Top Ten Social Steps To See You By Opening The "I" Of Mind

Every true genius, every creative mind has known the dark night of searching for a truth one could sense yet not quite grasp nor express, has felt the compelling desire to birth into full view the challenging inkling that something more is there, and has sat in the disheartening unease that precedes the dawn of clarity and revelation. That is in itself the creative process, familiar to all those that mother. Shall I say "matter"? As it is the nature of a paradox to be strange, it can take a while for the ego-mind to fully surrender to it. And it is this very acceptance that allows for a quantum leap, for a change that is the only food to satisfy the soul on its path to evolution. The next ten levels are offered to promote such nourishment, and growth.

1. Force and Power
What is true power, and where does force come from? This question brings forth another; why people fear change so much? I remain fascinated by how a part of "the story" keeps on being enacted, making me choose to be right, rather than happy. At that moment, all inner power is gone, as I think I know something… Hey, I am right, here! And consequently, I am no longer "right here," and have lost the source of my own power… The here and now is gone, and gone also, the "hear and know!" It has been said that education is power. What would you learn if you did not get everything so soon?

2. Fixation and Freedom
However it may sound as if spoken in the present, the story is told from the past. "This is what God did for me when he took me out of Egypt…" Where is my attention? Is it fixed on the suffering of having been a slave (the known,) or is it on the passover (the unknown?) Fixed thoughts and creative thinking are contradictory. How inspired would you be if the past did not longer exist, if it past-over? Are you willing to sit with uncertainty, and truly leave the Egypt of your enslaved mind? 'Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose…"

3. Believing and Seeing
It is all a paradox, from what we call "senses," "mind," "body," "soul…" Exactly what are we talking about, and whom can we trust? Shakespeare said, "We see with the mind and not the eye," while St. Exupery proposed: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." How can I, how can eye educate my senses to truly see, hear, touch, smell, or even taste what is, rather than what "I" think is. Looking for a piece of paper while thinking it is lost and thus not seeing is a common experience for many of us. How then can "I" live in amazing grace, i.e. stop validating my belief that I am lost, and instead look and live finding?

4. Victimhood and Forgiveness
At times the mind feels to me as a messy closet. I hold on to old resentments, like I do a dress that is no longer in style or does not fit the person I am aspiring to be now. Do you know what I am talking about? A closed (clothed) mind is not healthy, but clogged up, in that it cannot circulate the blood of life freely. Open up your closet, and forgive all the hurts, the betrayals, the suffering… They are not in fashion anymore! For-give what is blocking your flow. No one is to blame. It is not "their" fault; you had to agree to what happened, for it to happen. Forgive yourself and choose to be atoned and at-one now!

5. Let in God and Letting Go.
After such cleansing, a real perspective shift occurs, which some call a turning, a repenting. It is such a splendid moment to witness the mind relinquishing its tight control, its smothering hold and surrenders to goodness, truth, and beauty. Like a breath of fresh air, it is a return to innocence; it is the candor of the open canvas to novel possibilities of creation. It is a beginning, and it is a patient listening to your children, to their needs, their games, and their joys, be they physical children, or virtual children, as in your thoughts, i.e. your stories, your creations… Not to resist: Become willing to be your child, and even to be your mother, your father!

6. Observation and Deception
Have you ever had to make a choice between two options that were equally desirable to you? Wasn't that the absolute best? The key to such deliciousness is the word "equally." When in a discussion, can you make that each and every point is all right? Can you live from the perspective that all is good, and all God, that when a door closes, seven open? Such is the secret of a quiet mind, to be observing the equanimity, the exacted fairness of the universe. Observation, rather than imagination. Observation, rather than memory. Observation rather than reaction. Observation rather than assumption. Can you feel the peace of that?

7. Commitments and Truth
Possibly languages were born because we were not ready to be fully honest with ourselves and thus each other. Possibly languages had for primal purpose to be a substitute for a too revealing telepathy. From words came contracts, laws, and commitments. The mind loves to fight change, be it a change of heart, or a change of agreements. When will I learn that disruption always come, that it is a sacred, and an inherent part of life and growth? Will I be true to my vows and my laws, in the understanding that "until death do us part" does not concern the death of the body, but the transformation of the spirit (change of mind and change of heart)?

8. Hum, Hum! (Humor and Humility)
Yes, this is worth clearing one's throat! Whether one looks at the mythologies of humanity or the findings of social sciences, we are all on a journey to become conscious that goes from egocentrism (it's all about me!) to cosmocentrism, where one eventually feels like a tiny speck in the cosmos. Such humility is bliss, and is the biblical "peace that passeth understanding". It is a place beyond pretense, a place of radical purity. It is light, and fun! It is ho-hum, as in humble, and humorous!

9. Inter-developmental and Enter Growth.
Have you noticed how you can walk into a room where people have argued and feel it? Have you also noticed how attractive quietness is? Animals know it, who intuitively go to a quiet heart... Everything is one, and interdependent. Thus I cannot grow without growing you, and without being grown by you, and vice versa. Amazing, isn't it? It is as if ideas, not unlike plants, grow better when transplanted into another mind. Thus the question: Do you want to grow with me? I like your leaves and your be-liefs too! Relating is transcendence: practice the emerald secret of growth, by including the wellbeing of others in your own!

10. Expansion and Expansion
As we come to an end, we also come to an 'and'. As taught by the Sufi Masters, "You think because you understand one you must understand two, because one and one make two. But you must also understand 'and'." From inter-developmental come more choices, and therefore more successes, and more happiness, and more life, and more fulfillment, and more creativity, which 'fruitfuls' and multiplies the "and" ad infinitum… Indeed, there will always be another way to look at it, and that is the wealth, the luscious abundance of life, seeing what every body sees, AND seeing what no one had ever seen before! That is pure beauty, a beauty which lies in the "I" of the beholder.

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