on love

if i do love you, then i must love every atom, too, because you are in everything. i must love every space between atoms, because you are also there, and so i must love everything in this reality, and in every alternate reality, and in all of creation, because it is all from you. and then i must love everything outside of creation, because that is where your sunrise shines most brilliantly, the liquid gold beyond stories of this and that, relativity, birth and death. and if i do love you, then i must love each and any piece of experience that floats into my perception, and then i must learn to perceive beyond perception, in order to love also whatever is there, and all that is and ever has been. if i do love you, then i must love you, as fully as fullness itself, and only then will i be alive, will livingness flow through this being, and in that long moment of now, we will seize to maintain identity and --

Good advice from my dad

"The race doesn't end ten meters before the finish line.
One foot in front of the other; just don't give up."

Metaphor

From Latin metaphora from Ancient Greek μεταφορά (metaphora)
from μεταφέρω (metapherō, “I transfer, apply”) from μετά (meta, “with, across,
after”) + φέρω (pherō, “I bear, carry”) [source: wiktionary.com]

Metaphor:
to carry across;
through the meta field from one world of perspective
to another; a private/collective meta-portation device
through dimensions.

To be effective, she who throws a metaphor
must enter the now-world of her audience,
must learn this world’s vocabulary, its grammars,
must taste its desire, respect its fears;
must sneak through existing preconceptions to invade from within,
to attack without warning, with inner boundaries down,
to explode a bomb, call forth an apocalypse of all that's been,
stand her ground;
now transition transport meta.

Metaphor:
to carry across;
suddenly a new spot,
cleared land, uncover fertile soil,
in new speed, a different vehicle, moving in trajectory
from one world to another, multidimensional
expansion pulling painfully / meta flows /
away the mask, feigned flatness goes.

ALIVE.

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Communication

I've been working with brilliant people on interesting projects.

Recently I have the opportunity to jump in on a project during a particularly busy week. My role has involved owning a document which is to be delivered to the client within days. As part of this process, I get to talking with one of the inventors whose latest developments will be featured. This particular coworker has an especially diverse background within an environment which epitomizes interdisciplinary teamwork. He conveys to me his frustration at not being able to adequately explain, even to collaborators, the amazing work he is doing. The work will speak for itself once it has been completed, but right now, he needs his teammates to recognize the vision in order to realize it. Enter the writer*.

After spending some time with Inventor getting up to speed on the issue, I ask to see his brainchild in its current manifestation. Of course, playing with a new technology, even one still in development, offers a much better feel, tangibly, for its capabilities and possibilities. I delve into the experience which I will then try to transmit to others with words, and I want to know where he feels people struggle to grasp this work. Meanwhile, I become aware of an explanation stream starting to form in my mind. When I get back to my computer, it feels alternately like a struggle and like a flow -- the flow of words onto the page and me struggling to arrange them. We go back and forth a few times, testing how well my description matches his reality, and after several iterations, he sends this response -- "I showed it to my teammate and a lightbulb went off in his head! He finally gets it!" Yes! He is psyched to have something which solidly captures his ideas and will garner support for his cause. I am psyched to have played any role in this. Especially because I think his cause is super cool!

So -- am liking this... Participating in communicating great ideas that simply need a voice; ideas that would surely spread enthusiasm if only they were well-articulated and well-presented.

* Writing is something I have generally done for fun, and I enjoy applying the label in that context. Writing is also something I'm "forced" to do in the context of research and my ongoing dissertation process. Professional writing has entered my life accidentally; I am making space for it.

The Apparent Paradox

In acknowledging the paradox of being alive -- that we are at once the omnipresent oneness as well as the experience of a temporary body-mind -- we allow ourselves to relax into the arms of the NOW-moment.

Ahh... it feels so good..!



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Change the Gestalt. Make the Paradigm shift.

originally posted November 11, 2009

"Change the Gestalt. Make the Paradigm shift."
"You are a SOUL which has a body, not a body which has a soul."

