Clean up your hard disk

A beautiful girl walks by her: instantaneously, the mind starts judging: who is the prettiest girl in the world? Not me. Actually, she is comparing herself with a beautiful girl and produces a judgment. This judgment is like an internet cookie, is is meant to file the respective experience. In the filing process, the experience needs to receive a tag, and the tag says: I am not that pretty, they are so much prettier than me.

Something bigger than me.

A guy stops at the traffic light. Next car is an Audi, latest model. He feels humiliated, the other guy drives a better car. I do not deserve respect, he tells himself. He envies the product of that bank account which paid for the Audi. I am not good enough, he tells himself.

A baby knows first the mother. Her smell, the touch, her sounds. Mother means safety, something emotionally bice. One day, the Mama cookie issues the first no. The cookie library is struck by havoc: what is this???  We must file this in a new cookie, because it is different from the Mother cookie. And so on: along our lifetime, we develop an entire bank of cookies.  If the experience fits one of these cookies, it produces  an emotion, at a speed that is higher than Internet. Before our rational mind gets the message, the cookie bank makes one make a choice, already, by surfacing the emotion this bank considers adequate to the situation.

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The cookies dig, excavate to find your choices, so that they can produce the decisions they think you want. Sometimes, these decisions are lousy because they are produced by the respective emotions. Out of the emotional content of your hard drive, each time you experience something new, the cookie forest tries to connect with previous experiences. This instantaneous categorizing is the one making you receive, for the first time, a piece of information and decide whether you should be joyful or afraid. The system says if it is good or bad, and has continuously been doing this since your first gulp of air.

And if this was not enough, there are subcookies, too. Filtered in categories. The biggest cookie, the one that wins, is the one that supplies the most emotional content. It is like advertising: the cookie decides who you are, how will you show yourself to the world, and this is how, according to the respective observation, it will dictate what kind of person will you be. The advertising appears from cookies, under the form of emotions.

Your hard drive has not been cleaned for a long time. It still contains all the cookies since you were a child. It would be great to have an adult bank of cookies, a sound mind bank of cooies or, even better,  a spiritual cookies bank. We are a computer with an operation system that no one updated in a long time. That is why people keep bringing the same things to the table, again and again, even if these things are not what they want. It is like they want to be constantly upset: every day, the same thing, reflecting onto themselves and therefore they get more of what they do not want.

If these cookies do not lead to behaviours able to express yourself the way you want to be, it is time for a clean up. There are several methods to do that: through rational thinking (men are the champions of that), through meditation, through starting to be honest with yourself, through therapy… If people can understand they function like a computer, they can become observers of this computer and not the operating system. They can choose  how to react, instead of whining. The observer observes the emotion and thinks: what is really happening here? Does this mean anything? Why am I feeling so uncomfortable? Why am I so suspicious?

Enter the system and delete, delete, delete. If you find something nice, full of love, keep those “good” cookies. What they do is like when you let someone merge the traffic when coming from a side street.Eventually, someone will let you, too, merge. The energy we radiate comes back to us, just like a cookie: you click it and the Univers sends you more. These are the good cookies. Print the image of  a Ferrari and work to get it: the chances to actually own one will grow. Working on the garage might also be a good idea 🙂 .

Many people do not see their beliefs, but they live those beliefs. The cookies becom beliefs, a set of rules you have created for yourself, subconsciously. the world around you, the people you meet, the situations. They create the “advertising” that calls for the next situation.

What we need is a set of principles to live by.  One that we set, not an external one or a subconscious one. We need to put a filter in front of the cookie that will have to pass those principles to be correctly assessed, canceled or recognized as important. But we will talk about these next time.

Mastery: a decision to continue one’s own evolution

ochiul florii kanaloaThere are a lot of people carrying around a master’s diploma. And requiring for their mastery to be recognized. There is one saying coming from Don Beckett, ReiKi Master: a Master is just someone who decided to continue walking the Path. 

Well said. But what are the key features of Mastery, be it about spiritual teaching or carpentry work? How does a master look like? How can one recognize a true master and, more complex yet, how can one choose a master?

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It all starts with following and living a set of principles. No matter these are the ten commandments, the five shamanic agreements or the seven Huna Principles, there must be a behavior foundation that creates a framework for all we think, say and do.We typically call this ethics.

The next big one is compassion. In the broad sense, we find it in “love thy neighbor” or Aloha or Be Kind to Others. But one key issue that usual occurs in the path to mastery is that we still do those things for ourselves, and not for others. One of the spiritual traps. If we heal, teach, protect, charge just for a personal benefit – be it money or fame, being in the center of attention or simply get remarked – the whole effort slides down the drain. Mastery is  for others and it has to be exercised with the two following bubbles in the chart:

download (1)One is humbleness. Ego has no room in a master’s behavior. The car, the house, the social status, the expected recognition – if they are still present and manifesting, it is the right time for pulling up our sleeves and starting to work on the Me, Me, Me issue.

Are you reacting emotionally to criticism instead of taking the information in to reflect on it and seeing what tiny or big thing you can improve? More work is needed.

download (2)The next one, really important, is to stay present in this world of now. Not on a mountain top. In our workshops and conferences we met people who displayed a balanced, loving, compassionate behavior in a meditation circle, and oozing frustration, anger and dissatisfaction immediately after the sessions ended. Mastery is displayed equally in the physical world and in manifesting emotions, in the mind, everywhere. A master has a consistent behavior, no matter it is about brushing teeth or offering empowerments.

This balance  is radiating out of the persons who advance on the path to mastery. People want to be around these persons. Attracting the ones desperately in need for affection or the ones wanting mental gymnastics for the satisfaction of the intellect only  is not it. When people genuinely feel good around you, it means you are on the right track. Not because of the way you do things. Your mere presence is radiating this balance, and people usually say they feel at peace, protected and satisfied.

Last feature and most important is excellence.  A master has to be brilliant at what he or she does. Many of our students want to start sharing something immediately after they have learned it – but the key is patient, consistent and diligent practice, to learn the behaviors or techniques, and to get a deeper understanding, valuable insights and a comprehensive vision on the respective topic.

You might want to try and practice each of the bubbles of about three weeks… and see what changes. And if you are looking for a master, here are the three key things to help you make up your mind:

1. There is solid proof of excellence. Clearly, there is a lot to learn from this person.

2. There is chemistry between you and that person.  And the chemistry is both ways. Masters do live in earthly bodies, they might have feelings. Students that drop our of their work with the master just because they did not feel loved enough have some serious topics for reflection… it is easy to point the finger at someone else.

3. The master is available. Availability does not mean he or she will definitely reply all your 10 sms’s right now. And availability will also mean that the master will be there for you when you think you do not direction and support. The master is not a friend, but the most (com)passionate personal coach one could imagine. Between the helping, the encouragement and the spanking, this person will always be interested in your progress without having any interest in his or her own benefits.

Good luck . Practice. Keep walking the Path.