Archives for category: Positive Evolution
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Our Role in the Future Evolution of Life

June 23, 2010 //
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evolutions arrow our future is upward

Today we briefly look at John Stewart’s “Evolutionary Manifesto”…..no, it’s not a comedy routine by the Jon Stewart on Comedy Central….it is a blueprint for  change offerred by the other John Stewart, author of “Evolution’s Arrow”.

I wrote about John and referenced his book in my article published a few weeks ago in the Integral Leadership Review.  I have been pleased by the positive responses I have received from a number of people on that piece. 

If you read the article, then you might recall that I was encouraging us to be aware of our personal and organizational visions that drive our future oriented actions and then to move into seeing how those visions (and our resulting actions) might support our collective global vision.  Of course, we don’t have a consensus on a collective global vision, but in the article I pulled from a number of sources to offer a potential vision for humanity and a call for us to move towards it.

I want to thank one person who wrote and reminded me that John Stewart (who I had cited in my article) had come to the same conclusion on what we needed and had created his Evolutionary Manifesto.  This statement, which I had read a year or two ago, is his call for humanity to move into being aware of the evolutionary process and to consciously use it.  He offers suggestions for how humanity can move forward and how this direction can provide  meaning to our lives.

To move forward, Stewart calls for us to transcend our past….meaning the hardwiring of biology and to use the power of our consciousness via our intentions to move into the levels of cooperation needed to overcome our individual selfish needs.  As he points out, evolution up to this point has used the competition created by an external force to move us into internal cooperation.  Cells banded together into larger and larger organisms seeing that internal group cooperation had an evolutionary advantage.  Humans banded together in tribes and cooperated to fend off the threat of other tribes, again offering an evolutionary survival advantage.  The groups with whom humans have cooperated have grown in size to countries or large multi-national corporations due to the competition with even larger external “others”. 

Stewart points out that to make the leap to cooperate with the entire family of humanity on planet Earth, we cannot rely on an external “other” threat (barring invasion by aliens).  We are moving to a point where the only force we can use to overcome our selfish needs is an awareness of both the evolutionary process and our advantages in cooperation even without an external threat.  Of course, we could consider that the forces of the Earth as they react to the mistakes of humanity (global warming, oil spills, over population, etc.) may give us the competitive motivation to move into cooperation.  Some argue that the opposite effect might occur, reversing us into smaller groups as we break into greater competition to fight for limited resources.

Yet, Stewart is an optimist in my opinion.  At the least, he is offering to us a new way of looking at life and evolution and how we can take control of it for our positive future, a topic quite familiar to readers of this blog.  Afterall, ”the Bridge” and its articles are all designed to get you thinking and acting in a manner that is in alignment with the highest possible future for humanity and the planet…to consciously using the power of our thoughts to bridge us to our highest future.

Stewart is pointing us there as well….check out his web site:  Evolutionary Manifesto

Let me know what you think.  Can we move to a place of planetwide cooperation?  What will move us there?

Mark Gilbert

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Categories Consciousness, Featured Article, Positive Evolution

Why Be Normal?

June 21, 2010 //
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Here is something to ponder…. “It’s only normal to be abnormal….if you were completely normal, you would be abnormal.”  You can quote me on that.

If there is one thing that most of us learned as kids, it’s to try to fit in as much as possible.  We want to be liked.  We want others to view us positively.  So we learned it was to our benefit try not to stand out too much.  The odder we were, the more likely we were to be a social outcast.  No one wanted that.

Yet there were those free spirits who moved to the beat of a different drummer.  They did what they wanted and seemed to hold little concern that they did not “fit in”.  Sometimes secretly I believe they were concerned, but secretly I envied their seeming lack of concern.  I certainly wanted to go through life not worrying about the opinions of others.  But like most people, I did worry.

