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ENTERING A NEW PARADIGM

Life's four basic questions

Here is this useful text

By Eric Rolf, from "Soul Medicine, the Anti-Medicine - of Creative Cause & Inner Listening".
Related articles: Soul Medicine Paradigm - Basic Principles

If you are personally already undergoing a paradigm change in your life or if you believe you are ready to accept and experience one, then some guidance can be useful. Guidance is an interesting word. It seems to be composed of the words guide and dance. A guide is generally someone who has been there before and seems to know the way. The dictionary says: One who shows the way by leading, directing, or advising. Dance is a movement to music, an expression of feeling through steps and gestures. The dictionary says: To move rhythmically usually to music, using prescribed or improvised steps and gestures.

When considering guidance in terms of a personal paradigm shift, guidance can take on another meaning entirely as well. It becomes more of a training program. It is similar to giving someone a course in navigation and sailing. You can provide the information and the tools, but you cannot get in the boat with them nor can you predict the condition of the seas they will face. That rhythmical movement of the emotional waters will be totally personal and fully appropriate to their individual dance through life. In almost all cases, there will be periods of storm and disorientation as well as moments of calm and clarity when the other shore is clearly visible.

What I consider a kind of training course is what I call life’s four basic questions. These are experiential in nature and thus require one’s personal exploration. I have found that it is to the extent that we explore our responses to these questions that we begin to truly prepare ourselves to encounter a new perception or paradigm. It is like facing a number of one’s belief networks in concentrated form. I will offer some guidance and insight regarding these four questions, but these can only be considered useful hints. It is you who must build the inner muscles to handle the new and many challenges that accompany a new worldview and our personal experience of it. At least I can assure you that these questions, explored fully and remembered during trying moments can produce the necessary muscles and flexibility of vision to enable your acceptance and enjoyment of the new paradigm.

The first question is the Einstein question since it was from him that I first heard it. One day during an interview the reporter asked him: “what to you would be the basic question we can ask about the universe?” Considering that it had to do with Einstein, it’s possible that the reporterexpected something complex. However, Einstein said that for him life’s basic question was:“is the universe friendly?” Then he continued saying that most likely the universe is infinite, that certainly we’ll never know all there is to know about it; that it is an unfolding mystery. However, whatever it is, he added, what we most want to know is if it is friendly. Is it basically on our side or against us? And if it is friendly, is it always friendly even when it appears to the contrary?

Obviously the friendliness of life becomes a question when the events of the moment appear frustrating, challenging and all to the contrary. This is something we all face, not just those involved with a paradigm shift. Our habitual tendency is to consider the event negative and attempt to deal with it as best we can. Nevertheless it is like “score this one for the bad guys.” It is also likely that the negative judgment of the event will remain with you as an emotional memory long after the direct effects have passed.

The alternative to judgment is to stop, relax a bit and ask inwardly: How can this be supporting me either now or in the future? Then listen and become aware of the answer. It will often surprise you. At least by asking the question you limit the impact of negative judgment. You become open to the possibility that it can even be a blessing in disguise. This openness facilitates being able to perceive the other possibilities associated with the event. All of us have had experiences that at first impact seem negative but then over time other events help us see it in a different light.

I have a friend who lost his job through what is euphemistically called “corporate downsizing.” About two weeks later, during a time when he would have been at his desk in the office, he decided to take a walk and handle some errands. While he was walking he ran into a college friend he hadn’t seen in years, although they had been quite close at the university where both had studied in similar engineering programs. It turned out that the friend had started his own company that was operating successfully and expanding. Before the afternoon was over, the college friend offered him the best job opportunity of his life. This was possible because he was free and walking around at a time when he would have been normally at his desk. Seen in retrospect, it is as if life gave him a two week vacation and then gave him a wonderful career gift. Obviously, no one likes losing their job, nor do we always know that in two weeks we will get the best job offer ever. The first impact is negative, certainly. The thing is not to get stuck there. It is not even a matter of positive thinking. It is about accepting “not knowing” rather than only the negative judgment, and then asking inwardly how this might be supportive now or in the future.

