CONSCIOUS CONCEPTS

REVERSE UN-PRODUCTIVE THINKING

Most truths are simple yet profound, and can be delivered in few pages, or less. Each of the following 'tools' is a simple, yet profound, concept. Putting them into practice is simpler than most people make them, but not necessarily easy, depending on the individual`s barriers to the learning. These principles and ideas foster self-improvement and can be applied equally well to business, hobbies, sports, parenting, leisure, or spiritual development. For maximum benefit, each should be practiced for at least three weeks, both to give a fair trial, and to decide whether you want to integrate it into your life at the current time. INVEST IN YOURSELF WITH TIME, ENERGY, AND FOCUS. The topics to follow include: YOU ARE ALREADY PERFECT; TRUST YOUR INNOCENCE; PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY; INNER-LIFE OUTER-LIFE; THE HABIT OF WISDOM; WHERE DOES HAPPINESS REALLY COME FROM?; SPIRITUAL SELFISHNESS; A REDISCOVERY OF FREE WILL; AND OTHERS.

STILLNESS

When one wants to meditate or pray, one typically attempts to find or create an inner space of quietness, silence, or stillness. Many methods and techniques have evolved and have been utilized throughout time to accomplish this. Usually, an individual will first control the external environment by going to a quiet place, or by entering into a quiet enclosure, or by removing any distracting or noise-producing things, people, or animals. Paradoxically, they may then add stimuli, such as music, various smells such as incense or sage, lights or candles, or ingest substances in order to try to make the body more receptive. When all this is in readiness, the individual turns to the inner and begins to focus the mind, perhaps on chants, or the making of other sounds, or may focus on lights, or even focus on an idea, in pursuit of getting to the inner STILLNESS. The good news is that those who put forth this effort to achieve the STILLNESS, usually achieve it, and are rewarded with experiences that leave them with lasting, and often life-tansforming impressions. Still, these concepts that have been handed down to us, from times past, are saturated with a sense of mysteriousness and strangeness, of specialness and initiation, and of worthiness beyond the reach of the average person. And that is just the good stuff. The references to the pitfalls of the darker applications of seeking the stillness would make one think that noise is a blessed event. Are you conscientious and responsible? Are you cautious yet caring? Do you trust yourself to continue with these qualities? Can you, plus God, handle anything that comes your way? If your answers are "Yes", then I invite you to the STILLNESS, and I invite you to it the easy way. STILLNESS is normal. It is with you all the time! It is the noise that is not normal. STILLNESS will remain once you get rid of all the noise. You don`t have to 'go' anywhere, ingest anything, light any candles, recite any chants, say any foriegn words, or pass any tests or initiations to claim your right to your STILLNESS. There are no magic formulas. Yet, you might want to choose to use some of these things as tools. Tools to help you focus. There is nothing special about the tools, anymore than that of a common screwdriver or wrench. And the tool you might choose may not be one that would be useful for anyone else. The user of the tool is the achiever, the tool does not achieve. When you want to experience the STILLNESS, just realize that you are already in the STILLNESS. Then gently push away and dismiss any distraction, any clutter or clatter from your mind, and focus on removing those, rather than striving for the STILLNESS. The STILLNESS is not going anywhere, you can not lose it. It is what is left, as part of your essence , when every thing that hides it from your awareness has lost its ability to command your attention. It is normal to have times of stillness. It is your birthright. Be normal. Claim your birthright.

