The Power of Decision: Chapter 2

Think about it — By Ryan on October 13, 2009 9:49 pm

And I mentioned in the post on the first chapter of the book I’m doing a guided study in a Science of Mind class.  I’ve certainly learned much from the first chapter, mainly in the area of gaining awareness of my own ego which had a hard time seeing past the Christian bias of the author.  So I’m excited to go through this second chapter, hopefully gain more awareness and be able to push my anti-christian bias to the side in order to better digest Barker’s message.  Hopefully this post will contain less criticism on Barker’s apparent fractured and contradictory points and more thought provoking concepts related to his ideas.   There’s also homework that I need to be doing that I’ve been putting off for some reason or another which ends today.

Soundtrack for this Chapter:

• Deva Premal:Embrace
• Battlestar Galactica: Season 4 OST

Chapter 2: Indecision

• ‘It takes as much hard mental work to fail as it does to succeed’ … ‘it is the result of consistent negative patterns in the subconscious mind.  Worry always begets indecision’

Something both Tony Robbins and I would agree with, although I am not sure how much ‘hard’ mental work failure takes.  Usually the ‘consistent negative patterns’ are consistent because they are in the persons comfort zone, they are what they’ve done for a long period of time, and most importantly they are without a doubt subconscious.  Sure someone may be ‘conscious’ of the fact that they are doing these things but they aren’t conscious of why they are doing it.  I would say that is because developing consciousness of your subconscious behavior is what represents the hardest work for many people and for many reasons.  Simply taking the first step towards consciousness requires not only that one admits there is something wrong with their behavior, even more complicated they have to admit there is something wrong even though they have no idea what that is, but also that you have to have a full understanding of why this behavior is taking place before you can attempt to unravel it.   I am not referring to someone saying ‘I am fat’ as being an admittance that something is wrong, as being fat is not the problem at all, no more than a manic depressive looking at their sliced wrists and declaring their bloodloss as their problem.   Now. bleeding out certainly is A problem but that is just the results of their arm being cut, which in itself seems to be the real problem, but that is only the results of them taking a blade to it, which again seems like the real problem but that again is only the results of a mental imbalance which set those events into motion in the first place.  But I digress to explain a point, that being that finding the truth behind our ‘consistent negative patterns’ involves much more work than simply and unconsciously carrying them out as the status quo.  It involves ‘unraveling the thread’ as I like to call it, where you systematically find the threads that don’t belong in the tapestry of your being and slowly pull them out by understanding what they are now and where they come from.  Sometimes this involves tracing a thread back a few years to an event that was a strong egoic impact in your life and sometimes it involves tracing this thread back through millions of years of evolution to find out what purpose it may have served our ancient ancestors in the propagation of their genes(jealous for example).  Either way it involves the same concept that Jed McKenna employs to find enlightenment, simply trace back the thread with a line of questions until you absolutely cannot go any further, arriving at a point of understanding where you grasp the entire length of the thread instead of simply holding onto the end of it and shaking it in the air with frustration.

• ‘Every important event in your life has taken place because of a decision made by you or by someone else’

I like that Barker is re-iterating this comments in the first chapter and putting the onus squarely on the individual for the events in their life.  This is a two pronged strategy as it firstly makes them realize the weight of their decisions, the fact that all failures rest on their shoulders and no one elses(it’s always easy to maintain a consistent negative pattern if you think it’s someone else’s fault).  What it also does it make you realize that if all of the events in ones life are the result of them and only them, than they have as much power to succeed as they do to fail and that they are capable of anything they choose.

• ‘The inability to accept the responsibility of running your own mind may well be the major sin of life.  It is a pattern that can be broken’ … ‘ Not easily…’

Ah I’ll try to do this less but I have to call out Barkers inconsistencies again here and a few pages ago he said it takes as much mental work to fail as it does to succeed and then saying that breaking the pattern in life that causes failure isn’t easy.  Hmm, perhaps what he meant previously is that it takes as much effort to fail as it does to succeed after you’ve broken these debilitating patterns that are causing your failure.  I’ll put money that that will be what people will agree with but agreeing with it, just as writing it ‘based on that’ is just a cop-out I feel from bringing to light the inconsistency of the teacher using inductive reasoning to highlight a confirmation bias.  But alas I digress, I think I’m just wanting to hear myself talk now so I’ll stop

