Creating Your Reality
By Peter Shepherd
As touched on in the last lesson, one of the confusions we face in the human condition is to do with "level of game." There's being the Games-Maker, the creator of reality, which is a source condition, not a games condition. More commonly, life on Earth is a games condition. Game requires other-determinism, unknowns, barriers, disagreements. When you play football you are responsible for your actions and helping your team to score goals. You don't worry about the other side being upset when you score.
It's a basic principle of respect for others and the recognition of their individuality, that they are responsible for their actions and reactions - that is their freedom of choice. They are not a slave or puppet. One can consider a question like "What could I be responsible for?" and one may conclude "everything". That may ultimately be true but it is not necessarily the best approach to life, for happiness for yourself and others.
That "you create your own reality" is true but nonetheless this world we live in is indeed real! If it's raining, I might consider "This is wonderful, so good for nature and it smells lovely," whilst another person says, "How awful, I'm not going out in that, how depressing." Two realities, but subjective ones.
From your interpretation of reality you make decisions and your decisions and choices and emotional tone have enormous influence on the direction of your life and what happens. Psychic and telepathic phenomena are also a big factor, but generally act subconsciously as the society suppresses them, because they threaten the status quo game of a purely mechanical reality, based on competitive survival.
There are better games to play, that give win-win results, but still the element of fun requires unknowns and randomness, even if self-imposed. In one's own universe (inner mind) and when exteriorized from this Earth game, one can adopt more of a source viewpoint that does not have the same games conditions. As when lucid dreaming, in which you can create/do what you want. And one can 'awaken' in this game and start to influence it, to play as Games-Maker, and create a better game.
Looking at life and relationships in terms of Communication, Understanding and Empathy (CUE) is actually a spiritual viewpoint. It is like the 'love of God' - it can seem harsh but it's about the 'greatest good'. It has no room for the 'victim' identification, jealousy and those kinds of very human responses, that are based on conditioned misconceptions.
Consideration for the other person comes into play when you judge ethics, what is best overall, not just for oneself. However the other may not agree with your judgment nor like it. That is an aspect of the unknowns and randomness of the game. You try to make it a win-win rather than competitive game by increasing the qualities of CUE.
You are responsible... for creating your own belief system and internal map of the world. For interpreting situations however you do and creating feelings based on those interpretations. For your choices, decisions and actions. For being true to your own judgment but never being judgmental of others. For communicating with honesty and integrity, developing and maintaining an open mind, and promoting understanding and empathy. For never compromising your freedoms and rights nor trampling on another's. For always acting from the primary motivation of love. That's all and quite enough.
This is something from Bill Harris about beliefs, that I feel is relevant...
People naturally believe whatever the evidence in their life tells them is true. But if you stop to think about it, everyone has different evidence (because of different experiences and levels of awareness), which is why people believe different things (sometimes totally opposite things) about the same manifestation of reality. Are they all true? Yes, they are, to the person who believes them.
Is there an ultimate reality? Yes. Does that matter to the person who believes something that is contrary to that "ultimate" reality? No. Whatever a person believes, for them, is true. I'm not talking about frivolous beliefs, such as "I believe I'm going to win the lottery," or "I can change myself into a chestnut tree," but rather deeply held beliefs about who you are, what your place is in the world, what is possible for you, and so on.
I do not think that if you "believe" a stone is not hard it will cease to be hard - though if someone believed this deeply enough they could create a hallucination of some sort in which stones were not hard, which goes along with my point that for the believer, what is believed IS true, regardless of whether or not it disagrees with any ultimate truth. Which, other than on a philosophical/intellectual level, makes "ultimate truth" somewhat irrelevant.
People believe many things about themselves, about the world, about other people, about what is possible (and so on). In many (if not most) cases, people are not even aware they believe these things, because they so much take them for granted that they never consider whether they are reasonable or resourceful beliefs (which I think is a much better way to evaluate what you believe than whether or not it is "true').
These beliefs cause a person to either 1) attract, and be attracted to, people and situations that allow them to confirm the "trueness" of what they already believe (as when a woman who believes men are pigs keeps getting attracted to pigs); 2) cause them to filter the evidence coming to them so as to interpret what is happening as confirmation that what they believe really is true, even if it isn't (as when a person interprets "I can't go out with you tonight" as "I don't really love you," even if that isn't really what is happening); or 3) they behave in such a way that they ultimately make what they believe to be true actually come true (as when a person who thinks they can never make money makes poor financial decisions and loses their money, gets into debt, and so on).
