How words keep us from experiencing the fullness and freedom of the Present

Image from Lucy's album

"In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better."Edward de Bono

It is said that as soon as you teach a child a word for something, it ceases to see the thing.  Instead, it sees an old image of the thing rather than the present image of it.  If and when it does see a present image, it can be a shock or a startling experience instead of being the natural, unmediated experience of the thing.

The implications of this are profound and far-reaching.  As adults, we have accumulated encyclopedias of words, as Edward de Bono so incisively states, whose original references stick with us and which, in turn, prevent us from seeing and experiencing afresh.

This is the reason why it is also said that clichés are expressions or observations that serve best the moment in which they were first created.  Thereafter, they become clunky vestiges of a once novel and original experience which we insist on reusing, hoping in vain to recapture their original power and dynamism.  In the process, our natural creativity doesn’t get the workout it thrives on because we have uncreatively repeated something whose purpose can only best be served once!

In the simplest of terms, our use of words, fetched rapidly and automatically from the repository of our intellect, does not serve our natural ability to be ‘present’.

But before we go any further, let’s examine that word:

present

These days, pretty much everybody has heard or used reference to the word ‘present’ whose use, for our purposes, stems from the practice of meditation.

The practice of meditation calls us to be ‘present’.  So what exactly does it mean?  To be ‘present’?

Well, for one thing, it means not being focused on the past or the future.  Right, so it means being focused on the present. 

And what exactly is the ‘present’ revealing to us? 

Well, when we sit in practice (or if we are used to practicing at all times), the present may reveal any number of things.  Let me give you an example of what I mean.

As I sit typing this, the ‘present’ for me is

·       An awareness of each letter as it appears on my screen

·       An awareness of the movement of my fingers across the keyboard

·       An awareness of the hard and smooth surface of the keyboard under the palms of my hands and the spongy feel of the keys as I press and release them

·       An awareness of the sounds of traffic, the clock ticking, an aircraft, the tapping of keys

·       An awareness of my feet in my boots and the watch on my wrist

·       An awareness of the contact my posterior is making with the couch and my back with the cushion behind it

·       An awareness of the thoughts I am thinking including thoughts about you, an audience of some sort, indistinct but real insofar as I feel I am communicating with you

·       An awareness of the tightness of the hair tie around my hair

·       An awareness of a sigh as it is happening

And so on…

Now, all this is not necessarily sequential.  I am often aware of many things simultaneously.  In fact, the more we practice being ‘present’, the more awarenesses we have simultaneously. 

Notice, being ‘present’ is really being ‘present’, attending to what is happening in real time where the past and future are not featured EXCEPT as awarenesses of our thoughts about the past and future.

This is really important.  There is a difference, a very big and important difference in thinking about the past/future and being aware of our thoughts about the past and future.

Thinking about the past keeps us trapped in a repetitive cycle.  Thinking about the future, if it merely a projection of past experiences and anticipation, is uncreative.

However, being aware that we are having thoughts about the past and/or the future is awareness and awareness keeps us unattached, which means it frees us!

Oh wow!  If you want freedom, this is it!  Stay aware!  Stay present!

It is when you are ‘present’ and ‘aware’ that you see things as they truly are, not as replays of past images or stories but as real time apprehensions of what is.

Think about that for a moment.  As an instance of application, when you see a friend, do you see them as they are right at that moment or is your perception of your friend layered with memories of what you know of him/her?  How do these memories (largely stored and communicated through words) help or hinder your ability to be really ‘present’ with and to your friend?

Now, here’s something to really get your mind around:  When you keep thinking in terms of words, words that have been used and reused billions of times, you cannot have a real-time, fully present, fully creative, fully sensorial, fully integrated experience of what is.  Instead, you have a hugely limited, largely intellectual experience of what was, aided of course by that vast repository in your brain called your memory.

In our so-called modern, western civilization, we have been conditioned into a disproportionate use of our intellect at the expense of allowing our multi sensorial faculties to function. 

Often, when I ask someone how they are ‘feeling’, they might say something like

I feel stupid

I feel okay

I feel like this is too hard

I feel like giving up

I feel powerless

‘Stupid’, ‘okay’, ‘too hard’, ‘giving up’, ‘powerless’ are concepts that are lodged in our memories.  We’ve come across them before either in the context of someone else’s experience or our own.

