evolution

The Quest for Mind Domination – Our Quest

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English: Earth rotation as seen against the Mi...

English: Earth rotation as seen against the Milkyway-background. Animation from 20 single exposures with a DSLR on an motorized, equatorial mount. Deutsch: Rotation der Erde gegenüber dem Milchstrassenhintergrund. Animation aus 20 Einzelaufnahmen mit einer DSLR auf motorisierter, äquatorialer Montierung. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The other day, I was thinking about what makes “me” and inevitably, I went down memory lane, visiting childhood and young adult memories.  I saw a young mind being shaped by the people and experiences around it, a series of beliefs, traditions, cultural traits … which began clothing and molding “me.”   Although I turned out a decent human being, I realized that I could have shed out a few of those beliefs or ideas, with which I was not totally in tune with (as a young adult and older), but accepted anyway, since they had been passed on by generations and culture.

Many times, we feel obligated to believe or “honor” a system of beliefs/values/information that has been passed along in our upbringing and we end up living our life in a constant silent battle of ideas.  Our mind has been dominated by other’s beliefs/ideas and they have nested in us for so long, that even when we feel that we no longer need them, we feel obligated to carry them with us, in fear of dishonoring someone’s memory or culture or social ties.  We don’t realize the harm that we are doing to “me” when we keep holding on to ideas that do not fit us anymore.

In being fair to “me” I realized that one can only continue to grow and evolve if one sheds out all that does not feel in tune with the actual self, with the person that is and continues to be, whether that be religious, social, or cultural ideas.  Is that an easy thing to do? Not really; most likely, you will encounter opposition from many sides, internal and external, as well as judgement or pre-assumptions.  The real issue here is, do you keep evolving or do you “play nice” and hold on to those ideas (which do not serve you anymore) for self-preservation (avoiding judgement or hurting feelings).

It takes guts to say, “I am finally free and I don’t have to believe in anything anymore; I just am.”  The key words here are have to.  When you feel that you have to believe or accept an idea which you have outgrown you are denying the essence of being; you are reversing the process of creation, of creativity.  You may exist, but you are not – you are not creating, you are un-creating.  You are denying your essence (I’m not talking about ego here).  I choose to believe that I am part of a greater and collective creation, and that in order to honor (LOVE) that essence, first, I must honor (LOVE) my own.  To be (part of creation), first I have to know and respect that I am.  By acknowledging that, I am opening the door to LOVE, the essence to all.

 

The Ghost of a Thousand Lives

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Ghost?!

Ghost?! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Muse made me do it …

The Ghost of a Thousand Lives

Where is the crown that makes you king?

Where is the sword that shines of courage?

Where is the stare that froze a thousand fires?

Where is the fire that melts an iceberg heart?

Where have you gone, the eyes cannot see,

If not but a speck of the brave, nor a sunshine ray,

In the depths of the soul, the hero is lost,

All that remains … the ghost of a thousand lives.

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger – Does It?

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South Padre Island: A person takes advantage o...

South Padre Island: A person takes advantage of the early morning for peace and quiet. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How many times have you heard the phrase “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger?”  Probably countless of times, and usually from someone who is going through rough times.  I always agreed with it, that is, until I had to say it.  The issue with it is that it doesn’t tell the story.  It assumes that the person will have a quick recovery from what almost “killed” him or her.  The truth is that unless that person struggles and fights to stay afloat and takes action to become stronger, that person can become paralyzed, stuck, traumatized, and remain a “living dead,” broken and far away from being “strong.”

What if you went through a significant circumstance in your life which marked you in a way that although you know you have to keep going, it has become very hard to do so?  You may stay alive but with little to no strength to fight.  This may apply to different situations.  One thing that I have learned is that what doesn’t affect someone may paralyze another – we respond and deal with situations in our own way.  The struggle can be brief, or long, and the longer it takes, the outcome becomes either,

  • you become paralyzed in your own situation and fear – and stay iddling,
  • or you come out a bit wrinkled, tossed, teared, just as a thin piece of paper, but those creases are what made you hold on and keep it together.

In either case, you must take a step to come out.

