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EVOLVE AT YOUR PERIL. Where Ignorance is bliss.... A series on dimensional self improvement by Michael Mifsud The world is awash with modern shamans offering the very elixir of youth, eternal knowledge and placebos for every event from every adapted style of Oriental and Asian mysticism. Its the profit margin at the end of the day that seems to matter and with some profiteering individuals, that is all there is with incomprehensible, inaplicable material offered as solutions when they do not more than cause confusion and ultimately despair. I know because even as I write this I visualize the scores of web pages on which it will appear without my knowledge or even credit. It is sad but then those who seek fortunes in these areas, are usually totally dependent on the material they can glean and without even reading or understanding, paste their messages on their insipid meaningless boards. It can apparently sell anything from socks to wallpaper to viagra or something else called cialis. In any case, it is because the market is so ridiculous that I even venture to mention it. Most Oriental and Asian spiritual training (not quite the word, but...) has evolved over thousands of years FOR ORIENTAL AND ASIAN SOCIETIES. Sitting under a tree waiting for a giant cobra to adorn my immediate background is not quite what I would like to spend most of my life doing. Who is going to provide for all my basic necessities. ? Perhaps I should built the house right behind that bush before I start inviting infinity to swish me into that state of suspended nothingness. In any case the whole thing, short of saving me from a nervous breakdown, is not quite as motivating as those millions of others, with ready cash to lace the palms of those gurus, appear to think. In fact the gurus, spend more time concentrating on not giving the game away than actually handing over any form of lasting testament to the shortcutting postulants. Whenever I see those awkward, if not clumsy, western practitioners of readily acquired mystical training, gyrating, twisting their articulations or even perhaps sitting still for a few minutes desperately trying to emulate the Buddha, my heart goes out to them. I hope that something in all of that gives them some sort of relief and that they will go to the doctor if they hear something that sounds like a snap. Describing the need to be fit in the first place to do some of those things or to get a third leg for support when attempting any balancing acts, is not necessary with respect to what I want to really say. I can however, with some sort of genuine concern, say, that evolving, genuinely amd clearing the mind of repressive and damaging shortcircuitry that leads to self destruction, is not that difficult, provided that the essential instruments are in place before the process begins. Neither is evolution, in my humble estimation something that can be handled by those with low reserves and timid disposition. Each dimension has its dreams and horrors and each new path may mean leaving something behind – things that up to that point meant more than the path to self improvement itself. Knowledge little or big is a very dangerous thing. It sharpens consciousness to see what could not be seen before. It enables the mind to x ray people and situations in a manner which it was not allowed to do before. In fact, each stage of development which life itself gradually initiates you into, needs its own shores for occasional relief from the drift and tides that belong to its own particular level. Sometimes, the next step is a multiple of the earlier ones and sometimes just that little twist away and easy enough if only it could be seen. Life does indeed provide the full initiation experience through the gradual changes of the lenses that experiences provide. Having seen, it is difficult to forget and when seen again in a different light it records a new level that conditions the view but does not change the earlier one. Human experience is ascendental. I do not like that meaningless word “transcendental”. It appears to lift with joy and drop with sorrow, but in fact it does nothing of the sort. It cleans with a process of assimilation and change of perspective, that reality that we do not want to see or face. It shows a little more of the immortality that death appears to threaten. It prepares us for the final countdown when most of us should simply accept and even perhaps enjoy as physical existance ceases to be meaningful. Rather depressing is it not. I agree, but then why stare at issues of that nature in the face, when there are infinitely more ways of looking at life and enhancing its capacity to provide the joy which so called wisdom brings with it. I say joy, in the light of sad and joyful understandings, but in the context of life, what is done, we are often incapable of undoing, but we can step aside and continue hoping to be able to fill those spaces in that inner core that these actos produced. that can be so troubling sometimes. One smile from a beloved one or perhaps aspiring beloved, is often enough to turn the whole sorrowful, dismal drible of that particular day into a flurry of hope and achievement that building the daily pyramid of hard chores, could never evoke. Why ? Why can such a seemingly petty, unreliable thing move those mountains that only seconds before seemed lodged right at the entrance of the next