Tag Archives: chaos

ELEVATE

Find control by letting go

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Your life is falling apart around you. Your partner has left you for another person. You’ve been made redundant at your job. Someone close to you dies. Your house got broken into. These are tragic life circumstances. But guess what…? You can still be happy amidst the life chaos because you can “trust in the process”. You can trust in the universe. You can understand that even when everything is falling down around you, you know that this is one moment in a billion moments of life and that it is there to teach us a lesson.

We live in a friendly Universe. Life is a place that grants us so much. Without the bad we would never know the good. Life would be a plateau, like an eternal warm pool that never gave us the feelings of exhilaration and excitement but instead consistency. We all strive for consistency, in one way or another, through the form of control but once we accept that we don’t have control the way we think we do, we actually gain control. This new way of understanding control is that we attract into our lives the perfect thing we need so that we can move forward. So that we can grow. So that we can find our next step.

So often we lose one job, which gives us the courage to follow our dreams and do what we really want to do. Our partner leaves us, only to find the next partner shows us a new way fo feeling love. A loved one dies and reenters into the fabric of the Universe, teaching us about the miracle of life and the true eternal magic that we as people bring into this world. We often resist the change that we have brought into our lives and instead blame those events and people that surround us. In psychology it’s called the actor observer bias. Stop blaming that which is around you. Accept and embrace that which you brought it into your life and move forward and through it. When you finally, breathe a courageous breath and take that step forward you will find a bigger and brighter world in front of you. Remember… There is always a light at the end of the tunnel!

ELEVATE

The Space Between Space: The Wisdom of Silence

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This inspired film by Jeff Scher is an example of silence. It’s funny how even in silence we find noise, but many a time the only way we can find silence is to have noise. So why silence? And why noise? Lets start with silence. But first please click on the image and explore this short and powerful piece.

Silence is the space in between all our thoughts. Like the space between the rain drops and the sound between the notes of a piano. Silence is where our wisdom and intuition reside. This wisdom is the collective power of our whole body system, and thus is the accumulated efforts of our subconscious. The subconscious is infinitely more powerful than the conscious mind, because it is not restricted to form but instead understands the universe in a logical, but non-linear fashion. It doesn’t require lines, labels and definitions of the forms that it is working with. Anything and everything exists in all time and space and so it is in silence that our complete biological system realizes its full potential of the computing power of its entire energy structure which enables it to fully understand this world.

We recognize this world through our feelings and subtle images, not through the incessant self-talk that churns through our thought space, distracting us from a greater thought. This incessant talk is noise. But it is a chaotic noise; it is a reaction to our experiences. A noise without structure it bubbles up haphazardly from the stories we have of ourselves from our multiple identities of who we believe ourselves to be. These stories constantly reaffirm our reality, ensuring that we keep to the illusion of who we are. We have these identities so we can feel safe, so we can be in control, so we can know what is and what isn’t. But this noise does not serve us. We need noise to give shape to the world and help us know what is from what isn’t through the use of words and thoughts but often this is merely a distraction and for the most part a farce. Noise forms us but doesn’t necessarily serve us. However noise has another role if we condition it through our breathing, through a mantra, a repetitive motion or any other meditative form you desire. By using this structured noise we can quiet the chaos and create a space in which we can connect to the silence. We remove the typical overbearing chatter that drowns out the subtler feelings that contains so much wisdom.

Silence exists in the present moment. Whenever you are thinking of the past or the future you are in a space of thought. Thoughts of who you were and who you should and could be. In the present moment you can create a white place; a clean slate. It is from this place free of the untangled world of the past and the future that there are no preconceptions, existing forms and ideas that you have to adhere to in order to create. Instead your canvas is free to create afresh and anew any world that your deepest self dreams to be true.

This space, induced by structured noise, is often associated with slower frequencies in our brain. When considering sleep, the slower our frequencies get the deeper we are into sleep and the less our conscious faculties are in play. Early on in sleep we often reach a stage in which our waves slow to what is called Alpha frequency. This stage is a powerful stage as it has been to show that we can operate powerfully without the use of our conscious mind getting in the way. We often use our conscious mind to understand things, which are great for when we are first learning something so we can build the necessary neural connections, but then we continue to rely on this conscious mind rather than trust the wisdom that exists beneath this conscious process. A much more powerful processor. There is research which shows how mind when wandering or day dreaming we often reach our greatest moments of inspiration, so too in that period just before we wake, where we look at the world in the borderland of our sleep and waking worlds. It is in this space that we are in the Alpha wave state and it is in this period where we have shut down enough of our conscious faculties to open ourselves to the power of silence.