Pondering about this, and notebook in hand, this is what I was inspired to write.

One way in which you can become stronger is by,

  • Asking for help – the kind that you might need, whether professional, financial, spiritual, from a friend …  However, there is so much that outside support can help, and you must help yourself.
  • Pick yourself up.  Get dressed everyday, take care of your physical appearance, force yourself to look your best even if you don’t feel like doing so.  It is easier to wear your pajamas all day than taking the time and effort to look yourself in the mirror and work on your image.  This is only one of the pieces in the mirror that you might have to pick up.
  • Talk to your spiritual source – the fountain of your inspiration and divinity, whatever you may call it.
  • When you wake up in the morning, just say Hello.  It means that you are still here and ready to try once more.  If you happen to believe in a Divinity, then you are also greeting the divine source, and if you don’t, you are greeting the world in which you are waking up.  One more day, one more opportunity or thousands of them.
  • Love the people and pets that you hold dear to you.  Appreciate them and watch them be, and be grateful that they are in your life.
  • Pick up your environment, your home, and make it pretty again.  Right now, where you are is your home.  Clean, yes clean, as you clean on the outside, you are cleaning in the inside.
  • Talk to people and share, whether in person, phone, or online.  A bit of isolation helps you find yourself, but eventually you must emerge.
  • Do things one at a time.  Do things with loving care, taking time and minding them.  Don’t try to multitask.
  • Every night when the lights are out, in silence, give thanks for whatever you are thankful that day.  This is not so much to thank the divine or the universe but to acknowledge the good in your life, and make room for more blessings in your heart.  You will have more blessings, but for that, you have to make room in your heart.
  • As for your purpose, to each its own, and all it is, is a plan to make you happy – the ultimate goal.  Now go on, blessed be your life and the ones under your wings.

 

The Miracle of Senses

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The pentagram is used as a Christian symbol fo...

The pentagram is used as a Christian symbol for the five senses, and if the letters S, A, L, V, and S are inscribed in the points, it can be taken as a symbol of health (from Latin salus). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I have said before, sometimes I get so focused on a task that I forget everything around me; I block everything else, and many times I forget that I was just making pancakes for breakfast or that I had just put a load of laundry and heard the bell a minute ago.  All I can say is thank God for all my senses.  The smell of starting to toast pancakes or the too quiet house will alert me and bring me back.  The gentle nag of a cat that wants a temptation treat has brought me back from the extreme focus vortex just in time.  This brings me to the topic of appealing to reader’s senses in your writing.

Just as it is important to me to get rescued by my senses, I thought of how important sensory stimulation is on a novel or a piece of writing.  Awakening readers senses gives a new depth to your story, and may rescue some readers from boredom – boredom of too much dialog or description.  Even if you are deprived of one sense, another takes over, keener and improved.  I try to keep this is mind when writing my story, as I tend to run into too much dialog.   To me, the senses are a miracle; it is how we experience the world, and how readers can experience your story.

Sometimes, I tend to ask myself the weirdest questions, and I have asked myself if I was to be deprived of a sense or ability, which one will I give up.  I know, it may sound sinister to many, but I think about unusual things sometimes.  I would give up speech.  I don’t  talk much; I am the silent type, the observer, and I rather write than talk.  As long as I can communicate when I need to in some way, I think I would be happy.  I am a very visual person, and that would be the sense that I would miss the most, probably to the point of insanity, which brings me to this point – readers are very different in their consumption of reading material and learning, so the senses that prevail throughout your story may appeal to some readers more than to others.  My point, striving for a good balance might not be a bad idea.

Do you think about stimulating the senses when writing your story?  Which sense would you give up?  Which one would you miss the most?  If you are missing a sense, how have you improved the other senses?

 

The Inevitability of Change – Accepting Change

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Some people don’t like change, others associate change with negative things, mostly because they are very comfortable with the current situation or stage in life, and they view change as a disruption.  “If it is not broken, don’t fix it” they may say.  When change is abrupt,and fast it leaves little or no time for this.  Change may be good or bad, however, it is always change.  The only thing that you can control about it is your reaction – accepting change.