• ‘Leaning on the consciousness of others, you are not being what you can be’ … ‘the first results may not be very inspiring but at least now you’re cooking’

A nice piece of truth from Barker that doesn’t paint such a nice feel good rosy picture of the path towards awakening.  The last quote there is the tail end of him saying that you can eat out all you want but your not a cook until you get your ass into the kitchen and start using the equipment.  In rare, non-western fashion he deviates away from making you feel like the road ahead is going to be beautiful and paved in gold, although in a nice cuddly kind of way.  It isn’t something disclosed that often at all, with the exception of McKenna, that once you set out on the road to a deeper understanding of self you are starting a journey of pain and suffering with small gains peppered throughout.  Such a path involves ripping down everything you think, feel and do and looking at it closely and objectively.  If you live in an industrialized nation the results of this are not pretty and if you are truly truthful you won’t be left with much of your previous life when you are done because there isn’t much about our current lives that are worth keeping – if we seek an awakened existence of course, something that isn’t true for many right now.

• ‘The originating mind of the cosmos knows what It is doing’ …. ‘it asks no questions, it leans on no one, it proceeds in it’s … ‘

My largest problem with all the teachings of this center that is doing this guided study is the fact that they’ve simply replaced the traditional monotheistic ‘God’ with another word, or words but the line of thinking is exactly the same.  There is something which is all powerful and all knowing that created us and we need to express our gratitude(which is just another word for worship) or this singular thing.   And all of the good intentions in the world for their message now means nothing when that message is twisted 100 years from now or 500 years from now after they’ve gathered a large following and then this ‘dependence’ on a singular god is used as a method of control.  Because I imagine in the beginning this is how many religions start, with that nice peaceful good concept of this loving god that doesn’t judge.  So the wording of Barker here disturbs me based on that.  Instead of stating the painfully obvious like ‘it asks no questions’(what question would an all-knowing being ever ask?) and having the statements be based around one central figure it would be better stated in a more vague or abstract way such as ‘there is no hesitation in nature or the universe, there are no questions asked etc etc.  I suppose it’s Barkers claim to know anything at all about the inner workings of these abstract concepts that give me pause, perhaps our idea or concept of infinite is not really what infinite is.  Perhaps there are 5 infinite beings running the known universe, perhaps they do lean on each other for support, maybe they stop time to decide if this start should explode or not, who knows?  We sure as hell don’t.  And finally of course with Barker’s hold on the idea that an infinite being can ‘proceed’ with anything is reaching back to his fractured idea of what infinite really means.  Because something infinite surely wouldn’t be limited by the linearity of the 4th dimension.

• ‘You may call a hurricane disorder, but the meteorologists know it as order’

I got all riled up about that last point that I had to reread the next paragraph twice to make sure my ego wasn’t going to get in the way of me digesting it.   A wonderful point by Barker that, if his spiritual foundation was anything but Christian, he could see holds roots in karmic thinking found in the Dharma.  The fact that everything in the known universe is founded in causal thinking.  It is all just a matter of material cause and effect in the material world and karmic causality in the conscious world.  While perhaps the intricacies of Buddhist philosophies dealing with karma are their own there is some rational logic into much of the simpler principals

• ‘All false speculation of defeat must be ruled out of your consciousness’

A powerful statement, much easier said than done.  If we make a decision and go after something but there is doubt in our mind of our success then our chances for meeting with failure go up exponentially, it is only when we can cognitively eliminate this doubt that we are truly able to accomplish anything we desire.  I do hope that Barker will go into much more detail about how people can accomplish this.

• ‘God in your subconscious as your subconscious , is the power and mind that accomplishes your desire’

An interesting point, minus all of the god crap.  This and the text around this are saying that once we can clear our ego’s out of the way and follow, as well as surrender to, a path of truth that we can accomplish anything we desire.  That we need to become more of an observer of the creative process unfolding, something which comes from surrender.  These ideas are the basis for entire books and belief systems and again I do hope that Barker goes into minute detail of exercises or mind training that one must maintain in order to achieve this kind of clarity because without that they are all just pretty words.

