Seeing is Believing-IV

What is common among: Neuro-linguistic-programming, Native American Shamans, Hypno-therapy, Transcendental Meditation, Third wave behaviorists, Sadhana of Antony Demello and Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev?

All of them effectively make use of fantasy exercise. First seeing things in mind (believing and in the virtual world), then realizing them in real world (in the material world). Fantasy exercise is nothing but day-dreaming with a mission.

All of us enjoy day dreaming. I don’t think that I would have gone through long years of education without the help of day dreaming. I could pass through schools and colleges without breaking down or without any serious mental depression, just because of day dreaming. Boring lectures and unwanted books could not damage me because I was not listening to them.

I never bunked a class mainly for two reasons; (1) I did not have the guts and (2) I made use of them for day dreaming.

In fact, day dreaming is the biggest shield against the inevitable mundane and repetitive activities in our life. The biggest gift of day dreaming is that you can do anything you want without being caught. Police can’t arrest, the judge won’t punish and parents will have no clue about what we are up to.

But for our mind, there is no difference between fantasy and reality. Whether you are looking at a dog on a street or remembering a dog in the fantasy, it is same neurons which get activated in the brain. So the unconscious mind creates opportunities to fulfill whatever we see in the mind, provided there is a burning desire and intensity connected with the fantasy we visualize.

Following steps are the effective ways to create the result we want in our life. Take time and go through the steps seriously, it takes less than 15 minutes in the first time, repeat it twice a day for three days, after that just once a day till you achieve what you want. When you repeat the exercise, it will take less than three minutes only.

Step 1: Know what is that you truly want. It can be a short term goal or a long term need. First you take a short term goal for the exercise. Once you get it successfully, you can go for a long term or bigger goal and do the exercise. About  a  hundred  years  ago  Dr  Wallace Wattles  said  “Thought  is  the  only  power  which  can  produce tangible  riches  from  the  Formless  Substance”. His idea is still valid.

Step 2: Train your mind to think in a correct way. Doubts regarding what you want will arise in the mind. The subconscious mind will put forward all types of arguments, since it retains everything that has happened to you. Do not suppress them, do not reject them, and do not accept them, all you have to do is observe them without any judgment. Then focus yourself on what you want.

Step 3: Write down on a clear piece of paper your definite mission statement:  what  do  you  want,  by  what  time  do  you  want  and how do you plan  to achieve  it. Be as precise as possible.  If you want a 10 lakh rupees,  write “I am going to accumulate 10 lakh rupees by  31^st,   December  20--,  I  am  going  to  earn  this  money  (by doing)…  I  am  going  to  use  this  money…  (for  making  my  life better  or  helping  other  people  etc)…  And  I  am  going  to  do whatever it takes, no matter what to accumulate this money.”

If you do not know the way in which you are going get the money, do not worry, just keep it aside. As days pass by, your mind will eventually come up with the right strategy.

Then create a  detailed,  solid,  foolproof  plan  on  how  you  are going  to  achieve  your mission  statement. Remember when  you make  a  definite  decision  to  bring  about  a  change  backed  by  a burning  desire,  you  are  only  tapping  into  a  strong  current  of infinite possibilities. The whole universe will conspire to help you but you will need to have a detailed and organized plan on how you wish to bring about this change. A detailed plan will give you the mental road map of where your destination is going to be. It will also give you a reality check on whether you are truly making progress or simply going about in circles.  Have  a  time  frame, have  a  clear  vision  of  your  outcome,  and  chart  a  step  by  step road map  on  how  to  get  there.

Step 4: you accept and believe that whatever you want to have already happened and thank your higher spiritual power for that (Can be God or Nature or anybody – parents, mentors). When you do this, visualize the goal as if you have received it. Make it more colorful, see yourself rejoicing.

Step 5: Write down on the diary regarding what is your emotional state today, what have you done, what were the successes, what were the failures, how does today fit into your overall mission of reaching your goal?

