Significance

All my life I have sought to be seen by others as significant according to the current world's definition. In this definition the requirement for significance is to have made a major public contribution in the eyes of some large group, or to be on the top and visible in my profession, to be seen as an expert, to hob nob with others so titled, etc. Your definitions may be different but whatever they are our belief is that we need accomplish them, to be them in order to be significant. This left me with a deep feeling of never being good enough, never measuring up. The belief itself sets up a competitive mindset versus a collaborative one. It also feels like a never ending task similar to trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it.

But I've come to understand that this belief is coming from a cultural mindset based in rationalism and materialism. I first learned about cultural mindsets when I was a foreign exchange student in high school. Cultural beliefs are like the ocean one swims in without realizing the environment you are in. It's familiar and natural to you so you don't question if it is healthy or not. It is normal ... unless you experience another culture where the norms are different.

The rationalistic, materialistic mindset goes against thousands of years of man's experience and intuitive living on this planet. In fact, it teaches separation from a universal energy field and Consciousness and thus any oneness of the All That Is and spiritual nourishment derived from the Oneness. This separatist mindset says the universe and all in it including man is like a machine, although an exceptional one, though still finite, alone with no access to any higher planes of consciousness. Everything that is known is known through reason, not intuition. This Newtonian mindset insists that everything must be proven through external, objective evidence. I have felt it as an oppressive energy throughout my life without knowing what it was.

But we live now in the era of quantum physics and the awareness of a participatory universe. Science has discovered the wave/particle phenomena - when an observer looks at a wave, energy, it changes into a particle returning to wave when observation ceases. I am free to change my focus. I can stop looking at the conclusions of old Newtonian science as the only truth and release myself from the old structures I took to be reality. These old structures are familiar territory but not the ultimate truth. In fact, they are at abouton the same level as the belief that our world is flat.

So my job is no longer to waste time trying to prove my significance but to get on with being now. This requires simple acceptance of myself and everything in my life as it is right now. The act of acceptance releases the contraction and restriction in me that comes from beliefs about what I "ought to be doing" and "what I should have, be, done by now in my life."

Acceptance is an ever deepening process happening in layers, requiring renewed choice as each layer presents itself to my consciousness. By doing this process I am free to contribute what is mine to bring to the Whole, the cosmic pot luck!

This understanding has been a key to my returning to blogging.

Sustainable living

"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness that created them."
Albert Einstein

There is evidence to conclude that we are living in unprecedented times. The imbalanced materialistic consciousness or mindset, that we have had, at least in the West, had resulted in some damage to the economy, pollution to our physical and emotional environment, and endangerment to our survival.

But rather than cast blame, I'm suddenly asking myself, "What destructive mindsets am I stuck in that are destroying my being?" As one saying states, "as the individual, so goes the society." If my individual mindset is insecurity, fear, and self protection I am most likely interacting with you on a "trying to get what I need and want from you" foundation. That makes you more of a commodity , an object to fulfill my needs and desires. Humans become consumable items kept until their usefulness is over and then discarded. And I will also assume you are thinking the same towards me because we project our consciousness level onto others. This is an extreme example but as one author wrote, "One's internal beliefs about being insufficient and insecure spawns all ills - greed, selfishness, addiction, etc."

Science is demonstrating that we are all energy and we are all connected. This means that what we do effects the whole system. Thoughts, beliefs, emotions are energy and effect our whole body for example. And the influence spreads out from there to our relationship and to all who are interacting with us.

In coming back full circle, if I have a healthy self responsibility mindset, I will choose to clean up the destructive, insufficiency, insecurity beliefs in me. This restores my balance in healthy self love and other love. It brings health to my body, to my relationships, and open me to fulfilling my life purpose, my work here. I believe more of this is what is needed to live through these times we are in. This is sustainable living.