Our Inner Silent Life

The deepest core of our Being experiences life on the surface of our experience through activity. Our deep core is silent and at peace, while all our emotions are related to experiences in the material world. We touch upon this deep peace when we feel completely fulfilled in Love. Something most of us experience in relation to the material world, when deeply connecting with another soul, another being.

How surprising is it when we meditate, that we may suddenly connect with that same feeling of peace, even while being 'single'. That we may walk amongst trees or other natural habitats and find we feel in love with life around us and within us.

So how can we satisfy our need for happyness and joy? Every material object, including the appearance of other humans, is subject to decay. Even planets and complete solar systems. And so are many relationships. Except the relationship we have with that deepest core of our Being. A relationship we clearly discover when we meditate and become silent to the surface of our life.

Then, when we breathe into that deep core of our Being, finding silence and peace at the centre of our existence, we feel completely fulfilled. We are no longer in search for Love. We are Love.

So much more can be said about such journey, but words cannot eloquently describe the nature of such experience. Where it is medically proven that meditation helps any person both physically and mentally to perform better in reaching our personal goals in life, it may also dawn on some of us that it may satisfy a deep desire, a deep longing, to be fullfilled in Love, by searching inside instead of out.

"I am the path"

Being is all encompassing. "I am the path" is a quote that each of us should take personally! Not anyone or anything outside of Self, but we, our Selves are "the path, the truth and life" itself! It is my opinion that Love is the source of all Being and it is endless in it's space. Each constriction of such endlessness leads to illusion. Within our life on this planet we can only express life through constrictive thoughts, behaveours and activities. Life itself is a constriction. A narrowing of Endless Spirit, where we are Totally One within this Endless Spirit. 

It is not the denial of such constriction that lead us to true insight. It is the acceptance of each constriction and each kind of focus as an expression of life itself, without indentifying our selves with such constriction, what may lead to the true insight in the Endless Source of Being!

"So let's get to the bottom of this!"

An often-heard phrase when we want to know what "this" is really about.
This is just about the best phrase we can use when we want to know why our emotions are keeping us from feeling worthy. Worthy of enough attention. Worthy of enough money. Worthy of enough love.

Some long time ago (approx. 325 A.D.), the unconditional love of our mother in heaven was overthrown by the rules and commands of a conquering father. The unconditional love of our Goddess was replaced by the conditional love of a God, which would take revenge when not obeyed! This conquering God is jealous (1), wrathful (2) and is portrayed as a LORD, which decrees many rules to obey. It is not only the legacy of Christians that we are growing up with all these many, literally interpreted rules. Most people that adhere to (a) wrathful God(s) are plagued by the external rules, constantly chattering away to them in their head about what might be right and what might be wrong. It brings a life full of fear and guilt, not being able to live up to the rules of such (a) demanding God(s).

But how can this God be our God? How can our Christian God be the same God that "so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son" (3)? This human form, that manifests the will of God, being his son, tells us about "repentance and forgiveness" (4). How can this be combined with a jealous and wrathful God, when Paul is inspired to write: "If I [.....] have not love, I am nothing." (5).

Every time when we are confronted with difficult choices, we need to make unique decisions, based on our upbringing, culture, our teachings (both from teachers and personal experiences) and the possible consequences we can oversee. It is however often impossible to oversee all consequences. There are just to many deviations and multiple implications to every choice. And then we may feel guilty for each "wrong" choice we make. Every time again and again, we find ourselves at the wrong end of certain choices we make. We feel they are wrong, because we have hurt someone, or even many. Or we feel they are wrong because it does not comply with one of the many, many laws and rules we were taught by the people we learned to trust during our childhood.

Or even worse, we learned very early not to trust anyone, because we grew up in an environment of distrust and hate. Hate starts to take over when we decide "you can only trust your self and no one else!” Anger has hardened our harness so much, that we became impenetrable to any emotion. We silence our heart with the icy pride we take in being untouchable, while in the soft core of our being we feel the longing to be recognised. To be worthy of true attention. To be worthy of true Love.

Do you recognise the panic and the fear when you feel that nobody sees your value? The panic and fear when you feel things, which you have been told all your life you should not allow your self to feel? The panic and fear when your life suddenly changes for the worse? Whenever that happens, we often block our self with the limited views we have, based on the assumptions we have ingrained in our mind, based on what all of our teachers (parents, priests, etc.) have told us to be true. Fear gives us a short breath and our heart shrinks. We really feel like we are shrinking to a smaller size!

It is the fear of the wrath of God, the wrath of our parents, the wrath of our environment, which kills us slowly, instance by instance, if we do not change our attitude towards our self and toward life! As soon as we start to forgive our selves for whatever mistakes and failures we have made, we live the life that Christ endorses us to live. The remorse for past moments is often clearly there! It is the forgiveness that helps us to accept our humanity. And in doing so, we accept the humanity of each other person that fails to comply with the many rules and commands that we judge them by. Rules and commands that are based on "a limited collection of internal imagery".

