Reality, Discernment
and Success
What does it mean to discern our world? When we look at things with wisdom we learn to see things as they are and also in the way we would like them to be. Our world is usually a mess that surrounds us with strange joy and deep disappointment all in the same moment. It’s no wonder we yearn for a sense of order, calm and the serene confidence and understanding we would receive from such a reality. This is why we have a key ring full of keys that fit into locks to keep things and people separate.
We look for stability and therefore we see the world in a dichotomy of clearly demarcated lines. This is why there are laws, policies and procedures, social norms of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Organization works. I have just discussed the idea of the term “rebel” with someone I work with. I told him that the term is often misused. The only real rebels in our society are either in prison or on the street corner looking for change, of course there may be a few more examples. But my basic point is, no true rebel is successful. In the movie Star Wars, the rebel forces were not true rebels, they were a counter organization. They were as organized as the Empire was but had polar opposite beliefs. Usually we agree with those beliefs, because they are pro society, and pro freedom. The Empire was much like Nazi Germany with an emphasis on self and totalitarian control. Therefore, we are happy when the “rebels” win, but the term rebel is about as accurate for their organization as the term “protestant” is accurate for those who do not agree with the Catholic church, which could be just as easily referred to as “counterfeit”.
We have tools like books and maps and such to help us to find order out of a huge amount of information that leads us into chaos and confusion. These organizational tools help us to function socially and to be successful. However, just as we have discussed in past posts, the observer is needed to make sense of all these things in order to create order. Delineations can be too rigid, too unforgiving when we look at our surrounding reality. What you see as the truth of our existence can be deceptive.
Nature doesn’t need clear boundaries, it performs according to its inner blue print of information. It doesn’t care where we draw lines on maps or how we separate states of the union. There is no fixed line between the ocean and the sand on the beach, the sand merely being an extension of the sea floor that reaches beyond the waters edge, and that edge shifts and changes over time with little care for our interpretation of it. The best viewing of nature is at the meeting of day and night not at their apex. Sunrise, sunset....sunrise, sunset.... ;-) (Sorry, I am just fiddling on the roof.)
Discernment makes you and I very much aware of a social need for lines to be drawn. But you and I are even more aware of the randomness of our lives and our existence. Television often lies to us and sets false realities before us as it tries to present drama and conflict and then solve those difficulties within the hour or half hour it takes for those dramatic conflicts to be resolved within a story line. The real hell is to be placed in some of those situations and have NO answer for extended periods of time, perhaps for twenty years or so, often finding resolution after resolution ineffective and presenting us with no way out. But life doesn't work like this.
We as people have a real need for structure and order, seeking resolution and closure for problems we are confronted with. But nature doesn’t have that kind of blueprint and to insist on reality to be this way is to believe the lie. A lie that is someone else’s reality. We have to have an open and enhanced vision of what life is really about. We have to approach those difficulties which a flexibility that is the reflection of nature’s blueprint, the blueprint that runs throughout ALL nature, of which you and I are a major part. As a result we can experience a fluidity that matches nature itself. This need for constant clarity and stability and security can actually be the very thing that holds one back from living at all. (hint: faith is a lot about this)
Most people trudge through life, fighting fears and uncertainty on a daily basis. The reason for this is a lack of discernment. For them, pleasure must be constantly pursued and then sustained. Displeasure has to be fought with every fiber of thier being. But the reality of nature is not like this. And you and I are a big part of that nature blueprint.
Once you have a proper discernment of the reality of our existence, you will see that pleasure and pain are quite natural and they compliment one another. Pursuing pleasure can often be painful, whether it’s physical or mental, i.e. rejection. True pleasure never comes without sacrifice. If you eat chocolate cake everyday, you will become sick of chocolate cake and no longer enjoy it. It will make you fat and give you physical problems that will cause you pain. But if you can hold back, and not have chocolate cake but twice a year, the pleasure remains. (This is the way I feel about filet mignon.)