But what is the full, sensorial, integrated, multi-dimensional experience of how you are feeling right now?

Right now, if you were fully present, you would not be ‘feeling’ any of those things!  It’s impossible to ‘feel’ concepts unless you are relying on memory!  And even then, you’re thinking rather than feeling/sensing them.

If you were truly present, you would discover a freedom, that upon reflection might be mind-blowing, but in the moment, would feel so natural, so you!

And that has a great deal to do with leaving words out of the experience, or put another way, of not allowing words to mediate i.e. make meaning of the experience for you.

Now, imagine being increasingly in this state of freedom.  Imagine spending more and more of your day and your daily activities in this state of freedom.

Right now, it may seem so unrealistic or impractical or even undesirable to you.

What would I gain by being ‘present’ and experiencing ‘freedom’ when I have a job to go to, kids to raise, debts to pay, commitments to keep, obligations to fulfill, goals to achieve, relationships to make or break, dinner to prepare…

What good would being ‘present’ and experiencing ‘freedom’ do?

Let me describe to you what the status quo is for many of us:

·       We believe we must perform to justify our place in this world, in this society, in this family, in this workplace

·       We feel the stress of this pressure expressed in our internal dialogues, in our interactions with others and in our bodies

·       We believe that we are not entirely in charge of our lives and our wellbeing because there are always things that we cannot control

·       We believe not everything is possible because we are not the sole creators of our reality

·       We believe that happiness is a transitory state of being which must necessarily be interspersed with states of sadness, pain and suffering

·       We believe that we must make compromises in life

·       We believe that we are not really disserving of the most wonderful and abundant and joyous life possible

·       We dare not imagine what a wonderful, abundant and joyous life is possible for us

·       We constantly place conditions in our journey, in our relationships, in our desires

·       We frequently criticize ourselves and others

·       We are often unforgiving of ourselves and others

·       We remember the past and use it as our yardstick to map out the future when in our relationships, in our goal setting or in our work

I could go on but I think you get the picture. 

How many, if any, of these are freeing?  Do they inspire you to live the possible life that is so naturally and effortlessly yours?  Or do they keep you in a very small and tight circle of experiences where self-protection rather than self-expression is your constant preoccupation?  Where your experience of something, anything, no matter how new, is never completely new, is never completely fresh, is never completely available to your naturally creative abilities because you are not ‘present’?  Because you are conditioned to seeing, feeling, touching, smelling, tasting through words?  Because you haul into any current experience the oppressive and suppressive burden of your memory and insist on not only describing but having the experience with the rather inadequate tools of words, clichés and other well-worn expressions? 

Don’t get me wrong.  Words are wonderful things when used well, when used freshly, when used lovingly and evocatively as some of our greatest poets and leaders have done:

Benediction

Bless this little heart, this white soul that has won the kiss of
heaven for our earth.
He loves the light of the sun, he loves the sight of his
mother's face.
He has not learned to despise the dust, and to hanker after
gold.
Clasp him to your heart and bless him.
He has come into this land of an hundred cross-roads.
I know not how he chose you from the crowd, came to your door,
and grasped you hand to ask his way.
He will follow you, laughing and talking, and not a doubt in
his heart.
Keep his trust, lead him straight and bless him.
Lay your hand on his head, and pray that though the waves
underneath grow threatening, yet the breath from above may come and
fill his sails and waft him to the heaven of peace.
Forget him not in your hurry, let him come to your heart and
bless him.

Rabindranath Tagore

But they can also be potent memes that control us, if we let them, shaping our experiences in place of the experience of our naturally free and ever renewing state of being. 

So, how shall I sum up?  Perhaps in these few dot points:

·       Be present, be aware, be free, experience and express with all your senses (Note: ‘be’ does not refer to anything you have to ‘do’ but what you are)

·       Choose your words freely and lovingly, inspired by your heart

·       Rely less on clichés and other fast and favorite expressions

·       Find new ways of using old words and expression

·       Create new expressions and replace old ones with them eg ‘How are you?’  ‘How’s it going?’  Might be replaced by ‘It’s so lovely to see you’ or ‘I feel wonderful things happening for you’ (said, not prophetically like a fortune teller would but because you are ‘present’ to feel the wonder of your own and another person’s ‘be-ing’, the life force within both of you, the blessings of the universe on both of you regardless of what memory you or they are currently carrying on the surface)

Lovingly present, Lucy J

Do you need to 'control' anything?

