Almost everybody is looking for some sort of help. Let’s face it, being a person isn’t easy. There’s plenty that can go wrong. You can get sick, or injured. You can fail to make (or keep) friends and end up feeling lonely. You can make a mistake and lose money, or not make any in the first place. No matter who you are, you’re going to feel bad at least some of the time. Sometimes you have to put up with people who are annoying or hostile and who certainly don’t have your best interests at heart. You try to get what you want, but sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you get what you don’t want. And even if you get what you want, you can lose it, it changes, or it falls apart. Or, you consume it and it’s gone.
I’m not saying that life doesn’t have its joys, because it does, but everyone at some time feels helpless, alone, and confused in an unpredictable world with a lot of problems and plenty of suffering. We wonder, then, what we can do about this Problem of Life?–which, to make matters worse, includes death, since the fact that we’re going to eventually fall apart is inevitable, not only for ourselves but for those we love.
So what are we going to do? Is there any way to master this situation?
Well, there are a number of ways people try to escape from this human predicament–that of being a lonely, isolated separate self in an unpredictable world full of problems and suffering.
You could try to beat the game on a material basis by becoming wealthy or powerful. As they say, “It’s easier to be rich and miserable than poor and miserable–at least you can arrive at your problems in style.”
Or, we can resort to technology to make life easier. We can take advantage of labor-saving devices, medical miracles, and so forth, to reduce our suffering and at least put off the inevitability of death and sickness. In that sense we’re certainly better off than people were a hundred hears ago, or a thousand years ago.
Even if we do succeed in accumulating money or power, or when we take advantage of modern medicine or use technology to make life easier, we still aren’t satisfied. If you increase your income, for instance, you feel better for a few weeks or months, perhaps, but then (as you know if this has happened to you) the feeling wears off. You may stop worrying about paying your debts but you may start worrying about getting sick. If you get a better car, it’s fun for a while, but pretty soon it’s just transportation, and you instead worry about repair bills, the cost of gasoline, or something else.
In fact, if you solve any particular problem or challenge, it’s soon replaced by another one. Have you noticed that? There’s always something to worry about. If you’re wealthy or powerful you still worry about sickness and death, but you might also worry about revolution or financial collapse (which seems to be more than just a worry right now), and whether the IRS will catch you cheating on your taxes and take away your wealth. Or, you worry that somehow, through some sort of ill luck, the authorities will put you in prison for no reason. You can always find something to worry about regarding your health, your relationships, your children, your parents, your money–or something.
So, eventually, if you really go into this, you start to think that maybe your problem isn’t in your external situation, since you find yourself worrying no matter what that is, and you begin to suspect that your problem might be something in you. Maybe you could stop all this worrying if you learned to control your mind. You decide to “think positive thoughts,” to “be peaceful”–as Alan Watts once said, “To breathe slowly and hum gently,” and get yourself into a peaceful state of mind. There is an entire culture today (what most people would call the New Age culture) that assumes that positive thinking and controlling your mind is the solution to your problems.
But as anyone who has tried this knows, it doesn’t always work, because you still have this nagging feeling in the back of your mind that you’re just whistling in the dark. While you’re thinking positive thoughts, a part of you is still asking, “What if this happens? What if that happens?” I get many letters from people who wonder why their life is still full of problems even though they are spending time visualizing what they want, saying affirmations, and “putting it [what they want] out to the universe.”
After a while you realize that soothing your troubled mind is no easy undertaking. At least part of the problem, you discover, is that underneath the conscious part of your mind is a lot of unconscious stuff that affects you by coming out in unpredictable and uninvited ways. What are you going to do about that?
So, you look into various approaches for sorting out the unconscious–psychoanalysis, for instance, or getting involved with some sort of spiritual teacher. In other words, you look for someone who can act as a mirror for those unconscious aspects of yourself that you can’t otherwise get at.
Now we’re getting somewhere, you think. But as you go into becoming aware of and changing the unconscious, at some point you begin to realize that this process of getting at yourself, of improving yourself, of changing yourself, is very much like trying to bite your own teeth, or look into your own eyes, or taste your own tongue. In a very real sense you’re trying to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
Let me put it this way: if you’re the one who needs improvement, you’re also the one who’s going to have to make it happen, and how are you going to do that? Even with the help of a teacher, it’s you who’ll have to implement his or her instructions and suggestions, and if you’re messed up in some way, how will you do that? I go into this problem quite deeply in my second online course. (I encourage you to take these online courses, which I call my Life Principles Integration Process. You can take a free preview lesson at www.centerpointe.com/life/preview.)
But I digress. This problem–how to change yourself when the one needing the change is also the one who must bring it about–has been around for thousands of years. The problem could be stated in this way: can change really be self-generated, or–as some religions say–is it a matter of grace? There are adherents to both points of view.
Grace is supposedly freely offered to all, but some people seem to “get it” while others don’t. Why is that, you wonder? Perhaps some people resist grace. The question becomes, then, ”How do I get grace? And, if I’m resisting grace, how do I stop doing that?” If, however, there was some method you could follow in order to experience grace, or to stop resisting it, it wouldn’t be grace.
Certain things in life are innately spontaneous, by definition. It’s like saying to someone, “You MUST relax. You MUST be peaceful.” Relaxing, or being peaceful, by definition, can’t happen by force of will. Exerting your will is the opposite of relaxing or being peaceful. Or, someone might say to you, “Please be spontaneous. Be totally un-self-conscious, right now.” But how can you intend to be spontaneous?
So let’s take this a little further. Can you intend to love someone? Love, if it’s really love, is a spontaneous happening. In fact, many, if not all, highly valued human sentiments are real and valuable only if they happen without intention, without will. Being spontaneous, loving, or relaxed either happen or they don’t. One of the reasons we’re so charmed by children is that, up to a certain age at least, they are spontaneous and un-self-conscious.
So changing yourself is a lot like trying to do something that only has value if it happens without trying. It’s like the old joke: sincerity is the most important thing, and once you can fake that you’ve got it made.
Everyone has had the experience of wanting to be a certain way but somehow being unable to pull it off. “I try to be kind, but I get angry anyway.” “I try to motivate myself, but I end up playing video games instead.” “I want to feel close to my children, but for some reason I just don’t feel it a lot of the time.”
So what do we do? If the changer is the one who must be changed, we end up chasing our own tail. So who changes the changer? This has been the unacknowledged elephant in the room in spiritual and personal growth for several thousand years. And, it’s been a problem for such a long time because it’s an insoluble problem, along the same lines as “Who guards the guards?” or “Who governs the government?”
In some types of yoga, Eastern philosophy, or New Age thinking, this problem is approached by saying that there is a lower self, often called the ego, and a higher, or spiritual, self. The job of the higher self, then, is to transform the lower self. Sometimes this transformation happens, and sometimes it doesn’t. So, we wonder, why do some people’s higher selves fail to get through to their naughty lower selves? Are some peoples’ lower selves too strong? If so, who will weaken these too-strong lower selves? Or, maybe it’s that some peoples’ higher selves are too weak, and again we can ask, who will strengthen them? This has been a problem of spiritual awakening and self improvement since time immemorial.
So, here we are, trying to get better, seeking the positive, the good, and the desirable in ourselves, and trying to get away from the negative, the evil, and the undesirable. (And, since I’ve written about this extensively in other posts, I’m not even going to get into the fact that good and evil, positive and negative, desirable and undesirable are all mental, not real, distinctions–which means they aren’t intrinsic to the things and situations we assign them to–and each side of these polarities only makes sense in terms of each other. What’s more, it’s impossible to get rid of one side of the polarity–for instance, get rid of “bad”–without getting rid of the other side.)
Let me approach this problem in still another way. You meet a Buddhist teacher, and he tells you about Buddha’s Four Noble Truths. The first Noble Truth is that all life is suffering. This is really what I was describing in the beginning of this article. Life is full of frustrations and problems, and even if we solve some of them, others pop up to take their place. We get what we don’t want, we don’t get what we do want, and even if we get what we want it eventually goes away or falls apart.
