| Every true genius, every creative mind has | | | | novel possibilities of creation. It is a beginning, and |
| known the dark night of searching for a truth one | | | | it is a patient listening to your children, to their |
| could sense yet not quite grasp nor express, has | | | | needs, their games, and their joys, be they |
| felt the compelling desire to birth into full view the | | | | physical children, or virtual children, as in your |
| challenging inkling that something more is there, | | | | thoughts, i.e. your stories, your creations... Not to |
| and has sat in the disheartening unease that | | | | resist: Become willing to be your child, and even |
| precedes the dawn of clarity and revelation. That | | | | to be your mother, your father! |
| is in itself the creative process, familiar to all those | | | | 6. Observation and Deception |
| that mother. Shall I say "matter"? As it is the | | | | Have you ever had to make a choice between |
| nature of a paradox to be strange, it can take a | | | | two options that were equally desirable to you? |
| while for the ego-mind to fully surrender to it. And | | | | Wasn't that the absolute best? The key to such |
| it is this very acceptance that allows for a | | | | deliciousness is the word "equally." When in a |
| quantum leap, for a change that is the only food | | | | discussion, can you make that each and every |
| to satisfy the soul on its path to evolution. The | | | | point is all right? Can you live from the |
| next ten levels are offered to promote such | | | | perspective that all is good, and all God, that when |
| nourishment, and growth. | | | | a door closes, seven open? Such is the secret of |
| 1. Force and Power | | | | a quiet mind, to be observing the equanimity, the |
| What is true power, and where does force come | | | | exacted fairness of the universe. Observation, |
| from? This question brings forth another; why | | | | rather than imagination. Observation, rather than |
| people fear change so much? I remain fascinated | | | | memory. Observation rather than reaction. |
| by how a part of "the story" keeps on being | | | | Observation rather than assumption. Can you feel |
| enacted, making me choose to be right, rather | | | | the peace of that? |
| than happy. At that moment, all inner power is | | | | 7. Commitments and Truth |
| gone, as I think I know something... Hey, I am | | | | Possibly languages were born because we were |
| right, here! And consequently, I am no longer | | | | not ready to be fully honest with ourselves and |
| "right here," and have lost the source of my own | | | | thus each other. Possibly languages had for primal |
| power... The here and now is gone, and gone also, | | | | purpose to be a substitute for a too revealing |
| the "hear and know!" It has been said that | | | | telepathy. From words came contracts, laws, and |
| education is power. What would you learn if you | | | | commitments. The mind loves to fight change, be |
| did not get everything so soon? | | | | it a change of heart, or a change of agreements. |
| 2. Fixation and Freedom | | | | When will I learn that disruption always come, that |
| However it may sound as if spoken in the | | | | it is a sacred, and an inherent part of life and |
| present, the story is told from the past. "This is | | | | growth? Will I be true to my vows and my laws, |
| what God did for me when he took me out of | | | | in the understanding that "until death do us part" |
| Egypt..." Where is my attention? Is it fixed on the | | | | does not concern the death of the body, but the |
| suffering of having been a slave (the known,) or | | | | transformation of the spirit (change of mind and |
| is it on the passover (the unknown?) Fixed | | | | change of heart)? |
| thoughts and creative thinking are contradictory. | | | | 8. Hum, Hum! (Humor and Humility) |
| How inspired would you be if the past did not | | | | Yes, this is worth clearing one's throat! Whether |
| longer exist, if it past-over? Are you willing to sit | | | | one looks at the mythologies of humanity or the |
| with uncertainty, and truly leave the Egypt of | | | | findings of social sciences, we are all on a journey |
| your enslaved mind? 'Freedom's just another | | | | to become conscious that goes from egocentrism |
| word for nothing left to lose..." | | | | (it's all about me!) to cosmocentrism, where one |
| 3. Believing and Seeing | | | | eventually feels like a tiny speck in the cosmos. |
| It is all a paradox, from what we call "senses," | | | | Such humility is bliss, and is the biblical "peace that |
| "mind," "body," "soul..." Exactly what are we talking | | | | passeth understanding". It is a place beyond |
| about, and whom can we trust? Shakespeare | | | | pretense, a place of radical purity. It is light, and |
| said, "We see with the mind and not the eye," | | | | fun! It is ho-hum, as in humble, and humorous! |
| while St. Exupery proposed: "It is only with the | | | | 9. Inter-developmental and Enter Growth. |
| heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is | | | | Have you noticed how you can walk into a room |
| invisible to the eye." How can I, how can eye | | | | where people have argued and feel it? Have you |
| educate my senses to truly see, hear, touch, | | | | also noticed how attractive quietness is? Animals |
| smell, or even taste what is, rather than what "I" | | | | know it, who intuitively go to a quiet heart... |
| think is. Looking for a piece of paper while thinking | | | | Everything is one, and interdependent. Thus I |
| it is lost and thus not seeing is a common | | | | cannot grow without growing you, and without |
| experience for many of us. How then can "I" live | | | | being grown by you, and vice versa. Amazing, |
| in amazing grace, i.e. stop validating my belief that | | | | isn't it? It is as if ideas, not unlike plants, grow |
| I am lost, and instead look and live finding? | | | | better when transplanted into another mind. Thus |
| 4. Victimhood and Forgiveness | | | | the question: Do you want to grow with me? I |
| At times the mind feels to me as a messy closet. | | | | like your leaves and your be-liefs too! Relating is |
| I hold on to old resentments, like I do a dress | | | | transcendence: practice the emerald secret of |
| that is no longer in style or does not fit the | | | | growth, by including the wellbeing of others in |
| person I am aspiring to be now. Do you know | | | | your own! |
| what I am talking about? A closed (clothed) mind | | | | 10. Expansion and Expansion |
| is not healthy, but clogged up, in that it cannot | | | | As we come to an end, we also come to an 'and'. |
| circulate the blood of life freely. Open up your | | | | As taught by the Sufi Masters, "You think |
| closet, and forgive all the hurts, the betrayals, the | | | | because you understand one you must |
| suffering... They are not in fashion anymore! | | | | understand two, because one and one make two. |
| For-give what is blocking your flow. No one is to | | | | But you must also understand 'and'." From |
| blame. It is not "their" fault; you had to agree to | | | | inter-developmental come more choices, and |
| what happened, for it to happen. Forgive yourself | | | | therefore more successes, and more happiness, |
| and choose to be atoned and at-one now! | | | | and more life, and more fulfillment, and more |
| 5. Let in God and Letting Go. | | | | creativity, which 'fruitfuls' and multiplies the "and" |
| After such cleansing, a real perspective shift | | | | ad infinitum... Indeed, there will always be another |
| occurs, which some call a turning, a repenting. It is | | | | way to look at it, and that is the wealth, the |
| such a splendid moment to witness the mind | | | | luscious abundance of life, seeing what every |
| relinquishing its tight control, its smothering hold | | | | body sees, AND seeing what no one had ever |
| and surrenders to goodness, truth, and beauty. | | | | seen before! That is pure beauty, a beauty which |
| Like a breath of fresh air, it is a return to | | | | lies in the "I" of the beholder. |
| innocence; it is the candor of the open canvas to | | | | |