If you understand this, you will no longer struggle to control your environment. You’ll no longer feel the push to experience pleasure and to avoid pain. You will embrace each situation as it happens, as the grass meets the river and either descends to its tips but no further, with little complaint of its impeded progress. Peace and harmony follows you in whatever you do, for you have a faith and belief that all things work together. Just as all of mankind are brothers because they share the original DNA of one mother, all nature shares the blueprint of its divine designer, and that includes YOU.
All experiences should be experienced for their own sake, rather than for how they make you feel. The story of your life unfolds with a mix of the programmed and the results of our decisions. When this happens, you realize deep inside your mind and soul that winning and losing are really made up manifestations which only exist from that need for order and strict understanding. Did you ever hear the Native American Indians talk about winners and losers? They simply lived in harmony with their surroundings, until they resisted the onslaught of invading forces. Only then did they struggle with their existence. (This is not to ignore the usual conflicts between the tribes themselves, which germinated from what one school of thought wanted from another, as is the case with practically every war that has ever been fought.)
Linear thinking leads us to believe “successful” people have some inborn advantage, and those we see and “failures” lack those same attributes. You must come to see success and failure in much the same way as I have spoken here about pain and pleasure. They are merely compliments, two sides of one coin.
When you attempt something, discernment will help you to see that the outcome of that attempt can be either success or failure. It truly is a coin flip. When you see this, you never assign any meaning to success or failure. I have seen football coaches that went to the Superbowl and built great football dynasties who then moved to another team and couldn’t repeat that success. Take also, former TV producer Norman Lear, who created All in the Family, Sanford and Son, and many other TV shows that are now a part of history. Did you ever look at his whole track record? More failures than successes are his legacy, and today he is not able to produce anything like his past success despite attempts time and again. And yet, you would think he would be an old pro, able to direct a project for TV success over and over again. Not so.
So what is the real secret to success that I have just illustrated? What do traveling football coaches and old school TV producers know about success and failure that is the interesting law of such things? Each time a coin is tossed, the chance of a different result than you have just gotten geometrically expands. The more likely they toss a coin, so to speak, the more likely they will be successful.
If you try something once, you have a 50% chance of success. Try something twice and your chances of success multiply to 75%. Try something three times and you get a percentage rise to 87.5%. Success is a game of numbers. Successful people play the numbers game. And they always play it.
Much as I loathe to mention it, and trust me, I DO loathe it; sales people know this principle all too well. They don’t take rejection personally because they know it’s all a matter of persistence, and this is the way they live their lives. They know that they only fail if they stop trying. Just ask most street people how they got where they are, and if they are honest, it all comes down to giving up.
Cherish your small wins and keep “flipping that coin” because that is how this reality is set up, it’s for you to succeed. It is NOT set up for you to fail, your creator wants you to have life and have it more abundantly. The tide only turns on you when you give up. Then, the odds of failure begin to take over. Keep trying new and different things, and never never never become complacent. Life is meant to be a fluid move forward of a myriad of possibilities, and hell is just the opposite.
I just recently blogged about materialism being a perpetual motion machine, which is not logical based on the laws of the universe. Growth and change and forward movement are the tenants for this existence, not constricted, frozen ideas of thought. The grass at the river meanders with the shore line, it doesn’t protest about not being able to maintain the same direction every day and every night.
Going from failure to success overnight is intrinsic to nature, because of the movement from one state to another which is fundamental to our reality. Just keep trying more often, whatever it is, and that elusive success will fly into your lap.
When you make this discernment, you will find several points to consider. You will never be out of options, because reality is not like that. Your next big opportunity is as close as your next attempt. Trying is practice, and with practice you can’t help but get better, that’s part of the blue print that is inside of you. Each attempt brings with it the learning of the last try and makes you more and more adept at success. Another blue print. Because you keep trying, you focus on the act of succeeding, and not its outcome. You become immersed in the practice that will bring results without fear and without ego. You understand that it’s not personal. You also learn more about yourself, and take a less judgemental viewpoint of yourself. Therefore you gain insight into how your own actions and behaviors may be keelhauling your attempts. The downside is of course that you will waste great opportunities while making attempts, but you can’t see things this way, for that will only stop you. I believe that when the student is ready, the teacher appears, and opportunities can change and flow from lesser to greater anyhow. Trying over and over makes you more confident also, and confidence, as any school girl will tell you, is attractive. As you build faith in the process, you take necessary risks, and when you step out, you move forward.