Easy said, but now what to do? The first advise is: "let's get to the bottom of this!" Let's go to the bottom of our fear. It is what the Tantrics are saying for thousands of years already. It is a truth that has been rediscovered by many during our times. Only one example of many is Brandon Bays, who was diagnosed with a football-sized tumour (1992) and found herself catapulted into a remarkable, soul-searching and ultimately freeing healing journey. Only six and a half weeks later, she was pronounced textbook perfect - no drugs, no surgery, no tumour.

It is when we dare to face what is at the bottom of our pit, and look at whatever shows it self, with forgiveness and Love, that we are true followers of the example of Christ. Whatever imagery is colouring our assumptions and prejudice, when we judge others and our selves with Love and forgiveness, we truly follow a wonderful example as in the story, where Jesus is anointed by a "sinful woman" (6).

It is when we dare to go to the bottom of things, that we discover the real identity of any phenomena. And it is when we go to the bottom of our feelings, that we (re)discover the phenomenal potential of our own humanity. The core of our rescue is Love and forgiveness. When we go to the bottom of our fears and emotions, finally we always find just that: Love and forgiveness, freeing us from all our guilt, resentment, fear and anxiety. Giving us space to breath in and out deeply. Giving us space to create what we are all about in this life. Being a beautiful manifestation of Love, created in the image of God (7).

May Love be with us!
Arnold.

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Footnotes

(1) Exodus 20:5 (NIV); You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

(2) Deuteronomy 29:20 (NIV); The LORD will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven.

(2) Revelation 16 (NIV); VISION [Of John on the island of Patmos]: The seven angels with the seven vials of the wrath of God

(3) John 3:16-17 (NIV); 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[b] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

(4) Luke 24:47 (NIV); and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in [the name of Christ] to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

(5) 1 Corinthians 13:2-3 (NIV); If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

(6) Luke 7:36-50 (NIV); Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner."

Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you."
"Tell me, teacher," he said.

"Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,[d] and the other fifty. 42Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?"

Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled."
"You have judged correctly," Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."

Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."

The other guests began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"

Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."


(7) Genesis 1:27 (NIV); So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

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(NIV): New International Version © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

Intelligence

When we start to look at the beginning of all things, we often speak of "The Void" as the "nothing" before "something" came into creation. In the Christian World this "nothing" is often addressed as the "Darkness" before the "Light" came into creation. I see this as the beginning of all intelligence.

Intelligence starts with comparing values. The simplest comparison may be "Black" or "Darkness" in relation to "White" or "Light". This is the most basic example of Duality. A Duality that we find reflected in the checkered floors of some old temples, churches and in the present day lodges of the Freemasons. In the present day computer all intelligence starts with the same basic comparison. A circuit switch is either "on" or "off". Based on this "Binary" code, we form characters, based on 8 Binary "Bits". We then called those 8 bits: One "Byte". In the last decades many of us became personally familiar with 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit and now 64-bit computers.

These computers cannot work without a memory. We talk about internal memory, external memory, buffered memory, and many more terms to store information for a (sometimes very) short, and (sometimes very) long time.

The speed of calculation is defined by an internal clock. This clock is the reference for each binary bit to switch on and off, together with billions of other bits, creating the user experience that now many humans have when they are watching a digital screen.

Those of us that have been using a digital photo-camera (or a mobile with such camera) know that more pixels (i.e. more bits of information per square inch) will result in more detailed pictures, adding to the beauty that such picture may represent.

The combined intensity of light from different "Light Emitting Diodes" (LED's) then projects images on our internal "image sensors" (eyes), which we then interpret with the programming that we have received during our childhood and adolescent lives.

Listening to an outstanding lecture, presented as a summary of the thougts of Jos van Noort about the works of Teilhard de Jardin, I was wonderfully inspired with the thought that a growing complexity, as in the above mentioned examples, leads to a growing knowledge and intelligence about the world as we know it. And we need all those billions of bits together to create a detailed picture of what we think we are seeing, based on what we believe to be true.

So what IS true? And what IS false?

Our personality is an interesting mix of memories, creating the filters and programs that we use to interpret the images that we receive on our "image sensors". But there is more than that. Our "hearing sensors", "smell sensors", "taste sensors" and even our skin and organs give us information about our surroundings. This complex input is then filtered out, often based on our assumptions about how we expect the world should be.

The memory and programming we carry with us as interpretation of our world is often called "the ego". In some spiritual traditions it is mentioned that we should "lose the ego". Or even "kill it". In my opinion these memories and programs are the fundamental instruments of incarnating the Source of our Being into the world we are born into.

“The false ego is only false until it is realized; then it is True.”
[Pir Vilayat Khan]

Knowledge Management

It is my strong opinion that Knowledge is in your head, between 2 ears and two hemispheres! Depending on the focus you have on which and what information you are interpreting, one of the hemispheres is more dominant than the other ¹⁾. When you're enjoying listening to music, the right hemisphere is more dominant. Analyzing the music would request more dominance from the left hemisphere of the brain.

