came up with something that works. Adam.”
“What?”
“I call it ‘Adam.’”
“Interesting. I won’t ask why right now. Go on…”
“And I created a whole bunch of different holographic
scenarios for Adam to experience being limited… and he’s been sending back his
feelings to me from those experiences. It’s so cool, and it really works! Wanna
see?”
“Sure, I’ll take a look…”
“Wow! That’s a beautiful game world – clear blue skies,
lush green forests, turquoise oceans… really amazing. And you did all this with
holograms?”
“Yes. Like I said, that was the easy part. I call it
‘Earth.’”
“Okay… whatever.”
“The hard part was figuring out how to make the holograms
appear in space and time so Adam would think he was inside something like a
total immersion movie.”
“And?”
“And so I created a ‘brain’.”
“I can see I’m going to need a dictionary before we’re
through. What’s a ’brain’?”
“A ‘brain’ is a kind of holographic processor. What I do is
download the quantum wave frequencies I’ve chosen from The Field for my Earth
Environment to one side of Adam’s brain, usually while he’s asleep…”
“And Adam doesn’t know what’s happening?”
“Actually, when he wakes up, he has these… well, sort of
memories of something occurring during the night, but all the pictures are
jumbled together and nothing makes any sense to him – kind of like trying to
read a zip file.”
“Okay, go on…”
“Then when I’m ready, I unzip them and move them to the
other side of his brain; and in the process of moving from one side to the
other, the brain translates the wave frequencies into particle locations,
creating a holographic picture, which it then projects out through the senses
into space and time for Adam to perceive and experience.”
“It sounds fairly simple….”
“Yeh, it’s basically like the central processing unit in our
computers that takes binary code and translates it into what we see on our
screens. But Adam thinks it’s happening ‘out there,’ and all around him,
independent of his own brain - as if it were some kind of objective reality.”
“So what exactly is Adam doing now?”
“Chasing a rabbit.”
“A what?”
“I call that little furry white thing a ‘rabbit.’”
“Where are you getting these names? Oh, never mind. He’ll
never catch the rabbit, though; it’s too fast for him.”
“Exactly, and that’s the point. Adam is experiencing the
limitation of having a body, and he’s sending his feelings about that back to
me.”
“Which are…?”
“I would say right now he’s a little… frustrated. And that’s
perfect – an amazing thing to feel! If I were chasing that rabbit here, I’d
catch it every time, just like I break every balloon. This is precisely what I
was hoping to feel!”
“I can’t feel anything.”
“Of course not. Adam’s my player. I’m the only one who can
feel what he’s feeling.”
“So, if I want to have a similar experience….”
“You have to create your own player.”
“Is that possible?”
“I can work on it.”
* * *
This may sound incredible, and you might
be laughing or thinking I’ve totally lost it. But is it any more incredible
than all the other creation stories found in every one of the world’s
religions? Is it any more theoretical than a “big bang” no one can find or
explain? Is it any stranger than aliens from the Twelfth Planet genetically
engineering homo sapiens by combining the DNA of apes with themselves,
as our Sumerian forefathers apparently believed?2
It’s actually not entirely out of the realm of possibility
that an Infinite I wanted to experience what it felt like to be
imperfect, to limit unlimited power and joy and abundance and wisdom and love,
to be involved in drama and conflict and pain and suffering. After all, if you
remember, one of the attributes I gave an Infinite I was the infinite
desire to play and express itself creatively. I can imagine a game where an Infinite
I could experience being the opposite of what it really is might be very
interesting and exciting – not to mention extremely difficult to pull off. How
does one limit unlimited power? How does one restrict unlimited wisdom? How
does one forfeit unlimited joy and love? And how does one create scarcity in
the face of unlimited abundance?
The conversation went on…
“Are you ready?”
“For what?”
“To create your own player.”
“Okay. Show me.”
“First, there are some rules of the game you must agree to
before we start. Number One, the Chief has been very clear: Any creation must
have complete free will. Once you’ve created your player, you cannot interfere
with their decisions and choices at any time for any reason.”
“You mean, I just create a player and turn them loose on
your ‘Earth’?”
“Oh, no way. You have to create every second of every
experience for your player, down to the smallest detail. They can’t create
anything. They’re part of the hologram. They’re on the wrong side of The Field
and have no power at all to create any experiences for themselves. But once
you’ve created an experience for them, they must have total free will to choose
how they want to respond or react to that experience.”
“I have no problem with that.”
“Good. Rule Number Two, your player can’t know it’s your
player; otherwise, it taps into your infiniteness through the connection. It
must think it has its own consciousness and identity, and is not just a
temporary representative, an extension of you created for the game.”
“I can agree to that.”
“Rule Number Three, your player also can’t know it’s a game.
It has to believe it’s real. It has to take it seriously or it doesn’t work.”
“You mean, Adam doesn’t know it’s all a hologram?”
“No! Adam is part of the hologram. A hologram looks and
feels real to anything inside the hologram itself. Adam thinks the garden I
made for him actually exists – he even eats the holographic apples, for
example!”
“Well, I won’t tell him it’s not real.”
“You’re right – you can’t tell him, unless I agree, which is
Rule Number Four. You’re going to create your own player with its own
experiences, but I’ve figured out how different players’ holograms can
interact….”
“Wait a minute… are you saying I’m not going to use your
holograms?”
“No, you can’t. You can use the collection of holographic
‘Earth Environments’ I’ve created as a template for your player, if you want.
And I actually suggest you do that, because if your player and my player
interact, I think it would be easier if they both saw virtually the same things
in their holograms; otherwise they’ll spend all their time arguing about the
color ‘blue,’ for example, or whether there are one or two suns in the sky.”
“We wouldn’t want that now, would we?”
“Actually, it could be interesting – probably result in some
strange feelings coming back through the connection; maybe eventually get some
players really upset if the reality they saw was too much different from other
players. But I think it would work better for now at least if our two players
saw pretty much the same things.”
“But my player’s holograms will be completely separate
from Adam’s?”
“Absolutely. Each player must have its own separate
individual and unique reality. You create your own player’s reality, and I
create my player’s reality. Because of the way I’ve worked it out for players’
holograms to interact with each other, they might think they’re connected, that
they’re all ‘one,’ or that they share the same holographic universe; but it
won’t be true. That’s the only way this can work.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, getting back to what we were talking about, Rule
Number Four is – if we decide we want your player and my player to interact –
your player can never do or say anything in my player’s holograms I have not
agreed to beforehand. Otherwise, you would actually be creating experiences for
my player – and me for yours.”
“And that would be bad, because….”
“Because the Chief insists no one can ever be a victim of
anything at any time; and if you had the ability to create experiences for my
player by doing or saying something I didn’t want or didn’t approve of or
didn’t know about, my player could then become a victim of your creations. My
guess is that a player might feel like it’s a victim from time to time –
and that’s good for us because it will simply lead to more limitation – but it
can never actually be the case. I must always have 100% script approval for
every detail prior to anything happening in my player’s holograms. And the same
thing goes for you and your player.”
“I got it.”
“So now are you ready?”
“Yes, but I want a player very different from Adam.”
“Well, do you want a human player, or an animal player –
maybe a dolphin?”
“A dolphin looks like a lot of fun. But what’s Adam?”
“Adam is a human being. This is called the Human Game.”
“So I want a human, too. But still, I want a human that’s
different….”
“Okay, you can create whatever you want as long as it has
two legs, two arms, two eyes, two ears….”
“Wow! That’s interesting. What do you call it?”
“Eve.”
* * *
Word about the new Human Game apparently spread quickly all
over InfiniteLand via InfiMail. Soon there were many other Infinite I’s
who wanted to play and the human population on Earth began to grow. And then…
“Wait a minute. I have another idea.”
“Your last one was pretty good. What’s this one?”
“Let’s divide the Human Game into two parts. The first
half will be to see how far into limitation we can take our Players, and then
the second half will be to bring them back out again.”
“Here’s a million that says I can take my Player further
into limitation than you can take yours and still bring it home safely!”
“You’re on!”
* * *
Again, I’m not trying to claim any of this is true. We may
never know. But human beings seem to have an abundance of curiosity; so
although it’s futile and irrelevant to speculate on why an Infinite I
would create the Human Game, we do it anyway. I’m no different. Here are a few
of the thoughts I’ve had over the years….
Do Pete Sampras or Roger Federer or Martina Navratilova or
the Williams sisters get bored after a while playing tennis so well? Do they
play with the “wrong” hand occasionally just to see if they can – just to make
the game more interesting – just for the challenge and the experience?
Does anyone play darts sometimes with their eyes closed,
just for the fun?
I remember when I was three or four years old, the house I
lived in had a brick walkway from the front door leading to three steps which
went down to the street. I would take my tricycle, back it up against the front
door, peddle as hard and fast as I could down the walkway, and then slam on the
brakes and see how close I could get to the edge of the top step before I fell
over. (The last time I tried this was when I fell down the stairs into the
street, splitting my lip wide open.) So I can totally relate to the idea of
playing a game to its maximum limits, to see how far one can push oneself.
I also remember wanting to go higher and higher on a
rollercoaster, eager to find the biggest one I could, even though the first
hill up was always a bitch.
Or maybe an Infinite I wants to play the Human Game
purely to experience what a physical universe feels like. There was an
interesting 1996 movie with John Travolta called Michael,
in which Travolta plays an archangel who came to Earth to experience how it
felt to have a body. He reveled in it – smoking, drinking, eating as much sugar
and meat as he could, exercising his very active libido, and enjoying every
moment. Of course, most “new-agers” didn’t like the movie because nearly
everything Michael did was contrary to their beliefs of what an “enlightened”
being would do. But once again this movie could provide a “clue” to an Infinite
I’s motivation.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “As above, so below.” Now
we understand the opposite is true, “As below, so above.” We all go to the
movies, watch sports, or listen to music in order to have an “inner experience”
from the “outer experience.” Even golf is played for the inner experience it
creates, according to the experts. The Human Game, then, could be an “outer
experience” created for a Player by its Infinite I so the Infinite I
can have the “inner experience” – the feelings it receives through the
connection to its Player.
There may be many other reasons why an Infinite I
would create a Player to experience life on Earth, and maybe you’ll come up
with one or more on your own. But the bottom line is, it doesn’t matter why;
and we will probably not know the complete answer as long as we are Players on
this side of The Field. Fortunately, not knowing why doesn't affect the way we
play the Human Game here and now.
What matters is that the Human Game, as a model, answers a
lot of questions more logically and more understandably and more consistently
than any other model to date – like why our movies seem to be filled with drama
and conflict, pain and suffering, and what our purpose is to be here.
This model could change as we get more information, as more
research is done in quantum physics, as more scouts come back with new reports
of what they’ve found. But the most important thing is, right now, this model
leads to very practical, useful, and effective ways to go through our
metamorphosis in the cocoon; and that’s the only real value in having such a
model.
So what if the opposite of everything we believed
while in the movie theater is true?
~ What if life is not a school, or a training ground, or a
test, or a “bitch,” but a fun ride in an amusement park instead?
~ What if the purpose of life on Earth is not to learn
something (thinking), but to experience something (feeling)?
~ What if we as Players are supposed to feel
“separate” from our Infinite I’s, rather than bemoaning the fact or
trying to “reconnect”?
~ What if our connection to our Infinite I has never
been broken, but we were supposed to think it was in order to play the Game?
~ What if every experience we have ever had and will ever
have is exactly the way our Infinite I wants it, and there’s nothing to
be changed, fixed, or improved in our holograms?
~ What if all the things we have resisted are actually what
our Infinite I’s have wanted us to experience, and it is only our
judgment and resistance causing our pain and suffering?
~ What if we have never done anything “wrong,” but only
think we have, and believe everyone else when they tell us we’re defective and
deficient, sinners who need to be saved?
~ What if the Earth doesn’t need to be saved either – that
it has its own Infinite I who is creating the precise experiences it
wants as well?
~ What if it is only our ego that says we have the power to
create or change anything about our reality, and that all power actually
resides with the Infinite I on the other side of The Field?
~ What if we don’t need any “self-help” – no magic formulas,
no “Secrets,” no “spiritual laws,” no gurus, and no special techniques
to try to make things different than they are?
~ What if, no matter what we do in the first half of the
Human Game – like meditate, pray, eat only organic food, and so on – it will
not change anything until we have experienced all the imperfection and
limitation and restrictions our Infinite I wants and it’s ready for us
to play the second half?
~ What if all we need to do is relax, enjoy the experiences
our Infinite I creates for us (whatever they may be), and stop judging
those experiences to be “good” or “bad,” “better” or “worse,” “right” or
“wrong”?
~ What if humankind itself has never made any mistake
either, but instead has explored the heights of limitation as a species exactly
as the Infinite I’s wanted?
~ What if, not understanding this, we have made up many
“stories” to try to explain what we experience – religions, philosophies, and
beliefs – many of which contain some truth, but which are always altered so
they actually lead into more limitation?
~ What if it’s now time in the Human Game for many more
people to enter their cocoons, to play the second half of the Human game, to go
over the top of the first hill on the rollercoaster and enjoy the ride back to
InfiniteLand?
* * *
MOVIE SUGGESTION: The
Game, starring Michael Douglas (1997)
FOOTNOTES
THE TWO HALVES MODEL
Back to the Table of Contents
Before we go
on, I want to make sure I’m not confusing you with too many mixed metaphors and
analogies (and there are more on the way!). For example, we just said the Human
Game was divided into two halves. How does that line up with the Movie Theater
and Butterfly metaphors?
The first half of the Human Game – going deeper and deeper
into limitation and restriction, with all the drama and conflict and pain and
suffering – would be Stages 1 and 2 of a butterfly (the egg and caterpillar),
or everything that happens inside the movie theater to the Human Children and
Human Adults.
The second half of the Human Game would be Stages 3 and 4
(the cocoon and the butterfly), or everything that happens once you walk out
the back door of the movie theater and into your cocoon.
If we take a look at the different rules for both halves of
the Human Game, I think it might become more obvious….
The rules for the first half of the Human
Game (inside the movie theater) are:1
1. The Players must forget who they really are and believe
they are something else instead – at the extremes, for example, that they are
their body or their Infinite I.
2. The Players must believe their holographic experiences
are real and what they perceive with their senses is actually happening “out
there,” in some objective and independent reality.
3. The Players must believe what they encounter “out there”
has power over them and the power to affect their lives.
4. The Players must believe in the judgments of “good and
bad,” “right and wrong,” “better and worse,” “good and evil.”
5. The Players must believe there is something “wrong” with
the reality they see “out there” that needs to be changed or fixed or improved.
6. The Players must believe they have the power to create a
different reality than what they are experiencing and therefore feel defective
and deficient (more limited) when they fail.
7. The Players must believe they can think their way out of
the Human Game by using their mind, or love their way out of it by using their
heart.
8. The Players must believe they can “make something
happen,” and when they fail, blame themselves for not being smarter or better
or working harder.
9. The Players must believe there are goals to be reached or
agendas to be satisfied or lessons to be learned.
10. The Players must believe they, and they alone, are
responsible for meeting their own needs and wants, which they have to fight
for.
11. Fear and resistance are the foundations of the first
half of the Game, and judgment and their resulting beliefs are the glue that
keeps the illusions working.
12. These illusions must never break down or the Players
would see through the Game.
Did any of those sound familiar?
According to this model, the first half of the Human Game
was designed to experience limitation and restriction – in all shapes and sizes
– and all these rules lead to that. So if you have been following the rules
(and you literally could not do anything else), you have most likely
experienced a great deal of limitation and restriction in your life. You just
didn’t know why until now, because you weren’t supposed to.
I understand you probably didn’t like the limitations and
restrictions of the first half of the Human Game, that they didn’t feel “good,”
that they didn’t feel “right,” and that you thought you had been doing
something “wrong.” But you didn’t do anything “wrong,” and neither did I. We
played the Game exactly as we should, exactly as our Infinite I’s wanted
us to. Even our resistance and judgments weren’t “wrong,” since they led to
more limitation, which is precisely what the Infinite I wanted to feel.
In other words, we’ve been doing a fantastic job as the Players we were created
to be. We just didn’t know it and couldn’t appreciate it from our vantage
point.
Here’s something we might be able to appreciate – how an Infinite
I pulled this off, how it managed to limit unlimited power, unlimited joy, unlimited
abundance, unlimited wisdom, and unlimited love. What a creation! What a game!
* * *
Since the first half of the Human Game is intentionally the
opposite of the natural state of an Infinite I, it takes an enormous
amount of power to create it and keep it going, like a rollercoaster in an
amusement park….
The first thing that happens when you get on a rollercoaster
is that you go up a big hill – and for many people, the higher the better. But
getting up this hill requires us to defy all natural laws, like the law of
gravity. It takes a lot of power to pull us up that first hill; and on the way,
we go through all kinds of “inner experiences.” In many people, fear is the
most common; others have a wide variety of responses, from excitement to panic
and even nausea.
I would resist that first hill with everything I had.
I didn’t like it, it didn’t feel good, it wasn’t natural, and all I wanted to
do was get out of there. But I also knew what was coming, the fun just over the
crest of the hill.
Likewise, going as much as possible into limitation and
restriction produces the same reactions as going up the first rollercoaster
hill – you don’t like it, it doesn’t feel good, it isn’t natural, and all you
want to do is get out of there. So we resist the first half and wonder why
we’re having these experiences. But it’s supposed to feel like that; that’s the
Game.
Another reason I like the rollercoaster analogy is that we
can never experience or appreciate the ride to come if we don’t first go up the
big hill.
Also like the Human Game, a rollercoaster has two “halves” –
you go up the hill in the first half, and down the hill in the second half. If
looked at objectively, the first half is no “better” or “worse” than the second
half. In fact, the second half could not exist without the first half. So there
can be no “judgment” that one half is better than the other.
More importantly, someone riding on the second half of the
rollercoaster is no more “enlightened” or “better” or “more advanced” or
“ascended” than someone going up the first hill. They’re just at a different
point on the ride.
Therefore someone like me, near the end of my cocoon stage,
is no more “enlightened” or “better” or “more advanced” or “ascended” than
someone still inside the movie theater. I’m just at a different point in my
metamorphosis, that’s all, having already experienced much of the ride that
comes after the top of the rollercoaster hill.
The last reason I like this analogy is that it reverses how
we normally think about limitation. Rather than going “down” into limitation,
or “down” into the depths, the first half of the rollercoaster is “up.” So
instead of saying we hit “bottom” in our lives, it’s better in my mind to say
we reach the pinnacle, or the peak, or the apex of limitation, when it’s then
time to start the second half of the Game. For me this also helps take away the
judgment.
The day I told you about, sitting in my apartment, realizing
I had no job, no money, no this and that, was my moment at the top of the
rollercoaster hill – a brief moment of seeming weightlessness, when you’ve
stopped climbing that interminable and awful first hill, when you can let go of
all the resistance you had going up but have not yet started the ride down.
This is the moment of no judgment, the moment of clarity, the moment of
complete objectivity. This is a very brief moment when you can be appreciative
you made it to the top, and even appreciative of the climb itself. You’re not
even looking ahead to the next part of the ride, but simply suspended in space
and time.
And then you walk through the door in the back of the movie
theater and the second half of the Human Game begins. (How’s that for mixing
metaphors!)
* * *
Basically, the second half the Human Game is the opposite of
the first half. (Some of these will be discussed in more detail in later
chapters.)
1. The Player knows what it has been calling “reality” is
not real at all, but a hologram created by its Infinite I to play the
Human Game. This Game is being played by consciousness, in consciousness, and
for consciousness; and in fact “there is no ‘out there’ out there,’ no
independent objective reality.
2. The Player knows once it has moved into the second half,
all holograms experienced by the Player will be totally in support of its
metamorphosis into a butterfly, rather than toward more limitation and
restriction.
3. The Player knows it can never and will never experience
anything in any hologram its Infinite I has not created and wanted to
experience, and that its Infinite I has written and approved the script
being used by anyone else appearing in the Player’s hologram. No one in the
Player’s hologram can ever do or say anything its Infinite I has not
requested.
4. The Player knows its focus changes from thinking to
feeling. In the second half there is nothing to analyze, dissect, or understand
– never any reason to ask “why?” Thinking and studying are now only the result
of an inner curiosity to expand one’s knowledge instead of being required to
figure out the world or make a Player “better” or more “enlightened.”
5. The Player switches from "giving its power
away" to make a hologram real, to "taking its power back" from
it. When holograms appear that cause any kind of discomfort, it is an
indication that the Player assigned some power to that hologram to make it real
while playing in the first half, and this is the opportunity to recognize the
hologram was in fact not real at all and reclaim that power from it.
6. The Player leaves behind any and all judgment of anyone
or anything in any hologram at any time, such as “good” and “bad,” or “right”
and “wrong.” As Rudyard Kipling said in his poem, If: “If you can meet
with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same….”
7. The Player knows there is never anything that needs to be
fixed or changed or improved in the holograms it experiences.
8. The Player changes from being “proactive” to being
“reactive.” There is nothing the Player ever again needs to “make
happen.” Being “reactive” means that when a holographic illusion that appears
“out there” seems to require a decision, a response, or an action, the Player
takes it (as long as it does not include discomfort). Or, when the Player feels
an internal motivation or impulse to act, it does. In other words, the Player
follows its inner excitement as long as it is fun and brings total joy.
9. The Player lives from moment to moment, one day at a
time. There are no goals, no planning, no targets, no objectives, and no
agendas. There is no past and no future – just “now.”
10. The Player develops a deep love and sincere appreciation
for its Infinite I, for itself as the Player, and for all the first half
holographic creations, even though at the time of the experience they may have
seemed less than joyful. The Player marvels in awe at the beautiful, perfect,
and miraculous job the Player did in the first half to convince itself it was
real, and that the holographic world it saw around it was real.
11. The Player has the “knowing” and the complete trust its Infinite
I will take care of all its needs (including money), and there is no reason
to worry about anything. The Infinite I would not create a hologram it
wanted the Player to experience if it did not also give it everything it needs
for that experience.
12. The Player wakes up each day looking forward with
curious anticipation to the experiences its Infinite I will create for
it that day; and the Player buckles up, relaxes, and enjoys the ride.
* * *
At the risk of overkill, I would like to offer two more
analogies (or are they metaphors?) to ensure I’ve expressed myself well.
Actually, I mentioned one before, which I now want to expand
on….
Imagine a Greyhound bus driving down the highway. At the
wheel is an Infinite I. The Infinite I realizes it cannot drive
the bus and fully enjoy the scenery along the way at the same time, so it
creates a Player to sit in one of the seats and enjoy the scenery for it. In
fact, the Infinite I realizes it can create forty different Players, if
it wants, to occupy all the seats in the bus and get forty different viewpoints
of the scenery. (If this surprises you, read Chapter Twenty-Six, “One Player
per Infinite I?”, in Part Three of this book.)
There is a wire connecting the Infinite I in the
driver's seat to each of its Players in the passenger seats, like an Ethernet
connection. Through this wire the Infinite I downloads a holographic
movie to each of its Passenger/Players, which is then projected on the window
next to the Passenger. But rather than just seeing the 3D movie that is
projected on the window, the Passenger actually becomes immersed in the scenery
and part of the movie itself.
Each Passenger can only see out its own window, and
therefore each Passenger has a totally unique experience. As it reacts and
responds to the scenery it sees, it sends its feelings back up the Ethernet
wire to the Infinite I, which can then experience the scenery
vicariously through this Passenger.
The Passenger's job is not to drive the bus or decide what
pictures it will experience. Its job is simply to have the experience and the
feelings that result from it.
Does this make the Passenger "separate" from the
driver? Yes, in a sense. It has to be separate in order not to think
about driving the bus so it can fully experience the scenery. But no, it's not
"separate," in that it was created by its Infinite I as an
extension of itself and is always connected to the Infinite I through
the Ethernet wire.
Is it “wrong” to feel like we are separated from our Infinite
I’s? Absolutely not. That’s the way the Game was designed to work.
Our problem as Passengers is that we have been trying to
drive the bus, trying to decide what experiences we will have, mainly because
we have had experiences in the past which we judged to be "wrong" or
"uncomfortable," and decided we wanted to avoid those experiences in
the future and so tried to take over the bus driver's job. Or we had
experiences in the past we liked a lot and wanted to repeat.
Any Passenger who truly accepts their role as a Passenger
and lets go of any judgments or beliefs about the scenery it experiences can
sit back and relax and totally enjoy the ride. There is also tremendous relief
in realizing, as a Passenger, no reaction or response it has can be
"wrong" – that every reaction and response of each Passenger on the
bus is valuable and desirable and wanted by its Infinite I.
* * *
The second analogy has to do with one of my favorite games,
a treasure hunt. In fact, I considered calling this book The Great Treasure
Hunt, and using that as the main metaphor, because that’s what the Human
Game really is.
In a good treasure hunt, someone hides something and then
makes up clues for the players to try to find it. The game excites me so much
because it combines mental acuity – figuring out what the clues mean – along
with obstacles to overcome, and in some cases physical demands as well in the
process of finding the treasure.
In the Human Game, it was even harder. We didn’t know we
were playing a game; we didn’t know we were looking for a treasure or what the
treasure was; we didn’t know all the experiences we were having were perfect
for the game; we didn’t know there were clues we were being given from time to
time, nor what the clues meant. We even got stuck during the treasure hunt,
stopping in one particular location or situation or experience and staying
there, never getting to the treasure itself.
In short, most of us didn’t have a lot of fun.
In fact, many people get really pissed at their Infinite
I for putting them through such drama and conflict and pain and suffering
in the first half of the Human Game; and yet those same people seem to enjoy a
good treasure hunt, where they have only hints and clues and many obstacles to
overcome before they can find the treasure. No one gets pissed at the designer of
a good treasure hunt, do they?
Very few people I know get angry at their parents for
bringing them into this world as a defenseless, helpless, totally dependant
baby. But they rage at their Infinite I, for some reason, for creating
them to play the Human Game.
“That’s all well and good,” you might be saying, “but I
didn’t agree to being a Player for my Infinite I. I didn’t agree to go
through years of pain and suffering so my Infinite I could play some
kind of sick game for its own entertainment!”
Maybe; maybe not. But this anger, while seemingly justified
on the surface, is full of judgment and blame. It’s also not true. Your Infinite
I did not create your pain and suffering; your resistance to your
experiences did. We will talk more about this later.
The important thing is that it’s all over now. You got to
the treasure chest and opened it. There was a note inside saying, “It isn’t
real; it’s just a game;” and now you’re on your way back to the starting line
to claim your prize.
There is only one problem. The only way to get back to the
starting line is to fly; and on your way to the treasure, you picked up a lot
of baggage at each of your stops – too much baggage and too heavy to fly with
as a butterfly. So now you’ve got to let go of all that baggage, which in this
case is the personality you constructed along the way – your “self,” your ego.
* * *
Now that the two halves of the Human Game make more sense,
you might be asking, “What’s the point of all of this?”
The point is, what are you going to do in your cocoon?
What’s going to happen now that you’re playing the second half of the Human
Game?
During the first half, you encountered numerous holographic
experiences which, based on the fears we will discuss later, you judged as
“bad,” “wrong,” “worse,” “evil,” or just plain “undesirable;” and you tried
everything in your power to change or fix or improve those experiences. In
doing so, you assigned power “out there” and made the holograms seem real.
As time went on, you formed beliefs and opinions about the
experiences, about other people, and about the world around you. Those
judgments and beliefs and opinions, in fact, defined who you believed you were.
They became part of your “self,” the layers of false identity called the ego.
Now it’s your job to reverse that process.
Every judgment you made while inside the movie theater of
“good” and “bad,” “right” and “wrong”, “better” and “worse,” good” and “evil” –
both as a Human Child and a Human Adult – are no longer valid.
Every belief and opinion you held was based on a false
premise – that the movies you were watching were real – and are therefore
untrue.
Every attachment you made to these judgments, beliefs and
opinions created a new, false layer of identity you believed was who you really
were.
So now you’re going to be given the opportunity by your Infinite
I to revisit all those judgments and beliefs and opinions and, this time,
change your reaction or response to the experiences that created them. In the
process you will be able to let go of the layers of false identities that make
up your ego – and the fears underlying them – and make your way toward the true
answer to “Who Am I?”
How this happens is relatively simple.
In fact, you don’t have to do anything. It’s much better if
you don’t try to make things happen any more. Your Infinite I will
create everything for you, as it has always done. All you have to do is become
fully conscious and aware of your reactions and responses to your experiences
on a moment-to-moment basis, and be willing to look at them in the present time
honestly and without justification. This means you have to stay awake with your
eyes open, and not in some meditative sleep or altered state of consciousness.
But this is no cake walk. It requires high mental acuity,
and includes deep emotional and even physical demands.
Basically, you will “re-live” or “re-visit” many of the key
experiences from your past, which means the movies that surround you in the
cocoon for the next little while will look very much the same as they did in
the movie theater. Some of the characters involved may be slightly different
than the first time through the movie, but the basic theme is the same or very
similar.
This time, however, you have the choice of changing your
reaction and response to these experiences by seeing the power you assigned
“out there” to make your holographic universe seem real, and then letting go of
the judgments, beliefs, and opinions you formed as a result. This will be a
good start, and then it’s on to the next experience.
I want to be clear that you don’t have to go searching in
your past for an experience to process. Your Infinite I will re-create
these experiences in the present for you to deal with in the here and now. This
is not psychotherapy designed to discover your mother didn’t breastfeed you
long enough, or to overcome a dysfunctional family history.
It’s about “what is, now.”
It’s about letting go of the fears that dominate your
thoughts in the present and about the attachments to your “self,” the layers of
false identities, the personality construct called the ego you think is you.
It’s about a war with Maya, the Goddess of Illusion, as Jed
McKenna would say.
It’s about finding out who you really are.
It’s about discovering what is true.
It’s about becoming a fully realized “no-self” with serenity
of being.
FOOTNOTES
THE PROCESS
Back to the Table of Contents
I said at the
end of the last chapter "you will 're-live' or 're-visit' many of the key
experiences from your past, which means the movies that surround you in the
cocoon for the next little while will look very much the same as they did in
the movie theater. Some of the characters involved may be slightly different
than the first time through the movie, but the basic theme is the same or very
similar. This time, however, you have the choice of changing your reaction and
response to these experiences by seeing the power you assigned 'out there' to
make your holographic universe seem real, and then letting go of the judgments,
beliefs, and opinions you formed as a result."
Different scouts have different methods for processing the
holographic experiences created for you in the cocoon by your Infinite I,
and I doubt there’s a “right” way or a “wrong” way, or just one way.
There’s no question there’s only one place to end up – as a
butterfly. But there may be as many ways to emerge from the cocoon as there are
routes across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.
It might be helpful to look at a couple methods used by
other scouts to give you a clue about where and how to find what works for you.
* * *
Robert Scheinfeld, whom I have called my mentor, came up
with a Process that goes something like this…
1. Remind yourself it isn’t real
2. Dive right smack into the middle of it
3. Feel the "discomfort energy" fully
4. When it reaches a peak, call it what it is and tell the
truth about it
5. Reclaim your power from the creation
6. Express appreciation1
In other words, as you continue with your life, immersed in
the movies in your cocoon, there will be times when an experience brings you
less than total joy – “discomfort” Robert calls it, which includes mental
discomfort as well as physical and emotional discomfort, all the way from a
slight emotional reaction to intense pain and suffering. The easiest way to
spot this is that you will wish something about your present hologram would
change, because you don’t like some part (or all) of it very much.
Let’s be very clear and specific about what we mean by
“discomfort.” Physical discomfort should be fairly obvious, ranging from an
“owie” to severe and debilitating pain. Emotional or mental discomfort, on the
other hand, can be a little more subtle.
L. Ron Hubbard invented an “emotional tone
scale” in which he lists a lot of the “uncomfortable” emotions we can feel from
time to time, including (in part): anger, antagonism, anxiety, apathy, blame,
covert hostility, despair, dying, fear, grief, hate, hiding, hopeless, hostility,
no sympathy, pity, propitiation, regret, resentment, self-abasement, shame, sympathy,
terror, total failure, unexpressed resentment, useless, victim.2
I can think of some other feelings that could be considered
as “discomfort” as well, such as bitterness, condemnation, condescension,
depression, embarrassment, envy, exasperation, frustration, humiliation,
impatience, indecision, indignation, intolerance, jealousy, mistrust, reproach,
revenge, sadness, sarcasm, spite, worrying.
But we can make this very simple by saying “discomfort” is
anything you feel that is less than total excitement, joy, and enthusiasm.
Whenever we feel one of these emotions, or physical pain,
the first thing we do is judge it to be “wrong” or “bad” or “undesirable” –
something we don’t want to feel. Then we resist it. Then we assign power “out
there” to the person, place, or thing that made us feel less than totally
joyful. “He,” “she”, or “it” caused me to feel this way, whether it’s an
emotional upset or an upset stomach. In other words, we “blame” whatever is
“out there” that “did this to me.” Then we try to change, fix, or improve that
situation somehow.
Even those of us who have believed for years “you create
your own reality” do this, whether we like to admit it or not, or whether we
might think we’re too “enlightened” for that. We do it anyway, in greater or
lesser ways, if we’re really honest with ourselves; and rightfully so, because
it’s an intrinsic part of the first half of the Human Game which we played for
so long and which led into more limitation.
In the cocoon you’re going to have similar experiences to
those from the first half of the Game. Basically, you’re going to find yourself
immersed in movies with people, places, and things that make you feel
“discomfort” from time to time. Some of the people you encounter, for example,
might piss you off the same way they did the first time you met them – or the
second time, or the umpteenth time.
Rest assured this is not a hologram created by your Infinite
I in order to create more limitation in your life. This hologram is a gift
to you from your Infinite I, showing you exactly where you assigned power
in the past to something “out there,” and, most importantly, where that power still
resides. It is your chance to respond differently to this hologram – to, in
a sense, “reclaim” the power you gave away and rewrite the ending to this
storyline.
Whenever you feel this discomfort – whenever you have the
slightest thought you wish something “out there” in your present experience
would change – Robert says to run his Process; so let’s take a little closer
look at it. (Again, Robert may or may not agree fully with some of my extended
explanations.)
1. Remind yourself it isn’t real. Remember that you
are immersed in a hologram, and by definition a hologram is not real. You only
make it real if you assign it the power to be real and give it control over
you.
2. Dive right smack into the middle of it. This is
the opposite of what we normally did in the first half of the Human Game.
Whenever we would meet something “out there” that made us uncomfortable – pain
and suffering, for example – we would try to get away from it, resist it,
suppress it, change it, ignore it, drug it, deny it, hide from it, escape it,
or otherwise make it go away. Robert says, on the other hand, to embrace it
fully, to see it in all its glory, to invite it closer and get yourself into the
middle of it as completely as possible.
3. Feel the “discomfort energy” fully. Rather than
rushing through the Process as soon as you feel the least little discomfort,
let it build as much as possible.
There’s a very simple reason for this. What we want to do
next, according to Robert, is “reclaim the power” we assigned “out there” in
these holograms. In many cases, we have “given” a lot of power away to certain
people, places, and things that resulted in our feeling less than joyful. In
fact, it may take more than one experience in the second half of the Human Game
to switch off that power flow; and the more we can get at one time, the faster
and easier the process will be to “reclaim” it all. Therefore let the
discomfort grow as much as possible to process as much as you can at one time;
and then be prepared to do it again later, either with the same person, place,
or thing, or a similar situation, until all the power you have placed “out
there” has been turned off.
(There are some workable techniques you
might want to use to help the discomfort build, like “Focusing” developed by
Dr. Eugene Gendlin.3)
4. When it reaches a peak, call it what it is and tell
the truth about it. When the discomfort has become as much as you can stand
at that moment, it’s time to honestly assess the situation and look for your
judgments, beliefs, and opinions. For example, is there someone or something in
this experience you think is “wrong” or “bad” and should change or be different
than it is? Who or what, specifically? And is that true?
Is there a belief you hold causing the discomfort? Exactly
what is it? And is it true?
Did you form an opinion that is now causing you discomfort
in this experience? What is it, and is it really true?
(It can help a lot to actually write these things down as
you go through the Process, at least in the beginning.)
One of the things you don’t ask is “Why” this
experience is happening to you. That’s a distraction that has no relevance and
will keep you from focusing on what does matter. Asking “Why” is what
everyone does inside the movie theater, because it leads into more and more
limitation; but inside the cocoon it’s a useless concept. Maybe you will
understand “Why,” and maybe not; it doesn’t matter.
As the experiences in your cocoon continue, you might start
to see patterns in your life that revolve around certain key judgments and
beliefs and opinions. You can expect to have similar holograms appear that give
you the opportunity to follow those patterns, perhaps back to the first time
you formed that judgment, or adopted that belief, or created that opinion.
So “calling it what it is” means acknowledging and owning up
to the fact that your discomfort is based on the judgments, beliefs, and
opinions you formed as a reaction or response to this situation.
The “truth about it” is that no one and nothing “out there”
is going to change to make you happier. You’re the one who’s going to
have to change your reactions and responses to your experiences; you’re
the one who’s going to have to take 100% responsibility for how you feel and
your condition in life; you’re the one who jumped into this
uncomfortable hole, rather than being pushed or forced or tricked into it.
The “truth about it” is that no one can ever be a victim of
anyone or anything at any time in any experience; likewise, there are no
unwanted perpetrators. As long as you feel like you’re a victim, you have
assigned power “out there” that isn’t real.
The “truth about it” is that you have no power to change the
experience or anyone or anything “out there.” The only power you have as a
Player is using your free will to change the way you react and respond to the
holographic experiences created for you by your Infinite I.
5. Reclaim your power from the creation. “Reclaim” is
Robert’s word, and I think it can be a little misleading. A Player has no
power; we didn’t create the hologram to begin with. We definitely made the
hologram real by assigning it power, but the power we assigned was as imaginary
as the hologram itself.
“Reclaiming your power” also suggests that when you have
finished with the Process, you will have more power than before you started, by
taking the power back you had assigned to the hologram “out there.” This is
also not true.
What I prefer to say is that you disconnect or turn off the
power you assigned to the hologram, like pulling the plug or turning off a
light switch. It was your judgments, beliefs, and opinions that provided the
power in the first place. Think of it this way…
In the first half of the Human Game, you entered a
holographic experience and flipped a switch that lit it up and made it appear
real. It’s still there, fully illuminated, when you re-visit it in the second
half – which is helpful, because you need it as bright as possible to clearly
see the judgments, beliefs, and opinions that were your reactions and
responses, and which became part of your false self, the personality construct,
the ego you have been thinking is you.
When you have finished processing that hologram, you simply
unplug the power source or turn the light switch off. In the beginning, it
helped to visualize myself doing that.
(If there are still judgments, beliefs, and opinions
associated with that holographic experience – in other words, you didn’t get
them all the first time – the light won’t go off completely and your Infinite
I will give you another opportunity later to run the Process on the same or
similar circumstances again.)
6. Express appreciation. Expressing appreciation is
perhaps the most important step. Even if you don’t “like” the experience you
are having, do whatever possible (“fake it until you make it”) to express
appreciation to your Infinite I for the experience – and especially
thanks and appreciation to the person, place, or thing that was causing you the
discomfort. After all, your Infinite I has just given you the gift of
showing you where you assigned power “out there” in the past, and that’s worthy
of some appreciation; and the people, places, or things that caused your
discomfort have given you the gift of expertly playing a role in your
holographic movie to assist you in your process of becoming a butterfly –
definitely worthy of appreciation.
I realize this may be difficult in the beginning; but in
fact, you may soon be wanting other people, places, or things who make you feel
less than totally joyful to show up in your holograms as much and as often as
they can, just so you can see where you've assigned power "out there"
and "reclaim" it. (For a more complete discussion of “other people”
in your holographic experiences and the roles they play, please see Chapter
Twenty-Three, “Other People,” in Part Three of this book.)
If you keep doing this Process, you will eventually come to
sincerely and completely appreciate each and every experience you have had, and
all the people, places and things in it for the absolute perfection they
represent.
* * *
Remember what you’re seeing “out there” causing you
discomfort is just a total immersion movie. If you went to a play one night and
were moved to tears by an emotional scene – let’s say a woman who was dying of
cancer, à la Love Story – you wouldn’t blame the writer or director or
the actors for making you feel bad. That’s why you went to the play in the
first place, to have an “inner experience” from the “outer experience.”
If you then went to the café next door after the play and
saw the actress who played the part of the dying woman, I doubt you’d blame her
for causing your discomfort, or consider yourself a victim of her performance,
or ask her to change the way she plays her part. To the contrary, you’d
probably praise her for doing such a good job to elicit your emotional
response.
That’s what Robert’s Process is all about… recognizing we
are immersed in an amazing 3D holographic movie in order to have an “inner
experience” from the “outer experience,” that our Infinite I is writing
and directing every scene of that movie down to the smallest detail, that there
are actors playing their roles in our movies to which we are reacting and
responding, that any discomfort we feel is based solely on our reactions
and responses and the power we assigned “out there” to the movie, that the only
power we have is to change our reactions and responses if we are not happy with
them, and then express our appreciation to the writer, director, and actors who
did their job so well to show us the true source of our discomfort and give us
the opportunity to write a new ending for ourselves.