Image from Lucy's album

You know, the original meaning of ‘control’ back in the 14^th Century was ‘check’, ‘verify’ or ‘regulate’ (as related to account keeping).  It was only in the 15^th Century that this word took on the more restrictive meanings of ‘restraint’, ‘prevent’ and even ‘eliminate’.

I like paying attention to words, how they are used, the impact they have and importantly, the inner (mental and emotional) realities that give rise to them and the outer realities (situations and events) that they help create.

Take for instance the words ‘Just do it’.  Three simple, everyday words with which Nike has successfully seared into the consciousness of a few generations the very positive and desirable association with their primary product – shoes!

On the face of it, what on earth has ‘Just do it’ got to do with shoes???  Yet, you’ll agree, I’m sure, that it’s hard to either say or hear those words without also thinking of that blockbuster brand or one or more of its famous poster boys/girls (Michael Jordan springs to my mind).

‘Just do it’ was inspired by the words, “Let’s do it”, which Gary Gilmore stoutly said when asked by the prison chaplain for any last words minutes before his execution in 1977!  Who would’ve thought that those words would spearhead a marketing strategy that still brings in the bucks!

The success that Nike gained through this inspiration was phenomenal.  With its evocative advertisements, ‘Just do it’ took on unprecedented meanings for millions of people whether or not they purchased Nike shoes. 

It fueled a spirit of daring and freedom by throwing down the gauntlet with those three simple words ‘Just do it!’.  And if you did decide to take the challenge seriously, well, all you’d be ‘competing’ with was... a pair of shoes. Too easy? You bet J.

Although Nike was advertising shoes (or so you’d think), it was in fact very deliberately (and cleverly, I might add), creating a new reality – one in which everyday people like you and I could feel the towers of greatness rise within us and smell the delights of success by ‘just doing it’, ‘it’ suggesting whatever it was you wanted to achieve in life!  Clever or what?

Now, it may seem like I’m doing a mini analysis of a marketing strategy but I can assure you that it is incidental to my main point, that being the power of words to create our reality.

Of course we know that the words in themselves have no power.  It is the meaning that is intended and the meaning that is interpreted that has that power. 

Those meanings are often drawn from a deep and long history over which words have been shaped and reshaped by collective and individual meaning making.

A word is a symbol pointing to a story, sometimes so vast and rich in its dramas, characters and unexpected twists and turns. 

A one letter word like ‘I’ or a three letter word like ‘you’, for instance, points to unfinished stories, dripping in possibilities yet also carrying what might appear to be well-defined and irreversible ‘pasts’.

All this to say that words, numerous and readily available as they often are, are important and to be used with care, or as I prefer to say, mindfully.

And this brings me to the word I set out to tackle at the start of this post.  The word ‘control’.

How often have you heard someone say, or said or thought the following yourself?

‘I lost control’

‘I feel I have no control over the situation’

‘I hate not being in control’

‘I need to be in control of…’

‘S/he is such a control freak’

In his book, The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield writes about ‘control dramas’ in reference to the way people relate to one another.  Those who feel the need to ‘control’ others find a myriad of ways to do so both overtly and covertly.

Often when we speak of control, we speak from a basis of power and powerlessness where there is an uneasy tension between the two.  One person/party seems to have more power and can therefore ‘control’ i.e. restrain or curb or prevent the behavior and actions of another person/party.

Consequently, when we speak of wanting to regain control or maintain control or even have control, we are seeking to impose on our immediate sphere of influence, some holds or restrictions by which we can feel safe and protected.

Sometimes, these holds or restrictions are imposed upon other people such as objecting to a person speaking their mind or limiting their use of space to a certain area within a shared dwelling place or criticizing their work. 

Sometimes, these holds or restrictions i.e. forms of control are imposed in an overt manner, written or spoken, or they may be done more covertly through silent withdrawals, refusing to comment or even acceding to another’s demands no matter how unreasonable or undesirable they may be to us.

But trying to ‘control’ yourself, or another person or situation is really an act of restriction and constriction.  Whether you do it overtly or covertly, your motivation is to protect yourself and self—protection is always a restrictive and constrictive action fueled by fear which is in turn driven by the illusion of separation.

Now I have written about the illusion of separation and its effects in previous posts such as this and this. 