Most of us took this learning from our childhood straight into adulthood.  As we make decisions for our lives… what career path to follow… who we married… how many kids we had… where we lived… what clothes we wore… what hobbies we pursued… and on and on… so many of us weighed what we thought “others would think” as we made our decision.  There was this imaginary standard of “normalcy” that we applied in our decision-making.

The irony, of course, is that frequently there is no standard of normalcy nor anyone caring what we choose.  Generally, it’s all in our head.  The other irony is that there is a push coming from within to be our own unique self.  Our greatest growth comes from listening to that inner desire and acting upon it.  Hence, we are all abnormal in our own way.  It’s only normal for us to pursue our inner calling and our own sense of abnormality.  Failure to listen to our inner drive out of fear of what others would think, forcing ourselves to some imaginary sense of normalcy, would be abnormal as far as our soul is concerned.

Where is your inner calling?  What is your special gift waiting to be given to the world?  Let go of any fears of judgment that you would be abnormal.  Give your gifts to the world, no matter how abnormal they appear… it’s only normal.

Mark

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Categories Consciousness, Featured Article, Positive Evolution

Walking the Material Path, Walking the Spiritual Path

June 18, 2010 //
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Why are we here?  What is the meaning of life?  What is consciousness? 

These are the questions that have been behind so much of my spiritual seeking for all of my life. I remember as a child, laying out in the grass behind my house and looking up at the sky and wondering about life. I would look at the sun and clouds and wonder where they came from? Who made the air who made the grass and clover in which I’m laying? Who is this God guy people keep talking about? Is there really some old man up in the sky who made all of this? And why is life like it is with my house and my parents and school and all the things that surround me? All of these questions would finally lead me to the big question…why is it that I have this internal awareness that even allows me to wonder about these things? Who am I really? 

As I grew up and explored various churches… such as the one my parents went to and the ones of the various faiths of the girls I dated… I discovered that none of these religions truly resonated with me. Yet, I continued to wonder about the meaning of life. I finally decided that I would have to learn about the meaning on my own. That’s not to say that there wasn’t truth and wisdom out there for the discovery, I just knew that I wasn’t going to find all of my answers in organized religion. 

When I went to college, I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. I found the subjects that I studied interesting but not always fulfilling. Eventually I was asked to declare a major and I decided that psychology was the only subject that came close to questions I was asking. Although I dipped my toe into philosophy, I found that much of what I read was over my head. Perhaps it might answer the big questions, but I certainly wasn’t ready for how it approached them. Besides, there was a unspoken pressure to declare a major that had some degree of practicality. It was already a bit of a stretch to declare psychology is a major in that regards…..no way I was going to say “philosophy”. 

I found that as I studied psychology, there were areas where I really found answers. For example, the work of Abraham Maslow, and specifically his “Hierarchy of Needs” gave me some answers as to be reasons for my motivations. And, although the university I attended was steeped in behavioralism at that time… I even worked for a professor running rats in experiments… they did offer in my senior year at class which delved into the subject of consciousness. We reviewed a book by Robert Ornstein called “The Psychology of Consciousness” which intermingled the results of brain studies and Sufi stories to offer answers regarding this consciousness that I have long wondered about. 

After I graduated with my bachelors degree, I thought about going on into graduate school in psychology. However the blessing of marriage and children turned my focus and attention into the outward world. Much of my life could easily be tracked in Maslow’s hierarchy. I worked long hours and moved up the organizational ladder in order to meet the safety and security needs of my family, my own relationship and self-esteem needs, and occasionally (on my own) would see glimpses towards self-actualization. 

In the outer world, life served me greatly. One thing that was silently instilled in me as a youth was the need to provide for my family. Therefore, when I married early and had five children, by the time I was 25. This instilled drive to be a provider drove me to succeed in the business world. I worked long and hard and learned. I moved up the ladder within the federal government. I learned how to get work done, and how to work with people. For much of my career I worked in management and leadership positions. The success that I received in my long career with the government also served to feed many of my internal needs. Another belief that had been instilled in me was that outward material success validated my existence and success as a human. I didn’t understand this for many years and only came to understand that I held this belief later in life. 