Certain beliefs (such as "I can do anything" or "People like me") are worth having because they are resourceful, because they create the results you want in life. The fact that in a ultimate sense they may not be true (or might only be true part of the time) is, in that respect, irrelevant. If you are after results, believing these things does create direct and real results.
Here are some questions about spirituality and the answers I offered...
Q: Is there only one consciousness and do all entities need an ego?
A: I'll give my opinions and subjective experience in regards to your question. But remember the truth of your reality is inside you.
I think there's a confusion here between the spiritual being that creates its reality, and that part of the being's mind that you can label the 'ego.'
From the spiritual plane, a being could simply not consider that the universe exists and it would have no reality for that being. But just by nature of having a viewpoint located here in the physical universe, identified with a body, the being has accepted the existence of the universe, as it is, including the parts of the universe unperceived from that located viewpoint.
The being's mind has created the ego, which is a personality, a face to the world, containing a system of beliefs and solutions to the problems of survival as a human being. That belief system has a map of the world that may only approximate to the reality, and be full of delusions. It is the colored glasses the person views the world through.
The reality is only an illusion (not a delusion) with respect to the Higher Self, that spiritual part of the person which remains in the spiritual plane while its viewpoint located in the physical universe is identified with a body, to experience the physical dimension and learn the lessons that offers.
I believe that the sound in the forest happens whether or not anyone perceives it. Is the clock ticking in the next room? I believe so, since when I go there the clock tells the predicted correct time. I think this is a common error philosophers make in failing to differentiate the spiritual and physical dimensions or planes of existence.
Similarly the aliens (and life forms on other planets) are living in this same physical plane so they would perceive the same universe as us - though it may look quite different through their eyes and other senses, it would be the same objectively. We haven't found alien life forms yet because we don't have the technology to look very far. But they are perceivable from the spiritual dimension and life pervades the universe. (Some would say there is physical evidence but it's suppressed for political reasons.)
In practice, the physical and spiritual are intertwined and so all the confusions occur. Our spirituality does have a profound influence on our physical experience, due the spiritual aspect of our make-up that is retained as human beings. It provides an inner knowing of truth, if we are open to it, through intuitive connection with our Higher Self. There is interconnection between all human beings as well, due to our common spirituality. We can also have a direct influence on the physical plane by creative intention on the part of the Higher Self, itself connected and part of the energetic force (that one can consider essentially an expression of Love) that creates the physical universe and other planes.
Q: If we are all ONE, as we are told then why do we have individual souls?
A: Because it is one state of being, Love, but expressed through countless viewpoints making up All That Is. Without individual souls there would be no communication, understanding or empathy - which requires some separation. So it's go apart, come together, experiencing, interacting. If you read about Dale Askew's spiritual experiences on the trans4mind site here, he describes the need of God to express and experience. That requires us, we are God, so it's all One, at the same time we are each a unique vibration with our special qualities and memories. That's how I see it.
Q: How does our soul attach itself to a human body, and at what point, and how does it choose?
A: The spirit, the Higher Self, remains exterior to the physical universe but attaches a remote, located viewpoint to the energy field of the human body, which works (intentions are passed) via the pineal gland and the right brain's intuitive faculty, then interpreted by the left brain consciously. A connection is made soon after conception and the consciousness is identified more and more with the baby as it develops, so that after birth the experience is very much "in the body" rather than that of the Higher Self with a remote viewpoint. There is previous and ongoing communication with the parents to determine the appropriateness of the family, and often there are arrangements for incarnation to continue ongoing relationships and learning paths.
Q: Also why a body, why not a stone or a tree?
A: Some do that, but "high vibration" spirit needs the flexibility of communication to express its qualities. Spirit learns and evolves to higher vibrations, though this can go backward or take eons.
Q: What is the point of this? If the soul is eternal and the physical plane is only a temporary visit before we go home, then what use is this experience back in the soul plane?
A: It's because the physical experience is unique, it's not etheric and dreamlike, so we have to learn to play games within fixed boundaries, to deal with a body-mind and ego, and so on. We create the reality from our spiritual level of consciousness but then at the same time as human beings we experience and play games within it, and any game requires unknowns, the duality of the "other side". Our life here offers opportunities to experience and learn about emotions in a very physical way that is just not possible otherwise. It's also the opportunity to be part of the whole creation. It's God fully experiencing Itself through playing the game of life. It's a privilege, not a prison sentence (like some feel)! When we're enlightened we realize this, and our vibration rises so that we don't need this stage in our spiritual evolution anymore, then we can move on. Most people are far way from that but more are closer to it now than since a long time. In history there have been cycles of raised and lowered vibration.