escapade ? I care to think that it is because it is not petty and it is not unreliable. The mind recognizes these forces of life stimulation, assesses its potential and opens the door to the spiritual nutrients that pave the way to understanding. It recognizes the very basic forces of bonding that enable it to bridge and evolve. It is the caterpiller and the cacoon and the eventual almost spiritual, butterfly. These are the realities of life - the objects of our search for truth and that sense of being that can with a gradual appreciation of factors turn our lives into a beacon for others. It is after all in others and their relationship with us and each other that has to carry the meaning of what otherwise could only be described as a sterile and ineffectual existance. I am not promoting relationships in the traditional way, but the harnessing of forces that all too often remain in the mind for fear of rejection. These forces of attraction are there for a reason and often not completely understood in their entirety by the parties themselve. I would forget an end product and contemplate the pleasure of the moment by responding with acceptance and letting the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of it take their turn or slice of the action. Honesty, however, demeaned it is by our opportunistic society, is the best policy and manipulating a relationship or attraction for simple and ultimately cheap ends, is not the point. The essence of the exercise is the potential to lift us to higher levels and find comfort in exchanges at whichever level, comfortable meaningful change brings with it. That terrible Ego. One of the things I try to steer away from is my enormous ego. It handles me like a piece of chewing gum which it grinds forever in the hope that I will just float away and perhaps stay wherever it lands for it to pick up and throw about when it chooses. It worries me to death but I have learnt to live with it. In fact I now consider it an essential part of me that cannot go away although sometimes. I think it gets bored thinking about just how much a piece of easy meat I really am. It led me to the orient to find ways of keeping its hands off me and it found something quite interesting that changed my whole life. The Sufi way of life is a deep and interesting method of self improvement, wrapped in all sorts of colourful cultures, not least of all in the whirling dervishes and the temple music and dance of its training schools. What makes me mention them is that new knowledge applications, are useful in climbing those stairs towards self realisation and intrinsic understanding of the real fruits of life. Music – rich compositions based on inspiring rythms and sounds can with movement and dance tune the body and mind without any greater effort than enjoying it. What could be so simple ? Learning to accept knowledge as it struggles to release itself from within is secondary. It needs the impetus of good and bad experiences. It needs the grind of a determined and dedicated life to release those forces that threaten to engulf us with sorrow and intolerable demand. It is the survival factor that provokes the weapon of defence and stimulates the ingenuity to meet it and help others overcome their´s. To work is to pray - say the Jesuits. To toil in the face of the arrows of outrageous fortunes, as Shakespeare almost said, is another way of looking at things, but then Mother Courage in her simple drive to exist, knew all about that. Misfortunes, after all, are the very cement blocks of all societies. Without them they would have never emerged from their primitive and evil ways. The sharks of those primeaval socieities, the priests of their cults, were one day pinned to the wall by exhuberant liberated souls, strong in their new understandings that rendered the superstitious fears harmless. Evolution however, depends on a programme – that filter that each and every one of us must engineer and put into place and which must translate our everyday experiences into drops of understanding that will furnish us with powerful and very gratifying instruments. With it, comes increased sensitivity and objective visualisation of realities that would have seemed ultra dimensional before the change. It is this shift onto new platforms in this evolutionary process that makes us have to re-learn to live with a life that feels enhanced but which needs a new framework to hold it. Wisdom does not come cheap. It does however provide extended meaning as it soaks through every aspect of our view of reality. It is worth it but old clothes are difficult to throwaway. Invisibility as a weapon of construction or destruction would need a very well studied platform for operation and security. It would not allow for a moment of negligence which could cause visible bodies to fall before traffic for example, not to mention the trauma. It would however, prove more difficult to survive in than normal existance. It would also, like King Midas, over kill and leave its owner frantically searching for normality without a framework that compensated for the isolation and loss of identity. Such is the price for increased awareness and revelation of dimensional realities incomprehensible for those outside. Were it not so, it could be taught and training would open the pathways with greater facility and make them available and comfortable to all like any plug and play gadgetry. Alas it is not for the simple