Possible & Necessary perspective shift

     “the choice to experience the world as sacred and meaningful – to do so by dint of effort and will – is a choice that is within our power to make. It is a choice that takes strength and courage and persistence, of course; perhaps it takes even a kind of heroism. But it is possible … And more than that, it is necessary in the modern world.”

     Dreyfus H, Kelly SD. All things shining. Reading Western classics to find meaning in a secular age. Free Press, NY, 2011.

Photo: Fl_Gulfer   dpreview.com

Capacity to make adult choices

     Regarding “the old pedagogical cliché that a liberal arts education teaches you how to think”: 
     “Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that [this] cliché … is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.”                     David Foster Wallace, 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College

     Dreyfus H, Kelly SD. All things shining. Reading Western classics to find meaning in a secular age. Free Press, NY, 2011.

Photo: Nate Udd   http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/weekly-wrapper

Sadness & Lostness as a Mood; Lacking Meaningful Moral Values

     “this sadness and lostness as a mood … results from the inability of our culture, or certain segments of our culture, to confront the deepest questions about who we are: ‘I get the feeling that a lot of us, privileged Americans, as we enter our early 30s, have to find a way to put away childish things and confront stuff about spirituality and values.’”

     “This is a generation that has an inheritance of absolutely nothing as far as meaningful moral values.” David Foster Wallace 1993

       Dreyfus H, Kelly SD. All things shining. Reading Western classics to find meaning in a secular age. Free Press, NY, 2011.

Photo: kzaz2   dpreview.com

Do the right thing! - Based on?

     "It has always been difficult, in certain situations, to act in accord with the standards of living well - the Greek philosophers called this difficulty akrasia, or weakness of will; it is the inability to do what we know to be the right thing.

     But in the contemporary world we face a deeper and more difficult problem. It is not just that we know the course of right action and fail to pursue it; we often seem not to have any sense for what the standards of living a good life are in the first place. Or said in another way, we seem to have no ground for choosing one course of action over any other."

         Dreyfus H, Kelly SD. All things shining. Reading Western classics to find meaning in a secular age. Free Press, NY, 2011.

     The knowledge transfer problem is much more complex than some of us imagined! See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/06/knowledge-transfer.html

Photo: Geza Radics   flickr.com/radicsge

Wound of the heart - part 3

         "This leaves us in a strange and painful dilemma. On one hand we hunger for love – we cannot help that. Yet at the same time, we also deflect it and refuse to fully open to it because we don’t trust in it.

         This whole pattern – not knowing we’re loved as we are, then numbing our heart to ward off this pain, thereby shutting down the pathways through which love can flow into and through us – is the wound of the heart. Although this love-wound grows out of childhood conditioning, it becomes in time a much larger spiritual problem – a disconnection from the loving openness that is our very nature.

         This universal human wound shows up in the body as emptiness, anxiety, trauma, or depression, and in relationships as the mood of unlove, with its attendant insecurity, guardedness, mistrust, and resentment. And all relationship problems follow from there.”

     Welwood J. Perfect love, imperfect relationships. Healing the wound of the heart. Trumpeter, Boston, 2006.

Photo: Helena Oswald   http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/weekly-wrapper

Wound of the heart - part 2

         "Sometimes the wounding or separation from love happens in more subtle ways. Some parents seem loving enough, yet they covertly or unconsciously dispense their love in controlling or manipulative ways. Or they may not be attuned to the child as someone different from them, a separate being in his or her own right. Such children may feel loved for certain attributes – but not for who they really are. In their need to please their parents and fit in, they come to regard love as something outside of themselves, which they have to earn by living up to certain standards.

         Children naturally try to protect themselves from the pain of inadequate love as best they can. They learn to separate and distance themselves from what causes them pain by contracting and shutting down. The technical term for this is dissociation.

          Dissociation is our mind’s way of saying no to and turning away from our pain, our sensitivity, our need for love, our grief and anger about not getting enough of it, and from our body as well, where these feelings reside. This is one of the most basic and effective of all the defensive strategies in the child’s repertoire.  Yet it also has a major downside: It constricts or shuts off access to two main areas of our body: the vital center in the belly – the source of desire energy, eros, vital power, and instinctual knowing – and the heart center – where we respond to love and feel things most deeply. In saying no to the pain of unlove, we block the pathways through which love flows in the body and thus deprive ourselves of the very nutrient that would allow our whole life to flourish. And so we wind up severing our connection to life itself."

     Welwood J. Perfect love, imperfect relationships. Healing the wound of the heart. Trumpeter, Boston, 2006.