Some feel the purity of spiritual realization requires us not to be "interested in the things of the world" - that manifesting our desires is a low state of being. I feel this is mixed up, almost like a death wish, and it assumes all desires come from ego attachment. We ARE spiritual beings, we're here for the physical experience, to enjoy and learn from the game of life in a world of dualities.
Q: Also this connection, what causes it to disconnect and cause death - is it voluntary or does the soul have no control over this?
A: Normally there's no control and illness, accident or old age causes death of the body - because the being has identified so thoroughly with the body. Those rare enlightened persons who are completely in touch with their higher selves are able to leave the body and die at a time of their choosing however. In near death experiences we hear how persons are sometimes given a choice or guided about returning to the body and in these cases sometimes miraculous healing occurs.
Q: Thanks Peter, for the in depth answers, they help a lot but as with most answers they pose other questions. I can grasp the creating my own reality aspect, although I have been led to believe that we should not seek to create by ourselves but ask God or the Universe and it shall be done for us.
A: I feel that we are the creative expression of God in this world, we are part of God, through our Higher Selves. God creates through us. Yes, we can and should ask for guidance and help, and that comes from God through our Higher Selves. We (and our free will) are part of the process, not just at the receiving end.
Q: But what I don't get is how other people can see my world. If everyone's ego is creating a different "reality", how do we interact and "agree" on what we see as the world? Quantum physics says that the very nature of viewing something causes it to take on form, and that quantum matter can exist in different states at the same time, i.e matter and energy. It is the viewing that causes it to appear as matter?
A: We are observing from within the physical world, through our eyes. It is the same object and it's there whether we observe it or not. The quantum phenomena you describe is related to creation from the spiritual viewpoint. The 'zero point' of the atom is spiritual, metaphysics and physics combine. It's two sides of the same coin, both are true at once. Really, our life on Earth is about experiencing from the physical viewpoint; at the same time we give more meaning to our lives by recognizing we each have a spiritual viewpoint too, from which we create our reality 100% - but it's best to differentiate the two so as not to be confused. Though in truth the two are not really separate but aspects of the one.
Q: How then do we agree with others that we are observing the same matter, for example a cat, if we are creating our own separate illusion?
A: Communication, observation and more communication. We live in the same world, we have a shared objective reality (it's only an illusion from the spiritual viewpoint), but we see it through different colored glasses, due to our subconscious beliefs and fixed ideas. We each have different subjective realities that overlap with the objective reality (and other people's subjective realities) to a greater or lesser degree. The path of growth is to make those beliefs conscious and reassess them, and to open our minds to new ideas based on observation in the present time and other people's contributions to our map of reality. To take off the glasses. To live consciously rather than being automatons (a product of our conditioning and the safe solutions of our egos).
Making Your Vision a Reality
By Peter Shepherd
A goal is a desire made specific and with a deadline. Setting and achieving goals that fulfill your needs is essential to health and happiness. Striving toward your goals is a statement that you are taking charge of your life, rather than life taking charge of you.
Visualizing a goal is more important than knowing every detail or even any details of how you will achieve it. The first step for a painter is to visualize the end result, at least in concept; the means of achieving that result are extremely variable - different materials and styles, for example - and some of the steps may require learning new skills or may depend on ideas and inspiration that the artist knows will arrive at the appropriate time - he doesn't worry about them not being there at the beginning. However it turns out, it will express his feelings and spirit, and that is more than good enough.
Seeking visualized goals is a powerful, natural tendency - like the tendency of plants to seek the light - an insistent drive that can crack the hardest granite. If you don't have a clear image of where you want to go, this creative urge will be frustrated and you may experience your life as meaningless or directionless. Then you may visualize negative goals for yourself - you may see yourself as incompetent, ill, in pain, a failure, and your creative power will tend to make these a reality.
The first step in goal setting is to get in touch with what you really want in life. Something that is truly inspiring for you, so you know it is "right." It should be what you really, really want, regardless of "what it takes." Not what other people want or what they expect of you, and not something to please others - to inspire you it must be true to your self, something that will really motivate you.
It may be a lifetime goal or one for a year, month or week ahead. Keep it clear and simple but don't set out your goal in terms of generalities like "some" or "more" - be specific! Include tangible details of time, place, facts, figures, persons. Clarify exactly what the goal means in terms of specific changes in your life and a specific deadline for its achievement.
The goal should be achievable - maybe out of reach, for the moment, but not out of sight! It should also be something you believe in, that you feel is right, that is consistent with your values.
Then envision that situation in your mind as actually happening now. Express it as a statement of fact in the present tense, see yourself with the goal already accomplished. What are you doing? What are your surroundings? What are people saying to you? How are you feeling now that you have accomplished it? Get the feeling of that achievement in your heart and celebrate! That feeling will then stay with you and energize all your actions toward manifesting the goal.
