***************FEATURE ARTICLE *************
If I showed you a picture of this circular object and asked you to describe the bit in the middle, what would you say? Let's hazard a guess. You'd probably say:
"It's a circle" or "It's the space in a ring".
You might go on to get really detailed and say it's an empty space inside what looks like a piece of jewelery, maybe a bangle, with a pattern of random black circular shaped marks. Anyway, you get the gist.
All these answers serve to do however, is to prove that it is impossible to describe an area of nothingness without making reference to what surrounds it. You can't have a circle of nothingness unless it is boundaried by a circle. Think about this and then try the same exercise with anything else. You cannot describe empty space. It's difficult to even conceptualise the words empty space. Nothingness, is as difficult for the mind to conjure up as infinity. This is why it is nigh on impossible to describe who you are!
If you do one thing today, I would ask that you sit and think about this for a moment too. How do you describe yourself? What do you refer to when trying to tell people who you are? Who are you? It's one of the most profound questions a person can ever ask themselves.
Let's just look at this in a little more detail. In my greeting on the front cover of this e-zine, I mention that, since this economic depression started, there has been a rise in the number of people who are suffering from depression. Psychologists and physicians are trained to come up with explanations and treatments for the different forms of depression, but metaphysicians would look at it from a different vantage point. They would attribute the sudden rise of depression, during a depression, to a lower vibration permeating the global atmosphere and pulling more and more people down.
The cause of that lowering of vibration would be the inability, for most people, to recognise that they are not their job, not their car, family, house or bank account. If you lose any of things, you have not changed in any way. Only your outer circumstances have. All these things do is bring outer shape and form to one's daily life. We are, in essence, indefinable.
You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields. That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind - Kahlil Gibran
DEFINITION OF SELF
Why do we need definition? We need it because without it we feel we would fail to exist, we lose any anchorage.
If we look back over the course of human history, as our distant ancestors procreated, the population began to increase exponentially and over the course of thousands of centuries, people began to lose connection with the nucleus of their family. (Think of this like looking at a family tree with just the two names at the top). Each person became more and more distant satellites of the original source and, therefore Man eventually believed himself to be separate from the world around him. This meant he felt the need to both protect and assert himself.
Throughout all cultures it was also 'believed' to be imperative that men and women could be identified as individuals. It's easy to see how this belief would take hold and then have progressed, unquestioned. At first it would only have been the leaders who needed to stand out and the tribe they formed around them would have had some sort of natural features, or worn adornments/painted markings, to distinguish themselves from others and prevent them killing their own in times of war.
Fast forward to the 21st century, where large cities like London can have a population of over 8 million, and we still have these 'tribes' or gangs and they can still be spotted by their special markings and adornments (think tattoo's, expensive watches, rings etc). We - fairly unconsciously - divide ourselves into modern day groups,cultures, tribes and gangs. As we are all so mobile these days, one of the main ways that we are able to 'anchor' our individuality and show who we are is via our home.
People can be very attached to their address or locale and some even wear it as a label. For example whether you are one of the West London set, with its sub divisions like Hammersmith and Fulham or Kensington and Chelsea matters a great deal to some people. One's postcode and house price has become important. In New York and across the world the same thing applies. It makes a difference to how people perceive you when you say you live in Queens, Brooklyn or Manhattan and within that the sub divisions like Upper East or West Side etc. matter too.
So, like it or not, we know that where you live, is one of the ways in which people are able to define who you are and when you strip everything away, it is this factor alone which has driven the property market across the globe.
Yes. wealthy investors may have some part to play but only because they recognised a need. Lack of space may be cited as driving up prices too but only because there's a cache to living in a certain locale and demand exceeds supply.
People will go to great lengths to deny this if you ask them, but it's true. In London, at the height of the property boom you only had to look to see how an identical Victorian house with the same nearby amenities could have a vastly different price tag, within a mile of each other, because one was just outside the more highly revered postcode. Even garages that you couldn't swing a cat around inside were being made into studio flats. It was sheer madness. Boom or no boom, houses which have had a celebrity owner would also go for a far higher price just for the cache of being able to say, 'Madonna (or whoever) used to live here'.
But it doesn't stop there; having the right house, when so many people also have a very similar one (the Victorians, Edwardians- and Floridians!-churned them out in uniform rows) means that people were (and still are) striving to adequately define how they are different - or unique - to the next person. So along the way society colluded to up-the-ante. Where you took your annual vacation became a matter of status as did the size of car you drive, the labels on clothes etc. Then easy credit came along and this led to more renovations, self builds. Having an unusual property or a holiday home, in an attempt to mark oneself out from the identikit crowd, became de rigueur.
Of course some people just couldn't, or wouldn't, be swept along by these trends in the first place but remember, for everything there is always an opposite and equal. For every person who would kill their mother to get hold of a pair of designer shoes, or wanted to live in a certain social milieu, there will always be the person who says they would rather kill themselves than be seen in them, with them, or live in that location. However, therein lies another trap of the Ego, which always fights to keep you feeling separate, for reverse snobbery is every bit as defining in the opposite way.
So, now we have an economic meltdown and lots of people think that this will facilitate some sort of shift of consciousness (or should we say, conscience?). Personally, I don't believe that this is true - at least not just yet. Why so?