Seeing is Believing - III

“When  we  walk  to  the  edge  of  all  the  light  that  we  have  and  take  a  step  into  the darkness of the unknown, we must believe one of two things will happen: there will be something solid for us to stand on, or we will be taught to fly”
                    - Frank Outlaw

It is time to revisit the Spinoza’s claim ‘Seeing is Believing’ and reframe it as ‘Believing is Seeing’.

The king was sitting on his decorated chariot, and the annual procession of the king started. Millions of people gathered on the roadsides and were shouting slogans in the praise of the king.

A young man, with his friend, too came to participate in the procession. Witnessing the majestic appearance of the king, he wanted to get his attention, hence he shouted, “Oh, mighty king, I can teach your horses to fly”. Somehow the king managed to listen to this outrageous statement.

The next day, the king ordered his solders to find that young man and to bring him to the palace. The young man along with his friend was presented to the king. The king said, “I am happy to know that you can teach my horses to fly, here is my horse, teach it to fly”. The young man without any hesitation approached the horse and inspected it, then answered, “My Lord, you need to give me eight months for the training, after the eighth month, your horse will indeed fly like an eagle”.

The king scrutinized him for a while, then said, “Well young man, if you make my horse to fly, I will reward you with gifts. If you fail, then you will be beheaded for wasting my time”

The young man thanked the king for granting a chance to exhibit his talents. And he departed from the palace happily with king’s horse. His friend was agitated and furious, “Are you serious, how you are going to fulfill your word to the king? You are going to be beheaded after 8 months.”

The young man answered, “Friend we have 8 months in our favor. Who knows what will happen in 8 months. The king looks old, he may die. The horse too looks old, it may die. Or who knows the horse may indeed learn to fly”.

This is the story that illuminates the approach, “Believing is Seeing”. The following are the three basic cognitive tenets one cultivates within one’s believe system:

1. I am more than what I am. There is no written script which my life follows, but I am the author who is writing the script of my life.

2. I think and I create what I think.

3. The thought is the potentiality, and the burning desire (focused attention) + the willingness to pay the necessary price (willingness to face any tests) are the actualizing agents.

Seeing is Believing - II

‘Reality is the manifestation of our consciousnesses. It is the choices we make create our personal world. We either make the choices consciously or unconsciously. If we make it consciously, what we want happens. If we are lazy, then our unconscious mind makes the choices with its own version of fear and anxieties. And for ever we can blame the luck and other factors for our joy or sufferings.

Richard Bandler gives the analogy of bus for working of our consciousness. Driver is like conscious mind and the bus is the unconscious mind. If driver is asleep, then the bus will go to any place it wants and most of the time, the journey will be from one accident to the other. Of course sometimes it may prove to be pleasant accidents, and we will call it luck and invoke almighty for his blessings. But the bus where the driver is asleep is a dangerous way of living. Most of us live our life in this pathetic manner.

Another analogy is the child in a room with all kinds of paints and painting materials. The child can pour the paint all along, on himself or on the wall, scribbling everywhere. By mistake, sometimes it may look good, mostly it will be unorganized chaotic strokes. But if in the place of child, a master painter is present, he will end up creating master pieces.

Three essential things to take charge of my life are listed below:

1.   Recognition that my life is in a mess. Without any justification, and without any rationalization, when I look into my life, what I find is that I am moving through the whims of pain, sorrow, anxiety and jealousy. Constantly trying to prove and compete with everybody and nobody. Few words of appreciation or rejection change my entire mood and emotional balance. It is the sign that my life is in a mess.

2.   Just like the child, it is I who created this mess. Except me nobody is responsible for my miseries and heartache. I cannot put the blame on anyone – be it my parents, friends and communities or any kind of associations. Related with blood or filth, it is not others who managed to mess my life. It is I and only I who is responsible for the mess that is my life.

3.   Since I could create the mess, I only can clean up the mess with proper understanding and discipline. The child has the potentiality to become a master painter, provided it is willing to take steps to sharpen the skills present in him. If one can truly understand the point one and two, the third flows automatically. Though the third point looks very intimidating, in fact it is the easiest part, provided we sincerely want to create the life of our choice. Unfortunately this is the only short cut we have to move forward.