Here are some examples of well expressed accomplishments: "I am going on a singles club outing once a week and meeting new people I get on really well with [the goal to make 5 new genuine friends]." "I am swimming a mile three times a week and I feel stronger and more alive [the goal to get fit by swimming a mile three times a week]." "I am living comfortably within my budget for food, clothing and entertainment; now I feel financially secure and in control of my spending [the goal to live within my budget by three months time]." "Bob and I are understanding each other and really loving and trusting one another and we are having beautiful sex [the goal to improve the communication in our relationship so that our sex life is great again]."
Don't use negatives such as "I am not over-eating." Think positive! Also negative goals, or not being able to see yourself actually achieving the goal, strongly indicate the likelihood of internal conflict taking place, in which case you need to handle this, to identify the limiting beliefs and revise them.
For example, you might learn that you are afraid of how others will respond if you achieve your goal, or that you are unable or unwilling at this time to perform the necessary steps to proceed, or that the goal is really meant to please another or match somebody else. In these cases, you first need to thoroughly grasp and accept the conflicting viewpoints and feelings involved and compare them to the current reality, your actual needs, and to realize any distorted thinking taking place. Then either the goal will be clarified and the problems drop away, or you will see that the goal is not genuine and choose another goal.
You then also need to work out an action plan, covering the steps you need to take in sequence to manifest your goal. What do you need to do, change, learn, or implement, to move your life from where it is now to where you want it to be?
To plot out your path, it is best to work backward from your vision of an accomplished goal - that way you ensure you stay on track, that what you plan leads to the goal and not some place else. What has to be done to enable you to finally achieve the goal? What has to be in place? Then you just proceed backward: what needed to be done one step earlier? Work back to the first steps you need to take. The first steps need to be things that you know you can do, so you can get going. Put this in writing and share your goal with those who will support you.
As you begin to act, identify your fears, accept and release them. Identify other things you are doing, perhaps habitually, that in fact make it difficult or even impossible to eventually achieve your goal, and stop doing those things. Identify and revise your limiting beliefs (including beliefs that you have been suppressing), and shift that energy into the love you have for your vision.
As you put your first steps into reality you will find yourself acting in ways compatible with creating your vision; ideas and resources will fall into place. Setbacks are inevitable but you can learn from them, then re-establish your vision and move on with greater confidence than before. Use all that you have learned to establish and boost your self esteem - be your own greatest supporter. With self-confidence you'll want to stretch yourself and try new things. And remember the reasons why you are doing what you are doing - this will help you do whatever it takes to reach your goal, to be patient when necessary, and to be persistent with your efforts.
It is equally important to focus also as ruthlessly and honestly as possible on the current reality. And this is key: measure your progress from where you started, not against how far you have to go. Each action in which you demonstrate your competence boosts your self-esteem; each development that you make happen boosts your morale.
By comparing your progress with the point at which you started out, you will be encouraged to continue. Goals are achieved step by step and each step needs to be validated - otherwise the goal may seem far away and it may feel you are making little progress, when really you are.
Then compare your current reality and state of progress with the final vision - the next steps will be clarified and you will be motivated to continue. This is an improvisatory process and cannot be entirely predicted at the outset. Since creating is improvisatory, the steps you planned to take and even the goal itself may be revised. Now you know yourself better you may discover that you actually want something very different from what you originally set out to get.
THE FUTURE EXISTS
FIRST IN IMAGINATION
THEN IN WILL
THEN IN REALITY
Have a great time (setting and achieving goals is the game of life).
Finding Out Who You Are
By Peter Shepherd
No doubt some times you have felt inspired to act - to make or say or do something. There is an extraordinary rush of energy and clarity that accompanies this. You feel excited, can't wait to begin and everything seems possible. But putting the vision into effect can be a sobering process. Spirit meets the resistance of materiality and the vision fades. We may fall back into habitual, limiting thought and behavior patterns and the new perspective becomes obscured. But if we can hold on to the spiritual connection and integrate it with the mental, emotional and behavioral aspects of our self, we can 'makes things happen' and experience our creative potential.
As we get to know and trust our inner intuitive awareness, this produces a clarity of thought which illuminates the areas where we have created blocks - it throws light on patterns of thought and behavior which are now seen as inappropriate. It becomes easier to make decisions and act spontaneously.
