In a world that is actually as wide and free as the sky, beliefs act like bumpers and clap-pers in a closed-in pinball game. Boing! Men cannot feel. Pang! Pang! Children should be seen and not heard. Tock! Tock! Tock! Fords are better than Chevys. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr! East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet. Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Women are unstable and should only work in the back office. Boing! Boing! I am not allowed to do that. Clang! Our way is right. Their way is wrong. Tilt! And so on.
Any phrase you speak or think that begins with, “We have to…,” or “I can’t…,” or “You must…,” or “We never…” is a positional stance that may be coming directly from a belief.
There is a big difference between a belief and a way that we think. We may say, “I believe,” when what we really mean to say is, “I think…” or “my best guess is…” or “based on my experience I conclude that…” An important experiment is to check your use of the word “belief.”
We may regard a “belief” as if it causes a reality to come into existence. Actually the opposite is true. Beliefs block us from being able to use the parts of reality that lay on the other side of our beliefs.
A belief is a scab on the mind that provides us with a readymade answer when there actually is none. The Box thrives on readymade answers. Take for example death. We have no answer to the question, “What happens after we die?” The Box feels out of order when it has no answer, and would rather have any answer than no answer. Having no answer leaves an unprotected gap in the Box’s defenses. That is why myriads of beliefs about what happens after we die have been fabricated. If we use a belief to answer the question about death, for example, either a standard off-the-shelf belief or something more customized, then whenever we come around to questions about death, we do not have to stand in a doorway open to freezing cold answerlessness. The Box pulls out the appropriate belief and slaps it over the opening. Case closed. Next question please.
If the belief is torn off it reveals a wound. The wound is a rejection of the raw experience of being faced with not knowing. The wound occurred in some previous circumstance when the Box decided that it was not okay to not know. The difficulty with using a belief to avoid experiencing that you do not know is that sometimes it is irrefutably the case that you do not know! Healing yourself of beliefs involves modifying the design of your Box so as to be okay with the experience of not knowing.
One of the first blockades to entering extraordinary human relationship is your personal internal jungle of beliefs. Each person’s belief jungle includes different species of beliefs, different densities of beliefs, different ages of beliefs – ancient hardened beliefs and new young tender beliefs. On your way toward extraordinary human relationship you have a preparatory job to do: to examine each and every one of your beliefs under the clear light of the new perspective that beliefs block reality.
Each belief has its own unique purpose, causes its own kind of seeing and thinking, looks for other people with whom to find safety in belief affinity, and avoids or attacks enemies of belief. Take out and inspect the beliefs that you got from your mother. Examine the beliefs that you got from your father. Scrutinize the beliefs you got from school-teachers, from religion, from science, from society, from the media. Take each belief out separately and ask yourself questions. Do you need to have this belief? What does this belief do for you? How have you been using this belief? What is the belief ’s purpose? What does this belief block you from experiencing? What would your life be like if you decided to let this belief dissolve and be washed away downstream? Whose friendship would you lose? What might you gain?
MAP OF THE TECHNOLOGY OF BELIEFS
Here is a little list of observations about beliefs. Nothing in this list is to be believed. The list is offered here as a map to use while making experiments to find out how beliefs actually work.
1. Beliefs are a Band-Aid placed over a hole on the inside of your Box so you do not have to experience not knowing.
2. Beliefs have no relationship to reality.
3. Any person can have any belief about anything.
4. There is no objective hierarchy of beliefs so no one belief takes priority over another.
5. If you make beliefs valid in your world then you will unavoidably have a war between your belief — that says, “this is right and that is wrong” — and another person's belief that declares, with equal fervor, the exact opposite.
You may already know about your belief jungle. You might have already spent years hacking away at belief brambles to clear the landscape for other possibilities. Or this may be your first introduction to the idea that beliefs block reality. If this is your first encounter with the idea of beliefs blocking reality, try not to get offended, and try not to get overwhelmed by the huge number of beliefs and the amount of time such investigation takes. The process takes time and cannot be hurried. Give yourself the time, and ask lots of people lots of questions along the way. Try to avoid looking for simple answers.
Taking responsibility for the fact that you have fortified the weaker parts of your Box with beliefs may require some months or years of work, but is worth the effort. The fewer beliefs that you support, the fewer shipwrecked intimacies you will experience. You may need to have some rather intense conversations with people who have already been disassembling their beliefs for some time. Your Box may have prevented such “dangerous” characters from being included in your usual circle of friends, but these people are never far off. When you are clear about wanting to floss your mind of beliefs, helpers will pop out of the woodwork. Your intention in these conversations can be to take apart your own beliefs before they take apart your chances to be in extraordinary human relationship.
Discover The Part That Is Not An Animal
Just like animals, we humans eat, we shit, we mate, we play around, we get sick, and we die. Physically we are animals. Physicality dominates much of our experience. And, there are more levels to being human than just the animal part. Practice is a way of discovering those aspects of ourselves that are not animal.
