Hello? A Cosmic Perspective by Harry Palmer From Volumn 2, Issue 1 - Jan/Feb 1996 Sometimes there appears to be a veil on consciousness that keeps us unaware of the universe or prevents us from taking a cosmic perspective. Perhaps it is some alien indoctrination, or perhaps a protective screen erected by our own egos, or ... No matter, penetrating the veil almost always causes a restructuring both of consciousness and our sense of self (as many astronauts, astronomers, gurus and science-fiction writers have discovered). Light travels at approximately 186,000 mile per second. That means that a photon of light could travel around the Earth seven times in one second. There are over 31.5 million seconds in a year. If you measure out 31.5 million lengths of 186,000 miles each and lay them end to end, you,ll have the distance that light travels in one year. It's almost six trillion (that's 6,000 billions) miles. That distance is called a light-year. If you traveled at the speed of light, you'd leave our solar system in about 5 1/2 hours. You'll find yourself well into interstellar space. Now you are encircled by an irregular ribbon of stars called the Milky Way Galaxy. You're in it. Get used to the view, because even at the speed of light, the scenery is not going to change much (the closest neighbor to our solar system is the star Alpha Centuri, something over four light-years away). The sun, at the center of our solar system that you leave behind, shrinks to a point of light and is lost in the stars, and there are a lot of stars! If you started counting stars at the rate of 100 per minute, it would take you 2000 years to arrive at the 105 billion or so total that comprise our galaxy. Some astronomers estimate that as high as 50% of these stars may have orbiting planets, with possibly 2% or more of the planets capable of sustaining life, that's over a billion inhabitable planets. And is there ever a lot of empty space! Conceptually unfathomable. Endless. Even within the galaxy. The galaxy you are in is shaped like a flattened spiral with four arms that curve counterclockwise (when viewed from above, whichever way that is). The spiral is 600 thousand trillion miles across- 100,000 light-years-and 60 to 100 thousand trillion miles thick. Earth is the third planet from the sun, in a solar system the size of a pinhead, lying in the center of one of the arms about half-way between the central hub and the edge of the galaxy. Now is a good time to take a bearing. At the speed of light, if you steer into the brightest area of the encircling star ribbon, it will take you about 25,000 years to reach the galactic hub-downtown Milky Way. If you steer in the direction of the faintest area of the ribbon, you'll reach the galactic rim in about the same amount of time. If you steer perpendicular to the ribbon of stars, you'll depart the galaxy in just 5,000 or so years. Now if you thought interstellar space was large, wait until you see intergalactic space. Once beyond the Milky Way, you will see there are other galaxies in the neighborhood, some as close as 170,000 light years. Two smaller neighbors, probably containing less than 15 billion stars each, are called the Magellanic clouds. They are irregularly shaped and are still forming stars­or at least they were 170,000 years ago when the events now reaching you occurred there. And there are some more distant neighbors. The Andromeda galaxy (M31), is about 2.2 million light years away. It is twice the size of the Milky Way and contains an estimated 250 billion stars. Keep going and you'll see the giant elliptical galaxy, M87, (plus or minus 750-1000 billion stars) and the barred spiral galaxy, NGC 1365 and another spiral galaxy, NGC 2997. Galaxies are given numbers by astronomers because they are too numerous to name. How many? No one knows, but they are far more numerous than the stars in the Milky Way. Even counting galaxies at 100 per minute, life on Earth has not existed long enough to count them all! Galaxies exists in groups called island universes. The local island universe contains about 30 galaxies with a total of about 10 trillion stars. Somewhere out around 50 million light-years, you'll leave this island universe and enter a really, really big space. In this space you're surrounded by more island universes than are countable. On the average, island universes are at least a million times further apart than galaxies. Do you know what's really interesting? Nothing I'm telling you is fiction. Hang out for a few minutes conceiving from this cosmic perspective, and see what effect it has on your consciousness. Which leads us directly to this issue's Global Thoughtstorm: What effect does familiarity with the universe have on your consciousness? What Do I Really Want Out Of Life? by Harry Palmer, author of The Avatar Materials "What do I really want out of life?" is the bonus question for the discouragedly successful. It waits in the darkness for its cue-a moment of self-honesty-and