The Ups and Downs…

Such as life, right? We are up and then we are down. I often think about the wisdom from all who came before us when it comes to the topic of non-desire and wonder how that is even possible. Did I miss something? Isn’t WILL the same thing as DESIRE? Fundamentally, at it core.

Life or people who are supposed to support us on our journeys always encourage us to “follow your dreams” or “go after what you want” to “live your best life” to “keep trying”, “never give up”, “failures = success”… The list of positive affirmations seems endless. I think that people genuinely believe these things and it’s not like they are wrong, do those things for sure but I sometimes… okay often times I get caught up in trying to be someone, to have a place in the world, to feel like I have something to offer and to feel like my life isn’t just wasted space or that I will one day be gifted the opportunity to explore the whole Earth- just to feel brought down when nothing seems to ever go the way I think it is supposed to.

If you don’t know this about me, I LOVE reading. I mean these days it’s more audio books than book-book because my eyes are not what they use to be AND because when you start getting deep into your 40s you end up falling asleep instead. So audio books are my jam now. Anyway, so I was reading this book called The Biology of Belief by Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D where he examines cellular biology and in short says that cell membranes function like a brain barrier. To be more precise he called it that chip part of a computer chip that functions like a conduit transmitting codes from the external world into the internal world. It’s like a bouncer at a club. No one or nothing gets through without permission OR something gets through like a hacker taking a backdoor in, going undetected until things start to malfunction. Literally every single cell of a cell, diving deep into the micro world of cell biology is working together to create us.

I have imagined so many times that that IS exactly what it’s like, that we are a collection of cells/particles and whatnot that are being held together by some sort of force and according to him, that force seems to be desire EVEN within our cells which are generally regarded as not being sentient or conscious of what they are doing. So every part of us is made up of trillions of brains all working to do their thing (survival yes but it seems to be more than that) and we end up being transformed by our environment.

Some people do not agree with the premise of evolution and not everything Darwin proposed is true. There are some things that get withheld from the drama between atheist and agnostic thinking but I don’t want to get into that. To say the least, we are always changing but it seems to the be the will of all our biology that makes things possible INCLUDING -and this is really important- our minds having a mind of their own.

HOW do you crack the code to communicate with that inner consciousness that seems to have other plans. The more I read the more I realize that “free will” really isn’t a thing… not so much when it comes to the direction of life. I can say I want or don’t want to do something and express free will in those terms but beyond that… Did you know that before YOU have a chance to send your brain the signal to move an arm or something, your OTHER brain is already ahead of you. They measured this in labs and so it is true that your brain does things just before you do so it really makes me wonder about destiny, fate, free will. This study has been brought up in several books by credible scientist, atheist AND agnostics alike all concluding that 1. no one really knows how this is happening for sure and 2. it is actually happening. It’s verifiable, testable and repeatable.

Do we ever really have a choice? You end up being shaped by the environment. Triggers are like codes that your cells actually understand and your brain can heal your body but why can’t it be done with destiny or desire? How is it that anomalies occurs but the power of just telling yourself to heal will not yield the same magical results? This actually happens. These anomalies about people and their incredible cures from disease that were incurable that somehow manifested by nature of the brain. The brain somehow communicated with its internal network and worked in its own way to rid itself of whatever is causing it harm.

The Zone

Sometimes I find myself in the zone. I think we all know what the zone is. It’s those moments where you are so completely immersed in what you are doing that it’s like you aren’t even there, your body is moving, your mind seems elsewhere yet you have some sort of tunnel vision and are killing’ it. That is what I think of when I think of being completely present. It seems like a conundrum, to be present where your mind seems elsewhere and you are functioning off something else. That tells me that it seems true that your mind has a mind of It’s own. That is a little bit creepy and little hard to wrap my mind around sometimes. Yet we know it’s true because we do all the time. For example, driving a car. You go the same route so many times that often you are driving on autopilot. You don’t realize it until something comes up and your attention shifts back onto the road.

So because we can actually function without being ‘present’ (or completely present, you decided) are we even capable of having desire anyways? Is Will even a thing? Getting back to my sob story of ups and downs… for many people (most people) it really does feel impossible. Like our lives are pre-determined no matter what we do to create new situations, it will always yield the same result. At times, you feel like you broke the curse or the spell or the pattern but then you end up back at the same place EVEN though you did everything different trying desperately to create another story. Really going after what it is you want and never being able to get there. This goal, whatever it is, seems always out of reach for the the mass majority of people. The only ones who say different are people who have’t really figured out that their path was already written. They only believe they had to try.

How does this happen? Your path can be a straight line into something as it is for some or it can be a jumbled mess much like the networks in our minds, all the neuro-pathways, this super highway of paths that all end up at the same place. Who get’s to break free? HOW do you break free?

Is that what the sages and saints were intending when it comes to desire? Were they trying to tell you that it is a fruitless endeavor to desire anything because your destiny has already been imprinted into the Universe and it will not matter what you do, think or desire otherwise. You will end up where it says you will end up. period. So then, the idea of free will, will, desire isn’t something worth wasting your mental energy on. It’s not worth it to dwell on how you didn’t get what you thought you would. It seems also moot to believe you worked hard if you did achieve something or that you were deserving if you achieved success doing nothing at all. In the end, that mind of yours… the one that seems to be ahead of you at all times. THAT one, your ATMAN is your guide and you, the one of you you think of when you think of self, now that one is just along for the ride. The “actor” playing out the commands your mind is giving.

Let’s call that one the OBSERVER. Think of it in terms of the Douple-Slit experiment. In short, the ONE thing that changes an outcome is observation. It portends that in order for anything to be seen, it must be actually seen ‘observed’ in some way EVEN if it is at a distance and gives this impression that because the Universe exist and we exist, then there just might be an omnipresent ‘god’ or the Universe might be living in a way that we contemplate life even down to the being of a rock. It carries an essence and it does what it does and we, like our Atman (the one in the zone) already knows before we do and thus, what it needs is us to make that observation possible for it to exist. I will give you a moment to think that through.

Forgive my language but that is a mind-fk! I have no idea if I am right about this but it feels intuitively true to me because I have been in that zone so many times and know that the only thing that snaps me out of the zone is when I “snap out” of it. At that point, I usually end up messing up because my concentration is thrown off OR perhaps it’s more like, I started to think.

There’s this saying in martial arts. If you don’t know, I also practice (well not much lately but still) martial arts (animal style kung fu) “don’t think, do”. That mentality will save your life but getting deeper into this thought in context of this blog, ‘the mind sees before you do’ and that is a fact. Now how do I get ahead of it to change course?

Why would I want to change course? Is the one already laid out before me the best possible one for me to live my best life? If it is, then why that one? If not, then why do I desire what I will never have? And then why do I even desire it anyways?

Okay. I think that is enough. Hope I didn’t mess with your minds too much and if you have other thoughts on this subject, let me know. I often feel like there are so very few people who are open enough to explore these things because of fear of maybe sounding stupid or something. Honestly, there are many things in life that people do that I think are stupid and gleaning knowledge through the thought process is not one of them.

Namaste – Sandy