* * *
I found Robert’s Process easy to do and very effective for
the first little while inside my cocoon, and I recommend it (as I have
explained it above) for all Players new to their cocoon. At least it gets you
started and produces some beneficial results in letting go of judgments,
beliefs, and opinions.
In this chapter and the next, I want to give you a couple
examples in some detail from my own life that might be helpful in better
understanding this Process. This first example contains virtually all of the
elements I’ve just been discussing….
I had been in my cocoon about six months and I was living
with two-hundred good friends in an intentional community in southern Portugal called Tamera. One of my jobs for the community was running an evening café, which
I totally enjoyed. It was a chance to see many friends from the community I
wouldn’t normally meet during the day, who would come to the café at night to
relax and have fun. I loved creating a special atmosphere and energy for them,
and serving them and treating them with popcorn and great music.
This café was a source of pride and pleasure for me, and I
treasured it and protected it, which is why on this one particular evening I
got very upset.
There was one member of the community, I’ll call her Betty,
whom I had known for fifteen years, ever since the community of ZEGG in Germany. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Betty; I hardly gave her a thought. But I didn’t
enjoy her company, and I honestly don’t know anyone who did. She seemed to
always have this sour and angry and arrogant attitude that was simply not fun
to be around. For some reason the community never kicked anyone out – at least
not for being sour and angry and arrogant – so she was still there after
fifteen years. Fortunately, I didn’t have to see her a lot.
However, on this particular night of my café, Betty suddenly
drove her car onto the same gravel lot where I ran my café and parked it.
Granted, the car was off to one side somewhat, so it didn’t really bother my
guests; but it was ugly sitting there, ruining the ambiance I worked so hard to
create. Besides, there was a rule against parking cars in that location.
My first reaction was to assume Betty had just parked there
temporarily since her room was close by and perhaps she had to unload something
and would be back soon to move her car. But when ten minutes went by and the
car was still there, getting uglier by the second and infecting the entire
atmosphere, I went to her room to make sure she would move it. My very polite
request was met with an antagonistic, “Mind your own business!”
I was beginning to feel more and more “uncomfortable.”
“Pissed” is the better word. I let another ten minutes go by and, when she
hadn’t moved the car, went back to her room and ordered her with all the
authority I could muster to park it where it belonged. She was in the middle of
an angry diatribe about “Who was I to tell her what to do” when I turned and
walked away.
She never did move the car. It sat there the entire night
poisoning my carefully orchestrated café ambiance. I was too busy at the time
serving drinks and popcorn to have the time and space I needed to run the
Process, but I couldn’t let myself look at the car or think about Betty or I
would get seriously angry.
As “luck” would have it, that particular night a female
guest in the community fell and broke her leg, and we had to call an ambulance.
The way Betty’s car was parked was blocking one of the main dirt roads the
ambulance could use to get to the injured guest, so my indignation at her
refusal to move it suddenly gained legitimacy. It was no longer just my personal
desire to have the car gone from my beloved café; it was now interfering with a
serious medical emergency, which is one of the reasons why there was a rule
against parking there.
So I went back to Betty’s room and told her to move her car
one more time before the ambulance arrived. She didn’t. That was Betty. (The
ambulance eventually found another route to get to the injured patient.)
The next morning I allowed myself to let the discomfort –
the anger I felt – come back up. I wanted to make Betty “wrong.” I blamed her
for ruining one of my greatest pleasures at the time, my café night. I knew if
she would only change what she was doing, I would be a lot happier.
So I began running Robert’s Process, or at least my version
of it, and I reminded myself that the discomfort was a red flag pointing to
where I had assigned power to this hologram to make it seem real; and I let the
discomfort build and build inside me until I was feeling it full force.
I had long since stopped asking “Why” this had happened. I
knew “Why,” or I knew the only reason that counted for anything: My Infinite
I was trying to help me by showing me something. So I didn’t waste time
speculating about the reason I had this experience.
Instead I reminded myself none of it was real, that this was
a holographic experience created specifically for me by my Infinite I as
a gift on my path toward self-realization. I had done this enough by this time
that it only took five seconds before I knew with certainty this was true. I
just didn’t know what was inside the gift wrapping yet.
I admitted to myself I felt like a victim, that I believed
Betty had interfered with the pleasure I got from my café, and that I was
judging Betty for being “wrong” for what she had done. I even had a great
justification for my judgment in the form an ambulance that needed the right of
way. In fact, I could have found a lot of support from other members of the
community about how “right” I was and how “wrong” Betty was.
But that road leads nowhere.
Instead I decided to let go of all my judgments and stop
blaming Betty, recognizing instead she was simply reading a movie script my Infinite
I had written for me. This had nothing to do with her and everything to do
with me. Betty’s behavior was not “wrong” at all; in fact, she had performed
her part in my movie with great expertise. How could I possibly blame her for
that?
I also realized I believed she should follow the rules and
that it was my place to make her do that; and my opinion was that she didn’t
even belong in this community, much less in my hologram! My anger then extended
to the whole community for not kicking her out sooner.
The “truth of it” was that I had given Betty the
power to ruin the total joy I got from running my café, and it had been my
reaction and response to Betty that created my discomfort, not anything Betty
did or said. More importantly, they were reactions and responses I had full
control over through my own free will and could change in an instant.
So I consciously “reclaimed” all the power I had given to
Betty and to the incident itself to make it real; or at least that’s the way
Scheinfeld would say it. As I said earlier, I think in terms of turning off the
power source to the hologram, of flipping the switch.
By the time I had done all this, and it only took a few
minutes, all my discomfort was gone, and I was feeling enormous appreciation to
my Infinite I for the experience – thankful for the opportunity to see
where I had formed judgments, beliefs and opinions I no longer wanted to hold.
But more importantly, I was deeply and sincerely
appreciative to Betty for having played her part so well, for having been
willing to accept that role in my holographic experience, and for not giving in
to my “authority” but playing the scene out in its entirety. In fact, I was
feeling such appreciation that I wanted to go to Betty and hug her and thank
her and ask her, please, to continue playing these kinds of parts in my movies
so I could uncover other places where I may have judged and blamed and given
away my power.
(In the end I didn’t actually go to Betty and hug and thank
her. How do you say to someone, “You did such a great performance in my movie
last night. Thank you, sincerely, and please continue being the sour and angry
and arrogant character you’re playing so I can see if there are other
situations like that where I have assigned power and made real.” I don’t think
she would have understood.)
After this process, Betty never parked her car there again,
although I never asked her not to; and I no longer had any discomfort being in
her presence. But here’s a warning: You cannot run this Process with the hope
or expectation that by doing so, your experience will change. In other words,
you can’t lie to yourself and fool your Infinite I by letting go of your
judgments and expressing your appreciation scheming that if you do, someone or
something “out there” will change. It doesn’t work that way, and the someone or
something “out there” won’t change. Your Infinite I will keep
creating experiences to show you where you assigned power and left it there
until you honestly and completely accept the experience for exactly what it is
and your role in it. In other words, someone or something “out there” can only
change when you no longer need or want anything in that holographic experience
to be any different than it is; and then it doesn’t matter to you whether it
changes or not!
* * *
Before we leave this chapter, let me be very clear about one
thing: This process is not about forgiveness, as wonderful and spiritual
as most people consider that to be. It was not about me forgiving Betty; and
you are not trying to get to the point of being able to forgive someone
for what they did. In most cases, forgiveness implies a judgment still exists
that a person did something “wrong” for which you are forgiving them. If that’s
all the farther you get, you haven’t finished the process.
On the other hand, A Course in Miracles
says, ““Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has
not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no
sin.”4
That’s their definition of forgiveness, and a most
accurate one, if everyone could understand it that way. To put it simply, when
you recognize the other person never did anything to you at all for which they
need to be forgiven, you will be on your way; and when you actually arrive at
the point of sincerely and enthusiastically expressing your appreciation to
them for what they did – for the role they played so well in your hologram –
you will have arrived.
FOOTNOTES
SPIRITUAL AUTOLYSIS
Back to the Table of Contents
On average
about a year into your cocoon time, based on the many successful results of
your first-hand experiences using Robert’s Process, you will know with
certainty there is no “out there” out there; that your 3D holographic total
immersion movies aren’t real; that your Infinite I is creating all your
experiences for you, down to the smallest detail; that you cannot be a victim
of anyone or anything at any time; that if you feel any discomfort, it is
solely the result of your reactions and responses to your movies, and you can
run the Process in a matter of minutes – even seconds sometimes – to locate and
let go of any remaining judgments, beliefs, and opinions; and that you live
mainly in a state of awe and appreciation for the Game and all the Players you
encounter.
That’s a really wonderful place to get to and be; and yet
you feel you’re not done, that there is something left to process, that you
still have unanswered questions, that you do not yet have the one true answer
to “Who Am I?”, that you’re only at the point of mild contentment with your
life rather than constant enthusiasm and joy, and that you continue to
experience some moments of discomfort from time to time.
Although it produces some excellent results early on, I
found Robert’s Process has its limitations. I know of others who reached this
point as well. (For a more complete discussion of why, please see Chapter
Thirty-Three, “Robert Scheinfeld,” in Part Three of this book.)
Robert’s Process can be very effective when dealing with
discomfort that seems to come from “out there,” but it’s not as effective when
you have reached the point where there is no longer any thought of “out there”
and you are more interested in looking “in here.” That’s because judgments,
beliefs, and opinions are only the tip of the iceberg; and once you’ve gotten
comfortable and been successful in letting go of them, you’re ready for the
next stage of your metamorphosis.
Underneath the judgments, beliefs, and opinions are the
fears that led to them and the layers of the ego created as a result – the
false self you thought yourself to be – that Robert’s Process simply cannot
address.
At least that was true in my case.
* * *
In 2003, still inside the movie theater, I had a car
accident which broke eleven bones in my neck and back, and I came within a
millimeter of being paralyzed for life. One vertebra in my neck had to be taken
out and replaced with a titanium cage, and I then needed six months in bed to
recover.
My ex-wife had been married to her new husband about three
years by that time, and his mother had also recently come to live with them.
But out of their love and caring, and going way beyond any call of duty, they
put a hospital bed in their living room and that’s where I spent those six
months recovering. Then they bought a travel trailer at their own expense, set
it up just a short walk from their house, and moved me in there as soon as I
could walk sufficiently to get back and forth, continuing to feed and take care
of me for another six months.
During that year, my ex-wife’s new husband became my best
friend, and his mother treated me as if I were her son. After fifty-seven
years, I finally had the kind of mother I wished for as a child, and a real
brother to boot. My ex-wife’s parents, who also lived nearby, were a constant
source of love and support as well. What an incredible experience! The car
accident was indeed a very special gift from my Infinite I on many
levels.
But how do you ever repay someone for that kind of love and
caring? I felt such gratitude to my ex-wife and her husband – and to the entire
family – and spent the next seven years hoping to find ways to give back even a
small percentage of what they had given me. This turned out to be the subject
of a series of holographic experiences my Infinite I would create for me
once I entered my cocoon.
During our seventeen years together, I had
been my ex-wife’s scout and coach, as well as her husband. Part of my
relationship to her, part of my ego identity, was to assist her – at her
request – in seeing when she had strayed off her own chosen path and help her
get back on course.1 Her new husband had, in
fact, thanked me profusely many times for the excellent job I had done in this capacity.
Ten years after we separated I was still attached to this
ego identity. So about a year and a half into my metamorphosis, when my ex-wife
and I suddenly and unexpectedly started to have some communications problems, my
ego said it would be a real gift to her and her husband if I once again
exercised my identity as her coach and offered my assistance and support –
perhaps even a big enough gift to repay their love and generosity. “If I could
only get her to see and understand…”
But for the first time ever in our relationship, despite all
the evidence I presented, my ex-wife did not agree she had strayed off course.
This communication problem lasted about six months while I tried to do what I
had done so well for her in the past, with zero success this time. I ran
Robert’s Process very early on, leaving me with no discomfort, no emotional or
mental upset on my side with her or the situation we were in. I did not blame
her or judge her for anything she was saying or doing, and I no longer had any
desire to fix her or improve her or change her.
But still I knew something wasn’t “right,” with me;
and I needed help, something more than Robert’s Process to find it. So my Infinite
I asked Robert Scheinfeld (how ironic and perfect!) to appear in my
holographic experience via email and introduce me to Jed McKenna and his Enlightenment
Trilogy….
“The external searching is only
one part of the story. The other part is the internal part; the slow, painful
sloughing away of self, layer by layer, piece by piece.”2
Through this communications problem with my ex-wife, I was
ready to tackle some very tough layers of my ego and the fears that created
them.
* * *
In Book One of his Enlightenment Trilogy, Jed
introduces us to a process he calls “spiritual autolysis.” I’m going to let Jed
speak for himself a lot in this chapter and the next, because he says
everything so clearly, and there’s no point in my trying to paraphrase….
“Autolysis means self-digestion,
and spiritual means, uh. Hell, I don’t really know. Let’s say it means that
level of self which encompasses the mental, physical and emotional aspects;
your royal I-ness. Put the two words together and you have a process through
which you feed yourself, one piece at a time, into the purifying digestive
fires…. It’s an unpleasant process…. basically like a Zen koan on steroids. All
you really have to do is write the truth…. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yes,
that’s all there is to it.”3
The best description Jed gives of the actual process of
spiritual autolysis is during a conversation with a student named Arthur in
Book One, Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing…
“Just write down what you know is true, or what you think
is true, and keep writing until you’ve come up with something that is true.”
“Pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its
diameter,” says Arthur.
“Sure,” I agree. “Start with something as seemingly
indisputable as that, and then start examining the foundation upon which that
statement is built and just keep following it down until you’ve reached
bedrock, something solid, something true.”
“Pi isn’t the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its
diameter?” he asks.
“The question presupposes that there’s a circle.”
“There’s not a circle?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Is there?”
“Well, if I draw a circle…”
“I? When did you confirm the existence of an I? Draw?
Have you already raced past the part where you confirmed that you are a
separate physical being in a physical universe with the ability to perceive, to
draw? Have you? If so, we have to switch seats.”
Arthur is thoughtful and silent for several moments. “I
guess that’s what you mean by following it down. This is very confusing. I
don’t even know where to start.”
“It doesn’t matter where you start, just grab a thread
and start pulling. You could start by using Ramana Maharshi’s query, ‘Who am
I?’ or ‘What is me?’, and then just work at it. Just try to say something true
and keep at it until you do. Write and rewrite. Make it cleaner and cut out the
excess and ego and follow it wherever it leads until you’re done.”
“And how long does that usually take?”
“I would think a couple of years. But when you’re done,
you’re done.”
“And by done, you mean…?”
“Done.”
“Oh. Is this like journaling? Like keeping a diary?”
“Ah, good question. No. This isn’t about personal
awareness or self-exploration. It’s not about feelings or insights. It’s not
about personal or spiritual evolution. This is about what you know for sure,
about what you are sure you know is true, about what you are that is true. With
this process you tear away layer after layer of untruth masquerading as truth.
Anytime you go back to read something you wrote, even if it was only yesterday,
you should be surprised by how far you’ve come since then. It’s actually a
painful and vicious process, somewhat akin to self-mutilation. It creates
wounds that will never heal and burns bridges that can never be rebuilt and the
only real reason to do it is because you can no longer stand not to.”
He lets that sink in for a few moments. “What’s the reason
for writing it down? Why not just do it in your head like with koans?”
“That’s another good question. Yes, koans and mantras are
done in your head. Ramana Maharshi’s ‘Who am I?’ query is done in your head.
The reason for writing it down on paper or on a computer where you can see it
is because the brain, unlikely as it may sound, is no place for serious
thinking. Any time you have serious thinking to do, the first step is to get
the whole shootin’ match out of your head and set it up someplace where you can
walk around it and see it from all sides. Attack, switch sides and
counter-attack. You can’t do that while it’s still in your head. Writing it out
allows you to act as your own teacher, your own critic, your own opponent. By
externalizing your thoughts, you can become your own guru; judging yourself,
giving feedback, providing a more objective and elevated perspective.”…
“Does that make Spiritual Autolysis a path of intellect as
opposed to a path of heart or a path of devotion or a path of service?”
Ugh. “Frankly, you start losing
me a little bit there, Arthur.” He gives me a perplexed look. “I don’t know
what all these different paths are, Arthur. Spiritual Autolysis is an
intellectual endeavor, but I balk at calling it a path of intellect. It’s a
process of discrimination, of unknowing what is untrue, of progressively
stripping away the false and leaving only what is true. Discrimination is used
in a machete-like manner for hacking one’s way through the dense underbrush of
delusion, or, if you prefer, in a swordlike manner for hacking off one’s own
delusion-riddled head. Intellect is used as the sword with which ego commits a
slow and agonizing suicide; the death of a thousand cuts. Whether that makes it
this kind of path or that kind of path doesn’t concern us here; that’s
something for a student of paths to worry about. If the question stays with you
then it’s something you can address for yourself in the process of Spiritual
Autolysis.”4
* * *
This was exactly what I needed to process my current
experience with my ex-wife. I needed to see my emotional attachments to her and
her husband, especially the tricky ones that seemed so justified by well-earned
and well-deserved gratitude. I needed to write down how these attachments were
defining who I believed myself to be, and look honestly at the hold my ego had
on me as a result. I wanted to find out what was really true about any of this,
and spiritual autolysis was a powerful tool in that process.
What I discovered, of course, was that my ego liked this
role of being the coach for my ex-wife. It defined my identity, my relationship
to her, especially since I was no longer her husband.
In fact, my ego liked being a coach to anyone. It gave me
the identity of a teacher, a mentor, a guru of sorts. It also satisfied a
belief in helping others, in trying to mitigate their pain and suffering, in
offering support by exposing the inconsistencies and contradictions that were
making their lives less happy than mine – none of which can ever be true, of
course. Isn’t it amazing how arrogant our egos can be, thinking we know what’s
best for someone else or how they should live?
It was my ego that wanted me to feel this eternal gratitude
to my ex-wife and her husband – without any possibility of ever being able to
pay them back – to keep me attached to this identity. That’s the way the ego
survives and grows and gains power.
But it was clear the time had come for me to detach from the
identity of a coach or mentor or teacher or guru to my ex-wife – and anyone and
everyone else – and from the endless gratitude to her and her husband.
Detaching does not automatically mean disconnecting,
however; although in this case my ex-wife finally asked that I take her and her
husband off my mailing list, which I did, although I hope the disconnection is
not permanent or even lengthy.
Detaching means… well, I’ll talk about it in detail in the
next chapter. For now, think of the ego like an onion. Detaching is peeling off
one of the layers and throwing it away. Or maybe you prefer cutting it up into
little pieces, throwing it in a hot pan with some butter, and eating it with
great appreciation for the flavor it gives to a hamburger or zucchini. (For
more appreciation of the ego, please see Chapter Thirty-One, “The Ego,” in Part
Three of this book.)
Originally, I was quite surprised when my “coaching” offers
were so adamantly rejected by both my ex-wife and her husband, given our
history. Now I am so extremely appreciative to both of them, for it was only
through their resistance that I was able to find and let go of these ego
layers. What a relief it is not to feel like playing any of those roles any
more, and what a gift they gave me once again – although this time I am not
bound to the ego by the gratitude.
* * *
There were many fears I discovered as well as I ran Jed’s
spiritual autolysis on this incident with my ex-wife and her husband. The
bottom line was that I wasn’t enjoying our conversations any more; I wasn’t
having fun being involved in her dramas; and I didn’t look forward to listening
to him recite conspiracy theories of government concentration camps ready to
accommodate millions of Americans. The only reason I kept putting up with it
was this endless gratitude.
But I was afraid to let go of her and her husband, even
knowing I could never repay them no matter what I did. In addition to feeling I
should feel grateful for the rest of my life, there was the fear of how
it would look to others if I suddenly put an end to the endless gratitude. I
was afraid of what the rest of the family would think. How ungrateful would it
seem if one day I said, “You know, I am and will always be very appreciative of
you and everything you did for me; but I can never pay you back, and I have to
stop trying. That part of my life is over, and I no longer feel joyful or
interested – or compelled by gratitude – in walking down the road you seem to
be heading at the moment.”
What would my children think? Did I stand the chance of
jeopardizing my identity as their father if they disapproved of my behavior
with their step-mother?
I was also afraid of losing the mother I had always wanted
and just recently found, and the new brother I had come to love. These layers
of identity had made up for years of my dysfunctional childhood, and I
cherished them.
Finally, and most importantly, I was afraid this was the
last chance I would have to get my ex-wife out of the movie theater and into
her cocoon, which was the “gift” I had been trying to give her. I still loved
her and cared for her, and wanted her to find her way out of the drama and
conflict and pain and suffering – the dreamstate she was so clearly still
experiencing as a Human Adult. Of course, my ego loved this, feeling secure in
its existence as long as I felt responsible for and was focusing on her
spiritual evolution instead of my own.
Detachment isn’t always just from the things we don’t want
or like, but also from the things we want and love.
* * *
I had to let go of the attachments to all of this, to all
the fears that had created layer upon layer of my ego and formed the false
belief of who I thought I was: coach, friend, father, brother, son. These were
all just “characters” I played – none of which were who I really am at all, all
of which are who I am not, in fact.
The fact is that every judgment I ever made in my life has
attached me to that experience and formed another layer of my ego, defining who
I thought I was. Every belief adopted as a result of these judgments has been
false, solidifying and justifying the ego. Every opinion based on those false
beliefs will turn out to be in error when viewed from a new perspective of
truth.
That’s why our Infinite I gives us the opportunity to
revisit, or re-live, those experiences while in the cocoon; to let go of those
judgments, beliefs, opinions; to look head-on at the fears and break the
attachments that have formed the false identity layers of the ego.
* * *
This is all well and good, you might say, for something as
insignificant as a little emotional upset over Betty’s parked car, or a spat
with your ex-wife – for the minor drama and conflicts in life. But what about real
discomfort? What about physical abuse? What about a rape, domestic violence,
divorce, child abuse, war, poverty, starvation, depression, severe illness, and
the really difficult experiences of true pain and suffering?
The severity of the discomfort does not matter; the process
is exactly the same regardless of the content of the hologram. None of it is
real, no matter the intensity, whether it is a minor cut on your finger or a
near-fatal car accident. It just seems real – it looks and feels real –
and the more emotional or physical pain, the more real it becomes, which means
the more power we have assigned to it.
That’s why I suggest starting with Robert’s Process to take
the “heat” and the “reality” out of the situation, and then work your way into
Jed’s spiritual autolysis, always reminding yourself that the experience has
been created by your Infinite I to show you where you assigned power, to
give you the opportunity to change how you react and respond, and then decide
whether you want to continue living with the fears and the layers of false ego
identities.
Yes, it might take a little longer to process the more
extreme feelings of discomfort, but the Process itself doesn’t change. It might
mean you “reclaim” some power the first time through the Process, but there’s
still a lot left to go back and get the next time, or the third time, or the
three-hundredth time through the experience. The “good” thing is that each time
you run the Process on a particular situation and turn off some of the power
associated with it, it gets less intense and therefore a little easier the next
time.
Eventually, within a couple years, you will do all of this
with ease and excitement, appreciating the experiences of discomfort – if they
come up – as an opportunity to locate and process the last remnants of judgment
and fear, but living more as a “witness” to your own life.
* * *
In Book Three of his Enlightenment Trilogy, called Spiritual
Warfare, Jed mentions “witnessing” in a conversation with a teenage
student, Maggie….
“Ultimately, the only spiritual practice is observation;
seeing things the way they really are. That’s what Spiritual Autolysis is; a
tool to help us do that, to see more clearly, to use our brains the best we
can. In witnessing, you want to take a step back from yourself so you’re not
just living your life, you’re also observing it. Not in reflection, like a
diary, but as it’s happening; in real time. Like right now, I’m sitting here
talking with you, but I’m also in this witnessing mode of impartial observer. I
am not fully in character, I’m also an audience member. I’m aware that I’m
acting on a stage and I am, somewhat disinterestedly, monitoring my
performance.”
She looks confused but eager. “How do I do it?” she asks.
“Well, in a way, you’re already doing it, except your
witness is kind of unfocused. She’s bored, hungry, aggravated, muffled. You
want to bring her into focus, sit her down and have her pay attention.”
“Her? Her who?”
“The little voice in the back of your mind. You know what
it’s like when you’re bored, and in the back of your mind you’re thinking about
something else? You’re not fully present, your mind is somewhere else;
wandering, daydreaming.… Daydreaming is a very good word for it because it
suggests that we’re asleep while we’re awake, which is exactly the point. We
want to transfer our primary awareness out of the character we’re playing and
into the actor that’s playing the character. We want to accentuate that
distinction to help us stop blending the character we play with the actor
playing the character. We want to take up primary residence in the actor
instead of the character we’re portraying. Does that make sense?”
“I don’t know. You mean like being self-conscious all the
time?”
“Yes, but in an impartial sense, not in a judgmental
sense. When you have internal voices holding imaginary conversations or
worrying that you wore the wrong blouse, those are character elements too. The
actor can just sit back and watch all that. In this way you can observe
yourself just like you observe anyone else, except with a better view.”
“I’m not sure I can do that.”
“Of course you can, it just sounds weird.”5
Sounds to me a lot like the Fair Witness in Heinlein’s Stranger
in a Strange Land, for those of you who know the reference; and as far as I
am concerned, witnessing is an advanced process that takes a lot of training
and discipline and is probably not suitable for the early stages in a cocoon.
But it’s how you begin to live all the time toward the end
of your metamorphosis.…
“There’s nothing to it except
observation, awareness, vigilance. Wakefulness. First you learn to do it, to
have this detached awareness; you do it consciously, a little at a time, just
to get the hang of it. Practice witnessing other people to get the idea. Watch
them, wonder about them, deconstruct and reverse-engineer them, then just watch
yourself the way you’ve been watching others. Then you start doing it more and
more until it becomes second nature and you’re almost always in the witnessing
mode and you see your own character from the same impersonal perspective as you
see other people.”6
FOOTNOTES
DETACHING & “DESIRELESSNESS”
Back to the Table of Contents
I said in the
last chapter that “detachment isn’t always just from the things we don’t want
or like, but also from the things we want and love.”
That may sound like you have to forsake everything in order
to become a butterfly, which would make becoming a butterfly a lot less
attractive to many people. But it’s not true. So let me explain “detachment” a
little more; and, as usual, let’s first look at what “detachment” is not….
“Detachment,” sometimes called “non-attachment” or
“desirelessness,” is a concept that can be found in all the major religions
inside the movie theater; and, as is necessary, it has been altered and twisted
so that it doesn’t work for the Human Adults who try it.
“Detachment as release from desire
and consequently from suffering is an important principle, or even ideal, in
the Bahá'í Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Jainism, Kabbalah
and Taoism…. In Buddhist and Hindu religious texts the opposite concept is
expressed as upādāna, translated as "attachment.” Attachment,
that is the inability to practice or embrace detachment, is viewed as the main
obstacle towards a serene and fulfilled life. Many other spiritual traditions
identify the lack of detachment with the continuous worries and restlessness
produced by desire and personal ambitions.”1
“One of the most important
teachings of Zen Buddhism is non-attachment. The teaching of non-attachment may
be easy to understand, but it is not easy to practice. Nevertheless, it is very
essential to cultivate non-attachment if we are to live a serene and happy life
in a world of constant change…. Our world is a world of desire. Every living
being comes forth from desire and endures as a combination of desires. We are
born from the desire between of our father and mother. Then, when we emerge
into this world, we become infatuated with many things, and become ourselves
well-springs of desire. Through desire we give rise to attachments. For every
desire there is a corresponding attachment, namely, to the object of desire.
For example, we are most conspicuously attached to our bodies. When someone
threatens the body, we grow anxious and try to protect it. We relish physical
comforts and the enjoyment of the senses. Thus, we are strongly attached to the
body. But if we consider this attachment, we will see that it is a potential
source of suffering.”2
One of the main reasons this concept doesn’t work is that it
is based on judgment – the judgment that desire is “bad” and desirelessness is
“good.” It also contains resistance to desire; and as many others have pointed
out, to desire desirelessness is a desire in itself.
The truth is there is nothing “wrong” with desires and no
reason to resist them or try to live without them. We are free to desire
anything and everything we want. Our desires make life interesting and
exciting. The problem only starts when we become attached to having those
desires fulfilled. In other words, you cannot be attached to realizing or
achieving your desires, so that whether you realize or achieve your desires or
not has no effect on your happiness or state of mind. It is not the desire
that needs to be detached from; it’s the attachment to its fulfillment.
I can well imagine the Buddha knew this and taught this, but
his followers either didn’t get it, or couldn’t do it. So they made “desire”
the focus of detachment rather than the attachment to the outcome of the
desire. As quoted above…
“For every desire there is a corresponding attachment,
namely, to the object of desire.”
No, no, no! The attachment is to the fulfillment of
the desire, not the desire itself! All suffering comes from being attached to
the fulfillment of the desire, and being disappointed when that desire is not
realized despite all the meditation, prayers, visualization and hard work. The
suffering is not because of the desire itself.
Jed McKenna says it very simply…
“All attachments to the
dreamstate are made of energy. That energy is called emotion. All emotions,
positive and negative, are attachments.”3
I have any number of desires I’m not
attached to. For example, I have a strong desire to build a 65-foot wingsail
catamaran4 where I can spend my days as a
butterfly sailing the oceans, scuba diving, and enjoying the company of the
whales and dolphins. But I am not attached to having that desire fulfilled;
that will depend entirely on what my Infinite I wants me to experience.
I also don’t have the catamaran as a plan or a goal or an agenda, nor am I
doing anything to try to make it happen other than what excites me in the
moment. I simply have fun with the desire, dream about it, enjoy drawing
designs of the boat, and am curious to see if the ripples of my universe flow
in that direction.
“No spiritual teaching that
talks about non-attachment has any right to. None of them are talking about
this. ‘Cultivate a sense of detachment,’ they say. A sense of detachment? What
planet are they from? They have no idea whatsoever what detachment means. They
seem to be talking about detaching from your desire for a BMW or for Mr. Right.
Try detaching from what you love! From what you are! From everything that
characterizes your membership in the human race! And that’s just for starters.”5
* * *
Very briefly, you can consider yourself “attached” to
someone or something when that someone or something can affect the way you
feel. In other words…
…you are attached to another person if something they do or
say determines your happiness or lack of it.
…you are attached to something when it has to be
“right” in order for you to feel “right.”
…you are attached to a false layer of the ego when it
defines who you think you are.
The detachment we’re most interested in is detaching from
these layers of the ego that have led to a misconception of who we really are,
and that detachment happens automatically as we do our spiritual autolysis and
discover who we are not. We don’t have to actively pursue or practice
detachment; those layers of false identity simply fall away, stripped off the
onion and left for trash. As we find out who we are not on our way to
finding out who we really are, we detach from those identities in the process. That
is detachment.
“You can forget about
non-attachment…. You’re putting the cart before the horse. Non-attachment isn’t
a key to liberation, it’s a by-product.”6
* * *
One of the many wonderful gifts I have been given by other
Players in my life happened when I was fifty-five years old and fell in love
with a woman who would soon start to act like my mother. For the first time in
my life, she allowed me to closely examine the attachments I still had to both
my parents, even though they were already dead at the time. Needless to say,
these were less than pleasant memories. In fact, I cried almost every day for a
solid year as I processed this part of my childhood.
In addition to loving her, I became very attached to this
woman, to the point that how I felt was totally dependent on what she did or
said every minute of every day. It was so bad that if she didn’t kiss me
exactly right when we said goodbye in the morning, I was devastated and my day
was ruined.
It was the Al-Anon program7 that helped me break these attachments. Al-Anon
doesn’t teach that you have to leave an alcoholic you love, but that you can
detach from them and the effects of their alcoholism, still love them, still
live with them, and still be happy regardless of anything they do or say. Once
I was able to detach from my parents and my fiancée, my happiness was no longer
dependant on anything she said or did, or how she kissed me, and I grew to love
this woman unconditionally.
So when I talk about “detaching,” it doesn’t mean you have
to give up anything except your attachment. It doesn’t mean you can’t continue
to love someone; it means you can no longer be attached to that love, or to
that someone either. It doesn’t mean you can’t continue to want nice things in
your life; it means your joy in life can’t be attached to having those nice
things. It doesn’t mean you can no longer find total pleasure in your favorite
meal with a good glass of wine; it means your happiness can’t be dependent on
whether you get it or not.
It means letting go of the cave and your fellow prisoners in
order to experience what it’s like outside the cave. It means letting go of the
movie theater and your fellow Human Children and Human Adults in order to find
out what is true and who you really are.
“The process of awakening looks
like it’s about destroying ego, but that’s not really accurate. You never
completely rid yourself of ego – the false self – as long as you’re alive, and
it’s not important that you do. What matters is the emotional tethers that
anchor us to the dreamstate; that hold us in place and make us feel that we’re
a part of something real. We send out energetic tendrils from the nexus of ego
like roots to attach ourselves to the dreamstate, and to detach from it we must
sever them. The energy of an emotion is our lifeforce, and the amount of
lifeforce determines the power of the emotion. Withdraw energy from an emotion
and what’s left? A sterile thought. A husk. In this sense, freeing ourselves
from attachment is indeed the process of awakening, but such attachments aren’t
what we have, they’re what we are.”8
Think of it this way… in order to become a butterfly, a
caterpillar has to give up the attachment to its body, the feel of the earth as
it crawled along, the leaves it enjoyed eating, the 4000 muscles it possessed,
the hair it used as protection, and so on. But letting go of those attachments
is well worth it when the end result is a butterfly with its bright colors,
light body, wings to fly, and the magnificent taste of flower nectar.
Being a caterpillar is a wonderful experience; being a
butterfly is total freedom.
* * *
In Book Two of his Enlightenment Trilogy, called Spiritually
Incorrect Enlightenment, Jed McKenna includes the spiritual autolysis writings
of one of his students, named Julie….
“My mind is haunted, my thoughts
are haunted. I am haunted; possessed, plagued with demons! My mother is here!
My unborn children are here. My future is here, my dreams. Everyone who means
anything to me, good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, is here. How do they all
fit? How could I have not seen them right away? Of course they’re here. This is
where they are. My attic is me, there is no place else. Whether or not they
have physical counterparts out in the real world is meaningless to me, just as
the fact that I might be a real person in the real world is meaningless to
them. Perception is reality. I am possessed by my own perceptions; not by
things and people, future and past, but by my perceptions of them. These are my
connections, my attachments. Maybe all I really am is the sum of all these
connections, these fearful longings and graspings. What is an attachment
anyway? It’s a belief, that’s all. A strong one maybe, but just a belief. And
yes, Jed, I know: No belief is true. The pen is mightier than the sword, isn’t
it Jed? You wrote about a sword, but that was just a metaphor. It’s the pen.
Spiritual Autolysis is the power of the pen, which is the power of the mind,
the power to see, to see clearly. Yes, I will kill these people inhabiting my
mind. I will kill them by clearly seeing the attachments that keep them here. I
can see those attachments now. I can see the emotions at work and I am starting
to see them for what they are. I am starting to understand of what stuff this
prison of self is really made.”9
* * *
I hope it is clear now what you are going to do as you go
through daily life in your cocoon, first processing any physical or emotional
discomfort that arises in your interactions with other people and the world
“out there,” and then searching to find and let go of the false knowledge and
emotional attachments that have formed layer upon layer of your ego, defining
who you thought you were, until you discover who you really are.
“The external searching is only one part of the story.
The other part is the internal part; the slow, painful sloughing away of self,
layer by layer, piece by piece. Spiritual self-debridement. Some layers of
selfhood just fall away, some tear off in long strips or flabby hunks, and some
have to be meticulously, pain-stakingly; surgically removed. Everything I had
become in decades of life I now had to unbecome. All I really was was belief,
so everything I believed I now had to unbelieve. My new world was cold and
bright and honest, but my old mind was still full of a lifetime’s accumulation
of belief and opinion and false knowledge and emotional attachment – all the
noxious debris and toxic waste that make up the ego – and it all had to go.
That’s a process and it takes time. The world might be annihilated in a flash,
but self takes a little longer to burn away. There’s no bomb for that. There’s
no pretty Latin phrase or Sanskrit mantra that annihilates self quickly or
painlessly. There’s no realization or insight or epiphany that wipes away the
false self in a flash. Those who claim to have awakened in a flash are the most
deluded of all…
“It should now be easy to
understand that a true and complete spiritual teaching can be conveyed in three
words [Who Am I?], while those that require entire libraries of books and
legions of graybearded scholars to decrypt them can succeed only in producing
ever more darkness and confusion. It should now be clear that there are no
cases of instant enlightenment, that awakening is not the result of a single
epiphany, but of a long, arduous journey wherein every step itself is a long,
arduous journey. It should now be obvious that all dogma, beliefs, doctrines
and philosophies are strictly dreamstate phenomena with no independent
existence in truth. It should now be easy to look at any teacher or teaching,
at any book, at any spiritual or religious assertion, and to instantly know its
exact and certain value. It should now be easy to look at every internal
thought, belief and emotion and know without the possibility of error what is
real and what is imagined. It should now be clear that there is no room for
debate or opinion with regard to what is true and what is false. The
distinction is absolute: Truth exists. Untruth does not.”10
* * *
Robert’s Process and Spiritual Autolysis. I’m personally not
aware of any other processes from other scouts that I know for a fact will work
in your transformation into a butterfly. But, of course, you are always free to
come up with your own process if you think you’ve found something “better.” I
would caution you to remember that any process developed inside the movie
theater will not work in the cocoon, simply because it’s based on
incorrect premises (i.e., the movies are real). Now the opposite of everything
is true, so you would be wise not to try to bring any process into the cocoon
with you.
Furthermore, any process you come up with inside the cocoon
is going to have to include certain specific elements, like…
…acknowledging there is no objective, independent reality
“out there” and the experience you’re processing isn’t real
…locating and letting go of all judgments, beliefs,
opinions, and fears
…withdrawing, disconnecting, or switching off any power
assigned to a person, place, or thing within the hologram
…expressing appreciation to the people, places, and things
in your hologram for their role in your process, and to your Infinite I
for its creations
…identifying and detaching from the layers of the ego that were
created while in the movie theater, always with the purpose of finding the true
answer to “Who Am I?”
In addition, any process must be done unilaterally and
alone; that is, it cannot depend on anyone or anything else outside of you
saying or doing anything at all. You initiate and run the process regardless of
what anyone else does in your experience. No one else has to change anything;
you just change your own reaction or response.
It’s also worth repeating and emphasizing that while you can
do Robert’s Process in your head, spiritual autolysis will only work well if
you actually write it down. The problem with doing stuff in your head when it
comes to dealing with your fears and the layers of your ego is that the ego,
threatened with its annihilation, will begin fighting back, finding ways to
justify your fears, fooling you into thinking the layer of ego you found is
true and necessary to hang on to. So if you’re going to try to come up with
your own process, you will have to find a way to get it out of your head,
establishing some physical distance between you and what you are looking at.
Who knows? You might, indeed, come up with a new process
that can benefit others as well as you scout a new path across the Rockies. Then you can write a book about it! Meanwhile, the processes from Robert
Scheinfeld and Jed McKenna now have proven track records, so we know they work;
and that’s saying something. In just two years, I have seen the kind of results
using this combination of Robert’s Process and Jed’s spiritual autolysis that
many people spend lifetimes in meditation and visualization and still never
achieve. As they say in some 12-Step programs, it works if you work it, and
it’s worth it.
* * *
If you apply yourself diligently and faithfully to whatever
workable process you choose, I can tell you where you will end up.
You will drop all judgments of everyone and everything. You
will see nothing any more as “good” or “bad,” “better” or “worse,” “right” or
“wrong,” “good” or “evil.”
You will let go of all the beliefs you ever held, including
the belief of who you thought you were.
Your opinions will cease to exist and not be replaced.
You will eliminate fear from your life, including the fear
of death and non-existence, knowing everything is perfect exactly the way it is
and there is never anything to be afraid of.
In short, you will become…
…nothing – a fully realized no-self,11 as others have called it – nothing but joy and
appreciation and serenity of being.
“Truly I have attained nothing from total enlightenment,”
said the Buddha.
A butterfly is nothing; and like the butterfly, you will
finally be free – free of judgments and beliefs and opinions and false
knowledge and ego attachments; free of drama and conflict and pain and suffering;
“free to fly, fly away, high away, bye bye.”
FOOTNOTES
JUDGMENT
Back to the Table of Contents
After hours
upon hours of spiritual autolysis, I finally wrote something that is true:
Judgment is the source of all pain and suffering.
This might only be true for me, but I doubt it.
If you’re like I, and many other people, you’ve had a
personal experience confirming this truth you might not have recognized….
Have you ever thought you cut yourself with a sharp knife,
maybe while slicing vegetables, but you weren’t sure; so you stopped slicing
and took a look, and then you saw the blood. When did the pain start? Not until
you saw the blood and judged the injury to be painful. The cut itself caused no
pain until you looked at it.
