Tag Archives: being vs. doing

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Past

The past is a piece of work. We have to have it, because without it nothing would work in our human existence, absolutely nothing. We wouldn’t be able to remember how to walk, talk, get dressed, do math or act like a complete idiot. It’s essential to have it, but the key to having a useful past in our lives is to understand the difference between having a past or being the past.

Most of humanity seems to subscribe to the latter, and it has interesting consequences to say the least. When we believe we are the past, it takes on a life of its own, and it seriously limits our abilities in life regarding ourselves and others. We will limit who we are, what we believe to be true of ourselves and what we are capable of based on ‘past experience.’ So in effect we believe that because something has happened in our lives once or even a few times, is equal to saying that it will happen the same way again, so why even bother with it. Welcome to limitation nation, because that’s where that is taking us.

When we become our past experiences in this way, we cut out possibilities for new experiences in our lives piece by piece, and end up in a life that is dictated by habits, rituals, and a particular way to do things, and to think of ourselves and other people. This is the place from which we say and think things that say I, you or life has always been that way. And then we make future predictions based on this information, of course assuming for the past to repeat itself. ‘My past experience with this (person) tells me that x is going to happen here’ is a popular phrase in this world. And by operating from this vantage point about myself and others I try to make life predictable and manageable, because at least I won’t be surprised. And when things actually turn out differently than expected we think of it as the exception to the rule, thus making sure that our past stays in place. We actually use the past to blind us from the present, because we see only past experience and not what is in front of us. And with this we begin to narrow down our ability to experience anything new in our lives, the past will make sure of this with its raised finger of insecurity and fear. ‘Don’t even think of trying this,’ it says, ‘you know what happened last time…’ or ‘What makes you think that you could ever do this?’ and on and on it goes.

Luckily there are those among us who don’t work that way, they in fact have a past, but never learned to become it, and by virtue of doing so remain open to the present and keep learning and finding out new things about themselves and the world on a daily basis. Great achievements in human history came about only because those people did not let their past get in the way of their own evolution and growth. They made mistakes, they failed, they stumbled and fell, but they used what they learned from those past experiences to get better, to improve upon it and to keep going by not repeating that which didn’t work and moving forward into an unknown future. Nothing can keep these people from succeeding. And you know who these people are? Every single one of us as a child when we learned how to achieve the seemingly impossible feat of walking. I’ll let you think about that for a moment.

As we grow older, we add ego identification into the mix, and – bam! – the past becomes us, the story takes over, and with it comes the weight of endless past experiences. As I think of this, it strikes me as absolutely amazing that we fall into this trap and keep teaching each other that this is the way to be human, that this is the only way to have a life – to be a product of the past, be that past and own it. And we don’t stop with ourselves, we then do it to all the people in our lives, how many times has a parent in history looked at their child and said to them that their ‘past experience with them’ tells them that they will fail, do the wrong thing and end up in the same place as before? If all I see is the past, then I cannot see the present and won’t see the person in front of me, but my past image of them instead.

What if we became like children again, and used the past to our advantage by trusting that our mind will do a wonderful job in using the past to let us function well in this world and protect us from harm? I don’t struggle to remember that a hot stove top is hot after finding out, I just do. We naturally trust ourselves with the past in uncountable ways every moment. It works brilliantly well, we don’t have to become the past for it to serve us, there is a natural selection process in place. It makes sure to pull the past data necessary for us to function very well in this world. It is unconscious and reliable, we don’t have to remember to do this. It’s like breathing. Having a past is not only essential, it is incredibly valuable. Let it do its job, stop messing with the process by thinking you are the process. None of us are, we are the creators of past, and we are forgetters of it as well. If we trust the process we don’t have to think about it and the past takes care of itself.

Living with the past is a great thing. It makes for a life of curiosity and discovery. It keeps us safe while letting us play in a world of possibilities. It’s a great servant. But it’s not who we are, unless we choose to believe so.