Outwardly, I was also concerned with my children having the best possible life they could have as they grew up. I’m talking not only about material success and having “things”, but also about having the right experiences that instilled in them the right morals, and the right worldview. I have been very pleased to see the adults that these children have grown into.

 My point in mentioning all of this is to acknowledge that I had this outer life that was very important to me and grew me while I meanwhile continued to ask those inner questions about life and consciousness. That external life has served me to be the person I am today. But along the way, small things continued to crop up that drove me to look at the big questions. Sometimes they were obvious and consciously intentional, other times more hidden from my awareness but real none the less. 

One of those factors was to uproot my family while the children were still a very young age and move them across the country. My wife and I gave logical stories about the move… such as wanting to raise the children in a more enlightened area or the greater chance of career success in the new town… but also underneath all of this was our own internal desire to live somewhere else, where we might grow deeper in our own truth and wisdom. 

Throughout my life, I continued to explore religion, science, philosophy, and other paths, but I discovered looking for the answers to life. Along the way, coincidences continued to put me in the position to have experiences that ensured I pursued these bigger questions. Answers would be put before me, coming like clues in a Dan Brown novel. Now I can look back and see that something inside me was conspiring to bring these experiences into my awareness. 

Eventually I discovered a philosophy called the science of mind and spirit created by Ernest Holmes. I found it answered more questions for me than anything I discovered up to that point. I delved into the teachings, eventually became a spiritual counselor, and later took their masters program that led me into becoming a Science of Mind minister. Some days I look at this path with great irony that the child who ran from religion became a minister in later life. 

Along the way my life certainly changed… the end of my first marriage … my children growing into happy and successful adults with grandchildren arriving… a wonderful new marital relationship……a retirement from the government and moving more deeply onto my path of being a spiritual teacher…

Do why do I mention all of this?  Some days I grapple with the issue of how can I truly be a spiritual teacher, when I’ve walked this other more material life for so many years? I wasn’t some long time spiritual teacher with tons of experience teaching “spiritual classes”.  But as I’ve come to discover my path was perfect. It gave me the experiences to teach from an awareness that will resonate with others who walked a similar path. And, I have discovered that many people are now coming into the spiritual path having walked a very similar material life. 

I have discovered that there are many paths and many teachers who have been pointing in the same direction from different vantage points as Ernest Holmes and the Science of Mind. Although this should not be a surprise, as Holmes created this philosophy by drawing on the great truths from all the other paths, it’s one thing to know that intellectually, and another to feel it through the experience of learning. 

So coming full circle now… why are we here? What is the meaning of life? What is consciousness?  These are some of the questions that drive our spiritual evolution.  The motivation to understand is the push that forces us to grow….we may walk the material path, but at some point something ensures we stay on the spiritual path.

Mark

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Categories Consciousness, Featured Article, Positive Evolution, Spirituality

Compassion and Empathy-More Resources for the Journey

June 16, 2010 //
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Compassion and EmpathyAs mentioned last week, an integral piece of the evolutionary journey is our personal expansion of the groups for whom we have compassion and empathy followed by our desire to be an agent for positive change.  Today we look at a number of resources which may be helpful to you in meeting that end.

Charter for Compassion –  Follow the link and read the charter calling for more compassion in the world through our personal efforts and our institutions such as religions and others. Sign the petition. Share it with others.  Read the stories of compassionate action posted by hundreds of people…add your own.

Compassionate Action Network –  Follow the link and read about an organization whose stated mission is “to build a global network for self-organizing groups to connect, collaborate, and take action to awaken compassion in our children, ourselves, and our world.”  Join a local group or start one.  Use the online resources to grow a community in compassion. Social media tools for the compassion builder.

Season for Nonviolence — Resources for the growing movement for peace and nonviolence as a way of life sponsored by the Association for Global New Thought.  Get involved with or help start a local task force.