then it slips through the curtains of consciousness and steals the show. It comes up on the day the new car loses its shine or the applause loses its meaning or the ashram loses its glitter. It stalks the early morning hours of fitful sleepers. What do I really want out of life? Have you ever desired something-an object, or recognition, or a special relationship-and discovered that the pleasure of actually having it was disappointing? This is a special kind of disappointment. You're not disappointed by failing to obtain your desire; you're disappointed with the prize. Most people console themselves by setting the goal a little higher. They say to themselves, "It wasn't a Porsche I really wanted. What I really wanted was a Lamborghini." "It wasn't a million dollars, it was ten million dollars." "It wasn't a fifty foot yacht; it was a hundred foot yacht." This leads to the twisted wisdom: How much would it take to make me happy? The answer, a little more. A little more-it's a sedative answer. It lulls the disappointment back to sleep and reaffirms the old guilt that one isn't striving hard enough or isn't living up to one's potential. A crazed society offers solace, "Try harder. You'll do better next time." This plants the seed of anxiety in your mind, and "next time" is a reminder that time is running out. The pressure is on. You need to get it and get it soon. But what? Not this, not that. Maybe power. Maybe if you were president of your own company... Can you sense the panic? Work harder. Get your statistics up. Stay motivated. Imitate the affluent. Get passionate. Remain focused; learn to ignore distractions. Study marketing. Create demand. Destroy the competition; business is business. One night you wake up to ring-ring. It's not the phone. It's your self-honesty bell. Is this really what I want out of life? You need an answer and you need it right now. Where do you turn? "I feel your pain," offers some new-age guru who sells you the advice: total renunciation, give it all up, want nothing. Trust. So you wrestle the mind to stillness. You surrender. Love everyone. You suffer ego-death. BE HERE NOW. The pain goes away, but so does your common sense. While you are trusting serenely, you are robbed, your dog is poisoned and your house is burned. While you are loving everyone, your spouse files for a divorce. Ah, but you understand, it must be your karma-a test of your faith. Uh-huh, stupid man talking. You achieve spiritual wisdom-for who? How long can you play solitaire? How long can you rationalize the suffering of humanity? So you spread the word, this is how it is, honor your guru, save the world, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. The honesty bell rings again. Is this really what I want out of life? The idea that life is about acquiring possessions leads to disappointment. Real satisfaction (despite TV commercials) cannot be acquired by achievements or possessions. The idea that life is about surrendering your desires leads to disappointment. Real satisfaction (despite your guru's righteous insistence) cannot be acquired by embracing a doctrine of renunciation. Test them, only if you must. Achievement pulls you one way; surrender pulls you the other. Your heart and mind divide. Conflict. So you compromise. The word for this compromise is unhappy. The prognosis is a deepening mental depression terminating in socially adjusted unawareness. No kidding, you go crazy. Advertising and holy books medicate your contradiction with false promises until...ring-ring. (It's for you.) Avatar is not anti-achievement nor anti-spiritual nor anti-compromise, but it does dispel the illusions that any of these is a path to real satisfaction. The path to achieving real satisfaction in life is an honest, heads-up exploration of your beingness and the beliefs from which your doubts and answers arise. Who are you being and what do you believe? The prize-and it is simple and singular-is waking up to who you really are and learning to live deliberately. When you know, the answer is, there is no question. Fully alive, fully awake, this is what I really want out of life. A Private Talk On Honesty The ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes is said to have wandered the streets of Athens with a lantern looking for an honest person. Since Diogenes' most remarkable teachings have become known as the Cynic school of philosophy, I assume that his wanderings were in vain. Honesty is a very delicate subject to talk about. In most circles, no one would ever be so tactless as to even bring it up. Pirates, criminals, swindlers and con artists proclaim their honesty most loudly. No wonder it has become a subject that tends to besmirch the speaker at its mere mention! So I am aware that I am walking on the thin ice of the holier-than-thou, but this is an important subject. Without self-honesty, a person will substitute rationalized thinking for his or her genuine feelings. With such, the question, "What