I had an experience several years in Stockholm during a change in living spaces. A friend had made it possible for us to rent her large and luxurious apartment at a price we could afford. She was to be gone a year working for Swedish television in Washington, D.C. My contract began October l, but I had the keys from the 15th of September and I would take things over to the new apartment. One Monday I arrived and there was a note on the door in Swedish that began “Dear friend” The rest I couldn’t make out. I opened the door and went in. It was a disaster area. What I learned later the note said was dear friend, during the weekend the radiator in the apartment above exploded and your flat was inundated with about 400 gallons of water. In fact, since no one was in either the apartment upstairs or in mine, it wasn’t until the water penetrated to the apartment below that the problem was discovered. Naturally, the first impact is negative. However, I stopped and asked myself how this could be supportive either now or in the future. The answer came immediately and was at least comforting: It went something like Relax, this is Sweden. Here everything is well insured. Everything will be fine. And indeed it was. Two days later the insurance people came, evaluated the damage and soon the repair work began. Some side comments: first, the only room that was completely destroyed was the main bedroom but there were two other bedrooms we could use. The rest of the flat was little affected. The insurance company paid for an entire new bedroom, walls, ceilings and hardwood floors and even painted other parts of the apartment that were only slightly affected. In addition they paid for a large new bed. The entire project took a couple of months since things had to dry before some of the work could be done. But through it we were calm and relaxed and enjoyed our interactions with the workers. In retrospect it was as if life said we would like for you to live here and we are going to give you a brand new bedroom, ceilings, walls, hardwood floors and a large new bed which you can choose. The only thing is that the work will take a couple of months. Would I have agreed? Of course.

When we hear people describe their lives and their worldview, the impression most often is that the universe is not friendly. Certainly if we accept that what we see on the TV news is a reflection of our lives, then it seems everything except friendly. However, we do not live statistically, we live individual lives. We may see a murder on TV but we’re alive hearing about it. What is important in the first instance is what is going on in our life at the moment and how are we handling it. If it seems negative, are we willing to “not know” and ask about other possibilities. And then listen for the answer and perhaps take an indicated action. Sometimes at any point in our lives we have a series of negative situations we are living more or less simultaneously. If that is the case then sit down and explore these from the standing point of a friendly universe. In most cases you will get useful and even surprising answers, often about yourself.

The second question is Do I create my own reality?

This would be compared to its opposite which is that all life is a matter of random chance and we are all victims of one form or another, including victims occasionally of good luck.

It isn’t exactly accurate to say that most people do not believe they create their own reality. It is more a matter of degree and extent. This is a very important distinction. Most of us believe that our teeth are clean after we brush them. It was our intention they be clean and we have created it so. It is our intention to make up our bed and we do it without much extra thought and go on to other things. So, to a slight degree we do believe we create our own reality. The thing is that as the scope becomes larger that it seems our lives go beyond our direct control. We can get fired from our job, we can have an accident (?) or we can even win the lottery but to an ever greater degree we had less to do with the result. The job? Well, maybe I’ve been dogging it since I didn’t really like it. But I’m not the only one. Still I didn’t want to get fired. The accident certainly wasn’t my fault. I was sitting at the light and someone hit me from behind. Wow I won the lottery. Well, someone’s number had to be picked. And as far as health, well who does anything to create a bad kidney? Or cancer and you’ve never smoked? It’s just the way things are. Life does things to us. Sometimes it feels good (like the lottery) and sometimes it doesn’t feel good (likethe accident or bad kidneys or cancer).

This is pretty much the thought process of the majority. It is also possible that you do not include yourself in that group; that you do believe that you create your own reality. And most likely you also believe that you do not always know how you are doing it. While you do not consider yourself a total victim, you still do not feel in complete control of the events in your life. You still frequently hear yourself say “guess what happened to me the other day?”

Can it be true that while we do not really know what will happen from moment to moment (life is a mystery) that we nevertheless create our own reality? Can we still say “guess what occurred to me” without referring purely to random chance? My answer is yes and it is my direct experience that it is so. What is important is that it also becomes your direct experience, rather than merely an intellectual reference you read here and in a few other places so it must be so, although it is not reflected in your life. ”they also say the world goes round but I don’t feel a thing”

Let’s begin by reminding ourselves that we are now looking from another paradigm, it is another reality, another planet with other physics, otherwise the following comments would seem to be absurd.

Each of us is part of an ocean of consciousness and continuous creativity. That is our essence. What we create is reality of different types and kinds. We are reality creators which is another word for artists; multi dimensional artists if you prefer. The universe includes all the possibilities; the void is not empty it is simply an unmanifested potential. So, we can further say that the artist does not create from nothing, but rather makes the invisible visible. Michelangelo points this out saying that all the possibilities are already in the piece of marble and that he simply chips away that which is not a part of his vision. This is fine and it is very similar to making our bed in the morning; it is not that difficult to understand or accept that we create and control the outcome.