Change is inevitable, and it offers an opportunity for movement and growth – whether it is disrupting or good change, either way you must claim your place in life – either embrace it and grow or fight it until you have no more strength – change is inevitable; it is part of our nature.  We go through change since our conception in the womb and it continues until we die – and God knows what else is beyond that, more change?

Change can be sudden, or it can be gradual, the later easier to swallow and embrace, the first, full of punch and invigorating, both regenerative, leaving a sense of renewal in the end.  The greatest thing about change is that no matter how it comes and how it may feel at the moment, it is evolving, and never stalls – that in itself is good.  If change for you represents your darkest hour, find comfort in that – everything shall pass, and it leaves experience, and growth if you choose to accept/embrace it.

Change is inevitable; it is our nature.

The Why to What?

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As I savor the last piece of my magical box of Turkish Delight, I happen to be thinking about a post I read earlier.  The post was about “what you really really really want,” and you can read about it in Ollin Morales blog – Courage 2 Create.  Well, right now what I really want is another box of Turkish Delight, but pondering about this issue prompted me to write this post.  I like to read books about positive thinking/attitude, setting goals … and so on.  Most of these books talk about how important and crucial it is to know your why, because without knowing your why, it will be very difficult to achieve your goals.  The Why is the real reason or motivator for you to do something or achieve what you want.  Thinking about Ollin’s post, I realized that the Why doesn’t matter so much if you don’t know or have a clear definition of “what you really really want.”  In other words, you have to know the What to be able to ponder and establish your true Why.

Unless you know your true What, your Why is useless.  To add to the dilemma, many times, you might think that what you want is a certain something, to later find out that you really didn’t want that at all, or maybe had to tweak your want a bit to realize that your Why was totally out of zinc with your What.  I don’t blame you if your head hurts by now, but life is complicated sometimes, or at least, our perception of it.  I have found that many times, my What (s) were totally wrong, and my Why (s) did not take me there; however, I found that it was all a process for me, and one that I had to undergo to be able to find my true What and Why.  Sometimes, the journey is a What in itself, and later, it becomes the Why, at least temporarily until you realize your true What and Why.

Don’t forget to check out Ollin’s post; you can find it by clicking here – http://ollinmorales.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/and-you-cant-pull-me-down/

 

 

The Theory of Possibility

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Deutsch: Ein Glas Milch English: A glass of mi...

Image via Wikipedia

Revisited

The Theory of Possibility

 

I have adopted the philosophy that no one is 100% right – there are many possibilities and sides to a story or to a belief.  This has made me a better person.  I don’t have to judge and I don’t have to shove my beliefs up the throats of others; instead I agree to disagree and to value other points of view.  I am happier now.  I don’t have to turn blue to prove a point; instead, I just express it and let it go to do what it needs to do.

One day, I went to reach for a glass of milk but decided to drink peach juice instead.  It was a change that took a split of a second but got me thinking.  I was sure I wanted milk but instead ended up grabbing the peach juice.  What followed was enlightening, at least to me.  I understood that this world is made entirely of possibilities.  I understood that everything, absolutely everything is possible.  It takes a matter of less than a second for a possibility to become reality.  This changed my view of things.

I will go back to the milk and juice to illustrate the point.  In my mind, I wanted milk and went straight ahead to the refrigerator to get it.  From my point of view it was already something I would do, saw myself doing, but never materialized – it was a possibility.  Instead, another possibility presented itself – the peach juice – a possibility that was not in my mind a few seconds ago, when heading towards the refrigerator to get some milk.  This sudden change puzzled me to the point that I am writing this article.

Going back to the example, the second possibility became my reality, not the first and intended one.  I changed my mind in the split of a second, whether conscious of it or not, but it ended up shaping my reality.  This in my opinion was a powerful message.

Possibilities abound, they are just multidimensional, and so are we when we think of it in that sense.  Multiple realities – can that be possible?  You be the judge – I don’t judge anymore.

Vulcan Logic vs. The Secret

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Vulcan (Star Trek)
Image via Wikipedia

This week I am revisiting some articles I wrote sometime ago.

