FIVE IDEAS THAT CAN REALLY CHANGE YOUR LIFE

‘You are terrible, but happily for you, you are not you.’ Vernon Howard.

Words have power—for better or for worse—and ideas have even greater power. An idea that expresses an eternal, metaphysical truth is the most powerful thing in the world. 

Here are five empowering ideas that have made a huge difference in my life. They have lifted me out of the depths of despair.

1.   You are be-ing

Life is pure be-ing-ness actualized. Life forever gives of itself to itself so as to create more life in one form or another. The tree of life is be-ing-ness, or Be-ing, itself. I AM-ness. Oneness. It is the impersonal principle of life that is forever becoming personal as you and me and all other persons and things.

Life is the one formless, source-less, essence-less, unlimited, unsearchable, self-existent, self-knowing, self-giving, absolute, omnipresent, indestructible, and abundant self-existence that forever takes form—incarnating as you, me, and everything—but which is never even for a moment absorbed by the innumerable objects of its self-expression. 

The omnipresence of life forever manifests itself as the eternal now by means of an endless process or renewal of the present moment. Each moment is a ‘centre’, for want of a better word, of life's own consciousness. Forms of life constantly change. No form is permanent. Indeed, every form will pass away in time, but the essence of life is formless and eternal. It never passes away. Yes, the life that takes shape in one form or another can never be destroyed. You are life itself—a unique individualization and expression of life. 

Yes, you are part of life’s self-expression, and life cannot other than be. You are be-ing and you are also be-coming. Indeed, you are always in a state of becoming because change is the essence of be-ing-ness. This means that you are constantly changing whether for better or for worse. Once you fully understand this metaphysical truth, you are ready to take charge of your life.

2.   You are consciousness

Life is consciousness. We are life itself—an integral part of life’s self-expression. Each one of us is an inlet and an outlet of consciousness. 

The materialist view that asserts that the mind and the brain are one and the same—the so-called mind-brain identity theory—is not supported by recent discoveries in neuroscience and quantum physics as respects the nature of reality. Those discoveries tend to show that the mind and the brain are not co-extensive or identical, and that mind or consciousness is the creator and governor of so-called matter. 

Because you are be-ing, be-coming and consciousness, you have the powers of thought and observation. There is a time to think and, yes, a time to simply observe … choicelessly. Listen to these words of J. Krishnamurti, pictured right:

I wonder if you have ever walked along a crowded street, or a lonely road, and just looked at things without thought? There is a state of observation without the interference of thought. Though you are aware of everything about you, and you recognize the person, the mountain, the tree, or the oncoming car, yet the mind is not functioning in the usual pattern of thought. I don't know if this has ever happened to you. Do try it sometime when you are driving or walking. Just look without thought; observe without the reaction which breeds thought. 

There will always be a time for rational, critical thought, analysis, judgement and interpretation but if you do these things every second of the day, you will end up with analysis paralysis. Learn the art of choiceless awareness. Look. Observe. Be attentive. Be aware. That is what mindfulness is all about.

3.  You are what you think

No, I am not contradicting myself. As I have said, we need to think. This is the first verse of the Dhammapada according to one famous English translation: ‘Our life is shaped by our mind, for we become what we think.’ The same idea is expressed in the Hebrew Bible: ‘Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts’ (Prov 4:23); ‘For as a person thinks in their heart, so are they’ (Prov 23:7).

As we are consciousness, we must watch your thoughts. Are our thoughts positive or negative? Positive thinking has its detractors these days but I have never seen any benefits in negative thinking. Positive thinking is good for the mind and the body. Positive thinking releases life-affirming, healing chemicals into the brain and the body. Negative thinking releases life-destroying, malignant chemicals into the brain and the body. It’s clear which one is better for us. Of course, we must be realistic thinkers. We need to always see things-as-they-really-are. The true positive thinker is a realistic thinker who sees things-as-they-really-are but at the same time refuses to be deflected, let alone overwhelmed or defeated, by that which is negative. The true positive thinker never dwells on those things.