So with another year coming to an end I invite you to play with this, hang out with your past tonight, have a drink and share some memories. And then say thank you and send it on its merry way to be an aspect of you, and not who you are. And then begin again by creating a new past, one where learning becomes natural and you are not bound by your past, but supported by it. It may just lead to a great story to tell about the past in the future…

Happy New Year.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Dropping it

Haven’t been here in a while, life got a little busy. And while doing the life thing, something occurred to me repeatedly during the last few weeks. ‘Dropping it’ is absolutely essential.

A couple of people have read my book and liked it, and some of those people know me. It has happened a couple of times that someone has said to me ‘You wrote that book and look how you are acting right now…’ That has always struck me as odd, and frankly I didn’t know how to respond to it, people have said it when I was having a bad moment and acted accordingly, when I was in my ego, tired, caught in a mood. I would almost feel guilty for being ‘less than perfect.’ Then I started to check myself, especially when my mind was in a funk, and began to be critical of my own spiritual understanding, development, etc. No fun. Once I dropped the self-critical analysis and relaxed about it, it hit me: I dropped it.

Apparently there is a belief out there that when you reach some sort of level of understanding or ‘expertise’ in self discovery and awareness, you stop having human frailties. As in you never lose your cool, are always calm and collected and have meaningful things to say about stuff all the time. That is not only a tall order, but simply a bunch of bs. As long as we are human, we are human. We will lose it, have bad moments, think thoughts that make us act like an idiot, or occasionally a total insensitive jerk. It happens. What matters is what we do with it. Like dropping it.

As I was becoming more aware of the analysis I was doing on me, I also noticed that whenever I would get into a funk about something, I would drop it as quickly as I started it. And once I dropped it, it was gone. And with that the feeling was gone as well, and quietness returned to my mind. I first noticed it with my daughter when she would get into a typical two year old state of terror about something, and I would react to it. Once I saw myself reacting to her and saw how we were entering into a sparring match of wills, I would simply drop my thought and idea about her behavior and instantly calm down. This removed any emotion or reaction I had been experiencing with her and leave me in a state of calm observation. As a result, two things would happen: I would have completely different ideas and options available in how to be with her, and she would notice that I wasn’t reacting to her anymore, which would often shift her state of mind as well.

After I caught on to this I began to see my ‘crazy’ moments not as much as a reason to feel bad about my own level of consciousness or development, questioning everything I may or may not know about this ‘stuff,’ but instead began to see the opportunities to perfect the art of dropping it. This has added another level of fun to living life. When I notice me having a bad moment and saying something mean or acting like an ass, I immediately drop it. Just let it go. Allow myself to accept that I am human, and move on. It is amazing how instant the shift is. I go from ego id to being present to my mind and the moment, and thus am pulled out of the drama. Ego id drops and with it this incessant need to be right, to have to convince the other, to show someone what they really should do or see, etc. And it changes the situation and experience, the other person tends to notice the shift in energy, and thus the interaction will change as well. Pretty cool.

I realized that the comments people made about my state of imperfection were absolutely accurate, I just took them personally because at that moment I was of course in my ego identified state, and thus reacted to it. No learning or insight in that. Once I caught on to the awareness around dropping it, and that wanting to be more aware in my life did not mean being super human, I was free to be human. And as a result I have been reacting less, getting into funks a little less often, enjoying life yet a bit more.

As always, I invite you to play with this as well. Next time you are in a ‘thing’ with someone or a situation, when being right or wrong is what it’s all about, stop for a moment and ask yourself whether you want to be right or wrong, or simply drop it to see what may be on the other side. You will instantly feel better, because dropping stuff makes us lighter.

Cheers,

Ralf

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The Unknown

Somehow that word has gotten a bad rap. Most people shudder at the unknown. It’s the space in life no one likes to go to, or have to deal with. And most certainly won’t invite into their lives.

