The challenge is not to free your mind.

The challenge is to free your self from your mind.

This post by Gary van Warmerdam at http://www.toltecspirit.com/2010/02/free-your-mind/

Where you can find Wisdom of the Four Agreements for Spiritual Warriors

For practical steps and exercises to inventory and change your own beliefs/agreements there are exercises in the Self Mastery course.

Being a moral person has gotten confused by a lot of people to mean being right.   I don’t think it really means that.  Being moral person has more to do with being kind, compassionate, and respectful.

Living by the Four Agreements,,, why is it so hard?

We read the book the Four Agreements and feel better by the simple clarity it presents.  It tells us something about our self, other people, and the world that we have always known, but not been able to put into words.  With that clarity we have a sense of hope and excitement about changing our life and our relationships.  It is possible to end the drama of emotional suffering and be happy.

We take the next step and adopt the four agreements as principles and practices that we continually live by.  We are excited about the possibility, but then the reality sets in. Living our lives by the Four Agreements is challenging.  It can even appear impossible.  Why is it so hard when they are so simple?

We Make Endless Assumptions

It is because we have been practicing doing the exact opposite for almost our entire life.  From the time we were 2 or 3 years old we have been making assumptions.  We do it so continually we aren’t even aware how automatically we do it so often.

We Take Everything Personally

We also assume that we are the center of the world.  We assume that people do things because of us.   People react to what we say or do and we think it is about us. We aren’t aware that they have their own beliefs and interpretations that cause them to react.  This assumption blinds us to personalize everything to our own point of view.  We have done this for years and practiced it until we do it automatically.  We have become masters of taking things personally.

We don’t believe we do our best.

The judge in our mind has been hard at work telling us what to do for years.  It has been a constant reminder of what we should and shouldn’t do.  In our child hood we learned to follow it as a god like authority in our life.  We wouldn’t dare question what it tells us we should be.  Because our obedience to that inner judge we never feel like we are doing our best.

Living by the Four Agreements is a Life Changing Commitment

All of this, making assumptions, interpreting everything from our own personal point of view, and living by the voice of the inner judge is the exact opposite of the Four Agreements.  And we have been doing it for years.  Practicing it every day for years,,, the exact opposite of the Four Agreements.

When you decide to adopt the Four Agreements you are changing the course of so many of the habits of your life.  You will not make these changes in one day, or even one week.  However, if you work at it over time, you can make extraordinary changes in your life.

If you decide to adopt the Four Agreements as a means to change your relationships and your life, don’t do it for a day or a week.  Decide to do it a little bit each day for a year.  Then see how much you have changed.  To attempt to measure your results in a week, or a month is to make a gross error assumption in the magnitude of your undertaking.
For practical exercises in implementing the Four Agreements take advantage of the free sessions in the Self Mastery Audio Program.

This post originally posted at The Four Agreements by Gary van Warmerdam

So often we pretend to care about someone.  We convince our self that we are concerned for their happiness.  But when our emotions become a wave of reaction to them our own well being is now at stake.  When this happens our caring for them becomes unduly influenced to try and make our self feel better.   At this point our caring for them might more honestly be called selfishness.

For specific exercises for identifying and dissolving fear based beliefs based in the Four Agreements, begin with the free practices in the Self Mastery audio program.

The original  post located at What it means to Care For Someone

Socrates was in a devout pursuit of the Truth. His method was inquiry that usually took the form of questions.

He battled with the Sofists

soph·ist (s?f’?st) Pronunciation Key
n.
One skilled in elaborate and devious argumentation.
A scholar or thinker.
Sophist Any of a group of professional fifth-century B.C. Greek philosophers and teachers who speculated on theology, metaphysics, and the sciences, and who were later characterized by Plato as superficial manipulators of rhetoric and dialectic.

The Sophist seemed to espouse rhetoric of what is is to be good, better, and ideal. They would give you what you needed to know and all you had to do was believe them.   I would liken this to the people of today who write and speak about all the “good things you should be doing” even for your own happiness.

However, in their pursuit of the prettier picture and self image of success, they have sacrificed an honest inquiry for the Truth.

It is the difference between accepting what you are told is the truth, and finding out for your self.

The first approach is easier and can give a quick and easy peace of mind. However, it leaves you no peace in your soul. To find the truth for your self you sometimes have to scratch and claw your way with inquiry past all the illusions you hold. However the skills over your attention, discernment, and perception, will serve you well for all your remaining days and nights. It will make it difficult for any liar or sophist to betray you.  Even your own mind.

You may have found in my writing and audio that I am not inviting you to believe me. If you work with me individually, you will also find that I often don’t answer your quesitons directly. Instead I likely ask you a question in response to yours? This is is not to annoy anyone, but rather to invite them into a process of finding out for themselves, instead of putting their faith in the stories of someone else.

This article makes sens if you look at things from a scientific viewpoint.  However, the scientific viewpoint doesn’t account for how awareness, consciousness, and the penetrating force of LIfe impacts the brain.  If you don’t include consciousness as one of the parameters that you are observing you will miss the cause and believe erroneous conclusions.

Selflessness, Core Of All Major World Religions, Has Neuropsychological Connection

ScienceDaily (Dec. 17, 2008) — All spiritual experiences are based in the brain. That statement is truer than ever before, according to a University of Missouri neuropsychologist. An MU study has data to support a neuropsychological model that proposes spiritual experiences associated with selflessness are related to decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain.

