11 Oct Try Acting as If There is No Material World
Try acting as if there is no material world: which is the light? which is the cave–like Plato’s cave, illusory? This is Painted Cave on Santa Cruz Island by Mike Baird.
Try Acting as If There is No Material World
When you try acting as if there is no material world, you learn fruitful things about money, money-making, money management, and fundraising. Try this thought-experiment with me.
Step One: What is There if There’s No Material World?
In this thought-experiment, there is only the world of the spirit, whatever that looks like for you. What does it look like? (Hint: We will return to this in our next post. It’s a very sneaky part of the whole experiment.)
You can place the material world inside this world of the spirit, off to the side somewhere.
Step Two: Where Are You?
In this world of the spirit: where are you? Did you see yourself when you answered the boldfaced 🙂 question in Step One? If you didn’t see yourself, make sure you understand where you are in this world.
Step Three: What is Important?
What’s your answer to that question: what is important in this world?
I ask because suddenly, if you’re doing the experiment, you’ll find new things are important. Likewise (or “concomitantly,” as I enjoy saying just because I like how it sounds), things that were important are, simply, not.
Step Four: What’s Missing?
What is missing is a very interesting part of this experiment. Please write in with a comment to this post and tell us: what is missing?
Do you miss it?
Are you glad it’s gone?
Quietly, now, I ask you: what is not missing: what is present?
Here is the post that builds on this thought-experiment, but I want to give you time to do it first.
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Posted at 11:21h, 25 October[…] is no obstacle in the spiritual world. If you’ve been following along by doing our first thought-experiment, and then our second, you’ll know this right […]
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Posted at 19:34h, 18 October[…] If you did the thought-experiment that prepares you for this post, you now have a quite clear idea […]
Marissa
Posted at 03:22h, 14 OctoberI did this exercise and immediately I found myself in a Miyazaki film as my spirit world, and I as one of his female protagonists in that world. Specifically I envisioned a scene from Howl’s Moving Castle where she is out in a field full of flowers with mountains in a distance, out the magical door of a magical house from Howl’s childhood.
What is missing is all the unimportant things. Like money, and concern about clothing, and judgments or what anyone else thinks. I don’t miss it. It’s a relief to finally exist in the world I feel I’m native to anyway, where I don’t have to worry about it because no one else does either and it finally isn’t necessary to life.
What is present is joy, color, openness, freedom, nature, weather, presence, human connection, smells, sounds, symbolism, meaning, and story.
Beth
Posted at 19:35h, 14 OctoberAmazing! Pregnant, and beautifully written. Thank you so much, Marissa.
Darryl Burks
Posted at 23:18h, 11 October1. I prefer to call it a world or universe of only energy, since that is what we really exist in. The material world is only a perception, a phantasm created by our ego mind. So in a world of only energy there is no objective form. There is only perception and flowing energy. Where this energy condenses or coalesces we perceive form, solid objects.
2. In this universe of energy I am just a stream. A bundle of energy in a pattern connected to and flowing with all the rest of it.
3. Is anything “important” really ? If everything is connected and comes into perceived form by condensing of energy only to later return to that same energy and become something other perceived form, does doing or not doing really matter ? Or is that just an attempt of ego to maintain it’s identity and existence ? The flow is what matters. Moving with and through the patterns to create harmony.
4. In this universe of only energy one large missing idea is that of separation. If we think of it as a large body, then us saying we are separate is like the toe saying it is a separate entity and not part of the body. Also the idea of time must go. Rather than time as a linear lock step operation we see that there is only always ever now and that this now changes in appearance but is always now. Because there is no future or past, these things are just mental imagined constructs, we can be content with what is, because that is all we really have. We so often torment ourselves in the now by believing that t some future now we will be happy finally.
5. You left out the bigger question: Why ? What is the purpose ? Why are we here and able to perceive, however crudely, this greater existence ?
These concepts are very difficult to express in words. They are things that almost have to be experienced or realized to be grasped but took my best shot. Very good exercise. Thank you.
Beth
Posted at 15:21h, 12 OctoberDarryl, thank you! I’m glad you thought this a great exercise. I thought it was when it came to me, but always appreciate confirmation of my understanding/intuition.
I wanted to say that I didn’t leave out “why.” I actually find “why” can be a conversation-stopper when I am communicating with the Divine, and it can be an obstacle to my development or my client’s if I am working with them. I tend to take it out of my vocabulary when in this realm. (Now if my checkbook doesn’t balance, of course I ask “why”!)