do you feel?" will evoke intellectual speculation (What should I feel?) rather than an actual experience of what is present. Dishonest displays of so called "honest" feelings are often intended to deceive, manipulate or to camouflage hidden agendas; for example, your distrust hurts me deeply. Treating others dishonestly invariably results in a lowering of respect for them. Friends we have discarded, we have first deceived. The same applies to the respect we have for ourselves and our lost selves. Dishonesty is at the root of asserted self-importance. We seem able to lie easily about our own honesty. Some part of us automatically insists that we are honest without even inspecting what we are doing or saying. Catch children in the act and more than likely the first words out of their mouths will be, "I didn't do it!" It seems easier to defend actions than to honestly examine them. We are quicker to attack than admit. Admissions require courage! Being honest is really a question of courage -- courage enough to face what we fear. This gets lost in the smoke screen of deceptions that is used to justify dishonesty. Whenever we accept that there is good reason to be dishonest -- hardship, desperation, depression, ignorance, victimhood, etc. -- we increase the evidence for fearing what we are avoiding. And what is it? Only this: fear is a BELIEF in our inadequacy to deal with something. And that belief precedes any evidence of failure we have collected! So, do we have the courage to face what we fear? This is life's most severe test -- failure leads to unawareness. Unawareness arising from fear is why people are dishonest. The belief responsible for the fear may be lost in confusion or hidden in the shame of humiliation. The invitation is to avoid, to forget, to go stupid, and the urge to be right further sanctions our ignorance. What a breath of fresh air to face a dishonest act and say, "I did it because I was afraid. Period!" That is the first step toward discovering the hidden fear. What a relief! There is no longer a need to struggle to change the world or circumstances or anybody else! You can work on yourself. You need only to gather your courage and look for a BELIEF you have about your own inadequacy! At the bottom of every dishonest act, there is at least one. Here is a remarkable observation that has profound implications for the future of the world: as people handle their transparent and hidden beliefs, they become naturally more honest! courage n. the attitude of facing and dealing with anything recognized as dangerous, difficult, or painful, instead of withdrawing from it inadequacy n. not equal to what is required or considered sufficient pretend vt. an effort to experience or display something different from what one feels or believes (in regard to self, others or events) Deliberate pretending is an acting skill and shouldn't be confused with compulsive pretending-motivated-by-fear, which is a specialized form of dishonesty that masks one's intentions. The following observations apply to compulsive pretending. Compulsive pretending soaks up one's attention and consumes creative energies. Compulsive pretending destroys motivation and displaces intuition. Compulsive pretending reduces one's ability to operate harmoniously in the world. Compulsive pretending creates an internal stress that seeks an outlet. Sometimes the result is disease, sometimes violence. Eventually, compulsive pretense deadens the ability to deal honestly with others or to be honest with oneself. Every time one is reminded (or accused) of pretending, the response is to become defensive and critical. Eventually one loses touch with his or her genuine feelings. Pretenders create false identities that are staged, egocentric and insensitive. Pretenders criticize, gossip about and covertly attack people whose honesty reminds them of their own pretenses; eventually this becomes a compulsive behavior pattern. They assume that everyone else is also pretending, so their attacks specialize in expose. Pretenders are good people frightened into bad actions. They operate on hidden agendas. To lessen their sense of guilt, they project onto others identities that deserve to be cheated, swindled, robbed, lied about, deceived or defrauded in some way. Most of the definitive catalogs describing the antisocial, criminal minds, sinners, etc., are the compilations of pretenders. (It is a sensible wisdom to view the accuser with some suspicion.) People who cannot trust themselves become the fugitives of society. They punish themselves indirectly by putting their trust in the people who are least likely to return it. Then they parade the fact that they have been betrayed. This eases their own burden. In place of personal integrity, they rely on the grand absolution of sin: everybody does it! Their personal lives are a whirlpool of bad relationships and failed projects. In the end, pretense strengthens the fear it was meant to conceal. You have done and can