Center for Nonviolent Communication — Building on the techniques of author and teacher Marshall Rosenberg, this group is in over 65 countries around the world.  They offer training sessions and support in using methods of conflict resolution that lead to truly listening to each other and acting from a sense of dignity and respect for one another.

Compassion and the Individual –  A wonderful article by the Dalai Lama on the power and importance of cultivating compassion in your life. Read it and be inspired.

I will close this list off with a quote from the Dalai Lama in the article just cited: “I believe that at every level of society – familial, tribal, national and international – the key to a happier and more successful world is the growth of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities.”

Mark Gilbert

ps. I would love to hear about any resources you know of that were not listed here that you have found useful in cultivating compassion and empathy.  Post or email me please.

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Categories Bridge Building, Culture, Featured Article, Politics, Positive Evolution

Moving from Rudeness to Kindness

June 14, 2010 //
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Have you been wondering about the level of rudeness in America and what can be done about it? I know I have. 

Lately I have written and spoken about my concerns with TV news programs that don’t so much have a reasoned discussion around an important issue but rather set up a contentious argument between two people who hold positions on the far extremes of the topic. It seems that rather than want to enlighten us on the nuances of the topic at hand, they would rather entertain us with a heated argument. Of course, behind the debate is the question as to why we choose to watch such nonsense. I know that I turn it off but a lot of folks must be tuning in. 

The September 27, 2009, issue of the Christian Science Monitor had an interesting article entitled “America the Boorish?” that looked at the string of high profile incidents of rudeness….one congressman’s yelling out at the President during his speech, a tennis player screaming at a US Open line judge, and a musician who hopped up and interrupted an MTV award winner to grab the microphone to extol the virtues of a “non-winner”. The Monitor pondered if we were entering into some “new age of incivility”. Sometimes it sure seems that way.  Since that article appeared, I would be hard pressed to say that things have gotten better.  We can probably all add our own personal experiences of rudeness… Yet, I know things can improve….

I know that what we focus on grows, that “what we resists, persists”. However, I also know that we need to experience what we don’t truly want sometimes so that we can choose to turn our energy to what we do want.  There is our key for improving the epidemic of rudeness…we turn our attention and focus on kindness….we see now that an epidemic of kindness is breaking out.

So as I look at these things that I believe are not representative of the highest possibilities of us as a people, I now turn to and desire to focus my energy on what I believe is our best direction. And what is that? My list of what I value at the moment looks like this…..

I value treating everyone else with kindness even if it means letting go of “being right”.

I value news programs that recognize that most issues are complex and we need to understand those complexities so we can make our own informed decisions.

I value commentators and programs that strive to present all aspects of a topic in a manner that ensures the dignity and humanity of those presenting their opinions.

I value politicians that seek to ensure respect for all humanity first and foremost, even above their own opinions.

I value athletes who place the dignity of the game, sportsmanship and care and concern for everyone playing above their own winning.

I value entertainers who celebrate the success and positive creative expression of all other entertainers.

I value the vast diversity of life that shows up the wide array of political opinions and the multiplicity of creative expressions.

I value anything that “expresses more Life and harms no one.”

I’m sure we could all add to this list. The question is….after you turn from the boorish behavior that has given us the gift of seeing what we don’t want, what do you want? What do you value? Give it your energy.

 Blessings, 

Mark

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Categories Featured Article, Positive Evolution, Spirituality

Expanding Our Compassion and Empathy

June 9, 2010 //
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Evolution leads to expanding compassion and empathyAn essential ingredient to the positive evolution of humanity is that we each work to extend our circle of care and concern for others to include the entire world.   Our evolutionary path points towards an expansion of our empathy or compassion towards others.  Plainly stated, it is important for each of us to learn to love everyone and everything, no matter what.  (How you comin’ with that?)

