by Cody Lundin
Then the Grasshopper knew: It is best to prepare for the days of necessity.
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5
PREDATOR vs. PREY: A Clue into Your SURVIVAL PSYCHOLOGY
"It has been said that doubt and fear are the parents of all human habits, and the rest of the human habits are their children."
—Pearl Dorris
What happens to you externally is only a reflection of what goes on internally, so all true self-reliance begins with you, how you relate to yourself and the others in your world. Sound too groovy? If deep down inside you think you're a schmuck, do you really expect others to view you in a different light?
Predator animals, of which humans are included, prey on the weakest of the species. In the realm of human nature, there are plenty of weaknesses to choose from. In the animal kingdom, if wolves gang up on a robust, healthy bull elk, the chances of them sustaining life-threatening injuries are high. Any injury threatens the wolves' survival, as injuries impede future successful hunts. Predators, whether animal or human, are masters at reading the body language and subtle nuances of their prey. The mugger on the street will mull you over as potential prey much the same that a lion does a gazelle. No words or sounds need be uttered. You're either a suitable target or you're not.
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THE WART ON TREVOR
"If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em."
—Harry S. Truman
At this writing, there's a lot of talk and attention given to fighting the Wart on Trevor. The more we talk about it, feeding our energy into it, the bigger the Wart seems to become. This in turn generates more fear and anxiety. Similar to the above-mentioned strategy for urban preparedness, in order for any plan to have lasting affects, we must deal with the root cause of the problem itself. Dealing with only the effect of an issue puts us into a defensive, reactionary position. It causes a situation of frustration and powerlessness. We can curse and swat at flies all day long but if we refuse to go after the cause, and clean the crap out of the corral, especially the one in our own backyard, we had better get used to swatting. One of the most successful ways to deal with the cause of a problem is to be honest with yourself and your situation.
After much prompting, Trevor eventually showed us his Wart, and for the first time, allowed us to illustrate a cross section of his Wart. While many over the years have tried dealing with the Wart itself, few have considered dealing with the root cause of the Wart on Trevor. Several have tried attacking the Wart on Trevor as the sole means of ridding it from the world but were shocked to find that instead the Wart simply diversified and grew bigger.
One of the reasons that the Wart on Trevor is so scary is that it's unpredictable, representing the unknown, which provides fertile ground for growing variations. Variations are the hallmark of all survival scenarios and can quickly bear the fruit of fear if left unchecked. Forrest Gump said it best, with my modification, "Survival situations are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get." This innate variation is what demands that you learn to realize, and the sooner the better, what you and your family truly need to live.
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Predation doesn't simply happen on an individual level. It can happen to groups, organizations, or entire towns and nations. When individuals or events spread fear, whether it's based in reality or not, over time, this fear erodes personal power. Very rarely are practical solutions given to alleviate the fear, as very often nobody knows the true source of the fear. Doubt creeps in at first, causing one to question his or her support system and safety. Questioning can be a good thing if it leads to empowerment and action. But too many times the questioning gives way to the giving up of one's personal power. The end result is we'll do almost anything to feel safe again, including giving up personal freedoms and liberties. We willingly turn our lives over to others, giving them virtual power of attorney to do what they think is best for our welfare. Like cows in a slaughter-house, this is a very powerless and dangerous place to live.
One of the factors that will determine whether you become dinner for a predator is your ability to recognize the difference between your needs and your wants. This is true for an individual, a family, a tribe, a nation, and a world. Visit a developing nation anywhere on Earth and you'll quickly notice that human beings have very few true needs. But mess with those needs and all hell breaks loose. Knowing the needs to short- and long-term survival helps you to focus upon the non-negotiable items required for your safety. This makes the monumental (and impossible) task of trying to prepare for countless emergency scenarios manageable. After your basic needs are covered, everything else on your preparedness list is fluff.
Today's world seems to be filled with the hidden horrors of the unknown. Whether actualized or not, little is being done to educate people on what is needed to live through a crisis. When a person understands what is needed to live, this wisdom grants them full empowerment to then do something about their situation in order to help make sure that their needs are fulfilled. How they go about doing what they think is necessary is their business. Some needs are non-negotiable, such as safe water to drink, food to eat, and shelter to regulate body temperature. Other needs are specific to an individual, like certain medications or items that foster a psychological calmness or peace of mind. Winnowing your family's needs from its wants is arguably one of the most important tasks to be accomplished on your journey toward independence.
6
You ARE what you EAT, and THINK, FEEL, SPEAK, ACT, and FOCUS your ATTENTION UPON
"There is not one destructive thing that can reach you or your world of action except you feed your Life Energy into it by the Power of your Attention."