On the other hand, if we lose touch with the creative source that is our inner being, we identify with negative thoughts, emotions and behavior patterns. We can't see them for what they are because we are being them. So at the other end of the spectrum we see self-conscious people with low self-esteem, hiding, either in frantic activity or in withdrawal. Imagine yourself in the following situations:
You are at a party and you don't know anyone except for the host. You have returned an article of clothing which has split along the seam. The shop assistant tells you they have a 'no returns' policy. Your doctor is evasive about answering your questions properly.
In each case, what would you do? How would you feel? What would you be thinking (underlying your emotions)? And what would be your true desire in that situation?
When our true desires inform our thinking and our feelings then we are being true to ourselves and this enhances self-esteem. When our true desires are submerged by distorted thinking and painful emotions then the resulting behavior is in conflict and our self-esteem lowers.
To Know Yourself
Try to set aside some time, each day, to fulfill solely your own needs and for your own personal enjoyment. This may include doing this course or it may be with other people, but it is for you. The willingness to be self-nurturing plays a vital part in the development of your 'beingness'. As you start looking at your own needs and stop playing the victim of other people's demands you will be treated with more respect because you will gain more self respect.
You are 'going inside yourself' and this requires that you break your identification with worldly links - you are going beyond your thoughts, feelings and desires. You will have found that the mind keeps on chattering and trying to stop it doesn't work, you have to become a detached observer of it, and then it starts to fade away. What you resist persists.
When we are truly being ourselves, without the barrier of mind chatter and negative emotions, it is easier to make direct connection between you, the spiritual being, and the world around you. This is an aesthetic experience, one of truth. Have you ever become totally absorbed by a project, a picture, a piece of music, a landscape? The mind becomes concentrated and still and you feel 'at one'.
A shift in awareness - an awakening - can be triggered by such things as a dream, a memory, an evocative smell, falling in love, being afraid. It is only necessary for our defenses to be down (which means we are holding no preconceived ideas) in order that we can experience something more intensely, as if for the first time, in a new moment. Can you recall such an experience of connecting, and the feeling of it?
To experience connection rather than separation, we need to break all attachments with our thoughts and desires and so learn to suspend our judgment. It is possible to connect and experience your spiritual self at any time, whatever you are doing. With Gurdjieff's technique of 'self remembering' we adopt the role of witness as we go about our everyday lives. The witness observes all your doings but is non-evaluative; it does not judge your actions (remember, you are not your actions). For example, you might eat a chocolate cake and then get annoyed with yourself for having eaten it. The witness (if and when it arrives) would note: "He is eating a cake; he is annoyed at himself for doing so". The witness is dispassionate and does not care what you do, think and feel but simply notes it.
Of course, like stopping thoughts, this is easier said than done. You might be driving down the street and the witness notes that; you feel content and that is noted; then someone cuts right in front of you causing you to slam on the brakes. You forget about witnessing and immediately identify with your emotions of anger or frustration. Only much later do you remember that you were attempting to witness! But with practice you find it is possible to 'wake up' in the middle of a drama and observe a part of yourself hooked by an emotion; to that degree you have then learned that you are not your emotions, you have differentiated your real self, the spiritual being that has intrinsic worth and cannot be judged in the same way that the inappropriate or self-defeating emotions and behaviors may be. And because you stop judging your self, you notice that the same applies to others, so you can cease judging them too.
You notice that as you dramatize various thoughts, emotions and behaviors it is as though you were different people at the time, other little personalities that come and go as appropriate, but usually reactively, according to patterns of behavior rather than consciously.
How many 'yous' are there inside you? Very many. By lunch time today you may have been thoughtful, serious, annoyed, lustful, tired, forgetful, and have had many fleeting intentions and purposes toward others or ideas about what you want or don't want. You may have been acting like some person you admire or not like another who don't want to be associated with. And many, many other ways of being. Each 'sub-personality' is all-consuming while it lasts, and some of these sub-personalities may play a major role in your make-up. Who you think you are may even actually be a sub-personality and not the real essence of you.
Gurdjieff points out that sometimes one 'you' does something for which every other 'you' must pay, maybe for the rest of your life. Our 'yous' are numerous and ephemeral and all are evaluative and judgmental, and have plenty of irrational thoughts and beliefs, harmful intentions and painful emotions attached to them. Each is actually a solution to past problems that is retained and replayed in the present. To break this ceaseless train of identifications with the technique of self remembering is to give ourselves some inner freedom.
The more you use this technique the more powerful it becomes. Each 'you' is a reflection of a link with a desire, feeling or thought - these are our links with the material world. By taking on the role of witness we can objectify these 'yous' and so break our identification with them.
When we experience our spirituality we recognize our true place in the world and we know that we have our own vital role to play. This feeling of truly belonging creates a sense of worthiness which enhances our self-esteem.