Ep. 13: A Few Ideas that Perhaps Help Explain the World
What are you willing to throw your life away on? With Andrew Reed and The Liberation. It's a serious question, one worth pondering. Am I living the life I want, an intelligent life, or something else? How can I have a better experience of life?
Speaker 1:These are some of the questions explored in this series of messages without the brag and the advertisement, getting beyond even human institutions and society into the wilderness, nature, the reality of how life actually operates on this planet. These messages range from intimate recordings from the awakened forest to concerts, national conferences, and broadcasts on a wide array of philosophical topics.
Speaker 2:Here we are in the Awakened Forest overlooking the world from this particular vantage point, all the intricacies of nature and life. I'd like to share some ideas that perhaps will help explain the world. This is a message that's a long time coming. In my opinion, there's no shortcuts here. This takes time, age, experience, especially the losses and heartaches, which again, it takes no special talent to appreciate the sweet, the warm sunshine, the smile, the good, the light.
Speaker 2:Integrating these negative aspects, or I should say perceived negative things into life, of course, are just the other half of life and are essential. With that said, I try to give all belief systems a fair shake because usually they all have their merits. And these belief systems, and we all have them, help us in countless ways from grounding us in our ideas about society, civilization, so that we don't run around like wild beasts or savages, that we have some degree of politeness and respect and courtesy for others, that somehow tame our animal instincts or impulses as you might say. So, yes, our belief systems help us. But in thinking things through, which we should try to do that with everything, observing life as we sit in nature here in the cool of a nice summer morning.
Speaker 2:The teacher of truth, in my view, is what? Nature. And I repeatedly say that. But these ideas that I'm going to share here have helped me a great deal. And I picked these up again along the way, but they help me understand and thus my interpretations of the world, of my actions, of my place in the world, especially painful ones, I find myself a bit more poised, a little bit more calm, and I can have a relatively unfazed life.
Speaker 2:And so there's a practical point here that your life will have less frustration, that you'll be more content, more confident, more accepting of life as it transpires. So here they are. First of all, we live in a world of infinite color and variety. And in fact, you know, there's no two things that are completely alike. There's no two snowflakes that are alike.
Speaker 2:There's no two particles of dust that are alike. All things are different. Thus, it's a world of multi view. Right? So infinite variety and color.
Speaker 2:In fact, so much that almost any creature that one could imagine already exists in some form. If you watch enough nature shows and they go into the microscopic especially, you find all these crazy wild creatures that you couldn't even dream up. So we live in a world of infinite color and variety. The next point, there is no center except you. That there's no center of the universe, And then there's this idea of infinite, which is beyond our ability or even our machinery to understand.
Speaker 2:And to many, this is a quite unsettling notion that we're living on this floating planet that's perhaps not really going anywhere. And I think that's where the misstep of conception comes into play. And the point is, we are going somewhere. But it's just like kind of the Zen part of life. It's not about the destination, it's about the journey, it's about the process of life, and that life is movement.
Speaker 2:And I think that's the important thing, is to enjoy the ride. So, not only is life infinite, life is happening on millions of levels at every moment, simultaneously. And of course, this introduces this huge degree of humility because no one can truthfully claim that they understand anything fully, again, because everything is infinite. Infinite is in the DNA of the world. So this acknowledgement of humility, of course, opens up a person for new learning and new explorations.
Speaker 2:The third idea I'd like to share is the scale of consciousness. And this is kind of an arbitrary scale made up as all measurement is made up when you get down to it. I mean, for temperature, you've got Celsius, you've got Fahrenheit, you've got metric, you've got standard. Okay. So measurements are made up anyway, but the point is no two creatures or anything are identical, and thus no things have consciousness.
Speaker 2:They don't have the same abilities, the same intelligence, the same beliefs. And thus, you have human beings, social creatures, that enjoy participating group enterprises together, so we have this interaction going on all the time. Yet, since no two people have exactly the same view, the person in the next pew, if you're a churchgoer, does not completely share your views or interpretation of the world. Or if you're in some other group or society, whatever it is, no two have identical vantage points. All have slightly different interpretations and views.
Speaker 2:Now the implication of this scale of consciousness, and doctor David Hawkins developed it using kinesiology and it's quite brilliant. Even if you don't believe it, so to speak, you find that referencing this scale has utility value and is useful because you start to gauge higher and lower consciousness. So forced by the design of nature, we all experience the world differently. Yes. We see it from our physical place as well as our mental or intellectual vantage point.