Revisited – Vulcan Logic vs. The Secret

While watching a Star Trek movie the other day I heard Spock say one of his Vulcan logical statements:  “If you remove the impossible, what remains – even improbable, must then be the truth.”  When you look at the statement it truly makes sense.  This Vulcan philosophy presents a good logical explanation which can be applied to mostly any situation.  In our minds there is always a definition for what we consider impossible to be or to accomplish, and for every person this is different, given their current status, beliefs, cultural background, and financial/social position.  Therefore, everyone defines the impossible in their own way.  This presents a curious question:  what is truth for each one of us?  If we define the impossible in a unique perspective to our present situation, then by the same thinking process we must define truth in the same way.  According to Vulcan philosophy, “what remains must then be the truth” – when we eliminate the impossible – even if it is improbable.  This match of the Vulcan philosophy with our human way of defining the truth according to our own unique experience presents another interesting predicament:  logic vs. faith.

As humans we tend to have faith, to believe in the impossible or the improbable.  We put our faith in God, The Divine, and even in ourselves.  Atheists will put their faith in themselves or in some cases, science – for the sake of argument.  Most of us are familiar with The Ancient Law of Attraction, made known most recently by Rhonda Byrne and her bestseller “The Secret.”  According to this law, you can attract anything that you desire – positive or negative – to your life.  What you think, believe, speak and focus on, that is what you will attract.  It will materialize into your life because you are sending those vibrations back into the Universe; therefore, the Universe will respond back to you according to the energy sent.  So if you are a negative and fearful person you will encounter negative and unpleasant situations in your life.  The opposite is true if you are a positive person.  In simple words, it means, “what goes around comes around” – you get the idea.  According to the law of attraction EVERYTHING is possible.  This is an opposite view to the Vulcan philosophy and our human nature.  The Vulcan belief recognizes the impossible (we do to), the Secret philosophy or Law of attraction recognizes that anything and everything is possible.

We can do a reconciliation of this huge gap in beliefs by using the element of Faith to build a bridge.  Faith can be defined as the belief and certainty of what has not yet become.  By believing the impossible or the improbable to become true we are refuting Vulcan philosophy and human nature and accepting the law of attraction.  However if our faith is based on a negative perspective, then the impossible becomes reality.

Therefore, Logic, Human Nature, Faith, or Law of Attraction it is all up to you – what we may call Free Will – but that is another article.

To Creed or Not to Creed

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What is a creed?  The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as:  “a statement of beliefs or principles.”  The origin is from the Latin credo – “I believe.”   In this fast-changing, high stress, quick-consuming world, the need to reaffirm our beliefs, our truth, is necessary to achieve the goals that we have proposed to ourselves.  Goal setting, planning, ambitions … all that is good, but in order to achieve our target, we must know what we want, why, and marry that to our belief system.  Anytime that there’s a “glitch” between the “wants” and “our truths,” the balance is off, and somehow, we don’t feel quite centered.  The harmony has been altered, and our focus, shifted.  The result is a deviation of our initial intent.  The goals that were set in excitement soon become out of target, far, or simply unattainable.  We lose our steam, our “mojo,” and the path that we were heading towards, soon disappears.  A feeling of discontent and emptiness hovers like a cloud over us, and sometimes, we ask to ourselves:  Why do I feel this way? – What’s wrong with me?  Not knowing the answer, we just accept the feeling of emptiness and we carry it around with us, until it blends in our soul.  I know, I was there once.

To answer the previous questions:  Nothing is wrong with you.  Simply said, “You are out of balance.”  Your “wants” and “your truth,” are not in perfect alignment with your self.  This is why writing your own creed is important.  It serves as a reminder, a beacon, to where you are headed.  This is the destination that you mapped:  your dreams, goals, desires – all those things that make life worth living, and that are personal and different for everyone.  Put your creed in writing; carry it around in your pocket or your wallet.  Read it every day as a reminder of your goals.

Before writing your creed, think of what you believe, who you are in the core, and what you want.  Visualize yourself with your trophy, in balance.  Then, write it down as if it already happened.  It should be no longer than a paragraph, short but very clear to you – so you can easily read it every day.  That is your creed.

What you believe, you become.  “And the word became flesh…”  (John 1:14)