What is common to both cases as well as common to the events which we do not feel we control is the matter of belief. Michelangelo believes he can create a sculpture by chipping away that which doesn’t belong. You believe you can make your bed in the morning and you do. You also believe you can have an accident and even win a lottery prize otherwise you would not bother about auto insurance nor would you waste your time and money buying a lottery ticket.

Belief sounds much like “be life”. Our life is what we believe it is on a multitude of levels, some more immediately available to our ego consciousness than others. I say ego consciousness because as the ego becomes less noisy, we become more conscious of our beliefs.

We not only create reality according to our beliefs, but what we say is “out there in the real world” is only what we believe is there or that can possibly be there. We have layers and layers and networks of beliefs, and life’s energy flows through us and through these “creative reality design molds” and the result is the reality we experience.

And with the greater the intensity and belief, the quicker that belief is made visible. In a very real sense, the objects and events in our life are our beliefs made visible. We are like reality creating machines. A belief is that which we know to be the case to varying degrees. When we “know it” completely, it is so. When “it is so” for us, it becomes visible. Or at least the opportunity for it to become visible is there. We may then choose to make it visible, to manifest it or not. Actions based on a particular belief increase its acceptance or intensity in our life. Repetition (actually re-newed commitment would be more accurate) then tends toward visibility. This can be summed up by saying that whatever you do based on “as if it were so” will become more and more so until it manifests physically. This matter of beliefs applies both in positive as well as in negative terms. In fact, most people have a greater belief in the cruder energies than in the lighter more subtle ones. This is like saying that we believe more in aggression or even in hate than we do in love. Ultimately these are simply different points on the same spectrum. It is the crude oil or the perfume. You don’t have one without first having the other, and then transforming it. The problem isn’t the crude energy it is our commitment to transformation. Commitment and belief go together. We can say that commitment is a choosing of a belief or our willingness to give ourselves to a particular vision. As we re new that commitment each day through our actions, it moves more and more toward visibility and manifestation. The commitment to transformation is what is known as the spiritual path, making the qualities of life visible, becoming more human and humane.

Each of us has multitudes of beliefs, many even conflicting one with the other. We even have beliefs about beliefs. If I were to put a number on our beliefs I would say it was something equivalent to the number of cells in the body or at least in the brain--which is about a billion. However, just as they say that we have about a half billion brain cells concerned with awareness and perception and only activate or use about 2000 (yes, that’s two thousand). Something similar occurs with beliefs and in fact many beliefs are connected with our alternate realities and alternate selves, but that’s a whole other story. For us they are as if inactive and we’ll leave it at that. What we have that is manageable is our fundamental belief structures, specifically those connected with our lives and with the lives of others on this planet and in the physical dimension. We have a common belief that heavier than air objects fall to the ground due to the law of gravity. We also have beliefs about possibilities that create heavier than air objects that fly; the laws of aerodynamics. Who knows, perhaps there is also a law of grace as some say and physical levitation is possible. However, if I were you I wouldn’t jump out of a 10 story building to prove it, not just yet. It is curious however, that the first jump lessons for paratroopers is jumping off a chair and then the heights are increased until, without a parachute, they can feel comfortable jumping from heights of 10-15 feet. The dancer Nijinsky would make enormous leaps from a standing position while former basketball superstar Michael Jordan admitted to “flying” longer than his defenders. For some reason they called him Air Jordan.

The initial package of beliefs we generate at birth, through a variety of means. We bring many with us from former lives, we take on beliefs from our chosen parents and family and we also create beliefs as part of our birth process. We are most familiar perhaps with the last in terms of birth trauma, although I find that all births have trauma or events that direct us toward our purpose in life in qualitative terms.