So, in the words of Plato, ‘Take charge of your thoughts; you can do what you will with them.’

4.  You cannot change yourself

The ‘I’ of you cannot change the ‘me’ of you. One of my all-time favourite spiritual teachers Alan Watts, pictured left, has this to say in his book The Wisdom of Insecurity about the wrong way to embark upon self-improvement:

I can only think seriously of trying to live up to an ideal, to improve myself, if I am split in two pieces. There must be a good ‘I’ who is going to improve the bad ‘me.’ ‘I,’ who has the best intentions, will go to work on wayward ‘me,’ and the tussle between the two will very much stress the difference between them. Consequently ‘I’ will feel more separate than ever, and so merely increase the lonely and cut-off feelings which make ‘me’ behave so badly.

The reason the good ‘I’ can’t change the bad ‘I’ is because they are one and the same and they exist only as self-images in our mind. Yes, all the 'I's' and 'me's' in your mind are little 'selves' that brought about by thought. These 'selves' have no separate, independent reality in and of themselves. They appear to be 'solid,' 'fixed,' and 'permanent,' but they are not. They are the product of thought which divides itself. You have hundreds of little 'selves' within you. None of them are the real you—that is, the person that you are. The person that you are is a mind-body complex in respect of which both physical characteristics and states of consciousness can be ascribed. Only the person is ontologically real. 'Selves' come and go; they wax and wane. They have no power and have no separate and independent existence from the person that you are.

You, the person that you are, can change. First, you, the person, must want to change. Secondly, you, the person, must do what is necessary and appropriate to change. The power to change is within, but it is always a ‘power-not-oneself’. Self has no power. Self cannot change self. The ‘I’ of you can never change the ‘me’ of you. Never forget that. Never.

Vernon Howard, a great spiritual author, wrote:

While there is no you who can rescue you, there can be an impartial awareness of the rescuing process. The rescue is complete when the awareness is complete.

What is this 'rescuing process' alluded to by Howard? It is none other than the process of choiceless awareness from one moment to the next, undertaken by the person that you are. Howard wrote:

You can begin to catch your false behaviour by asking the question ‘Who said that?’ and you will catch false personality being pleasant, sarcastic, and so on. As often as you can, you will interrupt yourself and say ‘Who said that?’ and if it is negative in any way at all, that is the invented self speaking in your name. 

All your little, false selves purport to speak in your name. Give them no power over you. They have no power in and of themselves. You give them power only when you believe them to be real. Don't do that!

5.   Acceptance is the answer to all your problems

‘On the acknowledgement of what is there is the cessation of all conflict,’ said Krishnamurti. Yes, acceptance—that is, acknowledging what is—is the answer to all your problems. Now, I am not saying that we should simply give in. No, not at all. However, before we can change we must first accept the reality of what is. Alcoholics cannot recover from their disease until they first accept that they are alcoholics. There’s more, though. Krishnamurti has stated a metaphysical truth of supreme importance, namely, that once we acknowledge what is, conflict in the form of resistance and the like comes to an immediate end. We must surrender in order to gain victory. Never forget that.

There are many other empowering ideas that can change your life. Many of these I have explored and discussed in other posts over the years—ideas such as the law of indirectness (don't attempt to put a thought or problem out of your mind directly but rather let the problem slip from the sphere of conscious analysis’), the principle of non-resistance (what you resist, persists), truth is a pathless land (we are always in direct and immediate contact with truth, so there is no separation or distance between us and truth), and truth is a moment-to-moment experience (truth is dynamic, not static).

I love empowering ideas. As Victor Hugo said, ‘Nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come.’

All power to you!

Note. The substance of this post first appeared on September 2, 2016 as 'Five Empowering Ideas That Can Change Your Life Forever'. Some new material has been added while some material in the original post has been omitted.

RELATED POSTS

TWENTY THINGS I'VE LEARNED IN 55 YEARS ... IT TOOK ME A WHILE!

POSITIVE THINKING, NEGATIVE THINKING AND MINDFULNESS

 

A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO MINDFUL LIVING