do no wrong I do not share. As disagreeable as it may be to contemplate, the dishonesty I encounter in the world is a reflection of my own pretense. Pretending that I am honest and that others are not doesn't work. That is the trap that awaits those who will not assume ownership for the world's dishonesty. We are all dishonest as long as we do not compassionately work to correct the collective dishonesty of the world. How? Punishments and threats of exposure are poor answers. A better answer is for each of us, in our personal lives and our dealings with others, to set a courageous example of honesty -- even when it means exposing ourselves to the criticism and judgments of pretenders. Honesty is a path that leads to happiness. Becoming honest is an act of self renewal. When we summon the courage to take ownership of our experiences, to see them just as they are, to feel them, we will recover the blueprints of our lives. We will face our fears and find the transparent beliefs that create them. Becoming more honest with ourselves means introducing more honesty into the collective consciousness of the world, and this lays a foundation upon which an enlightened planetary civilization can be built. The result of living honestly is feeling and sharing -- compassion and empathy! There is a joy in willingly integrating with the consciousness of others. Attention and creative energies combine with a synergetic result. Networking and new opportunities present themselves. Relationships develop that are rewarding and provide a measure of security that no amount of money, power or fame can provide. Valid trust arises. The Cynics believe that right actions (courage) and right thinking (self-honesty) are the only things of value. They believe that independence of worldly needs and pleasures brings liberation. They believe that right actions and right thinking are the only things that can save one from wasted lifetimes spent in material pursuits. Excerpt from LIVING DELIBERATELY by Harry Palmer There is a difference between exploring and searching. Think back to when you were younger, and you had the opportunity to explore some new terrain or a new experience. You decided where to go and how to proceed. Wasn't it exciting? An adventure! For most people there is a thrill in discovering new places and seeing new things. This is the mental state of an explorer, of a Type Four believer. Then, something strange happens. You discover that one of your possessions is missing. Maybe a purse or a wallet, a jackknife or a piece of jewelry. Something personal that has value to you. Lost! Was it left behind, or what? You search your memory, then your pockets, and then you start looking around. You go back over the same terrain, retracing your steps, but now you are in the mental state of a searcher. You look here, trying to remember. You look there, your desperation brings you to the edge of tears. Perhaps you even offer a prayer or two. You quiz yourself: "When did I have it last?" or, "What do I do?" Now you are lost. Life is no longer an adventure. The thrill and excitement are suppressed by the anguish you feel. There is a filter over your eyes that turns everything into a disappointment. New experiences and potential opportunities present themselves, but they are not what you are looking for. Even if you succeed in finding the item, the trauma of having lost it may persist. If it does, you stop exploring or searching and begin protecting. Until a person recovers the playfulness of exploring, most of their deliberate actions will be motivated by a desire to find, to protect, or to avoid something. Beliefs, too, can become lost. How? By becoming so familiar that they are forgotten. It happens after the goal or purpose changes. When the goal was to be cuddled and cared for by mom, the belief, "I'm cute and helpless," was assistive and valuable. One assumed it and it became part of the self. Later when the goal changed, the belief was lost, forgotten. It became transparent. Now, the person perceives and acts through it without being aware that it's there. People lose awareness of what they believe. The more beliefs that people have to act and perceive through, the harder it is for them to live the way they want to. When they relax, their lives slip into the pattern of the old beliefs, e.g., "I am cute and helpless"-not a very appropriate belief for a top business executive. Lost awareness of beliefs is responsible for stress and self-sabotage. There are many lost beliefs to be found at the bottom of a failing life, a failing relationship or a failing business. Lost beliefs form an invisible blueprint for feelings and actions, and without understanding why, we create or attract the circumstances that will fulfill them. Are there beliefs in your blueprint that are no longer of value? They need to be discarded before you can recover the natural high of the explorer. But what are they? How are they found? How did you get where you are? How