The second Noble Truth is that this suffering, this chronic frustration, is caused by clinging, or desire. And, the third Noble Truth is that suffering can be ended by giving up desire. (The fourth is the Buddhist method, which I’m going to skip for now.) So the teacher tells you to work on giving up your desires. Do that and you’ll end your suffering and your frustrations about life.
So, you go off to work on ending desire. When later on the teacher asks you how it’s going you tell him that getting rid of desire is turning out to be more difficult than you thought. Then the teacher really throws you a curve. “I’m just curious,” he says. “Isn’t your wanting to get rid of desire another desire?”
Uh oh. Now what? How do you get rid of desire when wanting to get rid of it is just another desire? This is just like trying to be spontaneous on command, or willing yourself to love someone–or, trying to change yourself. It’s also like trying to get good to win over evil, heads to win over tails, or desirable to win over undesirable–or to get any side of a polarity to win over the other side.
These are examples of the double-bind of life, my friends, and what are we going to do about it? No matter where you turn, it seems that when you really get down to it, there’s nothing you can do! I once heard Alan Watts describe this dilemma by saying, “It’s as if someone put molasses in one of your hands and feathers in the other, clapped them together, and then said, ‘Now, pick off the feathers.’”
“So, Bill,” you say, “are you telling me that there’s nothing I can do to change myself or improve myself? That’s pretty negative. Maybe I’ll just go to someone who’ll be more encouraging.”
But I’m here to tell you that it’s not negative, and you don’t need to be discouraged by it. And, of course you’re welcome to go to someone who will tell you what you want to hear. In fact, you probably will, until you’ve exhausted every possibility. By going into this, I’m trying to save you the trouble of doing that.
Let’s review.
I described the problem: We suffer, we worry, we get old, we die. I described some of the ways we try to solve the problem: We try to solve it on the material level, with money, power, or technology. When that doesn’t really solve the problem, we try to control our mind in order to stop worrying about everything. But that doesn’t always work, either, so we try to get at the unconscious part of us, hoping that if we fix that we’ll be okay.
Finally we begin to realize that our biggest problem is that the one who is trying to fix things needs fixing, and that this is a real bind. We’re trapped, like a stupid person trying to teach himself how to be smart.
So this sounds pretty discouraging. There’s nothing you can do to change yourself. But, you see, this doesn’t mean that change can’t happen. Change obviously happens all the time–all you have to do is look around. It does, however, mean that you can’t bring it about.
So why is this true? The reason YOU can’t change yourself is that YOU don’t exist. “You” is an idea, a concept, an abstraction–despite the feeling we have that there is a “you”–and just as “3″ (another concept) can’t do anything, or the border between the US and Canada can’t do anything, “you” can’t doing anything.
You could say it this way: doing happens, but there is no doer, or at least no individual doer. The real doer is the whole, the entire going on of it all. It just seems as if there are lots of separate doers who could take independent action (action independent of the infinite matrix of connections that include the whole) and therefore change themselves. The separate self is just a way of thinking, not a solid reality–in the same way that the border between the US and Canada is a way of thinking, but not a tangible, real line. It’s just that we are so used to this way of thinking that independent separate things and doers seem incredibly real.
But here’s the most amazing thing about all of this: the fact that you can’t do anything is GOOD news, not bad. The truth is that the realization that what you thought was “you” is a hallucination–and therefore can’t do anything–creates incredible freedom and peace. That realization is the spiritual awakening everyone is searching for–except that when it happens, part of the realization is that there’s no separate self there to have it!
Thinking about this idea that there’s no separate doer gives us a weird feeling. “What do you mean, there’s no me? I can feel it!” But the existence of a separate self is completely unsupported by the facts of nature. Not only is there no separate you, there’s no separate anything. Nothing has any separate essence, by itself.
Why am I making this outrageous assertion? What do I mean?
If you really look around, you can see that nothing exists separately. Everything exists in relation to its environment, and you can’t describe a thing unless you also describe its environment. Bees need flowers, and flowers need bees. They’re really one interconnected system. And both of them need a certain kind of atmosphere containing certain gases. They also need certain minerals and microorganisms in the soil. They also need a certain temperature, caused by being a certain distance from a certain kind of star, in a certain kind of galaxy, in a certain kind of universe. And, pretty soon you realize that to adequately describe a flower or a bee, you’ve included EVERYTHING.
There really is no way to describe anything, including yourself, without describing, at the same time, the environment. And all of these aspects of the environment act together, as a unit, in the same way that all the water molecules in a river flow together, or all the parts of a mobile hanging above a child’s crib move in response whenever one of the parts is touched.
There’s no getting around it: everything is connected. Nothing exists in isolation. Everything, taken together, constitutes what scientists would call a unified field, an integrated, interconnected system. In Chinese thought they would say that the universe behaves as a single organism. The truth is that you go with your environment in the same way that your head goes with your body.
Most people, though, don’t see themselves this way–or rather, they don’t feel themselves this way. Most of us feel separate from the world. We feel at odds with the environment, and think we have to conquer it or control it in some way. The poet A.E. Houseman described it this way: “I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.”
We say that we “came into the world,” as if we were that stranger, popped into an alien world, when really, if you think about it, people come out of the world, in the same way that apples come out of apple trees. We’re an expression of the universe, and therefore a part of it. In fact, not only is everything an expression of the universe, it’s also true that everything depends upon everything else. The entire universe depends upon you. Even before you were born, the universe depended upon the fact that you would someday be here, and after you’re gone, it will still depend upon the fact that you once were here.
Given that everything is really one thing, one process, “you” is just a way of thinking. And it’s a way of thinking we’re so familiar with that if feels strange to contemplate that it’s nothing more than that, but still, “you” is an idea. And, like all ideas, it can’t do anything. The universe is flowing along, changing all the time, and many of these changes seem as if “you” are initiating them, but this is an illusion created by identification with the mind.
So a great part of the reason we don’t feel that it’s all one thing is that we experience the universe to a large degree through our rational mind. That mind, though, is very limited in the way it perceives things. Our linear mind is a kind of scanning device, where we tend to look at things in lines (which is why they call it the linear mind), one part at a time, kind of like moving the beam of a flashlight around a darkened room, where we see one part of the room at a time. This is why it takes so long to “become educated”–we have to scan miles and miles of lines of information, which takes years.
But the world doesn’t come at us in lines, one thing at a time. It comes at us all at once in a multi-dimensional way. Our limited minds, though, can’t take all of this in, so we bite off one piece at a time (or, at most, a few pieces) and in doing so we find it difficult to see how everything goes together. (There is another part of the mind that does this, but it is obscured by the linear mind until something happens that gets the linear mind out of the way.)
This failure to see how everything goes together makes different aspects of the whole appear to be separate items, with their own individual essence, when in truth they all go together, in the same way that up and down go together, or two ends of a stick go together.
Then, seeing ourselves as one of those separate items, we feel, as Houseman said, “A stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.” In this kind of world (a product of the mind dividing everything into separate things and events) it’s difficult to relax. It’s difficult to feel at peace.
When your perspective shifts, however, to one where you see how everything goes together, everything changes (notice that I didn’t say, “When you shift your perspective.”). From this new perspective, this new way of looking, you feel integrated with the rest of the universe (since you are). You stop worrying about how this or that might “get you.”
The sensation, if I can call it that, of being it all, is one of being an aperture through which the whole looks out on itself. But let me clarify something. This doesn’t mean you don’t still have a separate self, because you do. It’s just that it’s now quite obvious that this separate self is an idea, a way of thinking. Instead of being fooled by your mind into thinking that you are a separate self, you now have a separate self, in the same way you could have an idea, or a theory, or a plan to do something.