Find a moment to yourself when you are ready to discover yourself or something in your life. Take a breath and then take another and listen and feel what happens in your breath and between the breath. Listen to the rain and see the rhythm of it in motion or stop for a moment and play this piece and find the peace you need to move to a powerful place. So don’t think you need to think your way through life all the time, but instead take a moment and access the space of silence. And remember, “Silence is Golden”.

ELEVATE

Meeting the Walrus is a ‘Profound Whatever’!

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This video is so astounding for me. Not just for the visual element but for the wisdom that John was espousing all the way back in 1969 and the insight from the 14-year-old Jerry Levitan. Two points in particular I would like to talk about.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmR0V6s3NKk]

The Power in Being the Change

The first point begins with the current context of the US involvement in the Afghanistan and Iraq military campaigns. As Lennon so rightly acknowledges the large groups that have a major influence over the government don’t want peace. America’s Military Budget is consistently as much or more than the rest of the world (Ref 1 & 2).  War is good for the institution of the USA. Smash it down, build it up again and hang onto it to become the establishment. To hear this realization from a time long past is inspiring and sad. Sad, for the fact that this knowledge has been in the public mind for many years and still we have not been able to eradicate such useless violence bred from greed and corruption. It is inspirational, however, because we are reminded that there were great people back then willing to stand up and talk about ways to eradicate violence through non-violent means.

It is the power in protesting non-violently that enables a change in the current regime. The governments are all well versed in using forceful resistance but they don’t have a weapon to use against non-violent action. It has worked time and time again, with Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr. and onwards. But it is not just about non-violence it is the same for anything you want to create in the world. It is about giving what you get. It is about being the change you want to see in the world. Which part of yourself will you feed. That which resists the world or that world which that you can flow with. It is by resisting something that we make it more real. Giving is the best way to receive. So if you want to see the change in the world, be that change, encapsulate it and without expecting it from others but doing for the love of what you believe you will inspire people through your leadership.

We need to be the change we wish to see in the world.

– Mahatma Gandhi (1869 –1948) Indian Political Leader and Social Activist

Don’t sit there and just blame people who are doing the “wrong”, but instead, act in a way that promotes a greater harmony.  It is not their fault that an evil has been begotten because they knew not. The same way a child breaks something, even with malicious intent, it is not their fault. It is simply an unconsciousness that we must work to educate in how to behave in a more conscious manner. Our governments are not to blame, we put them there, and if there is something that acts in discord with the evolution and sustainment of the world then there is an opportunity to educate but being that education.

The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.

– Edmund Burke (1729 –1797) Irish Philosopher

The world is in a natural entropic cycle. It is part of the laws of thermodynamics, in which there is a constant move to a state of chaos however we can choose to be the carp that swim upstream. It takes more effort but we have the ability to insert some energy into the system and from that point we can move into the opposite direction of a chaos state and instead towards a more organized, evolved and harmonious state. One stroke at a time. And that’s the point, no great person went out with the intention to be great instead they try to do the small things as great as they can.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

– Lao Tzu quotes (6th Century BCE) Founder of Taoism


The Power of Tuning in to Broadcast out

The other “profound whatever” that John talks about are that messages are there on all levels. Many profound philosophers, over the millennia, have realized that the same Truths or Laws of the Universe exist on many different levels, simply operating at different scales. But these Laws are one in the same they just are aimed at affecting the relevant elements at the scale of force of which they are operating, whether it is a person, a planet or an abstract concept like Love. These Truths are all the same.  It just takes time to open your heart to the greater scope of life to further awaken your consciousness and realize how connected it all is. I will talk about this further next week.

It’s the same in a flower it’s just there, and if you look long enough all answers are in it, same with the music.