I have written a number of times here on “the bridge” about that topic.  For those of you who took the time to read my recent article in Integral Leadership Review , you will know that two of the characteristics that appear to be a part of our highest possible future are to “ live recognizing the interconnectedness of everything” and to work to “meet our individual needs while meeting the needs of the greater whole”.  A  natural by-product when we can truly ”feel” that all is part of a One is a desire to ensure that all aspects of the One are supported.

Evolving to this place starts with each of us individually being aware of the Oneness, moving to a state of embodying that awareness (feeling it deeply), and then acting with higher levels of love, compassion and empathy towards more and more “others”.  As we grow to that point in our consciousness, we also seek to be an agent to assist others in moving to that place. Today, and off and on over the next few weeks, I want to offer some resources that can be useful in moving us personnally towards that shift in our consciousness and then as tools for you to use as you seek to be a change agent for good. 

First, a wonderful and fast paced video based upon the work of Jeremy Rifkin and his recent book “The Empathatic Civilization”.  In it, he investigates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our development and our society.  It’s about 10 minutes long, but it is worth the time…..watch it, pause it if necessary, but think about what it is saying.  The concepts it discusses are a key to the next steps in humanity’s evolution.

Watch it and let me know what you think:  LINK TO VIDEO

Mark Gilbert

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Categories Bridge Building, Featured Article, Positive Evolution, Spirituality

Analyzing Complex Issues in a 140 Character World

June 4, 2010 //
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Blog, twitter, facebook, analysis paralysis with dataMuch of modern life seems to be about balancing opposing forces.  The issues we face are more complex than ever, each having many detailed facets we need to consider.  Yet the fire hose flow of information that comes at us 24/7 challenges our coping mechanisms such that we beg for quick sound bites.

Blogging and Twitter

Ever since I started writing “the Bridge”, I’ve been reading books on blogging.  They consistently tell me to keep my posts short.  I consistently fail to follow that advice.  Those who know me well are not surprised.

Although most articles could be edited to be more succinct, I find it hard to shorten the content without losing the nuances of the point.  Yes, I’m sure for most posts I could give you a 140 character summary, but the path to the point is usually essential for understanding.

I’ve gotten into Twitter lately.  It’s an interesting phenomenon.  Share whatever in 140 characters.  It has certainly led to some creativity — cutting out words, increasing abbreviations and new programs to automatically shorten Internet links.  Twitter certainly has appeal for our short little spans of attention.  Yet it has exponentially increased that fire hose pointed at me and challenged many of us to say anything meaningful in such a short burst.

I see three kinds of comments most often on Twitter — brief descriptions of what one is doing or thinking, lots of quotes, and an enticing blurb followed by a tiny URL “hooks”  to take you to another site.  These last ones reflect our work around on the 140 character limitation.  It’s like the tweets are fishing — the bait is the brief comment to grab your interest, the link is the hook to take you somewhere.  Obviously marketers use it for selling.  Many use it (as do I) to take you to another site where we can go down the rabbit hole into the complexities of a point.  We’re balancing those opposing forces I mentioned.

Letters to the Editor

Recently I wrote a letter to the editor of the Christian Science Monitor.  I was pleasantly surprised to hear they were considering publishing my letter.  I had to give my concurrence so they could edit it to fit.  My edited letter appears in their June 7, 2010 issue.  (Link to their Letters to the Editor page)

An unedited version of my letter (with slight variation) was previously posted on “the Bridge” as the article entitled “Our Fingers Point to the Moon Just As Our Religions Point to God“.  I knew my letter was way too long for complete publication.  My wife tells me that what was published makes sense, but I’m not so sure.  Maybe it does and I’m just too close to the content.

The Monitor is one of the better publications for outlining the details of complex global issues.  I highly recommend it.  However, reading their edited version of my letter highlighted even their ongoing challenge for simplifying complex matters.

President Obama’s Balancing Act

The same issue of the Monitor describes how President Obama is “faring on message control”.  It describes how he is dealing with this balancing act of complex issues and short sound bite messaging.