Speaker 2:So since no two people or creatures will see eye to eye in everything, again, we have to have this degree of acceptance, this degree of tolerance. Otherwise, we're going to be frustrated forever. Like, why can't they see it the way I see it? And if we accept this, you know, we're actually trusting in nature, we're trusting in the process of life, and it makes life better because you're always going to have your own unique thoughts, your own interpretation and ideas about the world. And in fact, you're the only one that's going to understand yourself or your own thoughts.
Speaker 2:And that's okay. You're never fully gonna be understood by others because you're always dealing with what? Higher and lower consciousness, or I should say dissimilar. Whether you're on the highways, some are slow drivers, some are fast drivers in business, you got some guys that are scoundrels, you got honest apes, and then family interactions, obviously. Your sister that's kicking you under the table has a different consciousness than you do.
Speaker 2:And again, just to accept that. And this scale of consciousness, of course, it helps us when we're dealing or interacting with others, that realizing that lower consciousness will never, at least at that time, see higher consciousness. Higher consciousness can more easily look down and understand things, thus less frustrated, know how to deal with it, can make plans and such. Lower consciousness only catches a glimpse occasionally of higher consciousness. But to them, lying, cheating, littering, things like that, well, everyone does it, right?
Speaker 2:So they have this self justification of their behaviors. But most of us would say, Well that's kind of lower behavior, and that is just the point. And if you want to estimate what percentage of the population has lower or higher, wherever you want to demark that line, again probably eighty percent has lower consciousness and twenty percent, of course, somewhat higher consciousness. So when we hear on the news of a tragic incident where some person is harmed or dealt a bad hand, we know we're dealing with low consciousness. A person who steals or lies, again, a person of low consciousness, and again, whatever their behavior is seems okay or is justified in their mind.
Speaker 2:Everyone steals and lies, right? Whereas higher consciousness is aware and considers all expressions of life and will exhibit what I'll call goodness when no one is looking. I mean, for example, when the black beetle turns over, even if they're late to the meeting, they'll bend over and just flip the guy over and say, hey. Have a great day. Or if they're in the airport and they see that there's some trash, they'll pick it up because they realize that would save the janitor a little bit of effort.
Speaker 2:Or if you're walking in the office and you see trash, you pick it because you're a representative of that organization. So those are illustrations of higher consciousness activities. And higher consciousness sees others and things as they are. Again, there's this degree of acceptance. Knowing that they are doing their best, even a lower consciousness is doing its best at that time.
Speaker 2:They just don't know any better or haven't worked that out. And in some way, this level of consciousness, realizing that it's a multiverse, that the world works, and that all these consciousnesses are integrated into this world of mutual alliance, and somehow we need the cheats, the thieves, the liars, the lazy, the stupid, as well as the counterbalancing saints, entrepreneurs, builders, healers, the brilliant, the kind and compassionate. All are somehow needed, otherwise they would not exist. And I know sometimes I struggle with this idea after I hear of some horrific event or where someone is harmed and say, What is the point behind this? But somehow, I believe there's intelligence in the design of life and that life can be trusted, and that this infinite variety of consciousness is part of the excitement, the entertainment, and the experience of life.
Speaker 2:The next idea I'd like to share is that life is experienced through the mind, and this is huge. This is life changing if you can get your mind around it. Because we don't fully understand the mind. We don't know what it is or what it encompasses, but we know it plays a major role in our experience of life just because how we interpret life, our interactions with the external environment, do we judge it as good or bad, mediocre, or some degree there within? But human beings are thinking creatures.
Speaker 2:Thinking is what human beings do. On our way to work, we're working out our lives, we're sorting through things. We can't help ourselves but think. And so these ideas of mind control, thought control, well, don't even know where our thoughts come from often. So we can't help ourselves from thinking.
Speaker 2:We have this incredible, insatiable impulse to understand things. We are a curious and inquisitive species and we want to make sense of the world, which is really why this particular message has great value. It helps explain the world to some degree or gives us possibilities of how it could be interpreted. So the logic here is if I interpret the world as more beneficial or positive, the better experience of life I'll have. Whereas if you have the attitude towards life and take a hostile position, or a negative attitude about the world, well, the more negative your experience of life.