Ideas, theories, and plans are strictly mental events. In that sense you have ideas, theories, or representations about reality (and especially about who you are), but there’s nothing solid about them. You can’t touch them or put them in a wheelbarrow. And they can’t DO anything. They’re a handy way to navigate around, but these ideas and representations about reality and about who you are aren’t the same as the realities they represent.
Seeing this, you also see that what you thought was going around doing things (the separate doer), is really a multidimensional doing, a response to and an interaction with everything else. When this happens you stop feeling as if your center is inside the body. Instead, it feels as if it is everywhere.
There’s still another reason why the problems we discussed at the beginning of this article can’t be solved, and it has to do with the fact that everything in this universe is impermanent. As the universe changes, things and events continually come into being and then eventually pass away. There’s nothing anyone can do to change this.
So when the mind chops the universe into separate things, it’s an attempt to freeze things the way they are–a vain attempt to stop impermanence. We take something that is a continual, ever-changing flow and try to make it into a collection of solid, unchanging things. And, of course, the main impermanent “thing” we’re concerned about making into a solid thing is “me” (and, secondarily, those things or persons we’re attached to). Since what you think of as you is just as impermanent as everything else, if you think of yourself (and, feel yourself) as that separate self, you’ll see impermanence as a threat. Then you feel anxious and afraid.
But if you see–and feel–that you’re the going on of it all, what is there to worry about? What difference does it make what form the whole takes?
So what does this have to do with all the problems I outlined at the beginning of this article? Certainly all of them still can happen, but who, then, are they happening to? If the separate self is just an idea, they must be happening to the whole. And they must be a doing of the whole. In fact, all the attempts to “solve” them are also a doing of the whole.
An awakened person has two perspectives. One is that of the being the whole. The other is the separate-self perspective created by the linear mind. The linear mind’s job is to divide the universe into separate things and events, and to make representations of reality. And, though this isn’t reality, it’s a handy thing to do. Inches and centimeters aren’t reality, either (you can’t hand me a couple of centimeters, or tie up a package with them), but they are very useful. The awakened person knows that in an ultimate sense the separate self is a game and the representations of reality created by the mind are, though useful, just ideas.
On the other hand, unless you play this game, life is pretty boring. To a great extent, life IS this game, so the awakened person plays but also knows that the playing isn’t serious. Paradoxically, though, the more you really play, the more juice there is to life. So in an awakened person these two perspectives are integrated. Ken Wilber would say that the awakened person has transcended and included both.
So the awakened person still has problems, but he (or she) doesn’t take them with the same grim seriousness as other people. He also doesn’t dismiss them as illusory, either. In other words, this transcending and including contains the fact that living from both perspectives, yet neither, is a paradox. It’s a mystery. It’s ungraspable and unexplainable (yet here I am, doing my best to explain it).
The one big difference is that the awakened person, as I have said before, chooses how he will play this game. He choose what aspects of life to become attached to. He sees the consequences of attachment and of playing as a separate self, and enters into life knowing the consequences. He plays at being separate, while knowing he isn’t, because as long as the mind is one of our main interfaces with the rest of the universe, the sensation of being a separate self will be there.
On the other hand, the unawake person’s attachment to certain things or events–and his experience of being a separate self–happens unconsciously, without choice. He isn’t playing when he becomes attached to people, things, and events being a certain way, or when he resists impermanence.
So, here you are, using Holosync, and possibly many of the other methods I described above, in an attempt to solve your problems. Am I saying that it’s useless, and why bother? No. I’m merely saying that “you” aren’t the one that is “deciding” to do these things, even though it feels that way. When you do these things, that decision isn’t an impulse coming from a separate agentic being, deciding in isolation. It’s an impulse coming from all the interactions “you” have with the rest of the universe. Though it seems like an impulse from you, it’s really an impulse of the whole. It feels like an individual impulse, an individual doing, but that is an illusion created by the mind.
So change may happen to the supposed separate self you’ve always thought you were, but that change is really a happening of the whole. This goes back to the grace versus self-change paradox. Some “parts” of the whole end up “awake” while others don’t. Why? This is like asking why some water molecules in the ocean end up near Russia while others end up near Mexico and still others end up in a sludgy puddle. That’s just what happens.
So when the mind inside your organism relaxes because of the multidimensional influences of the rest of the whole (which may appear as “you” meditating with Holosync, or doing some other spiritual practice), that part of the universe feels better. It stops resisting impermanence, and it stops feeling separate and alone. And even if it does feel separate and alone from time to time (since that’s what the mind creates), it just flows with it and lets it be the way it is.
So the secret to the Problem of Life isn’t in somehow solving it. The awakened person hasn’t solved anything (the ultimate cosmic joke is that there’s nothing to solve). And though the play of trying to solve The Problem of Life can be fun–just as being chased in a dream can be fun–the secret is in treating life as play. When you see all attempts to solve the Problem of Life as non-serious, you can still work on solving it, as if that could be accomplished, but you play the problem-solving game with a deep sense of peace–and know that any solution is temporary. You surrender to the way things are, knowing that everything eventually passes away.
I realize that from a “common sense” perspective this doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s a paradox, a mystery–a mystery that will never be solved. And, that Mystery is who you are.
***
Now, before you go, I have a few recommendations that may interest you.
First of all, my good friend Stewart Emery, who is known as one of THE fathers of the human potential movement and is one of the most amazing thinkers and teachers I know, has a new book, and I think you might want to get a copy. This book is getting rave reviews. It’s called Do You Matter? Stewart wrote this book with Apple Computer’s former industrial design manager, Robert Brunner (instigator of many of the cool design ideas built into Apple’s products, and their relationship with Apple users).
Though Do You Matter? was written as a way of helping businesses design not only their products, but also their relationship with customers, many people are saying (as I did when I read it) that everything in it applies to how a person designs his or her life, including how to design your relationships with others, your career, your goals, and a lot more. This makes the book of great benefit to anyone. Many people have been saying that it’s too bad this book has to go in the business section in the bookstore.
I’ll just say that if you knew Stewart the way I do (he was the best man at my wedding), you would immediately go to Amazon and buy this book. I highly recommend it. Here are the Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble links to read about and get this cool book;
or
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Do-You-Matter/Robert-Brunner/e/9780137142446/?itm=1
Next, I was recently a guest on a podcast called The New Man: Beyond the Macho Jerk and the New Age Wimp, and I think you might enjoy checking them out. First of all, to hear my contribution, just click here: http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/238-the-new-man
Then, scroll down and you’ll see “Latest Podcast Episodes,” and I am #30.
This podcast was created by some Intergral Institute/Ken Wilber types, and targets 20 and 30-something men, though they tell me that quite a few women listen, too. I think they do a great job of looking at a lot of issues that people of that age face, from an integral perspective. These guys are pretty together, so go check it out. There are quite a lot of other podcasts, on all kinds of subjects, on this same site, so take a look:
http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/238-the-new-man
So, with that, I’ll say goodbye, and be well.
What if there's nothing you can do to change yourself? [35:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (7389)
Thanks for the article Bill! Sure will see plenty of comments on this one. hehe
Excellent Podcast Bill! I love hearing you explain the concept of witnessing and the benefits. I am going to implement your practical suggestions right away and just know I will benefit! You’re the best! Guess I’ll be checking out the book as well. Thanks again. Jeannine http://www.freshroots.net
Hi there Bill,
I just want to say thank you. I work with the quantum energy fields as well as teach Yoga, and high school health. I read a lot of “new age stuff” How many times do I find myself dismayed more often than not. You address the concept of the transceneded person as integarted with the whole. Every one on this planet has some issue whether it is illusory or not. I love it when people say, “you are a healer why isn’t your life perfect, Kristine?” Okayyyy…
I get and am so happy that you discussed and gave breath to what has been on my mind for years! ( Perhaps you and I are connected in thought…”
What is going on, what we think, is around us,
“…is really a multidimensional doing, a response to and an interaction with everything else…” and “in an awakened person these two perspectives are integrated. Ken Wilber would say that the awakened person has transcended and included both.”