There are many other examples of people not experiencing
very painful injuries because they were focused on something else, like saving
a child from a car accident; and only when they stopped to take a look at
themselves – or when a doctor or nurse had them focus on their own injuries –
did they feel any pain. This, of course, is one of the theories behind
firewalking and other popular motivational ceremonies.
Normally, however, we judge an experience to be painful –
either physically or mentally or emotionally – as soon as it happens, or maybe
even before it happens. We also go through life pre-judging that any number of
different experiences would be painful if we should ever encounter them. But it
is the judgment that creates the pain and suffering and not the experience
itself.
All holographic experiences created by all Infinite I’s
for all Players are completely neutral. It is only the Player’s judgmental
reactions and responses to those experiences that cause the drama and conflict
and pain and suffering.
There, in a nutshell, is the answer to the age-old question
of why “God” would create pain and suffering in the world. “He” doesn’t. “We”
do, by our reactions and responses to totally neutral holographic experiences.
* * *
Inside the movie theater, the lives of the Human Children
are based entirely on judgment. They thrive on the concept; they literally
cannot imagine living without it, and some object strenuously and even get
angry at the very suggestion. How could one possibly survive without judging
everything to be “good” or “bad,” “right” or “wrong,” “better” or “worse”? Of
course, they can hardly imagine living without the drama and conflict, either;
nor do they seem to want to.
All the world’s major religions and spiritual philosophies
have judgment at their core as well. “God” is the supreme judge, for example,
and “He” will judge you and your thoughts and actions to determine whether you
will have an eternal life of bliss or damnation.
All social mores (“any given society's
particular norms, virtues or values,”1 or
“conformity to the rules of right conduct”2) are
based on judgment of what is “right” or “wrong” behavior; and we have set up
“judges” to make those determinations in court.
But as Human Children make their way to the back of the
movie theater, after a while some of them start to question judgment as a
concept. Perhaps it’s not so “good,” so “right,” so “spiritual” to be so
judgmental of other people. However, not even the Human Adults talk in any
serious way about giving up judgment entirely.
All of this is totally understandable and perfect, since
judgment is the glue that keeps the illusion going in the first half of the
Human Game.
Letting go of judgment entirely is perhaps the most radical
step any human being can take, which is why this book is subtitled, “A New
& Radical Approach to Spiritual Evolution.” It is also a most joyful way to
live, for without judgment all experiences “out there” are seen as perfect and
nothing needs to be changed, fixed, or improved.
Now that you’re in the cocoon, I’m suggesting it’s time to
let go of judgment altogether if you want to play the second half of the Game
and complete your metamorphosis into a butterfly. So let’s take a closer look
at “judgment” itself.
Like “consciousness,” apparently it’s not easy to
define “judgment” simply and precisely. Here’s what the American Heritage
Dictionary says (taking out the legal and religious definitions):
1. The formation of an opinion
after consideration or deliberation
2. The mental ability to perceive and distinguish
relationships; discernment
3. The capacity to form an opinion by distinguishing and
evaluating
4. The capacity to assess situations or circumstances and
draw sound conclusions; good sense
5. An opinion or estimate formed after consideration or
deliberation, especially a formal or authoritative decision
6. An assertion of something believed.3
…and here’s what the Merriam-Webster
Dictionary says:
1. A formal utterance of an authoritative opinion
2. The process of forming an opinion or evaluation by
discerning and comparing
3. A proposition stating something believed or asserted.4
At first glance, you might say these definitions have
nothing to do with “right” or “wrong,” “better” or “worse,” “good” or “bad,”
since those particular words are hardly mentioned. But take a closer look….
“Drawing sound conclusions” requires a judgment that there
are “unsound conclusions.” Having “good sense” requires a judgment of there
being “bad sense.”
“Distinguishing relationships,” “evaluating,” “comparing”
all imply and require a “comparison” – usually between “right and wrong,” “good
and bad,” "better or worse," or “good and evil.”
Let’s also talk about what judgment is not. Saying
someone is fat, for example, is not a judgment if it is a true statement of
fact. It becomes a judgment if there is the slightest belief the person is
“wrong” for being fat, or needs to fix, change, or improve something about
their “fatness.” Unfortunately, it’s very easy for the ego to try to hide and
justify a judgment by claiming it is really just a factual observation; so in
the early stages of the cocoon it is often wise to treat all thoughts and
statements like this as judgmental.
The truth is that we are all taught from a very young age to
be judgmental; that is, to form a belief and opinion about someone or something
by deciding first which is “better or worse.” In fact, we’re taught it’s “good”
to have “good judgment,” and to know the difference between these dichotomies.
This is called “duality – the state or
quality of being two or in two parts.”5
We all live in a state of duality as long as we are inside
the movie theater.
* * *
If “duality” is “the state or quality of being two or in two
parts” – the dichotomies of “right and wrong,” “good and bad,” “better and
worse,” “good and evil” – then living without judgment, without dichotomies,
should be called “non-duality.” However, that word has been taken to mean
something else by a lot of different groups inside the movie theater. In fact,
non-duality seems to have become the latest New Age fad, although it’s been
around for a long time, beginning with the Upanishads (“advaita”) through
ancient Greece to Buddhism and Yoga and Zen.
Apparently it has more to do with
“Oneness,” or monism (“reality is a unified whole and all existing things can
be ascribed to or described by a single concept or system6)….
“I no longer see myself as a
separate individual living in a world of separate objects but feel more like a
wave belonging to the one ocean of energy. There is a non-dualistic view of the
world that has replaced the previously held, vastly smaller self-identity.
Dropping the concept of being a separate self caused an energetic expansion
from the limited boundaries of the body outwards into everything. A child-like
joy and wonder has replaced the adult critic. Somehow it is recognized that
life’s essence is a single unity.”7
I had trouble getting my head around that one since I don’t
speak New Age. (We’ll talk more about this in Chapter Twenty-Five, “Are We All
One?”, in Part Three of this book.) But then I ran across….
“Nonduality is a hard concept to
grasp at first because the mind is trained to make distinctions in the world,
and nondualism is the rejection of distinction.”8
The rejection of distinction… Hooray! I thought. Looks like
someone gets it... and then he added….
“Not to say that all differences
are eliminated, merely transformed into relationships.”9
Oops, sorry, I don’t get it. What does that mean? Where are
the lines talking about our daily judgments, which themselves are relationships
between “good” and “bad,” etc.
Then I discovered there are thousands upon thousands of
pages of books and other stuff written about non-duality. Apparently it is
quite a difficult subject to grasp and explain.
But I don’t see the problem or the need for all these books.
What is there to explain? Give up judgment, let go of the dichotomies, stop
living in duality. End of story.
Well, if we can’t call the state of living in non-judgment
“non-duality,” what can we call it? Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with any
really cool term, so I settled on “neutrality” for now.
* * *
It seems the feeling we get the longer we remain a Human
Adult – that deep-down wondering whether being so judgmental is such a “good”
thing after all – has some basis in truth. Thanks to quantum physics and the
Human Game model, we now know there really is nothing to judge. The holographic
movies we call our lives are not real, so what good does it do to judge them?
The experiences we have, created for us by our own Infinite I down to
the smallest detail, are perfect exactly as they are and totally neutral, so
what’s to judge? And who are we to think we have the ability or the authority
to decide what is “right” or “wrong” anyway, and on what basis?
No, spirituality is not required any more in order to give
up judgment; you don’t have to “believe” it’s “better” to be non-judgmental.
Although it might sound very radical, once you truly understand how our
holographic universe works, letting go of all judgment is simply the next
logical step.
Many people, when they get to this point, can’t go any
further. “It’s absolutely necessary,” they say, “to know the difference between
right and wrong. Without judgment, someone could do anything they wanted and
the world would be in chaos.”
My first response is to ask, “How do you think we’ve done so
far with judgment?” Isn’t it judgment that has led to wars, violence,
persecution, discrimination, inquisitions, witch hunts, jealousy, divorce,
murder, torture, oppression, and a whole list of other traditional human
activities?
It’s true we’ve been told and taught and believed for the
entire first half of the Human Game that judgment is absolutely necessary; and
rightfully so, because it was essential for the first half to work. But just
like we finally discovered the Earth is not flat, nor is it the center of our
solar system, it’s time to recognize our own judgment is the basic cause of our
resistance to our experiences and therefore all of our pain and suffering. The
opposite of everything is true: It’s the judgment that causes the chaos, not
the lack of it!
Besides, “someone could do anything they wanted and the
world would be in chaos” is a statement that assigns power “out there” and
ignores the fact that the “someone” and the “world” referred to are part of
your individual and unique holographic experience, and nothing more. They have
no independent, objective reality.
I ran across this essay on the Internet written in strictly
Christian terms by someone who’s clearly not an “expert” in anything (like me),
and maybe his phrasing can help others understand this better….
“God is all-loving, so there
cannot be a favored mode of conduct (or thought) in the eyes of God. If there
is no favored mode of thought and conduct, then all thought and action
must be allowed by God. Therefore there is no universal standard of thought or
conduct, only personal ones. If all thought and action are allowed, there can
be no "right" way or "wrong" way. There cannot be any judgment
of thought or action, otherwise there are conditions placed on thought and
action. If there are no conditions placed on thought and action by the
Creator, then there is no right or wrong! Right and wrong must then be a human
concept, not a universal one. Jesus said: 'Resist not Evil' (Matthew 5:39) Jesus understood universal law. There is no evil, only contrast and diversity of
thought and conduct. Evil, just like right and wrong, is a judgment, usually
based in fear, placed upon the thoughts and actions of others. The more
something is resisted, the more energy is supplied to it, and the larger and
more powerful it becomes.”10
* * *
Speaking of Christianity, one of the biggest “hints” and
“clues” that letting go of judgment is the next radical step for human beings
is in plain sight in the first Book of the Holy Bible…
“And out of the ground made the
Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food;
the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of
good and evil.”11
Please note that in the middle of the Garden of Eden there
was not just one tree, but two trees: the Tree of Life, and the Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Then God created man and woman…
“And they were both naked, the
man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”12
Please note that there was no judgment from the man or woman
about their nakedness at this point. Unfortunately, this lack of shame didn’t
last long. A snake convinced the woman, who then convinced the man, to eat some
fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil…
“And the eyes of them both were
opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together,
and made themselves aprons.”13
Eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil marked
the beginning of judgment for the human race. Not only did the man and woman
judge that being naked was now something to be ashamed of and to hide, but they
also judged that they had done something wrong. From this point forward, life
on Earth would be full of the dichotomies of “good and evil,” “right and
wrong,” “better and worse,” and it remains that way today.
So much for the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which is
just another name for the Tree of Judgment.
What about the Tree of Life? What was its effect on man when
he ate from it?
Unfortunately, according to the Bible, God drove man out of
the Garden of Eden before he could eat from the Tree of Life, leaving the human
race to live its entire existence thus far in judgment.
“Therefore the LORD God sent
him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was
taken.”14
That’s how the Bible begins. But how does it end?
From the last Book of the Bible, “Revelation”…
“To him that overcometh will I
give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.”15
So mankind is finally going to get to eat from the Tree of
Life, if he “overcometh.” But “overcometh” what?
In its context, the meaning is clear: “overcometh” judgment,
“overcometh” what started with eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and
Evil.
Contrary to popular opinion, the Book of
Revelation is not about the end of the world, or even the final battle between
Good and Evil that Good wins (because it doesn’t); and although it is usually
talked about as “Armageddon,” that word only appears once in the entire book
(at Revelation 16:16) and probably refers to an actual location some sixty
miles north of Jerusalem.16
Instead, the Book of Revelation is about the realization
(the "revelation") that “good” and “evil” are judgments and the
battle is to let go of both of them. In fact, the Bible can be seen not only as
the story of mankind’s evolution, but as the storyline of a single individual
(but that metaphor would fill another book in itself).
Or, if you prefer the poet Rumi:
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing, there is a field17.”
You’ll recall that The Field is defined
as “a field of all possibility18” – not just
possibilities that are “right” in someone’s judgment, but all
possibilities. It is from this Field that an Infinite I creates an experience
for its Player, and considering its source (The Field), that experience cannot
be “right” or “wrong” either.
* * *
You might be thinking I am falling into my own trap and
judging “judgment” to be “wrong.” Not so. Judgment was the perfect tool to play
the first half of the Human Game, for it created the maximum amount of
limitation. It simply doesn’t work in the second half. It is part of the
caterpillar whose “larval structures are broken down.”
“But… but… but,” you say, “how can I look around at the
horrible things going on in the world – crime, poverty, disease, starvation,
destruction of the Earth, war, violence, child abuse, domestic abuse, and so on
– and say those things are okay, that they’re ‘neutral,’ that I’m not supposed
to judge them? I don’t want those things in my life, or anyone else’s for that
matter. Where’s your heart? Where’s your compassion for the pain and suffering
of others?”
Good questions – too good to pass over
lightly in this chapter. So if you are really having trouble getting past this
point, I recommend you read Chapter Thirty-Two,
“Compassion,” in Part Three of this book, and then come back here to continue.
As far as “not wanting those things in your own life,”
that’s called “resistance,” which we will discuss very soon.
* * *
It had been a long time since I had felt any discomfort at
all. I was simply appreciating life with great joy, living on the Mediterranean
coast of Spain and writing this book.
Then, as I was working on this particular chapter, I
mentioned to a good friend a news item that Spain was trying to outlaw the
Muslim burqa as France had recently done. I was amazed when he responded with
full and unequivocal support for this, and then launched into a list of
judgmental opinions about the burqa, Muslim men, Islam, and religion in
general. I had listened patiently to other similarly judgmental opinions and
beliefs on different topics over the last month, as I knew he was deep into his
own process and these things would naturally come up; but this was more than I expected.
I had three immediate reactions: incredulity,
disappointment, and sadness.
When I first met this friend, he was an angry, arrogant,
highly opinionated and depressed man, with a very big and stubborn ego, but a
huge and generous heart and a willingness to learn and grow. I say all that as
an observation and none of it as a judgment, since I didn’t think he was
“wrong” for being that way and had no need or desire for him to change;
besides, I was exactly that way myself while a Human Adult inside the movie
theater. But I witnessed many changes in him over the past year of our
friendship, mainly as a result of his studying the work of Robert Scheinfeld,
reading all three of Jed McKenna’s books, and numerous conversations we had on
the subject of the holographic universe and becoming a butterfly. I really
could not believe what I was hearing this time, since he seemed totally
comfortable with these opinions and showed no sign of recognizing their fully
judgmental basis or the need to process them if he truly wanted to live in
neutrality.
For about fifteen seconds I did judge him for this
incident and wanted him to change, but quickly remembered he, too, was only
reading a script my own Infinite I had written for me, and that
his thinking and behavior were indeed perfect – which meant I had to run
the Process on my own discomfort and do my spiritual autolysis on it.
I saw clearly that my disappointment came from the thought –
and fear – that I really was alone. My friend, in his interest in
self-realization, had given me hope that it was possible for friends to go
through this process together, to support each other, to even form a community
of cocoons, and then later butterflies. We had spent hours talking about building
a catamaran together and inviting others to sail with us for week-long
workshops to get a taste of what it was like to live in non-judgmental
neutrality. Even though I knew making plans like these was pointless – that my Infinite
I was in charge of creating all my experiences and not me – I totally
enjoyed the daydreaming and loved the camaraderie. But how, I thought, could I
continue talking like that – talking about providing an environment of
non-judgment for others – with a man who was still justifying his own
judgments.
My sadness was based on the question – and fear – that this
whole subject was too much for anyone to really “get” if he didn’t get
at least that much after a year of working with me on a daily basis; and that I
may be totally wasting my time writing this book. I imagined Jed McKenna
looking at him and saying that Maya was winning the war for his ego – that most
people don’t make it through the cocoon stage – and sadly wondered what would
happen to him if that were true.
“I can’t go back, can I?” asked Neo.
“No,” Morpheus answered.
* * *
So I ran Robert’s Process on all this emotional discomfort,
and then I used spiritual autolysis to expose the underlying fears. This is
where I found layers of my own ego, one of them still thinking this book might
have an impact on someone else, rather than just being my scouting report;
another layer of ego, despite what I told other people and all evidence to the
contrary, still feeling arrogant enough to think it just might be possible to
help each other as friends through this process.
I had to let go of my attachment to the boat and the future
it represents; I had to let go of my attachment to this book and any result it
may or may not have for anyone else; and I had to let go of my attachment to my
friend’s own spiritual progress toward becoming a butterfly. After all, there
must be a lot of different routes one can take over the Rockies to get to the Pacific Ocean, and I wouldn’t – and couldn’t – judge which way was “right” for my friend. I
have to trust his Infinite I knows what’s best for him a lot
better than I do, and the fact I would like him to take the same route I
did just because I think it’s safer or easier than the one he appears to be
taking has no relevance.
I silently expressed my appreciation to my friend and let go
of it all – the boat, the camaraderie, the ego that still wanted to be a good
enough writer that other people would understand what I was saying and might be
able to use it successfully in their own lives.
In this case, I didn’t have to disconnect from my friend at
all. All I had to do was let go of my own attachments and layers of ego, and
then he was free to be who he was as well, without needing to be who I
wanted him to be.
There’s another possibility I had to consider too, that my
friend really does understand neutrality, but he had to “play dumb” so I
could have the experience I needed. He might wake up and know exactly what
neutrality is and means, and wonder how he could have possibly said those
things today. That’s what friends can do for each other – play the
difficult and dangerous roles in their movies, giving each other the special
gifts that may not be possible from anyone else.
As Human Children and Human Adults inside the movie theater,
we lived our entire lives in judgment, in duality. It’s not going to be easy to
change that pattern, and it probably won’t happen quickly; and you are
going to be the one who has to spot your own judgments that need to be
processed if you want to become a butterfly.
* * *
Sometimes this can be very difficult. Sometimes the ego,
sensing a real threat to its continued existence, will try anything and
everything to slow you down or divert you; and sometimes that takes the form of
some very inviting detours from the path with some intriguing logic whispered
in your ear. For example, after a year of processing in his cocoon, one friend was
about to enter his “dark night of the soul,” getting close to a powerful layer
of his ego which he would then detach if he continued in that direction. He was
having a lot of emotional discomfort, and his ego was able to convince him to
stop doing any kind of process and take a “detour.” So he started challenging
the theory of the “consciousness model” itself – not by testing it,
which is always appropriate, but by intellectually arguing with it, as if by
proving some part of it “wrong” he could escape processing his anger and
judgments. But there never is any escape; the way out is the way through.
If this model is anywhere close to the truth, unless he
finds a new route across the Rocky Mountains I’m not aware of, this friend will
most likely have to pick up where he left off and then face what he could not
face the first time. But there’s nothing “wrong” with that, with taking a break
for a while, with standing still and regrouping and gathering new strength,
like stopping on the way up Mt. Everest and resting at a base camp, getting
used to the altitude and the cold. But why not simply admit that’s what you
want to do and not give the ego additional power by listening to its diversions
and using them as an excuse for not continuing at that moment?
Learning to differentiate the sound of your ego from the
sound of your own thoughts takes practice and radical honesty. The only help I
can offer is that whenever the “thought” is trying to take you away from
discomfort, it is the ego, no matter how rational or attractive the “thought”
may be. There’s a big difference between taking a “detour” off the path out of
the pure excitement and joy of exploration, and doing it in order to escape
discomfort.
Your friends might help by playing a part in the movie
created for you by your Infinite I to bring these judgments and the
voice of your ego to your attention, if you’re willing to hear it. But you
are going to have to be completely awake and aware and vigilant, and listen to
your thoughts and the words you say very carefully, to detect these judgments
when they come creeping in, to have the courage and honesty not to try to
justify or deny or minimize them, and to process them instead. You’ve heard of
a “bullshit detector?” Now you’re going to need a “judgment detector” to use on
yourself; because no matter what route you take over the Rockies, if you are
serious about becoming a butterfly, you cannot hang on to your judgmental
beliefs and opinions. That simply will not get you where you say you want to
go.
FOOTNOTES
BELIEFS & OPINIONS
Back to the Table of Contents
Dr. Bruce
Lipton began his scientific career as a cell biologist. He received his Ph.D.
from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville before joining the
Department of Anatomy at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine in 1973, where his research on muscular dystrophy focused on the molecular mechanisms
controlling cell behavior. In 1982, Dr. Lipton began examining the principles
of quantum physics and how they might be integrated into his understanding of
the cell’s information processing systems. In the process he discovered that
the brain of a cell is not in the nucleus, which is what I was taught in
school, but in the membrane – the outer surface, or “skin” of the cell.
“His research at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, between 1987 and 1992, revealed that the environment,
operating through the membrane, controlled the behavior and physiology of the
cell. His discoveries, which ran counter to the established scientific view
that life is controlled by the genes, gave rise to one of today’s most
important fields of study, the science of epigenetics. Many subsequent
papers by other researchers have since validated his concepts and ideas.”1
Epigenetics is to biology what quantum physics was to
physics; it has turned our age-old understanding of biology upside down; or, as
I’ve put it many times already, the opposite of what we have always believed is
true. From epigenetics, we now know our perception of the environment
controls our DNA, not the other way around.
Bruce is a brilliant man and a good friend. Unfortunately,
he still believes what’s “out there” – the human body in particular – is real;
but despite that, through his best-selling book, The
Biology of Belief, and his live seminars called The Biology of Perception,
he offers some very important insights into the effects of beliefs on our
lives.
“How we see life determines our
behavior, and since perceptions can be wrong, it is more accurate to say that beliefs
control biology – what you believe creates your life.”2
The first example he offers is what is
called the “placebo effect.”3
It is normally used as a medical term, meaning a patient is
given something neutral – like a sugar pill – and yet it makes them feel
better. There is no chemical reason in the placebo for it to have any effect at
all on the body, but it does somehow. That “somehow” is because the patient believes
it will, and nothing else. It is the patient’s belief that changes their
biology and their behavior.
“Statistics reveal that
one-third of all medical healings are the result of the placebo effect.”4
But this “placebo effect” does not have to be limited to
medicine or pills. In fact, it is in operation a lot of the time as we, the
Players, believe something – anything – is good for us that is actually
neutral, and yet it makes us feel better.
This, of course, is true for all homeopathic remedies as
well. Homeopathy is still based on a belief that taking something from “out
there” – “natural” though it might be – will have an effect “in here.”
The other side of the coin, and not nearly
as well known, is the “nocebo effect5.” This is
when a patient – or a Player – believes something, anything, that is actually
neutral is harmful to them; and it makes them feel bad or worse, when in fact
there’s nothing in the nocebo that can hurt them at all.
“If a doctor tells you that you
have a disease, or the doctor tells you that you’re going to die, and you
believe the doctor because he’s a ‘professional,’ the belief will give you a
disease or will cause you to die.”6
The most famous “nocebo” currently may be HIV.
According to Dr. Kary Mullis, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, and over
two-thousand other medical and scientific researchers, health care
professionals, and journalists7, there
is not one scientific paper that proves HIV causes AIDS8.
Dr. Peter Duesberg, a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences
and professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California,
Berkeley, was one of the world’s leading retrovirologists in the late 1970’s
and early 80’s, who received acclaim early in his career for research on
oncogenes and cancer. Dr. Duesberg says there’s nothing about HIV that can do
damage to a human body, that HIV is a “harmless passenger virus.”9
According to the staff report of a U.S. Congressional Sub-Committee, and the
Office of Scientific Integrity of the National Institutes of Health, and the
Office of Research Integrity of the Department of Health and Human Services,
the man who first claimed that he discovered HIV and that HIV was the cause of
AIDS was guilty of “scientific misconduct”,10
and his research was called “of dubious merit”11
and “really crazy.”12
In fact, HIV fails every traditional and accepted
scientific test to be called the “cause” of AIDS13,
and even the AIDS experts admit that more than half of those dying from AIDS
are dying from organ failure - mostly liver failure - as a side effect of the
antiretroviral drugs they are encouraged to take, and not HIV14.
But if someone believes what we’re being told by the mass
media, that HIV causes AIDS and will result in death, then the stress caused by
that belief is enough to destroy their immune system and give them AIDS, and
they will die, according to Dr. Bruce Lipton.
In both cases – the placebo and the nocebo – it is the
Player’s belief and not the actual experience that controls their perceptions
and determines their behavior.
“If you believe that something
will be good for you, it will be good; and if you believe that something is
harmful, it will be bad.”15
Dr. Lipton stresses the fact that a lot
of our beliefs are “learned” from other people, and those learned beliefs can
actually override our natural perceptions and instincts. For example, all
babies know how to swim when they are born. But as they grow up and watch the
reaction on their parents’ faces whenever they get near water, the baby learns
to be afraid of water; and then it needs to be taught how not to fear
water and to swim again at the proper age – when their parents are no longer
afraid.16
Bruce likens our perception to a camera, taking snapshots of
the “physical world” our brain has projected “out there.” But, he says, our
beliefs act like filters on that camera, filtering out certain frequencies and
changing the picture that comes in; and he offers a very good example of this
during his workshops when he puts one slide on the screen that makes no real
sense…
… and has the audience put on a pair of glasses he provides
with green lenses and look at the picture. Here’s what they see…
Then he has them trade the green lenses for glasses with red
lenses and look at the same picture, and here’s what they see…
(You can watch a very short (poor quality) video of this here.)
In exactly the same way, Dr. Lipton concludes, our belief
filters determine how we perceive our world and therefore how we react and
respond to our experiences.
“Life has everything in it, but
you will only see what you have belief filters to see.”17
* * *
Take a quick look at this playing card….
It’s a red six of spades, right? Or did you see it as
something else?
There’s a classic psychology experiment18 where this red six of spades, along with other normal
playing cards, is shown to a group of people who are writing down the cards
they see. Many people cannot see a red six of spades the first few passes
through the cards; some can never see it as a red six of spades, even when
holding it in their hands.
“The conclusion is that our
beliefs can filter and affect what data comes in through our senses. We can end
up seeing and hearing only what we believe. The stronger the belief system, the
more powerful will be its ability to filter out data that contradicts those
beliefs. You were taught and you believe that seeing is believing. It should be
the other way around. You have come to understand that metaphorically speaking,
the eye is a camera that passively collects light and brings it in to record
photographs of what is actually out there, with no alteration of the sense data
going on. What I am proposing is that in actuality the reverse of that simple
phrase is true: believing is seeing. What I am proposing is that the eye is a
camera that filters out most of the electromagnetic spectrum to only record
visible light, and that the camera is controlled by the photographer who
chooses consciously or unconsciously what to photograph.”19
In this case, we start with a belief that a red six of
spades doesn’t exist, so it’s difficult to see it for what it actually is; and
for some with very strong and controlling belief systems, it’s virtually
impossible.
* * *
I deliberated long and hard about whether to include this
next example, because it is so controversial; but it is also the most perfect
example I can think of to illustrate how our beliefs affect what we perceive
“out there” and prevent us from seeing “what is,” and how those beliefs can
contribute to so much pain and suffering in our lives.
Even if you are not a Christian, you probably know Jesus was
crucified and died on a cross, to rise again from the dead three days later.
Over the last 2000 years, many people have believed this and based their lives
on it.
Here is the scripture from the Holy Bible on which this
belief is based. (Even if you know this story already, please read it again
now.)...
Luke 23:50 “And, behold, there was a man named Joseph….
52 This man went unto Pilate, and begged [for] the body
of Jesus.
53 And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid
it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid….
55 And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.
56 And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments;
and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.
24:1 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in
the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had
prepared, and certain others with them.
2 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.
3 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord
Jesus.
4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed
thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:
5 And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to
the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye him that liveth among the dead?
6 He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake
unto you when he was yet in Galilee,
7 saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands
of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.
8 And they remembered his words,
9 and returned from the sepulchre, and told all these
things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.
10 It was Mary Mag'dalene, and Joanna, and Mary the
mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things
unto the apostles.
11 And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they
believed them not.
12 Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and
stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed,
wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.
13 And, behold, two of them went that same day to a
village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.
14 And they talked together of all these things which had
happened.
15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed
together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.
16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know
him.
17 And he said unto them, What manner of communications
are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?
18 And the one of them, whose name was Cle'opas,
answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not
known the things which are come to pass there in these days?
19 And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto
him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word
before God and all the people:
20 and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him
to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.
21 But we trusted that it had been he which should have
redeemed Israel: and beside all this, today is the third day since these things
were done.
22 Yea, and certain women also of our company made us
astonished, which were early at the sepulchre;
23 and when they found not his body, they came, saying,
that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.
24 And certain of them which were with us went to the
sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not….
28 And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they
went: and he made as though he would have gone further.
29 But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for
it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with
them.
30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he
took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.
31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he
vanished out of their sight.
32 And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn
within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the
scriptures?
33 And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them,
34 Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to
Simon.
35 And they told what things were done in the way, and
how he was known of them in breaking of bread.
36 And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the
midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
37 But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed
that they had seen a spirit.
38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do
thoughts arise in your hearts?
39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself:
handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
40 And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands
and his feet.
41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered,
he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?
42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an
honeycomb.
43 And he took it, and did eat before them.”20
But what if this were actually the account of a man who was
taken down from his cross after just three hours, still alive, moved to a
secret hiding place where he was treated for the wounds on his hands and feet
and head and side, survived, left three days later under his own steam, and met
his disciples on the road as he was walking out of Jerusalem.
In other words, I want to ask you to read the exact same
Bible passages again, without the prior belief that Jesus died on the cross….
Luke 23:50 “And, behold, there was a man named Joseph….
52 This man went unto Pilate, and begged [for] the body
of Jesus.
53 And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid
it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid….
55 And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.
56 And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments;
and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.
24:1 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in
the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had
prepared, and certain others with them.
2 And they found the stone rolled away from the
sepulchre.
3 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord
Jesus.
4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed
thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:
5 And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to
the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye him that liveth among the dead?
6 He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake
unto you when he was yet in Galilee,
7 saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands
of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.
8 And they remembered his words,
9 and returned from the sepulchre, and told all these
things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.
10 It was Mary Mag'dalene, and Joanna, and Mary the
mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things
unto the apostles.
11 And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they
believed them not.
12 Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and
stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed,
wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.
13 And, behold, two of them went that same day to a
village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.
14 And they talked together of all these things which had
happened.
15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed
together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.
16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know
him.
17 And he said unto them, What manner of communications
are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?
18 And the one of them, whose name was Cle'opas,
answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not
known the things which are come to pass there in these days?
19 And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto
him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word
before God and all the people:
20 and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him
to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.
21 But we trusted that it had been he which should have
redeemed Israel: and beside all this, today is the third day since these things
were done.
22 Yea, and certain women also of our company made us
astonished, which were early at the sepulchre;
23 and when they found not his body, they came, saying,
that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.
24 And certain of them which were with us went to the
sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not….
28 And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they
went: and he made as though he would have gone further.
29 But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for
it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with
them.
30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he
took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.
31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he
vanished out of their sight.
32 And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn
within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the
scriptures?
33 And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them,
34 Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to
Simon.
35 And they told what things were done in the way, and
how he was known of them in breaking of bread.
36 And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the
midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
37 But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed
that they had seen a spirit.
38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do
thoughts arise in your hearts?
39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself:
handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
40 And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands
and his feet.
41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered,
he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?
42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an
honeycomb.
43 And he took it, and did eat before them.”
“Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle
me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” I
cannot imagine how that could be any clearer. Jesus is saying he’s alive, that
this was his actual physical body, not a spirit; and to prove it, he ate meat
with them.
There are even more telling phrases in
the other Gospels. In Matthew,21 for example…
Matthew 28:5 “And the angel answered and said unto the
women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. 6 He is
not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and,
behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him.”
…and…
Matthew 28:10 “Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid:
go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me….16
Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus
had appointed them. 17 And when they saw him, they worshipped him.”
A resurrected body would not need to “go before” anyone else
to any place. It would just appear there spontaneously. Nor would it need to
tell anyone to go someplace to see it.
The Gospel of Mark22
says….
Mark 15:43 “Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable
counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly
unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. 44 And Pilate marvelled if he were
already dead.”
The synonym for “marvel” is “wonder” –
Pilate wondered how Jesus could be dead, because he had only been on the
cross for three hours, and crucifixions normally would take a lot longer than
that to kill someone. “The Romans used crucifixion as a prolonged, agonizing,
humiliating death…. It is possible to survive crucifixion, if not prolonged,
and there are records of people who did.”23
…and…
Mark 16:1 “And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene,
and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they
might come and anoint him.”
To “anoint” means “to smear or rub with
oil or an oily substance,”24 which even today is
a common medical treatment for the wounds of a body that is still alive.
…and…
Mark 16:9 “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day
of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven
devils. 10 And she went and told them that she had been with him, as they
mourned and wept. 11 And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had
been seen of her, believed not. 12 After that he appeared in another form unto
two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. 13 And they went and
told it unto the residue: neither believed they them.”
“And when they heard that he was alive”!! How can
that be misunderstood?
…and…
Mark 16:14 “Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they
sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart,
because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.”
And in the Gospel of John25…
John 19:39 “And there came also Nicodemus, which at the
first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes.”
Nicodemus was “a wealthy and popular holy
man reputed to have had miraculous powers.”26
Myrrh and aloes were not just used for
embalming, but as medicine for wounds. Myrrh is currently used in some
liniments and healing salves that may be applied to abrasions and other minor
skin ailments. In alternative medicine, it is said that mixing myrrh gum into
vinegar increases its ability to relieve pain.27
The Greeks and Romans used aloes to treat wounds,28
as we also do today.
…and…
John 20:6 “Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and
went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, 7 And the napkin,
that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together
in a place by itself.”
The cloth around Jesus’ head where he had wounds from the
thorny crown was in a different place than the rest – not likely if his body
resurrected and left his “linen clothes” lying there.
…and, finally…
John 20:19 “Then the same day at evening, being the first
day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled
for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them,
Peace be unto you. 20 And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands
and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.”
I need to add that it’s quite likely Jesus’ disciples really
thought he had died on the cross, so I can understand their astonishment to
find out he didn’t. But even the Bible, when read without a prior belief, is
quite clear that Jesus survived his crucifixion.
For 2000 years, Christianity has been based on the belief
Jesus died on the cross (many say "for our sins") and rose again from
the dead. Think of the impact this one belief has had on the world, and on many
of us personally. Wars have been fought, millions have died, and millions more
have lived lives of guilt and shame based on this belief.
But there is ample evidence this belief
is not true,29 and even the Bible does not
say it happened that way, unless you read the Gospels with that belief already
in place; and then you still have to make some very big assumptions. (Remember
Occam’s Razor, that the best answer is the one with the fewest assumptions.)
So we start with a judgment that we are all, as human
beings, innately defective (the Roman Catholic church calls it “original sin”);
we form a belief – despite the evidence – that a Son of God has been
resurrected from the dead in order to save us from our sinful nature; and we
are of the opinion that anyone who doesn’t believe in Him cannot make it into
Heaven.
It makes for a very interesting game!
* * *
Here’s another quick example of how this
judgment-belief-opinion cycle happens….
Let’s say you judge prostitution to be “wrong,” for whatever
reason. You then form a belief that the government should do something to stop
it, and you hold the opinion that any man or woman who engages in prostitution
is acting immorally.
And let’s say your Infinite I creates an experience
for you in your cocoon where you come face to face with this, such as your
husband or wife or lover or son or daughter or good friend – someone you love
and respect and admire – gets arrested on charges of prostitution, either
soliciting or selling sex for money.
I can imagine this might cause you some discomfort, severe
discomfort if it were your husband or wife, I’m sure. So this is your chance to
run Robert’s Process first, to take the “heat” and “discomfort” and “reality”
out of the situation, and then run Jed’s spiritual autolysis to discover the
false belief, false information, and layers of ego that resulted from this
judgment.
Most of the time you can simply follow the discomfort – the
emotion or pain, for example – to uncover the judgment. In this example it
should be fairly easy to find the underlying judgment, that you consider
prostitution to be “wrong,” and to use spiritual autolysis to ask, “Is that
true?”
But sometimes it’s not that easy; the judgment is not so
readily available, buried more deeply, hiding from your awareness. So instead
you can follow the emotion to find the belief, and then follow the belief to
find the judgment. Or, if the belief is also hard to get at, follow the emotion
to find the opinion, then follow the opinion to find the belief, then follow
the belief to find the judgment. You get the picture.
Remember what Jed McKenna said…
“All attachments to the dreamstate are made of energy.
That energy is called emotion. All emotions, positive and negative, are
attachments.”
…so consider every emotion you have that is less than total
joy, excitement, and enthusiasm to be a signpost – a red flag – leading you to
your opinions, beliefs, and judgments.
In fact, you can do this for any opinion or belief at any
time, without needing your Infinite I to create a catalytic experience
for you. If you hear yourself offering an opinion – any opinion – look for the
belief that led you to that opinion, then look deeper for the judgment that led
to the belief.
Remember that all judgments, beliefs and opinions were
formed inside the movie theater and are based on incorrect premises; so they
are all untrue.
This may be difficult for some people to accept who have
become very attached to their opinions with multiple layers of ego for each
one, piled on top of each other. But it is exactly these attachments, and
letting go of them, that are the point of this whole process in the cocoon.
* * *
“Okay,” you might say, “I can see living without judgments;
I can even imagine living without beliefs; but living without opinions? Isn’t
that kind of… boring? Do you just accept anything and everything that is put in
front of you in your hologram without question or discrimination?”
Yes, and no. Yes, you accept anything and everything that is
put in front of you, since your Infinite I created “anything and
everything” for you it wants you to experience, down to the smallest detail.
It’s true I no longer live with judgments and beliefs and opinions, except
those occasional times when one might pop up for me to identify and process.
But, no, life is far from boring, and I do have my preferences.
Jed McKenna started off Book Two of his Enlightenment
Trilogy saying, “I hate L.A.” I never could figure out whether Jed was
expressing a judgmental opinion, or just using some literary license for
effect.
I don’t “hate” anything; but I “prefer” a lot of things.
What’s the difference? It can be very subtle and tricky at
times, but I’ll try to explain.
An opinion, based on a belief and judgment, includes
resistance to the opposite opinion. A preference has no resistance, but is
merely an expression of choice.
I prefer not to play Tic Tac Toe, unless I am engaged with a
very young child. I find the game very boring for me, since it’s
unwinable when playing with anyone who has even the slightest clue of what’s
up. Now that I know a game like backgammon exists, I prefer to play it instead.
I have no resistance to playing Tic Tac Toe, no judgment about it, no beliefs
about it, no opinions about it as a game. I just prefer not to play it under most
circumstances.
Likewise, I prefer not to play the judgment game, the belief
game, the opinion game, the fear game, the first half of the Human Game inside
the movie theater. I have no resistance to playing any of it if the appropriate
circumstances were to arise and it was clear my Infinite I was creating
that for my experience at the moment; and I have no judgment about it, no
beliefs about it, no opinions about it other than how perfect a game it was at
one stage of my metamorphosis, and how perfect it is for other people who still
want to play it.
But I also prefer not to spend a lot of time with people who
are playing the first half of the Human Game. I enjoy living in a way that I’m
not surrounded with the constant noise of other people’s drama and conflict. I
prefer not to talk about Tic Tac Toe. I prefer not to listen to Tic Tac Toe
players who spend the vast majority of their time talking about the game,
rehashing prior games they played, accusing someone of cheating in a game they
seem to have lost, describing in detail how much of a victim they are when they
lose, or even discussing new strategies of how to win a game that’s unwinable.
But I don’t judge them. In fact, I totally support them to continue doing
exactly what they’re doing; I just don’t find it at all interesting or fun to
be part of that myself.
I prefer silence to the sound of motorcycle engines. I
prefer not to drink alcohol because of the way it makes me feel. I prefer to
sail than motorboat. I prefer to eat protein and vegetables rather than
carbohydrates. I prefer warm weather to cold, sun to snow, the beach to the
mountains, and less (or no) clothes to more. I prefer watching a movie to small
talk, a concert to a cocktail party, a solitary walk listening to good music in
my earphones to a dinner party. I prefer diving forty feet deep in the ocean to
walking on land.
Those would be my choices if I could choose. But I will be
wherever my Infinite I wants me to be and experience whatever my Infinite
I wants me to experience with full joy and without hesitation or judgment
or resistance, because I totally trust my Infinite I, and that is my job
as its Player in the Human Game.
I would caution especially those who are new to their cocoon
to be very wary of this opinion-preference thing. Judgments are sometimes hard
enough to spot for processing without making it any harder; and it seems so
easy to say, “I prefer not to be around that kind of person,” and think it’s a
statement of preference when in fact it’s a statement of judgment.
I found it a lot easier in the beginning to simply assume
that any preference I wanted to express was in reality an opinion based on a
judgment and belief, and process it accordingly. After about a year, when I was
more comfortable with letting go of my judgments and beliefs and opinions –
when I felt fairly secure I could spot when my ego was trying to slip something
by on me – I allowed myself to have preferences again.
But I remain very vigilant and still challenge my
“preferences” on a regular basis to make sure I am not resisting anything, for resistance
is the key.
