The Power of Decision: Chapter 1

Inspiring, Think about it — By Ryan on October 6, 2009 6:05 pm

So I’m starting a guided study of Raymond Charles Barker’s book titled ‘The Power of Decision
‘ and I thought I’d take notes on interesting points here to encourage anyone who feels the desire to comment and discuss.

Soundtrack for this Chapter:

• Deva Premal Love Is Space
• Deva Premal The Essence

Notes:

• Cause is without hesitation, it’s never disturbed and never defeated. It continues to act intelligently as law and order no matter what we do in our lives.

I’m not entirely sure what they mean by cause being intelligent here.  If they are referring to the karmic relation that all events have in the universe where everything is simply the result of a long string of causes then I’m fail to see how this is intelligent as apposed to simply the results of the law of reaction where every action creates a reaction.

• What is Intelligence?

I’m noticing right at the second page(this chapter may take a while) that there is the word Intelligence strewn throughout, Capitol I and then something like intelligent thought will be lower case.  So clearly there is some importance to this word Intelligence as it is being grammatically represented much like God or Allah would be in writting.  Barker is saying that we are ‘the result of an Infinite Mind action with purpose in ways of Intelligence to express Itself as Intelligence in a universe of Intelligence’.  Now what I see this is saying is that an Infinite Mind, or God in another sense, creates us with purpose by the means of an Infinite Knowledge.  The act of creating us is a way for it to validate it’s infinite knowledge in our material world, but then he says in a ‘universe of Intelligence’ with a capitol I which I’m taking to mean that the ‘universe’ is actually the Infinite Mind and vice versa, so this infinite mind is creating us with purpose, by means of its own infinite intelligence to validate it’s infinite intelligence in a universe which just so happens to be itself. –  I’m pretty sure when you look up ‘mind fuck’ in the dictionary that will be what comes up.

• ‘For months the Intelligence in the mother’s mind has been at work to bring the child into the world’

On the basis that Intelligence is a reference to the infinite mind that is the universe, the energy/life force that we all are or ‘God’, it seems to contradict the notion of infinite to say it took ‘months’ of our human based time to create something

• He refers to conscious and subconscious ‘Intelligence’.  Meaning that this Intelligence cannot be infinite for it to have two separate parts.  So we’re back to the drawing board about what this Intelligene is, but then he goes on to say ‘there is one God, one Mind, one Cause and one Intelligence and we individualize this’ which seems to be saying that these words God, Mind, Cause and Intelligence all mean the same thing.
• His next paragraph states that our Troubles result when an unintelligent factor is introduced into the field of intelligent activity, worry for examples, fear or hate(which is just a symptom of fear )

The way I understand this is just a difference in semantics but in essence the same as the teachings of Tolle or the Dalai Lama whereas we originate from a place of truth but our ego’s(that being our conditioning from past experiences or our anticipation of events not yet happened) will inject thoughts or emotions – which lead to actions – into this truth, clouding it and carrying it astray.

• He then goes onto say that the ‘Universal Mind’ or ‘God’ is impersonal and that it doesn’t know what it creates ‘but knows how to create it’ and remains undisturbed by our silliness.

I really don’t see the point in going on about this point unless Barker wants to just come out off the bat and remind people of the insiginificance of their actions in the eyes of something infinite(goes without saying) and to shed our illusions that a ‘God’ or any infinite being would care about the goings on of finite beings.  However if this ‘Universal Mind’ was truly infinite then that would mean we are all it anyways which he then actually states in the next paragraph with a sentence from the bible: ‘I and my father are one’

• ‘I am pure Intelligence, always acting intelligently’

There seems to be a contradictory message on page 4 as he states the above message numerous times but also says that fear, worry, anger etc are abnormal and unhealthy states and uses of the mind.  So on one hand we have the fact that I am always acting intelligently and am pure intelligence and on the other hand if I am in fear or have worry I am acting abnormally.  Now while I will believe along the lines of us being pure Intelligence I would disagree that we are always acting intelligently in the sense that he seems to mean it, or acting from a place of truth.  While I do feel that everything we do is perfect, 100% perfect, I don’t always agree that it is intelligence or from a place of truth.  While one’s actions may be untrue they may be of great value to guide that person closer to a place of truth, but to always be acting ‘intelligently’ as Barker uses the word I feel means to be enlightened and that is only the case for a handful of people on this planet.