So the awakened person still has problems, but he (or she) doesn’t take them with the same grim seriousness as other people…”
Love it. Thank you a milliontimes s for giving creadance to this knowledge.
Best,
Kristine Lotoski, MSW
Thank you for this message, Bill.
I had read Alan Watts “The Book on the Taboo.Against Knowing Who You Are” back when I was 19. It made a great impression on me then, amoment of “satori”. But a further 36 years of living had dulled the effect.
Your blog gives a wonderfully succinct explanation of all I had forgotten, and in my case very timely. I am disabled and have retrained several times in order to contribute to the world and feel active in it. Every time, after a while, my body would contrive another ingenious way of preventing that activity. Even though I was good at everything I undertook.
But I learn something new each down time. What I had forgotten was that this is probably the object of the particular game I am playing with myself. Going up a level with new knowledge doesn’t come from the smooth bits when I’ve mastered something. It is from the tough obstacle course that was probably designed before this manifestation of the universe called Jane was born.
When it is too easy it is unrewarding. I’d forgotten that. And also that as part of the universe there is so much pleasant, funny and restful stuff to enjoy even while I’m playing the game.
Thanks again, Universal Bill.
Much love,
Jane
Thanks Bill, this is very helpful for me at my current “stage” … as well as your HoloSync which I am immensely grateful. What a time saver this blog can be
for those who truly listen to it.
This blog reminds me of a joke I just heard:
A monk walks up to a hotdog stand and says, “Make me one with everything”.
: ) Cheers ~Brian
Thanks Bill, great reminders! This couldn’t have come at a better time in my personal ‘game’ or the world situation..Lorell Girard Bend, Oregon
This posting makes no sense whatever and I don’t know why it is posted. There are enough things to be depressed about without having to read this super-depressing posting. All it does is make me lose faith in Holosync. Please be more judicious in future psotings. I’ll stick with Holosync for now because I believe (believed?) it was helping.
FROM BILL: Alan, my friend, you missed the point. Read it again. Those who acknowledge that life is the way it is–impermanent–and surrender to that fact of life, are free. You are depressed because you are holding on to some idea of a way out of the human condition. There is no way out. However, there doesn’t need to be a way out because it’s not the way things are that creates your pain but rather your resistance to the way things are. Furthermore, once you see that there is no separate you, that you’re the whole going on of everything, looking out through two eyes, then it doesn’t matter what happens, at least in an ultimate sense, because you–the real you–will always be here, in one form or another.
“Is there any way to master this situation?”
The question is of course: WHO is going to master this situation.
We have to ‘find ourselves’ first, find out who we really are, before we can ‘master’ life and death.
Hi Bill,
I love the image, as you said it, of picking yourself up by your bootstraps. And, as you mention grace, I have used Holosync and Ho’oponopono for external assistance, the first being physical-spiritual and the second being purely spiritual. These have worked well to help me to stay comfortable during the sometimes stressful events in my life. (ie, people cutting me off on the highway, children screaming in my ear, unexpected bank account events…)
But, the best part of your post, the most fun, is the idea you present that we are simply an idea of an individual playing the game of life. This takes all the pressure off and goes a step beyond Thomas Troward. Indeed, we are still connected to Original Spirit.
Therefore, success is inevitable unless I quit. And, that’s the lesson from Napoleon Hill. You will be successful at whatever idea or passion you pursue — as long as you enjoy it, unless you quit.
(http://www.mindbridge-loa.com/napoleon-hill.html) And the switch you offer, is that it is not mastery or proof to the Universe that you have the ability to jump those hurdles: It is that you are enjoying your mastery or passion.
Thank you, as always,
Nancy
For those who are having a difficult time understanding Bill’s post, please read “The Holographic Universe” byMichael Talbot, “The Field” by Lynn McTaggart and watch the DVDs put out by Nassim Haramein. We ARE the universe experiencing its self and it’s creations. When you look out through your eyes, you are deceived into thinking you are seeing things outside of yourself when in actuality, there is nothing outside of ‘you’ because there is no ‘you’. ‘You’ are the event horizon. We are all the event horizon. Each piece is as important and critical as the next. This experience we call life is all about emotions. Just don’t get stuck in a certain emotion. When an emotion comes, dive into it, experience it, feel it to its peak and then release it. Have fun with it. That’s what we are here to do. Include and transcend. Experience without attachment. There is no death, there is only transformation. Energy cannot die, cannot be killed, cannot be destroyed. And that’s what we are – Energy…..
Bill:
I enjoyed your post. Your point about seeing past the linear mind made perfect sense to me. Lately, I’ve been attracted to learning more about the ‘going on of it all’ and have begun to notice the myriad patterns that connect the Universe: Mathematics, Physics (Classical, Quantum, Process), Wilber’s AQAL model, Spiral Dynamics, Holons, Complex Adaptive Systems (including our brains), Fibonacci numbers, Fractals, etc.; the patterns are there if we look – and we then begin to realize we’re a part of this whole, ongoing, creative process. Everything is IN RELATIONSHIP to some other ‘thing’ and all arising togther in rather elegant fashion. How can this realization not blow your mind? And once blown to pieces, we might reconstruct a more effective mind/map of reality and begin to live consciously, as you suggest. I’d be grateful to hear your thoughts on some of these connecting Universal patterns in future posts.
Cheers!
Stu
Interesting article, Bill- very thought- provoking. However, don’t you yourself have products and teachings on how to ’self- improve’ and control your mind and thinking processes? (e.g Resourceful Belief Builder)- if the above article is true then trying to change your reality in this way is surely futile? However, I do find something deeply compelling in the idea that we usually experience all events in consciousness as filtered through the interpreting, separating mind- and that there is an eternal ’something’ beyond that which is the real source of peace, love, creativity etc, so thanks again for a truly deep and mystical read.
Cheers,
Tim
FROM BILL: The whole point of the post was to convey that change DOES happen, but there’s no separate doer that brings it about. Change is the result of all the infinite interactions of the whole. It just looks as if there is a YOU that brings it about. As I said toward the end, that means that Holosync use, or Zen, or anything else, does happen, it is part of the whole, and changes happen as a result. It isn’t that change can’t happen, it’s that there isn’t any separate YOU who changes, or who can create change. Change is a characteristic of the whole, and one of the infinite ways it manifests is a “you” meditating, or whatever it is “you” do. When “you” do something, though, it’s really the doing of the whole.
Fantastic stuff Bill :O) It is always awesome waiting for your next enlightening post, and it’s always enlightening reading and/or listening to them.
Thanks heaps,
Dave :O)
Hi Bill – great post and – isn’t it strange – perfect timing
I wish I was you. Wait a minute, I am you. That’s great, I feel really pleased with myself now. And all those other posts are great – hey and they’re me too. Well, I am them, that is, we are us, er, whatever. Got to stop taking those bank account events so seriously, and getting irritated when I cut myself up on the road. Except I can’t, because I’m not really here – or there. Maybe just lie back and enjoy it ?
FROM BILL: Not sure if this is meant to be clever sarcasm, but it misrepresents what I’m saying, and which I have said in various ways in many of the posts I’ve made: Life is full of suffering. It’s built into life. It’s not ALL suffering, of course, but all coins have two sides, and one side of the coin is the undesirable side. That being the case, if you resist that fact to add to whatever is happening additional consequences created by that resistance. Do what you can do make the world be the way you want it to be. But once you’ve done what you can, let go of needing it to be a certain way. When you do this, you can enjoy life.
Bill,
This has to be one of the best posts I have ever read and answered a question I have been carrying around for forty years. I had realized the nature of creation as dichotomies, that all things had their opposites and that good and evil were merely two ends of the same piece of string. Life appeared to be made up of pieces of string and was understandable. It was also immensely enjoyable as I was no longer trying to hold onto just one end of any particular string.