Still, a scenario may unfold something like this. After 9 months of being comfortable, of floating in a nice warm lake, of having all your nutritional needs met, suddenly there is a change. There is turmoil, contractions, the desire to become free, strong feelings and emotions, discomfort. As the process unfolds it is possible we have a long cord wrapped around our necks, making breathing difficult or that we are not facing forward and they use a vacuum pump; years ago they used metal forceps. Then, they hang us upside down by our feet and spank our bottoms. Now the child is a complete human being, just a small one. He is fully conscious in ways other than our worldly ones but none the less conscious. It is very easy to see how he might be confused by all this and say and believe something like I’m not really sure where I am, or who these other people are but wherever it is and whoever they are they are out to get me. This is an unfriendly place. Then, if we imagine a little boy, for reasons of hygiene they separate him from his mother to wash him. However, to him he has been disconnected from his habitual source of life and protection. He has been, he feels, abandoned. You can’t trust women. They abandon you. Then, he proceeds to create to varying degrees an unfriendly universe or life experience in which women abandon him. This will continue until he drops or transforms those beliefs. The transformation of the unfriendly universe comes with understanding and realization about how it was actually supporting you even when it appeared differently. The abandonment can get transformed into the understanding that it is the feminine aspect that can set him free. That he is both an outer form and an inner being aligned with both the masculine and feminine principles. A girl child can also feel abandoned in this situation although she tends to project this on the male aspect. What we are rejecting is our inner experience and inner reality to begin with. In a matter of speaking men are women on the inside and women men, we include both polarities.

Our spiritual path is related to the types of beliefs we have come to transform into their enlightened qualities. Generally our relationship with that life purpose is one of attraction in principle and in words but resistance in terms of action. In fact if you wish to get in touch with many of your beliefs, the best method I know is to make a list of all the experiences you resist. I will also say that underneath every resistance is a kind of personal buried treasure. Act on your resistances and you are transforming beliefs. You can also act directly on your beliefs; but acting in the opposite manner taking action as if the opposite was the case. I personally had a lovely experience with this about age 22 when in a moment of inspiration I wrote a poem called yogi headache. In those days to me a yogi was someone who stood on his head. The opening line was I spend the days standing on my head and then it went on to describe that everything in the world was backwards. In fact, most things are the opposite from how they appear when seen from the inside out. The movie seems to be happening on the screen but it is really a projection of light, colors, shadows and metaphors from inside a projector. In our lives we are that projector of light, colors, shadow and meaningful metaphors.

The third question is: Am I crazy?

You would be amazed at the amount of time and effort we spend trying to convince our self and others that we are not crazy. Crazy is associated with fantasies of chaos and irrationality that moves us outside of the world we know and leaves us lonely, unloved, abandoned, unworthy, and vulnerable to who knows what. It is associated with our mind and with what is called “losing your mind” a more than interesting choice of words.

First let’s understand that crazy is not a medical term. No self respecting physician would write “this patient is crazy” although “insane” is acceptable. “I n sane” also very interesting. While we are considering “crazy-related” words, “mentally disturbed” is another curious description as is “mad” or “madness”. In the Alma paradigm we talk about always looking in a mirror; that everything and everyone is a reflection of ourselves to some degree. This can be interpreted at one level as the above physician looking at himself and saying “this identification with mental or inner chaos is ok or sane relative to the inner but not coherent relative to the external.” To say that someone is mentally disturbed is not necessarily only a kind way to describe insanity. It is a statement of degree relative to how much the person’s perception seems to be outside the box of community consensus. We can almost see it as “how much of my mind is mentally disturbed by this person?” Then, “can others handle that difference easily?”

Mad is a truly beautiful word. It does not carry the clinical flavor of insane yet has a clarity all its own. It is a word of the heart, of passion more than of mind. I remember in grade school when we used the word mad to mean angry the teacher would say; ”Dogs get mad, people get angry.” Dog which is the word god spelled backwards is also a metaphor of devotion and commitment; a dog is called man’s best friend. There is completeness and a totality implied. Mad is like pregnant; either you are or you are not. One is never either slightly mad or slightly pregnant. Yet it is also not applicable medically. Madness is like a moment or experience lived totally which if transformed and translated into a symbol or language that can be shared with others would be called genius. Genius is another non medical term that is also total in nature. One is not a slight genius. Einstein, considered by many to be a genius, experienced such a moment when he imagined himself riding a light beam around the universe and then was able to translate it into the language of mathematics and physics to produce the theory of relativity--a theory which in the beginning was considered a madness. It was mentally disturbing, to say the least. Einstein was called everything except Albert. I agree with Simone de Beauvoir when he said that “one is not born a genius, one becomes a genius.” At one time I taught a course I called “awakening your sleeping genius.” It focused on concepts and methods for aligning with our unique creative abilities or powers and then applying them. The word genie or jinni in Muslim mythology describes the guardian spirit with magical powers to transform and serve.

Crazy is a social term and is relative to culture and to a time in history. Many of the new, more radical social expressions are often considered crazy. This was certainly true about the Punk movement in the 70s, yet today Punk influenced hair and clothing styles abound among persons who do not consider themselves “on the fringe.” Crazy is also related to how we believe we fit into that social mix at any given moment. We might have heard ourselves say “You might think I’m crazy but the thought just occurred to me that we could go for a balloon ride.”

