Of the Questions I Ask

Of the questions I ask, none have eluded me (as answers) more than the question of change. What is real change, what am I really to be and become that I am not now nor have ever been that is really, really real self change? It’s the ultimate question within and as the purpose of  the personal process self-creation.

And just like that, for a moment, I once again find myself floating somewhere out there philosophising about the nature of process and, the quest for change as a question to ask and be answered by someone out there instead of grounding myself right here, becoming question, making the decision and manifesting myself as the answer to the question of my own process of self creation. So, did I answer my question? In applying the tools of self-creation, grounding myself in writing, self-forgiveness and commitments, for that moment, I guess I did.

However, when it comes to the question of what is real change on a personal level and how exactly should each one of us be changing, no one else but each one of us for ourselves is  able to correctly say that this is how you should be and this is what you must do to become that way. In some ways this  has been difficult for me to comprehend or accept. For a long time, I just wanted someone else to define for me my mission that I required to accomplish so that I would  have an idea or an image of what I needed to accomplish and how I should be and become. Alas, this isn’t the way of self-change or self-creation, For the process of self-change as a matter of self-creation (for it to be of self) must actually originate from self. With this in mind as well as body, I ask myself, how do I honestly want to be an become, i.e., what image do I have of myself in the future? WRONG QUESTION AGAIN!

Imagining how I want to be in the future is a mind consciousness system distraction trap of imagining how the future could be without actually doing what it takes to create or manifest that future right here and now in the present, the only time/space/moment opportunity each one of us will ever have to change ourselves and create (new) realities. Thus it is for me push myself to remain focused here and now on the present, that which I require do to change myself now to solidify and become that change forever more in the present moments to come.

Why has no one ever been able to provide me with a specific definition or the design of self change as a matter of self creation? Because no one is able to define for another what self change really is. Because for it to be of self, the change must really originate from self. Furthermore (and this is the scary or exciting part), because for the change to manifest as a matter of real self-creation, that which is manifested must also be that which is new, never having been of one’s location point or awareness before = the new as a matter of real self-creation.  Hence the necessity of self-will to push one’s self into the darkness, embracing it with the knowingness that as creators of our realities and existence as a whole, each one of us alone together create in each moment what is, will be and become.

In a sense, it seems like a risk and in the past I guess it was, due to our intentions being quite broad and almost undefined - there must be something more, now go out there and find it. Now, having found the more in the form of more suffering, more misery and greater inequality, it is clear that the more was actually an ever increasing number of the diminishing returns as a fraction of the whole/one. Funny, I keep wanting to explain to people that the largest number is actually One, but now I’m philosophising again, thinking how best to prove my hypothesis, so I’ll end this here with a recap.

In my view, aside providing the tools of how to change, no one is able to accurately tell me or you precisely how we should change to create ourselves anew. For, each point of creation (for it to be real self-creation) is unable to even be imagined, for at that particular location, each one’s point of awareness, the point of creation has yet to be manifested into existence. Thus it is, the importance of self-experimentation to see what works and what doesn’t, keeping the good while letting of the bad.

What does it mean to be True to Myself?

What does it mean to be true to myself? Immediately, I want to think about this and come up with something eloquent that will also be understood by others. However (as I tell my students): don’t think it about, just write it; thinking about things isn’t a doing that gets you anywhere or any closer to writing to finishing that paragraph, so just write.

Ok, so when it comes to being true to myself from the within to the without, the truth is it doesn’t come so easily for me and it can even be frightening. Even the idea of letting others see the true me brings up images not only of joyful expression with others, but also of being ridiculed, teased and even feeling threatened. While a part of the true me seems so innocent and kind, another part of me has in the past also often been quite destructive, especially when I’ve felt threatened. Additionally, the true me doesn’t really care that much for relationships, chit chat or small talk, but I’ll often initiate them both not only for the purpose of assisting others, but also for the purpose of structuring my environment. In this I see two sides of me, one that cares (as a doing) for the sake of others and another that cares for others for the sake of myself. This is the true me that has I’m finally coming to understand. The  way I reconcile the two is through my understanding that, that which I do for others (as I would have them do for/unto me), I do for for/myself and vise versa. From this realization, I would say that it doesn’t really matter if I’m doing it for myself or I’m doing it for them, because mathematically speaking (of the mathematics of One) it’s one in the same. Hence, the key for me is to do unto others as I would have them do unto me.

