Habitual

Recently enjoyed a few email exchanges with a well-meaning, good-natured friend.

The communications included ideas concerning "God".

Now, as I have found in many such "arguments" there are entrenched views that aren't often swayed by counter-arguments -- here's one example where simple straight-forward reasoning didn't change this person's belief one bit, it seems.

Be that as it may, there is a very helpful technique that enables one to see the bias in beliefs.

While at the wonderful Gulgong Folk Festival recently I chatted to many people, and learned about many diverse and interesting world-views.

I'm realising that people will accept and actively champion limitations and fixed beliefs because it serves them to do so. Fixed-systems beliefs gives stability and structure to people's lives (a common example being 'astrology'). And this acceptance occurs despite those beliefs stifling, limiting and denying wonderful potentials and possibilities.

Chatting to a young woman at the festival who was open to the deeper quantum-possibilities of life got me thinking of the benefits from sharing good, sound belief-system concepts.

As a result I'll start setting up "belief clinics" focused on "Joy, Peace, Ease, Love and Laughter" -- we'll be focused on having fun, ease, laughter and 'letting go' limiting, fixed beliefs about the past, the present and the future.

Just read an article how some scientists are recognising that 'geeks' are more likely to have autistic children.

Scientists are beginning to understand the plastic nature of the brain (neuroplasticity).

I've just listened to an audio (podcast) of some spiritual, self-development school, who talk about all the wonderful things and experiences to be had when we get to 'transcend'.

Transcending is the way forward, it seems.

Uhm, what exactly is it that we are supposed to transcend?

Presumably it is our wrong-headed egos or some such.

Only question is, does it make sense to 'transcend' anything?

Put it this way, when a young child is growing, and learning, at some point we allow them out of their baby cot (playpen). Does it make sense to say that the baby has 'transcended' the cot?

When we reflect on the number of people (more usually women1 ) who believe in Astrology, as well as those who believe in various other 'ologies' we can be reasonably confident that there's an underlying shared trait or need -- the need to belong, and to categorise people.

Personality tests (e.g. DISC, or Myers-Briggs) are widely (if not almost universally) used to help decide who's suited to particular roles in businesses and organisations.

So when a friend started extolling the great relevance and benefit of understanding the Enneagram (a process of grouping people into one of nine types, or 'tribes'), I decided to look deeper into this particular habit.

I recently had a number of highly interesting discussions with various people.

Briefly (more later) they were

• with a good friend on the subject of self-development courses, and where most go wrong.
• with a man who's a 'hard-nosed' engineer, and who spoke standard ideas of a mechanical, objective reality, not realising the 'hard-facts of science' are but a house-of-cards, reliant on some very very poor (and incorrect) assumptions about the detail and minutia of life.
• with another good friend on the the Enneagram and on the subject of tribalism.

All were quite set and confident in their beliefs, until I asked some awkward questions.

I've come to observe a number of people in my life who complain a great deal.

Their circumstances may change, and the specifics of the complaints, but overall, they complain to about the same degree on a regular basis.

It appears to me that they've been habituated to complain - even when all is well they'll use their creative abilities to find things to complain about.

They have what I've come to realise is a particular SOB or 'State of Being' that involves a degree of anxiety, powerlessness, blame and (what we Australians call) whinging.

Overview:

All matter, energy, people and populations are both feminine-wave and masculine-particle natured. Women, by being orientated towards the community-wave nature, are more naturally group-orientated (tribal). Hence their generally more refined interpersonal skills, communications abilities and relationship-orientations.1

This also leads to the higher prevalence of women using or believing in 'astrology' and other means (e.g. numerology) for assigning people to various groups (tribes, star-signs).

I've just had a vigorous discussion with some friends, and what was most interesting to observe is the extent to which people (including myself) engage either-or thinking.

My friend (let's call him 'George') quoted Anthony De Mello, along the lines of "what you have to realise is that you're asleep, and that you need to wake up". Which in effect meant that I? wasn't in the least "awake" -- aware, considerate, conscious, enlightened or good. No sir, not at all, not even a skerrick of enlightened awareness. None. Ziltch.

That's either-or thinking. None or all, right or wrong. One or the other, but certainly not ever BOTH at once.

I shared my view that people are variously "awake" and "asleep", aware and ignorant, considerate and selfish at the same time. I explained the inherent reality of the paradoxical nature of life and that all qualities and potentials are co-existent. It's just that some get accentuated more than others at various times and at various junctions in our evolution.

My friend countered, "but most people can't understand the complexity of paradoxes ..."

I have a confession to make. I've been unsettled ever since writing my book Be and Become ... as I've explained to close friends, when I finished Be and Become I felt that I had done what I came (into this life) to do. Such was the depth of that feeling that I've since largely drifted. Despite the courses, the presentations, seminars ... and subsequent books, largely I've lacked a sense of deep purpose. However, what has unsettled me most are the expectations that I've burdened myself with -- that the author of such profound, timeless material (The Theory of One and All) should be living some sort of expansive, amazing life. Those expectations have delivered quite the opposite ... struggle, and a perpetual anxiety to live up to those expectations.

So, analysing my situation I've come to realise that for the last few years I've been tentatively playing with the idea that there is a fuller dimension to my life. That, in having written the book, now it is time that I live more deeply, more fully than simply giving seminars, or writing more books, or achieving 'success', or acquiring wealth and so on. I've come to sense, rightly or wrongly that I am in the process of letting go, and learning, really learning that living is inherently supportive, and that I don't need to struggle, or that I need to live up to anyone's expectations.