The study is one of the first to use individuals with traumatic brain injury to determine this connection. Researchers say the implication of this connection means people in many disciplines, including peace studies, health care or religion can learn different ways to attain selflessness, to experience transcendence, and to help themselves and others.

The rest of the article is at   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081217124156.htm

This is like claiming that leaves create chlorophyll by ignoring the role of sunlight.    But understandable because these scientists haven’t yet figured out how to measure consciousness, and those other elements that affect matter.  But that’s not surprising when you consider that as far as they are concerned, those things don’t exist.    It’s kind of a Catch-22 where they will never see the impact from something because they have already concluded it isn’t there.   It is quite difficult to find something when you assume it doesn’t exist.

Lesson to be applied here:   Don’t Make Assumptions

For an intro on how you can affect your brain by focusing your attention start with this article from the Wall Street Journal.

http://psyphz.psych.wisc.edu/web/News/wsj_1-19-07_begley.html

“I’ll do better next time.”   It’s an optimistic thought.  However, without a good dose of healthy self reflection on what happened last time, we are likely to repeat the same mistake.

Doing better next time takes more than just a commitment to the idea and goal.  Without awareness of the lessons learned about the past, there is little chance that we will break free of these patterns.  Surprisingly most self help courses or advice doesn’t provide any tools, systems, or techniques for reviewing past patterns, learning from them, or making changes in our self based on what we find.  Most just rely on the hollow, but well intentioned, commitment.

Without awareness of the things you overlooked in your past choices and patterns of the past, you will miss those same things next time.  A committment, no matter how well intentioned probably won’t take you as far in doing better as awareness.

Do better next time,,,  reflect on past patterns and choices until you see where you went wrong.  Then reflect on your self until you can see why you missed those critical observations in those moments.  That will be a start.   What assumptions did you make, why and how did you make them?  When you can see how your mind projects assumptions in the moment and you can suspend your belief in them, that is awareness.  And that is when you will have an opportunity to make a better choice next time.

It is the season of politics and people are campaigning for your attention.  The news casters and pundits grasp for it too as they tell you their story of a story.  They sit in their arm chairs and rate the candidates speeches and delivery looking for signs of leadership.   Yet they are somehow oblivious to the fact that it is not the great speaker that makes for a wise leader but rather the quiet listener.

Suggested reading:  Good to Great by Jim Collins

The Jim Collins website

I use to be in awe of my fellow spiritual warriors.  I had the utmost respect for them.  There are very few people who have the courage to challenge their fears, judgments, and inner demons.

Spiritual Warriors still have my utmost respect.

However I am no longer hold them in awe.

I have come to realize that all those inner demons, fears, and that great big inner judge are not real.  They do exist, but they are not real.  They are creations of your imagination and only exist in the abstract.  The only power they have is from the faith you put in them.   They have no sustaining power of their own, or are any more real than a dream you had last night.  They exist only in the abstract imagination of the mind.

What you are really facing are projections of your imagination.  When put in that perspective, you realize that your inner demons are illusions.  Then it doesn’t take as much courage as I first assumed.

I still have the utmost respect for spiritual warriors that challenge the fears, judgments, and illusions in their mind.  However I no longer see it as taking extraordinary courage.    It’s really just a matter of common sense to rid your mind of these emotional drama making illusions.

Free Will:

If you are not choosing your emotions, then what is?

Free Will and the Personal Power to Choose
Is there such a thing as freewill? Do each of us have freewill? First, let’s clarify it. Free will: the ability to consciously choose. Just for fun, let’s conduct a quick inventory and see what happens. Did you choose to have breakfast? Did you choose to take a shower this morning? Or, did this stuff just kind of happen automatically, and later in the morning you found yourself at work? Ever done that, get to work and didn’t really remember driving there? Did you consciously choose the way to work or did you take the same route you always take? Do you remember consciously choosing every lane change?

If you exercised choice in even just some of these then you must have it. If you didn’t, maybe you have it, but just aren’t using it.

Now it gets a little tougher. How do you feel about your day? Has something got you upset or stressed? Are you joyful and grateful all the time? Take a quick inventory of the emotional states you have gone through today, or even this week. Did you consciously choose any of them? Did you choose all of them? Be ruthlessly honest with yourself here. If you were cut off on the freeway by one of those unconscious drivers, how did you react? Did you choose your reaction? Could you have chosen or was your reaction already there before there was a chance to choose? There are a lot of questions, but take your time.

Now lets try something different. Think about what you are most grateful for in your life. Think about it long and hard. Now, how does it make you feel? Allow yourself to focus on this and as you do let the gratitude grow in your body. Settle on this for a few minutes and you may find yourself in a place of great gratitude, a wonderful emotion.

If you did the exercise you found that you have conscious choice over your emotions. So you do have free will with your emotions. Now the really tough questions. How often do you consciously choose how you feel? Do remember to choose when someone is pushing your buttons? Do you choose while driving your car, at the grocery store, with your family? If you did the exercise you know an emotional state is just a choice.

One of my biggest heroes is Nelson Mandela. Why? After decades in prison, when he was released, he embraced his captors. He had compassion for them. His will was so strong that he won over any emotional reaction. When we exercise our freewill we make it strong, just like a muscle. If he can do it after a near life time in prison, for sure, we can do it in our relatively comfortable world.

There is much in the world that we can not change. But we can choose how we feel. If we have difficulty changing our emotional state, it may be we have let the muscles of our freewill grow weak through neglect.

One other question to ponder: If we aren’t choosing how we feel, then whom are we leaving that choice up to?