FOOTNOTES
RESISTANCE
Back to the Table of Contents
After more hours
upon hours of spiritual autolysis, I wrote something else that is true:
What you resist persists.
I think I first heard that from L. Ron Hubbard – one of his
“genius” moments as a scout many years ago – before others started saying it,
and before he got lost on his way. So it is not something I came up with; but I
did test it, and I did find it to be true.
In searching the Internet, I see references to this sentence
attributed to a lot of different sources and groups, from the famous
psychiatrist Carl Jung (although I could never verify he said it), to EST
(although Warner Erhard took the basics of EST from L. Ron Hubbard), to Neale
Donald Walsch in Conversations with God. It was also used in Rhonda
Byrne’s The Secret. But as is necessary inside the movie theater, the
true meaning and application were altered so the Human Adults who try to use
this gem of wisdom for their own self-improvement would find themselves going
deeper into limitation instead.
“Every time we resist something,
we are spending our energy in the wrong way. It is much better – and much
easier indeed – to stop resisting what we don’t want and focus on attracting
what we do want. Instead of resisting poverty, and struggling to make more
money to prevent it by getting a second job, try to focus on attracting
prosperity by having positive thoughts while working. If you hate your job and
are thinking about this every morning, you are resisting going to work.
Therefore, it will be harder to get a promotion or find a better job.”1
“The Law of Attraction simply
says that you attract into your life whatever you think about. Your
dominant thoughts will find a way to manifest.”2
By now you should be able to see what is not true about this
interpretation of “what you resist persists,” how it was twisted inside the
movie theater to make it unworkable for a Human Adult (as all things must be).
But just in case, let me state it clearly….
The premise is that you should stop thinking negative
thoughts and focus on the positive thoughts, because if you focus on the
negative thoughts, they will persist and make it impossible for the positive
thoughts to manifest. Fair enough?
But that entire premise is based on a judgment: “negative”
thoughts versus “positive” thoughts. It is also based on the untruth that you
can manifest anything in your holographic universe, much less attract the
“positive” things if you focus on them.
The truth is that all resistance is based on a judgment; or
put the other way, resistance would not exist without a prior judgment. If you
judge something to be “negative,” you resist it. So the solution is not to try
to deny or ignore the “negative” thoughts and focus on the “positive ones,” but
to eliminate the judgment altogether that is the source of the resistance.
You want a “better” job? Stop judging the one you have and
you will stop resisting it at the same time.
Although I don’t want to state this as “Truth,” it has been
my experience that as long as I judge and resist something, I stay in that
experience. Only when I stop judging, and therefore automatically stop
resisting, is it possible for my experience to change.
My first example of this came when I was twenty years old. I
was deep into Peter Marshall at the time, and I called God, “The Chief,” as he
did. I was in Caracas, Venezuela, helping to create the Spanish equivalent of Up
With People for that country.
I had been with Up With People about a year and spent
most of that time as the drummer; but I wanted to be more than that. I wanted
to be a musical director, and I kept judging my drumming to be “less than” what
I wanted and was capable of, and therefore resisted it.
One day as I was going to sleep in Caracas, I had a major
transformation and said a very sincere prayer....
“Chief, I have made a decision. If you want me to be a
drummer for the rest of my life, if that’s the best way I can serve you and the
rest of mankind, I will do it – joyfully, gladly, and enthusiastically. I
promise.” And I meant it.
…and I gave up all judgment and resistance to drumming at
that moment.
The very next day I received a call from the CEO of Up
With People, telling me he was creating a third cast and asking me to come
back right away to be its musical director.
I could give you numerous other examples like this from my
life, but I think you get the point.
* * *
What you resist persists.
In fact, the more you resist “negative” thoughts and try to
replace them with “positive” thoughts, the more “negative” thoughts you will
have. Isn’t that what it says? By trying to focus only on the “positive”
thoughts, aren’t you automatically resisting the “negative” ones? And then
won’t they persist?
It’s like the old game, “try not to think about elephants.”
Of course, elephants are all you can think about then.
That’s why The Secret and the “Law of Attraction”
don’t work; or at least, it’s one reason. The other reason is that they were
part of life inside the movie theater and therefore couldn’t work except to
create more limitation.
For example, there seem to be a lot of “peaceworkers”
springing up all over the place these days. But if you resist war, war is what
you will get; if you resist violence, violence is what you get; and if you are
a “peaceworker,” you are resisting war and violence, despite what some of them
will try to say. So as more and more “peaceworkers” appear, we get more and
more war and violence in the world. Just read the news these days.
Peaceworking is a great distraction from the real issue –
you and your judgments and the layers of your ego. Mahatma Gandhi said “be the
change you wish to see in the world.” He didn’t say, “be the change you wish to
see in the world, and then go out and change the world,” or “then go out and
try to make everyone else to be the way you are.”
It’s really pretty simple. Only when you stop judging war
and violence to be “wrong” or “bad” and understand and embrace them as perfect,
along with everything else in your hologram, will you stop resisting them, at
which point they no longer need to persist.
Jesus said…
“But I say unto you, That ye
resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him
the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy
coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a
mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would
borrow of thee turn not thou away.”3
So it’s not just about not resisting. It’s about embracing
what you resist; about not trying to fix or change or improve something, but
about realizing it is all perfect, war and violence included. That’s what “what
you resist persists” means.
And what is there to resist? Every experience you have, down
to the smallest detail, was created for you by your Infinite I, so why
resist it? What are you actually saying when you resist an experience? You’re
saying your Infinite I got it wrong and you don’t trust it.
* * *
By now I’m sure you understand that writing this book is
part of my own spiritual autolysis, so it doesn’t surprise me when an
experience pops up in my hologram to point out something to me to process as
well as include it in the book.
As I was writing the last chapter, some family of my friend
had come to visit for a couple weeks, along with their four-year-old son who
had a habit of screaming at the top of his lungs, both in anger and in
excitement. The screams were piercing, magnified by echoes off the walls and
surrounding buildings. They hit a pitch that would shatter a glass.
The parents did nothing when he screamed, except laugh a
little. When I asked my friend, he said this was the way Germans and Swiss
bring up their children, that only the UK would try to “suppress” their kids
from screaming.
Okay, I can accept that different cultures have different
attitudes toward childrearing, and I had no judgment about it, although it’s
not the way I raised my children nor would raise them today (which has nothing
to do with “suppression”); and I had also recognized from the time I spent
living in Europe that Europeans in general were often more oblivious than
Americans to anyone else around them, whether they were driving a car, or
standing in the center of a busy doorway, or ignoring the effects of a
screaming child on those around it.
So I did resist these screams for a few minutes,
especially since I was trying to finish Chapter Seventeen. Then I took some
moments to process my resistance, realizing I was attached to this ego layer of
being an author and needing my space to write. Once I had let go of that, I was
free to follow the flow and decided my Infinite I wanted me to take a
break before starting the next chapter in the book.
Fortunately, the day was cooler than usual for the middle of
the summer, cloudy with a few thunderstorms building; so I could take a walk
for the first time in several weeks without the scorching heat, something I
really enjoyed doing. I donned my mp3 player and set off down the beach along
the Mediterranean toward town, listening to Abba’s greatest hits, doing my own
version of the boogie to Take a Chance on Me and Dancing Queen.
It was so great to be out walking again, something I
appreciated very much and took as a reward from my Infinite I for the
hard work I had been putting in on the book. But it got better the further I walked.
The wind and the Sea were picture-perfect, and I met beautiful women along the
way, one after the other. One woman was so beautiful I had to stop and tell her
so, which she answered with a smile and a “Thank You,” in English!
At the far end of the beach, I sat at a café and had a
couple ice teas and some potato chips – a treat I had not indulged in for a
little while. I was so happy to have taken this walk and experienced so much
pleasure and enjoyment and refreshment for both body and mind.
Of course, I expressed my appreciation (silently) to the
four-year-old boy, his parents, and my friend for playing their parts to allow
me to see and detach from another layer of my ego, and to get me away from my
computer and out on the beach again; and to my Infinite I for the
amazing and beautiful experience; and to myself for be willing to examine my
resistance as soon as it came up. I wouldn’t have missed that walk for the
world.
This time I doubt the boy will stop screaming…. Wow! He
didn’t stop completely, but the frequency is a lot less, and now it
doesn’t bother me nearly as much.
* * *
I had a friend many years ago who made an obscene amount of
money scraping old rubber off airport runways. Around the age of fifty-five, he
was diagnosed with cancer and given two years to live.
Rather than resist the cancer, he decided to accept his fate
and wanted to spend his last two years giving something back to the country he
loved so much and had given him such incredible opportunities. He started a
magazine called “The Duck Book,” educating his readers about the true nature of
the U.S. economic system, and sold lifetime subscriptions for $10 – his
lifetime, not yours. He figured he’d be dead in two years, so what the hell.
Two years later his cancer had disappeared. Now he had a new
problem: thousands of lifetime subscriptions for $10 to honor. That was solved
when he was assassinated within a few years in Costa Rica, having become too
much of a threat to the world’s financial cartel. But that’s not the point,
obviously. The point is… well, you get it, not resisting the cancer….
* * *
In 2009 I delivered some workshops in Europe on the topic of
the Holographic Universe and the Human Game. Naturally, as part of any
workshop, you want to have some exercises the participants can do to make the
theories real to them, to give them a personal experience of the truth you’re
trying to impart.
There were three particular exercises I used the most and
highly recommend for you as well. The first is to take one day – just twenty-four
hours – and do nothing that doesn’t excite you to do. No “must do’s,” no “have
to do’s,” no “should do’s.” You are allowed to do only what you want to
do and brings you joy. You might find it’s not as easy as it sounds. After all,
we have a lot of habits hanging over from our days in the first half of the
Game – beliefs that might pop up in the process. But just remind yourself it’s
an experiment for a day and nothing more and see what happens. For example, see
if your Infinite I gives you a sign or rewards you in some special way,
just to let you know it works, and will work for you as well.
The second exercise is, again, to take just twenty-four
hours and not try to do anything to “make something happen,” but to only react
and respond to the experiences you encounter, that come to you. No goals, no
agendas, no objectives. No thinking you have to do anything at all to make
things happen in life. Simply react and respond to the experiences your Infinite
I creates for you and see what kind of experiences you get, and whether
they bring you more joy and happiness than you’re used to.
The third exercise is my favorite. For one day – just
twenty-four hours – the participants in my workshops were only allowed to say
“Yes” to whatever appeared in their hologram. They had to take the word “No”
out of their vocabulary and just say “Yes” to everything that came their way.
After all, if our Infinite I is creating each and every experience we
have, down to the smallest detail, why not simply say “Yes” to whatever it creates
and see what happens?!
You can’t imagine the resistance I encountered….
“What if someone asks me to do something I don’t want to
do?”
“You say ‘Yes’ and do it.”
“But what if someone else tries to take advantage of me,
knowing I can only say ‘Yes,’?”
“That’s another fear you’ll have to face.”
“But what if it’s illegal or immoral?”
…and the objections went on and on, all based on fear and
judgment; and of course, that was the whole point, exposing these fears and
judgments for them to see – that, and giving the participants the experience of
saying “Yes” and realizing they could trust their Infinite I and the
experiences it would create for them.
Then I found out there was a movie released in 2008 which I
had never seen (or heard of, since I had been isolated in Portugal the whole
time) called Yes Man with Jim Carrey. When I finally saw it, I thought
it was one of the most brilliant films ever made, and one of the best “hints”
and “clues” ever presented to Human Adults inside the movie theater. If you
haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.
Some have tried to minimize its “Yes” message, claiming the
guru character, Terrence, retracts his own advice in the end. But that’s not so
at all.
Here’s the set-up…. Jim Carrey believes he has made a
covenant to only say “Yes,” and if he breaks that covenant, something bad will
happen to him. He did, in fact, break the covenant and is in the hospital with
Terrence after a car accident.
“Terrence, you have to remove
the covenant. It’s killing me!”
“There is no covenant. There never was. I was just riffing.”
“Riffing?”
“Well, I had to say something. You were being difficult,
embarrassing me in front of my crowd.”
“So the whole ‘Yes’ thing is all bullshit?”
“No, you just don’t know how to use it, that’s all.”
“Yeh, I do. Say ‘Yes’ to everything – real tough to
grasp.”
“No, that’s not the point. Well, maybe at first it is, but
that’s just to open you up to it, to get you started. Then you’re saying ‘Yes,’
not because you have to, or because a covenant tells you to, but because you
know in your heart that you want to.”4
That’s the whole point: Why wouldn’t anyone want to say
“Yes” to any experience their Infinite I creates for them? Why would
anyone want anything else than the experience they are having right at the
moment, knowing their Infinite I designed it especially for them, down
to the smallest detail? Why would anyone resist anything in their hologram?
Actually, I can think of a couple reasons why, and pretty
good ones at that.
The first is that they simply don’t trust their Infinite
I, and you can’t blame them. After all, they just spent their entire lives
inside the movie theater having one experience after another they weren’t too
thrilled about, or at least wished would be “better” and thought there was
something about them that needed to be changed, fixed, or improved. Said more
simply, a lot of first-half experiences resulted in drama and conflict and pain
and suffering – which we now know were caused by our own judgments and resistance.
But we have a history and a habit of saying “No” to those experiences and
assume those kinds of experiences would continue, even multiply, if we started
saying “Yes.”
Another reason is that we’re control freaks – all of us, to
a certain degree. We spent a lot of time inside the movie theater trying to
control everything – our lives, our money, the people around us, the dangerous
world we live in, and so on. Of course, it was just an illusion that we had any
control at all over our experiences other than our reactions and responses to
them.
Saying “Yes” requires giving up that illusion of control,
requires releasing the steering wheel, letting go of the tiller, going totally
with the flow with no resistance.
But at the same time, starting to say “Yes” and making a new
habit out of it is the easiest and fastest way to gain trust in your Infinite
I, once you see where it leads you. It may also be one of the most powerful
and effective ways of transforming into a butterfly. So give it a try for
twenty-four hours and see for yourself….
Saying “Yes” is the antidote to resistance.
Twenty-four hours is not a lot to ask – no lifetime
commitment. But if you like the results of these experiments, you might want to
do them for forty-eight hours next time; then for a week, and then forever. And
remember, at the end of each day be sure to express appreciation to your Infinite
I for your experiences, and appreciation to yourself for your role as its
Player and for the great job you did.
One note: you cannot do any of this “wrong.” There’s no
trick, nothing you have to be careful of, no way to screw it up. So don’t
worry. As Nike used to say, “Just do it.”
* * *
When my younger son was sixteen, we had a heart-to-heart,
which he may or may not remember. I told him if he woke up one morning and was
overcome with excitement to rob a bank, I wanted him to do just that, to go out
and buy the mask and the gun (a toy one, preferably) and anything else he
needed, and walk up to that bank as if he were going to rob it; because, I
suggested, it didn’t mean he would actually have to rob the bank, although I
was not able to judge whether that would be a “good” thing or a “bad” thing in
the end.
But there were other possibilities. For example, he could be
walking up to the bank putting his mask on when a movie producer (this was in
Hollywood) would come by, stop him and say, “You’re exactly what I’ve been
looking for. I have this part in my movie for someone just like you, and I’ll
pay you $100,000 if you’ll take the role.”
In Yes Man, Jim Carrey realizes he would never have
met the love of his life if he had not said “Yes,” even though it was under the
false impression he had to because of some covenant. (Watch the video here.)
* * *
You remember the day, a few years ago, when I sat in my
apartment realizing I had no job, no income, no money, no prospects, no lover,
and so on; and I totally surrendered to the reality of “what was” without
emotion or regret or any desire to change my situation.
Now I can say, and you will understand, that I let go of all
resistance to my holographic experience at that moment.
Within three days, Robert Scheinfeld appeared in my hologram
(via one of his DVD “home transformation systems”) and showed me the door in
the back of the movie theater; at which point I walked through it.
I can look back on that experience now from a slightly
different perspective, that when I stopped judging and resisting, I became
useless to my Infinite I as a Player in the first half of the Human
Game. I was no longer going to have or send back to my Infinite I
emotional feelings in reaction or response to experiences of limitation and
restriction, which is why I was playing the first half of the Game to begin
with.
I can imagine my Infinite I has other Players it
created that may still be playing the first half of the Human Game, who can
continue to feed it the feelings it wants of imperfection. It didn’t need me,
and I wasn’t going to suit its purposes any more in that role. Instead, I began
to feed it the feelings from the second half of the Game – what it feels like
once you’re over the top of that first hill on the rollercoaster and into the
next part of the ride – which are just as valuable to it, I’m sure.
This doesn’t mean that anyone can fake non-resistance in
order to fool their Infinite I to take them into the second half of the
Game just so they can get out of the first half, which they still don’t like.
You can’t deny or ignore or suppress resistance; you must totally and willingly
let it go out of your system entirely. You must be willing to fully embrace
every moment of every experience created for you by your Infinite I, and
love and appreciate it no matter what it is.
As long as you judge and resist playing the first half of
the Human Game, you can never move into the second half. As long as you resist
total surrender, letting go of all judgments and beliefs and opinions, you can
never make it to the Pacific Ocean. As long as you resist giving up your
identity as a caterpillar, you can never become a butterfly.
More easily said than done, perhaps, and very scary….
FOOTNOTES
FEAR
Back to the Table of Contents
Inside the
movie theater, I prided myself on not being afraid of anything, or not much at
least. Talking dolls in horror movies were one big exception. For some reason
it scared the crap out of me when a plastic doll’s head would turn, its mouth
would open, and it would speak. Freaked me out.
Once I got inside my cocoon, I had to be honest that I was,
and had always been, afraid of a lot of things. We all are. In fact, fear is
not only the first emotion we ever feel as a baby, but the basis of all
judgments, beliefs, and opinions we form during the first half of the Human
Game.
According to the Holy Bible, fear was also the first
reaction Adam and Eve had after they ate the apple from the Tree of Knowledge
of Good and Evil….
“And the LORD God called unto
Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And Adam said, I heard thy voice in
the garden, and I was afraid.”1
If I tried to list out all the things I have been afraid of,
it might take a whole book in itself. But there are a few fears I want to look
at more carefully that you might have also experienced from time to time, so
maybe you can relate.
* * *
Some fears are quite obvious, and everyone cops to them.
“I’m afraid to walk through Central Park at night.” There’s no shame being
afraid of that, is there? It just makes good sense, right? Well, not
actually….
Others are more subtle, perhaps, as well as more pervasive;
and there are a few that remain unspoken but almost everyone seems to share.
Not many people would come right out and say, for example, they are afraid of
life itself, believing the world is a dangerous place to live. But that is
the case with the vast majority; and they teach that to their children.
Just think for a minute what people go through to protect
themselves from what’s “out there” – both physical protection and mental or
emotional protection.
Home security, for example, is a
multi-billion dollar business.2 I have always
found it strange someone could think a few small pieces of metal on a door or
window – called a “lock” – could protect them from anyone who really wants to
rob them, as if a serious burglar would arrive at the house, find the door
locked, and say, “Oops, door’s locked. Can’t rob this house tonight.”
Of course, a lock also ignores the fact that if your Infinite
I wants you to be robbed – if that’s the experience it has decided to
create for you at the moment – you’re going to get robbed regardless of a few
pieces of metal. The same applies to surrounding your house or car or loved one
with “white light,” which is also based on fear. Besides, if you do get robbed,
perhaps your Infinite I is simply helping you get rid of some of the
attachments that keep you from becoming a butterfly.
On the other hand, it isn’t the lock that keeps a burglar
away from your house; it’s your Infinite I who is not creating
the experience of your being robbed. I don’t care how much a burglar wants to
rob your house, or what kind of high-tech tools he has to penetrate your
security, he’s not getting in if that’s not what your Infinite I wants.
He won’t even be able to get through an unlocked door.
You will soon begin to understand this and have enough
experiences under your belt to start demonstrating your trust in your Infinite
I by ceasing to lock anything – home, car, briefcase, locker, whatever; and
it’s important, once you’ve let go of some of these lesser fears, to behave
differently in your daily life, acting on your new understanding and letting go
of old habits along with the fears.
Seat belt laws, helmet laws, laws that require children to ride
in the back seat strapped into a plastic shell, are all based on fear and our
attempts to legislate against it. As a child myself, I always rode in the front
seat without any restraints, like all other children my age; it’s amazing my
generation ever made it into our twenties! In the two car accidents I had – one
at age sixteen, the other age fifty-seven – if I had been wearing a seat belt I
would have died in both cases, needing to be able to move about in the car as
it rolled and crushed the roof down onto the frame.
Yes, I might be the exception, or at least that’s how the
general public could look at it. But the truth is that a seat belt is neither
going to protect you or save you if your time as a Player for your Infinite
I is over.
I’m not saying it’s “wrong” to wear a seat belt; just
recognize and admit that it’s based on fear – either the fear of a dangerous
world or the fear of getting a ticket from a cop – and don’t try to justify it
as “logical” or “necessary.”
* * *
Then there are the mental and emotional protections we put
up against fear. Better not commit to something or someone because it might not
work. Don’t give your heart completely because you never know when you’ll be
hurt. Keep some money in reserve in case something bad happens.
As I said, I could go on and on, and I won’t. You know what
you’re afraid of now, and you’re going to find out all the other fears you’re
not aware of as you continue your transformation in the cocoon.
But there are two fears in particular I want to address. One
you’re probably aware of – the fear of death. The other you might not recognize
– the fear of non-existence.
There was a famous saying that became popular for a while,
“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” I assume it was supposed to
convince people to think about each day as a new start, a new beginning, and
free them from their past.
Not a “bad” thought, and it might work for some people,
especially if they use it to let go of all past judgments, beliefs, opinions,
and fears. But we both know that’s not what normally happens, even though the
saying on its surface might be true.
Then came “Live today as if it were your last;” or, as
Mahatma Gandhi is reported to have said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow.”
Also not too “bad;” “better” in fact. Most people, thinking
today were their last, might put aside all their “should’s”, “must’s”, and
“have to’s,” and live their excitement, doing what brings them joy. That, in
fact, is how we could live every moment regardless of when we think we will
die.
And then there is the Native American saying, “Today is a
good day to die.”
Can you say that to yourself right now? Are you living your
life so if you died today, you would have no regrets, no sorrow, no remorse?
Could you meet death today and welcome it with open arms? You will find
yourself living exactly that way when you get a little further into your cocoon
and start to let go of all the fears you are carrying.
But I’m starting to sound like some other new-age
philosophers, suggesting we need to let go of our fear of death; and that’s not
really what I’m trying to say at all. I’m saying we need to stop resisting
death and begin to meet it eye to eye, embrace it, bring it into our conscious
awareness on a daily basis, and make it our constant companion. I’m suggesting
we need to stop judging death as “wrong” or “bad” and life as “right” or
“good,” to stop living in duality when it comes to life and death.
It turns out that a lot of minds greater than mine have
expressed this very thought. For example, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart…
“As death, when we come to
consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during
the last few years such close relations with this best and truest friend of
mankind, that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed
very soothing and consoling! And I thank my God for graciously granting me the
opportunity of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our
true happiness.”3
…and Michel de Montaigne…
“Death has us by the scruff of
the neck at every moment…. To begin depriving death of it’s greatest advantage
over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive
death of it’s strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us
have nothing more often in mind than death. We do not know where death awaits
us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom.
A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.”4
…and Sogyal Rinpoche…
“Perhaps the deepest reason why
we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a
personal, unique, and separate identity – but if we dare to examine it, we find
that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop
it up: our name, our ‘biography,’ our partners, family, home, job, friends,
credit cards… It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our
security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we
really are? Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a
person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all
the time but we never really wanted to meet. Isn’t that why we have tried to
fill every moment of time with noise and activity, however boring or trivial,
to ensure that we are never left in silence with this stranger on our own?...
When you start preparing for death you soon realize that you must look into
your life – now – and come to face the truth of your self. Death is like a
mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.”5
…and the Dalai Lama…
“Awareness of death is the very bedrock of the entire
path. Until you have developed this awareness, all other practices are
obstructed.”
…and Socrates…
“To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves
wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know.
For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen
to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest
of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know
what we do not know?”
Even Jed McKenna has a few nice things to say about death as
well….
“We have taken death out of life and that allows us to
live unconsciously. Death never left, of course, we’ve just turned away from
it, pretended it wasn’t there. If we wish to awaken – and that’s a mighty big
if – then we must welcome death back into our lives. Death is our personal Zen
Master, our source of power, our path to lucidity, but we have to stop running
from it in a blind panic. We need only stop and turn around and there it is,
inches away, staring at us with unblinking gaze, finger poised, every second of
our lives….
“What I am now lives in constant
death-awareness, it is suffused throughout my dreamstate being the way fear and
death-denial used to be. Death is always before my eyes. I never hide it or
deny it or push it away. Death is the diamond heart of my dreamstate being. It
is the defining feature that shows me the value of everything I see… Death
gives definition to life. Death-awareness is life-awareness. Death denial is
life denial…. I love the fact of my death. It has made my life possible. There
could have been no awakening without it. It’s how I know the value of things.
It’s how I know what beauty is. It’s why I am gratitude-based instead of
fear-based. It’s also how I know [a Human] Child from [a Human] Adult, asleep
from awake. It’s how I can look at someone and know if death walks before them
or behind…. This isn’t about death in the abstract, it’s about death in the
most personal, intimate sense; your death. Death is the meaning in the dream;
the dreamstate shadow of no-self. Death is the boogeyman. You can’t kill him or
hide from him or get away from him, you can only turn toward him or away from
him. If you turn toward him, befriend him, fully embrace him, not
superficially, but as your own essential truth, then death is the demon you can
ride into every battle.”6
Well said!
But please don’t misunderstand me. If I’m scuba diving at
one-hundred feet and my air supply suddenly stops, I will probably not just sit
there and do nothing and let death do with me as it wants. I may; it would
depend on the circumstances. But most likely I will try to get to the surface,
try to survive, try to find air somehow – not out of the fear of death, but
more from instinct than anything else. In fact, while I’m making my way up and
thinking I would like to be able to breathe again, I’ll be appreciating the
beautiful opportunity of dying in a place I love more than anywhere else on
Earth – in the ocean with the fish and whales and dolphins.
I had such an experience. When I first lost control of my
car, doing 75 mph down the Interstate on cruise control, and it swerved and
started to roll over, my first thought was, “Is this how I’m going to die?” I
remember asking the question with no emotion and no resistance and no panic;
and the answer came back immediately, “No.” So I continued to completely relax,
not resisting, not trying to stop the rolling, not trying to brace myself
against anything, just totally going with the flow and the motion, letting my
body move freely wherever the car wanted to take it. In fact, my non-resistance
to what was happening is without question the physical reason I was not killed
as the roof caved in during the first roll.
Would I have reacted any differently if the answer had come
back, “Yes, this is the way you’re going to die.” I doubt it. In that case,
what’s the point of resisting?
* * *
Judgments, beliefs, opinions, and the fear of death. I
stumbled on a great example I think ties all this together in a nice neat
package….
We begin with the fear of death, and therefore fear of
anything that can cause that death. Skin cancer can cause death, so we fear
skin cancer. We’re told, and buy into the judgment that exposure to the sun is
“bad,” because it causes skin cancer. We believe we have to protect ourselves
from the sun and its harmful rays, and we form the opinion that we should never
go out into the sun without sunscreen or we’ll get skin cancer and die.
Now let’s look at the truth. Skin cancer
was fairly rare until the 1950’s, the same time that Coppertone began
marketing its patented sunscreen and created the now-famous Coppertone Girl.
Let me say that again… the incidence of skin cancer began rising steadily in
the 1950’s7, which is (coincidentally?) when
Coppertone began marketing its sunscreen.8 Then,
as more and more people used sunscreen between 1950 and 2010, skin cancer
became “the most common form of cancer in the United States;”9 and “each year there are more new cases of skin cancer
than the combined incidence of cancers of the breast, prostate, lung and
colon;”10 while “
Don’t we have to ask, “Does sunscreen actually prevent skin
cancer, or cause it?” Isn’t it strange that the more people use sunscreen to
prevent skin cancer, the more skin cancer we get?
We resisted death, we resisted the sun, and we resisted the
skin cancer; and we did all this on a massive scale. As a result of this
resistance, we took measures to try to prevent what we feared. The result, of
course, was more skin cancer and more death; and we’re back to “What you resist
persists.”
That’s how it works inside the movie theater, and it’s a
good example of what you need to do in your cocoon – work this equation
backwards, starting with your opinions and the actions you take based on them,
digging deeper to find the beliefs that are under the opinions, finding the
judgments and resistance that led to those beliefs, and not stopping until you
can clearly state the fear that began it all. Then you do your spiritual
autolysis, asking yourself: Is that fear really true?
In this case, you are probably well aware of your opinion
not to go out in the sun without sunscreen. It should not be very difficult to
quickly realize you hold a belief that you have to protect yourself from the
sun and its harmful rays. From there you should be able to find the judgment
that exposure to the sun is “bad,” because it causes skin cancer. And then it’s
just a short jump to the fear of skin cancer and death.
“All emotions are attachments
and the energy source of all attachments is fear.”12
I want to repeat at this point that the choice is always
yours. You can decide you like these fears, that these fears are “right” and
justified, and you don’t see any point in getting rid of them. I’m not trying
to convince you of anything. My only job as the scout is to point out that the
choice is between continuing to live in fear, or living free as a butterfly.
* * *
How do you deal with the fear of death? You make death your
friend, your partner in life, your daily companion. You welcome it, accept it,
embrace it, appreciate it. You understand it, look forward to it, and above all
stop judging and resisting it….
“The contemplation of death, of
one’s own mortality, is a real and powerful meditation. Death-awareness is true
zazen, it’s the universal spiritual practice, the only one anyone ever needs
and the one everyone should perform, so yes, you’d want to do whatever you have
to in order to bring this living awareness into your life. Develop the habit of
thinking of death every time you look at a watch or clock, every time you sit
down to a meal, every time you go to the bathroom. Take a walk alone every day
and think about what it means to be alive, to walk, to see and hear, to
breathe. It’s not an exercise, it’s not something you’re trying to make
yourself believe like an affirmation. It’s something that’s real and central to
your every thought and act. If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what
would you do today? And why the hell aren’t you doing it?”13
Basically we’re talking about letting go of our attachments
to life itself, peeling off the layers of the ego that determine our identity
and dictate our behaviors based on our fear of death. This is a big step you
will take in the cocoon.
But not the biggest.
As you process your fear of death and begin to embrace it
with excitement, you’re going to discover there is a more fundamental fear, a
more basic fear, a more hidden and powerful fear on which the fear of death
depends and from which it grows. It is the fear of non-existence. Like an iceberg,
the fear of death is only the part sticking up above the water, with the fear
of non-existence as the biggest part lurking below where you can’t see it; and
like the Titanic, you’re going to hit this iceberg, guaranteed. How you handle
the collision with your fear of non-existence will determine whether you
survive your transformation into a butterfly or not.
So I want to take a close look at this fear of
non-existence.
As we’ve discussed, when an Infinite I creates a new
Player, it gives it free will. Maybe it didn’t have to, maybe there’s not some
ultimatum from The Chief; but that’s actually the way the Human Game works
best, if a Player has total free will to choose their reactions and responses
to the experiences created by its Infinite I.
This free will and the process of choosing reactions and
responses require a certain level of self-consciousness in order for them to
work. This self-consciousness is a personality construct – what we normally
call an “ego.”
As we react to our fears and form judgments, beliefs, and
opinions, we add layer upon layer to this ego – each layer with its own false
identity – and the sum total of these layers creates the overall identity, the
personality construct we call “I.”
Inside the movie theater, the ego has a very important role;
and we begin to identify with the ego, begin to think it is who we are. So when
we get inside the cocoon and begin to annihilate the ego, one layer at a time,
we’re liable to encounter some resistance from the ego itself.
In short, the ego will fight for its life, wanting us to
believe we are something we are not – it – and that we cannot live without it.
The fear that develops is all about who we are if we are not
the ego; in other words, the fear of being nothing without it – the fear of non-existence.
Since the beginning of recorded history until the present
time, all religions, spiritual philosophies and belief systems (including the
most recent New Age theories) have all had one thing in common: a solution for
this fear of non-existence – the idea we are really an immortal soul which will
continue to exist after our physical death.
But is that true? Does that stand the test of spiritual
autolysis? Is there any proof, any evidence we are really anything more than a
temporary self-consciousness that will cease to exist when we die? Is the idea
of a soul, and the immortality of that soul, simply our solution to the fear of
non-existence, leading to more judgments, beliefs, and opinions? Is it possible
“being an immortal soul” is just another layer of ego we need to let go of?
I see myself as a Player in a Game, much like Douglas Hall
discovered in the movie The Thirteen Floor. I cannot honestly say it’s
true “I” will survive the death of this body. Perhaps, like Douglas, I might
find myself on another level, in another game; but that remains to be seen, and
there’s nothing to suggest that here and now.
I realize this is all theoretical at the moment, but it will
become very real to you as you progress inside the cocoon and start peeling off
layers of the ego; and I can guarantee you the fear of non-existence will come
up in full force. If you continue with your transformation into a butterfly,
you’re going to have to answer these questions for yourself.
FOOTNOTES
WHO AM I?
Back to the Table of Contents
Finally I have
the opportunity to tell you how I feel standing where I am, looking at the Pacific Ocean, close to emerging from my cocoon as a butterfly.
For me, life is full of excitement, joy, amazement,
appreciation, fun, laughter, surprises, fulfillment, relaxation, and especially
peace of mind.
I don’t worry about anything any more, particularly money. I
know with certainty from direct experience of testing and challenging the model
that my Infinite I will provide everything I need for the experiences it
wants me to have; and it always has. If it doesn’t, I can’t have those
experiences since I have no power as a Player on this side of The Field to
create anything for myself. I may not know where the money is coming from all
the time, but I don’t need to know. I just know it will be there, often from
sources I would never have guessed or planned for. (See Chapter Thirty,
“Money,” in Part Three of this book.)
I live in total trust of my Infinite I. That’s easy
for me to do because I’ve had so many experiences that have proven my Infinite
I is fully trustworthy, that it loves and cares for me as its
representative in the Human Game, and that it will create for me – and always
has – exactly what it wants me to experience down to the smallest detail. (See
Chapter Twenty-Nine, “Trust,” in Part Three of this book.)
I have no personal needs or wants or desires that have to be
fulfilled, although I do have my preferences as I explained previously. I never
think about what I do not have, but only express my appreciation for
what I do have. After all, our needs and wants are often based on
judgment – needing and wanting something we don't have because we think it's
“better” than what we've got. The truth is, as you let go of judgment and
beliefs and opinions, the only thing you ever need and want is exactly what’s
right in front of you.
I don’t plan for the future, and I doubt whether the past
ever existed. I have no goals, no agendas, no objectives, nothing I feel I need
to do or should do or have to do or must do. I live in the moment.
But I can still dream. Rudyard Kipling said it best in his
poem, “If”….
“If you can dream and not make
dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same.”1
I have very minimal drama or conflict in my daily life and
virtually no pain or suffering, with one exception I’ll speak about in a
minute.
I am free of the world of dichotomies, which means I simply
do not see “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad,” “better” or “worse,” good” or
“evil” in my holographic experiences. Only occasionally, when I still need to
process some lingering layer of ego in my cocoon, I might judge something “out
there” that I encounter; and I trust my Infinite I will create holograms
for me in order to see those judgments and process them, so I don’t have to go
looking for anything. But it’s been a long time now since any of those
experiences of any consequence have appeared.
The vast majority of the time I see only perfection all
around me – not only in the magnificent Earth Environment my Infinite I
has created for me, but also in the wars, the violence, and the pain and
suffering as well. After all, I know from my direct experiences of testing and
challenging the model that none of it is real, but a game being played by
consciousness, in consciousness, and for consciousness.
The way I relate to other people, to the world, and to
myself is the way I have always wanted to relate. I have a wonderful family and
many friends whom I love but am not attached to. I do not belong to any group,
but I never feel alone or lonely.
I wake up every morning with excitement and curious
anticipation to discover what holographic experiences my Infinite I has
in store for me that day.
It’s such a relaxing way to live knowing I do not create the
experiences I have, and not having to think I must do something, to make
something happen. As long as my Infinite I wants me as its Player, I
know from direct experience it will provide everything I need to survive, and I
don’t have to be constantly striving to make ends meet; and it’s quite a load
off to realize I have never done, and can never do anything “wrong” – that
every reaction and response I have to every experience is valuable and wanted
by my Infinite I, that no reaction or response is “right” or “wrong” or
“better” than any other.
I marvel every day at the beauty, the splendor, the
magnificence of my life and my world. Here I am, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, surrounded with water and trees and beach and blue sky and warmth… I am in constant
awe of the hologram and its creator. Quite often I laugh, express my
appreciation to my Infinite I, and wonder (rhetorically) how I got here,
and about the holographic universe in general. How amazing that each Player has
its own unique and independent holographic experience, and yet those individual
holograms can interact so seamlessly and perfectly that we can give each other
gifts. What a game!
I don’t meditate or pray, but try to stay fully awake and
aware and observant of the ripples of the Universe going on around me, and
follow them with my hands off the tiller. (How’s that for a koan?)
I observe – I “witness” – what goes on “out there” with
other people, places, and things without getting involved or attached; and although
I wish everyone else could experience the joy and peace and serenity of being I
now enjoy, I know whatever experience they are having at the moment is perfect
for them as well; and that any change in that experience will require a
self-determined decision on their part about their reactions and responses, and
there is nothing I “should” be doing other than “being the change” I would wish
for them.
I have no fear of death and no fear of non-existence. Until
proven otherwise, I assume I will cease to exist when this body dies, my role
as a Player in the Game being over; and I’m very okay with that. It’s been
quite a ride while it lasted. But I know all the feelings I ever had as a
Player have been transmitted to my Infinite I through our connection and
will forever remain part of its infinite nature.
I feel so relaxed and relieved not to be carrying around the
layers of ego that were defining me and determining my identity. I no longer
have to be the father, husband, ex-husband, son, lover, friend, coach, teacher,
mentor, student, musician, politician, pilot, chiropractor, businessman,
management consultant, jack-of-all-trades-and-master-of-none, and the list went
on forever. Soon I will also let go of “scout” and be completely free to be me,
which is nothing.
In short, life is even more than I ever imagined it could
be, and who I am now is who I only hoped I could be for many, many years; and I
haven’t yet finished my transformation into a butterfly, so perhaps there is
more to come.
I know I have done my job well and fulfilled my purpose,
because, most importantly, I now know who I am and my purpose for being here.
I am a Player for my Infinite I, created by my Infinite
I to represent it in the Human Game; and I am totally honored and
privileged to be that and nothing more. I have given up trying to be something
I’m not. I call it “Serenity of Being” – that state of complete acceptance with
total joy and appreciation for “Who I Am.”
* * *
I remember a night in 1995 when I was sailing in the east Atlantic Ocean from Madeira to Tenerife in the Canary Islands….
It was a night straight out of a dream. I was standing at
the wheel of the Kairos, an eighty-foot wooden schooner, looking up into
a midnight sky overflowing with stars. There was no other light, no land in
sight. A gentle wind filled the sails, and the only sound was the ship
responding with ease through the peaceful waters. From time to time, dolphins
would leave green phosphorescent trails as they darted toward the bow.
I was alone on deck. There were twenty others on board that
week for a workshop, including a dozen beautiful women who would say “Yes!” if
I asked; but at this hour they were asleep below, trusting me to captain them
safely to our next destination.
“Could there be anything more perfect?” I thought, turning
the wheel slightly to adjust our course.
But with the next thought, the dream was gone.
“So why am I not happy?”
It was true: When I honestly looked at the way I felt in
that moment fifteen years ago, I wasn’t happy. There I was, fifty years old,
surrounded with everything I thought I wanted out of life. In fact, I had more
than I had asked for. I had achieved it all and found myself in the very scene
I always assumed would deliver me to Nirvana. This was the moment I had been
working and waiting for my entire life; and yet I wasn’t happy.
Of course, that was while I was still inside the movie
theater, and of course I couldn’t really be happy then. But it’s interesting
for me to compare that moment to the present, some fifteen years later, and
observe how the opposite of everything is true. Now I really am
happy, and it has nothing to do with what’s going on outside of me at all.
* * *
Jed McKenna said you reach a place in spiritual autolysis
when you’re “done”….
“At a crossroads a couple of
miles from the house, Paul joined me. I was pleased to see him. I’m always
pleased to see anyone when they get where I believed Paul was at that point. He
joined me silently and we walked on. It was ten minutes before he spoke. ‘I’m
done.’ I smiled as warmth poured through my heart. Warmed by the memory of the
day I came to the same startling and improbable conclusion for myself, and warm
for the times I had heard it from others. Warm knowing the journey one takes to
arrive at such a place and warm knowing what lies ahead. That’s how it is when
you get here; no bells and whistles, no radiant backlighting, no choirs of
angels. As Layman P’ang put it, you’re ‘just an ordinary fellow who has
completed his work.’ ‘I have no more questions,’ Paul said. He didn’t just mean
he had no more questions for me, he meant he had no more questions, period.