Crazy says something about how we judge, accept, identify with or give expression to the thoughts that cross our mind. It is related to believing that you are or might be your thoughts; or that your thoughts can somehow overpower you into doing something regretful. This fear is associated with a deep knowing about the power of the imagination. It is a fear of one’s own mind. It is a case of not having a mind, rather the mind has you. It is like being afraid of your hand or your foot starting to beat or kick you. It is a groundless fear, but a fear nonetheless. It is a resistance and as the saying goes “whatever we resist, persists;” and, we would add, grows.

While crazy is a relative term, each of us is unique; our bodies, our education, our life experiences and, most certainly, our thoughts. In any given moment we can say that no one perceives and responds exactly as we do. If the rest is relative to us, then we can be said to be crazy. That is not a problem. It is the natural order of things. The difficulty comes when we resist it and try to live the impossible, to be what we are not or to be what we believe the other to be. Accepting your uniqueness is accepting your being crazy. Many relate uniqueness with isolation from others, with being outcast, alone, lonely, sad, despondent, depressed, the unburied dead. It is an ego dilemma. I am unique but the others are the others. We don’t also accept the other’s uniqueness. We want him to be like us, both to feel accompanied as well as to believe we can control.

Who can control a crazy person, right? Most of us notice, at least to varying degrees, our inner or mood changes. We also do not give expression to all of our feelings and, especially the cruder emotions. A part of us want to be something stable and definable and another is changeable, dynamic, and contradictive. Both of these energy streams are filtered through our social identity or mask to be expressed in the world with some consistency. It is this consistency we see in the other while feeling insecure about our own apparent lack of consistency, at least internally. It seems to make us insecure; it feels like consistency is asking us to outwait a mountain. We wonder Am I crazy? We might answer: Sure. So what’s next? Your mind and all its possibilities are just that, your mind and your possibilities and you choose which you elect to express in any given moment. Consider the activity of the mind a kind of wardrobe. You decide what to wear in the world depending on the role you are playing. In fact, there is no objective you, only that role that is being played out in the world in that moment. The soul nutrients, especially conscious breathing, meditation and a creative art can heal your disturbed relationship with the idea of being crazy.

The fourth question is probably my favorite. It is certainly one we have all asked ourselves, often with some justification.

Am I stupid?

My answer is: “Yes, sometimes.” Stupid is a social evaluation more than a comment on one’s intelligence, although the dictionary says: “slow to learn or understand, obtuse; lacking in mental acuity.” I would say it does not have to do with intelligence, education or mental acuity. I have met some very educated “stupid” people; some were college professors. Stupid is similar in this sense to the word rich. Ultimately, it does not have to do with money. I have known many poor people with money and rich ones with relatively little money.

The key is the word ultimately which means “at the end of a succession or process.” Stupid is when our experience becomes habit, robotic, rather than a background of possibilities. Stupid is when we believe that things, events or people behave or occur only in a certain way; and further, that we know what that way is; when in a given moment life has no mystery because we’ve “been there, done that.” We become self- styled experts; which I heard once defined as one who knows more and more about less and less. It is in those moments when I say yes, that is stupid. It is blocking out surprise and mystery in the name of being right and even feeling a bit superior. Socrates said that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing. It is this knowing nothing, this nothing, which becomes the space for meaningful information and experience on many levels. Stupidity is more an ego issue rather than a mental condition. Consequently the best remedy is humor and laughter; best if you can laugh at yourself first or surely others will mirror that for you and you may misunderstand their laughter as well. I would advise anyone to be aware when they become argumentative, especially about subjects or with people whom they think they know. Debate can be healthy and even a fun exercise. Just remember it includes listening and not just talking. It includes asking questions, not prejudging answers. This prejudgment is a fear oriented defense before the fact and creates the very difficulty it seeks to avoid. Love and caring for the other helps tune our listening apparatus so we can identify with the person rather than only with what is said. It is listening with the heart. Cupid’s not stupid.

These four basic questions are all interrelated. Like other things it makes more sense backwards. Life is a mystery; we are unique, as is each moment. We have in a mysterious way created it according to our beliefs; regardless of how you first see it, it is supportive either now or in the future. This is a beginning to living the new paradigm. Try it on the events in your life, especially the events that do not seem at first view positive.

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