Ever Forward

The word humility is often taken to mean something like submissiveness, subservience, or low self esteem. Maybe passivity, not standing up for yourself, holding yourself back, or even self negation. These are distortions, misinterpretations of the outward appearance humility can sometimes present. Humility is seldom recognized for what it really is -- a state of pure possibility, of receptivity to true creative power.

The word humility shares its linguistic origins with the word humus, as in earth, soil, the forest floor. Humus is more fully defined as soil that has so decomposed that it can't break down any further. It is the most mature, most basic soil. This is the true nature of humility. Humility properly understood is the soil of who we truly are, our most basic state, the place where possibility lives. To be humble is to have access to the ground of your being. To cultivate humility is to cultivate that ground. The more humble we are, the richer that ground will be. It is the soil from which the god self grows.

Humility is the attitude, the mental and emotional orientation that accompanies and makes effective the practice of the present moment. To practice the present moment is to tend the soil. Humility is the state of mind and the necessary posture for participating in the creative power of the Divine. It is the state of connectedness to your own potential, and the state of readiness for the action of the Divine in your life. There is no delusion in humility, no avoidance, no self hate, no judgment of self or others. There is no room for these things. Humility is perception cleansed of these distortions, and action purified of the falsifying effect these things have on our motives. To the mind characterized by humility, everything simply is. Humility is a state of undistracted consciousness. And that is the most powerful thing in the world.

The power of humility is in its practice. The practice of humility brings release of the self from the prison of ego, preconception, judgment, delusion, hesitation, fear. Humility is the basic human orientation of cooperation with the Divine, and provides the basis for all patience, kindness, love, compassion, forgiveness. These things are all emanations of divine power. It is only through humility that we become capable of them, and through their practice, capable of manifesting God, of unleashing the god self on the world.

And humility is the mental state most receptive to reality and to extraordinary possibility. So, it is humility that makes possible the realization of our dreams. It enables cooperation with the Divine in their achievement. Humility is the ability to let your dream be shaped according to what is, and to be joined to the great dream that is everything. In humility you can find your true place, your true expression, free of ego-driven demands on what those things should look like. Humility is the ability to respond without resistance to the role of the Divine in your unfolding.

Ever forward.

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Fear and judgment surround us like a fence. We live inside this fence, in seeming safety, keeping the fence itself at a distance. This is the Cult of the Known. We revere the known and stay inside it because the only way to go outside it is to venture through our own fears and move counter to our own judgments. We are all priests in the Cult of the Known, and we construct worldviews in homage to it, in hopes it will keep at bay the forces beyond the fence.

But any world view is just a set of opinions. These opinions may be shaped by experience or preference, maybe by example or pressure from others. But opinions they remain. No matter how progressive or expansive the worldview, it's still a closed system ultimately surrounded by the fence of fear and judgment. In the end, it's fear and judgment that give shape to any worldview. 

Some of us are very good at accepting others. And it's a good thing to constantly expand your world view. But even better is to dispense with it altogether, to stop looking at the world through a lens and just start looking at the world. If we had no fear or judgment we would have no worldview. We would have only an adventurous spirit and a tendency toward acceptance and compassion. All we could do would be to reside in the now, take situations as they come, and respond from the heart.

That's why the masters have always warned us against opinions. "Do not judge," Jesus said. It's one of the few commands he actually gave his followers. He recognized the human cult of the known and knew it had to be dismantled. This seemingly simple command, so easily reduced to a mere nicety, carries in it all the power needed to transform the individual and the world.

Fear and judgment prevent that.

Once you recognize your fears and judgments, you recognize the edges of your perspective. This recognition often happens through disturbance. When our boundaries are assailed by something challenging, a religious or moral difference for example, we can feel disturbed. Very often this awakens fear and we resort to judgment. Not discretion, not compassion, but self-preserving rejection of the thing causing the disturbance. Also known as judgment. Judgment is simply a technique for dealing with fear. It doesn't cause growth or healing, it just takes the edge off and in the end it helps fear to grow, or worse, converts it into hatred.

By pushing through fear and judgment we push our own envelope. We reject the Cult of the Known in favor of adventure beyond the fence. By embracing the disturbance and upheaval of challenge at our borders, we evolve our worldview into obsolescence. The best world view is not to have one. Without it acceptance of others and self is inevitable. Without it we can exist in a state of constant surprise. We can live here, now, and manage the details as the heart commands.

Ever forward.

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revised 7/3/09

Here’s more from the TED conference given by William McDonough: “Our culture tortures itself now, with tyrannies and concerns over limits and fear, but we can add this other dimension of abundance.”