On the one hand, Obama is using social media — blogs, Facebook and Twitter — to message to us.  The Administration provides short bursts to keep us fed on what they’re doing.

The traditional way in which presidents have given us short answers to complex issues has been in White House correspondent press conferences.  Interestingly, Obama is using this mechanism much less than his predecessors.  Seeking to feed a never ending daily need for concise bullet point content, the White House corps have been frustrated by the reduction in these Q&A sessions.  They want to ask Obama a short question to a complex issue and get a short answer that they can quote.

Yet on the other hand, Obama has tripled the number of extended one-on-one interviews to reporters compared to his predecessors.  These interviews allow him the opportunity to explain the nuances of complex issues as well as foster deeper relationships with the interviewer.

Many (especially the media) may want short concise answers from the White House on extremely complex matters but that may not always serve our best interest.

How Do You Balance Complexity and Information Overload?

My wife and I are going on vacation to Europe shortly and I’ve been planning the details.  Each place we are visiting has more to see and do and we have time.  Online one can find extensive reviews of every hotel, restaurant and entertainment venue.  Putting the itinerary together led me into information overload.  Too many places, too many choices.

Scientific studies have shown that when humans are presented with too many choices, they become unable to choose.  It’s called analysis paralysis.  I experienced that in my vacation planning.  At one point, I finally told myself to make a choice and move on.  Be happy with your choice and quit second-guessing it.

Modern life is what it is.  Yes, we have access to all the world’s information instantaneously at our fingertips 24 hours a day.  Yes, this information can tend to overwhelm.  Yes, our world is faced with extremely complex issues.  The more we look at an issue, the more we see how everything is connected.  Part of our evolutionary path is a growing realization that everything is interconnected.

So what can we do?  How can we best navigate this world? The answer is in being aware.  Be aware that the complexities of life don’t always lend themselves to 140 character answers.  Be aware that our incessant flow of information causes us to want to retreat into 140 character answers.  Recognize this dynamic tension within you and balance it consciously.

Mark Gilbert

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Categories Culture, Entertainment, Featured Article, Positive Evolution

Life Is Supposed To Be Easy, Let It Emerge!

May 31, 2010 //
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life is supposed to flow with effortless easeAre you trying to force anything to happen in your life?  One of the lessons we all get to learn as we move through life is the importance of letting go of the struggle with life.

Life Teaches Us To Struggle

As a child learning navigate through life, we discovered that we could “make things happen out there” through our personal power.  We wanted something, we cried until we got it.  As we grew up, we discovered the physical and psychological means of manipulating the world and the people in it to attain our desires.

We also frequently discovered that the world and others pushed back.  Our attachments to our desires coupled with this pushback created the belief in most of us that life is a struggle and we have to force things to happen.  Many people may not say they believe this, but their actions and statements show they hold this subconscious belief.

Where Are You Trying To Force An Outcome?

I’m not saying that goal setting, dedication, hard work and perseverance are not good characteristics to cultivate.  They do serve us.  Nor am I suggesting that there are not times when it is in our best interest to establish healthy boundaries with others. Unfortunately, there are people who have forgotten their spiritual truth and interconnectedness to others and seek to do harm.  We must take appropriate action (including force) in these cases.  These situations are not what I am referencing.

I am talking about where we see aspects of our life where we have a preference on how “things should be”, from our health to jobs to income to relationship and so on, and we hit up against the brick walls of life.  Then,  instead of trying to ease our way around the wall we choose instead to continously bust our head against it.

Where are you so attached to a specific outcome that it is causing you struggle and pain?  Where you feel that it’s all up to you to make something happen?  Where you believe that life is conspiring to keep you from attaining your desires in spite of all your hard work?

Evolution: Survival Of The Fittest Or Emerging Through Least Effort?