Of course, as with anything, it did not last. I was convinced that I had somehow miraculously become enlightened and possessed the truth of life and anyone who didn’t see it was wrong! My viewpoint was that this knowledge was special and therefor I was special and others should be able to see that. So I slid quietly back into the trap of right and wrong and the consequent suffering.
After reading your blog I realized that I had not changed, I had simply, for a while, ceased to exist as a separate entity. I was a drop in the ocean able to experience the whole ocean as myself. I was not one end of the piece of string but the whole string stretching for miles.
And then I was nothing. Yet at the same time in this universe you cannot be nothing without being everything.
Thank You.
Brian
Hi Bill — you are ’spot on’ with this post. Laughter is welling up in me. I love the way of It. The timing is perfect–I was just considering everything you just wrote in these past days and then here it is… in fact, verification is showing up all over the place. But then of course, it’s always been there. Nothing to do… nowhere to go… just watching the most incredible show ever. Thanks for being a player.
Blessings to you!
S.B.
Hi Bill,
Very interesting blog. The only way I can know the truth of “there is no Me doing the doing” is when I become quiet and get into my beingness, and expand into spaciouness- then I feel absolute bliss and joy. There are no problems in this space of beingness. No thinking, just the hum of bliss. Lately, it has occured to me that this experience can become most of my experience of what I call my life. The state of Grace that allows me to have this experience seems to be inconsistent, in that my identification with my mind takes over and all the life situations that have degrees of suffering assert themselves again.
Then I remember to listen to Holosync or do my meditation practice or my latihan (spiritual practice) and the bliss arises again. And this is how it goes on for me. I Awake then go to sleep again in consciouness. A part of me gets that there is no one here and then it goes away again. I can’t know it with my mind, but can experience it in my being. Thanks Bill, keep on blogging, not many people are saying this stuff in quite the same way as you are.
I love the article. I ‘get’ that it’s a game. I ‘believe’ I understand the nature of my being. Here is where I get stuck: what to ‘do’ & why ‘do’ anything? You ‘do’ for the experience of ‘doing’, right? Ok, so what if you’re not interested in having the experience of ‘doing’? My favourite thing to ‘do’ is to do nothing. Then I get told I am ‘lazy and unmotivated’, that I have talents and ’should’ use them. I say everyone has ‘talents’ and may choose to use them or not. But this idea, that’s it’s “OK” for me to ‘do nothing with my life’ is met with hostility. Is it a ’sin’ to do nothing with your life? Whatever that means… If it’s a game, why ‘do’ anything? And if you do choose to ‘do something’, how do you choose ‘what’ to do?
FROM BILL: Who is choosing? Find out. Choosing happens, but there is no chooser. Look carefully and you will see.
Bill,
Great Audio blog! I have perused your postings before but never too intensively due to lack of time. (To the above Alan Wortman, stick with Holosync it does work. Too well in fact!) However today I seemed drawn to the posting and noticed the audio feature and that I could download it. That was great because I had to go out and do some more work on my deck so I threw you on my ipod and went outside.
Wow, you really made me think in a way I hadn’t considered before, especially with the analogy of the bird and the flower and how they are interconnected to each other but also to so many others things as well. You truly can’t describe something without describing it’s environment and then it’s interconnection to the universe.
Thanks for turning a lazy day of deck building into an introspective afternoon.
Larry
http://www.trafficticketguru.com
Bill: you have just translated the Heart Sutra into business-talk, with great clarity, Gautama the Buddha himself enjoys this post.
Peace.
Hi Bill,
Thank you for this post.
It is the most helpful piece I’ve read in a long while.
I’ve noticed that people who seem to ‘fit’ well into the world and the universe seem to have in common that they are at peace with their particular role. In a way, it seems that they have neatly jumped over the paradoxical knot and have ‘chosen’ what seems to have been chosen for them in the first place.
Trying to work out the principles of this ‘role’ and the secret of figuring out which role is ‘mine’ to play out out of the myriad possible roles seems to be one of my main spiritual preoccupations. I’ve tried out – and been rejected – from so many ontological positions that I have to wonder what exactly I’m resisting, and it seems that a large part of it must be fear of losing the sense of a separate self. Or in other words, by being swallowed up by the process of life.
Do you have any recommendations for ‘relaxing the self’s resistance to impermanence and change’?
FROM BILL: How about not having any ontological positions?
My intuition is that many desires arise as a result of believing in a separate self. Seeing oneself as a separate entity creates a sense of lack which then results in desires to fill that sense of lack. And that truly seeing the separate self as an illusion results in many desires fading away. Could you comment on this aspect? Thanks
FROM BILL: And, being attached and having desires and pretending to be a separate self (the Godhead playing hide and seek from itself) is a fun game. The difference is that the asleep person plays unconsciously, while the awakened person plays by choice.
Opening doors, removing screens and shaking out carpets.
I can see how doing holocync for the past 2+ years have helped me a lot to drop the game of black and white. I still play it a lot of course but not the way I used to. Even before holocync I could see how everything in life is so relative.I consider myself smart but in relationship to whom? Compare to some people I am smart compare to others I am an idiot. In my opinion everything including emotions and states are in a spectrum. and everybody is somewhere in that spectrum we already have some of x and we all have room to improve in x .
enlightened people can always be more enlightend , happy people can always be more happy. smart people can get more smart .
unhappy people already have some level of happiness , stupid people already have some inteligence . Everybody is somewhere in the spectrum nobody reaches 100% ,everybody already have some percentage.
Using holocync have help me a lot to reduce my resistance to what is black(in my book) . The things that I considered to be small or not that important (in my book of black and white) I am almost not resisting at all. The things that I consider big or important I am resisting way less than I used to and it is very libarating.
Carlos
Great post Bill, life is surely a mistery as mutkananda said “a meaningless energy going nowhere for no reason”. After an amazing opening in the NYC Big Mind workshop I’ve been going through many amazing realizations, right now I feel like living in a dream most of the time, it’s all emptiness, a wonderful feeling of lightness, like walking on air.
A couple of weeks ago I was in the ER with a sugar reading of 640 which is very close to a diabetic coma, and as I was in the reanimation room barely able to talk I had a strong feeling that I was going to die, my reaction was thinking: “…waaaooo I’m diyng, I wonder was that’s like….let’s see…..”
I finally made it and spent 3 nights in the hospital and left with a type 1 diabetes diagnose. Now I have to use 3 to 4 insulin shots daily probably for the rest of my life….. well, oddly enough my level of anxiety is close to 0…. it was natural for me to see it as a change, an experience, that’s it, there’s no label in my mind saying “this is bad” … to me everything is the same now, I have almost no expectations at all…..soetimes I feel like leting go until I can actually die, but not out of desperation since I love life, but just to see what it would be like…… it may sound harsh but I basically don’t feel like caring.
I was wandering if you ever went to a period of disowning your separate self, I really like the state I’m at, but I remember you and Genpo saying that Karma keeps building anyway and there’s no escape from it.
I know there’s nothing “I” can do, and that “you” don’t have anything to say. But if the whole feels like expressing something through your separate self… it would make itself very happy through my separate self …..or whatever that means…
All the love,
Santiago
FROM BILL: This is the Third Rank, as I described it in another post. And, yes, I’ve been there.
Hi Bill,
My question is; Isn’t life just as full of ectasy, joy and bliss as it is suffering? Or isn’t life as much one side of the coin as the other? Isn’t joy as inevitable as pain, seeing as one cannot exist without the other?
Certainly the ultimate is our willingness to be, to fully experience any experience that becomes us fully.
In asking this I understand that this idea of a self that wants to identify itself as a seperate “John” may very well be narcissistic in nature. That the self’s desire is a happy world, a “light narcisism” that it wants to somehow control by being happy. I know this to be imprint behavior passed down to me from both mother and father, in their words actions and behaviors in their attempt to “deal” with suffering.