The interpretation of any information is uniquely defined by the biography of each person ²⁾. Listening to the music may recall a memory of sweetness or sadness in ones personal past. This interpretation will immediately influence the experience that one has right now. The storage in memory was originally done based on the filters that were important at that moment. We need these filters to protect ourselves from information overload.

The same principles apply to any information (i.e. data) systems. They cannot really be called knowledge systems, because, as I stated before, knowledge is uniquely defined by ones personal biography. On the other hand one may suggest that the information that was put into an information system was the result of the filters, defined by people within an organisation. In such a way, an organisation has something like a "biography" based on the history and future outlook of it's founders and present members.

Ones biography largely defines the personality of that person. In that way, one could also define the "personality" of an organisation as "a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by [an organisation] that uniquely influences [their] cognitions, motivations, and behaviors in various situations ³⁾" The word "personality" originates from the Latin: persona, meaning mask. We generally perceive a mask as a tool to hide ones identity. In the theater of the old Latin-speaking world it was not used as a disguise, but rather as a typification of the character played in that role.

This brings about the words character, identity and role. Just like with a person, these last mentioned 3 elements largely define how an organisation is perceived by it's environment. The public, watching the role played by the actor on the stage of a rapidly growing theater, called "the internet" will judge the character of that role. However wonderful the original person (i.e. organisation) may be internally, playing that role, the public will largely define the identity of the player by the way the role is played on stage.

Based on the assumption that the knowledge structure of each person is "biographically determined" ²⁾, we may assume that an organisation also has a knowledge structure, uniquely determined by all the different experiences that defines the "personality" and "identity" of that organisation. The knowledge structure within the organisation is therefore important as it defines largely how an organisation is perceived by "the public".

[to be continued ...]


Footnotes:

1. Alfred Schutz: Phenomenology of the Social World [ISBN 0-8101-0390-7]
2. Richard M. Ryckman: Theories of Personality
   
   

"Material World"

First, many of our ancestors thought the world was flat and that the Sun rotated around the Earth (150 A.D., Claudius Ptolemy). It was a kind of two dimensional interpretation of the material world. This was also reflected in art, which often gave a two dimensional representation of the reality as it was perceived at that moment.

At a certain moment this concept was slowly being adjusted to the more three dimensional view of the earth rotating on its axis daily and travelling around the sun yearly (1530, Copernicus). In art a movement became visible of more three dimensional images.

At the end of the 19th century a more detailed view of our material world became apparent, when the electron came into our knowledge
(1897, J.J. Thomson). This was the first step into a world of detail, describing the structure of our material world, which was followed by many more discoveries, now known as Quantum Mechanics (Q.M.History).

We now start to understand that the biggest part of our material world (what we call "reality") is "a "nothing," "void," and "vacuum" [These words] usually suggest uninteresting empty space. To modern quantum physicists, however, the vacuum has turned out to be rich with complex and unexpected behaviour." (Quantum Vacuum)

The same surprising revelation happens to anyone that dares to challenge their own personal construction of reality. When you focus on what your body is telling you, each moment of your waking conscious, you may find yourself confronted with a similar "nothing," "void," and "vacuum". And it may scare the hell out of you when you try to hold on to your past perception and construction of your personal "reality" and identity.

It is when we delve into the depths of our own existence that we discover new insights, both in the scientific realms, as shown above, as well as in the personal realms of our existence. When we dare to challenge the views that influence our perception of reality, we start to turn our experience of "nothing" into an adventurous journey of spaciousness.

As much as we now start to understand "the structure of our material world" which we perceive as reality, it is challenging for us to investigate "the structure of our identity" which we also perceive as reality. As children we build our personal perception of reality, based on what those we trust are telling us about reality, and based on our personal interpretations of emotions and situations. Just like scientists construe reality, we construe our personal reality. And just like "we visualize the vacuum in the same way as the Ancients did because we are still starting from the same limited collection of internal imagery", we are also inclined to visualize our personal reality and identity based on "a limited collection of internal imagery".

Before the "void" or "vacuum" was mentioned by scientists as being "rich with complex and unexpected behaviour", old lectures are mentioning such richness already for thousands of years. An example comes from the Zen Teaching of Huang Po: "The Void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma"(Shambhala Pocket Classics). It is a challenge to all of us to discover the void within our own body and mind and to discover the spaciousness within our own structure of reality.

When we explore our personal structure of reality, we discover the elements of our fortification that we have needed, to give meaning to both wonderfully inspiring as well as emotionally hurtful experiences. This is exactly what our ancestors did when they construed a two dimensional concept of their world.

As we become curious about the personal structure that we have created around the "void" within us, we start to distinguish the truths about how we express our being into this world and why we do it in our own unique way. We also start to feel that the "void" or emptyness is not a threat to us, but an unlimited space of potentiality!

I wish you a wonderful and inspiring journey,
Arnold.