Wound of the heart - part 1

         "If we take an honest look within, we may notice a certain guardedness around our heart. For some people, this is a thick, impenetrable barricade. For others, it is a thinner, subtler protective shield or contraction that only emerges under threatening conditions. And nothing triggers this sense of threat so strongly as the suspicion … that we are not truly loved or accepted as we are. Numbing or shutting down the heart is an attempt to deflect pain of that.

         Not knowing that we can be loved for who we are prevents us from trusting in love itself, and this in turn causes us to turn away from life and doubt its benevolence. We may tell ourselves that love is not really available. But the deeper truth is that we don’t entirely trust it, and therefore have a hard time fully opening to it or letting it all the way into us. This disconnection from love most often grows out of not feeling fully embraced or accepted in our family or origin – whether through neglect, lack of attunement, or outright abuse. Not feeling securely held in the arms of love, we fall into the grip of fear. Inadequate love and nurturance directly impact the child’s sensitive nervous system, resulting in a certain degree of shock or trauma that will affect us for the rest of our life."

     Welwood J. Perfect love, imperfect relationships. Healing the wound of the heart. Trumpeter, Boston, 2006.

Photo: Nitin Gera   http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/weekly-wrapper

Substitute gratifications

         "While women generally recognize the central place of love in everything, men are more often more reluctant to acknowledge this. ‘Please don’t reduce everything to that,’ I can hear many male readers groaning. ‘I have more important business to attend to than feeling loved.’ But think about it: The author who writes a best-seller, the politician who wins an election, the businessman who gains a promotion or an important contract – all feel good about themselves because a little love has flowed their way, in the form of recognition, praise, or appreciation. Even the trader who reaps a stock market windfall feels that the gods are smiling on him.

           At bottom, most of the things we strive for – security, success, wealth, status, power, recognition, validation, praise – are ways of trying to fill a gaping hole within us, a hole formed out of our separation from love. As ways of trying to win love indirectly, these substitute gratifications do not truly nourish us, because they do not deliver the real thing. In that sense, they are like junk food. Their failure to truly nourish only intensifies our inner hunger, driving us to run all the harder on the hamster wheel of success, desperately hoping to win some reward that will truly satisfy.

         Yet if love is so central to who we are, why do we often feel so separated from it? All the great spiritual traditions have addressed the question of why people treat each other so badly and the world is such a mess. They have provided various explanations for this, such as ignorance, bad karma, original sin, egocentricity, or the failure to recognize love as our very nature. Yet what is the root cause of these afflictions?"

     Welwood J. Perfect love, imperfect relationships. Healing the wound of the heart. Trumpeter, Boston, 2006.

Photo: Greg Burke   http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/weekly-wrapper

Your #1 priority?

     If I put everything I have into becoming the top expert in my field SO THAT people will love and respect me, I will likely become successful professionally. BUT this "success" will NOT generate the love I need. If I'm primarily after love, I need to work on my people skills and on becoming a truly decent, likable human being. The latter requires a very different skill set than professional success.

     Doing external pursuits more, and more intensely in order to gain love (a form of interiority) is tragically common and ineffective.

      “The truth is what one really needs is not Nobel laureates but love. How do you think one gets to be a Nobel laureate? Wanting love, that’s how. Wanting it so bad one works all the time and ends up a Nobel laureate. It’s a consolation prize. 

     What matters is love.”                 George Wald, Nobel prize winning biologist from Harvard

Photo: Nathan Goshgarian   http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/weekly-wrapper

Knowledge transfer

     Things we clearly know to be correct ***, we avoid doing. Instead - though it be inferior, or just plain wrong - we gravitate to what's easier, routine, within our comfort zone. We sleep-walk our way through life - private and professional - instead of living consciously, purposefully.
     "Gaps between evidence and decision-making occur at all levels of health care ... For example ... adults in the United States received less than 55% of recommended care."

Straus  SE, Tetroe J, Graham I. “Defining knowledge translation”

http://www.cmaj.ca/content/181/3-4/165.full

*** Or do we? See June 17th post "Do the right thing! - Based on?"

Photo: Jethro Stamps   http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/weekly-wrapper

Bread and Circuses

     An earnest life-long quest to discover what's real, what's meaningful is challenging, yet it's the only way to live authentically. It's a constant, intentional maturation or evolutionary process.

     Distractions - from daydreaming & "mindless entertainment" to frank addictions - are constantly screaming for our attention. It seems that the more troubled a historical stage, the more intense the distractions. Immediately before the fall of the Roman Empire, mobs were kept distracted with 'bread and circuses'.