• ‘No power anywhere sits in judgment of you.  The universe is unconcerned with your mistakes’

A fairly anti-monotheistic religious statement which can empower if you let it.. Realizing to make decisions because of truth and because of the now instead of some false sense that you are being watched.  The only person watching you is yourself, assuming you are living a conscious life.  I am hopeful that what Barker is doing is hooking the western religious audience in with his Biblical quotes and feel good sentiment that somehow some God cares about them and then slowly weaning them off this dependence on a central god like figure for their sense of importance or worth in the universe.  The statement that ‘The universe is unconcerned with your mistakes’ is only half of the follow up to the previous statement of ‘No power anywhere sits in judgment of you’.  The other half of course is ‘The universe is unconcerned with your triumphs’ or you can simply state the obvious, cut out the object of the sentence and simply state that ‘the universe is unconcerned with you’ .   This is the one thing religious people in general can’t hear as their strength comes from the fact that: they’re not alone, they are part of something much larger than themselves, if they do good they will get a cookie at the end of the day, God loves them.  So we will see if Barker begins to wean the christians off of their need for external validation by imbuing them with the sense that all the strength they need is already within, more importantly it is a strength that cannot be taken away and one that they can actually feel instead of being told they are feeling it

• ‘Unconditioned by time or space, the cosmos continues its successful action’

I’ve let go of any negativity pertaining to Barkers consistent contradictions to the point that I honestly don’t know if he considers the meaning of some of what he writes.. But I’m still going to point some out from time to time to simply laugh at their comedy.  How can something which is ‘unconditioned by time’ continue anything?  To continue something denotes adhering to the rules of linear time, which would invalidate Barkers statement a whole 5 words prior.

• ‘Individuality necessitates responsibility’

A beautiful statement that demonstrates why achieving your individual truth and greatness will be an uncomfortable and hard journey, especially for someone over 30 in our western society.  It would seem for those of us born in the last 20-30 years that the notion of ‘responsibility’ became a source of fear and negativity.  Consequently it would seem, at least for a large portion of society, that responsibility was something to be avoided at all costs.  To break this pattern and take on the responsibility not only for our large obvious actions(to steal or not to steal) but also for our minute actions, our thoughts and our emotions, becomes something that most people in this generation shirk from.   He goes on to describe this and the way that most people will avoid this introspection by externalizing all of their problems and unconscious behavior.  Spending their lives blaming others for their situation which is much easier and more comfortable than having to look within and realize the responsibility for all of your life lies solely with you.

He interestingly discusses modernized platonic concepts by saying that things proceed from our consciousness to appear on the screen of life and then saying how that screen of life is ‘as impersonal as a movie’.  One step away from saying the actual truth that the screen of life is as meaningless as a movie and that in our unconscious state we are all actors who’ve forgotten that we are actually in a film, playing out our part, reading our lines as we are supposed to.

• ‘ “Why did this happen to me” is usually unanswerable.  ”Why did I cause this to happen” usually leads to an understanding of the cause of the problem’

That slight change in wording represents an immense change in what it means to the individual and through the honest answering of this question(something much harder than asking it) will always lead to the cause of the problem, it just may take longer and more questions with somethings than others  It’s exactly this objective and brutally honest line of questioning that is the hardest for most people to undertake, but in the minds of many it is also the straightest line to becoming conscious.  It’s exactly the kind of thing that the ego will fight tooth and nail as it results in stripping away nearly all of your preconceived assumptions and putting the responsibility for your life squarely on your shoulders, a burden too heavy for many.

• ‘Such men and women are a joy to God’

A joy to a centralized and idolized being who Barker has stated more than once is completely indifferent to you.  His warm, fuzzy feel good about yourself shtick comes back to contradict.. Again…

• Original Ideas

Talking about true original ideas being immaculately conceived which I do and don’t agree with.  I think the original ideas are still going to be influenced by a persons background, for example Einstein isn’t going to come up with an original recipe for BBQ ribs or the great screenplay of his day.  He is a genius but still his original ideas had something to do with the life that he was living so it points towards the fact your situation in life, or at the very least your psychological inclinations are going to play a major role in exactly what these original ideas are.  You do have the Good Will Hunting scenarios that crop up sure, those things happen but for the vast majority of these original ideas an artist’s will no doubt be artistic and a mathematicians will no doubt be more logical.