• ‘God knows me as an intelligent vehicle of Its great ideas’  v.s. ‘The Universal Mind(god), being impersonal, not knowing what It creates yet knowing how to create it, remains undisturbed by the unintelligent creations of our thought…’

From page 3 to page 5 there is a  bold and blatant contradiction in statements, on one hand we have God being an infinite intelligence and being infinite there would be no way that our temporary silliness(egoic thought and actions) would be able to disturb it, Barker states this when he tells us that the Universal Mind ‘doesn’t know what it creates’.  2 pages later Barker gives us instructions on a ‘spiritual treatment’ where we tell ourselves that ‘God knows me’ which seems like a superfluous attempt to make ourselves feel nice and special, like we matter to this infinite Mind.  Barker is setting up two separate ideas of what the ‘infinite intelligence’ is and in my mind it shows the weakness of a teacher whose spirituality is based upon only one doctrine, that being the christian faith.  I believe Barker knows the truth or part of it however his lifetime of being surrounded and indoctrinated in a Christian culture and not properly exploring other avenues of spirituality lead to Christian biases and dogma creeping into his teachings even when they blatantly contradict(and therefor weaken) the message he is trying to teach.  I’m not criticizing the message of Barker here as I feel there is value and truth in it, I am however criticizing the teacher.

• ‘Never Judge yourself by what you’ve done, only by what you will do.  You are a potential of Mind and this Mind only knows the now‘

Perhaps my views are too influenced by Tolle but it is my thought that we should only judge ourselves by what we are doing, not by what we’ve done(which we can’t control anymore only lament on) and not by what we will do(something we also can’t control, only influence, and only anticipate).  Thoughts which he alludes to in the very next sentence, seemingly contradicting the previous sentence.

• ‘Make mental notes on your alibis and excuses for your mistakes.  These will reveal the patterns…’

The Buddhists call this mind training where you purposefully put a conscious spotlight on what normally would be subconscious reactions, actions or emotions that guide most people through their day to day.  Without questioning ‘why’ we are thinking what we are thinking, why we are doing what we are doing or why we are feeling what we are feeling we will perpetuate an unconscious existence like holding the leash of a 200 lbs St. Bernard being pulled to and fro.

• ‘Most people hug their problems to the bosoms’

When you have a problem you suddenly become more important in your egoic mind as problems attract attention from others, gain you sympathy and so on.  People will ‘hug their problems to their bosoms’ because of this feeling of importance that it brings as without it, in a life void of meaning it can falsely fill that void for a time

• ‘When you know the truth, you are set free from the untruth’ … ‘you do not place the blame on God’

Barkers definition of ‘God’ is something that is changing constantly and disturbingly throughout this first chapter.  God represents the ‘Infinite Mind’ on one hand, meaning it is not ‘one thing’ or a focal point for anything as we are all it and then on the other hand you see the monotheistic concept of ‘god’ creeping in throughout his writings(not helped by the many references to the bible and only the bible as the only source of outside spiritual text.)

• ‘The past was hallowed and made good when so little of it was really good’

He is speaking here of the teachings of Jesus and how their true meaning was lost as man took hold of these teachings and molded them to fit his own agenda, how times in the past were not good times at all but when history is written by those with an agenda all truth will be thrown out in favor of that which makes them look better(and therefor legitimizes their teachings)

• ‘There is no virtue in Self-Deprivation’

A statement mirrored by the Dalai Lama recently in a book of his I’m reading as well as by Tolle.  Our ego attaches importance to the act of self-deprivation for the purpose of self-deprivation(it’s one thing not to eat so that a hungry person can have food, it’s another not to eat because you think you are above food) and in a sense it can be almost as dangerous as over-indulging, the difference is that one is an unconscious act meant to fill a mental void with a physical indulgence where as the other creates a physical void in order to try to fill a mental one.