That’s how it is when you get to the end, you’re just done.”2
I may not have any more questions, or at least none of any
real importance; but I can’t say I’m “done.” I’m not, and I know that. I’m
still in the cocoon; and even though I can see it, like a bright light at the
end of a tunnel, the Pacific Ocean is still some distance away.
I made it across the Rocky Mountains,
although the climb up to the Divide3 was
difficult and full of limitations and restrictions; I made it through the great
North American Desert4, where I had to get rid
of a lot of baggage I had collected along the way if I was going to survive;
and I made it past the Sierra Nevada5, the last
of the “ups” and “downs” before reaching the ocean.
In the process I found a way that was safe for others to
travel to the same place – not an easy route, but a safe route – if they want
to go there. So I chose to stop here and write this “scouting report” of what I
have discovered thus far before I forget a lot of the details or lose the
motivation.
Before I actually get to the Pacific, however, I have a big
layer of the ego left to tackle. It has to do with the body, and it’s sitting
here waiting for me to process during the rest of the stay in my cocoon.
Robert Scheinfeld calls these packages of baggage “eggs” –
emotional eggs, money eggs, fear eggs, and so on – and we have to open these
“eggs” and process the stuff inside them.
The body “egg” is perhaps the last and most difficult aspect
of the ego to let go of – at least for me, but I think also for many people.
After all, we identify ourselves a lot with the body; we consider it to be who
we are in many cases. Even when a Human Adult starts to get used to the idea
there is no “out there” out there – that nothing in the holographic universe it
perceives is real – it has a tendency to leave itself out of that equation,
still thinking “it” is real or its body is real while everything else isn’t.
I found it somewhat difficult to process my mental,
spiritual and emotional “eggs,” but I am finding it extremely difficult
to process my physical “egg.” In other words, it was relatively easy for me to
let go of the judgments, beliefs, opinions, fears, and associated layers of the
ego when it came to something “out there,” but not nearly as easy when it comes
to my own body.
I’ve been working on this for a while now and have made a
little progress, but it’s as if my ego knows this is probably its last stand
before virtual annihilation and is fighting back with a vengeance. I have this
image of me standing on a hilltop looking at the Pacific, knowing my body
cannot take me there in the condition it’s in. I recognize I put it through a
lot on the journey across the Rockies and the desert and the Sierra Nevada; and
I admit I didn’t take very good care of it while in the movie theater either.
Put very simply, as I write these words, I’m currently in a
fair amount of physical pain.
Now… I can tell you the pain isn’t real, and that the body
isn’t real. I can tell you the body is just a hologram, and it can change in an
instant and I could be totally pain-free in the next minute, as evidenced by
the documented cases of multiple personality disorder....
“Multiple Personality disorder, or MPD, is a bizarre
syndrome in which two or more distinct personalities inhabit a single
body. Victims of the disorder, or "multiples", often have no awareness
of their condition. They do not realize that control of their body is
being passed back and forth between different personalities and instead feel
they are suffering from some kind of amnesia, confusion, or black-out
spells. Most multiples average between eight to thirteen personalities,
although so-called super-multiples may have more than a hundred
subpersonalities….
“In this sense becoming a multiple may be the ultimate
example of what [quantum physicist David] Bohm means by fragmentation. It
is interesting to note that when the psyche fragments itself, it does not
become a collection of broken and jagged-edged shards, but a collection of
smaller wholes, complete and self-sustaining with their own traits, motives,
and desires. Although these wholes are not identical copies of the
original personality, they are related to the dynamics of the original
personality, and this in itself suggests that some kind of holographic process
is involved….
“Another unusual feature of MPD is that each of a multiple's
personalities possesses a different brain-wave pattern. This is
surprising, for as Frank Putnam, a National Institutes of Health psychiatrist
who has studied this phenomenon, points out, normally a person’s brain-wave
pattern does not change even in states of extreme emotion. Since brain-wave
patterns are not confined to any single neuron or group of neurons, but are a
global property of the brain, this too suggests that some kind of holographic
process may be at work. Just as a multiple-image hologram can store and project
dozens of whole scenes, perhaps the brain hologram can store and call forth a
similar multitude of whole personalities….
“In addition to possessing different brainwave patterns,
the subpersonalities of a multiple have a strong psychological separation from
one another. Each has his own name, age, memories, and
abilities. Often each also has his own style of handwriting, announced
gender, cultural and racial background, artistic talents, foreign language
fluency, and IQ.
“Even more noteworthy are the biological changes that
take place in a multiple's body when they switch personalities. Frequently a
medical condition possessed by one personality will mysteriously vanish when
another personality takes over. Dr. Bennet Braun of the International
Society for the Study of Multiple Personality, in Chicago, has documented a
case in which all of a patient's subpersonalities were allergic to orange
juice, except one. If the man drank orange juice when one of his allergic
personalities was in control, he would break out in a terrible rash. But
if he switched to his nonallergic personality, the rash would instantly start
to fade and he could drink orange juice freely….
“Allergies are not the only thing multiples can switch on
and off. If there was any doubt as to the control the unconscious mind has
over drug effects, it is banished by the pharmacological wizardry of the
multiple. By changing personalities, a multiple who is drunk can instantly
become sober. Different personalities also respond differently to
different drugs. Braun records a case in which 5 milligrams of diazepam, a
tranquilizer, sedated one personality, while 100 milligrams had little or no
effect on another. Often one or several of a multiple's personalities are
children, and if an adult personality is given a drug and then a child's
personality take over, the adult dosage may be too much for the child and
result in an overdose. It is also difficult to anesthetize some multiples,
and there are accounts of multiples waking up on the operating table after one
of their "unanesthetizable" subpersonalities has taken over.
“Other conditions that can vary from personality to
personality include scars, burn marks, cysts, and left- and
right-handedness. Visual acuity can differ, and some multiples have to
carry two or three different pairs of eyeglasses to accommodate their
alternating personalities. One personality can be color-blind and another
not, and even eye color can change. There are cases of women who have two or
three menstrual periods each month because each of their subpersonalities has
its own cycle. Speech pathologist Christy Ludlow has found that the voice
pattern for each of a multiple's personalities is different, a feat that
requires such a deep physiological change that even the most accomplished actor
cannot alter his voice enough to disguise his voice pattern. One multiple,
admitted to a hospital for diabetes, baffled her doctors by showing no symptoms
when one of her nondiabetic personalities was in control. There are accounts of
epilepsy coming and going with changes in personality, and psychologist Robert
A. Phillips, Jr. reports that even tumors can appear and disappear (although he
does not specify what kind of tumors).
“Multiples also tend to heal
faster than normal individuals. For example, there are several cases on
record of third-degree burns healing with extraordinary rapidity. Most
eerie of all, at least one researcher – Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, the therapist
whose pioneering treatment of Sybil Dorsett was portrayed in the book Sybil –
is convinced that multiples don't age as fast as other people….”6
Yes, it’s true. My body could change in the blink of an eye;
my pain could be gone and I could be totally healthy. All that would be
required is for my Infinite I to download a new hologram of my body and
in the next second I’m off and running.
I know all of that intellectually, but damn… right now the
pain is still there.
FOOTNOTES
ON BECOMING A BUTTERFLY
Back to the Table of Contents
So why doesn’t
my Infinite I simply download a healthy holographic body for me and take
this pain away?
It could; I know that. But that’s not the point of the
transformation in the cocoon. It’s all about the process, and my process is not
over yet. That’s why I don’t want my Infinite I to take my pain
away until I’m finished.
I have run Robert’s Process hundreds of times on this body
egg over the last two years and uncovered a number of judgments, beliefs and
opinions. For example, as a result of my Christian upbringing as a Human Child
and later beliefs in New Age spiritual theories as a Human Adult, I judged the
body itself to be “bad,” that it was “wrong” – unspiritual – to have a body in
the first place. I always thought I’d be better off without a body, that it was
more of a hindrance than a gift, something to “rise above,” an indication I had
dropped down a level or two from my innately immortal soul.
After my car accident I gained a lot of weight because I
couldn’t move easily or exercise; and eating good food is one of my great pleasures
in life. Eating without exercise; not a beneficial combination. So I still
carry some of that extra weight, and I think of my body as “fat” – and I say
that, unfortunately, with shame and as a judgment and not just a statement of
fact.
In short, I cannot yet express full and sincere appreciation
for my body the way it is, or even for having a body at all. Clearly there are
more judgments, beliefs, and opinions for me to process in this egg.
I have uncovered some of the fears associated with my body as
well. One is the fear that if I don’t have a perfectly healthy body, people are
going to discount the scouting information I’m offering. I’ve done exactly that
myself in the past, especially in judgment of all the celibate “holy men” and
teachers and gurus and saints: “How can he talk about world peace when he can’t
even create a peaceful relationship with a woman?”
So in my mind I hear people saying, “How can he talk about
serenity of being if he’s in pain and can’t even heal his own body?”
A lot of this also has to do with vanity. I admit I’m vain;
it’s one of the layers of my ego I haven’t fully gotten rid of yet. I have
always taken pride in my appearance, probably too much pride. I still like it
when people tell me I look ten years younger than I actually am. I had fun
signing autographs when I was a “star” drummer in my twenties; I enjoyed being
asked for my autograph when I was in my thirties by people who thought I was
Tom Selleck, and then again in my fifties by people who thought I was Kenny Rogers;
and for years I was sure Carly Simon was talking about me in her song.
Another fear I uncovered had to do with dying. When I wrote
in the last chapter, “I have no fear of death,” this is true. Ever since I
started believing in reincarnation over fifty years ago, I have not feared
death; but I was still afraid of dying, still resisted a long, drawn-out and
painful death. When my Infinite I decides I have finished my role as its
Player, I prayed, I want to go quickly.
I watched live with great empathy as people jumped out of
the World Trade Towers on September 11th and fell one-hundred
stories to their certain death. I could feel the choice they made not to stay
inside and slowly burn alive, but to end it quickly and painlessly. That’s how
I wanted to go.
So as long as the judgments about my body and the resistance
remain, the pain will too. I know that; and even though I have done a lot of
work on this body egg, there is obviously stuff left inside to process. In the
meantime, I am doing my best to appreciate the pain, to thank my Infinite I
for the gift, for the opportunity the pain gives me to process all these
judgments, beliefs, opinions, and fears, and let go of the associated layers of
the ego. I have honestly gotten to the point where I don’t want the pain to
leave until I’ve finished processing whatever is there inside the egg.
* * *
In the last couple of weeks, since I started working on this
chapter and processing the pain, I have run into one of the most key beliefs
about the body, and about life in general: the belief in the “law of cause and
effect;” and it’s powerful – a very core belief for everyone in this
holographic Human Game, it appears.
But it’s too early in my process to say much more than the
so-called “law of cause and effect” is simply another belief system formed
inside the movie theater and a function of the hologram itself, like space and
time. Clearly the diabetes associated with one of the multiple personalities
discussed in the last chapter is not “caused” by some malfunction in the body,
since it disappears as soon as a different personality takes over.
However I’m not prepared at this point to give a scouting
report on the “law of cause and effect.” That, it seems, will have to wait, and
may be the subject of another book altogether – the final stages of my cocoon.
* * *
Meanwhile, since I know all pain is the result of judgment
and resistance, I have to ask: What am I resisting? Becoming a butterfly?
Yes, truth be told, I am. It doesn’t feel like it has
anything to do with fear of being a butterfly, however; or at least I
can’t see it that way. When I think of being a butterfly, sailing around on my
beautiful catamaran, it is a most wonderful picture full of excitement and joy,
with no twinge of fear I can find. I look forward to it with great
anticipation.
I am also not aware of any lingering fear of non-existence.
But just as it’s possible not to be afraid of death and
still be afraid of dying, perhaps buried very deep is the fear of the final
stages of the cocoon, of not knowing what becoming a butterfly would mean in my
relationship to the people I love – my children and grandchildren, most
specifically. (I know they’re not “real,” but I love them anyway!) Am I really
ready to let go of everything, unconditionally, if that what’s required?
One of the problems is that other scouts who could provide
any clue of what is required in the final stages of the cocoon –
especially in relationship to other Players whom I care for so much – are few
and far between.
Jed McKenna doesn’t talk much about family or wife or kids.
He mentions having lunch with his sister….
“Visiting your sister and
having lunch shouldn’t be a confusing ordeal, but it is. Is she really my
sister? What does that mean? We share some history and acquaintances, such as
childhood and parents. Are my parents really my parents? Genetically they are
related to my body, but the person who lived my childhood is no longer here.
The past I share with this person is about as real and important to me as if
I’d read it in a brochure…. I’m an actor playing a role for which I feel no
connection and have no motivation…. Actually, it’s not really confusing. I
possess not the least shred of doubt about who and what I am. The tricky thing
is that who and what I am is not related to this pretty, professional,
salad-eating woman across from me… I have some residual fondness for my sister
and if she died I’d be saddened to think that she was no longer in the world,
but the simple fact is that our former relationship no longer exists. Okay, so
why am I telling you this? Because that’s what I do. I try to hold this
enlightenment thing up for display and this seems like an interesting aspect of
the whole deal. How do you relate to the people who were most important to you
before awakening from the dream of the segregated self?”1
That’s not very encouraging.
The last time I saw Robert Scheinfeld he had a wonderful
family and what looked to be a very close and loving relationship with his wife
and two children. Then he talked about a “dark night of the soul” that involved
his family, so I’m not exactly sure of that situation. It doesn’t matter,
though, because I don’t think of Robert as a scout who’s close to becoming a
butterfly, as I will explain in Chapter Thirty-Three in Part Three of this
book.
Jesus may have been a scout; he may even
have become a butterfly. I find the allegoric symbols of his life, especially
his crucifixion (the death of the caterpillar) and his emergence from the cave
(his cocoon) three days later, to be fascinating; but that will have to wait
until the next book. The point is that all the evidence suggests Jesus had a
wife and child; but that after he became a butterfly he never saw them again,
since they went to the south of France and he went to live (and finally die) in
a community in Kashmir.2
There may be other scouts who have maintained so-called
normal family relationships with ones they loved after they transitioned into a
butterfly, but I don’t know their stories.
So there is the chance that once you complete your
transformation into a butterfly, real communication with Players in the cocoon
or the movie theater is no longer possible, which is why we don’t hear from any
butterflies or read their books. It may be that you have to take the last step
in the cocoon on total “faith,” without anyone to let you know what it’s like,
as Harrison Ford did in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when he had
to step out from a canyon wall and risk falling into a deep gorge, not knowing
there was a camouflaged bridge that would take him across to the other side.
(Watch the video here.)
So whether it’s out of fear or excitement, I have to admit
I’ve had the thought I would like to postpone my final transformation into a
butterfly and stay where I am in the cocoon for a while. Perhaps this is my own
thought; perhaps it has been put there as part of a hologram by my Infinite
I. I don’t know yet.
However, I am excited and very curious about a game I see
developing, if I’m reading the ripples in the Universe correctly.
I have a lot of friends, and am witnessing many thousands
more Human Adults who seem ready to break out of the movie theater and
transform into butterflies. The situation in the Earth Environment also appears
to be getting more intense, like a rubber band being stretched to its limits
before it breaks. How much more pain and suffering and limitation and
restriction is required before millions of Players surrender, understand it is
their own judgments and resistance causing that pain and suffering, and are
willing to begin processing the false knowledge and layers of ego that are part
of life inside the movie theater?
I think it would be a cool game to play to see how many
Human Adults can be encouraged to enter their cocoons and then guided safely
through their transformation into a butterfly. Everything that’s needed is in
place now for a mass exodus from the movie theater, and the trail has been
blazed. There are even some “hints” and “clues” the Earth – itself a Player in
the Human Game – might be ready to transform as well.
* * *
There have been experiments done with
rats, putting them in a water maze and observing them finding their way out. It
seems “each new generation of rats learned to escape quicker. After ten years,
the latest generation of rats could escape ten times faster than the original
rats. Interestingly, rats of the same lineage in other areas of the world also
escaped ten times faster, a phenomenon which cannot be explained by any
localized instruments.”3
Perhaps I’m simply one of the first generation of rats to
find their way to the Pacific Ocean, and perhaps those who come after me will
find it much easier and faster.
But it means I’m just a rat like everyone else; and I don’t
want to leave this book without paying tribute to all the rats who came before
me and made my maze a little easier to navigate, and especially to all those
other rats who died trying to find their way out of the water.
Then, maybe, if Rupert Sheldrake’s theory4 of morphic resonance turns out to be correct, all the
rats who come after me will escape ten times faster, without so many wrong
turns, and this process will spread throughout the world until a critical mass
is reached and all the rats turn into butterflies.
How much fun I have mixing metaphors!
* * *
What’s it going to be like when I finally finish processing
the layers of ego with my body?
All I can do is speculate, because I don’t personally know
anyone who has actually become a butterfly. I know there must be some, but I
have no idea who they are.
Jed McKenna – whoever he might really be – claims he emerged
from his cocoon and then…
“I spent the next ten years trying to make sense of this
new world; a non-world in which a non-I nevertheless seemed to reside. The
waking dreamstate. It was like the world had turned from hard solidity into
shimmering mirage. I could still see the world I had always known, but I could
not find its substance. Whatever I reached out to touch, my hand passed
through. Whatever I thought about dissolved in my mind. Whoever I looked at, I
saw through like vapor, myself included. I looked at my own character, and it
was like a face you see in a cloud for a second before it’s gone.
“My reality now is the
awakened, untruth-unrealized state, and it’s the same for me as for anyone who
comes to it. There are no masters or novices here. There are no teachings or
beliefs; no Hindus or Buddhists or Jnanis or Advaitins; no masters or yogis or
swamis; no discorporate entities or higher level energies or superior beings.
Awake is awake. Everything else is everything else.”5
Keep peeling away layers of an onion and what do you have
when you get through? Nothing. It isn’t that you peel away the layers and
finally get to the onion. You get to the no-onion. The same thing is true for
the self. After peeling away all the layers of the ego, you get to… no-self.
Jed says it takes about ten years to get used to living as a
no-self, to get accustomed to being “awake from the dreamstate,” to operate
without false knowledge and a false ego. I don’t know about that, because I
assume he’s talking about living those ten years after emerging from his cocoon
as a butterfly. First, I’m not certain it’s true he’s a butterfly; and
secondly, I won’t know until I get there. I do know it is a very
different way to live – a very wonderful and joyful and peaceful and exciting
way to live – and even where I am now takes some getting used to.
* * *
There were a lot of questions I had as I blazed this trail
to the Pacific Ocean, and in the next part of this book I want to share some of
the answers I came up with based on the information I found along the way. But
before I go….
I began this book talking about Plato’s Cave, that a Human
Child is like a prisoner who is chained and can only see the wall in front of
them; that a Human Child believes the shadows it sees on the wall are real;
that when a Human Child realizes it is not really chained at all, it gets up
and walks to the back of the cave and sees the fire and the men on the walkway
that create the shadows on the wall; that this new Human Adult begins to
recognize that the shadows are not real; and that a few Human Adults will
eventually walk through the door in the back of the cave and out of the cave
entirely.
Then I switched metaphors and said this Human Adult, once
through the door, will enter a cocoon, where it will undergo a process of
transformation, letting go of its judgments, beliefs, opinions, fears, and
layers of ego that it believed itself to be as a caterpillar.
I have said I am near the end of my cocoon phase, standing
at a point overlooking the Pacific Ocean, poised to become a butterfly, and
that anyone who wants to can join me here.
I have achieved this serenity of being by a strong will and
determination to find the truth, a lot of hard work, a lot of processing, and a
lot of support from my Infinite I. I did it by following my discomfort –
physical and emotional – to locate the judgments, beliefs, and opinions I had
formed during my time inside the movie theater. I did it by going further to
expose my fears and embracing them, especially the fear of non-existence. I did
it by identifying the layers of the ego I had created and throwing them away,
one by one, until there is virtually nothing left. I did it by letting go of
the self that wasn’t true and finding the no-self that was.
Anyone who wants to can stand where I am standing now.
Anyone can reach the Pacific Ocean and emerge from their cocoon as a butterfly.
I am not special, I am not any “better” than anyone else, and I certainly am
not any more “enlightened.” “Enlightenment” is a word that belongs inside the
movie theater, in the first half of the Human Game, since it automatically
carries a judgment with it – a judgment that one state of being is better (more
“enlightened”) than another.
I’m simply near the end of the rollercoaster ride, reporting
back to those still going up the first hill and those just at the top ready to
take the plunge, trying to give some clarity and some encouragement about the
ride to come and how much fun it can be.
If you’re still inside the movie theater, my best advice
would be to realize it’s just a game, that it isn’t real, and – now that you
know the true source and reason for all your drama and conflict and pain and
suffering – to let go of your resistance and relax and learn to appreciate and
enjoy every moment of every experience you’re having. Remember you’re on a
rollercoaster, and that going up that first hill is an essential part of the
ride. The more you resist that hill, the more needless pain and suffering you
will have.
If you’ve walked out of the movie theater
and are starting off in your cocoon, hang on for the ride of your life; and if
you meet me on the road, it means I’m still playing the “scout.” So kill me6, and then go further.
FOOTNOTES
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
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“I know why you’re here, Neo. I know what you’ve been
doing. I know why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after
night you sit at your computer. You’re looking for him. I know because I was
once looking for the same thing; and when he found me, he told me I wasn’t
really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It’s the question that
drives us, Neo. It’s the question that brought you here.”
- Trinity, from The
Matrix
PREFACE TO PART THREE
Robert
Scheinfeld says when you move into the second half of the Human Game (which he
calls “Phase 2”), there’s no point any more to ask “Why;” and there are some
good reasons for that. You can’t think your way out of this Game; it
isn’t a matter of understanding, but of feeling; asking “why” can often be a
diversion, a distraction from doing the Process itself; and the answer to “why”
really doesn’t matter and won’t change anything.
It’s true that once inside your cocoon, there really is only
one answer to the question “Why?”: Because your Infinite I has created
it that way for you as a gift.
On the other hand, we seem to be very curious as Players,
and “why” can be something that excites and interests us. Nothing “wrong” with
that.
Besides, since you’ve gotten this far in the book, you’re
well aware we’re talking about a new and very radical approach to life, one
that is often the opposite of everything we were taught while in the movie
theater. So, for me, it’s totally understandable and very legitimate to ask
various questions, to better understand how this new model works, to be clear
about how it is different from anything else you’ve ever encountered, and to
more easily let go of previous false knowledge by seeing there are new and
viable alternative ways to answer the more important questions that occupy our
thoughts.
I also think “don’t ask why” can be used as a cop-out
sometimes, to avoid having to come up with answers to the tough questions. Any
model that’s worth its salt should be able to logically and consistently
withstand all kinds of scrutiny.
So I welcome all legitimate questions, and by “legitimate” I
mean the question comes from a sincere desire to learn and fill in some gaps in
understanding this new model, or questions that result from the actual testing
of the model in operation. Questions coming from the ego, from Maya, from an
attitude of proving me “wrong,” or simply to intellectually debate have no
interest for me. They’re always just another attempt to justify some judgment
or belief formed while inside the movie theater.
In the following pages, then, you will find some of the
questions I had, and have been asked, and the answers I came up with from my
own research and experience as a scout.
Some of the answers will be very short; others will fill a
normal-sized chapter.
None of the answers should be taken as “Truth.” They
are simply the most logical, consistent, and “best guesses” I can find,
especially since some deal with questions about the other side of The Field,
which we can never know with any certainty. If they aren’t the “Truth,” then at
least they serve the purpose of demonstrating there are logical alternatives to
the old and inconsistent and contradictory answers we believed for so long.
The main point is to realize there are other answers
to our burning questions about life that make sense, that this model is
complete and workable and consistent with the latest findings in quantum
physics, and that we can begin to let go of the old belief systems that
kept us limited and go totally radical.
ONE BIG HOLOGRAM?
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Question:
I thought that when we speak about a holographic universe, it means we were all
part of one big hologram.
Answer: That’s a very common misconception, but it
simply can’t be true.
If neurophysiologist Karl Pribram is correct when he says
the human brain is a holographic receiver and translator…
“The brain is itself a hologram…
which mathematically constructs ‘hard’ reality by relying on input from a
frequency domain.”1
…then there cannot be one big hologram.
If the physical universe we live in were one giant hologram
that was shared by all of us, there would have to be one giant brain to receive
it as it was downloaded from The Field and convert it from its natural wave
state into particles we could perceive; and we would all perceive those
particles exactly the same way. We would all see the same reality.
That, obviously, doesn’t happen. Each person, in fact, seems
to see a slightly different reality than anyone else. In fact, our mental
hospitals are full of people we call “psychotic” who see a very
different reality than the rest of us.
(“Psychosis means an abnormal condition of
the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described
as involving a ‘loss of contact with reality’…. People experiencing psychosis
may report hallucinations or delusional beliefs.”2)
Standing in a room next to someone who is psychotic, you
might see a pleasant, safe atmosphere. The psychotic, on the other hand, could
see a torture chamber. That simply would not be possible if there were one big
hologram both of you were perceiving.
It is possible, however, if you are each perceiving
your own reality – a separate hologram downloaded to each separate brain.
A simple car accident, viewed by ten different people, can
have ten different “realities” of what happened.
You could walk out of a restaurant and your friend could
comment on how rude the waitress was, and although you heard the waitress say
the same words, you thought she was fine and helpful.
Or…
“Who are you going to host your website with?”
“XYZ company.”
“What! Them?”
“Yes, why?”
“I tried them once. Horrible experience. They really screwed
me up.”
“I’ve been hosting with them for ten years, always had
great service, and they’re never down.”
There’s even a better example I assume has happened to all
of us at one point or another. You see someone walking down the street and you
turn to a friend and say, “Wow! Is that Brad Pitt?” And your friend looks and
says, “He doesn’t look anything like Brad Pitt!” And you insist, “Yes! He looks
exactly like Brad Pitt!”
So what happened here? When you look at the movies or
pictures in a magazine, you see Brad Pitt one way, and the person you saw
walking down the street looked just like that, to you. Your friend, on
the other hand, sees Brad Pitt in movies or magazines differently, and also
sees the person on the street differently, and therefore doesn’t agree with
you. If we all lived in a giant common hologram – one big “holographic
universe” – we would all see both Brad Pitt and the person walking down the
street the same way, and there would be common agreement on how they look.
So each individual human brain receives and translates its
own separate hologram downloaded by its own Infinite I from The Field.
This, of course, is inherent in the truth “you create your own reality,”
if we would just pay attention to what those words really say and mean.
FOOTNOTES
OTHER PEOPLE
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Question:
If we don’t share one big common hologram, how can you and I go out at night
and see the same stars, or watch the same movie, or see the same people? How
could someone else agree with me so much on what we call “reality” unless we
were actually seeing the same thing?
Answer: Before we talk about whether you and
“someone else” are seeing the same reality, I have to find out who you think
this “someone else” is who’s agreeing with you. Do you think they really exist?
Question: Oh, well…. Okay. So what about the
other people who appear in my hologram? Aren’t they “real,” or is my Infinite
I creating them too?
Answer: The first thing you have to remember
is that nothing in your hologram is “real” – not the people, not this book you
are reading, and not the eyes you are reading the book with. It’s all a
hologram; and by definition, a hologram isn’t real – at least not in the way we
have always thought about things as “real.”
So let’s change the question a little, because I know what
you’re trying to ask….
“Do the other people I see in my hologram exist as separate
individuals? Are they Players in their own right, as I am, with their own Infinite
I’s? Or are they just created by my Infinite I for my personal
hologram and have no life of their own?” Right?
Even among the growing number of people who understand how
life works in a holographic universe, there is no general agreement on the
answer to this question – which is a good example of why some of these
questions aren’t important and don’t really play a role in the daily
workability of these concepts.
Some of these people have decided their Infinite I
creates everything and everyone they see in their holograms, and that no one
else exists independently from them. That may well be true, and one day maybe
we’ll find out; or maybe we won’t.
On one hand, it is very important to realize and remember
that everything we experience – and everyone in those experiences – is created
by our own Infinite I; and it can be so easy to forget that and assign
independent power to whom and what we see “out there” to make them real.
Therefore it is very helpful to emphasize that nothing and no one can appear in
your holographic universe that your Infinite I has not created or agreed
to. So it might be useful to adopt the belief that you are creating the “other
people” you encounter in your life, and that they don’t exist outside of your
hologram.
But for me, this smacks too much of “solipsism,” which has
an overtone I don’t resonate with….
“If only I matter, then other
people, animals, environments only matter insofar as they impact myself. This
may be an antisocial philosophy.”1
So here is what makes the most sense to me and feels the
most comfortable….
If the holographic universe is like a total immersion movie,
someone had to write the script for everything that happens in that holographic
movie. That “someone” is your Infinite I.
But that script would be very limited and lonely if you were
the only actor in it; and there are god-knows-how-many other Infinite I’s
in Greater Metropolitan InfiniteLand who have Players representing them as
well.
So let’s say my Infinite I wants me to experience a
car accident, for whatever reason (which is exactly what my own Infinite I
did!). My Infinite I could create a hologram where I have that car
accident by myself, with no one else involved in the accident (which is what
happened to me); and that’s fine.
But let’s say for some reason my Infinite I would
prefer me to experience a car accident that involved other people, rather than
just me. My Infinite I could send an Infimail around InfiniteLand asking
if there is anyone who wants to have their Player be part of this car accident
as well.
Most car accidents today involve more than one person, so
apparently there is a lot of interest in InfiniteLand for this kind of
holographic experience. Therefore my Infinite I gets some positive
Infimail responses from other Infinite I’s, and together these Infinite
I’s work out the details and write a joint script for this accident
“movie.” But there is one catch….
No Player can say or do anything in any other Player’s
hologram that their own Infinite I has not approved. In other words,
whatever one Player says or does to another Player has been requested and
approved by its Infinite I.
This means no one can be a victim of anything that is said
or done in any hologram they experience, because their own Infinite I
has either written the script itself or had 100% script approval prior to the
hologram being downloaded to its Player. No victims, no perpetrators, period.
So, now these Players get in their car accident. Each Player
can, and probably will, experience that accident slightly differently than any
other player, since each Player has their own individual hologram as their
reality. In fact, two Players will often disagree – honestly and sincerely –
about what actually happened in that accident. We already know virtually
everyone who witnesses a car accident will have a different story of what
happened.
But the “other person” I get into a car accident with, more
than likely, will be another Player representing another Infinite I, as
I see it. So while my Infinite I “created” them in my hologram, they
actually do “exist” as a separate Player with their own self-consciousness and
their own Infinite I.
This seems to me to be true for all the “other people” who have
an impact on our lives. I would say almost anyone who has a “speaking part” in
your holographic total immersion movie is another Player, whose Infinite I
has agreed for them to read the script your own Infinite I wrote for the
experience it wanted you to have.
According to Robert Scheinfeld, “other
people” serve three main purposes in your holographic experience:
1. To reflect something you think or feel about yourself
2. To give you the gift of information or insight
3. To set something in motion to support you2
* * *
On the other hand, there are a lot of “extras” in your
holographic total immersion movie who have little or no impact on your life.
They are there to make your total immersion movie seem more “real.” It would be
very strange to walk down Fifth Avenue in New York City and see no one else,
just like it would be very strange to watch a movie about New York City with no
people in it. (You can watch Tom Cruise freak out in exactly that situation in
the movie, Vanilla Sky.) “Extras” play an important role in our
holograms; but, as in Hollywood, those “extras” can be computer generated – a
product of special effects – and do not necessarily need a life of their own.
There was a recent mini-series on HBO called John Adams.
(Brilliant!) They also aired a short segment on how the mini-series was made,
which you can watch on YouTube.
Not only is this a great example of how a background set is
made to provide the scenery for a holographic movie experience, but there is a
segment of this video starting around three minutes in that explains and shows
how a crowd of 10,000 people was created using just 15 extras. If we’ve figured
out how to do that in our physical universe, imagine what your Infinite
I can do in your holographic universe! (Watch the video here.)
So the “other people” you see in your hologram are Players
whose Infinite I’s have volunteered their Players to play a role for you
and to read the script your Infinite I has written; or, they are
“extras” created by your Infinite I to fill up your “reality.”
Question: But if they’re not just computer-generated
“extras,” how does my Infinite I know how to create that significant
“other person” in my hologram to look and act like they do?
Answer: By using the template available in The Field
for this “other person,” tagged with their name on it.
In other words, there’s a template in The Field with the
name “Stephen Davis,” which contains the wave frequencies used to create me in
a hologram; and there’s a template in The Field with your name on it as well. All
other Players that have been created by their Infinite I’s have
templates also.
When the other Player’s Infinite I agrees to play a
role in your hologram, it gives permission to your Infinite I to access
the template in The Field that describes the other person – their name, height,
weight, eye color, attitudes, etc. – and then your Infinite I plugs that
template into the holographic experience it is creating for you. But that
“other person” must read the script word-for-word your Infinite I
wrote for you.
Looked at from the other direction, your Infinite I
has agreed and volunteered you to play a role in other Players’ experiences as
well, and they access the template with your name on it and plug you into the
hologram they create for their own Player. But then you are always reading the
script their Infinite I wrote for them.
* * *
Perhaps you’ve been fortunate enough to have a “virtual
reality” experience….
It, of course, looks and feels very real.
According to quantum physics, life itself is a “virtual
reality” experience, a holographic universe created for us by our Infinite
I’s.
So what about the people you meet while in one of these
“virtual reality” machines? They have been created by the software programmer
who wrote the experience you are having, were they not? Everything they do or
say has been pre-determined and is part of the virtual reality script.
Now… what if two people, each in their own virtual reality
machine, could interact? In other words, what if someone else doing their own
virtual reality trip could appear in your virtual reality experience? The
person on the other machine would have to be pre-programmed into your machine
so they appeared normally and not in their virtual reality gear; and visa
versa.
See what I mean?
This is not out of the question, not some ridiculous science
fiction fantasy. The technology is not that far away when it will be possible
for two virtual reality experiences to interact. What a “hint” or “clue” that
will be!
And that’s basically what happens in our holographic
reality. We meet people, whom I am calling “extras,” who are pre-programmed
into the script of our experience to make it seem more real; and we meet people
who are Players in their own right whose holographic experiences interact with
ours.
Really an amazing game when you think about it!
So I take the viewpoint that the “other people” I meet in my
holographic experiences who play any kind of significant role in my life are
Players in their own right, with their own self-consciousness, who have agreed
to play a role and read a script for me and either reflect something I think or
feel about myself, give me the gift of information or insight, or set something
in motion to support me; and visa versa.
In this way, we can give each other lots of gifts of
experiences. In fact, each and every interaction between Players is a gift from
one to the other, and back again, no matter how one or more Players might judge
that experience and the other Player’s role in it.
* * *
Now that we have that all cleared up, you can ask your
original question again….
FOOTNOTES
THE “EARTH ENVIRONMENT” TEMPLATE
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Question:
If we don’t share one big common hologram, how can you and I go out at night
and see the same stars, or watch the same movie, or see the same people? How
could someone else agree with me so much on what we call “reality” unless we
were actually seeing the same thing?
Answer: The answer to that depends on how you view “other
people” in your holograms, based on what we discussed in the last chapter.
If you take the position that the “someone else” in your
hologram agreeing with you was created by your own Infinite I and has no
existence as an independent Player on its own, then what Dr. Andrew Newberg
said is very pertinent….
“When I cross-reference with
somebody, they’re part of my reality. If I hear someone agreeing with what I
think is going on out there, it still has to do with what I am perceiving.”1
In other words, cross-referencing – when someone in your
hologram agrees with you about the reality you are perceiving – is totally
useless as proof that the two of you are seeing the same thing. Therefore it
doesn’t matter whether they see the same stars, or movie, or people you do,
since they’re nothing more than part of the hologram created by your Infinite
I.
But let’s say that you’ve decided “other people” in your
hologram are Players in their own right, with their own self-consciousness, who
have agreed to play a part in your holographic experience. Now the discussion
gets interesting….
The first problem is that what you and any other person in
your hologram see is most likely not exactly the same thing, and there
is no way to prove they are the same.
We think when we see the color blue, for example, someone
else is seeing the exact same color. But how do you know that?
My ex-wife and I would have interesting debates on whether a
particular house was painted “off-white” or “pale yellow.” (She always won.)
This wasn’t just because we disagreed on the color; but at a more basic level,
we were actually seeing two slightly different colors.
However, let’s face it; most Players seem to be able to
agree for the most part on most things, like the stars or the movies or the
people we see. Right?
So how can that be?
My guess is that there is a “template” in The Field for the
“Earth Environment,” so when an Infinite I wants to create a “normal”
holographic experience for its Player, it doesn’t have to create the Earth, the
stars, the sun and moon, this book, or the rest of the universe from scratch
every time. It simply uses the template for the basis of the hologram and then
adds whatever unique touches it wants for each situation for its Player.
It only makes sense to do it this way so Players can focus
on their unique experiences and not have to deal with or spend much time
arguing about whose “reality” is “real.” (As noted, there are Players whose Infinite
I’s do not use this “normal” template, and we consider them to be crazy.
But it’s just further proof we’re dealing with individual holographic
universes, not a common one; and it’s entirely possible for an Infinite I
to choose whatever reality it wants for its Player.)
This “Earth Environment” template is a lot like the software
program in sophisticated video games. The “background” is basically the same
for all players, but there is a wide variety of experiences an individual
player can have using that same background. You could also say it's like using one
stage set and props in a movie or play but the different characters all have
different experiences within it. If that kind of unique and individual
experience is possible using the same template, why create a new one each time?
Or this might make more sense… when you apply for a job, you
go into your computer’s text-writing program and choose a “template” to write a
resumé. You add your own personal information to that template to create a
unique and individual resumé for yourself, but otherwise your finished product
looks just like anyone else’s who used the same template.
So here’s how it apparently works….
An Infinite I wants to have an experience in the
physical universe on Earth. It, obviously, cannot come here itself – an
infinite being could not come into a finite world – so it elects to create a
Player to represent it. It goes to The Field and chooses specific wave
frequencies to create that Player, and this unique group of wave frequencies in
The Field are tagged and used as a template for that Player.
Then the Infinite I decides to create an experience
in the physical universe for its Player. If it wants to create a so-called
“normal” experience, it will grab the “Earth Environment” template from The
Field – which includes all the things we generally agree on, like the position
of the stars and planets, the location of New York City, the color purple, what
broccoli looks like, and so forth. This will allow its Player not to spend all
its time arguing with other Players about what a “circle” is, but be able to
focus instead on the core experience the Infinite I wants.
On the other hand, maybe the core experience the Infinite
I wants is to explore differences of opinion, and therefore it might make
slight modifications in this normal “Earth Environment” template, or even major
modifications that would result in significant disagreements with other Players
about “reality.”
The point is that when an Infinite I wants to create
an experience for its Player in the Human Game, it doesn’t have to create the
sun and the stars and the moon and spaghetti each time. The template is already
there, available for all Infinite I’s to use as they see fit – which is
why the template can look almost the same to many Players.
* * *
The current buzzword for “template” is “matrix;” and just to
be clear, there is no “evil” matrix” or “sacred matrix,” as some have
suggested; but only one matrix that is totally neutral.
“The matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now
in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you
turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church,
when you pay your taxes…. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the matrix is;
you have to see it for yourself.”
- Morpheus, from The Matrix
FOOTNOTES
ARE WE ALL ONE?
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Question:
Don’t What the [Bleep] Do We Know? and The Secret and many other
“new age” philosophies say “we are all one”? In fact, doesn’t quantum physics
say “we are all connected,” and haven’t some of the recent experiments proven
that? Haven’t we been told if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, it can set off a tornado in Texas?1
Answer: Yes, yes, yes… that’s what we’ve been told.
But is any of it really true?
First of all, there is no “we.” There is only “I” and “other
people” who appear in the unique and individual hologram my Infinite I
creates for me.
Even if you believe (as I do) that many of the “other
people” who appear in your hologram are other Players in their own right, with
their own Infinite I’s, they have their own unique and individual
holograms as well since there is no one big common hologram we all share.
So how did “we are all one” become such a popular new-age
fad?
In the early 1980s, physicist Alain Aspect performed some
very famous experiments with collaborators in France that have been used ever
since to claim “we are all one,” or, at a minimum, that “we are all connected.”
But that’s not what the experiments proved at all.
What Aspect did, basically, was to send
two protons (very small particles) from a calcium atom away from each other in
different directions. These two protons had opposite (complementary) charges
associated with them when they separated. He then changed the charge of one of
the protons, and the other proton “magically” changed its own charge
simultaneously.2 This became known as “spooky
action at a distance,”3 since there was no
explanation of how the two protons were influencing each other at distances
that would disallow any communication between them.
Stated more simply and generally, the experiment provides
strong evidence that a quantum event at one location can affect an event at
another location without any obvious mechanism for communication between the
two locations; and this was jumped on by the “new age” as proof “we are all one
and connected.”