It reminds us of our childhood fears maybe, remember when we stood at the top of the basement stairs, maybe at the Grandparents’ house, and were looking into the dark abyss below? It was a scary and dark place with odd smells and weird sounds. It was the great unknown. Then there was the first summer camp or overnight stay at someone’s house, so many unknowns in that as well. When we start out on this planet as babies, we do not fear the unknown, because we are unknown. We literally know nothing. We are a blank and filled bundle of focused consciousness shoved into a human body. We don’t even know that we have a body in the very beginning. We do not know where we end and something else begins. Nothing is known to us. But that’s not an issue then, because we are a simply (a) being. In being there is nothing but the unknown. Think about this for a moment. Whenever we are completely present in a moment, we are not thinking about the future or the past, we are here and now, now here or nowhere. If you have ever looked into someone’s eyes with utter and complete love, you know that sense of momentness. Nothing matters and nothing in particular is on our minds, there is no room for anything to distract us. We know nothing, except that we are here. We are in the unknown.

Feels pretty great, doesn’t it? And then we go and limit our ability to experience this feeling, because we thrust ourselves back into ‘reality’ and start up our good ole ego identification to get back to the busyness of thinking about the future or the past. That is what we know. To plan, to prepare, to anticipate, to plot, to assume, to hope, to worry, to fear, to wonder, and on and on it goes. It is such a hard existence. We spend almost the entirety of our lives doing this, and by doing so are so desperately trying to hide from the unknown. It freaks us out and scares us to no end. The cosmic joke is on us though. While we spend all this time and energy to try and avoid the unknown, the Universe, God, Allah, the Great Nothing or whatever you choose to believe in is laughing heartily. They are laughing because we are always living in the unknown, whether we believe it or not, and there is nothing to fear. Truly.

We are all made of the same wonderful and mysterious stuff, we are all swimming in the same quantum soup, making ourselves up as we go along. And then we go and keep repeating the same thoughts and patterns endlessly to feel as though we know who we are and what we are doing. This way we may have a sense of control and know who we are. But what do we really know? If we look at it we quickly discover that all we know are our own thoughts and their repetitious patterns. It’s known, it’s reliable and most of all, very comfortable. Especially in opposite to the unknown. But we are always living in the unknown. Our habitual thoughts simply give us the illusion of knowing of what’s to come. We wake up and know what we are going to do, we go through our days with the idea that we know what’s next. And if we ever even feel a sense of the unknown ahead, we try to get as much information as possible on what may lie ahead so that we can regain a sense of knowing. The truth of the matter is of course that we never know what lies ahead. We cannot and we will never be able to. Period.

So what to do then? Take a look at it. We never know what lies ahead, we only believe that we do. And we like to believe that, because we are scared shitless otherwise. Why? Because in ego identification we have to try and know as much as possible about everything – in the past, the present and the future. The ego exists only in the concept of our lives as a time horizon event, we are born, we do some shit and we die. Within that short time frame the ego would like to do two things: Be in total control and hide from the fact that it is temporary. This way, the unknown becomes the most fearful experience. Conversely, the unknown is the space where control and permanence go out the window. It’s like the antidote to the ego id life. Once we are willing to step out of the ego, the unknown becomes a natural way of living. And it becomes the preferred way to live. Everyday I marvel at the fact that I have no clue what is going to happen, ever. I wake up and have no idea what will happen, or rather, all I have is an idea, and that can change at a moment’s notice. I plan for things I want to do, and I try to organize for what I have planned, but always knowing that in fact none of it may happen, that every moment of my life is an unknown. It is a lot of fun. Nothing is set, all can happen and you never know what that may be, but that we can know. Knowing that our lives are unknown is deeply reassuring. At first it’s like jumping into the pool on a hot summer’s day, a bit jarring and then immediately refreshing and comfortable, and then we simply float in the cool water and let it carry us. Much like the unknown. And then we realize that there is nothing to fear.

So go ahead and give it a shot. Start your day, plan and anticipate, but keep an expectant smile in the back of your mind that you really have no clue what is actually going to happen. That you are walking into the unknown. That everything could work out the way you anticipated or planned, or not at all. You never know …

Cheers,

Ralf

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Choice

Choice is a beautiful thing. It’s also a real toughie, because if you believe that it exists, your life is your choice, and if you believe that you don’t have a choice, then someone else is choosing for you. In either case, not easy.