However it also seems somewhat illusory to say that, Life is FULL of suffering, as if it is not also FULL of everything else that appears and disappears. It would seem the process is experience, and that all suffering and fulfilment is fleeting in and of itself. In other words it seems that what we refer to as life is FULL of experience, and the real deal is whether or not we are willing to be an experiencer or a resister of experience.
Most of us are repressed to one degree or another, and depending on the culture and parenting techniques of any given culture that repression may take the form of either avoiding suffering or avoiding happiness, (For example I was at a Sermon after Katrina where the Pastor said that when people thought Katrina was going to miss them they began to celebrate and that’s when God intervined and punished them!)
Given our current Zeitgeist, I am experiencing that although there is a great amount of “suffering” going on, there is also what seems to be a
resultant backlash of awakening for many “I’s” of the world. My experience of this is excitement, hope, and joy. That being said I am learning to train this mind to turn on my radio or Presidential debate to experience the awakening as oppossed to experiencing the suffering-as they both are of the same spectrum-the specrum of awareness.
So this individual that calls itself John, am I understanding It, or still missing It?
Peace In
John
FROM BILL: Of course life has joys. No one, though, sees that as a problem. People DO see the other side of the coin as a problem. I’m pointing out that 1) there’s really no separate self there to suffer, 2) people strive to get rid of one side of the coin (the suffering side) when that is impossible, and that this creates a double-bind, an insoluble “problem”, 3) the real problem isn’t the suffering, it’s resistance to it.
And, impermanence is a fact of this universe. everything ultimately falls apart. Again, though, it is only in resisting this that we suffer. Death goes with life, and there’s no escape from that fact. And, ultimately, it’s a great arrangement (I’ll explain that in another post sometime). And, if you are the entire going on of it all, which you are, then the fact that things come into being and ultimately pass away is just the play of the universe. As things pass away, more come into being, and it’s all you, so why worry. Only when people are attached to the idea that “they”–the illusory separate self–MUST go on, do they suffer. In clinging to life, you miss it–just as, when swimming, if you grab onto the water, you drown.
Ah yes, don’t do, don’t don’t do, just happen!
Hey Bill,
I’ve just started your 3rd course; lesson 2; so doing some goal setting; etc.. but this comment is not related to the course, it’s about your post and Andrew Cohen. I remember from course 2; and now from this post how you talk about there is ‘no doer’ and ‘everything is interconnected’; how would this relate to Andrew’s teaching’s.. or does it?
Because it seems to me; you go alot more in depth; in the sense of teaching personal power, then beyond the mind and then back to reliving the passion…. and Andrew’s teachings are similar; he just does it very straight forward and to the point.
Are there similarities? I strongly desire to be living 51% or more in the authentic self… or as you say it; to live in the unconcscious mind 95% of the time.
A part of me sees and feels a sense of urgency; but another part or is it the same part, doesn’t feel ‘ready’.. double bind? same things?
No idea. Thanks.
- Julius
FROM BILL: There’s no way to NOT live in the “authentic self.” Awake or asleep, you’re IT. If you’re tall and you don’t know you’re tall, you’re still tall. At any rate, “authentic” and “inauthentic” are just ideas. In reality, there is no such thing.
I am not familiar enough with the finer points of Andrew Cohen’s teaching to answer your question.
THANK YOU!! This was just what I needed to read. I love you Bill.
Hi Bill,
It’s been a while since I’ve read anything so compelling and on-target. I am now getting toward the end of Holosync Level 3 and doing much better in terms of awareness than when I started almost two years ago. But, there are times when I still hate my mother. My comment here is about mind over matter: If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
Best regards,
Marie
1. Does this mean that we do not have ‘control’ over our lives? We may choose, but we do not have control; that there are some things in life which we just have to accept as is and surrender to what is? Is not understanding this life paradox the causing of us feeling the sense of helplessness or hopelessness, or the negative emotions which you described?
2. Does this mean that we are not 100% responsible for our lives, since we may have choice but no control? Does this mean that since we are part of co-creation – we have part responsibility in our lives only? When events happen to us, we try to understand it, “why”, for example. Another example would be how people are ‘born into’ certain life situations/circumstances.
3. Since life skills are not the answer to mastery of life, (money, technology, psychoanalysis and understanding of the life paradox) are you saying that there is no answer to life? Is the understanding of the life paradox the answer to life?
Thank you,
SiewPing
FROM BILL: No, it means that there is no you to be responsible or to have control. “You” is an idea. The whole point of this article is to show you that people think they are a separate self, and from that perspective they try to control things, but fail. Then they go, “shit, life sucks.” But the reason you can’t control things isn’t because life sucks. It’s because the “you” that is trying to control them doesn’t exist. There is no SEPARATE you. Everything exists in relation to everything else. It’s all one thing, one system. The idea that some part of the whole, artificially split off, could “do” something is ridiculous. It just SEEMS that way when you look from the (false) perspective of being separate.
The only way to get this is to shift perspective to Big Mind, so see things as the whole. You will NOT get this intellectually, ever. Who would get it? There’s no separate self to get it.
Hi Bill,
There is one thing that I am still unsure about regarding your reading. On the premise–
-we are everything
-Identifying myself individually is a falsity or a human condition more so
Is it not just as much of a falsity thinking that mechanisms of an organism or universe can recognize that organism or universe? For a microcosmic example… a hand doesn’t recognize or question its place in the human body. It simply is a hand. Or, a tree doesn’t contemplate its place in its wider ecosystem. It just is.
So to me there seems to be a certain amount of audacity thinking we are even capable of recognizing our universe or our greater all. Rather, we are parts of a whole that think we can understand our place, but really all we can do is play our role. It seems the universe is a play with the ultimate dramatic irony. We each must play our role yet are truly incapable of ever realizing its a role.
Any thoughts?
FROM BILL: You are asking me questions about your interpretation of what I am saying rather than what I actually said, which makes it difficult to comment. I didn’t say that we are everything. I said that there is one thing, the whole. You are assuming, I think, that I said that YOU are everything (and that each person is everything). That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that “you” is a way of thinking, not a reality.
The mind divides the whole into separate things and events, including the illusion of a separate self. All of this is illusion, created by the mind. It might be useful, but it’s not reality, in the same way that dividing things into feet and inches is useful, but inches and feet aren’t really real–you can’t hand me an inch, or do anything with an inch. “Inch” is an idea, not a reality. It’s a useful idea, but it isn’t a tangible reality.
In reality, none of the divisions created by the mind exist. They are mental, not real. When you say, “Isn’t it just as much of a falsity thinking…” I’d have to say YES, no matter how you complete the sentence. The falsity is being in the world of ideas rather than experience, the world of theory. What you think about something, your idea of something, isn’t the same as what it represents. All ideas and theories and representations are just Ideas about the world. They are, however, not the world.
My main point here is that we live as if we were a separate self, when we aren’t. What you think of as you, and your environment, are one thing, not two. You cannot speak of “me” without speaking of the entire environment (well, you can, but you aren’t be accurate when you do, because “you” includes all your connections to everything else).
There is no separate you to recognize anything. Recognizing happens, but there is no one who recognizes. The Whole recognizes, but there are no parts that recognize. “Parts” is a WAY OF THINKING not a reality.
Ultimately, this is not something you are going to get intellectually. It is an experience. It’s like wanting to know what it’s like to have sex without having sex. No matter what ideas you learn about it, you won’t know what it’s like until you experience it. The same can be said for what I’m trying to get across to you. I write this stuff so perhaps you and others will look around and begin to experience how obvious it is that everything is one thing, not so you will get it in your head.
Maybe the issue is strictly one of focus. I have been running a study on pronoiac practices and have found the reduction of worry to be drastic, and with no detrimental side-effects. Missing the worrying does not mean a person then ceases to react to the world. In my studies, people follow either of 2 major base programmings.