These “tyrannies and concerns over limits and fear” infest everything. All our systems, from the family to the nation, all our relationships, our work, our hopes and dreams, even our vacations. It's all built around prevention of loss. In the end they lead to a culture of fear. These fears in our primordial condition emerge insecurities emerge in social tyrannies and fear-based responses to existence. They color our perspective and give energy to our responses, so that our default setting is to assume and plan for the worst.

We build whole societies this way and when these societies live shoulder to shoulder, war is inevitable. We tend to ignore or even reject the abundance all around us. Imagine a world where the default human setting was to assume the very best will happen, and to plan for it.

Our tyrannies infest daily life in tiny little ways. Here’s an example: the social revulsion against telling someone they have hurt your feelings. The practice of telling people how you feel when they hurt you is not wrong. It’s difficult, so we call it wrong in order to avoid doing it. We call it “socially unacceptable” but the truth is we're afraid of it. It's dysfunctional because it stifles communication. If it stifles communication, it hinders relationship.

Imagine a world where we felt fear at the prospect of NOT communicating our feelings. I don’t mean shouting or getting in someone’s face. I mean respectfully, courteously explaining yourself. Try it. I guarantee you hold back. And I further guarantee you hold back not because it’s wrong, but because it’s scary.

The tyrannies are not basic to us. But the fears from which the arise are. To fix the situation, we must undertake the adventure into ourselves. The simplest fear or insecurity is an opportunity to take the first tentative step on the road that leads to your utter-self, the self you dream of when no one's looking.

That is a mythic journey.

Ever forward.

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revised 7/3/09

I listened to a talk given by William McDonough to the TED forum called The Wisdom of Designing Cradle to Cradle. McDonough is a designer and his talk focuses on design principles conducive to a sustainable future. But he makes a great point that can be applied to emotional growth and the expansion of consciousness:

“As we look back at the basic state of affairs in which we design, we in a way need to go the primordial condition to understand the operating system and the frame conditions of the planet.”

Each of us has a primordial condition, an operating system, frame conditions. These things hold vital information that can explain why we fail, why we succeed, why we get angry under certain circumstances. Understanding these things can tell me a lot about what makes me feel threatened or secure. They are always there, under the surface, contributing energy to my responses and color to my perceptions. In order to effectively manage the details on the surface of my life, I have to understand the deeps.

Personal computer software provides a very useful metaphor for understanding this. You’ve got your operating system and you’ve got your applications. The applications are how I act, think, and speak in the day-to-day. It’s my relationships, my creative endeavors, my work, etc. The operating system is the underpinning on which the applications are placed. It gives my applications access to the computer’s memory and processors. It enables the applications to function. Or not. Photoshop can’t paint a pretty picture, however desperate I might be for my picture to look prettier, if the operating system is flawed or incompatible.

Here’s another angle: the operating system is universal, the applications are local. You use Word to write a novel; Word is local. You use Excel to track expenses; Excel is local. But the operating system is always there, influencing that local experience. The operating system is universal. It affects how I deal with all local circumstances. A broken operating system can’t fix itself, not even OS 10. It can’t even understand itself. But I can. I can look under the hood and find out what needs to change in my operating system to make my applications function properly.

Ever forward.

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Sometimes I feel my strength crumble. Just crumble, like an old building in a time lapsed movie. It feels like that, chunks of armor falling off, weakness and vulnerability suddenly exposed to the surface. It's a feeling in my chest, my limbs, like a sickness in my veins. Often, it's actually painful. Life can hand me circumstances that have this effect. No amount of self coaching or input from friends can make it stop. And the circumstances don't have to be anything an outside observer might call significant. But somehow the circumstances touch a deep weakness, a trouble spot down inside, and as a result of the circumstances, I feel the weakness and trouble.

My therapist calls these weak places "young spots." Places where some childhood shock caused me to stop trusting, and therefore to stop growing. So, in adult life, when life serves up circumstances that touch these young places, I re-experience the shock that caused them. I don't need a clear memory, or even a dim one, of the original shock. The feeling is still there and gets shaken loose sometimes. It's a problem because it's debilitating and hinders the progress and creativity.

I have a clear vision of what I want my life to be. Sometimes I'm visited by a certain, recognizable feeling that occurs when I encounter an opportunity of a certain caliber. When I feel that feeling, I realize that this opportunity is connected to my destiny. I still rember the moment I first felt this for what it is. It's powerful, inspiring, energizing. But it's no guarantee of anything. One of my biggest struggles is with the old shock that can emerge when a chance to forward my destiny is threatened, or just feels threatened. Somehow, doubt and lack of trust become huge powerful monsters under those circumstances, and my strength crumbles before them. Confidence disappears. Down iniside me there seems to be a young spot, filled with dark, angry energy, that is doesn't believe my destiny will be achieved, no matter how the universe conspires to achieve it, and lashes out in frustration at the slightest hint of failure.

