Wednesday, 14 July 2010 14:47 Written by Nirmala
Someone contacted me to ask:
How do you know the difference between a Heart contraction indicating a small truth and things like fear of change, psychological projection of a shadow, or self-sabotage due to unconscious wounding, all of which also cause contraction?
I replied:
Thanks for your question. There is no difference. Our fears, projections, and wounding are ultimately not very true and not very real, so when we experience them we feel contracted. That is how our soul discriminates that they are not very real, by feeling very contracted when we are focused on them.
This does not mean that they have no reality, it just means they have very little substantial reality. The problem is the mind sees the content of our fear or pain, and to the mind it looks as real as everything else. It is the contraction of the heart--of the very sense of your self--that lets you know that it is just an image or belief in your mind and so is actually not very true.
For a simple example, there might be a fearful thought about losing your job that causes you to feel small and inadequate. And of course it is always somewhat true that you can lose your job. But, in the moment of the thought there is not much truth to the fear if it has not happened yet. It is just a thought. Often we get even more contracted by telling a whole story about if I lose my job, then I might lose my house and my spouse may leave me and my kids will turn out bad and nobody will like me and I will end up homeless and so on. Now all of that could happen, but with each additional projected fearful idea, it becomes less and less likely for it all to actually happen that way and therefore less and less true. And ultimately, even if all of that happened, it would not really harm your eternal soul. So even if it all comes true, it is still not a very big truth.
Our thoughts, beliefs, stories, ideas, fears, hopes, wishes, projections, and wounding are really just thoughts. They exist as thoughts so they are real and have some truth and some effect, but it turns out thoughts by themselves do not have very much reality. After all, they all fit between your ears. How big can they be? When we become very contracted, it is because we are very involved with a story in our mind. This is not bad or wrong, but it is also just not very true or real. Interestingly, we can become just as contracted when involved with a "positive" story about how I am going to win the lottery and then everybody will like me and I will find the perfect lover and live in a big mansion and become spiritually enlightened. If you check when an elaborate story like that is happening in your mind, you will find that your awareness and your direct sense of yourself in that moment is actually very contracted.
Contraction is not bad or wrong, it is just different. Imaginary things like our fears and projections, and hopes and dreams can only be experienced when our awareness is contracted. Our awareness must contract to fit into the small reality of our imagined experience. The antidote is not to get rid of thoughts and imagination, but instead to know them for what they really are: small truths. Something that is small is not bad or even worse than something big. A shoebox is not worse than a garage, it is just smaller. And it is good to be able to tell the difference so that you do not try to store your car in a shoebox, or build a huge garage just to store a pair of shoes! In discriminating how big something is you naturally also recognize its appropriate usefulness. Thoughts and imagination are useful when they point to something that is real or when you need to consider what is possible, but all by themselves they have little useful function. To focus exclusively on your fears or your hopes does not usually serve much purpose.
There is much more going on in every moment than your thoughts about the future or the past, and that includes the bigger truths of your awareness itself and all of the love, joy and peace to be found here and now in your true nature. Why leave out these bigger truths? You do not have to get rid of your fears, but why make them more important than they really are? What if they are actually quite small and your strength, wisdom, joy, love and awareness are limitless? When you put the fears into perspective, they no longer have much capacity to make you suffer, even if they continue to arise as thoughts in your mind.
I hope this helps.
Warmly, Nirmala
Tuesday, 06 July 2010 15:19 Written by Nirmala
Someone contacted me on Facebook and wrote:
I read your blog about beliefs and it is true that our beliefs change over time. Sometimes even in one day we may think two different things about reality and how everything functions. But then is there anything objective? Is there any final truth or is everything subjective? What is reality like outside our minds and beliefs? Do we create our worlds with our beliefs and mind? Thanks much.
I replied:
These are very good questions. There are several perspectives on the question of what is objectively real, and they all have some truth to them.
One perspective is that the only thing that is truly real is that which does not come and go or that which is eternal. And with this definition, nothing with a form or a name is real. The only real thing is the mystery beyond name and form which is the source of everything. This is a very absolute perspective and it can be very powerful in dissolving illusion and attachments. It cuts through all appearances to the infinite, empty presence at the core of all existence.
Another perspective would suggest that everything is real, that there is ultimately just one thing here and it is very real. Everything is a part of this reality and so everything is real, and everything is connected. This is a more heart centered perception and it can be very powerful in opening up the qualities of love, compassion and acceptance inherent in our awareness.
A third possibility is a kind of combination of the first two. It is possible to realize that there is just one thing and so everything is real, and at the same time discriminate how much reality there is in any experience. Some things have a lot of reality and some things have very little. Even if a thought or belief has some reality, it may not have very much. All of your thoughts fit between your ears, so how big can they actually be? This third perspective is a more practical and functional approach that evokes our capacity for discrimination and effective action.
These three perspectives are summed up in the famous quote by Nisargadatta: "When I see I am nothing that is wisdom. When I see I am everything that is love. My life is a movement between these two." All three perspectives are true. They all hold some truth, and they all have a place in any complete understanding of reality. Yet none of them contain the whole truth, which is an inherent limitation of words and ideas.
