In one of my recent lectures, I was explaining the interconnectedness of spiritual thought with biology and physics, and how it all comes together into a unified whole. I explained that, in order to understand what it means to be human, one needs to understand how human beings are expressions of a deeper mechanic, a mechanic of physics, a mechanic of the structure of the universe. And the universe is an expression of one, self-interacting dynamic of the unified field itself. However, to understand that unified field, it has to be experienced directly. To have that direct experience is to begin to understand the connection of the unified field with the human heart, spirit, and flesh, and how it relates to one’s communion with divinity. It was a fairly long talk and I went into some detail. Everyone in the group seemed enthralled.
In that moment, I saw an opportunity to take another tack. I invited anyone to repeat conceptually the essence of what I had just said. No one volunteered. I told the group I found it intriguing that not a single person volunteered to summarize, when I could see they followed what I had said. Then I called upon a very intelligent student who had been involved in my classes for a long time. This man had traveled coast to coast countless times, taking numerous courses with me. What I had just said was certainly not new to him. I asked why he hadn’t put up his hand. His response brought out my point far more beautifully than I had hoped. He uttered, “I can’t completely believe it.”
To get some insight, we could say people function on two levels. The more superficial level is the level of indoctrination. From childhood, we are spoon fed attitudes, beliefs, philosophies, and convictions. That indoctrination determines the tone of our psyche, the nature of our comfort and trust. For most of us, it is the determining component of how we think, what we feel, and how we live our lives. Yet it is not really who or what we are.
The other level lies much deeper. It is the fiber of our being that is one with the unified field and the mechanics of nature itself. It is the source of truth, but not truth as a set of facts. It is truth on an abstract, sensing, feeling, and intuitive level, a level more closely connected with common sense and wisdom. It cannot be acquired through the more superficial forms of conditioning that tend to run people’s lives.
Though the more superficial level is the one we tend to align with, the deeper level is that of our spirit, our soul, our passion, and our longings. As people evolve, those two things come together. Shakespeare’s quote, “To thy own self be true,” takes on a deeper meaning—allegiance to the deeper aspect of our being and freedom from more superficial conditioning.
So the man’s response was significant. He would not have been studying this for so long and with such great dedication if he didn’t sense the truth of it deep within his soul. Yet it was so foreign to his conditioning, he couldn’t quite bring himself to speak it out. On the superficial level, he couldn’t fully accept it.
Most people live their lives torn apart by this sort of inner conflict. They feel, they long for, they aspire to the truth within the depth of their soul, but have difficulty following through on the surface of their life. This is because living from that place is not something you can just decide to do. It is really a physiological culturing process. There is a double bind here. You can’t really live it until it is awake in your physiology. But it doesn’t awaken in your physiology until you start living it. As you work with it over time, the sense of deeper knowing becomes clearer and stronger, while the grip of childhood and social conditionings soften. Emanuel Lasker, mathematician, colleague of Albert Einstein, and world champion grandfather of chess, described it. “I spent the last half of my life trying to forget what I learned in the first half.” A great saint I knew from the Himalayas challenged a group with it in an intriguing way. “If any of you had a bit of courage, you would certainly be enlightened by now.”
What is courage? Some equate it with foolhardy risk taking, but it is far more. Courage is stepping forward to live your life in service to that deeper level of your being. Most people do it here and there to varying degrees and then fall back upon their superficial relationship with life. It’s like a sticky throttle.
You would do well to explore your life in this context. In what ways do you live in service to your conditioning? How, when, and where do you stand up and live in accord with your soul? What is the dance you do between those two things? This is so thematic to human existence. We love to hear about Joan of Ark, Gandhi, Martin Luther King — people standing up and living true to their inner being. In Hollywood, the opposition is played out as the bad guy. In life, the opposition is the conditioning that dwells within you. It prevents you from being the great being you truly are, all in the name of being safe, smart, successful… (Fill in your own adjectives here.) This is an appeal to rise up beyond the confines of the narrow world of conditioning and live in accord with the great being you truly are.
Who you are is an embodiment of the totality of all existence, the unified field, the oneness that is not only your soul, but the soul of the universe. To live in accord with that is the only thing that brings fulfillment, support of nature, and a life that you will regard as great.
© Michael Mamas, 9/06