– John Lennon (1940-1980) Songwriter and Political activist


Tuning in Exercise

An exercise I recommend is that in each interaction you have with a person or event, ensure that you are Giving. Feel in your Heart earnestly that in every action you are giving to the occasion and not just taking. Taking can include only partially giving yourself to an action. In fully giving you are fully present to your actions, because you are fully giving of yourself and hence your attention. From this you will open yourself to receiving greater understanding about your actions and the dynamics of your interactions. In an interaction that you are fully tuned into you will be able to get the most out of. It’s like listening to a song on the radio. You have to be properly tuned into the right frequency to be able to get the most out of the song. And that frequency is the frequency of Giving.

“This is the sum of all true righteousness: deal with others as thou wouldst thyself be dealt by. Do nothing to thy neighbor which thou wouldst not have him do to thee hereafter.”

– The Mahabharata, c. 150 BCE

EXPLORE

You and optimal systems – Part 1

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Recently I was considering the idea of optimal systems and what is required to keep them operating functionally. What I now feel is that systems require an allocation of resources both to the advancement of the system as well as to the restoration and protection of it. We as people, and as systems, need to keep an elevated tone in creation but require a harmony with its restorative functions. This is seen in the body as a balance between the sympathetic system which elevates and the parasympathetic system which restores. Both are necessary for the optimal functioning of any system whether it be one element of the human body, the human body as a whole, or a collective of people.

There is such similarities between the dynamics of systems. If you stop and take a step back you will see how the systems are operating under the same physics. It doesn’t matter what, who or where you are, you will find the synchronicities. It all just depends on what level you are looking at the world from. Whether macroscopic or microscopic we are all but different resolutions of the same picture.   Let us consider the balance below.

Woes of the Elevated culture


The Athenians were an advancing and creative civilization of the ancient world that gave us many of the seeds of our own thinking and advancements of the modern-day. Ancient Athens was a center for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato’s Academia and Aristotle’s Lyceum. Athens was the birthplace of democracy as well as Socrates, Sophocles, and its many other prominent creators of the ancient world. Athenians operated truly harmoniously as a civilization, but without placing resources into the defense response, they were more susceptible to attack. Whilst they were progressing as a creative system, advancing moral and civil ideas and functionality, they had not addressed the defensive elements in the structure of the civil system properly to anticipate any offense. They were eventually overthrown and dissolved into the many succeeding empires.

Woes of the Elevated body

This balance is seen similarly in the body of a high performance athlete. When they train their body to optimal functioning the majority of their resources are being placed into maintaining the high functioning of the system. When the high functioning system is attacked by invading pathogens the system typically has not dedicated enough resources to maintain an equilibrium in the face of the high level of functioning required while balancing the immune defensive response. The body ultimately gets sick and injured more easily as it is operating at the brink of peak performance and it’s limits.

This high level of functioning is quite unlike a body that is constantly punishing itself, for instance with booze, unhealthy foods and lifestyle habits, the system knows to place more emphasis on the defensive/ immune response and in turn removes resources that would otherwise be placed into higher mental faculties.

If we look at the system from the perspective of high performance vehicles versus the old jalopy. Old Jalopies were built from much denser material and were very crude compared to modern-day, clunking along through the oil, dirt and grime of the system. Whereas the high functioning motors, whilst made of light and well lubricated systematics, a speck of dirt can throw the whole system out. The maker eventually learns how to treat the system and how to counter for the effects of the minutiae which can throw the system out. In this same way we too learn what ways don’t serve us and our progress in this world and how to change, and remove elements that reduce the efficiency and harmony of our lives. Unfortunately, sometimes people address the situation too late and many of the parts have worn down. We have now begun to replace to parts but even then we have dramatically reduced our potential.

When we this mechanical perspective it becomes clear how when we enter into a space of chaos, clunking and spluttering our way through life, we feel a general life discordance. Some life event and our reaction to it has led us to the question “why this?” However such chaos can be offset by acknowledging that we are hyper functional beings and in this chaos we have just pinpointed a speck of dirt which has thrown out our system. Through this we remove ourselves from an attachment to any end point, for as we know there is no end point, and instead insert ourselves back into the process of life – aka the flow. Through the acknowledgment of the process in chaos you now have the ability to adjust your perspective to a more powerful place by knowing instead of whats gone wrong, where you need to fine tune the system. Chaos in our lives is a blessing as it shows us where to grow. So love the process of adjustment because it is good to be happy in the good times but it is truly living to find happiness in the bad times.