In response to a request for clarification on this quote, I’ve attempted here to explain my interpretation of it and warmly welcome feedback and discussion. :)

Gestalt...
This means like, the way we look at something. In any given situation, there are many, many details, some of which we will choose to focus on in trying to understand the situation. Given our limited perception, there will always be more information available than we can actually perceive at one time. The resulting interpretation we come up with is then by definition incomplete, subjective and related to the particular Gestalt we have chosen.
http://www.gaiehouston.co.uk/intro.htm [Gestalt demystified]

This Gestalt concept is nicely illustrated in optical illusions... Depending on which part of an image (or situation) we focus on, we will perceive the whole story differently. Sometimes this is discussed as the play between Foreground & Background, or Figure & Ground. Check out this link for examples... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusion

Paradigm...
This means basically, the Gestalt which we have collectively agreed to use. A paradigm refers to what "we" consider to be "true", as based on socially accepted norms. Often the term is used in a scientific context. Depending on the paradigm from which an experimenter is working, the experiment will look very different and will lead to very different types of results.

A famous example of this is the statement that, "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now." This was said before Einstein came up with his Theory of Relativity, which has literally changed the world. Einstein stepped outside of the socially accepted Gestalt and made a Paradigm shift. ;) In other words, he tried an experiment of asking, what if the Gestalt we are using -- our current Paradigm -- is incomplete? Well, of course it’s incomplete. Then what?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm

Funny thing is, there is never one "best" Gestalt, as it means simply looking at different *pieces* of the same whole, looking at the same picture from different angles. There is actually an infinite number of Gestalts which we could choose to "use" in our perception of life... The Gestalt we "choose" determines the Paradigm from which we will work. So it is up to us which Paradigm we choose to work from. Then why not experiment? We can be Experimenters in our own lives. If we feel "stuck", what if we try a new Gestalt? If something feels impossible, what happens when we just shift into a different Paradigm? How to do this? Well, as with the optical illusions... we simply shift our focus to a different part of the same picture. Get it?


So back to the quotes...

"Change the Gestalt. Make the Paradigm shift." 
"You are a SOUL which has a body, not a body which has a soul."

I believe this is telling us to refocus our perception of this life experience. Let's experiment with the radical idea that we can actually *choose* to identify ourselves with the immortal Soul, rather than with this body, which will disease, decay and die. The fear of physical death is a huge drive for many people in our modern age -- aging is considered negative, and the appearance of aging, even more so negative. And yet, this body is bound to age. The over-identification with our physical bodies as our True Selves means that we are basing our happiness on something very temporary, which will die. What happens to our experience of this life if we shift to identify our Self with the Soul?

The Paradigm-shifting which we are currently experiencing as a planet is related to this re-identification with the Soul. It is high time that we align ourselves to this shift. We must unlearn the story we've been told that we ARE this body, that Life is over when this body dies. What will happen when we change the Gestalt and shiftthe Paradigm to Realize our Self as immortal Soul? Hmm... :)


So how to shift this particular Paradigm?
How to facilitate this re-identification of Self from body to Soul? ...

Two answers:
1) BE in the presence of a living Master. TRUE living Masters have a Soul presence which transforms us effortlessly.
2) PRACTICE meditation. Whatever speaks to you and will support you in your soul's eternal quest to Know the Truth of your Self as Soul.


Happy SELFing!


Aum Shanti Shanti Shanti

Beyond Sense-Making

I recently came across the term "meaning junkie" via a facebook post by one of these many Very-Intellectual friends whose discovery of this term had recently shook up her world.

... could we be addicted to assigning meaning?

I've been reflecting on this possibility over the past few weeks. I've been catching myself in moments where I might be acting from a space of putting in a lot of effort to extract meaning from something which perhaps could be left alone.

There was a time when I'd written up little reminders for myself on multicolored 3x5 cards and taped them up in places I'd be seeing constantly. My favorite was yellow and contained these three quotes:

The journey itself is going to change you, so you don't have to worry about memorizing the route we took to accomplish that change. - Ishmael, Daniel Quinn

Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased, Polo said. Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little. - Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows. - Nisagardatta

Today I realized that all three of these quotes are about checking the addiction to making sense of everything. Why? Because when we are caught up in the perspective many of us live in, that it is our task and responsibility to create order, then we tend to lose sight of the beauties which may not fit into our order, and we may limit our appreciation of What-Is by creating a lot of "what should be"...

My *work* is effectively about making sense where there was none previously. I actually study finding sense in seeming chaos, am writing my PhD dissertation on such things, derive great joy from related challenges... At the same time, when I'm not *working*, I do believe that I am better-served when I can *choose* the times I want to engage in sense-making and when not. I have heard this described as the freedom to use the mind as a tool, rather than to be controlled by the mind.

How to do this? How to quiet the mind? Meditation.

. . .


Meditation to break the addiction to sense-making.