At some point in our life it becomes beneficial to grow beyond our childhood lessons of using our personal power to force life to bend to our will.  Some people never learn this lesson and consider life a struggle their whole lives.  Yet as we learn to cooperate with the evolutionary forces of life, we discover that life always seeks to emerge following the path of least resistance.

When we view life as a struggle, then evolution appears to be a struggle as well.  Our attention is focused upon how “selfish genes” seek to overcome other “selfish genes” in a battle to determine the “survival of the fittest” and stave off extinction.  Hence, one background motivator of our actions is to “win” at life while others lose.  Our evolutionary survival instinct can push us silently into seeking to control life.

Many mystics and spiritual teachers come to a place where they realize that our growth calls for releasing the struggle.  They describe how our pain arises due to our attachments.  They advise us that life works by a “law of least effort”.  They tell us that life is truly “for us” and not “against us”.  They seek to guide us to a place where life unfolds with effortless ease.

If your view of life is still about forcing outcomes for personal advantage, then you tend to think this is a bunch of new age mumbo-jumbo.  You might see it as laziness, giving up, and losing in the “battle of life”.  That’s okay if that’s your belief.  I’m just suggesting you consider how your worldview plays into your dismissal of any law of least effort.  I cannot stress enough how we look at life creates the life we see!

When we view life through the lens of least effort, then we realize that evolution appears to follow the easiest path.  Consider how water flowing downhill seeks out a natural meandering direction where it meets the least resistance.  Similarly, we could look back over the history of natural evolution on planet Earth and see how the emergence of life also followed a meandering path tossing out variations in species and their characteristics until the ones that met the least resistance flourished.  When we see our individual life and its unfoldment being about release of any struggle and seeking to move in the direction of least resistance, then our lives too begin to flourish.

Allow Life To Emerge Naturally

One of the mysteries of life is how properties that did not exist at lower levels of the evolutionary path naturally emerged as life evolved.  Science cannot explain exactly how life itself grew out of the combination of certain molecules.  Science cannot explain how the intent to reproduce itself emerged from life.  Science cannot explain how the evolutionary path allowed consciousness to emerge.  Theories abound and maybe one day we and science will discover the answers.

What we can see though is that there is an evolutionary path where characteristics seek to naturally emerge.  Did the universe struggle to bind atoms into molecules?  Did the universe struggle to allow life to emerge or consciousness to spring forth?  Sure, we can point out how different expressions of life struggle against the forces outside themselves just as we can point at how the flow of rivers “struggle” against the flow of rocks.  In both cases, they creatively seek through trial and effort to eventually find the easiest direction to move forward. What lesson does that hold for us?

Your life continues to evolve.  You have moved through the lessons of trying to force outcomes and struggling against life.  Now the next stage of life is seeking to emerge naturally through you.  Through trial and effort you learn that trial and effort is moving you in the direction of least effort.  Evolutionary forces are moving you towards letting go of the battle to force outcomes and dance joyously in the natural flow of life.  Let go and allow life to emerge in all its perfection!

Mark Gilbert

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Categories Consciousness, Featured Article, Positive Evolution

Feeling Superior? Feeling Inferior? It’s All The Same!

May 25, 2010 //
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What, you say?  How could feeling superior and inferior to others be the same thing?  Well, I’ve come to the conclusion recently that they are, and it’s helped me feel a greater connectedness to everyone, an essential ingredient for our evolution.  Let’s explain.

Here’s a quick exercise: (really do this) visualize a few people to whom you feel superior (yeah, I know we’re not supposed to feel that way, but get over yourself for a moment and admit that you do).  Once you’ve got these people in mind (could be someone you know specifically or a general group of people with whom that you come in contact), try to tap into the feeling you get around these people and describe it.

What’s that feeling like?  Is it tied to some characteristic where you’ve ranked yourself higher in your mind?  Do you see yourself as smarter, richer, more attractive, more self-assured, of a higher class, more experienced?  How does this self ranking and feeling affect your interactions with these people?  Do you hold back from sharing who you really are with them?  Do you restrict your interactions with them?  Does your sense of superiority preclude you from really getting to know them as a person?