We look for stability and therefore we see the world in a dichotomy of clearly demarcated lines. This is why there are laws, policies and procedures, social norms of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Organization works. I have just discussed the idea of the term “rebel” with someone I work with. I told him that the term is often misused. The only real rebels in our society are either in prison or on the street corner looking for change, of course there may be a few more examples. But my basic point is, no true rebel is successful. In the movie Star Wars, the rebel forces were not true rebels, they were a counter organization. They were as organized as the Empire was but had polar opposite beliefs. Usually we agree with those beliefs, because they are pro society, and pro freedom. The Empire was much like Nazi Germany with an emphasis on self and totalitarian control. Therefore, we are happy when the “rebels” win, but the term rebel is about as accurate for their organization as the term “protestant” is accurate for those who do not agree with the Catholic church, which could be just as easily referred to as “counterfeit”.
We have tools like books and maps and such to help us to find order out of a huge amount of information that leads us into chaos and confusion. These organizational tools help us to function socially and to be successful. However, just as we have discussed in past posts, the observer is needed to make sense of all these things in order to create order. Delineations can be too rigid, too unforgiving when we look at our surrounding reality. What you see as the truth of our existence can be deceptive.
Nature doesn’t need clear boundaries, it performs according to its inner blue print of information. It doesn’t care where we draw lines on maps or how we separate states of the union. There is no fixed line between the ocean and the sand on the beach, the sand merely being an extension of the sea floor that reaches beyond the waters edge, and that edge shifts and changes over time with little care for our interpretation of it. The best viewing of nature is at the meeting of day and night not at their apex. Sunrise, sunset....sunrise, sunset.... ;-) (Sorry, I am just fiddling on the roof.)
Discernment makes you and I very much aware of a social need for lines to be drawn. But you and I are even more aware of the randomness of our lives and our existence. Television often lies to us and sets false realities before us as it tries to present drama and conflict and then solve those difficulties within the hour or half hour it takes for those dramatic conflicts to be resolved within a story line. The real hell is to be placed in some of those situations and have NO answer for extended periods of time, perhaps for twenty years or so, often finding resolution after resolution ineffective and presenting us with no way out. But life doesn't work like this.
We as people have a real need for structure and order, seeking resolution and closure for problems we are confronted with. But nature doesn’t have that kind of blueprint and to insist on reality to be this way is to believe the lie. A lie that is someone else’s reality. We have to have an open and enhanced vision of what life is really about. We have to approach those difficulties which a flexibility that is the reflection of nature’s blueprint, the blueprint that runs throughout ALL nature, of which you and I are a major part. As a result we can experience a fluidity that matches nature itself. This need for constant clarity and stability and security can actually be the very thing that holds one back from living at all. (hint: faith is a lot about this)
Most people trudge through life, fighting fears and uncertainty on a daily basis. The reason for this is a lack of discernment. For them, pleasure must be constantly pursued and then sustained. Displeasure has to be fought with every fiber of thier being. But the reality of nature is not like this. And you and I are a big part of that nature blueprint.
Once you have a proper discernment of the reality of our existence, you will see that pleasure and pain are quite natural and they compliment one another. Pursuing pleasure can often be painful, whether it’s physical or mental, i.e. rejection. True pleasure never comes without sacrifice. If you eat chocolate cake everyday, you will become sick of chocolate cake and no longer enjoy it. It will make you fat and give you physical problems that will cause you pain. But if you can hold back, and not have chocolate cake but twice a year, the pleasure remains. (This is the way I feel about filet mignon.)
If you understand this, you will no longer struggle to control your environment. You’ll no longer feel the push to experience pleasure and to avoid pain. You will embrace each situation as it happens, as the grass meets the river and either descends to its tips but no further, with little complaint of its impeded progress. Peace and harmony follows you in whatever you do, for you have a faith and belief that all things work together. Just as all of mankind are brothers because they share the original DNA of one mother, all nature shares the blueprint of its divine designer, and that includes YOU.