     "Writer Chris Hedges argues that North American culture is dying because it has become transfixed by illusions about literacy, love, wisdom, happiness and democracy. Jim Brown explores Hedges' ideas about the mechanisms that keep us diverted from confronting the collapse around us."

"Ideas" CBC radio podcast:

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2012/03/02/empire-of-illusion/

     Mindfulness is a method and way of being: intentionally aware of what is happening right now, right here - "keeping it real". It's common knowledge among hypnotherapists that "most people are in a trance most of the time". But those in a trance are not aware of their own trance state. It takes skill and intentional effort to be awake and alert, and wake up we must!

Photo: Leo Downes   http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/weekly-wrapper

Love - a practical, expanded definition

         “I would define love very simply: as a potent blend of openness and warmth, which allows us to make real contact, to take delight in and appreciate, and to be at one with – ourselves, others, and life itself. Openness – the heart’s pure, unconditional yes – is love’s essence. And warmth is love’s basic expression, arising as a natural extension of this yes – the desire to reach out and touch, connect with, and nourish what we love. If love’s openness is like the clear, cloudless sky, its warmth is like the sunlight streaming through the sky, emitting a rainbowlike spectrum of colors: passion, joy, contact, communication, kindness, caring, understanding, service, dedication, and devotion, to name just a few.

         According to the saints and mystics, love is the very fabric of what we are; we are fashioned out of its warmth and openness. We don’t have to be great sages to recognize this. All we need to do is take an honest look at what makes our life worthwhile. When the presence of love is alive and moving in us, there is no doubt that our life is on target and meaningful, regardless of our outer circumstances. We feel that we’re in touch, connected with something larger than our small self. This lifts the burden of isolation and alienation off our shoulders, filling us with peace and well-being. But when the presence of love is absent, something often feels sad, not quite right; something seems to be missing, and it’s hard to find much joy, even in the midst of favorable circumstances. We easily fall prey to meaninglessness, anxiety, or despair.

         These simple truths are also upheld by neuroscience research, which confirms that our connections with others affect the healthy development and functioning of the brain, the endocrine and immune systems, and our emotional balance. In short, love is the central force that holds our whole life together and allows it to function. …"

     Welwood J. Perfect love, imperfect relationships. Healing the wound of the heart. Trumpeter, Boston, 2006.

Photo: Dana Reed   dpreview.com

How accurate is our present model of reality?

     Eben Alexander III, an American neurosurgeon, describes his completely altered worldview following a near death experience (NDE) due to bacterial meningitis in the video below.

     He recommends meditation or centering prayer (in lieu of NDE) to experience expanded consciousness and unconditional love.


     Thank you Nancy for pointing me to this!

Listen to the Eben Alexander III, MD interview:
http://www.btci.org/bioethics/2012/videos2012/vid3.html

"A rose is a rose is a rose"  ?

Equanimous or Hungry?

     Do you feel continuously at ease, at home, satisfied, comfortable in your own skin, regardless of what's happening around you, even to you? If so, then you're a very highly developed, fully mature human being. However, whatever comfort you have is far more likely due to inadequate awareness of your inner world.

     Someone once said that Westerners are geniuses of the external world, and infants of inner worlds, while Easterners are (were?) the other way round. In the West, industry did and does provide amazing products and services to make life easier and better. Of course industry has a lot of negatives as well - some of which are intentional and pathological.

     "...... Charles Kettering (was) a major inventor and general of GM Research Labs. In 1929, at the beginning of the automobile industry in the United States, Mr. Kettering wrote in Nation's Business Magazine that business must create 'a dissatisfied consumer' and 'keep the consumer dissatisfied.' ... In his book The Affluent Society, in 1984, (John Kenneth) Galbraith writes that, in modern America, production will have to 'create the wants it seeks to satisfy.' In short, a large part of our consumption is what we are told to consume, told that we need ......"
     Alan Lightman       April 18, 2002     "Ideas" - CBC Radio       http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/
 
     So, feeling restlessly "needy" - like you absolutely must have more and better stuff right away to be happy, is a spreading disorder. Billions are spent annually on ads to make us feel exactly like this. An endless list of merchandise & services can - like crack-cocaine - briefly blunt, but never cure the hunger.
 
     Letting go of dependence on external stuff for happiness is not only possible, but an important part of becoming a mature human being.

Artist: Andrea Smith   http://www.andreasmithgallery.com/

What do you really trust?

     "In God We Trust" is emblazoned upon American money.