• ‘The infinite is forever in the process of self-discovery’

I would like to call attention to this statement as a contradiction however the nature of ‘infinity’ makes it more of a paradox than a contradiction.  If there is an infinite mind then this mind, as monotheistic religions have pressed upon us, is all-knowing.  However how can something, even with infinite knowledge know everything about something(itself) which is also infinite?  That would mean that there would be a point where there would be nothing more to know about itself, which invalidates its infinite nature, however by not knowing everything about itself it invalidates its infinite intelligence/knowing. hmmmmmmmmmmmm I say.  Although after that he goes on to say that we are that self-discovery which seems to be another play at making us feel more special than we might be, let alone bothering to explain how he knows this.

• ‘We seek too little within ourselves for right ideas and correct answers.  We accept the testimony of our five senses as being the reality of life’

I think we should also add a sixth sense to this list of things which pull us away from finding truth and that is our egoic emotions that sits on top of the truth, covering it up just enough so you think what you are feeling is truth. It begins subtly at first, pulling you in one direction and then more aggressively, away from your truth.  But the point being that the truth that matters on the path to happiness, fulfillment and ultimately enlightenment has nothing to do with those things and all of those 6 senses must be silenced before you can hear the lonely whisper of truth calling out.  Perhaps not simply hear it but also listen to it, as a part of me feels that we all hear the truth but rarely do we choose to listen to it.

• ‘Life has already given them to us through the unfinished business of the Infinite Mind’

The ‘them’ that Barker is referring to is new ideas and new motivations, I’m assuming coming back to the theory that we are but the continuous self-realization of the infinite mind, acting out this self-realization.  But the sentence of course begs the question of how could anything infinite have anything unfinished?

• ‘The decision to let go of that which is completed its course in your experience is even more important than the decision to welcome new ideas’ … ‘Decide right now on the ideas and situations that are no longer of benefit to you.  Make a list of them’

1. My fear that success will never come to me
2. My idea that money is part of a determining factor into my value as a human being

While I agree that there are debilitating ideas or perceptions of yourself that can be detrimental, and I agree that there may be present situations that could be detrimental(if what you are doing right now isn’t your truth then stop doing it) in the end I feel that past situations are all perfect.  Perfect in the sense that if it could have been any other way, it would have been and it wasn’t, it was exactly the way it was meant to be as those situations are the stepping stones to this moment right now, to the person you are right now and should be cherished and more importantly learnt from.

• On Page 16 he goes through a series of techniques for shedding debilitating beliefs.  It’s interesting as he seems to be combining NLP with Buddhist mind training.  On one hand he has us bring up a belief that we want to get rid of, declaring our desire to be free of it and attaching an emotional state to this desire.  After which he has us mentally create an image and emotional state of ourselves free of this belief, spending minutes in this state to anchor the feeling of that freedom, NLP style, to our desire to be free of it.  In the next paragraph he discusses the mental practice of being aware of our thoughts and vigilant when this old belief creeps in, everytime we feel it creeping in we shift our attention to the fact that it no longer exists in our world.   We are then instructed to go to sleep and ‘thank the god you believe in’(a pity if you don’t believe in a ‘god’ but I suppose that’s simply semantics interfering with the message) that the problem has disappeared and the next morning do re-affirm that this idea is gone and that you are thankful for it.

An interesting combination of two very successful and powerful tools used to initiate  change from within.