All experiences should be experienced for their own sake, rather than for how they make you feel. The story of your life unfolds with a mix of the programmed and the results of our decisions. When this happens, you realize deep inside your mind and soul that winning and losing are really made up manifestations which only exist from that need for order and strict understanding. Did you ever hear the Native American Indians talk about winners and losers? They simply lived in harmony with their surroundings, until they resisted the onslaught of invading forces. Only then did they struggle with their existence. (This is not to ignore the usual conflicts between the tribes themselves, which germinated from what one school of thought wanted from another, as is the case with practically every war that has ever been fought.)
Linear thinking leads us to believe “successful” people have some inborn advantage, and those we see and “failures” lack those same attributes. You must come to see success and failure in much the same way as I have spoken here about pain and pleasure. They are merely compliments, two sides of one coin.
When you attempt something, discernment will help you to see that the outcome of that attempt can be either success or failure. It truly is a coin flip. When you see this, you never assign any meaning to success or failure. I have seen football coaches that went to the Superbowl and built great football dynasties who then moved to another team and couldn’t repeat that success. Take also, former TV producer Norman Lear, who created All in the Family, Sanford and Son, and many other TV shows that are now a part of history. Did you ever look at his whole track record? More failures than successes are his legacy, and today he is not able to produce anything like his past success despite attempts time and again. And yet, you would think he would be an old pro, able to direct a project for TV success over and over again. Not so.
So what is the real secret to success that I have just illustrated? What do traveling football coaches and old school TV producers know about success and failure that is the interesting law of such things? Each time a coin is tossed, the chance of a different result than you have just gotten geometrically expands. The more likely they toss a coin, so to speak, the more likely they will be successful.
If you try something once, you have a 50% chance of success. Try something twice and your chances of success multiply to 75%. Try something three times and you get a percentage rise to 87.5%. Success is a game of numbers. Successful people play the numbers game. And they always play it.
Much as I loathe to mention it, and trust me, I DO loathe it; sales people know this principle all too well. They don’t take rejection personally because they know it’s all a matter of persistence, and this is the way they live their lives. They know that they only fail if they stop trying. Just ask most street people how they got where they are, and if they are honest, it all comes down to giving up.
Cherish your small wins and keep “flipping that coin” because that is how this reality is set up, it’s for you to succeed. It is NOT set up for you to fail, your creator wants you to have life and have it more abundantly. The tide only turns on you when you give up. Then, the odds of failure begin to take over. Keep trying new and different things, and never never never become complacent. Life is meant to be a fluid move forward of a myriad of possibilities, and hell is just the opposite.
I just recently blogged about materialism being a perpetual motion machine, which is not logical based on the laws of the universe. Growth and change and forward movement are the tenants for this existence, not constricted, frozen ideas of thought. The grass at the river meanders with the shore line, it doesn’t protest about not being able to maintain the same direction every day and every night.
Going from failure to success overnight is intrinsic to nature, because of the movement from one state to another which is fundamental to our reality. Just keep trying more often, whatever it is, and that elusive success will fly into your lap.
When you make this discernment, you will find several points to consider. You will never be out of options, because reality is not like that. Your next big opportunity is as close as your next attempt. Trying is practice, and with practice you can’t help but get better, that’s part of the blue print that is inside of you. Each attempt brings with it the learning of the last try and makes you more and more adept at success. Another blue print. Because you keep trying, you focus on the act of succeeding, and not its outcome. You become immersed in the practice that will bring results without fear and without ego. You understand that it’s not personal. You also learn more about yourself, and take a less judgemental viewpoint of yourself. Therefore you gain insight into how your own actions and behaviors may be keelhauling your attempts. The downside is of course that you will waste great opportunities while making attempts, but you can’t see things this way, for that will only stop you. I believe that when the student is ready, the teacher appears, and opportunities can change and flow from lesser to greater anyhow. Trying over and over makes you more confident also, and confidence, as any school girl will tell you, is attractive. As you build faith in the process, you take necessary risks, and when you step out, you move forward.
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