Well. we can blame the Bankers or the Estate agents (Realtors) and get on our high horse with the system. We can attempt to revolutionise politics and the Governments. We can bemoan our lot, tighten our belts and pledge to never again get involved in borrowing more than we can afford to repay. We can even try and claw back some feeling of control by learning how to manifest the money, the new car, the big house or whatever we think it is we need, but none of this will solve the underlying problem. None of it.
All that will happen - and indeed is starting to happen - is that people will form alternative elite groups whose membership (whether paid or free, whether in a run down council hall, a Tepee or an LA mansion) will once again serve to define the members and thus continue to form pockets of the haves and have-nots, innovators or laggards, celebrities, non celebrities, 'spiritual' and non spiritual etc.
Just look at social networking sites for proof of this. We all rave about how they are bringing people together, connecting us to each other and providing access to information streams which may otherwise never have crossed our path. This is true. The global village is forming. But, instead of joining people at the heart level these networks are subtly divisive. The unspoken aim is to get as many 'friends' as you can, or to be the most followed; most talked about, most trafficked; monetised ad infinitum. If you don't, depression sets in. Just look at the problems that youngsters of Facebook, and other networks, are having with this level of competitiveness.
SO WHAT'S THE ANSWER?
The only way out of this current climate is for a sea change in perspective. I believe it is coming and it is this that people will look back at in years to come and call The Evolutionary Leap of 2012. It's a recognition that you are not what you have, what you do, how you dress or who you know. It's not about acceptance into a 'tribe' of peers, friends or by a wider family. It's not really even about how much you love others. It's about recognising that we are that nameless thing; that space that cannot be defined. We are spiritual energy housed in a physical body and to define our Self is to perpetuate the myth of our separation from others.
And then shall I come to you, a boundless drop to a boundless ocean - Gibran
I've been - and still am in many areas- guilty of everything mentioned above; competition, consumerism etc and, so are you. We have to be, because we are part of unfolding humanity. There also has to be good and bad in the world. it's a natural law. So we shouldn't take on any shame from recognising this. I'm not saying it is either right or wrong, just that it needs to transform. We have done to the best we knew how to do up to this juncture but now times are changing - fast - and we have to evolve.
There is, though, one difference between you, me, and a huge swathe of the population. That difference is that we are becoming aware of the way we hang how we see ourselves off what is around us. We are aware that it is this 'need to define and compete' which is depression- causing, anxiety-producing, competitive and the antithesis of true spirituality. Therefore, it surely will serve the greater good if we can commit to helping in the spread of this understanding.
For all of us; you, me and the ones still in the dark, the process of becoming non attached is going to be extremely difficult to achieve because, as I say, we feel that without something to define us we will cease to exist. It can however, be done. One day at a time.
It is life in quest of life in bodies that fear the grave - Gibran
Rather than feeling disenfranchised or without 'anchor' exactly the opposite is going to be true. Moving towards this goal is when we will all notice the shift and society will be reborn.
We certainly don't have to take the message out in an evangelical sense. We don't even need to speak of it ever again. The best way to elicit change is to lead by quiet example.
He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked - Gibran.DOES THIS MEAN I HAVE TO LIVE A SPARTAN, BORING LIFE?
No. Not at all. And this is where one can make the greatest impression on others. Use the Law of Attraction to manifest whatever you need. Show others that all the power we need lies within us, create for yourself a heaven on earth, just don't let the outer things you attract become part of who you are. If the thought of losing anything you have paralyses you then you are attaching who you are to that thing or person.
So, let's continue to earn, attract or accept our nice things but let's have them from a place of inner abundance, worth and total non attachment. Let's not strive to have anything in the hope that it will then make us more valuable to others or to our self.
Don't be attached to anything; material goods, outcomes or even time. Trust that what is for you won't go by you. Our purpose is not to find a purpose, in the hope that when we've found it we will be happy, for that purpose will soon become a label. We'll have a whole new posse of people saying 'Oh haven't you found your purpose yet? Intimating that they have found theirs, thus a new type of identity crisis and competitive angst will be perpetuated. I believe, our purpose is to know we already have a purpose and that is to rejoin the unity of energy that flows effortlessly through all things.
When you really have begun to kill off the need for attachment, you'll know it because depression will not enter your world. Instead of feeling powerless you'll feel super-human. Your life will become 'super' and you'll find your Self moving towards a life of joy. One where you co-create every moment and understand why every person and event shows up.
Then, and only, then will we begin living truly 'on purpose' with the Universal energy, known as Life.
And tell us all that has been shown you of that which is between birth and death. And he answered, .... of what can I speak save of that which is even now moving your souls? - Gibran
HOW TO KNOW YOU ARE BECOMING NON ATTACHED
Here are just a few ways:-
a) You won't have any need to tell people anything about yourself, and what you own or have done, unless they ask. You won't court attention, if it comes you can just as easily let it go.
b) You'll see money as an energy that flows in and out of your life and not as something to be accrued and saved.
c) You won't strive to win trophies, awards or prizes.
d) You won't fear anyone taking your possessions or stealing your thunder. You won't be best pleased if they do, but it won't floor you. You won't threaten people with dire consequences if they steal your work either. If you do, you know you are too attached to the recognition of it being yours.
e) You'll catch yourself asking, 'Do I love this, do I really want it or is it just because every one else is getting this that I want it?' Just the act of asking shows the beginning of non attachment.
f) You won't obsess about being first. You'll be pleased for other people's success.
g) You'll recognise that you don't own your children.
h)You trust that everything always works out for your good, which is the good of the whole.
