by user_dd | Oct 13, 2020 | Transitory Thoughts
My journey seeking truth started at a very early age when my concept of right/wrong seemed so…simplistic. There was always a right answer, and a wrong answer; a right way to be, and a wrong way to be; the right thing to say and well, ok, lots of wrong things to say, to be fair.
In short, there were plenty of things for me to react against and resist. Why can’t I do that? Why can’t I say this? Why do people get so upset over unimportant misunderstandings all the time? Why do people get upset when I ask so many questions. Ha!
Time to Wake Up
At some point, it became clear that there was really no clarity at all—different people experience the world in different ways. An objective way of viewing the world, one that can be measured and manipulated predictably (in alignment with scientific laws), is not how people make decisions or relate to one another. The world operates mostly on subjective experiences which we cannot so easily measure and compare. This is where we primarily hang out.
Expressing our subjective experience is limited by the capacity of our language to contain increasingly abstract concepts within the limitations of language, especially as we try to express concepts like meaning and life purpose.
You and I can agree that the chicken crossed the road because we can see it do so, but the question remains: Why? Is this related to the chicken’s life purpose?
The less concrete the concept, the harder it is to express. Also, the more likely we’ll miss nuances in the experience which differentiate others’ experiences from our own. This is because our brain makes assumptions that may not necessarily be true. When our understanding differs from the message that was actually delivered (aka true reality), we can experience upset proportional to the size of that gap.
And this is where we miss out BIG. By projecting our own experience on to others…that is to say, by assuming their experience is the same as ours, we miss huge opportunities to expand our idea of what’s possible.
Don’t Let Others Put You In a Box
Fairly often I have the experience of people wanting to put me in a box. Ageism, sexism, and racism absolutely play an important part. Often people assume that if they can’t do it, or couldn’t do it when they were my age, that I must not be able to as well. Because we have the same skills, abilities, talents and strengths, right?
What’s hilarious to me is when it occurs to me that different people put me in diametrically opposed boxes. Older white guys almost never hire my ‘Chief Spiritual Officer’ services, while older women are almost always interested in what I have to say about the energy of their people and business.
Some people assume certain things about my education because I grew up on a 100-acre farm in the middle of nowhere Ohio. Others assume certain things about me because I work for myself and own my own home.
And I react to these assumptions. There have been many years of my personal development experience working on not becoming attached to others’ stories.
I actually had someone ask me once if I’ve ever been poor (presumably because I don’t worry about finances anymore). Since when does being well-off financially mean I haven’t experienced poverty?! To me, my past history with ‘being poor’ is my motivation to keep my finances expansive and abundant.
And then I catch myself—how are they to know if I don’t actually express my thoughts, feelings, reactions, and experiences in a way that they can understand?
Instead of being fed the proverbial silver spoon, what I did to excel financially was learn how the system works and then put it to work for me. I often don’t do what most people are likely to do given the circumstances. That’s part of my strategy for success. If you do what everyone else is doing, you’ll get the same results.
There are very few people that I see day-to-day that I’d like to emulate. Not because they’re doing anything wrong or even undesirable to me, just that I have my own unique mission that I’m on, so I’m up to different things than most people.
Know Thyself
In short, if I wanted to end up like everyone else, then I would copy their actions and behaviors. But I don’t, and there are very few people that I’d like to be when I grow up. So what that tells me is that I must discover different actions. Hence the world’s wisdom traditions: Hermetics, Shamanism, Meditation, Magick.
And that’s why I seek. I seek to find an alternative to the predominant narrative, an alternative system to the current paradigm which clearly has not worked out so well for so many people. It’s easy to see that through the immense suffering in this world.
So I encourage you to ask yourself, why are you taking the actions everyone else seems to be taking. What results are those actions yielding, and is that what you want? Who are the people that you want to emulate? What actions are they taking? What’s one different action you can take to move towards the life you want to live as opposed to the life you have now?
The key to getting out of your box is to break down the walls that are keeping you in. Those walls are simply thoughts that keep you in the same field you’ve always played in. It’s time to break the walls, and think (and act) outside the box. It’s time to exit the Matrix.
Looking to exit the Matrix? Join us for our next Empower Thyself program and initiation into the Lineage of King Salomon, a Hermetic Order seeking to bring Light and Love to all people, while achieving our spiritual purpose.
by user_dd | Jan 17, 2020 | Community Conversations
Someone asked me an important question recently, “Is your way the only way?” I was more than a little taken back, because anyone who knows me knows that I’m very open and accepting of different traditions, lineages, and cultures. Not to mention having surveyed about as many spiritual and metaphysical systems as I could across 4 continents for the entire decade of my 20s. Would you like to know one important point in what I learned?
It all started with a Tulku
When I was in my teens, I helped start a Nyingma Buddhist temple in Ohio with one of my mentors (as you do at 18 years old). She was overseeing the whole project of restoring an old barn, while raising funds to ensure the future temple community’s economic viability. I had the incredible opportunity to work with her and a team of Buddhist monks, one of which in particular I remember. His name is Tashi, and I remember him especially because he gave me a bunch of pirated software for my computer so I could build my first website, haha!