INNER LIFE-OUTER LIFE

Most people have an awareness of both an inner life and an outer life. We have learned so many details in our lives that we often are unable to clearly understand what the inner life is made of, and how that differs from the outer life and what it is made of. There are some aspects of how the two operate that are similar, which adds to the confusion, and some aspects of operation that are quite different. The inner life may be hidden or open. The outer life may be hidden or open. The open inner life is not the same as outer life. The hidden outer life is not the same as inner life. The inner life is the life of the soul or spirit and is governed by the rules of spirituality, joy, peace, and abundance. The outer life is the life of the physical and material and is most often governed by the rules of loss, harm, shortages, and fear. One cannot lose one`s spirituality, but one can obscure, hide, and distort the awareness and perception of one`s spirituality. This can make the inner life seem far away and unobtainable. One can experience loss, harm, shortage, and fear in the physical all of the time, if that is where we put our focus. This can make the outer life seem very close and present. The inner life is more simple and concept-oriented. The outer life is more complex and detail-oriented. Since you are already aware of the complexity and detail of the outer life, and the thousands of rules and regulations, and the countless ways in which things can go wrong, we will not discuss those. Here are a few of the concepts of the inner life. You will find, perhaps, that their simplicity is refreshing. 1) There are only two things we learn in life, what we want and what we do not want. 2) Focus can be placed on the inner life or the outer life, but not both at once, unless we cause our inner life to govern our outer life. 3) Of all the observations, occurences, and omissions that we perceive, we can only respond to them in one of two ways. We can put meaning on them, or not. 4) If we put meaning on them, we provide ourselves with the opportunity to be upset. 5) If we do not put meaning on them, we provide ourselves with the opportunity to remain at peace. 6) We have been taught to put meaning on everything, and all disagreements are about who has the correct meaning. 7) Things and circumstances have function, form, appearences, effects, and, perhaps, value, and these are facts. To add meaning is arbitrary. No two people will agree on exactly the same meaning. Things and circumstances do not have a meaning of their own. 8) In inner life one does not add meaning to the meaningless. 9) In inner life the purpose of the body and other material things is to heal, comfort, and bless. 10) Anything that distracts one from the inner life is part of the outer life. 11) To add meaning to the meaningless distracts us from the inner life. 12) To subtract the meaning we have artificially placed, removes the walls to the appreciation and awareness of the inner life. To begin removing the walls, the following exercise is one approach. Once each hour, while awake, look around you in random fashion, focus briefly on any object, and say to yourself, "This object has no meaning. Any meaning I perceive in it is the meaning I gave it." Figure out a way to trigger you attention each hour and do the exercise for three weeks. Then decide if you want to continue. 111902

NATURE OF FORGIVENESS

Few people understand the nature of forgiveness, and fewer still understand the nature of the conditions that set up the need for forgiveness. The world teaches you that if you say you are sorry, acknowledge your mistake, and promise to make efforts not to repeat the mistake, that you may be forgiven. There may or may not be an associated punishment involved. Either way, those who elect themselves to watch over such things, whether it be a parent, a teacher, an employer, or a governmental agency, will almost always include an element of observation to see whether or not you make the same mistake again. With the implied promise that, if you do, you are then at risk for a punishment or an additional punishment. In a situation like this, one never feels totally forgiven nor does the slate ever feel wiped clean. In order to better understand how forgiveness gets to be forgiveness, one must understand what circumstances set up the need for forgiveness. Usually this happens as follows. There is some sort of event, or stimulus. A person perceives the stimulus, spends a brief amount of time processing it, and then is upset. This indeed is the way it happens, but what most people do not realise is that the processing step is very detailed. It is not a bang/bang, stimulus/upset kind of thing. What really happens is that the stimulus creates a series of sentances inside a person`s head. They happen fast and so automatically that we are not aware of them, but as they are pointed out, you will recognize them. When the stimulus happens and you observe it, there is usually a first step that says somrthing like, "this is horrible, terrible, and awful", which leads to another sentance perhaps, "this shouldn`t happen to me", which leads to the next conclusion, "anybody who had this happen would get upset". Next step, "therefore I have to get upset".And lo and behold, YOU HAVE UPSET. Do you recognize this process? There are several names for this process. It can be called blaming, accusing, condemning, finding fault and, perhaps, passing judgement is the most appropriate phrase. The very first foundation for setting up a situation that requires forgiveness, is the fact of passing judgement. Is the judgement justified? People have a tendency to always be able to justify their passing judgement. Almost everybody, however, has experienced the situation in which they thought they understood a situation clearly, they passed judgement on it, only to later find out that they had incorrect information. It was not nearly as bad as they thought, but they still experienced the upset as though it was. So the upset-ness did not depend on whether the perception was true or not, it only depended on the judging. The same can be said for the opposite, in which you have experienced a situation that you thought was wonderful, and in which you felt wonderful, only to find later that it was not wonderful, and that you had perceived it incorrectly. Not only does upset-ness not depend on the circumstances, but the feeling of wonderful does not depend on the circumstances either. The reason these two hypothetical situations are brought up is to get you to thinking about the possibility that some of your past upsets may have been in error, and that you may be currently hanging onto some of these upsets needlessly. You might say now, that you do not want to judge anymore. You see clearly now that, contrary to popular opinion, God did not leave the judgement chair empty and go on vacation. He certainly did not invite any of us to fill in. Perhaps there have been numerous times in which you did not have enough information to be passing judgement. You may ask, "what will I do about it? How do I change what has already gone before?" First, get it clearly in your mind what the steps were that lead you to pass judgement. Second, challenge the validity of those steps. Was it really "horrible, terrible, and awful", or was it merely inconvenient, frustrating, and disappointing? If, truly, "this should not happen to me", who should it happen to? Things happen. What about, "anybody who had this happen to them would get upset." That is probably not true. Not everybody in the whole world would look at it that, that way, as you continue to challenge the ideas. And finally, even if everybody else in the whole world would get upset, does that mean that you are required to? It is recommended that you look at a few minor cases, to begin challenging the ideas. No doubt you have a big one somewhere in you memory that you would like to attack, but it is better to get practice on the little ones, and to challenge them. What shall we call this process of re-thinking the original judgement, challenging it and perhaps dissolving some of the intensity, the horribleness, of whatever it was that stimulated, that caused whichever kind of upset that happened, and getting to the point where judgement is either fully dissolved, or at least less severe? If it is complete, then it is Forgiveness. Once you apply the challenge successfully, the judgement will disappear, the upset will disappear, and after they have vanished you will remember the experience to apply next time. There are two very important questions to ask right now. 1) In the examples above, what is it that gets forgiven? 2) Who is it that gets forgiven? There isn`t anything in the entire world that is so good that you cannot think about it in such a way that you could find fault with it and see something bad about it, if you want to. On the other hand, there is nothing in the world so bad that you cannot imagine that some good could come out of it, if you want to. Therefore, you can think all the way good or all the way, bad about anything that you see. Your thoughts are arbitrary, which is why you do not think about anything in exactly the same way as anybody else in the world thinks about it. When we look at anything in the world, we see it according to our own agenda. We have decided some way or another, as a result of our experiences, to respond to certain stimuli in certain ways. Your total package is unique and your response to the world that you see is nobody else`s response. You did not exactly invent your individual responses, since a lot of other people had a lot to do with programming you, but the way you are today and the way you respond today is the way that, on some level, you agreed to respond. When you were a child, you did not have much choice about how you were programmed. As you become more aware of previous programming, more aware of which of it you like and do not like, realise that your thoughts are choices, and choose afresh. It is called changing your mind. Release the judgements that are easy to release now, and save the hard ones for later. Back to the questions. Ultimately, the What that gets forgiven are THE THOUGHTS with which we passed judgement. The Who that gets forgiven is the SELF, the THINKER OF THE THOUGHTS with which we passed judgement. Everything that sets up the need for forgiveness occurs at the thought level. Everything that cancels that need for forgiveness occurs at the thought level. Only the issues of punishment, payment, or penance, or the lack of them, occur on the material level.

PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY

Spirituality and religion seem like nice ideas that can make you feel good. Religion seems to offer a nice set of rules for dealing with people and circumstances. Religion can have practical consequences. What about spirituality? Does it have any practical function in daily life? Before I the answers to these questions, let`s explore a little. Why do people Do things, Accumulate Things, Go places, and Learn things? The answers are quite varied. Most you have heard before. Examples: Doing is important because things Need to get done; Doing can be enjoyable; Accumulating things that are Necessary is important; Accumulating extra things might/will improve the quality of life; Going places might be needed in order to get things done; Going places might/will make you happy; Learning things might/will make you more effective in getting things done; Learning things might/will help you to better control various aspects of your life; And many others. We do the necessities in order to survive. We do the rest of it in order to "feel good". How well has that worked out? How much of your time is spent in the Pursuit of "feeling good", and how much of the time is spent in Feeling joy, peacefulness, and Feeling right with the world? If you already Felt the joy, peacefulness, and rightness with the world, and no longer had to pursue them, how might your priorities change? If you still wanted to "do things', how might your focus change? I`m not talking about some mushy feel-good that leads to inactivity, I`m talking about a calm, empowering, centered feeling that leads to action and purpose. I`m talking about feeling "enough", and having "enough', and being "enough", and being moved to promote the "enough-ness" beyond yourself and even beyond your immediate environment, if you want to. That "enough-ness" comes with living in the spiritual space. Can you live that way all of the time? I don`t know. Can you live that way more of the time than you do? Without a doubt. Is it complicated? No, it is quite simple. Is it easy? Not necessarily. What is the key? The key is to rid yourself of the thoughts, attitudes, emotions, and justifications that act as a barrier to being in the spiritual space.You do not have to build the spiritual space within you, it is already there. It is just so thoroughly covered up that you need to re-discover it. What do I need to do? You have 'done' enough. Now is the time to begin 'un-doing', if you are done with the 'doing'. If you yet believe that your well-being and joy, peace and enoughness lie on the path of 'doing things', then I believe it is better for you to continue exploring that path until you become convinced. The lessons in Conscious Concepts are simple, yet require focus, commitment, and persistence. They require some time, less than you might think. Does spirituality have any peactical use? Yes, ABSOLUTELY.