Seeing is Believing - I

“Seeing is believing”, that’s what Spinoza said long back, that is what most of us believe in our day to day life.

Harry Houdini, the master magician always believed in the maxim that what the eyes see, ears hear, mind believes. He called it the misdirection, and it is the secrete of all his magic. The mediocre mind gets distracted and feels comfortable in the reality that is visible and audible. It gets some kind of security and certainty and a sense of illusionary control over the situations. And they remain the victim of outside reality, who ever can shout louder and with attractive visual image can take control over their existence.

It is this reality that separates mind of extraordinary from the mediocre. In other words, ‘seeing is believing’ is the vision directed from the external factors, where as ‘believing is seeing’ is the approach taken by any internally directed person.

Internally directed species live either in mental asylum or become the leaders who run this world or end up inventing and discovering new things beyond imagination.

‘Believing is seeing’ is the dictum that gives real control over our life and in the conditions that manifest in and around us. Change the believe system, you will change the outcomes. Albert Elis called it the “Rational Emotive Therapy”. And Paulo  Coelho  says  “when  you  truly  want  something,  the whole  unseen  universe  conspires  to  help  you  in  achieving  it”

Why do we want to live like animals, when we can live like god? Why do we settle down for mediocre existence, when we can be anything we want? Why do we accept the given reality and remain frustrated and bored, when we can redefine the reality?

Cold

‘Getting cold’ is certainly an irritating state of affair. It can make life miserable. The problem in having cold is that everyone thinks that it is a minor sickness and one can’t complain about it, if you do then you will be accused of making mountain out of molehill.

I have cold, at this time of uncomfortable existence, a story come to the mind.

Once a young lady was suffering from severe cold and went to the doctor for treatment. The doctor too prescribed some medicine. The lady faithfully consumed the bitter medicine, but nothing was improving, waited for a day or two, and there was no improvement, things were going from bad to worse.

Suffering turned into anger and she went to the doctor and shouted at him, “Are you a real doctor? The medicine you gave me was absolutely useless. Did you prescribe medicine for cure the cold or to increase it? You should be ashamed of calling yourself as a doctor. Better return the medical college and study properly.”

The doctor remained quiet, finally he told her, “Young lady, what you should do is: go home and take bath in cold water, and without drying yourself go to the bed room and switch on AC, keep it at maximum cool, switch on the fan too if you have one in the bed room. Remain in that condition for an hour.”

The lady was perplexed hearing the new prescription and said to the doctor, “Will it cure me of cold?”

The doctor answered, “No, but you will get pneumonia and I know how to cure pneumonia.”

As the old saying goes; if you take medicine you get cured of cold in seven days, if you don’t take medicine it takes one week. ‘Getting cold’ is a time of grace, it teaches us to be patient. And it offers a valid and convincing reason for drinking brandy.

Camel

Rajnikanth and Jeyalalitha are known for telling short stories. At one time Rajni narrated this story of camel (I think that he has picked it from Zen stories).

In a zoo, a baby camel complained about his body feature to the mother camel. My legs are so long and it is uncomfortable to sit and to walk, the lips and jaw are so thick and rough, it looks so ugly and chewing of food is so difficult, and the stomach is so big and the hump is so heavy that moving  around is a burdensome.

The mother camel answered with patient and compassion. Our features are very special and it helps us to survive in the desert. With short legs one cannot walk in the desert, long legs give us the advantage of walking fast in the desert. In the desert we find rarely food and water, our big stomach helps us to store water and the hump stores up the fat, and we can survive for many days without food and water. In the desert, whatever plants exist, they contain thorns and our lips and jaw help us to eat those leaves. You should not be complaining about our features, rather we must be grateful.

The baby camel mulled over the explanation for some times and then asked his mother, “If that is so, why are living in the zoo?” The mother camel had no answer and went into deep depression.

This story is not about camels in the zoo, but a statement made on the life style of human beings. We lost the tail, because of the under usage, time will come when we will lose brain, since it is also underused to a greater extent.