I had the opportunity to practice with a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks almost every weekday for 6 weeks while they prepared the temple to be consecrated by the lineage holder, who came in with a whole other retinue of monks in the Summer of that year. One of the monks in his retinue was a tulku, an ascended master who came back into a physical body to serve humanity.
I had the incredible opportunity one afternoon days before the temple was to be consecrated to have an audience with the tulku. My mentor basically shoved me in the door because I had no idea what to say to this guy. I wasn’t even sure he spoke English.
We sat in a small living room with stacks of magazines, books, and papers everywhere for awhile. It was a disheveled office surrounding a rather royal and serene-looking being. Despite this, he looked perfectly comfortable with his less than organized surroundings. We stared at each other a bit, and of course he won the ‘best listener’ game because after a bit of silence and with no ostensible prompt from him, I just started talking. I told him about my life and what I thought I was doing, and that I had no idea I was doing, and what my hopes were for the future when I went off to college the next Fall.
Wisdom teachings
He was quiet for some time after I finished speaking, and then out of the blue asked me to pick up an article sitting on the table in front of me and read it. After reading it, he explained the point of the article, which was to be diligent and go deep with your passions, rather than skirt the surface and never gain true mastery. He noted that I was never going to achieve what I wanted to achieve in my spiritual pursuits simply hopping from one tradition and one teacher to another. He advised me to choose one and go deep—very deep—to gather all that there was to gather from that tradition. He said it really didn’t matter which tradition I chose as long as I continued to take the path as far as it could take me, to strive to reach the very end of whatever path I chose.
This had a huge impact on me. Being only 18 at the time, I was pretty sure I had no idea what tradition to choose, so I spent the next 10 years hopping from one spiritual tradition to another in order to experience as much diversity as I could. I discovered many wise and capable teachers that offered me intricate and secret wisdom teachings and empowerments. When my Saturn return came, however, I remembered my little chat with a tulku back when I was 18 and decided it was time to choose.
At that time, the only traditions that had really passed muster with me were the Tibetan Buddhist lineage and the Lineage of King Salomon, a western occult lineage. Since Eastern traditions are made for Easterns, and Western traditions are made for Westerners, I ended up choosing the Western tradition, but of course still very much value the contribution of the Eastern tradition, and my Tibetan Buddhist studies specifically, as part of who I am today.
It’s not about one tradition
I will always value other traditions, and respect that they too hold a way to Unity with God. AND I’ve made my choice. I chose this lineage to go deep, to learn all there is, to experience all that it has to offer—all the gifts and all the challenges of finding my way back to God.
There will always be human problems in ostensibly spiritual lineages, and I believe that’s part of the evolution that we need to integrate and embrace as we continue to ascend frequencies and dimensions, continually expanding what’s available to us as we open up our life to the eternal being that resides within.
I don’t believe any lineage is perfect, especially those where humans are striving to overcome their negative egos and know themselves as God. I don’t believe any one lineage is the only way. I do believe that you won’t really get anywhere until you choose one and go deep—an ascended master told me so.
by user_dd | May 13, 2015 | Transitory Thoughts
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_text]How you ever suspected that you’re a wizard and no one’s told you?
Like “The Truman Show”, people are watching to see when you wake up to this realization and start wielding your magic wand to create beauty and wonder. Life bends to the will of the wizard who is master over his or her condition.
Don’t worry, that doesn’t quite sound like me, either. But I still consider myself ‘successful’.
But success isn’t the same as mastery, is it? Do you go through life trying to achieve success or mastery? What’s the difference?
I spend a lot of time thinking about my own personal development. What education do I need, what classes should I take, what books should I read? But there are two divergent intentions: one, to be successful in this life, and two, to be masterful. I think the distinction is important to clarify.
I realized recently that what I really want is to develop mastery in this life, so I can live the ideal life for me. I think wizardry is all about creating your ideal life aligned with your life purpose. Per the quote I closed with in my last post, my Work is understanding how this magic operates as well the task of actually working the magic.
My life has literally exploded in a thousand ways I couldn’t have predicted since I started focusing on this Work.
I’m now choosing a life of pleasure and joy and community. I work to make money so I eventually don’t have to (more on spending less and saving more later…), but I also ‘work’ to build my community, to build my healing capacity for those around me going through tough transitions.
I play games, and run in the park, and read instead of incessantly asking for more and more—more money, more things, more power, more recognition. You know, the vices of a type-A personality.
I’ve slowed my life down, taken a step back from technology, and reconnected with nature…literally putting my bare feet on the ground. As an aside, it turns out grounding isn’t as complicated as I was making it. It’s not something you need to learn how to do. You don’t need any fancy incense or energetic practice, you just need to connect your bare skin to the Earth.
Just clarifying my intention, to focus on mastery instead of success, has yielded amazing changes and results which I’m very happy with.
“The drive for mastery is very different than the drive for success. If you want success, it typically means that you want a kind of approval—like for society to say that you’re good. Mastery is about valuing your own opinion of what you’re doing, really far more than anyone else’s. That is at the heart of mastery—loving the process.”
– Sarah Lewis, Assistant Professor of History of Art and Architecture and African and African American Studies at Harvard University
Are you choosing mastery or success? Comment below!
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