—Saint Germain
True students of survival, and life, recognize that their inner worlds must be brought into order before their outer experience of life follows suit. If your mental and emotional worlds are filled with fear, doubt, and chaos, how can you expect to have happiness and the calm feeling of centered self-reliance in your life? The feeling and activity of true self-reliance comes from within you and cannot be bought. Being able to consciously project confidence, to truly feel it, is fairly easy when you have your bases covered. There is stability, a certain unshakability that comes from becoming more self-reliant in your life, physically and otherwise. You're much harder to knock off balance, literally and metaphorically, as you're anchored within something larger than yourself. You've taken the time to assess what makes you tick, physically, mentally, emotionally, and otherwise, and have chosen to educate, self-correct, and strengthen yourself in the areas of your life where you feel a void. The more you initiate inner honesty and improve upon yourself, the less you will feel off balance when chaos seems to rock your world.
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THE FEELING AND ACTIVITY OF TRUE SELF-RELIANCE COMES FROM WITHIN YOU AND CANNOT BE BOUGHT.
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It's been said that the personal initiations required to become a self-fulfilled, happy individual occur right here in everyday life. There is no need to force open the flower, as the teacher appears when the student is ready. How we handle our present learning experience dictates the next, and so on down the oftentimes painful road toward self-discovery.
Consciously Taking Back Your Power. . .the Road (Not Well Traveled) to True Self-reliance
"THERE ARE TWO WORLDS WHICH RUN PARALLEL TO ONE ANOTHER. ONE IS THE WORLD OF CAUSE; THE OTHER IS THE WORLD OF EFFECT!"
—EL MORYA
Continually dealing with the effect of some negative action, instead of exploring its cause, is a drag. It puts one on the blaming defensive, and creates excuses and justifications for crappy experiences. In other words, a person gets sucked into the quagmire of victimhood, relinquishing his or her power to the appearance world of physical vision and all of its seeming limitations. You are the creator of your reality. There are no excuses and there is no escape from the energy you use in your world that paints the picture of what you experience around you.
> Through the Law of the Circle, those who send out criticism, condemnations, and judgment attract much more misery than they originally doled out, as negativity gathers more of its kind through mutual attraction on its return trip back to the sender. As the law is impersonal, those who choose to send out happiness, abundance, and harmony are likewise the recipients of much greater joy and supply. Continued honest, quiet introspection into your life will reveal the truth of this, that the ramifications of our own behavior can be our greatest obstacle to happiness.
The creative faculties given to humanity, through free will, are the powers of attention, thought, feeling, speech, and action. How you choose to use them, through your power of qualification, shapes your life experience on this planet. You qualify the otherwise clean slate of an experience with your chosen perception, as no two people view the same experience in quite the same manner. Using the creative faculties can and will take you into the streets of despair or into the mansions of so-called heaven. What you choose to put your attention upon, you become. This happens automatically as your life force rushes out to meet whatever thing or condition you choose to focus upon, and its quality rushes back into your world to act. If you see a certain condition, and make the conscious or subconscious choice to accept what you see into your feelings, you make it real for you. You invite the external appearance, in whatever form it may appear, to take up residence in your consciousness, thus out-picturing or manifesting itself in your physical life. This happens regardless of whether the appearance you have drawn to you is a positive or negative quality. This happens regardless of your belief or lack of belief that what you're reading is true, just as the sun doesn't require your belief to rise each day.
How many times have you or someone you know been lost while driving around the city, looking for an elusive destination? Before the person becomes "lost," of course, he is completely sure that he knows where he is going. He has convinced himself with his powers of attention, thought, and feeling that the correct destination is right around the corner, or the next corner, or maybe the next. He is lost within his own reality, created by his own bias and, human nature being what it is, with its fierce desire to be right, supports the illusion of his act(ion). No amount of arguing or proof to the contrary can convince the lost person that he is lost, although it's painfully obvious to others.
Once your attention is drawn to something or someone, whether in the outer world, or to a quality within yourself, you will have thoughts and feelings regarding the appearance you witness. Every thought you think and feeling you feel are tangible forces. Almost everyone has had the experience of having their hair stand up on the back of their neck when caught in a creepy situation—"bad vibes," we might call it. Thoughts and feelings are not abstract things and you are accountable for all of them—good and bad—at some time in your experience. They contain much power and are stamped with your essence, so to speak, so the owner of the thought or feeling is always known. Those who think their bad intentions are a dirty little secret are fooling themselves because eventually their negative intentions will return to them with much more of the same.
Like attracts like, so if you choose to think negative thoughts, and energize those thoughts with negative feelings as they leave your consciousness, they eventually return to you with more of their kind. Other negative thoughts and feelings will attach themselves to yours, thereby gaining momentum. You will have much more negativity to deal with on their return flight back to you, their creator, than you originally dished out. Some have called this the action of cause and effect, "what comes around goes around," or "what you sow, you also reap."