As exhilirating as the recognition of destiny feels, this dark energy is every bit as strong in the other direction. But there is opportunity here; it's a chance to grow. The hard part is, to begin the growth process I have to genuinely feel the hard feelings. I have to sit down with that dark energy and listen to it. Not try to stop it, not judge it or condemn it, not hate it or resist it in any way. I have to let it have it's tantrum as if I were the parent of a very large, very powerful child. By doing that I set the stage for growth.

The next thing is to watch, observe the situation, search for patterns in my thoughts, responses, tendencies, common reactions to recurring stresses. These things are clues to healing the shock. Usually the circumstances that bring out the shock are similar from one instance to the next, like with my sense of destiny. This practice enables somethng better than just enduring or even managing the feelings. It enables me to "grow" the young spot into maturity so the debilitating feelings recur less forcefully, or disappear altogether. In time, with practice, technique, and patience, I can transform the young spot, maybe even harness the energy it hoards and burns. I can begin to steer the ship instead of feeling keel-hauled.

Ever forward.

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The Old Testament book of Leviticus tells of an intersting custom practiced by the ancient Jews. They would symbolically put all their sins on a goat and send the goat out into the desert. That's where we get the word scapegoat. The Jews weren’t really blaming the goat for anything. And they knew their sin had not really gone anywhere. It still resided in their hearts, and the only way to truly get rid of it was to enact in each moment what they had symbolized with the goat. So, the practice was a way of expressing as a group their knowledge of the inner work they needed to do. The modern scapegoat has no such symbolic value. Nowadays when we scapegoat someone we actually do blame him, not only for something he didn’t do, but for something of which we ourselves are guilty. Blaming others is very common. It’s a fear-based response to the rigors of self knowledge. If the actions of another cause me to feel my own weakness or dysfunction, I blame that person for the feelings and call their actions inappropriate, even if they are not. In a family or social group, this is a great way to keep members in line. It usually occurs when one person makes a move toward spiritual or emotional health. Very often, such actions cause sharp disturbance in the mechanisms and systems the family has constructed to ensure its own survival. Usually it’s not a matter of literal survival. Instead it’s the survival of the illusion the family has of itself. It’s the perpetuation of a quietly, often unconsciously agreed upon group denial. This survival instinct might be sparked by the group need to prevent an internal explosion that has been threatening to happen for years. If the disturbance is dealt with honestly, everyone in the group will have to come clean about their feelings about everyone else. Since most people aren’t equipped to deal with that constructively, it can feel like a tornado brewing. But being unequipped to deal with a storm doesn’t mean people can’t see it coming. So, they seek to avoid it. The energy of that storm has to go somewhere. Enter the scapegoat. The actions of the wayward member contradict the system, and therefore shed light on it. When a family is forced to face its own dysfunction, that sense of exposure evokes a defensive, usually collective response. Instead of facing and changing the dysfunction, the group rallies against the one who caused it to surface and threatens them with some kind of punishment if they don’t apologize or make some reparation. It’s weird. And it doesn’t really work. That’s the strangest part of scapegoating someone. It doesn’t work. Most often, the group doing the scapegoating has to concoct an offense for which the wayward member must be punished. Or, at the very least, take the illogical, untenable stance that some perfectly legitimate action is somehow abhorrent or unacceptable. The whole thing is a lie from front to back. But maybe the worst part of scapegoating is that it’s a pattern. In each instance an innocent victim is chosen and sacrificed, creating a temporary veneer of reconciliation. But it’s not real. The truth is, the group illusion has been protected, the group denial has been sustained. But no real growth or change has occurred. The circumstances that led to the need for a scapegoat are doomed to repeat themselves in some form. Families need to shatter into individuals who relate to each other as individuals. Sometimes that can happen when on person makes one small step toward autonomy and self reliance. In every case where the actions of one send shock waves through the system, there is an opportunity for everyone to grow. But because we are afraid of ourselves we don’t step up. We fall back on the darkside of family, the part that isn't good for anybody, the part which, born out of fear, will sacrifice the very people it's was designed to protect. Ever forward.