     Most of us have strong opinions about our own beliefs. Many identify with a major belief system, perhaps attend regular services within that system, and more or less adhere to its rules and customs. This is the extent of "religion" or "spiritual life" for most people.

     What actually directs their lives via thoughts, speech & behavior, their "internal compass", may be very different that what they publicly proclaim, or even privately admit to themselves.

     "The unexamined life is not worth living."             Socrates

     How familiar are we with our "internal compass"? After all, doesn't what we, in the deepest recesses of our subconscious believe about ourselves and how we relate to the universe, guide our every thought, word and action? We may think we believe in, and thus behave (reasonably consistently) according to X, yet anyone who knows us may see a dramatically different picture eg an unhappy, cynical workaholic! Most of us in fact have a profound disconnect between our obvious outer lives, and our hidden (even from ourselves) inner lives.

     In contrast, congruence is when our inner world seamlessly, consciously manifests in our outer behavior. A very select number of wise, fully-integrated people reach this level of being, after a lifetime of dedicated inner work. 

     There's a huge tendency to allow the "momentum of our lives" to carry us along in a trance. Many fear what they would encounter should they do any form of introspection, such as meditation. This fear gives rise to all sorts of uninformed avoidance behaviors. Yet we know very well how essential it is to become consciously aware of our subconscious.
     Our individual specific history contains all the ingredients or inputs (causes & conditions) of our subconscious, so it's  completely natural, normal for each of us, and therefore acceptable - no need for fear, guilt or avoidance. By becoming conscious of this material, the force of its ability to drive our life progressively diminishes, and our ability to make conscious, mature, appropriate choices progressively increases. This clarity of vision, seeing our self-concept and worldview as it is, is the goal of meditation.

"Unity" by artist Andrea Smith   http://www.andreasmithgallery.com/

Clarity of vision - a lifelong process

     Wisdom can be defined as “a developmental process involving self-transcendence. Self-transcendence refers to the ability to move beyond self-centered consciousness, and to see things as they are with clear awareness of human nature and human problems, and with a considerable measure of freedom from biological and social conditioning. This ability to move beyond a self-centered perspective is certainly an important component of wisdom. Consistent with this idea, … transcending the self is needed to move beyond ingrained, automatic ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, and to connect empathetically with the experiences of others.”

     “Contemporary Western literature has revived (the centrality of self-transcendence to wisdom) through discussion of moral development as in Kohlberg’s seventh stage in which the individual begins to question the meaningfulness of existence as a rational being and the limits of formal operational thought to obtain the answer. This stage ... requires a transcendental experience and perspective. Likewise, the ability to see through illusion, through awareness of one’s own cognitive biases, has been advanced as a cornerstone in the development of wisdom. … overcoming cognitive limitations is not exclusively the province of childhood but involves a lifelong process of overcoming limited conceptions and understandings. … the process of seeing through illusion ultimately leads to recognizing the familiar self as illusory, consistent with the teachings of contemplative systems such as Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta.” 
     Le TN, Levenson MR. Wisdom as self-transcendence: What's love (& individualism) got to do with it? Journal of Research in Personality 2005; 39(4): 443-457.
 
     “My transcendent experiences … were more nearly the absence of stories, as if the foreground had been removed from me and I could see deeper into a living matrix that holds everything.” 
     Jauregui A. Epiphanies. Where Science and Miracles Meet. Atria Books, NY, 2007.

Photo: Geza Radics   flickr.com/radicsge

Perception and Maturation

     "When a thief sees a saint, all he sees are his pockets."                  Sufi saying

      Let's be honest, reading about saints, especially from a different culture, we tend to quickly disconnect. We fancy ourselves as modern intellectuals, with little if anything in common with mysticism from the "dark ages". And anyway, we certainly would not be fixated on a person's pockets - would we?

     Isn't "objectifying women" about seeing them only as sexual objects? Are men the only ones guilty of this?? Don't we all, in our fame- & wealth-obsessed "culture", routinely objectify celebs from rock stars to politicians, pro athletes, CEOs etc - seeing them only as superhero- or down-and-out cartoon characters? What about objectifying even our friends and loved ones according to what they "should" do for us?

     As we slowly mature past self-centered neediness, our perspective changes radically. It can take a lifetime to come to feel comfortably at home in our own skin, at home in the world. Many of us will never get there, "always busy" chasing after and running from stuff till the very end. But for those of us that do mature into conscious, open-hearted human beings, personal needs, wants, and even preferences become minimal, while generosity dominates. 

     “Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore.” Franz Kafka

Gandhi's belongings   from: http://www.ruraluniv.ac.in/gallery%20of%20gandhi.htm