But Aspect’s results don’t prove that at
all. At most they prove everything within one hologram is connected,
which we already know to be true. If you cut off a little piece from a larger
holographic film, you can still produce the complete holographic image from
that piece. (It’s dimmer, but the whole picture is still there.) This is called
“entanglement” in quantum physics4, which
basically says all the different “particles” that make up a hologram are
connected.
So everything is connected within a single hologram, and
maybe if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil in my hologram, it can set
off a tornado in Texas in my hologram. But since there is no one big
common hologram we all share, and each Player has its own unique and individual
holographic experiences, Aspects’ results cannot be interpreted to prove we are
all one, or even all connected.
If a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil and sets off a
tornado in Texas in both my hologram and yours, it simply means this scenario
was part of the “Earth Environment” template used by both your Infinite I
and my Infinite I when they created our individual holographic
experiences. But it still doesn’t mean “we are all one.”
Think of it this way: The Field contains an unlimited number
of possibilities in wave form, and therefore can be the source of an infinite
number of holograms. For example, my Infinite I could go to The Field
and decide to pop out a hologram of an apple for me. Your Infinite I
could go to The Field and decide to pop out a hologram of an orange for you.
But these two holograms are not connected. They may be “interacting” in a way
we don’t understand yet, but it doesn’t mean they’re “connected.” There’s a big
difference between the two.
In other words, I could do something with my apple in my
hologram and it would have no effect on the orange in your hologram. Every
Player’s holograms are totally independent from every other Player’s holograms.
A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil in my hologram will not
automatically set off a tornado in Texas in your hologram. At least, we
currently have no scientific proof for the theory that “we are all connected,”
despite what the “new age” says.
Let me try to say this in a different way…. Every Player’s
holograms are totally independent from every other Player’s holograms. That’s
the only possible way that each Infinite I can create its own reality
for its Player. It’s the only way there can be no victims or perpetrators.
It reminds me of the psychology fad in the 80’s and 90’s
around “co-dependency.” One Player’s holograms are not co-dependent on any
other Player’s holograms. There may be interaction going on being two independent
Player’s holograms, but what happens in one Player’s hologram is not co-dependent
on what happens in any other Player’s hologram. In short, there is no
“co-creation” happening.
If you wanted to say “everything I see in my hologram
is one,” you would be correct. But to say “we are all one” at the holographic
level is not true.
Now, we can go to a different level, both in Alain Aspect’s
experiments and in our own individual experiences. My hologram of the apple and
your hologram of the orange have the same source – The Field – just like the
two protons in Aspect’s experiment had the same source – a calcium atom. In The
Field, everything is connected to everything else, waves upon waves of
potentiality, of infinite possibility. But when some of those specific waves
are chosen by an Infinite I and downloaded to a human brain, that
connection in The Field does not follow into the physical universe.
It would be true to say something like, “All our holograms
have the same source – The Field,” just like it’s true to say a brother and a
sister have the same source – their parents. But just like the brother and
sister are not “connected” at the level of the physical universe (ignoring the
rare anomaly of Siamese twins), and just as they are clearly not “all one,”
neither are our individual holograms we perceive as the physical universe we
live in.
At the level of The Field, however, not only are we
all one, but everything is all one, since The Field is the source of
everything in the form of wave frequencies that later appear in the holographic
universe as particles.
* * *
We’ve been talking apples and oranges. Now let’s talk apples
and apples, which gets a little trickier.
My Infinite I pops out an apple in my hologram. Your Infinite
I pops out an apple in your hologram. Our two holograms interact; and
although you see your apple slightly differently than I see my apple, both
apples are sitting in the same location on a kitchen counter we both have in
our holograms.
I pick up the apple and eat it, and you watch. I say, “I’m
eating the apple,” and you say, “You’re eating the apple.” But now we’re back
to what Dr. Newberg said, that cross-referencing proves nothing. It is still
impossible to prove my eating the apple in your hologram, or your telling me
I’m eating the apple in my hologram, are evidence of any connection between the
two holograms.
As I said, it’s entirely possible the apple both of us see
sitting on the kitchen counter is part of the “Earth Environment” template our Infinite
I’s used to create this particular experience, and therefore common to both
your hologram and mine. But that still doesn’t mean your hologram and my
hologram are connected, or that you and I are “all one.”
Imagine sitting at a table in a restaurant having a
conversation with a friend of yours. What she is saying to you is a script
written for her to read by your Infinite I, to be part of your
holographic experience. What you are saying to her is a script written for you
to read by her Infinite I, to be part of her holographic
experience. Yet it appears that these two holograms are interacting.
Now imagine that in your hologram, the music playing in the
background is much too loud and annoying, disrupting your ability to hear and
concentrate on the conversation with your friend. Your friend, however, hardly
hears the music and has no problem with it. Your friend’s problem is that there
is man sitting at the next table who is chewing food with his mouth open,
making her sick. You see the man, but he doesn’t appear to be chewing with his
mouth open to you, and he doesn’t bother you.
So what’s happened here?
Each Infinite I has used the “Earth Environment”
template to create an experience for the two of you in this particular
restaurant, and both of you see essentially the same things: the tables and
chairs, wait staff, bar, drinks, food, etc. But each Infinite I has
custom-made the holographic experience for its own Player, adding little
personal touches here and there.
In your friend’s hologram, the music is literally not too
loud. It’s not just that she doesn’t hear it as too loud; it literally is not
too loud – a different volume entirely for her than for you. You might even
ask her if she doesn’t think the music’s too loud, and she would say, “No. It’s
fine.”
In your own hologram, the man is not chewing with his mouth
open at all. It’s not just that he is and it doesn’t bother you; he’s not. Your
friend might even ask you if it doesn’t bother you that the man is eating with
his mouth open, and you would say, “I didn’t notice.”
While they might be “interacting,” how can anyone try to say
these two separate holographic experiences are “connected,” or that you and
your friend are “all one”? At most, two interacting Players might be
experiencing the same “Earth Environment Template,” but that’s it.
There is even one philosophy that believes
the idea “we are all one” is a kind of hypnotic implant that is finally coming
to the surface to be seen as an error and cleared away.5
FOOTNOTES
ONE PLAYER PER INFINITE I?
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Question:
Is an Infinite I limited to having only one Player representing it in
the Human Game?
Answer: I can’t say for sure, of course, but probably
not.
Think about it this way….
An Infinite I has infinite power, infinite joy,
infinite wisdom, infinite abundance, infinite love, and an infinite desire
to play and express itself creatively. I can’t imagine, with the infinite
number of games to play in an infinite universe, an Infinite I would
limit itself to playing just one game – the Human Game on Earth – with just one
Player. But it’s possible.
Our egos would like us to think we’re very special – each
one of us – and that we must each have just one Infinite I that created
us and looks after us, and only us. But I doubt it. It would make more sense
that a unique and individual Infinite I would have a number of different
Players in a number of different games, perhaps even in a number of different
universes.
To take this one step further, it’s also possible a unique Infinite
I can have more than one Player on Earth at the same time! I had a friend
who was “remembering” (in trance) a lifetime during World War II when she was a
British soldier and got involved in a firefight with a German soldier. They
killed each other at the same time over a foxhole. As my friend’s “soul” left
her British soldier’s body, she “saw” the “soul” of the German soldier leave
its body as well; and to her great surprise, she realized they both belonged to
the same Infinite I!
Why not? An Infinite I is not limited to the number
of Players it can have in the Human Game, even simultaneously. Perhaps your
wife, or your husband, or your children, or your best friend, or your worst
enemy, is another Player from the same Infinite I. Won’t we all be
surprised to find out one day?!
But the fact that your Infinite I may also have another
Player – or more – does not affect your relationship with that Infinite I
at all. Just like a parent who has more than one child, there is not (or should
not be) any favoritism, any more or less love for one than another, any
dilution of the caring and the guidance and the energy for you as one of its
Players simply because there may be others.
In fact, each of us can actually think about our Infinite
I as our “own,” if somehow that makes things easier. It really doesn’t
matter. The possibility that you might “share” an Infinite I with
another Player has no relevance or bearing on how you play the Human Game. It
is interesting, however, to consider the possibility that the person causing
you the most discomfort in a particular holographic experience may, in fact, be
your “brother” or “sister” – that you share the same Infinite I!
PAST LIVES?
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Question:
What about past lives?
Answer: I love this question, because I believed in
past lives for about fifty years, before encountering quantum physics and the
truth of the Human Game model. Not only did I believe, but I had many
detailed “memories” of a number of those past lives.
But before we can talk about past lives, we have to talk
about time….
From the research in quantum physics, we know time does not
exist in The Field, where all experiences are created that make up the physical
universe. Space and time are created as part of a hologram – scientists would
say space/time is a “function of the hologram” – and therefore time is not
“real” in the same way the hologram is not “real.”
In fact, as many others like Seth1 and Eckart Tolle2 have
said over and over again, the only thing that’s “real” – or better, “relevant”
– is the present moment. This not only applies to “past lives,” but the “past”
in this present life as well, which should be self-evident when we see how
someone can change their past by getting new information or changing their perceptions
of what happened “back then.”
Einstein said “reality is merely an illusion – albeit a very
persistent one;” and it’s true that “reality” seems to have continuity, as one
moment blends into the next moment. But it’s also possible to look at those moments
as individual holograms coming quickly one after the other, like a movie
consists of one individual frame and then another in rapid succession.
Therefore, the “persistence” itself is illusory.
It’s even possible there actually is nothing except the present
moment, and that everything we consider to be the “past” is created in each
present-moment hologram.
Karl Pribram spent years trying to find the location of
“memory” in the brain and finally decided the brain itself was a hologram. So
what if “memory” really doesn’t exist at all? What if our “memory” of the
“past” is being created in the present-moment hologram instead? What if, when
we say someone is living in their past, the opposite is actually true: that
their past is living in their present?
So the “past” may be a “story” that is part of the present
hologram; and we are free to rewrite the ending to that story at any time by
changing our reactions and responses to the experience, letting go of the
judgments, beliefs, opinions, and fears. This is clear, and actually very
necessary, when you move into the second half of the Human Game. When the
judgment is dropped, for example, of how “bad” your childhood was, and you gain
appreciation and thankfulness for the perfection of those experiences in creating
limitation in the first half, the “past” changes dramatically. What’s actually
happening is that the story in your present hologram about the “past” is
changing. In essence, you are creating a new “past” in the present, since there
really is no “past” per se.
A good actor does this. If it’s not part of the script
itself, an actor will make up a past for their character, giving them a reason
– the “motivation” – for any line or action they have in the movie. But that
character’s past is not real and only exists in the present moment when the
actor is acting, using it to give background for how they deliver their lines.
Am I making myself clear? Since time is not real, all “past
memories” could actually be nothing more than parts of the present-time hologram
which fill in the storyline of our total immersion movie. What we call our
“history” – personal history, human history, even the history of our planet and
the physical universe – could simply be one small storyline in the current
“Earth Environment” template downloaded to a Player for its present-time
experience.
L. Ron Hubbard, in another one of his
genius moments, called these “service facsimiles” – “‘service’ because they
serve him; ‘facsimiles’ because they are in mental image picture form…. The service
facsimile is therefore a picture containing an explanation of self condition.”3
In other words, we may well be making up our “past” in the
present time to explain our current condition in life.
Believing in past lives was, at least for me, a very
important part of that process. I could use a past life as a reason for my
present-time behavior, just as we use a dysfunctional childhood to explain a
dysfunctional adult.
Quick example… I had so-called “memories” of being a pharaoh
in Egypt in the 14th century BC who was murdered by the priesthood
when he tried to take away their power. This explained why, in this present
life, I had done everything possible to get out of politics once I got elected,
believing on some level that rising up the political ladder would eventually
result in my death.
But for me, past lives explained more than just the
“negative” behavior in the present….
* * *
I had very little sailing experience in this life, limited
mainly to building and sailing a twelve-foot Sunfish in my teens, taking my
wife for a ride on a Hobie Cat on our honeymoon (bad idea!), and skippering a
42-foot Morgan from Los Angeles to Catalina to scuba dive with friends.
Then in 1994 I stepped onto the Kairos – an
eighty-foot wooden schooner – to be the cook for a year. But somehow I knew
exactly what to do and how to sail her perfectly – even single-hand her –
including how to tie all the standard sailing knots. Within a short time I was
replacing the captain when he went onshore for extended vacations, performing
difficult anchoring maneuvers in pitch dark, turning the ship 180 degrees in a
one-hundred-foot harbor, and sailing her precisely for three days and nights on
open ocean from the Canary Islands to Madeira.
The Kairos
I cannot explain my behavior from anything I experienced in
this lifetime. However, I had these “memories” of what I thought was a “past
life” as a merchant marine, sailing back and forth from Boston to the Mediterranean in the early 1900’s. There’s no question in my mind the knowledge and
expertise I had in “that life” was accessible to me in this life when I needed
and wanted it.
But if there is no “past” and therefore no “past lives” – if
we are making up our past in the present – how can I explain this behavior? How
could I know how to sail such a ship with virtually no experience?
There is another explanation, one that aligns nicely with
quantum physics.
Physicist Fred Alan Wolf wrote a book called Parallel
Universes: The Search for Other Worlds; and there is a major theory within
quantum physics called the “Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI).”
“Many-worlds claims to resolve
all the paradoxes of quantum theory since every possible outcome to every event
defines or exists in its own ‘history’ or ‘world.’ In layman's terms, this
means that there is a very large, perhaps infinite, number of universes and
that everything that could possibly happen in our universe (but doesn't) does
happen in some other universe(s)…. Prior to ‘many worlds,’ this [universe] had
been viewed as a single ‘world-line.’ Many-worlds rather views it as a
many-branched tree where every possible branch of history is realized.”4
Fred Alan Wolf said…
“What is a parallel universe?
Like an everyday universe it is a region of space and time containing matter,
galaxies, stars, planets and living beings. In other words, a parallel universe
is similar and possibly even a duplicate of our own universe. Not only in a
parallel universe must there be other human beings, but these may be human
beings who are exact duplicates of ourselves and who are connected to ourselves
through mechanisms only explainable using quantum physics concepts…. The
possibility exists that parallel universes may be extremely close to us,
perhaps only atomic dimensions away but perhaps in a higher dimension of space
– an extension into what physicists call superspace. Modern neuroscience
through the study of altered states of awareness, schizophrenia, and lucid
dreaming could be indications of the closeness of parallel worlds to our own.”5
In other words, there is speculation among very prominent
and respected quantum physicists that other worlds might exist simultaneously
with our world, and that we might have a connection to them. This opens to the
door to a fascinating theory about past lives….
I talked in Chapter Twenty-Six about the possibility an Infinite
I could have many Players representing it in many different Games, or even
within one Game, at one time. What if the “past lives” we think we remember are
not “past” at all, but happening now, in a parallel universe? What if an
Infinite I wanted to experience a number of different times and places
in the Human Game and created separate Players for those times and places? And
what if we, as Players in this space and time, had access to those other
Players in other spaces and times, and could receive information about them and
from them through the conduit of a mutual Infinite I?
I understand now that my life as a merchant marine was not a
“past life” at all, but a simultaneous life going on in a parallel universe,
and that the merchant marine is a Player just like me, but in a different time
and space; and he and I share the same Infinite I. From my perspective
it seems like I was able to tap into his life via our common Infinite I
and bring the information I needed through into mine.
I have other examples as well from my own
experience about the “many-worlds interpretation” of quantum physics. But first
I will relate a story about Jane Roberts who channeled the entity known as
Seth.6 Apparently one day while Jane was in her
trance and Seth was speaking, someone showed Seth a picture of Jane when she
was about twelve years old and asked if this was the Jane Roberts who was
sitting in front of them at that time. Seth said No, it was a picture of the
Jane Roberts who had gone on to become a nun. Seth explained that Jane had been
torn about her future when she was young, and part of her wanted to follow a
strict religious training. At the point of decision, “one Jane” went into
another universe and became a nun, and the Jane that was in front of the group
“stayed” in this universe, according to Seth.
My own experience was when I had to make a decision to go
into the Army and to Vietnam, or go to jail as a protestor. I really wanted to
go to jail, to stand on my principles and register my opposition to the war.
But my fiancé and my mother weren’t too keen on the idea, and I wound up
volunteering to become a Physician’s Assistant in the Army (to make sure I
never had to kill anyone). I now am certain there is a Stephen Davis in another
universe who went to jail instead, living out his life based on that decision.
Once I made one choice, the other choice played out in another “world.”
And why not? The whole point of the Human Game is for an Infinite
I to have as many experiences as possible of what it feels like to be
limited in power and joy and wisdom and abundance and love. Why shouldn’t an Infinite
I have many Players in the Game at one time? Why shouldn’t an Infinite I
explore all the various options that arise in the course of the Game for any
particular Player in many different simultaneous, parallel worlds?
The “many-worlds interpretation” basically says all possibilities
occur, in one universe or another, and Seth says – especially when faced with a
life-changing decision – both alternatives continue in parallel universes.
But perhaps the most interesting part of this is the
possibility of communication between the various Players. As we progress inside
the cocoon and restore conscious communication with our Infinite I, will
we have greater access to all the Players who share our Infinite I by
leaving behind the judgments and beliefs that currently block that communication?
It’s no wonder access was limited during the first half of the Game; but now
that we’re heading away from limitation, who knows what’s possible.
The bottom line is that it’s very likely your Infinite I
has many Players in many universes – including many Players in the Human Game
at many different times and places – and that what we have been calling “past
lives” are actually “present lives” occurring simultaneously.
This, of course, would completely change the idea of “past
lives” being some kind of progression of identities from which we are supposed
to learn “lessons,” which naturally brings up the question of Karma….
* * *
MOVIE SUGGESTION: Sliding
Doors, with Gwyneth Paltrow (1998)
FOOTNOTES
KARMA, CAUSE & EFFECT
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Question:
So what about karma?
Answer: As I’ve said all along, there is a grain of
truth in every philosophy, every religion, every spiritual path; but in the
first half of the Human Game, that truth had to be perverted to a greater or
lesser degree in order for a Player to experience limitations and restrictions
or the Game wouldn’t work.
In this case, the truth about karma has
been twisted in many ways until it means many different things to many
different people: “an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth1;”
“you reap what you sow2;” you will be rewarded
for being good and punished for your sins; you have to suffer retribution for
wrong done in previous lives; if you’re bad, you’ll come back as a lesser form
of life next time; if you do spiritually valuable acts, you deserve and can
expect good luck; or conversely, if you do harmful things, you can expect bad
luck.
You can see first-half “thinking” and “judgments” and
“beliefs” in every one of those concepts – clear evidence that karma, no matter
what it means, belongs inside the movie theater.
So what’s the truth about karma?
“Karma is not punishment or
retribution but simply an extended expression or consequence of natural acts.
Karma means "deed" or "act" and more broadly names the
universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction that governs all
life.”3
Karma, therefore, at its most basic level is “cause and
effect.”
Karma means if you do this, that will happen.
“Bad” karma is seen as having done something “wrong” in the past (or in a past
life) that will come back to you in the present or future for you to “work
out.” “Good” karma is seen as having done something “right” in the past (or in
a past life) that will come back to you in the present or future as a reward.
But if a Player can never do anything “wrong” – which is the
Truth – how could there ever be any karma to work out? Karma is simply another
belief that will fall by the wayside during your transition in the cocoon.
* * *
Actually, most Players in the Human Game hold the belief
that if I do this, that will happen, even if they don’t call it
karma. Most people just call it the “law of cause and effect”…
…except there is no “law of cause and effect.”
In truth, the “law of cause and effect” is nothing more than
a belief system, and, like space and time, is a function of the hologram and is
therefore not real.
Remember that “believing is seeing;” so if you believe in
the “law of cause and effect,” you will see it in action all around you.
But what if you don’t believe in the “law of cause
and effect?”
Various people over the years have
demonstrated what could be called a “total disregard” for the “law of cause and
effect.” Jesus, for example, ignored the law of cause and effect when he walked
on water4, or fed the multitude with a few fish
and some bread5, or healed the sick6 or raised the dead.7
Sai Baba apparently ignores the law of
cause and effect when he produces vibuti or jewelry out of thin air.8
In his book, The Holographic Universe, Michael Talbot
mentions other documented examples of lesser-known individuals demonstrating
feats outside the law of cause and effect. For example…
“[Biologist Lyall Watson was
investigating] one of the so-called Philippine psychic healers, but instead of
touching a patient, all he did was hold his hand about ten inches over the
person’s body, point at his or her skin, and an incision would appear
instantaneously. Watson not only witnessed several displays of the man’s
psychokinetic surgical skills, but once, when the man made a broader sweep with
his finger than usual, Watson [himself] received an incision on the back of his
own hand. He bears the scar to this day.”9
“One investigator, a member of
the Paris Parliament named Louis-Basile Carre de Montgeron, witnessed enough
miracles to fill four thick volumes on the subject…. In one instance a
convulsionaire bent back into an arc so that her lower back was supported by
‘the sharp point of a peg.’ She then asked that a fifty-pound stone attached to
a rope be hoisted to ‘an extreme height’ and allowed to fall with all its
weight on her stomach. The stone was hoisted up and allowed to fall again and
again, but the woman seemed completely unaffected by it. She effortlessly
maintained her awkward position, suffered no pain or harm, and walked away from
the ordeal without even so much as a mark on the flesh of her back.”10
Stories abound of yogis who can sleep on
a bed of nails without pain or evidence of skin damage11;
and there are perhaps some 5,000 members of the Pentecostal Holiness churches12 who show no effects from the bite of a poisonous
snake or from drinking poison.
Of course, the phenomenon of firewalking13 (made popular in the West by Tony Robbins) is nothing
more than convincing people to temporarily suspend their belief in the “law of
cause and effect,” and walk across hot coals which would normally “cause” burns
on the feet without suffering the “effects.”
In Chapter Twenty I talked about multiple
personality disorder and the large number of cases where the human body seems
to defy “cause and effect.” There are many other examples of diseases occurring
without any “cause,” or not occurring when the so-called cause is
present but the effect is not. If smoking “causes” cancer, for instance, how
can some people smoke their entire lives and never get cancer? If HIV “causes”
AIDS, how can thousands of people have lived for thirty years diagnosed
HIV-Positive, not take any medications and still be happy and healthy14?
The movie, The Matrix, was all about Neo learning to
break out of his belief in the “law of cause and effect.” There are two famous
scenes toward the end that demonstrate his success – first, when Neo is shot
close range with six bullets, seems to die temporarily, and then gets up again
to continue the fight; and then when he unravels the matrix and stops the
bullets coming at him, plucking one out of the air and looking at it, then
letting them fall on the ground in front of him.
Our tendency is to explain away these examples as
“supernatural,” when in fact they are simply occurring outside the belief
system of “cause and effect.”
A Course in Miracles says,
“This is a course in cause and not effect.”15
The great quantum physicist David Bohm
“argued that the way science viewed causality was also much too limited. Most
effects were thought of as having only one or several causes. However, Bohm
felt that an effect could have an infinite number of causes…. Bohm conceded
that most of the time one could ignore the vast cascade of causes that had led
to any given effect, but he still felt it was important for scientists to
remember that no single cause-and-effect relationship was ever really separate
from the universe as a whole.”16
But despite much evidence to the contrary, “cause and
effect” remains one of our most basic, most ingrained, and most unchallenged
belief systems; and its history goes way back to the beginning when our
Biblical ancestors, Adam and Eve, were told it was eating the apple that caused
them to get in trouble with The Lord.
“And he said, Who told thee
that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee
that thou shouldest not eat?”17
* * *
There is an interesting phenomenon I want to mention that,
on first glance, might appear to be “karma,” or “cause and effect,” but it’s
not.
As Players in the Human Game, we seem to experience similar
holograms from time to time. In fact, patterns of experiences seem to follow us
– in some cases, plague us – repeating over and over. A woman might constantly
attract a certain kind of man, an alcoholic who abuses her, for example. A man
might find himself getting fired from one job after another, always for the
same reason. I’m sure you’re aware of at least a few of your own patterns.
So what’s going on here?
One way to look at “karma” and “cause and effect” is that
we, as Players, can continue to experience similar holograms as long as we feel
like we’re victims of someone or something “out there” – the “effect” of
someone or something else that is the “cause,” until we have accepted the fact
we cannot be the “effect” of anyone or anything at any time; until we have let
go of the ideas of victim and perpetrator; until we no longer think the “cause”
is anywhere except with our own Infinite I.
This is even true in the beginning of the second half of the
Human Game, as our Infinite I creates situations for us similar to what
we encountered in the first half when we assigned power “out there,” to give us
the opportunity to “reclaim” that power and no longer see ourselves as the
“effect” in our holographic experiences.
In other words, “karma” could be seen as a series of
holographic experiences created and offered by an Infinite I to give the
Player the opportunity to assume full self-responsibility – 100% “cause” – for
their own reactions and responses.
On the original “grade chart” developed
by L. Ron Hubbard for Scientology in the 1970’s, the EP (“End Phenomenon,”
or end result) of the level called OT VIII was “at cause over life (matter,
energy, space and time).” This was revised in 198818
(after Hubbard’s death) since it was impossible to achieve using the techniques
offered by the Church; but it was a good thought to begin with.
And it is achievable; but part of the process of
getting there involves dealing with this belief in the “law of cause and
effect” and the judgment and fear beneath it.
As I said in Chapter Twenty-One, this is a tough one, and
I’m not finished with it myself. So that’s all I can say about it for now.
FOOTNOTES
TRUST
Back to the Table of Contents
Question:
Is it true, what L. Ron Hubbard once said, “On the day when we can fully trust
each other, there will be peace on Earth”?
Answer: No, not really, because the way he said it
makes it sound like we should be working to learn to trust each other, and if
we could succeed, we’d have peace on Earth.
That’s just another incorrect twist to the Truth that
happens inside the movie theater.
The intentional community I have been associated with for
over seventeen years has spent most of that time trying to learn to trust each
other, using various techniques and processes, such as “The Forum.” I can say
they’ve made some progress, and their community is perhaps more “peaceful” than
other places to live; but I can’t say they’ve gone very far.
Trusting each other, however, is not a goal to be worked
for; it’s a by-product – like Jed McKenna talked about “non-attachment.” It’s
something that happens as a result of something else.
The only thing anyone ever has to trust is their Infinite
I. If you trust your Infinite I, you automatically trust everyone
and everything in your holographic experiences, since your Infinite I
creates them all for you down to the smallest detail.
If you trust your Infinite I, and someone appears in
your hologram, you know you can trust them, too – trust them to read the movie
script written by your Infinite I word for word – since they are only
there at the request and approval of your own Infinite I.
In fact, it’s futile to spend time trying to trust each
other when there is always the possibility in the back of your mind that
someone “out there” could do something “bad” to you. If you fully trust your Infinite
I, you know that’s simply not possible.
Therefore, it would be more accurate to say, “On the day
when you can fully trust your Infinite I, you will experience peace on
Earth.”
Yes, individual peace is possible, regardless of what
is going on “out there” in your hologram. In fact, individual peace is the only
thing you have any control over through your free will to react and respond to
your holographic experiences. War and violence may be raging all around you,
and you can still be in peace because you fully trust your Infinite I
and the experiences it creates for you.
We could also say, on a larger scale, “On the day when we
all can fully trust our Infinite I’s, we will experience peace on
Earth.” But that will only happen one Player at a time, unilaterally trusting
their own Infinite I…
…which, as I said in Chapter Eighteen, is not something that
comes easily at first. We have spent many years not trusting our Infinite I,
blaming it for our condition in life, resisting the experiences it was creating
for us. It can take time to change that.
But if you use Robert’s Process and spiritual autolysis, and
let go of your judgments, beliefs, opinions, and fears – and especially the
layers of ego that want you to think you’re driving the bus – you will soon
know with certainty your Infinite I can be trusted, and in fact is the
only thing you ever need to trust. All else follows.
As the Holy Bible says…
“Therefore take no thought,
saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be
clothed? … for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these
things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all
these things shall be added unto you.”1
Paraphrased in the language of the holographic universe….
“Focus on trusting your Infinite I and know that it will
take care of all the rest.”
“But,” you ask, “are you saying I really do not have to do
anything? I mean, am I just supposed to sit back and trust that my Infinite
I will feed me, or clothe my family, or keep a roof over our heads and take
care of all our needs? Isn’t that being just a tad bit ‘irresponsible’?”
Well…. Yes, that’s what I’m saying; and No, it’s not
‘irresponsible’ at all, which of course would be a judgment and a belief, again
probably learned from the parents. After all, who else can create the hologram
with the food and clothes you and your family need, and the roof over your
heads, other than your Infinite I?
But I want to make sure we’re putting the emphasis on the
right word: “Do I really not have to do anything?” All you have
to do is be the Player and experience the holographic universe your Infinite
I creates for you. Nothing else.
I don’t want to give the impression that all a second half
Player does is sit around all day. That would be totally boring (unless it
brings you total joy to do so!). In fact, life in the cocoon is fuller and more
interesting and more active than ever. But instead of trying to “make something
happen,” or having goals or agendas or plans or objectives, you simply react
and respond moment by moment to the present circumstances created by your Infinite
I. In the second half, the only way you can live is in “reactive mode,” as
Robert Scheinfeld calls it.
By the word “reactive,” I also don’t want to imply that you
don’t make decisions. You do; sometimes even decisions that involve the future,
like scheduling to give a seminar, or agreeing on a date for a child’s wedding.
When a holographic experience appears in our “reality,” we are free to act on
it – to take whatever action is appropriate and necessary in that moment.
That’s a lot different than trying to “make something happen,” or believing we
must “do something” in order to have a life. An Infinite I probably has
a lot of interesting experiences planned for its Player – especially in the
second half of the Game – if we would stop trying to create our own lives and
trust our Infinite I to bring us a life we could only dream of, and
certainly are not capable of creating ourselves.
You’re reading this book, I assume, because you aren’t totally
happy with the way things are going in your life. I also assume you’ve
been trying to be the bus driver. Why not give your Infinite I a shot at
it – really trust it, let go and give it a chance?
You can start by experimenting with the three exercises I
outlined in Chapter Eighteen, doing only what it brings you joy for twenty-four
hours, not trying to make anything happen for twenty-four hours, and just
saying Yes to everything that appears in your hologram for twenty-four hours.
By the end of those three days, I have full confidence you will have enough
direct experience that your Infinite I can be trusted, and you will
start exercising that trust more and more.
All trust begins with trusting your own Infinite I.
FOOTNOTES
MONEY
Back to the Table of Contents
Question:
You must be rich to be having all the experiences you talk about – sailing,
traveling around Europe, scuba diving and stuff. How do you make money?
Answer: As I write these words, I have exactly $20 to
my name, total assets. I don’t think that qualifies for “rich.” But I’ve
already said I never worry about money at all, which is one of the reasons I
can give this book away for free on the Internet.
It’s more than that, really. It’s that I have an unlimited
supply of money to have whatever holographic experience comes up for me in each
moment; and so do you, although you don’t realize it yet.
But I don’t “make money.” No one makes money. We only think
we do. That’s part of the illusion inside the movie theater.
I realize money is one of the biggest issues for most people.
They can’t get enough of it; they can’t keep what they’ve got; and they have
tried everything to change that situation with very little success.
Worse than that, actually, they have been promised there is a
“secret” to “attracting” money; but they follow the steps religiously and it
doesn’t work. So they blame themselves for not doing the “magic” just right. As
one student told me, “I’ve tried to use The Secret and the ‘Law of
Attraction’ and other self-help techniques to manifest money, but they didn’t
work. I’m still broke, so there must be something wrong with me, or I must be
doing something wrong.”
Here’s the real secret: The problem is not the person – not
you; it’s the “magic” that doesn’t work most of the time for most people. It’s
that we have developed this false knowledge about money and where it comes from
while inside the movie theater, and it’s time to find out how money really
works in a holographic universe.
* * *
As I was doing my Holographic Universe workshops in Europe, I started collecting different beliefs the participants had about money. What
follows is a list of the major ones. Which ones do you think are true or false
for you?
~ I have to earn money
~ I have to work for money
~ I can’t afford everything I want
~ There’s a limited supply of money available to me
~ Every time I spend money, my supply of money decreases
~ Nothing I really want is free
~ If I want more money, I have to work harder, or smarter,
or deliver more value
~ I’ve got to have a plan to make money, invest it wisely,
and build wealth over time
~ If I have money, I have to protect it or I could lose it
~ I have to be “responsible” with my money
~ I must be fully, totally, and truly committed to making
money
~ There’s never enough money
~ There’s something “dirty” about money and those who have a
lot of it
~ Money is the root of all evil
~ The rich get richer and the poor get poorer
~ More money is better
~ Money doesn’t grow on trees
~ Some have the “gift” of making money and others don’t
~ Money doesn’t come easy
~ You can’t have money and be spiritual
~ Money comes from “out there,” and you have to go “out
there” to get it and bring it “in here” to you
So, how many of these beliefs did you think were True? All
of them? Half of them? A few of them?
My favorite on this list is “money doesn’t grow on trees.” I
used to hear that a lot when I was young; and it always puzzled me, because….
Yes, it does grow on trees. Money is made of paper, and paper is made
from trees! So that one is False.
Would it surprise you to know none of the list above
is True? Not one – not in a holographic universe. They are all beliefs people
have about money, “stories” they make up to explain why they think they don’t
have enough money, or can’t make more money, or in many ways feel like they are
a victim of the “money game.” Repeat: All of these beliefs are false in a
holographic universe, which should be expected since they were all formed while
inside the movie theater.
Let’s take a closer look at why they’re all false….
Remember that consciousness creates
everything from The Field. Your Infinite I is consciousness;
therefore, your Infinite I is creating everything you experience in your
holographic universe as the Player, down to the smallest detail.
Look at this picture again carefully….
The Player is on the other side of The Field, from which all
things are created. All power resides in the Infinite I, and a Player
has no power to create anything.
Said the other way, everything we have, everything we see,
everything we experience has been created for us by our Infinite I’s.
This is the first and most important concept to understand,
especially about money. But it’s also the most difficult for the ego to accept.
The ego would like to think the Player could create something, manifest something,
make something happen. But it’s simply not possible in a holographic universe,
since we – the Players – are on the other side of The Field, with and in the
hologram. Only an Infinite I can create a hologram, and only an Infinite
I can create money in that hologram.
But if an Infinite I chooses certain specific
experiences from The Field it wants its Player to have – and the only reason an
Infinite I would create a Player is for that Player to have experiences
– wouldn’t the Infinite I also give its Player all the tools it needs to
have those experiences as well? Does it make sense any Infinite I – with
infinite resources at its disposal – would want its Player to have a certain
experience and then not give it everything it needs to have that experience,
including all the money required, especially since the Player has no power to
create anything on its own?
So the first thing to understand about money is that it is
created by your Infinite I, and if your Infinite I wants you to
have any particular holographic experience, it will have to provide all the
money you need to have that experience as well.
(The exception to this, of course, is if your Infinite I
wants you to experience not having money for some reason; but it’s still
providing all the money you need for that experience, even though “all the
money you need” might mean “not enough” as far as you are concerned.)
* * *
It’s true most Players think they “make money,” and they
have developed all kinds of beliefs about how that money has to be “made” – by
working, by selling something, by getting loans or gifts, by inheritance – by
many different methods.
The truth is the Infinite I is the one who creates
the money for its Player; but it can only “send” that money to its Player in
ways that the Player thinks it can receive it. This is where the Player’s
beliefs come in.
So let’s look again at that list of beliefs about money we
had above….
~ I have to earn money
~ I have to work for money
~ I can’t afford everything I want
~ There’s a limited supply of money available to me
~ Every time I spend money, my supply of money decreases
~ Nothing I really want is free
~ If I want more money, I have to work harder, or smarter,
or deliver more value
~ I’ve got to have a plan to make money, invest it wisely, and
build wealth over time
~ If I have money, I have to protect it or I could lose it
~ I have to be “responsible” with my money
~ I must be fully, totally, and truly committed to making
money
~ There’s never enough money
~ There’s something “dirty” about money and those who have a
lot of it
~ Money is the root of all evil
~ The rich get richer and the poor get poorer
~ More money is better
~ Money doesn’t grow on trees
~ Some have the “gift” of making money and others don’t
~ Money doesn’t come easy
~ You can’t have money and be spiritual
~ Money comes from “out there,” and you have to go “out
there” to get it and bring it “in here” to you
If you happen to have any of these beliefs and think they
are true, then that’s the only way your Infinite I can “send” you money,
since you will only be able to perceive that money based on your beliefs.
An Infinite I could create a million dollars in a
Player’s bank account “out of thin air,” and the Player would think it was
“some kind of mistake” if their beliefs say it can’t happen that way, or think
they can only get money in other ways.
One woman owed her bank $10,000. One day she got a statement
saying her balance was $0. She immediately called the bank, which was very
quick to agree with her that it was definitely a mistake and sent her a new
statement restoring the $10,000 balance. (True story.)
Another woman, who understands how money works in a
holographic universe, owed her bank $30,000. When she received a statement that
her balance was $0, she simply expressed her deepest appreciation to her Infinite
I and went on with her life. (True story.)
I like to call these beliefs we have about money, “stories.”
A Player needs a “story” to explain how they get money. The Infinite I
needs no “story” to explain its creation of money; only the Player, with its
limited mind and limited beliefs and limited thinking, needs a “story” to
receive it.
This is exactly how it is supposed to be in the first half
of the Human Game, because requiring a story creates a lot of limitation. If
there are only a few ways you believe you can get money – earning it, winning
it, or inheriting it, for example – then there are severe limitations put on
how you can get money and how much you can get.
The Infinite I has no such limitations on how much
money it can create for its Player; and in the second half of the Human game –
when a Player is no longer exploring how limited it can become – it is time to
leave behind all the beliefs, all the stories we have made up about money.
Notice I said “leave behind all the beliefs.” I didn’t say,
“change the beliefs;” and this is a very important point.
All these self-help techniques, all these “secrets” someone
tries to share with you about manifesting more money and more cars and more…
everything, are all based on several skewed premises, which is why they don’t
work for most people most of the time. For instance…
~ They say you have the power to manifest anything you want.
You don’t. It’s that simple. Despite what your ego wants you to believe, only
your Infinite I can manifest something in your holographic experience;
not you.
~ They say you can attract money and cars and such into your
life by meditating or praying or visualizing them, or repeating certain
affirmations. You can’t; at least, not on a consistent basis. (We’ll talk more
in a minute about why this might work occasionally.)
~ They say all you have to do is to change your beliefs,
like the “power of positive thinking.”
What’s wrong with the “power of positive thinking?” Again,
nothing “wrong” with it. It’s perfect for the first half of the Human Game
because it leads into such limitation; first, because it’s “thinking,” which
belongs to the first half while “feeling” belongs to the second half; secondly,
because the Player has no “power;” and thirdly, because it simply trades one
belief for another.
True, a positive thought might be “better” than a negative
thought if you’re in the first half of the Human Game. But in the second half,
that’s a judgment; and as we’ve seen, judgments keep us limited.
Underneath all beliefs are judgments. If there was no
judgment, there would be no need for a belief and it would cease to exist. But
if you try to “change your beliefs” without changing the judgment, nothing
really changes at all. You’re just substituting one belief for another while
the judgment remains intact.
If there really were a “secret” to manifesting everything we
want, it would work for all the people who use it all the time. The actual
result from all this self-help is that when it doesn’t work – which means for
most people most of the time – the person feels worse about themselves than
when they started, thinking there is something wrong with them, that they can’t
do it “right,” that they’re deficient or defective somehow. The ironic perfection
is that’s exactly what every first-half technique or religion or theory is
designed to do – make you feel more limited.
So I am not suggesting you “change your beliefs” at all. I’m
suggesting you see your beliefs for what they are – limiting filters on your
perceptions – and leave them behind altogether. Even in the powerful example
Dr. Lipton used in his seminar, where people saw one picture of FEAR with one
set of glasses and another picture of LOVE with another set of glasses, it was
still trading one filter for another; and neither filter allowed you to see the
whole picture.
As Players in the second half of the Human Game, we don’t
need beliefs; we don’t need stories. What we need to do now is to see the whole
picture – both FEAR and LOVE – end our judgments of both of them, and – like
Triumph and Disaster – start to “treat those two imposters just the same.”
* * *
We talked in Chapter Twenty-Four about “virtual reality”….
If part of your computer-generated “virtual reality”
experience was to look at your bank account and see a million dollars in it, I
wonder whether you would say, “This must be a mistake. I didn’t earn that
money.” Most likely you would realize it was created out of thin air by the
designer of your “virtual reality” experience and would not need to figure out
how it got there. In fact, you would know how it got there.
But according to quantum physics, life itself is a “virtual
reality” experience, a holographic universe created for us by our Infinite
I’s. If we, as Players, would stop needing some “story” about how money can
come to us, it would take away all the limitations we put on receiving money
and make the Infinite I’s job so much easier.
* * *
One question I hear a lot from friends, especially
peaceworkers…. “How do we get our Infinite I’s to create more money for
us, since we want to do ‘good’ things with it?”
The answer may be difficult for some people to take: “The
question itself is a lot of the reason you may be having trouble.”