and weakwilled. It requires intelligence and ability to react to its needs without anxiety and with a sense of direction in its use. Beyond that, the initiate must discover his or her own particular course, before proceeding to a higher level. The degree of challenge will become clear and there is no room for going sideways and delaying committment. The mind must be ruthless and if it means going against natural tendencies, then this is the time show what mind over body really means. The price of change. Evolving into a higher level tof being therefore, has a price. Consumer societies with their inherrant values are not exactly the sort of ideal background medium for seekers since most obtain their energy from a wide variety of distracting levels of stimulation. In fact, the price to pay in terms of things to give up, may be a much higher one that most people who seek knowledge and improved performance, are prepared to afford. The result is stagnation for many and stopping close to that unapproachable but evident chasm may well leave them gasping for spiritual contentment for the rest of their lives. To show what I mean, perhaps we could visualise a paraplegic person immersed in water with a movement denied on land. Apart from that, sea creatures of an enchanting nature, like dolphins and seals, prod and tease in an underwater environment that our invalid person can see clearly and move through, with an advanced headgear. Return to land and gravity with all its mechanical aids and frustrations, not to mention the tedious reliance on occasional company, will most definitely produce a trap sensation and a constant urge to return to the submarine paradise. Such is the tussle that attempting to live a humdrum, existance with its meaningless behaviour and confusion presents, once some of the filters have been removed. In the Far East, fasting is often compulsory and meditation replaces a life of inactivity full of the sort of miseries very few westerners would countenance or even relate to. The great prophets and teachers all sought the wilderness to enter into an encounter with themselves. This often brought out the weaknesses translated into tempations and fears and the fight between the two balancing forces in man, good and evil, became so vivid that insanity practically even reared its dangerous head. These events taken in between periods of preparation, were enough to gradually raise the initiates to other levels where the weaknesses and self indulgence of those who surrounded them became clear. But then these people were teachers by nature and their missions were well founded on their strong beliefs. For the average man with a conscience and a set of rules to live by, for just basic survival, prolonged exposure to the mind and facing the conflicting demands without understanding the need to discard or incorporate new habits, can be overwhelming and ultimately a source of fatigue and ill health. Mental adjustments therefore have to be made. A sense of direction has to be established and a will to swing back on course when distractions start to emerge must form part of that training. The greater the urge to evolve and examine the stimulations of everyday life, the greater the swing away from them as the subconscious like a neglected companion, tries to steer you away. Persistance and regard for those rails beyond which you must not stray can never be overemphasized. It now all starts to sound like the cheap ramble of the oportunistic gurus, but without looking back, the horizon itself will be seen to have changed. The minds eye will know and register the subtle changes of objective understanding of things that only a short time back refused to reveal their true natures. In fact, our subconcious becomes much more refined in the process of analisis of time and space and that gut feeling is often the very conclusion that we will arrive at and often in the past we ignored at our peril. Living in a gradually changing world of perspectives altered by our own development, requires re-adjustments in our lives and often away from our habitual surrounds. If we are not going to become the sort of people who imagine they are radiating new and powerful influence, we have to watch the tactics of our every playful ego. This other self is the real self at the best of times and wins practically every attempt to have anything changed around it. It can fool one to think that evoluation has been dramatic and successful but it is with on the emerging other inner self which stands back beyond one and the ego that we must keep our minds eye on. The third member of our inner team which keeps the daily you free wheeling in the centre, may appear to change the goal posts that the ego keeps putting up for you, to kick the ball in easily, but be warned,. Only when perspectives hit the correct angle of approach will that sense of heart flutter and sinking feeling tell you there is something moving in the right direction, Objective sight, mental and physical comes with attunement as the control of distractions becomes gradually more effective. Confusing perhaps, but then it has a language all of its own. Future articles will clear any doubts in this respect.
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spiritual, mystical, guru, self enlightenment, sel awareness, mind training, positive thinking, sufism, oriental philosophy, wisdom, mind,
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