Why do birds fly in an inverted "V" formation?

Geese fly in ‘V’ shape formation. The wisdom of geese flying in this formation is often quoted to highlight the importance of working in a team and the importance of working together.

Once a crow saw these birds flying in V shape and was wondering where are they going in a group. Everyone is silent and flipping wings once in a while. Curiosity forced the crow to fly near the last bird and asked, “Where are you going?” The last bird was bit irritated and said, “How will I know ask the bird before me, I am just following the bird before me.” The crow moved towards that bird and asked the same question, to the surprise of the crow that bird too gave the same answer, “How will I know ask the bird before me, I am just following the bird before me.” So the crow moved to the third bird before the last and asked the same question and received the same answer. 

Finally it reached the bird behind the first one and asked the question where are going?. The bird said, “The one who is flying first is the leader, he should know where we are going, so go and ask him”. 

Thus the crow went to the first bird in the formation and asked, “You are the leader of this pack of birds, can you tell me where are you going?” the first bird in total frustration answered, “I am not the leader, and I am not leading this pack, they are the ones who are pushing me forward, so go and ask them where are we going”

Quite few of the organizations are efficient and working in co-ordination. The only problem is that no one knows where they are headed and for what purpose. 

Dualism

Dualism was proposed by philosophers and spiritual masters. Plato talked about Ideal world vs. real world, Sri Ramajunar advocated Paramathma vs. Jeevathma. Similarly other masters have highlighted the illusion of dualism and proposed that the reality is one. And Einstein himself tried to prove that matter and energy are one and same, it means that he was giving scientific justification to the fact that the reality is one.

But poor mortals like me experience the reality only in dualism. Jeromy Benthem said that pain and pleasure are our sovereign masters, when I look into my life and life style it seems very obvious. I like some and dislike some other; I enjoy certain things and get depressed with the presence of some other things.

May be in the realm of quantum physics and in an enlightened state of mind everything one and all other realities are manifestations of one and same energy. Aham Brmasmi is an interesting notion in the line of the same thought. It does give a heady feeling when I declare that I am God.

I see the world in polarity and experience it in polarity. Of course after two becks of alcohol reality becomes one and I do experience the reality as one; everyone either becomes angel or devils’ incarnation, it purely depends on the brand. Otherwise, I believe that reality is encountered in polarities.

Clinging to one extreme will make life miserable and pathological. As Robert Frost puts it poetically, "The secret sits in the middle and knows, while others dance round in circles and suppose". Yet constantly occupying the middle ground is not easy, Buddha’s teaching of middle path is great, but walking on the tight rope is not an easy act.

But my version of dualism is bit complicated, for me polarities exist, and we constantly move from one to the other, not because we like moving up and down, but because there is no choice. If we choose one pole, it gives solace for some time then it itself throws us to the other pole. For example if teaching is a pleasure then correcting papers becomes a pain.

The other popular polarities are given below; if you master the art of balancing then you can sit in the middle, till then let’s swing from one to the other. Getting stuck in extreme is a dangerous business.

MASCULINE	FEMININE
Shiva/Cosmic Father	Shakti/Cosmic Mother
Lingam/External Genitals	Yoni/Internal Genitals
Projecting	Receptive
Cosmic Consciousness	Cosmic Energy
Universal Soul	Individual Soul
Spirit	Nature
Positive	Negative
Active	Passive
Solar/ Warming	Lunar/Cooling
Right Nostril/Pingala	Left Nostril/Ida
Left Brain Hemisphere	Right Brain Hemisphere
Sympathetic Nervous System	Parasympathetic NS
Electrical	Magnetic
Acidic	Alkaline
Discharges Energy	Retains Energy
Prefers Raw Sex	Prefers cuddly sensuality
Rational/Logical	Intuitive/Emotional
Liner/Detailed	Holistic/Diffuse
Abstract/Lost in thought	Practical/Down to Earth
Needs Adventure	Geared for Survival
Gives love to get sex	Gives sex to get love
Objectifies partner	Personalizes Partner