Here is an experiment to do several times that will help you to discover and clarify the difference between the animal part and the conscious human part. Sit cross-legged on the floor or upright in straight-backed chair. Carefully stretch your arms straight out sideways with your fingers pointing toward the sky and palms facing away from you. Take a deep breath and relax into that position. Stay in that position for twenty minutes.
Within a short time you will be intimately involved with distinguishing the difference between animal and spirit. The animal part will be feeling pain in the shoulders, back, arms and neck. Soon the pain is compounded by shaking, sweating, moans, contortions, nausea, and so on. The animal part starts screaming at you, “What? Are you crazy? This hurts! You are hurting me! You idiot! Ow! Ouch! Ohhhhhhh! Arrrgh! Stop this! Hey! It’s hurting! I am going to die!”
Contrary to your animalistic certainty of impending doom, you will not die. Not from this. No matter what it feels like, no matter what the animal says to you, you will not die from holding your arms out. You may have sore muscles for a few days, but there will be no permanent damage.
In this experiment you will notice that the animal tells you to put your arms down as soon as it gets uncomfortable. Your spirit or volition has the ability to not obey the commands of the animal. Your spirit can keep your arms out for twenty minutes or longer even though keeping your arms out can be excruciatingly uncomfortable for the animal. If you do this experiment, plan to do it more than once. The second time you do it you will have a better idea of what was happening the first time. Learning to not obey the animal’s every whim is a step in the direction of developing discipline. Developing discipline lets you differentiate your spiritual body from your physical animal body.
SECTION 6-K
Hooked or Not-Hooked
Extraordinary human relationship depends on you staying “unhookable.” Being unhookable means having the capacity to
act independently from the circumstances, no matter what the circumstances are. A “hook” is any stimulus that might cause an automatic emotional reaction. The list of potential hooks is endless. It can drive people instantly nuts if you chew with your mouth open, ring the doorbell twice, insinuate that someone is stupid, criticize someone’s religion, brag about your kids’ grades, give problem solutions unasked for, continuously talk, make house decoration suggestions, refuse to tell your birthday, give away a movie plot before someone has seen it, and so on.
Obviously it is not you that gets hooked; it is your Box that gets hooked. You can prove this because different hooks catch different kinds of “fish,” meaning what hooks one person’s Box may be invisible to another’s. The instant you are hooked you lose access to any possibilities other than your Box’s mechanical reactions – you forget what extraordinary and Archetypal Possibilities are and how to go there. You are stuck in ordinary human relationship. The brain dumps a truckload of hormones into your system and your adrenaline shoots through the roof. You can’t hide being hooked because everybody around you sees and feels the side effects. It takes a minimum of fifteen minutes to metabolize the chemicals out of your system and return to normal again – fifteen minutes you will never get back again.
Each of us contains a variety of internal characters or parts, one of which – known as the “Gremlin” – derives great joy by hooking other people. Some Gremlins entertain themselves by seeing how many people they can hook in a day, because once a person is hooked, the Gremlin has won. Hooking others is also a strong defensive strategy for the Box, because once you have hooked someone else they have no power to create unpredictable behaviors.
Human beings are so easily hooked that if you actually succeed at becoming even partly unhookable you almost seem inhuman. Staying unhookable, while still remaining human, is an art form.
Staying unhookable does not mean un-feeling, isolated, shut down or numb. On the contrary, staying unhookable means that you perceive the hooks with great sensitivity and precision, and while still being compassionate, you shift slightly into a different space before the hooks have a chance to set into the psychological flesh of your Box.
Staying unhookable is not so different from bullfighting. The toreador knows that a bull performs certain predictable movements, which are neither good nor bad; they are simply the movements that bulls make. To interact with the bull the toreador stands with his red cloth to his side, not in front of him. The bull automatically goes for the red cloth. With the cloth held to the side, the bull runs past while doing no harm. The toreador stays in contact with the bull but does not get hit. If the toreador held his cloth in front of him he would bullfight no longer. He would be hooked.
Hooks can be anything – looks, gestures, sounds, physical objects – so you cannot stay unhookable by simply trying to avoid hooks. A true capacity for staying unhookable emerges through first admitting that you are indeed hooked when you realize you are hooked. Start by naming your condition. Say, “I am hooked.” Notice what it feels like, how often it occurs, how long it lasts, and what your hooked – reaction – patterns tend to be. Consciousness creates freedom. Your ability to stay unhookable matures through increased awareness of your Box’s hookability. Here are some common symptoms of being hooked.
Symptoms of Being Hooked
• Feeling offended or insulted, being stressed, worrying, disapproving
• Swearing, striking out at someone, destroying, attacking, taking revenge
• Making physical gestures or faces (giving the finger, sticking out the tongue, etc.)