What I’d like to invite us all to consider here is an alternative.  In particular, a LOVE based alternative.

Firstly, it’s important to acknowledge that we all feel threatened and powerless (and more often than we are aware of).  Once again, I’ve already explained why we feel this way in previous posts such as this and this.

Some of us like to explain our need for self-protection and consequently our feelings of fear in terms of our evolution as a human species.  Certainly most scientists do.

But, as you may have noticed, alongside this aspect of our evolution which we are told is hardwired into the limbic part of our brain, the prefrontal part of our brain has also evolved. 

This part of our brain, which is the last part of the brain to mature, is responsible (and that itself is a wonderful word – response + able) for handling the more complex aspects of our thinking and behavior. 

In other words, we have the capacity to override some of the more primal instincts that we have acquired. 

More importantly, we have the ability to self-reflect and self-observe.  And this ability to self-reflect and self-observe gives us the powerful ability to change our thinking and consequently, create new realities!

When we self-observe, something we do in meditation, we become self-aware. 

Awareness is a remarkable experience.  It is the experience of our ultimate reality and this is how we experience our interconnectedness, our formless reality, our limitlessness and our creative nature.

Awareness is the experience of what some may call the ‘unified field of consciousness’ in which ‘energy’ (yes, a word, a symbol that we use) flows freely when it is unimpeded by the vibrations of THOUGHT, and more powerfully, by FEELING.

Yes, thought and feeling!

Energy is directed to thoughts and feelings and to their strongest vibrations which result in the physical and external manifestations of those vibrations.

When fear is the strongest vibration that we hold, energy will be drawn to it and will result in its restrictive and constrictive physical/external manifestations, first in our bodies and then in our words and actions. 

You find yourself getting tense, the muscles in your body, in your face constrict.  Your words are uncreative, reflecting the internal dialogues you’ve been rehearsing.  Your actions are self-protective, causing you to either attack or retreat. 

When we seek to control, we place our thought and feeling vibrations of fear in the naturally free-flowing energy field.  We are then destined to experience the less than satisfactory and often painful outcomes of this restriction and constriction of our naturally free flowing energy.

So, what is the LOVING ALTERNATIVE?

Well, first I think we need to ask the question:

Do we need to control?

Is there another way of moving from a state of powerlessness to a state of power, bearing in mind that our NATURAL STATE is one of true power.

Yes, of course there is!

It is the choice of LOVE – the ultimate and insurmountable energy state! 

Well, then, what might be the response of love?

Quite simple.  It is the response that fills you with joy, with peace, with a feeling of freedom and expansiveness, a feeling of deep power and poise J 

Now, exactly what is that response?

Ah huh, I wish I could tell you but that is something that you will have to allow your inner wisdom, your free, unconditioned, natural, clear-water mind to guide you in J

You see, there are many possible responses of love.  Well, of course there are, for love is the infinite field of possibilities!

In one instance, it may be to move yourself physically into a place of joy or openness like your garden or your favorite room.

In another instance, it might be to make a joke. 

In another, write or cook or work on some craft. 

Oh, but wait!  Wouldn’t these be forms of withdrawal and/or denial?

ONLY IF THAT IS YOUR MOTIVATION. 

Withdrawal and denial are ways by which the fearful mind seeks to impose control. 

But if your motivation is to RETURN TO YOUR NATURAL STATE OF PEACE AND JOY AND POWER AND LOVE, now that THOUGHT and that FEELING have completely different vibrations to the feelings of withdrawal and denial!

Consequently, energy gets drawn and reorganized in different ways in your body, in your words and in your actions.

You smile. The muscles in your face and body relax.  You feel light.  You engage in something creative rather than in addictive behaviors.  You have no ill-feelings towards the other person/party.  You don’t set out to fight anyone or anything.  Instead, you become more acutely aware of your oneness, your interbeingness, your natural state of harmony and wellbeing!

Try it and let me know if it doesn’t make a major difference to the way you deal with your feelings of powerlessness!

In my next post, I shall talk about other words that we frequently use and which may either hinder or help our ability to create our desired realities.  If you like, you may wish to reflect on some of them:

Reality

I, You

Love

Can’t/Can

Want/Need

Success

Fail

Lazy

Bored

Earn

Deserve

Justice

Freedom

Happiness

Honesty

In love, Lucy