To bring a structure into the world, the architect puts his attention toward a certain goal or idea. This mental concept, or thought-form, is the "cup" of the idea the architect wishes to have manifest. Having the cup, thought-idea, or blueprint, the architect then fills the project with his feeling. This emotion or feeling energizes or clothes the thought-form, eventually causing the desired manifestation to appear. All of this requires energy from the person. The home you live in was nothing more than a focus of attention and thought upon a piece of paper long before it came into the three-dimensional world. The line on the paper (one dimensional) became the illustration of your home (two dimensional), and with much feeling, effort, and energy, became the three-dimensional house you enjoy.
Through your attention, thought, and feeling, you govern your world. This experience can be harmonious or otherwise. No one, and I mean NO ONE has power over you and your world but you. The conditions that you experience in your life are your creation, your "self" with a small "s" projected out into the world generated by your attention, thought, feeling, speech, and action. From second to second, you experience nothing but your own inner state of consciousness.
When people look upon a forest in the wilderness, they all have different opinions about what they see. Some see the trees competing for light, all jockeying for the best position to tweak the most sunlight possible at the expense of the other trees and shrubs. Others see decay and death from rotting vegetation that litters the forest floor. Still others see the forest as pure harmony and order, everything in its place, all of nature cooperating with itself in one perfect expression.
Likewise, the tree in the forest remains a tree, yet people have varying opinions on how they view the tree. For some it means so many linear feet of lumber; for others, a home for wildlife; while others simply see the tree as beautiful. Just as the forest and tree are viewed as having different qualities, so, too, do people look at life through different-colored glasses. More than likely, the forest could care less and the tree goes on living contented within its "tree-ness."
Trevor's Rose-Colored Glasses
"'WHERE MY ATTENTION IS, THERE I AM.' THAT MEANS YOUR LIFE IS ACTING THERE, AND 'WHAT MY ATTENTION IS UPON, I BECOME.'"
—MIGHTY VICTORY
The qualified use of our attention, thought, and feeling, coupled with the powers of the spoken word and our actions, create the world we live in. This creation, or colored perception, corresponds with our emotions and how we view the world around us.
The close-up illustration of Trevor's rose-colored glasses shows how self-generated limitations color our perception. Think of the left lens as being a three-dimensional sphere, like an onion, each outer layer temporarily hiding or partially obscuring the other inner layers of awareness underneath. From the outer layer of guilt, to the inner layer of joy, each level of awareness contains a certain amount of energy and directly affects biochemical neurotransmitter changes within the brain. The closer to the center you move, the more energy you have, thus the more tools and inspiration you have to deal with problems. Much research and many studies of quantum physics have proven this to be so. The concept is rapidly approaching the mainstream school of thought and has even been featured in the major motion picture What the Bleep Do We Know? Where your attention is, there you are, and what you think and feel, you become, as your psychology affects your physiology.
As one exercises self-control and consciously governs his or her thoughts and feelings, replacing the negative with the positive, the outer spheres are transmuted and all that is left is joy, illumination, and beyond. The glasses have no "filter," no color to alter one's perception, and all human-caused limitation ceases to act and is transcended. The spheres are not static and can interpenetrate each other, to a point. Where there is joy, there is no guilt or anger. Yet one can easily experience guilt and anger together.
These perceptions become self-perpetuating within the individual. If you ask a person experiencing grief what the world is like, he will see the world as a sad place. The attention, thought, and feeling of sadness is projected out onto the world and bounces back to the senses, resulting in a change of perception. The projected sadness, before it makes its return trip to the sender, gathers more sadness, thus justifying to the person that this is indeed a sad world—like attracts like. The result reinforces the person's emotional state,
so now, with even greater intensity, the person sends out and experiences the world as sad.
If you choose to see the world as a fearful place, and fearful things happen, you might say, "See, I told you so, it's a fearful world." Such reactions prove that the little self, ego, or personality is right, and the personality loves to be right, as it strengthens its validity in the world of the person. Reflexively, the intellect justifies any position the person holds. It rationalizes and defends the quality to make it sound sensible. Conversely, a person experiencing happiness sees the world as a happy place, and is rewarded with more of the same. This self-created projection happens throughout the emotional spectrum of the spheres of influence.
The minute someone demonstrates courage and tells the truth, she has moved within the spheres of influence to a point where her inner world changes and the person begins to have an increase of her personal power and integrity. While the negative feelings have not all disappeared, the person has greater energy to handle nasty situations. She is no longer living in the world of victimhood. When someone will not acknowledge or tell the truth, she lives within her own creation of lack and limitation. Without truth, unconditional love is not possible, as people are ruled by their own selfishness, in which other people are merely objects to satisfy their needs and wants.