SPIRITUALITY vs. RELIGIOSITY

Have you had your 10 'hits' of Joy today? How about your 5 'moments' of Peace? Is your Intuition 'turned on', regularly? You are entitled to these. These are internal events. These occurences follow Natural Law as surely as does gravity or the internal combustion engine. These Laws are knowable. The practice of knowing the Laws and exercising them is called Spirituality. You may come to know these ideas and experiences as an individual or within groups. It may be done in a structured environment, or not. It is not religion but religious practices may benefit, if they self-imposed and fit the purpose. To grow in this direction, one`s only task is willingness. If willingness is firm, the movement toward the learning will be a consequence of it. There may be external evidences of the internal events, and individuals may manifest those in a quiet manner, or they may be more dramatic. The external evidence only happens as a consequence of the internal event, so it makes sense to value the internal as the higher goal. The external events may be helpful to show that the internal events are happening, are normal, and can be nurtured to become the usual rather than the exceptional.

TRUST YOUR INNOCENCE

Trust your innocence, more than your guilt. This is not to suggest that you are naive, but that there has been a lot less sin in your life than you might suppose. You have been trained to feel guilty, to believe that guilt to be real, and to argue against any notion that you might be mistaken in your belief about your own guilt. Consider these ideas. First, in every circumstance you have found yourself in your life, you have evaluated each choice of action as to its relative merits, its desirableness or undesirableness, its goodness or badness, its benefits and its pitfalls, and when it came time to make the decision, you made the best possible decision you could at the time with the information that you had to work with. It seemed, overall, like the right decision. You made this decision with three kinds of information: 1) imperfect information (there is no perfect information available); 2) erroneous information (you thought it was correct, but it was not); 3) false information (a lie). And from these three we are required to make perfect decisions? After the decision has been made and acted upon, we discover that the decision was less than perfect. Is it just a mistake to be corrected, or is it something to pass judgement upon? It is easy to use today`s information to pass judgement on yesterday`s events and to say that they were wrong. Granted it was not the best possible decision (it never is). When you say "I should have done this, or that", so what? The greatest minds in history could have made better decisions if they could have used the information that was available to them in their tomorrows, but it was not. Second, you made whatever decision you made for the GOOD in it. In fact, I would be willing to bet that you have never, ever, ever made a decision to do anything for the evil in it. Yes, you may have acknowledged that there was something undesirable in it, but at the time you made the decision, the trade off made it worth it. You made it for the GOOD in it and accepted whatever was not good in order to get the GOOD. Look around you. Would you ask any more of anybody than they first, make the best possible decision they can with the information they have, and, second, that they always do what they do for the GOOD in it? So, what is guilt? It is a belief that you can do more than you can do, and self-blame for not having done so, and that it is a punishable offence if you get caught. It usually involves using someone else`s standards, rather than your own.

YOU ARE ALREADY PERFECT, AND I CAN PROVE IT

Pursuit of perfection seems to be a big focus. Most people have experienced periods in their life during which they constantly tried to do better, often employing self-improvement programs that usually deal with performance. For example, they might strive after a better score on a test, obtaining a higher-paying job, perfecting a technique, and so forth. We talk about perfecting ourselves, reaching toward some goal that we may have idealized or identified with, so that when we achieve it, we will BE perfect in that aspect. And of course, after completing this part, there comes a new goal, or a new vision of perfection, and it never seems to satisfy or to be enough. This seems to be an eternal quest for humankind, how do we become perfect, how do we reach perfection. And when I say 'You are already perfect', it sounds contradictory in light of all the seeming evidence of imperfection. This confusion is because we fail to differentiate 'being perfect' from 'performing perfectly'. It is clear that we are not the thing we have performed, even if we could perform it perfectly. Likewise, if we have made a mistake or an error, we are not that mistake or error. Let me create an example in your mind`s eye. Imagine that you are either creating something in a kitchen, or in a workshop. Imagine it to completion and that it turns out perfectly. Now ask yourself this question: "Was it perfect at the halfway point?" Of course it was perfect, it had to be perfect at halfway. If it were not perfect at halfway, it would not be perfect when it was done. At halfway it was merely not completed yet, but it was perfectly suited to being completed perfectly. You are like that project at its halfway point, not done yet. You ARE perfectly suited to begin the next thing that is yours to do. I recommend practice sessions of less than 5 seconds each, five times each day for three weeks, minimum. I suggest the first be just after awakening, but before you get out of bed, and the last just as you retire for the day, and the other three at meal times or break times. Say to yourself something like the following: 'My perfection is certain, and not influenced by any outcome'.