Speaker 2:And it's almost as simple as that. So with this understanding that the mind is a huge part of our experience of life, we should understand that our thoughts trigger different biochemical reactions. That is, positive thoughts cause chemicals, endorphins and such, to be released, which make us happy, energized and all that, whereas sad, negative thoughts don't do this, that release actually other chemicals and suppress endorphins. So our thoughts even dictate our chemistry to a large degree. And we also know that perhaps the number one determinant of health comes from the mind, or our default thinking.
Speaker 2:That is worry, stress, anxiety, prolonged, pronounced fear, causes lifespans to be shortened. Thus, you have cancers, other diseases, depression, inactivity. But the point is, worries come largely from the mind as perhaps as much as 90% of our fears are never realized, but yet we act like they are. This dictates, of course, our experience of life. Is it better to go positively through life, feeling like things will work out, that it's not there to eat me up or get me, or have fear of life that everything is going to turn out bad eventually, and you live this this very truncated life.
Speaker 2:We also know that this idea of the mind being the number one determinant of health works in the case of study of medicines that are being developed and such. And the placebo effect comes into play because normally thirty percent of people are cured or positively impacted by the placebo, And that's a common reoccurring thing. Thus, that says, what did the cure? The belief that it would work. So whether you're believing in a medicine, in a therapy, or in a healer even, of course you're going to get a positive result because it's impacting your mind.
Speaker 2:The main point here is that a smart boy or girl that gets this idea that our experience of life is dictated by our ideas, our interpretation of the world, that they will cultivate a more positive view, right, and thus have a better experience of life. Now, those that know my story know that probably from the outside world, I have had a tragic life, a bad life, catastrophic losses of wealth, limbs, children, all kinds of things. I've also had great accomplishments too. But these losses, these catastrophic bad deals, tragic things that have happened, I don't look at them as being bad. Yes, I've cried in my beer.
Speaker 2:There's a time for some depression. There's probably some time for some hard drinking. Time to integrate. But over time, these things become part of me and help me be what I am now. And so there's some useful element in all these losses.
Speaker 2:And over time, this stuff becomes integrated in us and helps us become the people that we become, that we wouldn't get there without that struggle, without that tragedy, and the overall momentum of that life is upward. The other thing about the mind and understanding is that your body and your life are largely plastic. That is, they're malleable. They are shaped really around your ideas and people that start thinking different start to look different. Their body shapes around those ideas.
Speaker 2:And it's just fascinating how a person's self image, which is again contained in the mind, will start to shape their behaviors certainly, but also their physical presence. I'm not saying that if you think you're going to be eight foot tall and play in the NBA, that's going to happen. There are some limits to this, but we can shape our bodies to a large extent. In fact, just the idea of attractiveness, so much of it is contained in the mind. I mean, look at time of what people thought was attractive compared to now.
Speaker 2:I mean, in the sixties, it was Twiggy. Well, back in, you know, the sixteen hundreds, plump was in. And so we can just see how our ideas of what is attractive change over time, and again, these are held in the mind. Now studies from many academic institutions and research organizations indicate or give hint that we grow and develop as human beings in approximately a fiftyfifty manner, with 50% being nature, the other 50% being nurture or the external environment that we live in. And, of course, 50% coming from ourselves, from our personal will, the other 50% upbringing, genetics, all kinds of things.
Speaker 2:And you can say, Oh, it's only 50%. Ah, 50% is huge. That we're not just stuck in whatever position we find ourselves as we enter this world, that we have a role to play. And of course there's countless stories of people that have evolved fantastic lives by changing their attitudes, by making intelligent choices, and thus it's not all Newtonian billiard balls cause and effect that this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, this happened, because at that point, there's no accountability, nobody owns their life. Now the other thing about exploration of the mind, and this idea is going to help a lot of people, is that there may be a completely biological explanation to so many of the conflicts in humankind because we have two hemispheres of the brain.
Speaker 2:One, the right hemisphere, which is largely fluid, spatial in its operations. This is where art and creativity come from. And the other left hemisphere of the brain is the part that operates in a very concrete and sequential way. This is the logical mind. It sees budgets.