I choose to believe that we have choice. About everything, every moment of our lives. No exceptions. As a matter of fact, this really showed up for me in the book towards the end during an exchange between the bird and the protagonist, where they discuss that everything is made up:

“”…I can make up anything I want about anything then.”

“Absolutely.”

“So I am made up as well?”

“Continuously. As long as you choose to.””

It’s such a short little line with incredible implications. This basically says that we choose to make up ourselves, or in other words, we choose to exist. Now, I have heard something of this nature before, but never in that context. Think about this, we choose to exist. As long as we choose to exist, we continue to have this human experience. When we choose not to, it’s done. What happens after, well, who knows. The point is that by and through our choice, we exist every moment of our lives. If and when I choose to end my life, it ends in its current form. Now, this is where an interesting conundrum arises, because this concept makes sense when we actively choose to end our life: we can jump off a building, drown ourselves, take pills, shoot ourselves, set ourselves on fire, drive off a cliff, jump into a volcano, in short there are a lot of ways that we could do this. It makes sense that this is our choice. But what happens to that choice when we die of natural causes or through a tragic accident or event? Is that still our choice or is this the point where we say that someone or something else is choosing that for us? We like to believe that, because who would ever choose an untimely or horrible death, right? But this is where we have to make a very fundamental decision about our take on choice. If I believe that I can choose my existence to end, than this is how it is, no matter how that choice shows up or plays itself out.

I either choose me or not. If I do, than this happens all the time, under all circumstances, always, and in all ways. The kinds and number of choices available to us depend on two things – whether we believe we have a choice and our awareness of it. In the past few years this has become increasingly visible to me. I have been experiencing my own life as a result of my choices more and more. It begins with the mood I find myself in, moves through the circumstance I am part of at any moment, and ends with my place in the universe. It’s my choice. I choose every thought I have at any moment in my life, and when I am aware of this, I choose and thus create a kind of thinking that is clearer rather than confusing, that produces calm rather than agitation, and puts me in charge of the experience I am having. This is very empowering and also freeing. The choice is mine. All the time. To believe this changes our lives.

How far does this choice thing go then? As far as I can tell, all the way, and I am not sure what this means exactly, but I can feel it. This goes as far as believing that even if I was murdered today, that this was my choice. That I chose to find myself in that circumstance, to act the way I did, and to end up getting killed. I truly believe this at this point, and with this I also believe that we choose our lives at different levels of awareness, some of which are not visible to us in our current state of humanness, but are nonetheless ‘there’ and real. I believe that we are spiritual beings having a human experience, and that we may only be aware of different aspects of this at any time. Including the choices we make at different levels about this human life we are having. By choosing to believe this, the horrors we create, the trespasses we commit against each other, look different. When we dare to believe that we are the creators of our experience at different levels, obvious and hidden, at all times, then the possibility comes into view that we also choose all the horrible things mentioned. We choose this outside of our human view, but we still choose this, and we choose from a place where the duality of good and evil, pleasure and pain, right and wrong, have no meaning. Because limitless, all inclusive beingness is all there is ‘there.’

Told you this was a toughie. It still is for me, and I could be completely wrong, of course. All I know is that choosing to believe in choice this way has made my life more spacious, peaceful and fun. I choose my life at any moment, and am grateful for that. How about you? As always, I invite you to play with this in your life. Will you or won’t you? What’s your choice?

Cheers,

Ralf

 

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(Dis)Connectedness

This theme has been going through my mind in the past few days.

When I was part of the spiritual scene, this term was used a lot. People often spoke of feeling disconnected and looking to be connected to others, something I was annoyed by. The whole theme had that ‘kumbaya’ taste to it, something I really had trouble with and ultimately kept me at arm’s length from the spiritual community. I have always been too much of a pragmatist to go for that sort of thing. At the same time I knew that somewhere within me the notion of (dis)connectedness was important and made sense, I just didn’t know how.