• Emotional reactions, uncontrolled rage, childish fears or sadness
• Expressing violent temper, feeling glad when someone else feels pain
• Feeling as a victim, sacrificing yourself, thinking “I have to,” being disgusted
• Resenting, judging, criticizing, blaming, threatening
• Trying to be right, defending yourself, justifying yourself
• Role-playing a character, being inauthentic, overdoing it, underdoing it
• Being numb, being indifferent (as opposed to being neutral)
• Pouting, sulking, making excuses, giving up hope, resignation
• Being cynical, ironical, being self–important, bragging, exaggerating
• Being stuck in linear thinking, trying to be prepared for anything
• Competing, challenging, comparing with others, envy, jealousy
• Excluding others, feeling superior, trying to look good, being arrogant
• Thinking that you have lost, feeling like a failure, isolating from others, feeling depressed
• Defending your position, arguing, giving reasons, saying, “Yes, but…”
• Being adaptive, “kissing ass,” giving your center away, trying to be nice
• Manipulating, blackmailing, forcing your way, trying to make order
• Complaining, feeling “sour grapes”; saying “So what!”; ignoring someone
• Backbiting, gossiping, triangulating, having arguments in your mind
• Forgetting your destiny or your Principles
• Panicking, compulsive behavior, addictive behavior, mechanical behavior
• Being embarrassed, saying, “I cannot,” feeling stage fright, being stuck at GO
• Losing your attention, being distracted by advertising, snooping, voyeurism
• Hesitating, being speechless, stalling, delaying, oversleeping, daydreaming
• Answering questions with questions, saying, “Of course!”
• Name calling, making fun of someone, imitating someone else’s mannerisms
• Interrupting conversations, having to tell your opinion, having to do something
• Saying, “Always,” or, “Never,” trying to be perfect, trying to be the best
• Thinking that you can win, trying to profit, trying to have power over others
• Trying to hook someone back, trying to piss someone else off
• Pretending to be unhookable… and so on.
The above guide is a map that you can use to find out where you are. The moment you have any of the above behaviors, attitudes or experiences, you are hooked! (Go directly to jail – do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.) It does not work to try to be unhookable once you are already hooked.
The paradox of staying unhookable is that you will always have a Box. If you have a Box, there will always be something that can be hooked into. Clearly, finding unhookability will have to involve numerous nonlinear approaches, because there is no obvious linear approach. Here are twenty-five experiments for staying unhookable. Most of these approaches for staying unhookable are indirectly explained in this book and the terms are defined in the Glossary. Do not expect to already understand them. Rather than looking for a detailed explanation of each one, unzip your imagination and try a few experiments, using whatever you would guess they might be, to stay unhookable.
How To Stay Unhookable
1. Place 100 percent of your attention on noticing what is, as it is, right here and now.
2. Put your “being center” on your physical center.
3. Put your attention on your attention; look at what you are looking with.
4. Make no assumptions, make no conclusions, have no expectations.
5. Practice being-with.
6. Listen as a space; be of service to the person speaking, not yourself.
7. Be neutral, without any story at all.
8. Be in complete acceptance.
9. Be the most radiant being in the space.
10. Be yes, be touched by everything and give it no meaning.
11. Make a decision, get off the fence, stand in your own simple clarity.
12. Put your Gremlin’s expertise to use in some of these ways:
• Gremlin sees hooks coming from other Gremlins so if Gremlin is alert he can give you an early warning and you can step sideways out of the line of fire.
&
nbsp; • Keep one of Gremlin’s feet outside of every space so you always retain the option to exit any space you are in at any time.
• Gremlin can stay unhypnotized, so Gremlin can keep you from being duped into smaller perspectives and limiting circumstances.
• Gremlin can add dimensions to what is possible by going nonlinear.
• To Gremlin everything is bullshit, meaningless, respectless, and beliefless, so Gremlin has the freedom to offer unpopular opinions, venture into sacred territory, or ask for help from millionaires.
• Gremlin does not care so can be neither attracted nor repelled, giving Gremlin the ability to be completely steady where other people are reactive and hooked.
• Gremlin sees every action as theatrical, even his own, so Gremlin can play with alternatives when everyone else is overly serious.
13. Be in the space gap between the inner world and the outer world.
14. Shift your identity so you become a less hookable character and can see the situation through new eyes. For example, replicate the attitude of “Make my day” Harry Callahan, or “Since when do people die from being wet?” Pippi Longstocking. Relate to the situation in accordance with the qualities of the new character.
15. If the interaction is emotionally charged, extract the information from the conversation while putting the energy into a black hole in the ground.
16. Use a “possibility wand” of nonlinearity to declare: “Something completely different from this is possible right now.”
17. Use your “sword of clarity” to make distinctions even if there are none in sight.
18. Avoid discussion, defend no position; agree and be on their side.
Radiant Joy Brilliant Love Page 22