Speaker 2:It sees time. It sees cause and effect more clearly than the right. And some people are just more dominated by one hemisphere of the brain than the other. So people that tend to be, I'll say, more liberal or artistic, yeah, of course, they're gonna be right brain dominated. And people that tend to be more conservative, more practical, yes, those people are going to be left brain dominant.
Speaker 2:And the thing is, this is chemical. This is biological. Now with this said, we have to introduce the fiftyfifty equation, the nature versus nurture into this. So, yes, people come into this world with a biological predisposition towards one hemisphere of the brain or the other, although some people are in the middle. I'm probably one of those middle people or somewhere around there, at least from time to time.
Speaker 2:But then we have to factor into the equation upbringing, the environment, the personal will, and so that gets messy again. And this helps out greatly because some people have the ideas they could kill off everybody in the opposing party, utterly defeat them, but they would grow back like weeds over time. Why? This is biochemical. And, of course, you do want to create the conditions to favor the most positive society you can, of course.
Speaker 2:But people are always going to have these different views. Again, the left brain person, much more practical about things. The right brain person, much more emotion driven, less sequential, more prone to break with tradition or social norms. Again, the left brain person, more apt to go along with the program. So how does this idea help us?
Speaker 2:Well, perhaps our differences and conflicts with each other are more biologically based than we give them credit. I mean, we can't understand why another person can't see our point of view, and with this said, we have conflict. But again, it might be very much a biological explanation or due to genetics. And, of course, then we have to bring in the fiftyfifty equation of nature versus nurture. So, though we come into this world, again, probably predisposed to one hemisphere of the brain or the other, and then we have to add in, again, the environment, so it gets pretty messy.
Speaker 2:The next point that I'd like to share is that life is pulsation, that is life is halves. And we'd want to cultivate what I'll call a bothness mind because life is what? It is oscillation. It is oscillation of up and down and there's this duality or various degrees of difference. Yet there's this both thing, kind of similar to the hemispheres of the brain as well as the introduction of this fiftyfifty equation of nature versus the environment, that philosophical debate.
Speaker 2:But we know that life itself is vibration. It is pulsation. It is up and down. There are no straight lines. There are no zeros, And there's always something.
Speaker 2:But this bothness mindset helps a person become better armored for this life and able to tolerate and integrate, especially the loss experiences because the frustrated people want, again, all sweet, all sun, all good, all the time, not realizing that nature's not like that at all. And that we have to have the counterbalance of the negative to summon our powers, to bring forth growth and all these things and that we just assign labels to things as good, bad, mediocre, or whatever, just like we assign value. So this bothness mind see, people get frustrated because they are seeking singular explanations about things when that is never the case. There are always multi explanations or at least a bothness that both this and that may be correct. So people, they dig themselves holes making strong statements of certainty only to be humiliated later on when the guy in the back says, Well, what about this?
Speaker 2:And it's like, Oh, I hadn't really considered that. The point is both can be right. And you can look at almost anything with this bothness mindset and it will help. For example, you know, the sun is good, but then it's like, well, but too much sun is bad. So, there's the negative, better head for the shade.
Speaker 2:Or that it's good to work. And so, we get ourselves as busy bees going about our days, trying to be as productive as we can be. But Dennis, no. Then we need rest. Too much work, bad.
Speaker 2:But you'll find this bothness explanation to be of great benefit. Another idea that has helped me a great deal is the idea that all things are alive or have some consciousness. As we said, all things oscillate, they pulsate, they vibrate. To me, this indicates that there's life there. Okay.
Speaker 2:What does this idea do for us? Well, it helps us have a certain reverence towards life, a respect for life. We don't find ourselves littering. We don't find ourselves causing damage unnecessarily to things. When we walk through the woods, we know that we're not alone, that we're in the company of other living things, trees, other animals.
Speaker 2:Again, even the rocks have some consciousness, I suspect. That all things are alive, even man made things, the plastic bottle, the radio, the computer. These objects, I feel on some level can feel my love for them or my respect. And they respond. Now it may not be a consciousness or an intelligence that we understand, but I suspect that these things are alive and they are somehow recognizing me as I recognize them.
Speaker 2:We know that when we give love and attention to something, it tends to get better. Right? It improves. And our feeling towards those objects changes, of course, over time. But we certainly live a more intelligent life and feel like everything is value, everything has its place in the world, And somehow that's just part of the design and accept that.