In the recent past it has come up again, and it makes sense in a completely different way now. I used to think that in order to connect to other people, I had to be interested in them, like them and have the ‘you’re ok, I’m ok’ attitude. Only, this was exceedingly difficult. I would come across people that were annoying, dumb or a waste of my time with their odd or stupid ideas. Not much connection happening there … It seemed a tall order to try and overcome these judgments in order for me to connect with them, and then the question of ‘why?’ still remained. I was experiencing other people through my ego, and vice versa. There is only a very limited connection, if any, possible this way. Here you have two people, completely living as their ego, in full ego identification mode, trying to connect to another for ego reasons. It does not matter what my story about this connection I am seeking is, whether I want to meet someone like minded, I am looking to advance my own agenda, to be appreciated, liked, loved, or whether I am trying to make myself or the other look good or bad, no matter what that reason is, I will not be able to truly connect, because we are only connecting on the limited ego level at best. And, I am not connected to myself to begin with.

When we live as our ego, we are experiencing our own self through the limited idea of the ego story. We are disconnected from the part in us that we are, while the ego is actually only what we do. Have you ever had a moment where you watched yourself doing something and thinking at the same time, ‘what the hell am I doing?’ That is the being in us watching the doer. When we see this played out and choose to stay with the ‘being’ part, we reconnect to our Self. We instantly realize that there are these two aspects to us, and that the being part is the real deal. That moment of reconnection changes everything. The jig on our ego identification is up. We see it everywhere and all the time, quite overwhelming at first, and then see it all around us and in others. We see that other people are in the same boat and that they fall for the ego con in varying degrees as well. In seeing this first in ourselves and then all around, we not only feel connected to our Self again, but we also see the that we are all connected to each other through this adventure called ‘life.’ It’s the whole ‘No man is an island’ thing realized. Pretty cool actually.

Ever since I have had this increasing experience of being, which I also call ‘wysiwyg,’ my life has become simpler and clearer. And it comes naturally to see the same playing out in others, and that there is a connection at that level at all times. Whether they experience themselves in this way or not makes no difference. When we feel a sense of connectedness to our own Self, we feel it with others. Thus we can be with other people in a completely different way. It doesn’t matter who they believe to be at their ego identified level, because we are tuned into a different frequency. We are sending and receiving on a frequency that takes place on the impersonal level. The drama and details of our stories are simply that. It’s a very different and much more fun way to walk to through life and feel connected in this way.

Next time you see your Self, say hello and hang around. You might enjoy the company.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Fargo

I had the pleasure of being asked to give a short speech at the Barnes & Noble in Fargo, ND last Thursday and had so much fun doing it. I am more of an introvert, so hanging out with and talking to a bunch of people takes energy out of me, but this was a wonderful event. It was themed ‘New Author Night,’ and there were probably another eight authors besides me there. It is amazing to be able to share something about your own adventures in writing and publishing and then have people come up to you afterwards and engage in the most interesting conversations with you.

As opposed to my earlier life, where something like this would have been about me, me, me, it is now about simply being in the presence of other beings and listening to their life stories. Everyone of us is in the same boat on this planet, we are born, we do some shit, and then we die. Only that this entire concept is just that, a concept. One that we have made up at some point, and continue to make up. Operating from that perspective (which I find myself in most of the time these days) makes meeting people so interesting. Every single person is a fascinating collection of stories, some more serious than others, some more happy, sad, exciting, whatever it is at that moment. None of it is really who we are though, they are simply ideas we formed in our minds about what something means to us, how that is important or not, and what it means about us. We do this, it is not who we are. When we forget that we are a simply doing these things, we get lost in our stories and become them, and our perspective on our life goes right along with it. That’s when we find ourselves being depressed, shy, upset, sad, happy, excited, etc., rather than simply feeling those things temporarily. All of it is simply eternally temporary. More on that next time.

I had a wonderful time in Fargo. I also got to sell a few books and am continuously baffled and excited to see that perfect strangers are willing to buy and read it. I also was given a hilarious and very reflective book, How Fargo of You, by its author, Marc de Celle, and am really enjoying it. You should check it out here.

Cheers,

Ralf