1. The world is fundamentally a dangerous place and I must watch out for threats at all times
2. The world is basically a friendly place, and I must watch for patterns that show me where my next great surprise is coming from.
In no case were my study participants 100% worry or 100% ease. We are taught as children to “get used to being disappointed” and are protected against our parents’ neurotic fears, so we take them as our own unconsciously. Pronoiac people tend to look for the good in any given situation. What the world appears to accept as normal; the worry and fear; are not as powerful in the lives of such happy people.
So, as you say, there is nothing to be done to improve the world, but a small shift of emphasis can make anybody’s inner experience more fun and more empowered. We are all susceptible to rhythm entrainment on many levels. In one poor neighborhood in Conyers, a couple of residents have entrained the whole street to keep the trash and clutter down. The strongest and most consistent signal either engulfs weaker signals (making the weaker signal come into harmony) or disrupts them (making it uncomfortable to the weaker transmitter to remain in the vicinity of the stronger signal). In this case, people who were disposed to be neater have felt safer to do so, and people who are opposed to the impulse have moved. In many neighborhoods, the signal of fear and distrust have won out and those are the “scary” neighborhoods, where outsiders are cautioned not to go into.
Dear Bill,
My question to you is why are we SO entrenched in our minds and SO seemingly removed from the Allness. It would seem that we come out of the womb with concrete thinking and a separate sense of self (well almost, you know what I mean).Is this all part of the game? Are we constantly being nudged to awaken in whatever way is necessary by a higher self? An infinite self ?
Best wishes,
Catherine.
FROM BILL: First, there is no you to be separate from (or connect to) anything. Separate selves, events, and things is a way of thinking, not a reality. Second, everything IS the whole. How could anything be removed from the Allness if everything IS the Allness?
We don’t come out of the womb with concrete thinking. It develops (see my entire series on human development where I explain this in detail).
The mind divides the All into supposedly separate things and events, including what seems like a separate self. All of that is just a way of looking at things, not reality. Nothing is removed from anything. It can’t be. It also doesn’t matter if “you” wake up, any more than it matters if you wake up from a dream you’re having at night.
Bill , I have a question.
What might be the difference among the different people at a deep level??
I mean when we drop(or integrate) our social masks , our ways of coping , our anger , our fears , our resistance ,our stories etc etc??
You said that behind all that we are the whole process, but at an individual level two people that have integrated all that would still be different right?
So what would those differences might be ? and what would determine those differences ? genetics maybe?
Thanks for sharing your knowledge
Carlos
FROM BILL: The question is too vague, too open-ended.
This blog makes me ask the question, “So then, is there no such thing as free will?” It really makes it seem that way. And Bill I am not challenging you and saying there is or isn’t free will, I just simply want to know your answer to this question. I am very curious as to what your answer is. It makes me wonder, when I type these words, I can choose to stop typing them to check an see if “I” am just responding to “you’re” blog post as an automatic response mechanism; as just one part of the universe as a whole responding to another part, like a flower pollenating being the response from contact with a bee. If I were, how could “I” stop and wonder if “I” am or not? A flower doesn’t choose to not pollenate just to see if it really is seperate from everything else. If I am just one part of a thing responding automatically to another, why is it that I can choose to throw in a random, unrelated phrase in this post like “pop goes the weasel”? I could have refrained from doing that. I would really like to hear your response. Awesome blog posts Bill, I look forward to them so much. they really do help.
-Matt
FROM BILL: The question isn’t whether or not there is free will, but rather WHO is it that has free will? My point is that there is no such thing as a separate self, thing, or event. No “thing” has any separate essence. There is no separate you with a separate essence. No thing, person, or event has any separate agency apart from it’s interactions with everything else. “Free will” means that something, all by itself, uninfluenced by anything, can make a choice to do something.
That, however, isn’t true, because everything “you” do is the product of all the influences around you. Free will is a way of thinking, not a reality. Thinking that you can do something that is not the product of all your interactions with everything else is like thinking that a water molecule in the river decides to go here or there. It doesn’t. It goes wherever it goes as a result of all the interactions with the other water molecules. It seems like you decide to do things independently of the whole, but you don’t. You decide as a result of an infinite number of relationships and interactions, almost all of you are unaware of.
There is no separate entity who could have free will. It just seems that way because you have bought into the illusion that there are separate things, events, and selves. It’s fun to pretend that there are separate things, and it’s handy to do so sometimes, but it isn’t real. Decisions are made, but they are really made by the whole. Actions are taken, but they are really taken by the whole.
Bill,
What I mean is this: There are two guys A and B.
Right Now the lifes of both guys is determined by their programs whatever they are. Some programs are effective some are not that effective. Most of their decisions , desires , likes ,dislikes are determined buy their programs(values ,beliefs , fears , desires , stories etc) Right now the decisions ,preferences and lifes this guys live is dictated by their story ,their programing
If both guys become emotionally, mentally and spiritually healthy . If they have the beliefs , attitudes etc that empower them if they belief that everything is possible for them I think they would still have different likes, dislikes , preferences , they will make different decisions etc.
So if their programing is not dictating their decisions and preferences and the way they want to live their life anymore ,what is??
You might say they choose what they want ,however some people will still be incline to choose lets say adventorous life , another might choose to become a business man or a polititian or a family man or whatever.
So what is the cause of a guy choosing one way of living their life over another way. genetics maybe or something else??
Carlos
FROM BILL: What happens to what you THINK OF as “you” is partly determined by genetics, partly by your Internal Map of Reality (beliefs, values, etc., as you described), and partly by all the interactions and relationships with the rest of the whole.
Dear Bill,
Yes I understand all that you have said.
I did say ’seemingly’ removed (or separate).
I said SO entrenched because there doesn’t seem to be any middle way in the mind.
A bit like being pregnant, you either are or you’re not. You can’t be a little bit pregnant or a little bit entrenched.
I have been doing Holosync for 5 yrs now and my concrete thinking is cracking but my goodness it had a firm grip.
I will try and clarify my real question to you.
Do we identify with our ego (ie think that’s who we really are) so completely (most people) because we have allowed that to happen (free will) over many lifetimes not just this one?( Did you say that reincarnation was just a concept?)
Could that explain partly why concrete thinking is so easy to adopt early in life yet such a devil to shake off?
Be gentle with me I’m English.
Best wishes,
Catherine.
FROM BILL: You identify with your mind because that’s what humans use to make sense of the world. It’s the filter through which you experience life–until you develop (see all my posts about this) to a perspective that includes more than that of a separate self.
Wow Bill!! Im speachless…. Thanks to greater powers that you are in the SAME world with me!!
Hi Bill,
to be quite honest, I didn’t get a tremendous amount out of this particular post because it’s simply a revision of information (albeit very useful) that’s in the support materials and elsewhere on the website.
That said, thank you so much for the New Man recommendation. I downloaded the podcasts and found them absolutely FANTASTIC.
I’m in the age group that they refer to and the material really speaks to me. It’s uplifting to see that others have come up with healthy and resourceful ways of addressing some of the challenges I face in my own life.
I look forward to hearing from you again.
Until the next time.
T
Dear Bill,
Most clear, Bill ! Thanks !
As you say, I understand all explanations at cognition level, and when I say that I mean all blogs, lessons IPLP, read a lot of books, etc….
I’ve even tryed not as much to intelectually-understand them, as I let these teachings,informations just sort-of ‘flood-me’ – and see myself how I grasp thenm and how I feel as result !!
And I kind of manage to… witness !!
And this is great, because I realise, at experimental level, that – if I had the guts to divorce after 30 years mariage only because I didnot know why I was feeling bad (but for first time in my life, I had the guts to follow my feelings) – it was really bad, but it WENT AWAY and other perspectives opened to me.. And many times these new situations are frightening (chaos), but then – I just manage to refrain from acting-at-first-impulse, and just wait… and watch… because it really GOES AWAY !! I even now I LIKE to split-out my feelings !! To see why/how… and looks like I am in a wonderland !! I’M a very interesting experience to watch and play with !!