did you get yourself into this situation? How do you get out? You try to create a new life, but what happens? It is sabotaged and shattered by lost beliefs. Designing Our Own Reality By Harry Palmer Given enough time, everyone will become aware that what they believe has a direct consequence on their lives. Unfortunately, most children do not get this discovery time and are bombarded from an early age by what they should believe. The result is that what they sometimes say they believe (their indoctrination) obscures what they truly believe. The real dilemma of existence is deciding what to believe. Entire lifetimes are spent side-stepping this decision. The majority of us are already deeply patterned and indoctrinated by the time we realize that deciding for ourselves is an option. Deciding is fundamental to creating! Eventually we learn that the beliefs we truly hold, the ones we've decided to believe, our faith, will cause us to create or attract experiences which will verify them. The beliefs we have merely accepted as part out our indoctrination may sustain an existing reality but they will never create a new one. Reality consists of the experiences we believe are real. What is real may or may not be the same for everyone. Fantasies are the experiences we believe are not real. Pretending is resisting what we decided to believe. Doubt is a conflict between new decisions and old decisions. What we believe and how we believe determine our reality. To make something real we must believe in it. For it to be real to others they must believe in it. To the degree that we fail to manage our beliefs, reality will remain beyond out control. We experiences what we believe. If we don't believe that we experience what we believe, then we don't, which still means the first statement is true. We may believe that what we experience will surprise us, which then it usually does. We may believe the experience will enlighten us, which then it probably will. We may believe we will never find the experience...We may believe there is no experience to find... We may believe there is nothing we can do about it, even if we find the experience... We may believe the experience is not the experience we believed we would find... We may believe anything we please, and when we decide to believe it without doubt, it is what we will experience as reality. So, from the viewpoint of source any perception or creation directly or indirectly received through any sensory channel, through the imagination through intuition through faith­p- through any dimension--can be experienced as real or not, dependent only upon what we deliberately believe. (It is not possible to have a perception or creation that does not exist but one may believe the perception or creation is unreal. Human beings intentionally limit their own perceptions.) Thus reality is anything we believe it to be! (As long as there is not conflict with our previous beliefs.) The only thing outside of reality is the inexpressible source. And it is an illusion created by language that there appears to be an inside and an outside, More accurately, if somewhat enigmatically, source occupies an alogical dimension that permeates everything! Source is awareness without definition. It does not contain separation nor is it contained. There is no difference between what is believed, what is experienced and what is experiencing. Awareness without definition is a unity from which reality arises. The essential self that we experience ourselves to be exists as a creation within this awareness-without-definition. The minimum equation for each of us is: awareness + primal creation = essential self. Essential self is generally expressed as "I am." Identity is composed of and defined by the additional layers of beliefs that are added to our essential self! When people move away from being the source of their beliefs, their past takes over as the sourcs of their beliefs. Responsibility is being source right now. Blame is looking for who was source. People can become addicted to the past to provide ansers. Reversing the flow and having a person give answers to the past can be a powerful transformational process. For a very long time people have weighed evidence, analyzed, and taken measurements to answer, "What should I believe?" It's clear this was the wrong question. The right question is, "WHAT DO I WANT TO BELIEVE?" The Path of Happiness Would you like to be happy? Think about that goal -- I want to be happy. It's a common goal that many people share. The question I want to ask you is why? Why do you want to be happy? Let's look at it logically. You walk by a candy store, and suddenly you desire to go in the candy store and have a piece of candy. Why? Because you know it tastes good. You've had it. You know what candy tastes like. Now go back to I want to be happy. Why? Because it feels good, and you know it feels good because you've been there before. So why did you leave? You'll probably say, "Well, I