My point here is not to make you feel guilty over the barrier you place between yourself and those people to whom you feel superior.  Instead, I simply want to consider how you feel in relation to them and how your internal judgments keep you from connecting with them.

Okay, let’s look at the flip side: (again, do this!) visualize a few people to whom you feel inferior (come on, we’ve all got a few of these too).  Is there anybody you idolize or put on a pedestal?  Anybody with whom you have a hard time speaking because you get nervous?  Anybody you hold back from interacting with because you don’t consider yourself in the same league?  Again, tap into the feeling you get around these people and describe it.

What’s this feeling like?  Is it tied to some characteristic where you rank yourself lower in your mind?  Do you see them as smarter, richer, more attractive, more self-assured, of a higher class, more experienced?  How does this self ranking and feeling affect your interactions with these people?  Do you hold back from sharing who you really are with them?  Do you restrict your interactions with them?  Does your sense of inferiority preclude you from really getting to know them as a person?

Yes, I realize that most of us sense a difference in the internal feeling between superiority and inferiority.  Many of us may say that when we feel superior to someone, there is no fear on our part in interacting with them, rather it’s more a personal discernment where we choose not to interact with them.  You then might say that when you feel inferior to someone, you have discerned that you might love to interact with them but you are afraid.

But is this perception of a difference really true?  Or, is it a story that we tell ourselves out of self protection?

Could it be that we tell ourselves we are either inferior or superior to people for the same purpose?  Could it be we create the feeling we experience in order to justify concerns we may have on truly letting these people “know us” as we really are?

One more exercise: take the people that you felt superior to previously and this time visualize yourself as inferior to them.  Consider in your mind that you are not worthy of their friendship.  Truly try to create that feeling and stay with it for a moment.  Now, take the people to whom you previously felt inferior and generate a sense of superiority to them.  Consider in your mind that they are not worthy of your friendship.  Stay with that feeling for a moment.

Were you able to create the feelings in both situations?  If not, go back and try again.  (I might add that if you’ve been reading this entire article on an intellectual level and not trying to tap into the feelings, you may not “get” the point I’m making here.)

If you were able to create the feelings, then you may begin to realize at a deep level that you are neither superior nor inferior to anyone, you are simply allowing your thoughts to create the feeling.  How else could you feel superior to someone one moment and inferior to them the next?  The feeling that we experience of being superior or inferior to others is simply a story we tell ourselves.

Why do we create this story in our minds? To wall ourselves off from other people.  We know who we really are at our deepest and most intimate levels.  We know where we are living up to our highest possibilities and where we are not.  This person that we are that we know so well, we frequently fear sharing with others.  The rankings we create in our minds regarding other people and how they are better or worse than us have nothing to do with them — it’s all about us.

This awareness deepened for me recently during a meditation contemplating why there were certain people with whom I felt uncomfortable talking.  I realized that there were feelings of inferiority with some of the people and superiority to others, but in both cases the outcome was the same – I was unable to “be myself” around them, to let them get to know me.  As I realized that all the judgment was really about me, I was able to break down my internal walls and be more open around everyone.

When we can release our external judgments towards others as being inferior or superior to us, then we move closer to seeing them as they really are — simply another human being walking their path and worthy of our letting our hair down and letting them know our true self.  As we come to realize that any judgments about others as really being about ourselves, then we have taken a major step towards our own healing.  As we release these self judgments, we began to open up and connect more freely with others.  We begin to lower the barriers and allow others to really know us as we are and we feel a deeper sense of connectedness.

When we can begin to do this, we move to a sense of freedom that we have not previously experienced.  We are free to show up in the world as we really are and fearlessly connect with everyone from that deep place with only love — both for them and for ourselves.

Mark Gilbert

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Categories Consciousness, Featured Article, Positive Evolution
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