He then goes on to talk about the effects of social pressure on original ideas.  How society will tell us to ‘sit back and wait’ and not to rush into anything.  That many great experiences are lost by this pressure for trepidation which is oh so true.  It’s always tomorrow that we get around to doing what we want to do, because something new and something original represents change and human beings are hard wired to fear change at a very primal level.  Change represents the unknown and the unknown could possibly represent death.  So those ancients with a more conservative nature were no doubt the ones that stayed alive the longest and had more babies, further propagating this tenancy.

Barker beings to describe the Tolle’esque ego when outlining the dangers of ‘mental adulteration’ as he puts it.  That original ideas exist as purely potential to be embraced and exploited in the now but then our brains get busy ruining this potential in our minds by putting it in a framework of past and future, from this of course stems hesitation and doubt.  We stop living in this moment and begin to relive a failure of the past or a concern about a possible failure in the future.  The idea looses it’s sparkle and we fall back into our patterns of mediocrity once again instead of reaching for greatness

• ‘The more you can envision yourself as a spiritual creation, the designed projection of the Infinite Mind…’

Bringing intelligent design into his writings? Now that begins to make me more uncomfortable than anything else.  You can see how fine a line Barker is walking between his traditional christian upbringing and this new truth I imagine he felt inside of himself.  It’s almost like he’s torn back and forth from one camp to another.  As I stated before the huge danger with walking this incredibly thin line, or teaching is as a center is that one day some teacher somewhere is going to fall off and then you just have another western religion springing up with a new name for God but the same old game for control being played on their followers.  My defensive ego flared up again from this and I was hardly able to digest the rest of the chapter.  As I mentioned before if anything this book and this course is a lesson in understanding my ego more than the actual contents of the book, which I welcome and embrace as understanding ego and gaining consciousness opens up all that Barker is talking about here.

After class I feel I am one step closer to knowing my ego.  Realizing that I am concentrating more on the semantical problems in his writings instead of finding fundamental problems with his points, or pluses for that matter. I look forward to another week of lessening the hold that my ego has on me!

Blue Sky List: Week 2

Because I wasn’t given the homework on the first week I’m starting my BlueSky list a week late. Actually it’s a week and a half late as I’m starting this weeks one late as well, now why would I have put that off I wonder. Hmmmmmm.  Anyways this list is a list of everything I want, absolutely no judgements, it doesn’t have to make sense or even be possible.  Just a list of absolutely everything I desire so here it goes:

1. The ability to consistently maintain moments of inner peace and clarity.  In essence to completely shut off my inner voice, all emotions and physical sensations that are presently impeding my ability to do this.
2. $2 Million dollars for the production and roll out of Planet SARF.  A rollout which leads to a wild success of this product which connects to millions of children, brings huge awareness to the endangered resources on this planet and enables us to first hand contribute to reforesting and protecting the rainforest first in the Yucatan and then elsewhere
3. To live in Space for part of the year
4. To be in a different country at least every 6 months
5. To sit in the Presence of the Dalai Lama and Eckart Tolle
6. To be filled with absolute gratitude for every moment of every day of the rest of my life, the result of every moment coming from a place of absolute truth, a truth I don’t question but surrender to completely
7. To deepen my relationship with Badu
8. To oversee our Game Studios in Montreal, working on successive iterations of SARF, The Paradise Lost Trilogy and eventual films.  Creating products that push change forward in the minds of their audience.  Employing my amazing team of artists and working with the best talent in the industry as they realize the creativity that flows effortlessly out of me.
9. To be able to repay everyone who has helped me achieve my dreams by helping them achieve theirs.
10. To deepend my understanding of and lessen the unconscious hold of my ego
11. To finish my book on Remote Team management, my book on achieving a life of truth and the Paradise Lost Screenplay.
12. To devote a large portion of my life to helping others
13. Reach the pinacle of physical fitness

The Treasure Map:

The other thing that we are doing is creating a ‘treasure map’.  This is something which, pictorially, represents the goals we are forming.  They have asked for this to be in a notebook but I am certainly going to break the mold that way and doing it all through wordpress.  Easier, more efficient and certainly less wasteful.   Plus I’m not about to take pictures of this notebook and paste it up in here, too many great gallery plugins for wordpress that allow for this

[nggallery id=1]

Tags: barker, power of decision chapter 2, science of mind