Speaker 2:And as I get towards the end of this, I'm gonna share perhaps the most controversial idea that I'm presenting or sharing here. That's the idea that entertainment is the foundational energy of the universe. And this is kind of an all encapsulating idea and it's supported by most of the ideas that I've referenced previously in this message. And it's something that appeared in my life rather late. But as I try to make sense of the world, try to reconcile it, try to integrate it, especially the hardships and losses, But when you start to look at everything, you see that what human beings are running from is boredom.
Speaker 2:We want the new, we want the more, we want excitement. The worst thing we could think of is having the same meal every single day, all sun, all the time, where we never have the storm, we never have the rain or winds blowing. Human beings want change. They want this movement. We want to feel like we're progressing.
Speaker 2:And within that, well, that's a big aspect of happiness, the feeling of progress. So if everything's the same, there is no striving, There is no exploration of the unknown, both in your inner world of what your capabilities are, as well as what you can achieve out in the world. I mean, there's no growth, and thus excitement in some way can be linked up to all of life. I mean, even if you're on the plank captured by the pirates and you're looking down the water and the sharks are circling. And then, of course, you're pushed into it and he goes, wow, it really does hurt to have my leg bent off.
Speaker 2:But then it's over and we go to where we go after we depart this plane. There's an excitement in that. Or I look at some of the close calls I've had in life, from being chased by bears, to having pirates literally after you or all kinds of things or the thrill of business. There's just something about human beings that we're just not quite content. And it's almost a godly discontentment that causes us to keep reaching, to keep growing, to continually want to make our lives better.
Speaker 2:Why? We like the new. And just like I say, the great thing is to be on the journey in whatever place you're in. So again, if you're in the desert and striving for that oasis, and then you get to that oasis and you're sitting under in the coconut tree drinking your Mai Tai and Bloody Marys and everything. And then after a while, it's boring.
Speaker 2:And it's like, I hear there's a better oasis. And you start on your journey again. But we're very happy in doing this. I mean, let's take a look at arts and entertainment. We go to movies, we watch shows, and nobody wants to see all happy from this victory to this victory.
Speaker 2:I mean, all smooth sailing. No. We wanna see the drama. We wanna see the near misses. We sometimes wanna see people get gobbled up.
Speaker 2:We go to NASCAR. You get a glimpse of a good wreck a lot of times, not so different than gladiators, as I alluded to earlier in Roman times. We go to football games. We want to see the action. We are drawn to this excitement.
Speaker 2:Again, the new, the different, the exploration, the more, the achievement, and the great contrast of the victory, but then also the lowness of when you're defeated. All that's highly interesting to human beings. And thus, the idea that entertainment and excitement is the foundational energy of the universe is really a pretty prized idea. I mean, you look up at the stars and they're twinkling for us. We're on this planet that's not going anywhere, that's just floating in space.
Speaker 2:And the question comes, what's it all about? Well, it's about you and your evolution. Experiencing the world as a center in a universe without a center, and somehow this is the design. Again, no two people have the same views. You have your own thoughts and in some ways, you're the only one that's gonna understand you, and that's okay.
Speaker 2:Now the last point I'd like to share is that everyone and everything, really, is trying to do its best. People are doing the best job at life that they know how to do. They're living the best life they know because if they knew how to do better, they would be. This goes back to the mind. The mind is an efficiency seeking machine.
Speaker 2:It is always seeking out benefit or the best way of doing things, and it's seeking some type of fulfillment. So this idea that everyone and everything is trying to do its best, the meeb is trying to do its best job, the tree is trying to do its best job, the rocks trying to do its best job laying there even though we don't understand that consciousness. And one of the benefits of this is, again, we become more accepting of other people. The fact that there are silly and stupid people are just part of it, and that sometimes we are the stooges, we are the fools, so often. And the words, forgive them for they know not what they do, to me is sound wisdom, is sound counsel, because this indicates that perhaps we're all innocent, and that the greatest unavoidable vice that we have is perhaps ignorance.
Speaker 2:We only have five senses to interpret the world. We are a limited being. But through our will, we can increase this wisdom and knowledge. And so perhaps humility is in order here. And of course, humility is the beginning of knowledge because if you think you have the whole enchilada, that you know it all, there's no room for anything new, which is what?
Speaker 2:Excitement. So there we have it, a few ideas that perhaps help explain the world.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening. If you need anything further, just go to mbi.life.