Thanks Bill, bless you,
Emilia
Dear Bill,
Yes again. I have read your material. I get it, I really do! (At least the me who I think I am gets it). I must be coming across as if I have no comprehension of what you are saying whatsoever.
I have been ‘letting it be ok’ for 5 yrs and my perspective IS shifting/developing. This is why I have never asked a question before, as I am aware that the question is coming from a ‘me’ that doesn’t exist in reality. It’s so easy to get tied up in knots with language when you’re perspective is still one of separateness. Have you forgotten how real the ‘map of reality’ feels? Even this question is meaningless because there is no you. I knew I should have stayed quiet!
Help! My brain actually hurts!
Reincarnation – fact or fiction?
Best wishes,
Catherine.
FROM BILL: WHO would actually reincarnate? Is there some separate self who would do that? If you think so, find it. Spiritual practice is a disciplined hunt for the separate self, ending with the realization that there is none. Without this hunt, during which you turn over every rock, looking everywhere, most people would never be truly convinced that there is no separate self.
Dear Bill,
Another question.
My son is almost 3 yrs old. Is it possible for him to develop without becomming attached to his map of reality in the first place?
Best wishes,
Catherine.
FROM BILL. No. He needs his Map of Reality to navigate his life. My point is NOT that your Map of Reality is a bad thing. It’s a very useful thing. It’s when you mistake the map for the reality that you get into trouble. And, EVERYONE does that, until they move through the various developmental stages that enlarge one’s perspective to the point where they see that they are not their Map. See my sequence of posts about human development, right from the start of this blog. Your son needs to develop a Map of Reality, and he will become attached to it. Just love him.
Bill,
First, thank you for taking the time to respond to people’s comments. In my opinion, it doubles the value of this blog.
I’ve been reading several writings on transcendence and non-duality, and have noticed they create an unfamiliar feeling. The feeling is hard to describe: not quite despair, not quite relief, not quite apathy, not quite peace, not quite anything. My admittedly dualistic mind finds this uncomfortable.
Is this an indication of resistance or retreat from the ideas? Or can there be action in non-action? Feeling a little adrift…would appreciate if you could relate from your own experience.
Thanks,
Kevin
FROM BILL: Action happens all the time, but there is no individual actor. Action is action of the whole, but it seems like individual action when viewed through the mind, which divides everything into separate things and events, including a separate you. Your mind is creating how you feel, not whatever you read. And, I am not trying to get you to adopt ideas, so it isn’t a matter of resisting IDEAS. Ideas represent something, but they aren’t that something. Ideas are ABOUT reality, but they aren’t reality. So I’m not trying to get you to adopt any particular set of ideas. I’m trying to get you to go past ideas about the world to a direct experience of it.
Hey Bill,
Following up on my previous post, from what I understand from Andrew’s Teaching, the Authentic Self would be more parallelled to your concept of Chaos (using the Prioginin model – Pardon my spelling); and more importantly; how you’ve mentioned somewhere; that this “Chaos” may be how ‘God’ acts in this universe (Andrew from what I understand now; takes the stance that CHAOS/Evolution IS GOD in action)… and his whole teaching is for the individual to embody this “authentic self”; instead of via the seperated concept of the ego-self.. to put another way; I think it could be paralleled to what you said in the post of: -> “You are this process..” and not the ‘individual doer’.
Does that make sense?
Hmm.. maybe I just answered my own question then; teachings seem to be similar… but on a practical level; how to speed it up.. because Andrew is very good at communicating the ‘URGENCY’ of this matter.
Holosync, LPIP, but how about the concept of intention/will or ‘definite purporse’?
- Julius
Anyways.. happy thanksgiving from Canada; don’t think it’s thanks giving in the states, but it is up here in Canada.
I love holosync!!! and….
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God bless.
Dear Bill, thanks for the post. The way I understand it, your article is trying to elaborate on the fact that God is One and he is in us all. The “You” or “I” factor is an illusion that tends to separate us from the God who is One and in us all. Some believe there is no God, some believe its all energy, some believe there is something but not God as a higher standing. Whatever the beliefs maybe, this article seems to portray to us all the fact that we are all one and a part of the whole. I myself would stick to believing this theory as we are one because we all have God inside us.
Cheers
Jayg
FROM BILL: What I’d really like you to do is to go from believing a theory to having an experience of it. One of the main points in everything I’m sharing with you is to go from IDEAS about reality to a direct experience of reality.
Dear Bill,
Thanks for your answers. Don’t be concerned, I am just loving my son (he is a joy) it was merely a question.
I would encourage anyone who is at the early stages of Holosync to stick with it, with all my heart. It works.
If it’s helpful to anyone – my mind was in a terrible place 5 yrs ago.
It was in a black hole. I developed a sort of social phobia (fear of blushing in public) as a child which had beaten my mind to a pulp by my 30’s. I found interacting with people increasingly difficult because of the anxiety I felt. I kept it to myself completely as I also felt a deep sense of shame for being so self obsessed. My head was full of negative chatter. So much so that I would have welcomed some sort of accident that left me with no memory so I could start again. I’d be almost pleased when other things went wrong in my life as it gave my mind a bit of light relief!
Eventually death seemed like sweet release from the anxiety. I finally told my boyfriend at the time (now my partner of 10 yrs and father of our son) who had no idea that I was in such a state. I had become quite an actress as I was frightened of the people who loved me discovering that I was a sham.
Anyway, with his help and encouragement I found Holosync and the rest, as they say, is history. I am at purification 3. My mind feels almost clutter free. The negative chatter is gone. There is peace a lot of the time. There is no shame. I still feel separate but I know that my mind isn’t me. (In fact I was close to the truth wasn’t I, without even realizing it, in thinking that ‘I’ was a sham).
My perspective is developing and so will yours.
Best wishes,
Catherine.
Loved this article! Reminds me of a book I read called “After the ecstasy, the laundry” which similarly is about even if you get an enlightened moment, there is still life stuff we need to do…
I was fortunate to have a spontaneous “ultimate connectiveness” moment years ago, which left me in awe, but I didn’t really understand it until years later.
I really enjoyed this blog and got a lot out of it. I admire your persistence Bill in reiterating things over and over – your patience is admirable.
I have finally recognised that the difficulties I have had in understanding this stuff is because I was soooooo afraid of what I am attempting to do, i.e. let go of the idea of ‘me.’ In fact, I didn’t even know that is what I was trying to do, I thought I was trying to make a ‘better’ me – a more acceptable me, a me that I would be able to live more comfortably with. It’s been like having one foot on the accelerator and one on the brake and just spinning my wheels.
Thanks to all the other posters and Bill’s answers. I do get a lot out of the question and answer format and enjoy the comments as much as the blog. Special thanks to Catherine for your openness and honesty – your journey is remarkably similar to mine. I am just beginning to appreciate just how much courage it takes to go through this process.
FROM BILL: The reason you can’t “get” this is because, first of all, there’s nothing to get, and second, it’s the mind, the idea-maker, that thinks it is going to get it. What isn’t dualistic can’t be “got” by the dualistic mind. The big joke is that there’s nothing to get and no one to get it. When you are trying to make a better me, it’s really the universe who is the doer. It just seems like there is a you who is trying to do something.
And yet, all of this is the game of life. I’m not saying that anyone should stop doing all of this. Why stop? It’s not a separate you that is doing it anyway. The entire universe comes together to do whatever “you” seem to be doing. Why? Who knows. Where is it going? Nowhere. What does it mean? It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t need to mean anything. All of it is the One playing hide and seek from itself, pretending to be the many, just for the fun of it. ALL of it is for the fun of it, not just the “good” parts.