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I voted today. As I pressed the button I couldn’t help wondering if my vote was going to be counted. I don’t mean I wondered if it was going to count. I mean I wondered if it was going to be counted. Or, if so, would it be counted as a vote for the person I voted for? The only sane answer seems to be “maybe.” Some people would say, “Of course your vote will be counted, that’s ridiculous.” Other people might say, “No way is your vote going to be counted. This election has already been decided.” I can’t bring myself to agree fully with either extreme. But it’s really discouraging that my best answer to the question is “maybe.” Yesterday, WXPN played a great rendition of Throwing Stones, one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs. Here’s a line: “There’s a fear down here we can’t forget. It hasn’t got a name just yet. It’s always awake, always around, singing ‘ashes ashes all fall down.’” That line really captures the feeling that something isn’t right, that it’s everywhere, and that it’s always working. There are so many places to point the finger, so many things to shout about. Even if you’re certain that all the ills of the world are interconnected and emanate from the same source, and that the source has a name and an address and hands its power and purpose down from one generation to the next, you’re still not looking directly at the problem. Here’s the problem: it continues -- they continue -- because we let them. Who are they? It’s an obvious question, and a vital one. There’s another, less obvious but even more vital: Who am I? Seeking the answer to that question is not just a philosophical exercise. It’s a moral imperative. I cannot be used if I know who I am. If I have genuine, free access to myself I will not permit abuse any more than a mother bear will let her cubs be harmed. To be a soldier in the war for consciousness, I must be conscious. Not informed only, but conscious. To achieve that I must seek self knowledge. There is no other place to begin. Ever forward.

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My therapist prescribed a new exercise in my last session. The therapy he teaches is heavily based on physical exercises, stretching mostly, with emphasis on different postures and parts, according to need. He pointed me back to an exercise he’d prescribed a few years ago, one he calls a “nine-year-old” exercise. That means it’s intended to give access to feelings I had at that age, or still have from that time in my life. As a result I’ve actually relived some of the doubt and uncertainty I felt at that time, which still affects me. I see it this way: a window frame on the third floor of a house can get out of whack because of a fault in the foundation. That fault sets off a chain of disconnects all the way up through the house that finally show up in the crooked window frame. A person can be like that. A pocket of weakness left behind in childhood sends a chain reaction into adulthood that shows up in some insecurity or weakness that can make things hard in the day-to-day. The idea of the exercise is to access those feelings and that energy and make adjustments in order to improve my adult situation. By building that bridge to my weak place – that nine-year-old pace – I can export the needed strength across that bridge from a strong place. I get the weak place to the table by accessing it through the exercise. The strong place is easy to access. Once they’re both sitting down, I broker the deal. The best part is, it works. Ever forward.

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Where I am strong and confident, I have the ability to root around and seek weak spots to improve. And there actually are places like that inside me. Places where I actually do go looking for ways to grow. There are also places where I’m so insecure that I have my hands full with whatever comes up. I don’t need to go looking for weak spots. The weak spots haunt my steps. My therapist often points to a process of building bridges between the places where I’m strong and the places where I’m weak. The idea is to set up a kind of commerce between the two whereby my weak places import shipments of confidence and strength across the bridges. A fluid import export process between areas of weakness and areas of strength will integrate the parts of my being. With a fluid process, I will always have weak spots, but those weak spots will get the support they need from the places of strength. The result would be an overall increase in life ability, less fear, more unique contribution; a human being energized and free in spite of his frailty. That’s what I’m TALKIN’ about. Ever forward.

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A lot of people experience fear about following their heart. This is because the demands of the heart tend to involve risk. Most people are taught to play it safe—find the job, get the salary and health insurance, and so on. That's all well and good, but for a lot of people it means giving up on, or avoiding outright, the things that lead to real happiness. 

The mechanisms inside us that cripple our dreams are powerful. Fear, doubt, feeling overwhelmed, the list is long. But careful observation might reveal a pattern. Here's an example: “Every time I get an idea for what I'd really love to do with my life, I feel overwhelmed and I don't know where to begin. It seems impossible.” For many people, a great idea can cause what seems like the opposite of inspiration. It can create the desire to run and hide. Any initial feeling of elation or possibility is quickly overwhelmed by the shadows of doubt and inferiority. 

Amazingly, those very feelings are affirmation that the new possibility is to be taken seriously. Those of us who suffer from it will only experience that debilitating doubt in the presence of what might fulfill us. The mechanism is there specifically to cause self-defeat. It doesn't serve any other purpose. So, a person born to be a writer probably won't feel overwhelmed with doubt at the prospect of becoming a brain surgeon. That experience will be more like, “Nah, don't think I'll be a brain surgeon.” But when the idea for a book or article is proposed, that same person might experience something like a train wreck inside. All that means is that it really is a good idea, it really does come from your core, you really should follow it. Sadly, the very thing that should cause a thrill of adventurous confidence goes in reverse. There are lots of reasons for this, but they aren't really important. In the end, the important thing is going after that dream.  

Inspiration can happen in reverse. It's because we're human, and humans are messed up. Developing yourself to the point where you do feel that adventurous confidence, instead of its crippling opposite, is a separate fight. But in the mean time, knowing how to interpret those feelings for the best can go a long way to managing them and, ultimately, making them work for you.

Ever forward.

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