Why? First of all, the thought that you
“want to do ‘good’ things with money” is still a judgment. In fact, there’s
even one group who thinks there is something innately “wrong” with money and
that it needs to be “humanized,”1 which they
would be happy to do if you just give it to them.
As far as your Infinite I is concerned, there are not
“good” things or “bad” things that can be done with money. Money – like
everything else – is neutral. Money does not need to be “spiritualized,” or
“humanized,” or “purified” by using it for “all the right reasons.” There are
no “right ways” or “wrong ways” to use money; that’s just another judgment to
let go of.
As you recall, in the first half, the game was to see how
much limitation a Player could experience on the outside so the Infinite I
could have an “inner experience.” That means the Infinite I can use
money, for example, as a tool to create limitation. For some people, it might
mean not having much money, or none at all. That alone can produce a great deal
of limitation. For other Players, their Infinite I might choose to give
them all the money they can have – even more than they can spend – and
experience the limitations that come with wealth, like realizing that peace and
joy are not the result of having a lot of money. I’m sure you know people who
are wealthy but very unhappy at the same time. In fact, having money can often
be more limiting than not having it.
Or maybe an Infinite I gives its Player money, and
they lose it and experience limitation that way. Or maybe a Player is very
comfortable financially, but something happens to the economy and the Player
feels victimized by “powers beyond its control” when the fortune they think
they worked so hard to create is suddenly gone. All of these possibilities and
more can lead to limiting experiences in the first half of the Game.
The bottom line is that it is the Infinite I who
decides how much money you’re going to have based on the experiences it wants
you to have and the best way it decides it can create those experiences.
That’s true in the second half of the Human Game as well.
In the second half the Infinite I wants you to enjoy
infinite abundance, and that includes having all the money you want and need.
But this isn’t going to mean that as soon as you start playing the Second Half
your bank account is automatically going to be full to overflowing, because you
still have judgments about money that you developed in the first half, and
beliefs about how you can get that money that have to be dealt with. Better
said, in the first half of the Game you assigned a lot of power “out there” in
relationship to money – who creates it, what you have to do “out there” to
bring it “in here,” and so on; and as we’ve discussed, the first thing you will
be doing in the second half is having experiences that show you where you have
assigned this power in order for you to “reclaim” it and recognize the true
source of abundance – your Infinite I.
* * *
So can we just ask our Infinite I for money, or pray
for it? Yes, you can. You can send a message to your Infinite I in any
way you feel is appropriate that you would like some money. You should feel
free at any time to let your Infinite I know your wishes – which it
probably already does, but it doesn’t matter. Ask anyway.
By the way, you only need to ask once. Your Infinite I
will hear you the first time and doesn’t need a reminder! Asking more than once
looks a lot like a judgment that something’s wrong because you haven’t gotten
it yet. Remember, your Infinite I may decide not getting what you
ask for is the most appropriate experience for you and it, even in the second
half; so you cannot have any expectations attached to your request when you
ask, no need to have you wish fulfilled. Perhaps your Infinite I has
something else in store that might make you even more joyful and more abundant
than what you were asking for!
This was certainly true for me. My Infinite I knew
how much I loved the ocean, and sailing, and whales and dolphins. I often
dreamt of living on a boat, but I had no money to make that happen. Instead of
giving me a couple million dollars, my Infinite I created an experience
for me sailing around the east Atlantic Ocean on an eighty-foot sailboat with
some of my best friends, swimming with the whales and dolphins, playing music,
and having the time of my life for a year; and it didn’t cost me a penny. I
could never have created that on my own, or even thought about that
possibility.
So why ask for money in the first place? If you want to ask
for something, why not ask instead for what you know you’re going to get anyway
– whatever experiences your Infinite I wants you to have, along with all
the money needed for those experiences; and if you’re still in the phase of
recognizing where you have assigned power “out there” about money, you really
should be asking for experiences when you don’t get the money you want
so you can clearly see the limiting judgments and beliefs you still have about
money.
“But wait a minute,” a good friend says to me. “I decided I
wanted a motorcycle; so I used The Secret, visualized what I wanted, and
I got one!”
Fantastic! I am sincerely happy for you and glad you got
what you wanted. But I have to disagree with you about how you got it, since
you have no power to create anything, and neither does some secret law of
attraction. Only your Infinite I could create a motorcycle for you, and
I can think of a lot of other explanations of how and why you got what you
wanted.
For example, since I know you, I know what a really good man
you are; and if I were your Infinite I, I would give you a motorcycle
too, just to reward you for what a great job you’re doing as my Player. I can
also imagine it happened the other way around – that your Infinite I
wanted you to have a motorcycle, and has wanted that for a long time, but your
beliefs made it difficult to get one for you until you decided you could
“manifest” one using a secret formula. (That, by the way, is the one benefit of
The Secret and the “Law of Attraction” – that you expand your beliefs
about how things can come into your reality.)
Or maybe your Infinite I wanted you to begin to
realize that it was the source of all your experiences, and deepen the
connection and communication with you; and the best way it could find to do
that was give you a motorcycle, and then later give you this paragraph in this
book to let you know where it really came from.
The possibilities are endless. The only possibility that is not
possible (what?!) is that you “manifested” the motorcycle, because it
simply cannot be something you did independent of a holographic
experience created by your Infinite I. Recognizing that fact is an
important step to take in the cocoon.
Despite what the ego would like us to believe – that we have
the power to create a motorcycle, for example, or money, or a house, or
anything because of something we, as a Player, did – this is one of those
beliefs inside the movie theater that can only lead further into limitation. By
design, it’s important the Player misassign the true source of its
experiences in the first half or the illusion would be broken and the Game
would be up.
As I said, since I know you, I also know you’ve tried to
manifest other things before using this same “secret,” and they haven’t worked.
What’s important to understand is that it wasn’t you who did anything wrong in
those other cases. In fact, you – and all of us – have done everything
perfectly as Players, whether we realize it or not. The techniques we have used
to try to make our experiences different are what do not work. Yes, they all contain
some truth and some workability some of the time for some people; but they are
anywhere from slightly skewed to way off target in order to make the first half
of the Game possible.
* * *
Now that we’re playing in the second half, the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth can be revealed; and as Players we will
be given new opportunities to experience something very different. For
instance, off the top of my head I can think of six general ways in which we
blocked the flow of money in the first half of the Human Game that we might
have to take a close look at in the second half in order to start behaving in
the opposite way:
1. Having judgments and beliefs about money
2. Wanting money because you think something has to be
fixed, changed or improved in your experiences or “out there”
3. Thinking you have the power to create money
4. Thinking you have to “do something” to get money
5. Thinking money has to have a “story” of how it comes to
you
6. Not trusting the Infinite I
We’ve talked a lot about most of these already, so let me
just make a few additional comments….
I know so many people who want money because they want
something “out there” to be different. Maybe it’s to save the whales, or end
poverty or hunger, or create world peace. Noble thoughts, all of them; but
still judgments that something’s wrong and needs to be fixed, changed or
improved. Remember that the whales, poverty, hunger, war and violence are
showing up in your holographic experience, created by your Infinite I,
for a reason. In the first half of the Game, the reason was to create more
limitation. In the second half, it’s to show you where you assigned power “out
there” and forgot the fact your Infinite I was creating everything in
your hologram and none of it was “real.” So in the second half it’s doubtful
your Infinite I – who wants only infinite joy and abundance for you –
will financially support the continuation of these first-half judgments.
One of the biggest beliefs to let go of is that we, as
Players, not only have the power to create money, but that we have to go out
and “do something” in order to get it – in other words, to be “pro-active,”
especially when it comes to money. But, literally, there is nothing we can do.
Our Infinite I is doing it all for us, and our only part is to leave
behind our judgments and beliefs and therefore be more able to receive the
abundance trying to come our way.
The fact is that we only think we have to do something
because we have these made-up stories of how money can get to us. When we let
go of those stories, money can start to flow in many different ways we can
hardly imagine. Let me offer two examples (based on actual experiences) from a
different gender perspective, beginning with "ladies first"....
Your parents are about to celebrate their fiftieth wedding
anniversary, and you've been working for months to collect pictures of them
since they were very young to make into a movie celebrating their lives
together. You found the final picture you wanted last night, and now you're ready
to start creating the video.
There is this really cool software program you ran across on
the Internet to make videos with music and voice-over and animation and
everything, and it costs $119.95. When you paid your credit card bill last
time, you knew you only had about $150 in available credit, and you also need
some new shoes for work. But you are so excited about this gift for mom and dad
that you decide to buy the software anyway and worry about the shoes later.
The video is a total success and your parents are very
touched.
When your credit card statement arrives, you still have $150
available credit. This doesn't make sense. You look and see your credit limit
had not been raised; and then you notice the charge for the software program is
not on the statement, although you had received confirmation of the charge from
the company.
Concerned that the company had not actually been paid, and
not wanting to do anything unethical, you call them. "Yes, we received
payment for your purchase. No problem."
So you decide to wait, expecting the $119.95 charge to be on
the next credit card statement. But it's not. Nor is it on the next month's.
You really need those shoes by now, so you purchase them on
the same credit card. They don't show up on the next few statements either. In
fact, none of the charges you make on this credit card are showing up on any
statements, although the merchants and vendors are getting paid.
Finally, as a second half Player, you realize your Infinite
I is creating money for you in a new and very inventive way, and you
express your deep appreciation.
* * *
And now from a male perspective....
You decide to go out to dinner with some friends, and you
look in your wallet and see you’ve got $10. You get to the restaurant, look at
the menu, and your mouth waters when you read about a T-bone steak. Your entire
body is filled with joy at the thought of eating this T-bone, and your
excitement grows with each passing minute.
Then you see the price of the steak: $14. You remember you
only have $10. Next you remember the news story last night that red meat is bad
for you, and you decide you really shouldn’t eat the steak anyway. Then you
look across the table at a woman you have been dying to hook-up with and
realize she’s a vegetarian who only eats organic food; and since you want to
impress her, you don’t want the steak after all. With each new thought, your
excitement level goes down and down, until you’re no longer happy you came to
dinner.
Finally you decide on a Caesar salad (with no grilled
chicken), which costs $7, so you’ll have a little left for a drink and tip and
tax. But no beer, because your doctor said you have to lose weight, although
now you really want one.
You leave the restaurant an hour later, without the woman of
your dreams, sad and lonely and unsatisfied, and $10 poorer. On top of that,
the Caesar salad was terrible and the waitress was rude. You regret the whole
evening.
Or…
You decide to go out to dinner with some friends, and you
look in your wallet and see you’ve got $10. You get to the restaurant, look at
the menu, and your mouth waters when you read about a T-bone steak. Your entire
body is filled with joy at the thought of eating this T-bone, and your
excitement grows with each passing minute.
Then you see the price of the steak: $14, but you remind
yourself your Infinite I wants you to follow your excitement and joy,
and will reward you when you do now that you’re playing the second half of the
Human Game. So you order the steak, and a beer.
The woman sitting across from you eating her baked potato
and broccoli leans over and whispers, “Strange... I really wanted a steak
tonight, too. I wish I had ordered that!” After dinner, saying she really
enjoys being around you because you’re such a free and happy person, she gives
you her phone number. The whole night was a total success; the food was
prepared perfectly, and the service was impeccable. Best of all, you wake up
the next morning having lost a couple pounds.
But wait! How did you pay for the steak? When the bill came,
you looked in your wallet and there was $20, not $10. Well, you think, you must
have miscounted before you left the house.
Maybe. But just maybe your Infinite I changed your
hologram and downloaded $20 into your wallet instead of $10 when it was clear you
weren’t going to let your judgments and beliefs get in the way of your
excitement. After this happens to you a few more times, you finally accept the
fact your Infinite I has found another way to create money for you.
Do this a few times – give your Infinite I the
opportunity to support your excitement financially – and your life will never
be the same. Soon you’ll be “finding” money in places you never dreamed of,
receiving money in ways you never thought possible, and forgetting to look at
your bank balance because you know it’s not real anyway and can be changed in
the twinkling of an Infinite I.
* * *
"Are you serious? Does this really work?”
Yes, it does. At least, it has for me and many other people
I know who understand how money works in a holographic universe. I’m not saying
I always have a lot of money in my pocket or in my bank account. But I know
without a doubt I have access to an unlimited supply of money through my Infinite
I, and that I will always have all the money I need to have the experiences
my Infinite I wants; and that’s a fantastic place to be, because I never
have to worry about money again.
It’s really pretty simple… if my Infinite I wants me
to have an experience, it will give me all the money needed for that
experience. If I, as the Player, think I want to have an experience, but my Infinite
I disagrees with me, the money won’t be available no matter what I might
try to make happen. You can’t get any simpler than that!
But I don’t think that’s really the question. Most probably
the real question on your mind is, “Will this work for you?”
Specifically, in the first half of the Human Game, we
believed we had to be “pro-active,” believed we had to “do something” to “make
something happen.” Out of that belief came others related to money, like having
to work for it, or go “out there” and get it, or make other people give it to
us in one form or another. In fact, the only ways we thought we could get money
were totally dependent on other people, to whom we assigned a lot of power. In reality,
even in the first half, our Infinite I was creating all the money we
were getting as part of the holograms it downloaded to our brains, the amount
of money limited of course by our judgments and beliefs about the ways it could
come to us. It just looked like we were “making money.” It just looked
like we were dependent on other people to give it to us.
In the second half, we can leave all that behind with the
absolute certainty that all the money we need for any experience will be part
of any hologram our Infinite I downloads to us.
But please don’t misunderstand. I’m not suggesting that all
you do in the second half is sit in your chair and wait for the money to be
magically deposited into your bank account, unless that’s what brings you the
most joy and all you’re motivated to do at that moment. I am suggesting
that whatever you feel excited to do, whatever brings you joy, is where you
should focus all your attention and energy, rather than doing something that
doesn’t bring you joy because you feel you “have to make money.” Maybe the
resentment and other discomfort you feel working at a job you don’t like simply
for the money is your Infinite I’s way of saying “Stop it!” and find out
what excites you to do the most, regardless of the money.
The only thing stopping most people from doing just that is
fear. But who knows? Perhaps what really excites you would bring in more money
than whatever job you hate now.
There’s only one thing I can guarantee you, based on my own experience
and the results of testing and challenging this model: Once you’ve processed
your judgments, beliefs, opinions, and fears about money, your Infinite I
will have a much easier job getting the money to you to follow your excitement;
and you will grow to trust your Infinite I completely that it will
provide all the money you need to have the experiences it wants.
* * *
I could give you quite a few examples from my own life when
money appeared in my bank account or my wallet for absolutely no reason –
exactly the amount I needed to do something, and exactly right on time – with
the paperwork to prove it; and I have no idea where the money came from. In
fact, now I’m so used to money showing up out of thin air that I’m no longer
surprised when it does.
However, an Infinite I’s financial support doesn’t
always take the form of cash or credit card charges that never show up on the
statement. Sometimes your Infinite I, in its infinite wisdom and power,
has a better way to create an experience for you that you thought was going to
take cash. The year I spent on the whale and dolphin research ship is a good
example, where it didn’t cost me a penny, nor did I have to find a half-million
dollars to build the ship.
I will admit, however, there are times I wonder how my Infinite
I is going to “pull this one off.” For example, it became very obvious
recently that my Infinite I wanted me to go back to the United States for a while. I don’t yet fully understand why, or for how long; and I was
very surprised because I am so happy living in Europe. But it seemed like the
flow was in the direction of “home” from reading all the ripples in the
Universal ocean, including almost magical “coincidences” of finding the perfect
flight at the perfect time for the perfect price. But I still didn’t have the money
to pay for the ticket.
I wasn’t worried about where the money was coming from. In
fact, if the money didn’t show up, I would simply have understood that I was
reading the ripples incorrectly and I wasn’t supposed to go back to the States
after all. But I did wonder, when the ripples became clear, how my Infinite
I was going to come up with a fairly large sum of money this time.
In the past, as I said, it has just “appeared” in my bank
account, and I expected something similar in this case. But that’s not what
happened. Instead, a friend loaned me the money. Normally I don’t like
borrowing money from people. I used to do that inside the movie theater, but
hadn’t since I walked out the back door, making it clear to my Infinite I
that I wasn’t totally comfortable with that method of getting money to me – a
judgment of mine about “other people’s” money.
However, my Infinite I chose this opportunity for me
to let go of this particular belief on how money can come to me, letting me see
the judgments and fears and layers of the ego underneath, and reminding me
“other people” are in my hologram “to set something in motion to support me.”
In fact, I could accept this “loan” from my friend because I also knew with
certainty it was what his Infinite I wanted to happen for him, although
I may never know why.
* * *
Here’s the best way I can come up with to explain this in a
nutshell….
We’re playing a very sophisticated video game, using the
“Earth Environment” template, but designed uniquely for each Player by their Infinite
I. That Infinite I has certain experiences it wants its Player to
have – “outer experiences” in order for the Infinite I to have the
“inner experiences.”
In most good video games, a Player needs certain things to
play, stay alive, and make it to the final destination – such as weapons,
ammunition, energy packs, special tools or skills, keys, clues, and so on. In
our video game, we need a lot of things as well, but mostly we need money so we
can buy everything else.
In a video game, the designer creates everything and makes
it available during the game so all the player has to do is find it and grab it
and add it to their inventory. In our video game, the same thing is true. All
the money we need to play, stay alive, and make it to our final destination is
created by our Infinite I – since we, as a Player have no power to
create anything – and it’s all right there for the Player to take.
So it’s the job of the Infinite I to create the money
we need and make it available. It’s the job of the Player to find it and grab
it. “Finding it,” however, is made difficult when the Player believes the money
can only be in certain locations, and they can only get it if they work for it
or win it or inherit it or….
When a Player lets go of these belief systems about money,
they can begin to see it in many different places and their Infinite I
can make it more easily available. But it’s still the Player’s job to reach out
and take the money. That’s what’s meant about a Player having total free will
over their reactions and responses to the experiences created for them. I could
have, for instance, not taken the loan from my friend to buy my airline
ticket back to the States, choosing instead to hang on to my judgment and
belief about “other people’s” money. In that case I would not have been able to
ride the ripple and follow the flow in the direction my Infinite I was
offering.
So there are two basic reasons I can give for this
phenomenon I experience with money. First, I have let go of virtually all my
judgments and beliefs about money; and secondly, I have taken off almost all
the limits on the ways my Infinite I can get that money to me, giving it
many more possibilities. I will admit, however, having money just appear in my
outstretched hand would still freak me out. Maybe one day….
FOOTNOTES
THE EGO
Back to the Table of Contents
Question:
You’ve been pretty hard on the ego throughout this book. Isn’t that a judgment
in itself?
Answer: Excellent point, and I’m glad for the chance
to clarify it.
First, let’s make sure we agree on what we mean by the
“ego,” since that word has been used a lot and means different things to
different people.
In this book I have used “ego” to mean the personality
construct we create while playing the Human Game. It is composed of many layers
of false identities we assume as we encounter the limiting and restricting
holographic experiences in the first half.
In fact, the ego is what allows us to play the first half of
the Game; otherwise we could not form our judgments, beliefs, and opinions and
fulfill our purpose for the Infinite I.
All of our fears, for example – with the fear of non-existence
as the most basic – are the result of some threat to one or more layers of the
ego, which fights back for its very existence.
In that sense, we can express great appreciation to the ego
for the role it has performed so well while in the movie theater. It, too, was
as perfect as everything else in our holographic experience.
The process inside the cocoon, as I have described it, is
becoming aware of all these layers of the ego – the false identities we have
assumed – and letting go of them. It’s a process of finding out who we are not,
and then ultimately finding the true answer to who we are.
But we have assigned the ego a lot of power during the first
half of the Human Game, and we have rewarded it time and time again for the
good job it has done, to the point that it seems to have taken on a life of its
own.
In his Enlightenment Trilogy,1 Jed McKenna actually personifies the ego, making it
female and calling it “Maya”….
“the goddess Maya, architect of this magnificent palace
of delusion…”
“Maya – goddess of confusion and misdirection…”
“Maya, Lord of the Prison of Duality…”
Jed speaks a lot in terms of fighting a battle with Maya on
the road to becoming a butterfly…
“Maya, goddess of delusion, has been doing her job with
supreme mastery since the first spark of self-awareness flickered in some
monkey’s brainbox…”
“This is Maya’s house. She controls everything. She has
every advantage. We are patients in Maya’s asylum ….”
“Thumb through any magazine, flip through the channels of
the TV, go wherever there are people, and you’ll see nothing but a morbidly
juvenile, fear-infected, stunted, runtish race over which Maya reigns supreme
and unchallenged….”
…and Jed seems to think Maya will win a lot of the time…
“You think you’re on top of something, but the only thing
to be on top of is Maya, and she’s on top of you like a house on a mouse….”
“This is the one true war of which all others are but
shadows, and for which all other conflict is but a metaphor. In the short term,
Maya almost always crushes the rebellion. By my estimate, her win/loss ratio is
better than 100,000,000:1.”
It should not surprise anyone that when you begin to
dismantle the ego in the cocoon, the ego will fight back. It knows it is
literally fighting for its life, because if you follow through with the Process
and spiritual autolysis, the end result is its virtual annihilation. (We will
never eliminate the ego completely as long as we have a body and play the Human
Game.)
But we should not make the mistake of judging or blaming the
ego, or view the transformation into a butterfly as an all-out war with the
ego. After all, the ego is simply another piece of the hologram that isn’t
real, but only looks and feels real; and it has played its part perfectly in
our holographic experiences just like anything and anyone else we have
encountered while playing the Human Game. Any other approach will continue to
assign power to the ego it does not possess on its own.
“Fear of truth is the foundation upon which Maya’s Palace of Delusion is erected. She has no power but that we give her.”
“Viewed this way, the idea that Maya is evil, that
delusion is negative, that the dreamstate is a prison, or that the dualistic
universe is anything other than the grandest and most wonderful of all
blessings is laughably absurd. Why hate Maya? Where would you be without her?”
* * *
If you planned a walking tour from Maine to Florida, starting in January, the first thing you’d do would be to put on some warm
clothes. As you walked, and the temperature went down even more, you’d keep
adding layers of clothes to keep you warm. But by the time you got to South Carolina in April, you’d start taking off those layers, one by one, since you no
longer need them to protect you from the weather. Once you hit Florida, you would have discarded almost every piece of clothing you had.
I doubt you’d curse those clothes or consider them to have
been “wrong.” More likely you would appreciate the warmth they provided you, be
grateful to have had them, and thank each piece as you threw it away for the
role it had played on your successful trip.
* * *
In Chapter Sixteen I mentioned a good friend who had been in
his cocoon for about a year and a half, making some real progress, when his ego
– Maya – began fighting back with a vengeance. As we all do, he was
experiencing holograms that brought back to life the more difficult judgments,
beliefs, opinions and fears he had formed inside the movie theater during his
first-half years; and when the going got tough, he didn’t seem to like how he
was feeling. Apparently he thought he had done enough work by then and should
only be experiencing holograms of the second-half variety, so he began blaming
his Infinite I for “f$#king him over, as usual.” He stopped running the
Process or doing spiritual autolysis and started to justify his judgments,
maintain his beliefs, and strengthen his opinions.
Every Player has free will to decide how they want to react
and respond to the holographic experiences they encounter, and this was his
choice – to let Maya win this one, at least for the time being, even though he
didn’t recognize that’s what he was doing. He wasn’t “wrong” for making that
decision, because that has to be perfect, too. But my friend – who in so many
ways has been such great support to me in writing this book – helped me to see
just how clever Maya can be and gave me the opportunity to emphasize another
important point….
In the Preface to Part Two, I talked about presenting you
with models, not belief systems, and that “a model is designed to be tested and
challenged to see how well it performs.” In this case Maya convinced my friend
he was making a legitimate test or challenge to the model rather than escaping
the discomfort and leaving her alone to survive in peace, by prompting him to
ask questions about the theory of the model – questions that began with
“Why” and “What if,” and “I’m not sure I agree that….”
However, the only valid and legitimate test or challenge to
a model is to see how well it performs in application, not in theory. In
my friend’s particular situation, the model was clearly working perfectly,
producing exactly the kind of results it was supposed to. He just didn’t like
the way it felt at the time. But no one said it was going to feel good all the
way through the cocoon, especially if you hit a “dark night of the soul.” So if
there’s still discomfort, keep running the Process. It’s only the ego talking
when there’s the thought to get out of what you’re feeling and go back into
your head; and Maya speaks in very sophisticated, inviting, and clever ways.
So know this about the ego: you shouldn’t underestimate it,
you won’t outsmart it, and you can’t resist it.
* * *
There’s an old story about how you cook a frog. You don’t
boil a pot of water on the stove and drop the frog in, because it will just
jump back out to get away from the heat. Instead you put the frog into the pot
while the water is cool and slowly turn up the heat while the frog sits there
until it’s boiled.
You also don’t take a big bite out of an onion or it will
overpower you. You eat an onion one slice at a time until it’s all gone.
Annihilating the ego is a similar process – one layer at a
time as your Infinite I provides the appropriate holographic
experiences. As I said about death, you must meet the ego eye-to-eye,
understand it, accept it, embrace it, appreciate it for what it is and the
service it has provided for you, and then quietly and systematically dismantle
it one layer at a time until there’s nothing left – expecting each new layer to
be more difficult than the last, and not quitting until you’re done.
FOOTNOTES
COMPASSION
Back to the Table of Contents
Question:
This whole model seems to me a very selfish way to live. Where’s your
heart? Where’s your compassion for the pain and suffering of others?
Answer: I have no interest in justifying or defending
“selfishness.” I will leave that up to people like Robert Ringer (Looking
Out for #1), Ayn Rand (The
Virtue of Selfishness), Bud Harris (Sacred
Selfishness: A Guide to Living a Life of Substance), David Seabury (The
Art of Selfishness), the Hellers (Healthy
Selfishness: Getting the Life You Deserve Without the Guilt), and
Mahatma Gandhi (“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”)
As for my heart, it is as open as it has ever been. As you
drop all judgments, beliefs, opinions, and fears, your heart can’t do anything
except open wider and wider and be filled with love and appreciation for the
perfection of everything, and especially love for your own Infinite I.
But compassion is a very different story.
It’s true compassion is the new spiritual buzzword,
perhaps helped a lot by the Dalai Lama. Like “judgment,” compassion has
been made to seem “right” and proper and a “good” thing to have. In fact, being
compassionate has become the hallmark of enlightenment and the most important
trait a “good” person must have, in the same way “judgment” has become a
symbol of intelligence and reason.
But let’s find out what compassion really means….
“Deep awareness of the suffering
of another coupled with the wish to relieve it.”1
“Sympathetic consciousness of
others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.”2
It should be clear by those definitions that compassion
belongs in the first half of the Human Game, inside the movie theater, and not
in the second half.
Why? What’s “wrong” with compassion? Nothing is
“wrong.” That would be a judgment. But compassion as it is defined (and
practiced) automatically leads a Player to judge the experiences of someone
else as “bad” or “wrong,” to think they have the power to change that person’s
reality, and to entertain the wish to do so; and none of that is possible or
appropriate in the second half of the Human Game. It also inevitably leads the
Player who’s trying to be compassionate into frustration, sadness, and
sometimes even despair; or, in other words, it leads further into limitation
and restriction.
Therefore, by its very nature, compassion is not part
of infinite joy. It also doesn’t feel like joy; it actually feels “bad” to
identify with someone else’s pain and suffering. In fact, we’re supposed
to feel “bad” for someone else if we’re compassionate (“I feel bad for them”).
The synonyms given in the dictionary for compassion are “pity” and
“sympathy.” I doubt anyone would suggest “pity” and “sympathy” feel joyful.
In a meeting of the intentional community in Tamera, a young
man from Israel stood up and announced his recent revelation that his only job
in life was to be happy. Everyone cheered, and a feeling of joy and excitement
and enthusiasm filled the room. Then a young woman stood up, the daughter of
the guru, and admonished everyone not to forget all the pain and suffering of
others. The bubble in the room quickly burst.
Try to recall right now what it feels like to be
compassionate. Does it feel like joy to you?
You can do the same thing with jealousy, for example. Does
it make you feel loving to feel jealous? Does it make you feel expansive and
powerful? Does it make you feel all warm and fuzzy like love does? In the same
way that jealousy cannot be part of infinite love, compassion cannot be
part of infinite joy. It’s as simple as that.
The only way compassion could make you feel “good” is
because you think by being compassionate, you’re being a “good” person.
* * *
But there’s more to talk about. Let’s really dissect this
thing called compassion, since it’s become such a big button in the
first half of the Human Game.
Remember that the holographic experiences you perceive are
not “real,” and that your Infinite I is creating your own reality.
Remember also that the people you see in your holograms – the “other people” –
are actors playing a role for you and reading a script word-for-word written by
your Infinite I. Think
again about the analogy of our holographic universe to a total immersion movie,
created as an “outer experience” to give you and your Infinite I an
“inner experience.”
Whatever you perceive, then, in your “reality” is being
played out for you – for your experience, for your benefit
– by actors, like a movie or a play. If you went to a play at your local
theater, there might be an emotional scene where some character you cared about
was killed, or maimed, or raped, or tortured, or starved, or displaced, or
abused. If it’s a good play with professional actors, a convincing script and
perfect scenery, you should “feel” what the writer of the play wanted you to feel
– anger, frustration, sympathy, sadness, pain, regret, grief, sorrow, or a
whole host of other emotions, none of which come close to joy. But that’s what
the play was designed to do.
Then after the play, you go next door to the bar for a
drink; and there, by chance, are the very same actors you just watched. But
they’re very much alive, healthy, happy, unscathed, enjoying a beer and joking
around with the rest of the troupe. When you see them there in the bar, would
you feel the same emotions for them you did during the play? Obviously not. You
would probably feel a little silly expressing compassion for the actor you had
just watched starving that is now sitting in front of you eating peanuts and
popcorn. You might even go over and thank them for what a great job they did
and for the experience they gave you, telling them how deeply you felt for them
during the play, and then joining in their celebration.
The "reality" you see "out there" as the
physical universe is a movie – a fantastic 3-D total immersion movie in which
you play a part. But nothing else is different from the play or movie you just
watched. Everyone you see in your "reality" is part of a hologram and
is playing a role your Infinite I has asked them to play and which
they've agreed to perform at a professional level. When that role is over, they
get up from the battlefield, or the hospital bed, or the slums, and revel in
the good job they did to convince you the characters they played were real.
They gave you a gift of a powerful experience, which your Infinite I
wanted and created. But don't confuse things and start to think the scenes they
acted out were anything more than actors playing temporary roles at your Infinite
I’s invitation.
Another big problem with compassion is the part that
makes you want to “relieve” or “alleviate” someone else’s suffering. Frankly,
although it’s cloaked in a very acceptable social veneer, it is the height of
arrogance to think we know better than their own Infinite I what
experiences another person should be having. Even Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the
change you wish to see in the world.” He didn’t say, “Go out and change the
world into the way you wish to see it,” or “Go out and change other people’s
experiences into the way you think they should be.”
In the same way you trust your own Infinite I to
create the most appropriate experiences for you, we can trust the other
person’s Infinite I to create the most appropriate experiences for them,
regardless of how those experiences look to you or me on the surface.
In fact, there is no other Player who appears in your
holographic reality whose situation is your responsibility to change. Nor do
you have the power or authority to change it. Their experiences have been as
carefully chosen for them by their Infinite I as yours have been for
you. It’s time we respect that, and respect and trust the choices of other Infinite
I’s as well as our own, and not think we know better what they should be
experiencing.
Besides, this desire to “relieve” or “alleviate” someone
else’s suffering cannot do anything but produce frustration and anger and
depression, since you have no power to do anything about it. All you will do is
try, and most times fail and feel worse in the end. This is why compassion
is such a limiting concept that belongs strictly to the first half of the Human
Game.
* * *
"You never change things by fighting the existing
reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model
obsolete."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
The concept of compassion, by its very nature, tends
to make us ignore this wisdom and fight against what we see happening in the
world. Many peaceworkers, for example, take up the slogan, “Say No to War and
Violence.” But the mere act of thinking or acting against war and violence
because of compassion is, indeed, fighting the existing reality.
“But wait a minute!” you protest. “Are you saying I should
do nothing when I see another’s pain and suffering in my hologram? Are you
suggesting I sit back and simply watch while a child gets beaten, or a woman
raped, or people die from starvation or disease?”
Absolutely not. That’s not what I’m saying at all. But
rather than compassion in the first half that can only lead to more
limitation, empathy (rather than sympathy) and ethics and excitement will
determine your reaction in the second half of the Human Game. Here’s what I
mean….
Once you have run the Process on those holographic
experiences you encounter as you start the second half – any time you have felt
discomfort with someone or a particular situation – you will view those
incidents of pain and suffering that might come into your hologram very
differently. But there is something extremely important to remember: as long as
you feel discomfort – and that includes the discomfort of compassion –
you are still assigning power “out there” and there is still judgment. Only
when you can see someone else’s pain and suffering without the judgment it is
“bad” or “wrong” or “needs to be changed,” can you cleanly take any action.
Then you are free to follow your excitement and joy in any specific
circumstance.
For example, I’m often asked what I would do if a hologram
popped up where a child was being beaten in front of me. I honestly cannot give
you a generalized answer, because so much of it depends on the situation. But
my own ethics might lead me to want to do something about it, since I am the
caretaker of the holographic experiences my Infinite I has created for
me.
Maybe I would step in between the adult and the child, and
inform the adult I do not judge what s/he is doing, but I request s/he beat me
instead of the child, and I would not resist. However, that’s just one
possibility. Under no circumstances would I judge what was going on as “right”
or “wrong,” or “good” or “bad,” nor judge the actors playing their parts, nor
think I must or should change the action itself. But right now I
can imagine my personal feeling of excitement and joy would be to prefer to be
beaten myself than to watch the child being beaten. I would also never strike
back or try to defend myself. Neither would Mahatma Gandhi, as he proved time
and again.
Okay. That’s a particular individual situation. What about
the millions of people starving in the world, those getting killed and maimed
every day in countless wars and other violence, those who are homeless and
hungry and sick – which is a fair number of the Earth’s population if we watch
and believe the TV news? What about them?
“Be the change you wish to see in the world,” Gandhi said.
So here’s another tough concept….
In spite of all the pain and suffering we are shown “out
there,” our only job as a Player in the second half of the Human Game is to
“reclaim” the power we assigned “out there” in the first half, and take the
rollercoaster ride back to infinite joy, infinite power, infinite wisdom,
infinite abundance, and infinite love. It is solely our responsibility to live
our own reality.
In fact, when our holograms include pictures of pain and
suffering “out there,” it is primarily because our Infinite I is trying
to show us where we assigned power in the first half and give us the
opportunity to “reclaim” it. These holographic images of pain and suffering are
not for us to do something about them, but about us as
individual Players to do something about us. Put simply, someone else’s
pain and suffering that finds its way into our holograms is an opportunity to
leave judgment and compassion behind and explore a new way of feeling
and acting.
Remember what we said about “other people” in Chapter
Twenty-Four….
“Other people” serve three main purposes
in your holographic experience:
1. To reflect something you think or feel about yourself
2. To give you the gift of information or insight
3. To set something in motion to support you3
This includes all the “other people” who you are now judging
to be in pain and suffering; and nowhere on that list does it say “other
people” serve the purpose of having you “save” them from their experiences.
Along the way, however, we will start to feel excitement
inside – excitement that is prompting us to do something. So if I see someone
else in pain and suffering in my hologram, and I do not judge it or fall into
the trap of wanting to change it, I might find it totally joyful and exciting
to take some action anyway.
What if someone in my hologram asks me for help? I give it
gladly, as long as it brings me total joy to do so – without judgment or
discomfort – and as long as I have no expectations of the outcome.
Please don’t get me wrong. I am often touched on a very deep
level when I see someone in my hologram in pain or suffering, and I will give
my help if asked if I can do it without the intention to fix, change, or
improve things. But I also know it is impossible for them to be a victim, just
as it is impossible for me to be a victim, of anyone or anything “out there;”
so I offer my support in any way I can while they have such a difficult and
limiting experience, because I know they are playing in the first half of the
Human Game. This is really no different than giving encouragement to someone on
the first hill of the rollercoaster, supporting them in any way possible to
“Hang in there!”
This may be a crude example, but it’s the best I can think
of at the moment. Someone calls out to me from the rollercoaster going up the
hill. They say they're getting sick and need help. I will do everything in my
power to get to them, bring them a barf bag, hold their hair back while they
get sick, offer them some encouraging words, or give them whatever assistance I
can at the time. What I won't do is judge their experience as
"wrong,” or that it should be different and needs to be changed, or
sympathize with them, or pity them, or try to get them off the rollercoaster.
I've been there; it doesn't feel good, and I know it. I also know the
experience they're having has been carefully chosen for them by their own Infinite
I, and it is perfect for them at that moment. After all, they can’t ride
the rollercoaster without going up the first hill.
* * *
There's an old saying in the recovery
business that an alcoholic will not quit until they've had enough to drink. A
Course in Miracles says, "if your brothers ask you for something, do
it, because it doesn’t matter."4 So if your
alcoholic "brother" asks you for a drink, exactly what is the
"compassionate" thing to do? According to recovery principles and A
Course in Miracles, maybe it would be to give them the drink they ask for,
rather than judging and trying to change the experience they're having because
you know what's best for them.
There is, of course, a natural desire that all the Players
we meet in our holograms experience the same joy and power and abundance and
love we have; and when we see someone else in our hologram not in that
condition, we can easily wish something different for them, and want them to
join us in the joy and power and abundance and love of the second half. But
what we can not do is to judge their situation to be “bad” or “wrong,”
or even that our situation is “better” than theirs, and then try to do
something to change their circumstances.
Many years ago I gave up the idea of trying to “save the
world” or even end war on this planet when I realized war had been a very
valuable experience in my own life (if nothing else, to show me who I was not
and how I did not want to behave); and “who was I to try to limit other
people’s experiences who might benefit from the same opportunities.” Today I am
excited about finding out how to download other frequencies from The Field (as will
be explained in Chapter Thirty-Six) that create a peaceful and harmonious life
on Planet Earth, but without any judgment that all people should live that way,
or that the way other people are living now is somehow “wrong.”
* * *
The point the young Israeli man was making in Tamera was
that rather than becoming bogged down in someone else’s pain and suffering, and
feeling that pain and suffering himself, he decided his only job was to “be
happy” – to provide others with the hope and the inspiration and the model of
how their lives could be different.
I seriously doubt those in pain and suffering want us to
join them in their misery. I don’t think they want us to “pity” them or “feel
their pain.” I think, instead, they would prefer for us to “be happy,” so they
know it is possible for them as well.
Therefore, rather than compassion in the second half
of the Human Game, we follow our excitement and our joy and our passion,
and take whatever actions we feel moved to take in relationship to our
holographic experiences, as long as there is no judgment or discomfort
involved.
After all, the world doesn’t need to be saved. It’s perfect
exactly as it is, down to the smallest detail.
Saving the world, as wonderful as it may sound on the
surface, is not only the height of arrogance in thinking you know how the world
should be, but also one of the most clever temptations the ego – Maya – has
come up with to maintain her power and existence.
I realize there is a lot of social pressure to be
compassionate these days; but, in fact, this whole compassion thing is
one of the greatest lies that keeps people inside the movie theater, for the
simple reason that focusing on compassion for others keeps Players from
looking at themselves. As long as your time and attention is tied up trying to
alleviate the pain and suffering of others, you will never have what it takes
to process your own judgments, beliefs, opinions, and fears. Instead you will
hang on for dear life to this layer of the ego – this identity you are not
– called “compassionate.”
(If you jumped here from Chapter Sixteen, “Judgment,” you
can go back to where you were reading by clicking here.)
FOOTNOTES
ROBERT SCHEINFELD
Back to the Table of Contents
Question:
You mention Robert Scheinfeld a lot, but you don’t quote him very much; and
it’s not clear exactly what you think about his work.
Answer: I cannot tell you how much I appreciate
Robert Scheinfeld and the role he played in my transformation.
It was Robert – through his Busting Loose from the Money
Game DVD home study course (which is no longer available) – who ushered me
through the back door of the movie theater and into my cocoon.
It was Robert who introduced me to the concept of the Human
Game, and especially the two separate and opposite halves, which explained so
much about me and my own life.
It was Robert who provided the basic Process which I used
with success for the first year in my cocoon, letting go of the judgments and
beliefs and opinions about what was “out there” and reclaiming the power I had
assigned to make my holograms real.
It was Robert who introduced me to Jed McKenna’s Enlightenment
Trilogy, which was the next step I needed in my transformation in the
cocoon.
Fortunately, I had the opportunity to meet and talk with
Robert and express that appreciation. I attended one of Robert’s live workshops
and went through three of his “home transformational systems,” along with
following him on Facebook and listening to his “Phase 2 Players’ discourses.”
I consider Robert to be a fellow “scout.” But after the
first year in my cocoon, I met Robert on the road, and I killed him.