More specifically regarding your questions, I would suggest that there is objective reality and there is also subjective reality, and life is a dance between these two. Reality outside of the mind and belief is pure, empty, limitless potential. That is the biggest truth and yet it is not a final truth since life apparently does not stay as pure potential and instead loves to move through mind and belief into form. It is purely objective in its resting state as eternal, infinite space, and it can become purely subjective when it moves all of the way into the realm of thought that has no correspondence to outer reality, like when we are daydreaming about a perfect lover. Most of the time reality or experience is a mix of objective reality and subjective reality.
The more objective our experience the more substantial, lasting and profound it is, and the more subjective our experience the more temporary and unsubstantial it becomes. Neither one is better or worse, but they are definitely different experiences, and we can discriminate how real or true our experience is. Since our minds are the source of subjective reality, the mind is not very useful in discriminating how real something is. To the mind everything looks equally real, so the mind is not helpful in distinguishing between objective reality and subjective reality. Fortunately, we also have a Heart, which is naturally able to distinguish how real or true an experience is. Truth or reality opens the Heart and quiets the mind, and in contrast something that is not very true or real contracts the Heart and makes the mind busier. You can read more about this capacity for discriminating how true or real something is in the free download of part two of Living from the Heart here.
This dance between objective reality and subjective belief is very alive and dynamic. As you mention, our experience can change dramatically in a single day or even a single moment with each thought or idea that pops into our head. And of course it can change even more dramatically in a moment where there is little or no thought and when therefore an aspect of objective reality shines through. So experientially there would appear to be no final experience of truth, but instead an endless unfolding play of truth with itself. What an amazing dance it creates!
Finally, as to your question whether we create our reality with our subjective thoughts and beliefs, I would suggest we co-create our subjective reality along with all of the other consciousness here. Our thoughts and beliefs have an effect on how reality appears, which is how this dance of life works: everything affects everything else. So even our thoughts in their limited subjective existence have an effect on everything else that happens.
However, there is still the question of how much effect do they have. Do our personal thoughts create the entire reality we experience? Or is reality also affected by other people's thoughts? And is human thought the only player in this game? What if there are many levels of Being that all have a part in this dance? What about our collective thoughts or beliefs? What about the thoughts or beliefs arising in the mind of God? What if there are an infinite number of conscious forces at work shaping objective reality into subjective experience?
So the answer may be that our beliefs affect reality along with everything else that affects reality. It could be that ultimately the creation of our reality is the sum effect of everything that affects the unfolding of life including our personal thoughts and beliefs. This can put it into perspective that it matters what we think and believe, but it does not matter that much. You can play with the effect your beliefs have without taking them too seriously. It turns out that most of what happens is the result of much bigger forces that we might call destiny or grace.
I hope this helps.
Warmly, Nirmala
Friday, 02 July 2010 14:46 Written by Nirmala
A friend has shared how he is struggling to know what to believe and even if anything has any meaning at all. Here is how I responded:
Everything you have written is true....because you wrote it! That is the strange thing about this life, everything means what we decide it means. You have heard the phrase, "Make Believe". Well this whole life is make believe. We make up our beliefs and then believe them. We make it all up as we go, and each moment we are also free to make up a new story. We are free to decide what this means and what that means and also free to then "change our mind" and decide the opposite is true.
So when you think enlightenment is important, then it is important. When you think enlightenment is meaningless, then it is meaningless. When you think what you do is useless, then it is useless. When you think you must go through an ego death, then it will seem like you have to go through an ego death.
I am not saying that you decide what happens. I am saying you decide what it means when anything happens. Meaning is like a work of art that we paint with our thoughts, and that we are constantly retouching and recreating. This does not mean that things have no meaning (unless you decide they have no meaning)....it just means that the meaning they have is something we create.
Given the fluid, ever-changing nature of thought and therefore of meaning, the best approach is to believe whatever you believe, but to hold it very lightly. You need a certain structure of belief to function and orient in the world. But you do not need to come up with a final belief or formula for how anything works or what anything means. You can play with beliefs and meanings and see what effect they have. If they are working great. If they are not working, great, because then you can change what you believe.
And in the midst of all of this play at believing, it is also fine to take a break and just not believe. I am not suggesting you decide that things have no meaning. I am suggesting you take a break from knowing what things mean, if they have a meaning or not, and even if there is such a thing as meaning or not. Not knowing is only a problem if you think it matters what you think. If you have a sense of how it is all make believe, then it is OK to go naked for a while with no belief. Then if you want to believe something for a change, put on some belief clothing again.
It can take a while to get used to this naked possibility of a deep not knowing. It is not better to not know (unless you think it is), it is just different. And at the deepest level of not knowing, it is profoundly different. It is at this deepest level of not knowing, that there is the possibility of seeing things as they really are. And yet even then, it is fine to instead make up a story and make believe it is true, and therefore see and know "reality" that way. The ultimate is not a complete and permanent cessation of knowing, it is a complete flexibility to know or not know from moment to moment. This includes the flexibility to experience the depths of pure Being without the filter of knowing, and it also includes every knowing or belief or meaning you have ever experienced. This flexibility of knowing is not a prescription or something you achieve. It is a description of your consciousness as it is now and as it has always been.
Everything you have ever experienced has been an expression of this capacity you have to make believe. There is no right thing to experience and there is no wrong thing to experience (again unless you decide there is a right and wrong.) Life itself is showing you the full range of your consciousness, from tight constricted, narrow belief to the boundless dimensions of reality unfiltered by meaning or belief. It is the dance between these two--reality and belief-- that makes up your experience in every moment. You might as well enjoy the show!
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