• ‘Your subconscious mind acts as a law of creation.  Why it does this no one knows’

What I find humorous here is him admitting ignorance to the mind acting as the law of creation, which to his credit isn’t something we can know or understand at this point in our technological or biological evolution(although I think we are very close).  So he’ll admit he doesn’t know something like that yet will claim certainty about these infinitely more vast and complex concepts detailing the workings of the infinite mind.  It seems of all of the things to claim ignorance of it would be how an infinite anything works or why it does what it does.  This inability to simply state this obvious fact, that we can’t know for certain if anything being stated in this book, weakens his position tremendously.  He takes on the role of an ancient priest, telling us with all certainty that the earth is flat, that we need to bleed people to heal them and that if you have sex before marriage then there is a special place full of sulfurous fumes awaiting you for all eternity.  Anytime anyone speaks with consistently absolute certainty about unrelatable abstract topics that, by their very nature, no one could ever be absolutely certain of I become leery of their message as this certainty can be just be their ego driving desire to be right.

I’ll take my turn to bring up a bible reference here with the idea that Jesus walked on water.  In my opinion this would refer to his beliefs never being solid and absolute about anything, but constantly shifting and evolving as his understanding evolved.  Staying open to the fact that we maybe be on a journey our entire lives to find the truth, a truth that takes no solid form but evolves with us.  Once we surrender our ego’s we realize we could be wrong about absolutely everything and it is only after throwing out all of our beliefs and all of our truths which we’ve identified with that we can begin a path towards any real truth, not clouded by our mental subconscious which Barker referenced at the beginning of this chapter.  As Jed McKenna states, you need to kill Buddha to find enlightenment.

• ‘Growing up we have known ourselves as the child, the teenager, the young adult.  We have been conditioned to think of ourselves as name, career, bank account and social position’

An interesting bit of insight from Barker that is very Tolle’esque, although Barker wrote these words decades before A New Earth was even dreamed of.  What we refer to now as ego, or the labels and past experiences that we cobble together to form a picture of who we are, as if we are no more than that collage of events and social identities.  While Barker later says that he agrees much of this is necessary just ‘not as necessary as we may think’.  A great piece of insight telling us that who we are has nothing to do with this material existence at all, although to exist in this material plain some of these things make life a lot easier.  I equate this to the analogy of our true selfs being a beautiful lawn and every year fall comes, covering this lawn with leaves, pine needles, and branches.  Underneath this debris still lies the lawn itself however after the leaves fall long enough most people begin to think of the layers of decaying debris as what they are and not the lawn that lies underneath, the lawn that no matter what lies on top of it will always be there.  What it takes is maintenance, hard work to clear that accumulation of debris, representing our years of experiences and social constructs, and continual maintenance to make sure that when the leaves fall they do not stay long.  There is nothing wrong with appreciating the falling leaves as they too can have wisdom and beauty in them, just as in real life when the hills turn orange and red, but left unattended on the ground they become decaying debris, covering up our true selves.

• ‘Old ideas have a tremendous hold in your subconscious mind’ … ‘they require no great mental effort to keep them activated’

Something that I feel people need to hear consistently in order to realize why the ideas that we hold dear are the ideas that we hold dear.  Not necessarily because they are true, and certainly because they are not truth, but because they are comfortable.  My belief is that there is an underlying awareness of the falsity of these ideas and I can equate this to an overweight person poisoning their bodies and watching TV for 10 hours a day.  In all of my experience watching and reading interviews I have never once seen or heard of such a person honestly being ignorant to the detrimental nature of this lifestyle.  They still do it but they all know in the part of their minds that they repress that it is wrong and unhealthy in every way.  I feel the same about false values and beliefs people carry around except they are much more surreptitious in their deceit.  With fast food and television we have study after study showing the negative effects and blasting it on the media non-stop, we also have mirrors to reflect the results of this lifestyle, the negative impact is obvious and constantly in your face.  With the mental/spiritual equivalent however there is much much less public awareness or interest.  There is relatively little to no government funded studies or scientific research being done into the effects of complacent spiritual and mental states and the long term effects so as far as the general public goes there is nothing wrong with ignoring that nagging feeling that what they belief structure isn’t as true as they are being told it is.  Consequentially ignoring that feeling int he back of your head is much easier to do, even to the point of writing it off completely and carrying on for an entire lifetime of ignorance and underlying unhappiness.