Not literally, of course. If you don’t recognize the
reference…
“Zen Master Lin Chi spoke thus,
‘If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet a Patriarch, kill the
Patriarch.’ Lin Chi isn't condoning murder, he is using a metaphor to
explain the nature of Buddhism. Don't believe what someone says, no matter how
holy they are, just because they say it. Listen to their words and then explore
them yourself....”1
(Based on this, Sheldon Kopp then wrote a best-selling book
called, If You Meet The Buddha on the Road, Kill Him.)
It was clear to me when I met Robert on the road that he had
stopped along his path as a scout and had gotten totally immersed in writing
his books and creating his “home transformational systems” and offering his
workshops.
But because he stopped, he didn’t get far enough to see that
his work contained some vital errors which I’m sure he would have realized if
he had gone further. (Robert has announced he is leaving the “scout” game now
to focus on other things. I’m hoping part of those “other things” will include
going further in his cocoon and correcting his mistakes – for his own sake.)
It’s strange, too, because the biggest errors have to do
with his wording, and one of the “tools” Robert suggests using in the second half
of the Human Game is “transformational vocabulary.” In other words, he quite
clearly sees the importance of the language we use; so I have to assume he just
didn’t get the concept to begin with.
For example, what I have called the Infinite I, the consciousness
on the other side of The Field, Robert calls the “Expanded Self.” Without
belaboring the point, “expanded” is a judgment just like “better” or “higher,”
and expanding the “self” is going in the exact opposite direction we want to go
in the cocoon – toward the “no-self.”
Robert also talks about “taking back your power” as part of
his Process. But we, as Players, never had any power to begin with, so how
could we “take it back?”
But perhaps the most important mistake was a phrase that
sounds really catchy and cool, and very much appeals to the new-age crowd: “The
sun of who you really are.” Robert uses this in his “cloud metaphor,”
explaining that what we are doing in the cocoon is drilling holes in the cloud
cover so the “sun of who we really are” can come shining through.
People love this, because it feeds the ego so well. Everyone
likes to think they are something more than just a Player, that they are really
their infinite consciousness who is running the show.
Now… it’s true the whole point of the cocoon is the
discovery of “who I am not” on the way to finding out “who I am.” But to
suggest the end result is letting “the sun of who we really are” shine through
the cloud cover simply continues the illusion we are anything more than a
Player representing our Infinite I in the Human Game. It perpetuates the
false knowledge and layers of the ego that say we really are our Infinite
I after all.
Lastly, as I mentioned before, Robert’s Process is excellent
in addressing the judgments, beliefs, and fears we have created while in the
first half of the Human Game, as long as you’re dealing with what you think is
“out there.” But it is simply not designed, or very workable, in finding the
fears that lie underneath or detaching from the layers of false identities that
make up the ego.
* * *
I would love to be able to recommend Robert’s work, since it
meant so much to me; and you could read and watch it with a discriminating eye,
on the lookout for the errors, and it might be something helpful to you as
well. You can start at RobertScheinfeld.com.
But I have known too many people who have followed Robert
and call themselves “Phase 2 Players” who don’t have a clue about the deep
fears and layers of the ego Robert’s work doesn’t address, and who go around
talking about the reality they are creating, and the joy of reconnecting
with “the sun of who they really are.”
That being said, I want to acknowledge that Robert has done
a wonderful job of making this information available in the back of the movie
theater, and presenting it in such a way that many more Human Adults are
entering their cocoons. He is a marketing genius, no doubt; and, of course,
even his “errors” are perfect.
I also want to point out, like Robert, I stopped while in
the cocoon to write this book (and maybe others; we’ll see). I went farther
than Robert, but I still stopped. My only hope is that I have not made the kind
of major mistakes Robert did.
FOOTNOTES
JED McKENNA
Back to the Table of Contents
Question:
You seem to use a lot of quotations from Jed McKenna, who isn’t a real person –
or at least that’s not his real name. Do you think he’s actually for real?
Answer: I said Robert Scheinfeld stopped along his
path as a scout. I think Jed McKenna also stopped at a certain point to write
his Enlightenment Trilogy. He claims to have emerged from the cocoon as
a butterfly…
“All that scorched-earth
wandering wasn’t the end, it was just the beginning. I still had my own
personal deconstruction to do, which is how I spent almost the next two years,
until I got to a place called Done…. My reality now is the awakened,
untruth-unrealized state… I spent the next ten years trying to make sense of
this new world; a non-world in which a non-I nevertheless seemed to reside.”1
…but I don’t know whether that’s true, for a couple of
reasons. One, I don’t believe it’s possible for Jed to write his three books
without stopping in the cocoon and delaying the final transformation into a
butterfly. Maybe in the years after he finished his last book, he went on to
become a butterfly. That’s entirely possible, since we’ve never heard from him
again.
Reason Two… well, I’ll get to that. First I’ll answer your
question.
When I read The Enlightenment Trilogy by Jed McKenna
the first time through, I knew immediately this man – whoever he really was –
was totally authentic. He had to have actually experienced what he was writing
about or he couldn’t use those words and describe his condition so perfectly. I
knew here was a man – another scout – who stood in full view of the Pacific Ocean; and he was expressing the very same thoughts and feelings I have come to
know can only be thought and felt when one has reached this point along the
journey.
For example….
“I am here, live, on the scene, and I have chosen to describe
it as I see it. I don’t defer. I don’t rely. If what I describe conflicts with
the ten-thousand other reports – no matter how revered those reports and those
who filed them may be – then to me those reports are nothing more than fable
and folklore and should be consigned to the dustheap of history. The simple
fact is that I am here and ‘here’ doesn’t look all that much like anyone says
it does and I’m not going to waste my time or anyone else’s pretending
otherwise. It should be noted that ‘here’ isn’t mist-enshrouded or poorly lit.
It’s neither mysterious nor mystical. My knowledge is unflawed and my vision is
unobstructed. This is a tricky point to make, but a critical one. I am not
interpreting. I am not translating. I am not handing something down that was
handed down to me. I’m here, now, telling you what I see in the most
straightforward possible terms.”
“It’s very simple…. Enlightenment is truth-realization.
Not only is truth simple, it’s that which cannot be simpler; cannot be further
reduced.”
“Enlightenment isn’t when you go there, it’s when there
comes here. It’s not a place you visit and then remember wistfully and try to
return to. It’s not a visit to the truth, it’s the awakening of truth within
you. It’s not a fleeting state of consciousness, it’s permanent
truth-realization. It’s not a place you visit from here, this is a place you
visit from there.”
“The enlightened view life as a dream, so how could they
possibly differentiate between right and wrong or good and evil? How can one turn
of events be better or worse than another? Of what real importance is anything
in a dream? You wake up and the dream is gone as if it never was. All the
characters and events that seemed so real have simply vanished. The enlightened
may walk and talk in the dreamworld, but they don’t mistake the dream for
reality.”
“The truth, though, is that nothing is really wrong.
Nothing is ever wrong and nothing can be wrong. It’s not even wrong to believe
that something is wrong. Wrong is simply not possible…. If something isn’t
wrong, then nothing needs to be made right, which would mean that nothing needs
to be done.”
“The enlightened have awakened from the dream and no
longer mistake it for reality. Naturally, they are no longer able to attach
importance to anything. To the awakened mind the end of the world is no more or
less momentous than the snapping of a twig. ‘The wise see the same in all,’
says the Gita. ‘The wise are impartial,’ says the Tao. The enlightened cannot
conceive of anything as being wrong, so they don’t struggle to make things
right. Nothing is better or worse, so why try to adjust things?”
“Once you get past the notion that duality (by any name)
is ‘bad’ and unity (by any name) is ‘good,’ you also get past any need to
‘help’ or ‘save’ anyone. I, for instance, don’t do what I do because I think it
needs doing. I am moved by no ethical or altruistic motive. I don’t think
something is wrong and that I have to make it right. I don’t do it to ease
suffering or to liberate beings. I do it simply because I’m so inclined.”
“I heard that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was very happy with
his reclusive life in the foothills of the Himalayas and may never have
rejoined society, but that he began hearing the name of an Indian city in his
head. It simply appeared unbidden in his thoughts. When he finally mentioned it
to someone, they advised that the only way to get the name of the town out of
his head was to go there. He did, got swept into a speaking engagement, and the
whole Transcendental Meditation movement grew out of it. That makes sense to
me. You observe events and you allow the flow of things to do the steering and
you go where you go.”
“Fear, regardless of what face it wears, is the engine
that drives humans as individuals and humanity as a species. Simply put, humans
are fear-based creatures. It may be tempting to say that we are equal parts
rational and emotional, balanced between left and right brain, but it’s not
true. We are primarily emotional and our ruling emotion is fear…. Fear of the
hollow core. Fear of the black hole within. Fear of non-being. Fear of no-self.
The fear of no-self is the mother of all fears, the one upon which all others
are based. No fear is so small or petty that the fear of no-self isn’t at its
heart. All fear is ultimately fear of no-self.”
“This trajectory I’m on will take me as close to
non-existence as anyone can get and still have a body. In other words, I will
continue to channel progressively less and less energy into my dreamstate
being, my teaching will reduce down to its most refined and least tolerant
form, my interest will withdraw from the world, and I will become as minimal as
a person can be.”
“I had spent years as a closet butterfly moping around
with caterpillars and dreaming highly fictionalized dreams of becoming a
butterfly. I knew that I was distinctly different from the caterpillars. I knew
that an uncrossable chasm separated us, that I wasn’t one of them anymore, that
they weren’t like me nor I like they. I knew I was able to communicate with
them only in the most superficial sense based on my rapidly fading memories of
their language and habits. What it took me a while to understand, though, was
that the reason I wasn’t one of them anymore was because I was something else,
and that the difference was absolute. I had earned admission to a whole new
reality but I hadn’t yet passed into it because no one explained to me that
this new order of being I had become was what caterpillars meant when they said
‘butterfly.’”
“And then, one day, there it is. Nothing. No more
enemies, no more battles. The sword that seems welded to your hand can now be
dropped, once your fingers can be pried from it. There’s nothing left to
contend against and nothing left that must be done, and there will never be
anything that must be done ever again.”
“Enlightenment isn’t like graduating high school only to
start college, or even finishing college to enter the ‘real’ world. It’s the
final graduation. No more hunt, no more chase, no more battle. Now you can go
out in the world and do whatever you want; learn guitar, jump out of airplanes,
write books, tend grapes, whatever.”
* * *
These quotes are from just the first few pages of Book One, Spiritual
Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing, and there are three books in all –
definitely worth the read.
That being said, it is also clear to me Jed and I took
different routes to get to the same place, which results in a disagreement on
several key points. I want to discuss those in some detail, mainly to let you
know different scouts will have different ways of expressing the path, and that
Jed and I are not 100% in agreement except about the end result.
For example, his underlying tone when discussing Human
Children is one of judgment and criticism for being asleep within the
dreamstate.
“Human Childhood is petty and fearful and grating…. it’s
a hideous affliction.”
Jed obviously does not share the concept of the movie
theater being intentionally designed to create limitation and restriction. If
he did, he couldn’t judge the state of being a Human Child, but would instead
see it as a perfect part of the Game.
Or, for example, Jed’s constant reference to Maya as the
“goddess of delusion,” and as the personification of the ego, can easily lead
one to believe there is some force “out there,” some entity, some power that is
intentionally trying to keep people from joy and abundance and truth.
“Maya might best be understood as the intelligence of
fear. She is the keeper of the kept, the warden of the Dreamstate. It is Maya
who bestows upon us the miraculous and life-giving power to see what’s not and
to not see what is. It is Maya who makes the Dreamstate possible and escape
from it nearly impossible. She enables the Dreamstate to exist, and if you wish
to awaken from it, then it’s her you must destroy, layer by layer.”
Which brings me to my third question about Jed – his warlike
vocabulary and his attitude that there is an “enemy” to be fought and
destroyed….
“Real spirituality is a savage insurrection, the
oppressed rising up in a do-or-die bid for freedom. It’s not something people
do to improve themselves or earn merit or impress friends or to find greater
joy and meaning in life. It’s a suicidal assault on a foe of unimaginable
superiority.”
“People who take this stuff seriously have no need of me
or anyone else, only of finding the next question, of taking the next step, of
finding the next enemy and fighting the next battle. People who don’t take this
stuff seriously are invariably looking for ways to occupy and distract
themselves so they don’t have to take any real steps or fight any real
battles.”
His third book is even entitled Spiritual Warfare.
So I have to assume the route Jed took across the Rocky Mountains required a lot of fighting to get through; a lot of battles with the
elements, the Indians, the wild animals; a lot of machete work to cut through
the trees. Whereas the route I took had very little of that. In fact, one of
the key steps inside the cocoon is the realization there is no “enemy,” no “out
there” out there, no duality of “it” or “them” versus “me.”
Jed also makes no mention of quantum physics, or of any real
scientific understanding that “it isn’t real; it’s just a game.” Instead, the
general tone of his books is to take all this very seriously….
“Personal revolution is fueled by emotional energy of the
purest intensity. That intensity comes from focus and that kind of focused
emotional energy doesn’t look like love or tranquility or compassion. It looks
like seething rage or ugly business, but that’s how it works. Suicidal
discontent; that’s how revolutions are won and that’s why they so seldom are.
Rockets aren’t launched into space on chanting and prayers, and escaping the
ego’s gravity requires an equivalent amount of explosive force. We have to take
all the emotional energy we normally blast out in a thousand directions to keep
our dreamstate characters animated and focus it on a single point. It’s all or
nothing.”
But, in fact, it’s all just a game – a wonderfully complex,
exciting, challenging treasure hunt for the truth.
Finally, Jed uses his first book, Spiritual
Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing, to describe his process and
transformation inside the cocoon. He speaks of the state of freedom from the
movie theater in glowing terms, and the reader should come away from that book
wanting to be where Jed is.
Then Jed spends half of Book Two, Spiritually Incorrect
Enlightenment, describing how difficult it is to get where he is, giving
excellent examples from one of his “students,” Julie, of her own spiritual
autolysis process – a realistic look at the time everyone will spend inside the
cocoon. (The other half of the book is Jed patting himself on the back for
being the first ever to figure out Melville’s Moby Dick.)
In the third book, Spiritual Warfare, Jed bends over
backwards to try to convince the reader they don’t want to go where he
is, but to stay inside the movie theater as a Human Adult instead….
“The most important distinction to be made between these
two states is that Human Adulthood makes sense and Enlightenment doesn’t. The
main benefit most spiritually inclined people can derive from having a clear
understanding of what it really means to be truth-realized is not so they can
achieve it, but so they can dispense with it and reset their spiritual sights on
something worthier than enlightenment, which is, literally, the biggest nothing
of all time.”
* * *
I could mention other smaller areas where I disagree with
Jed, but I’m not trying to be picky. I simply want to point out that Jed’s
viewpoint is biased by the route he took across the Rocky Mountains; and
although his description of the Pacific Ocean is extremely accurate, his way of
getting there is not the only way, and not everyone has to go through what he
went through. Nor will everyone feel the same way Jed does when he arrives. I
don’t, for example.
I also want to emphasize that you will find isolated
sentences or two throughout Jed’s books that contradict the general tone of his
writing, like…
“It’s all just consciousness, you are just consciousness.
There is nothing else.”
“Maya, it should be remembered, is not an actual
arch-deity thwarting us from on high. Maya is inside us, a part of us… she’s
not a she and she’s not external to you. She’s inside you and those layers are
the stuff of which your ego is made.”
“Instead of adopting a warlike posture, we must,
counter-intuitively, lower our shields and defenses. This seems confusing until
we understand that we are both the protagonist and the antagonist in this
conflict, both attacker and defender. This is the paradoxical nature of the
struggle. We can’t win by fighting. The very thing that fights, that resists,
is the thing we seek to overthrow.”
And Jed does, occasionally, express his appreciation for all
the things he seems to judge and criticize so frequently, even Maya….
“I can’t think of anything more fascinating or lovely or
worthy of appreciation than Maya; the architect of delusion.”
“The idea that… the dualistic universe is anything other
than the grandest and most wonderful of all blessings is laughably absurd.”
So if you read Jed’s books with a discriminating eye,
overlook the general tone and be watchful for the key sentences, you are in for
a real treat. In my opinion, the Enlightenment Trilogy is required
reading for anyone who wants to become a butterfly.
FOOTNOTES
U.G. KRISHNAMURTI
Back to the Table of Contents
Question:
A lot of things you have said sound like stuff I have read by U.G.
Krishnamurti….
Answer: I’ve read a lot of things from U.G. – no
relationship to J. Krishnamurti – that I like, too. There are other things I’ve
read where he seems to contradict himself a lot, things I disagree with, or
maybe things I don’t totally understand. But here’s a sample from this
“anti-guru” of what I like….
“People call me an ‘enlightened man’ – I detest that term
– they can’t find any other word to describe the way I am functioning. At the
same time, I point out that there is no such thing as enlightenment at all. I
say that because all my life I’ve searched and wanted to be an enlightened man,
and I discovered that there is no such thing as enlightenment at all, and so
the question whether a particular person is enlightened or not doesn’t arise. I
don’t give a hoot for a sixth-century-BC Buddha, let alone all the other
claimants we have in our midst. They are a bunch of exploiters, thriving on the
gullibility of the people.”
“The holy men are all phonies – they are telling me only
what is there in the books. That I can read – ‘Do the same again and again’ –
that I don’t want. Experiences I don’t want. They are trying to share an
experience with me. I’m not interested in experience. As far as experience
goes, for me there is no difference between the religious experience and the
sex experience or any other experience; the religious experience is like any
other experience. I am not interested in experiencing Brahman; I am not
interested in experiencing reality; I am not interested in experiencing truth.
They might help others; but they cannot help me. I’m not interested in doing
more of the same; what I have done is enough.”
“I had arrived at a point where I said to myself ‘Buddha
deluded himself and deluded others. All those teachers and saviors of mankind
were damned fools – they fooled themselves – so I’m not interested in this kind
of thing anymore,’ so it went out of my system completely.”
“You hope that you will be able to resolve the problem of
desire through thinking, because of that model of a saint who you think has
controlled or eliminated desire. If that man has no desire as you imagine, he
is a corpse. Don’t believe that man at all! Such a man builds some
organization, and lives in luxury, which you pay for. You are maintaining him.
He is doing it for his livelihood. There is always a fool in the world who
falls for him.”
* * *
“They are all liars, fops, fakes and cheaters in the
world, who claim they have searched for and told the truth! Alright, you want
to find out for yourself what this truth is. Can you find out? Can you capture
the truth and hold it and say ‘This is truth?’ Whether you accept or reject,
it’s the same: it depends on your personal prejudices and predilections. So if
you want to discover the truth for yourself, whatever it is, you are not in a
position to either accept or reject. You assume that there is such a thing as
truth, you assume that there is such a thing as reality (ultimate or otherwise)
– it is that assumption that is creating the problem, the suffering, for you.
Look here, I want to experience God, truth, reality or what you will, so I must
understand the nature of the experiencing structure inside of me before I deal
with all that. I must look at the instrument I am using. You are trying to
capture something that cannot be captured in terms of your experiencing
structure, so this experiencing structure must not be there in order that the
other thing may come in. What that is, you will never know. You will never know
the truth, because it’s a movement. It’s a movement! You cannot capture it, you
cannot contain it, you cannot express it. It’s not a logically ascertained
premise that we are interested in. So, it has to be your discovery. What good
is my experience? We have thousands and thousands of experiences recorded –
they haven’t helped you. It’s the hope that keeps you going – ‘If I follow this
for another ten years, fifteen years, maybe one of these days I will….’ because
hope is the structure.”
“I discovered for myself and by myself that there is no
self to realize – that’s the realization I am talking about. It comes as a
shattering blow. It hits you like a thunderbolt. You have invested everything
in one basket, self-realization, and, in the end, suddenly you discover that
there is no self to discover, no self to realize – and you say to yourself
‘What the hell have I been doing all my life?!’ That blasts you.”
“Nothing. That’s the discovery. So-called
self-realization is the discovery for yourself and by yourself that there is no
self to discover. That will be a very shocking thing – ‘Why the hell have I
wasted all my life?’ It’s a shocking thing because it’s going to destroy every
nerve, every cell, even the cells in the marrow of your bones. I tell you, it’s
not going to be an easy thing, it’s not going to be handed over to you on a
gold platter. You have to become completely disillusioned, then the truth
begins to express itself in its own way. I have discovered that it is useless
to try to discover the truth. The search for truth is, I have discovered,
absurd, because it’s a thing which you cannot capture, contain, or give
expression to.”
* * *
“You see, my difficulty with the people who come to see
me is this: they don’t seem to be able to understand the way I am functioning,
and I don’t seem to be able to understand the way they are functioning. How can
we carry on a dialogue? Both of us have to stop. How can there be a dialogue
between us both?”
“I am not trying to sell anything here. It is impossible
for you to simulate this. This is a thing that has happened outside the field,
the area, in which I expected, dreamed and wanted change, so I don’t call this
a ‘change’. I really don’t know what has happened to me. What I am telling you
is the way I am functioning. There seems to be some difference between the way
you are functioning and the way I am functioning, but basically there can’t be
any difference. How can there be any difference between you and me? There can’t
be; but from the way we are trying to express ourselves, there seems to be. I
have the feeling that there is some difference, and what that difference is is
all that I am trying to understand. So, this is the way I am functioning.”
“Put it simply. I can’t follow a very complex structure –
I have that difficulty, you see. Probably I’m a low-grade moron or something, I
don’t know – I can’t follow conceptual thinking. You can put it in very simple
words. What exactly is the question? Because the answer is there; I don’t have
to give the answer. What I usually do is restructure the question, rephrase it
in such a way that the question appears senseless to you.”
“If somebody asks me a question suddenly, I try to
answer, emphasizing and pointing out that there is no answer to that question.
So, I merely rephrase, restructure and throw the same question back at you.
It’s not game playing, because I’m not interested in winning you over to my
point of view. It’s not a question of offering opinions – of course I do have
my opinions on everything from disease to divinity, but they’re as worthless as
anybody else’s.”
“It is the questioner that creates the answer; and the
questioner comes into being from the answer, otherwise there is no questioner.
I am not trying to play with words. You know the answer, and you want a
confirmation from me, or you want some kind of light to be thrown on your
problem, or you’re curious – if for any of these reasons you want to carry on a
dialogue with me, you are just wasting your time; you’ll have to go to a
scholar, a pundit, a learned man – they can throw a lot of light on such
questions. That’s all that I am interested in this kind of a dialogue: to help
you to formulate your own question. Try and formulate a question which you can
call your own.”
* * *
“Your natural state has no relationship whatsoever with
the religious states of bliss, beatitude and ecstasy; they lie within the field
of experience. Those who have led man on his search for religiousness
throughout the centuries have perhaps experienced those religious states. So
can you. They are thought-induced states of being, and as they come, so do they
go. Krishna Consciousness, Buddha Consciousness, Christ Consciousness, or what
have you, are all trips in the wrong direction: they are all within the field
of time. The timeless can never be experienced, can never be grasped,
contained, much less given expression to, by any man. That beaten track will
lead you nowhere. There is no oasis situated yonder; you are stuck with the
mirage.”
“You see, people usually imagine that so-called
enlightenment, self-realization, God-realization or what you will (I don’t like
to use these words) is something ecstatic, that you will be permanently happy,
in a blissful state all the time – these are the images they have of those
people…. There’s no relationship at all between the image you have of that, and
what actually is the situation…. That’s why I very often tell people ‘If I
could give you some glimpse of what this is all about, you wouldn’t touch this
with a barge pole, a ten foot pole.’ You would run away from this because this
is not what you want. What you want does not exist, you see.”
“We don’t want to be free from fear. All that we want to
do is to play games with it and talk about freeing ourselves from fear.”
“You see, the search takes you away from yourself – it is
in the opposite direction – it has absolutely no relation.”
“The search is always in the wrong direction, so all that
you consider very profound, all that you consider sacred, is a contamination in
that consciousness. You may not like the word ‘contamination’, but all that you
consider sacred, holy and profound is a contamination.”
“Understanding is a state of being where the question
isn’t there any more; there is nothing there that says ‘now I understand!’ –
that’s the basic difficulty between us. By understanding what I am saying, you
are not going to get anywhere.”
“This consciousness which is functioning in me, in you,
in the garden slug and earthworm outside, is the same. In me it has no
frontiers; in you there are frontiers – you are enclosed in that. Probably this
unlimited consciousness pushes you, I don’t know. Not me; I have nothing to do
with it. It is like the water finding its own level, that’s all – that is its
nature. That is what is happening in you: life is trying to destroy the
enclosing thing, that dead structure of thought and experience, which is not of
its nature. It’s trying to come out, to break open. You don’t want that. As
soon as you see some cracks there, you bring some plaster and fill them in and
block it again. It doesn’t have to be a so-called self-realized man or
spiritual man or God-realized man that pushes you; anything, that leaf there, teaches
you just the same if only you let it do what it can.”
* * *
“We have very strange ideas in the religious field –
torture this body, sleep on nails, control, deny things – all kinds of funny
things. What for? Why deny certain things? I don’t know. What is the difference
between a man going to a bar for a glass of beer, and a man going to a temple
and repeating the name of Rama? I don’t see any basic difference…. I am not
against escapes, but whether you escape through this avenue or that avenue, an
escape is an escape. You are escaping from yourself…. What you do or do not do
does not matter at all. Your practice of holiness, your practice of virtue –
that is socially valuable for the society, but that has nothing to do with
this.”
“By conserving sex energy, you are not going to improve
yourself in any way. It is too silly and too absurd. Why have they laid so much
stress on that? Abstinence, continence, celibacy, is not going to help to put
you in this state, in this situation.”
“You don’t know what is good; you know only what is good
for you. That’s all you are interested in, that’s a fact. Everything centers
around that. All your art and reason centers around that. I am not being
cynical. That’s a fact. Nothing wrong with it. I’m not saying anything against
it. The situations change, but it is that which is guiding you through all
situations. I’m not saying it is wrong you see. If it is not so, something must
be wrong with you. As long as you are operating in the field of what they call
the ‘pair of opposites’, good and bad, you will always be choosy, in every
situation, that is all – you cannot help doing that.”
“A ‘moral man’ is a ‘chicken’. A ‘moral man’ is a
frightened man, a chicken-hearted man – that is why he practices morality and
sits in judgment over others. And his righteous indignation! A moral man (if
there is one) will never, never talk of morality or sit in judgment on the
morals of others. Never!”
“Questioning my actions before and after is over for me.
The moral question – ‘I should have acted this way; I should not have acted
that way. I should not have said this’ – none of that is there for me. I have
no regrets, no apologies; whatever I am doing is automatic. In a given
situation I am not capable of acting in any other way. I don’t have to
rationalize, think logically – nothing – that is the one and only action in
that particular situation.”
* * *
“You are asking me ‘Has anything any purpose?’ Look here,
a lot of meanings and purposes have been given to you. Why are you still looking
for the meaning of life, the purpose of life? Everybody has talked of the
meaning of life and the purpose of life – everybody. Answers have been given by
the saviours, saints and sages of mankind – you have thousands of them in India – and yet today you are still asking the same question, ‘Has life any purpose or
meaning?’ Either you are not satisfied or you are not really interested in
finding out for yourself. I submit that you are not really interested, because
it’s a frightening thing. It’s a very frightening thing. Is there any such
thing as truth? Have you ever asked that question for yourself? Has anybody
told the truth?”
“In a way, the whole of life is like a great big dream. I
am looking at you, but I really don’t know anything about you – this is a
dream, a dream world – there is no reality to it at all. When the experiencing
structure is not manipulating consciousness (or whatever you want to call it),
then the whole of life is a great big dream, from the experiential point of
view – not from this point of view here; but from your point of view. You see,
you give reality to things – not only to objects, but also to feelings and
experiences – and think that they are real. When you don’t translate them in
terms of your accumulated knowledge, they are not things; you really don’t know
what they are.”
“Courage is to brush aside everything that man has
experienced and felt before you. You are the only one, greater than all those
things. Everything is finished, the whole tradition is finished, however sacred
and holy it may be – then only can you be yourself – that is individuality. For
the first time you become an individual. As long as you depend upon somebody,
some authority, you are not an individual. Individual uniqueness cannot express
itself as long as there is dependence.”
“My life story goes up to a point, and then it stops –
there is no more biography after that. Desirelessness, non-greed, non-anger –
those things have no meaning to me; they are false, and they are not only
false, they are falsifying me. I’m finished with the whole business.”
* * *
I said at the beginning of this chapter “there are other
things I’ve read where he seems to contradict himself a lot, things I disagree
with, or maybe things I don’t totally understand.” Apparently U.G. agrees….
“I am always negating what I am
saying. I make a statement, but that statement is not expressing all that is
being said, so I negate it. You say I am contradicting myself. I am not
contradictory at all. I negate the first statement, the second statement, and
all the other statements – that is why sometimes it sounds very contradictory.
I am negating it all the time, not with the idea of arriving at any point; just
negating. There is no purpose in my talking.”1
FOOTNOTES
THE FUTURE
Back to the Table of Contents
Question:
I thought I just read in Chapter Twenty-Seven that time doesn’t exist. What are
you doing calling the last chapter in this book “The Future?”
Answer: You’re right. But I also said in Chapter
Twenty that “I can still dream;” and that’s what I’d like to do – dream a
little about the future – as long as I don’t get attached to the fulfillment of
those dreams.
Actually, toward the end of your time in the cocoon, you
begin to see ripples in the Universal ocean, movement in the “Earth
Environment” template; and sometimes it’s fun to speculate – in a general sort
of way – where those ripples might be heading. I’m seeing a couple ripples I
want to focus on for a few minutes before I end this book, simply because I
find some of this stuff fascinating.
The first ripple I see is that the drama and conflict and
pain and suffering and war and violence and hardship in the “Earth Environment”
template are actually increasing across the world, despite – or perhaps,
as explained in Chapter Eighteen, in part as a result of – the resistance of
more and more “peaceworkers.” Some of the “developed” countries haven’t been so
hard hit yet, but they will be as the global economic system becomes more
chaotic.
It seems like every day the news is full of more deaths from
war and violence, and from natural disasters as well. More people are out of
work around the world, more barely living from hand to mouth, more losing their
homes, more with no idea how they or their families will survive. More
economies are failing, more governments are collapsing or being challenged, and
more theories of everything are falling by the wayside.
For me, however, this is not a “bad” thing at all. It may
actually be signaling the beginning of a mass exodus out of the movie theater
with large numbers of Players gathering around the garden ready to eat from the
Tree of Life. In other words, the screws may be tightening, the rubber band may
be stretching to its limits, the situation deteriorating until more and more
Human Children are willing to stand up in their seats and yell, “We’re mad
as hell and we’re not going to take it any more” – and more Human Adults
realize what’s in the back of the movie theater isn’t working either and head
for the door. Sometimes things have to get pretty “bad” for that to happen.
But I’ve been overly optimistic before, so I can’t be sure.
As Alan Shore said in one of his closing arguments in an episode of Boston Legal…
“When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out
not to be true, I expected the American people to rise up. They didn’t. Then,
when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced, and it was revealed that our
government participated in rendition – a practice where we kidnap people and
turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture – I was sure then the
American people would be heard from. We stood mute.
“Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called
‘terrorist’ suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial, or even the
right to confront their accusers. Certainly we would never stand for that. We
did.
“And now it’s been discovered the Executive Branch has
been conducting massive illegal domestic surveillance on its own citizens – you
and me; and I at least consoled myself that finally – finally – the American
people will have had enough. Evidently we haven’t.
“In fact, if the people of this
country have spoken, the message is, ‘We’re okay with it all – torture,
warrantless search and seizures, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair
trail, or any trial, war on false pretenses. We as a citizenry are apparently
not offended. There are no demonstrations on college campuses; in fact there’s
no clear indication that young people even seem to notice.”1
Maybe it’s an encouraging sign that “young people” aren’t
demonstrating on college campuses, or otherwise protesting in general. Perhaps
it means they are beginning to realize that “changing things” isn’t working,
but they also see the futility in resistance, the purposelessness in joining
groups in the back of the movie theater, the rampant contradictions and
inconsistencies in all judgmental belief systems.
Maybe “young people” are simply numb, fed up with the whole
thing, but with no clue of what to do, no concept yet of a viable alternative
to the outdated and inaccurate models of life found inside the movie theater.
Perhaps they’re ready for this Human Game model.
As I asked in Chapter Twenty-One, “How much more pain and
suffering and limitation and restriction is required before millions of Players
surrender, understand it is their own judgments and resistance causing that pain
and suffering, and are willing to begin processing the false knowledge and
layers of the ego that are part of life inside the movie theater?”
So Ripple #1 appears to me headed in the direction of more
pain and suffering, and says to me the rollercoaster is nearing the top of the
first hill, when things get really tough and the going gets really rough for
those inside.
* * *
Ripple #2, going in the opposite direction, is that there
are also signs more and more Players are waking up from their dreamstate, or at
least waking up within their dreamstate.
You recall I talked about a “template” (or matrix) for the
“Earth Environment” in Chapter Twenty-Four. Let’s speculate a little on how
that template might change from time to time….
Remember The Field?
“A field of all possibility.”2
“The foundation of the universe
is a single universal field of intelligence… the fountainhead of all the laws
of nature; all the fundamental forces, all the fundamental particles, all the
laws governing life at every level of the universe.”3
“We can’t explain what we do see
as matter…unless we picture that these matter particles somehow come out from
or emerge from these thought-wave patterns.”4
An Infinite I goes to this Field and chooses certain
specific wave frequencies to create the holographic experiences it wants for
its Player.
But rather than having to re-create the car and the
buildings and the briefcase – and the galaxies and the solar system and this
planet – each time, it uses a template in The Field I have called the “Earth
Environment” for its basic “total immersion movie set,” and adds whatever
unique aspects it wants for its individual Player. Then it downloads that
hologram to its Player’s brain.
I also talked about the human brain receiving these
holographic wave frequencies from The Field and translating them into our
“physical reality,” like a radio that receives sound wave frequencies and
translates them into music and words we can hear; and this is where the Player
comes in. Let me explain….
A radio has a certain range of frequencies it can receive
and translate into sound. The AM range is 535-1605 KHz, and the FM range is
usually 88 - 108 MHz, although this can vary slightly from country to country.
Obviously, there are sounds to be heard outside of those frequencies, but a
radio receiver doesn’t pick them up.
This is also true for humans, who can hear only a limited
range of sounds as well. Dogs, dolphins and other creatures can hear different
frequencies than we do, for example.
There is some scientific evidence our
brains are receiving a much wider range of frequencies than we are able to
perceive. Michael Weliky from the University of Rochester conducted a study
which led him to conclude that perhaps as much as 80% of the frequencies we
receive are "locked in our heads,"5 unable
to be perceived.
Regardless of how wide a range of frequencies the human
brain might be able to receive from The Field, it's clear there is a limited
range of frequencies we can actually perceive. What exactly is determining this
range of frequencies? The judgments, beliefs, opinions, and fears we form in
the first half of the Human Game. So at any given moment, the “Earth
Environment” template in The Field available to an Infinite I to create
a hologram for its Player is limited to a certain range of frequencies the
Player can perceive based on their judgments, beliefs, opinions, and fears.
I want to say that a third time because
it's so important: Our judgments, beliefs, opinions, and fears limit the
range of frequencies our Infinite I can use from The Field to download a
holographic experience we can perceive. This is demonstrated so well by Dr.
Bruce Lipton in his exercise with the two sets of colored glasses and the
pictures of FEAR and LOVE.6
With that in mind, I want to take a look at the frequency
range of our current template of the “Earth Environment,” but this is going to
be a little tricky because of the wording and the analogy to a radio. I want to
emphasize before we start that no frequency is “better” or “worse” than any
other frequency; and when I use certain numbers to represent frequencies, it
does not mean one number is “better” or "worse" just because
it’s a “higher” or “lower” number. For example, the music at 91.3 on a radio
dial is no “better” than the music at 104.7. It’s just a different frequency
with different content. You may prefer to listen to one kind of music over
another, but that doesn’t make it “better.”
To help remove all judgments about the numbers, I have
intentionally reversed the following graphics from what we would normally
expect to see. In fact, doing it this way is more in keeping with our
rollercoaster analogy, where the “higher” you go on the first hill, the more
limitation you experience.
Okay. Let's arbitrarily say the total frequency range in The
Field available to our Infinite I to create a holographic experience
goes from 0 to 2000, somewhat like this....
However, most Players today can only perceive part of that
frequency range (500-1800) because of their judgments, beliefs, opinions and
fears, somewhat like this....
If we were to graph the Players on Earth and the frequency
ranges they could perceive, it might look like a Bell Curve....
...with very few whose experiences consist mainly of total
joy and abundance (approaching no limitations); also very few experiencing
catastrophic disasters and plagues (complete limitation); and the vast majority
with an "Earth Environment" template ranging from beauty, sunsets,
happiness, and love to war, violence, abuse, and fear.
At any given time, it's interesting for me to look at the
template for the “Earth Environment” that appears in my own hologram, to see
the frequency range and how it is changing. As I said, it seems to me more and
more Players are experiencing more war, violence, abuse, and fear. The sheer
numbers of people who are in pain and suffering have seemingly increased
dramatically in the last fifty years compared to previous templates. What this
tells me is more and more Players are nearing the pinnacle of limitation in the
first half of the Human Game, and more and more Infinite I’s might be
ready for their Players to enter the second half.
Did I make that clear? Rather than judging the increasing
deaths occurring so frequently now from natural catastrophes, or the crash of
the world financial system, or the melting of the glaciers as "bad,"
they may simply be an indication the amount of limitation appearing in the
“Earth Environment” template is reaching its maximum threshold and could result
in more Players moving into the second half of the Human Game – as I said, like
a rubber band being stretched to its limits before it breaks.
* * *
So how can we start perceiving a different range of
frequencies in the “Earth Environment” template? By letting go of our
judgments, beliefs, opinions, and fears on an individual Player level. We have
the free will and the ability to do that; and in the process we will shift the
frequency range of the “Earth Environment” template we can perceive, and
therefore the frequency range our Infinite I can use to create our
holograms, from this…
...to this….
You’ll notice that war and violence and abuse and fear are
no longer perceivable in this new range. They still exist, as all frequencies
do, but we simply do not experience them any more as individual Players.
This is what happens as a Player moves further in their
cocoon as they run Robert’s Process and do their spiritual autolysis, letting
go of their judgments, beliefs, opinions, and fears, and especially stripping
away layers of the ego; they simply stop having the limiting experiences they
had inside the movie theater appear in their holograms.
On the other end of the spectrum, we begin to experience
more than just beauty, sunsets, happiness and love as we move toward unlimited
joy and abundance.
I want to emphasize it’s not necessary to “send new
information to The Field” to create these new frequencies as some teachers have
suggested, because The Field, by definition, already contains all information
and all possibilities, and because we as Players cannot create anything anyway.
It is also not necessary to change the number of DNA strands, or achieve a
certain level of “enlightenment,” or eat only organic food, or meditate, or
anything else in order to begin to perceive this new range of frequencies. All
that is required is to let go of the judgments, beliefs, opinions and fears
that determined the frequency range for the first half of the Human Game.
Now the interesting question is: What if a large number of
Players were to leave the movie theater; make their way through their cocoon;
let go of their judgments, beliefs, opinions, and fears; and were able to
perceive this new frequency range? What effect would that have on the “Earth
Environment” template in The Field – the one the Infinite I’s use when
creating holographic experiences for their Players?
In other words, what might be the effect, if any, if a large
number of Players begin the process of transforming into butterflies? Would the
bell curve then look like this?
* * *
A British biologist, Rupert Sheldrake, has
a theory he calls “morphic resonance,” or “morphic field theory.”7
Basically the theory says when enough members of a species
have adopted the same behavior, a critical number is reached, called a
“critical mass,” and this new behavior is automatically and rapidly transferred
by “morphic resonance” to the entire species.
“The term [morphic fields] is
more general in its meaning than morphogenetic fields, and includes other kinds
of organizing fields in addition to those of morphogenesis; the organizing
fields of animal and human behaviour, of social and cultural systems, and of
mental activity can all be regarded as morphic fields which contain an inherent
memory.”8
Sheldrake’s theories have been heavily
criticized by mainstream biologists for many years. However, some quantum
physicists have supported Sheldrake's hypothesis, and even David Bohm suggested
it was in keeping with his own ideas of what he called the
"implicate" and "explicate" order.9
I know from my direct experiences of testing and challenging
this model that an individual Player can significantly change the range of
frequencies its Infinite I can use to create its holographic experiences
by letting go of judgments, beliefs, opinions, and fears, and stripping away
the layers of ego.
So I wonder….
If more and more Players were to enter their cocoons, would
the transformational process become faster and easier for each new generation?
Would a critical mass eventually be reached where all the
Players on Earth automatically walk out of the movie theater and into their cocoons?
Would the Earth, as a Player itself, no longer need a movie
theater and begin an entirely new game?
That’s Ripple #2.
I’d like to stay around long enough to see where it goes.
FOOTNOTES
You are invited to write a book review, or offer
comments, or download the free audio book version of this ebook by visiting:
ButterfliesFree.com
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