made some bad decisions. I did some things I shouldn't have done and acted in ways I shouldn't have acted, and here I am." For a moment, imagine yourself as the divine "I" holding the world in your hand and looking at it. Think, "It's OK, it's really OK." Then you're happy. This is the natural state. You're outside the world, the world is OK, and you're happy. When the world's not OK, you're not happy. Then something happens in the world. You enter the world and go in to see what's going on. "How can I make it OK?" "I?" Not the same "I" anymore. Not the happy "I." Now it's the questing "I." Do you think God meant to confuse us by experiencing every creation as "I?" You enter the world as "I." You start to define yourself: "I am a white male. I'm an American. I'm a blond. I'm a college graduate. I raise dogs. I drive a Corvette." More and more definitions. The more definitions, the further you sink into the world. One day you say, "I want to be happy." In a way it's saying, "I want to be whole," but we don't usually understand that so we say, "I want to be happy." Someplace you seem to remember that trust is part of being happy. So you begin to trust, and the first thing you see is an advertisement in a magazine that says: "Be Successful, Be Happy! Drive a Rolls Royce!" "Be happy." That was what you wanted, right? You're trusting. That was what you wanted too. So a Rolls Royce, that's the secret. Then you really lock it in. You define your lack of a Rolls Royce as unhappiness. You begin to create, "I really need a Rolls Royce! I need a Rolls Royce to be happy." You labor for a few years -- quite a few years -- all the time defining yourself as "unhappily lacking a Rolls Royce" and thinking, "When I get a Rolls Royce I'll be happy." Finally you have enough money to go to the Rolls Royce dealer. Again you practice your spiritual path -- you trust the salesman. You turn over your money, and you get into your Rolls Royce. It's a moment of bliss. "So this is what it means to be happy." You drive out of the showroom and immediately notice that there are other cars on the street that could really mess up your Rolls Royce. You want to protect it. What you need is a garage. If you had a garage, that would make you happy. Oh, and a guard to protect the garage. And maybe another guard to watch the first guard. Somehow you don't remember happiness taking this much work. Worry. What has happened to your happiness? You collect it, and then you protect it. Those go together -- collect, protect. When you're protecting, you're not happy. Maybe you took bad advice. Maybe you've been seeking happiness in the wrong direction. You know what will make you happy in the world? Nothing. Pursuing, possessing or protecting any "thing" to make you happy doesn't work. You're unhappy until you get it, and then after you get it you're unhappy when you think you might lose it. Are you sure you want to be happy? Are you sure you won't settle for being rich and famous? I know what you're thinking: "Well, if I'm going to be unhappy anyway..." No, no. Seek happiness first. Being rich might be bearable once you're happy, but if you're rich and still unhappy -- what unbearable suffering. Happiness requires that you restore inner peace. You can't be happy without inner peace. There's no joy without inner peace. If you have any kind of upset or any lack of inner peace, you can't be happy. Attachments eat away at your inner peace. Expectations disturb your inner peace. You expect something to happen, and it doesn't happen. You experience disappointment. You're disturbed, and you lose inner peace. You're swept away in the swirl of the world. Some people, instead of realizing they created the expectation that led to the disappointment, blame someone else for disturbing their inner peace. "You didn't do what I expected you to do. Shame on you." After enough suffering -- lifetimes, in most cases -- you finally decide, "Maybe I should look for happiness where I lost it." Light bulb! What a brilliant idea! Seek happiness where you lost it. So you start dropping the definitions: "I'm not a Corvette driver. I'm not a dog raiser." These are just definitions. "I'm not an American. I'm not a white male." These are definitions. "I don't need a Rolls Royce to be happy." No expectations. Nothing has to happen or not happen to make you happy. You get back to the viewpoint where you look at the world and it's OK. This is ReSurfacing. Little "I's" quest for happiness is really a longing to return to the viewpoint of divine "I." (Isn't it curious? Marketing and advertising work, because they appeal to an unrecognized spiritual longing.) This is pretty traditional spiritual path teaching. The inner circle teachings go another step beyond this. They say that if you have enough wisdom and skill to manage your desires and fears, you can participate in the world and make it better without becoming entrapped or unhappy. From The Avatar Journal, Vol. IX, Issue 1 -- Spring 1995