To top it off humans are creatures of comfort and adverse to change.  We have evolved a tenancy to avoid change as it represents potential unknown dangers and it is more likely that 1 million years ago the ancestors which played it safe were less likely to end up as food for a predator and consequentially were able to propagate their genes more proficiently further strengthening this tenancy for conservatism.   But it is time for some of us, and will eventually be time for many more to be able to see and appreciate this tenancy for what it is, an outdated behavioral pattern that ensured our success as a species(something we need to be incredibly grateful for) but one which doesn’t serve the same importance anymore, in fact it’s a pattern that becomes more detrimental than beneficial.  The same goes for jealousy, anger, and all other egoic emotions, but that is a whole book in itself

In conclusion:

So there we have it, chapter 1 completed.  It’s been a while since I’ve studied something,as apposed to just reading it, not used to 22 pages taking 4 hours to go through, but in the end I’d rather walk away with a deeper understanding than a brief memory of bits and pieces.  It’s obvious that my ego still has troubles getting past the very Western Religious slant that Barker puts on things, especially in the beginning.  I look forward to looking past my egoic problems with his continual references to Jesus and the Bible, two things which, in my mind, epitomize the process of corrupting something that at one time may have been wholly good to serve the purposes of corrupt and powerful men to the point that simple association with them risks welcoming this corruption into your own perception and should just be avoided all together.  I was having a conversation with my closet friend in this world last night about teaching and what state I would need to be at in order to feel comfortable taking on students.  The state I would need to be at was one where I had a familiarity and deep understanding of the teachings from a great deal of the worlds religious teachings.  Not because of the information contained in those teachings as I feel that truth lies within us if we are able to be open to it, regardless of how many books we read(although the books do help us get to a point where we are able to be open in this way).  The deeper understanding of all of these other teachings is necessary not for the subject matter they are teaching but for how they are teaching it.  The message is the same throughout all of them but the method is what differs.  Before I would attempt to teach and take the minds of others into my hands I feel pulling from many great teachers equally is necessary to avoid the biases or prejudices that can slip into one’s teachings based on a number of factors affecting their life.  Without this broad understanding of how many of the greatest spiritual minds in our history taught essentially the same message there is a risk of simply passing along these prejudices that aren’t even yours but were those of a man formed under completely irrelevant circumstances 100′s of years ago and make absolutely no sense.  Extreme examples would be the constant oppression of women, the irrational fear of homosexuality, even monogamy  The problem I have with Barker on the outset is that it appears the majority of his spiritual foundation is based up Christianity, and while his thoughts are vastly different and wonderfully empowering I am still wary of anyone teaching spirituality that makes no attempt to quote the Koran, Hindu Sanskrit, Buddhist Dharma or any other spiritual texts at all.

That all being said, my criticism aside there is a message that bears resemblance of that of Napoleon Hill without the monetary slant which can be very useful.  And it is clear that by relying so heavily on Christian dogma in his texts he harnesses great potential to bridge the gap for a western religious person, opening their eyes up to a more empowering truth, one that is buried in their teachings but heavily repressed by an organization that by its nature collapses when it’s followers become individually empowered.  For this I see great value and potential in Barker’s teachings to our western world as a whole and as someone who isn’t crossing that bridge, from a christian background to a more secular spirituality, it is a wonderful experience to become more aware of my ego and how it wants to cloud the truth of a message with the inherent distrust of organized religions.  It would be no different than Barker quoting Marry Poppings or the Wizard of Oz, if there is truth in what he is quoting then the fictitious nature of the stories or materials shouldn’t matter.

Either way I’m looking forward to the next chapter and discussing this tonigth.

Tags: book, discussion, notes, positive living center, power of decision, raymond charles barker, study