There is the way I’ve been and the way I have decided to change myself to become. As these two paths merge into one, the way I’m heading and the way I ought to be is not always clear to me because it’s a new path for me. I guess that’s what the journey of self creation is really about, deciding where and how one wants to be, plotting out a path and walking it while correcting one’s course as needed. 

To put this into words that others might more easily relate to, I would say that being true to myself is about self-honestly looking at what comes up in inside of me in each moment and deciding to either live that aspect of me or change myself to express myself differently. I don’t actually put such moments into words and speak them aloud inside of my head, because there’s not time for that. Instead, it’s more of a check to see where I’m at in any moment within and as the question, is this how I want to be. When I find myself being as I care to be, I continue doing as I’m doing. However, in such moments when I realize that I’m not being the way I care to be, I’ll usually stop acting that way and change myself for the better. A point of self honesty here is that I don’t always do as best I think I am able to do for myself. Rather, I often do as I want to do, which isn’t necessarily what’s best for me. I know this and I don’t judge myself for it, but I do sometimes find it somewhat peculiar.  When I look into me, I see so much, almost as time doesn’t exist, as though I’m here where I’ve always been with just the scenery changing as I change myself. In short, I haven’t really been embodying a sense of urgency or banging against the walls of my perceived surroundings. Instead, I’ve usually focused on the walls or constructs that are ready to come down, retrieving and/or creating new pieces of me here and there by focusing more on the overall picture rather than just what is right here. However, I now see that such a long sighted approach to self change has led me to miss out on many opportunities that are right here in front of me. Thus, after listening to Journeys into the afterlife interview from Eqafe, I’ve decided to begin focusing more on what is right here in front of me and as me.

So, what does it mean to be true to myself? For me it means acknowledging without judgment the good and the bad of the past and the present, what works and what doesn’t, while also pushing myself to change for the better, the way I would have others change in relation to me. I still have a lot of work to go on this and the truth is I’m not really certain where I/we are heading - other than to say that our destination is the same. The one truth of me for which I’ve always been certain though is that I will continue walking.

Redefining and Living Words in the Classroom

Although I regularly get up in the morning and pick a word a word to express for that day, I have yet to expand my living-word vocabulary beyond 5 or six words. Let’s see, there’s joyful, joyfully interacting, excitedly engaged, interested and maybe one or two that just aren’t coming to me at this moment. Or perhaps it’s just four words and in looking at these words, I notice they’re pretty closely related, meaning there’s not much difference in how I actually live these words, i.e., their definitions are all grouped within my idea of joyful expression.

There is also the word, care, which I guess I have in word and deed embodied as a part of me or signature of who I am, how I relate to others, wherein it’s no longer required for me to constantly remind myself be caring. I have become that word and I am and I really thankful that I chose this word as my first word to embrace, understand and live as a doing in relation to people, animals that things.

So I guess it’s now time to expand my living word vocabulary. The only problem is, I’m not really an expert at redefining and living words. Furthermore, I’m not even that  motivated to do so. My solution (considering the position I’m filling in the world system), if you’re not really sure about how something works and you want to motivate yourself to be better at it, why not teach it others and learn it together? Thus begins my journey to teach while I learn, specifying myself while expanding my living-word vocabulary for the purpose of seeing, realizing and understanding my potential.

As I’ve said to myself many times before, I’m not here to redesign the wheel. It’s already been done and if there is a better design to be created, there are others out there who are probably in a better position to do so. Or maybe I will come up with some suggestions on how to streamline the process. Either way, I’m thankful there are already solutions, examples and lessons on redefining and living words which are available on the internet at SOUL, the School Of Ultimate Living on Facebook, Youtube and a soon to be created Homepage on the Web. Now, it’s simply a matter of deciding how to proceed in the classroom, introducing the process, teaching and learning while I teach. This where some experimentation comes in.

In the first week’s lesson (two weeks ago), “How do we create ourselves and our reality?” I talked about how we create ourselves and our reality as the words we think, speak and write. Then we watched the first twenty-five minutes of Introduction to the School of Ultimate Living. Then in the second hour of class, we all wrote blogs on the topic of What is the meaning of Life and What is my Purpose? Originally, I had only planned to do this with three of my classes. However, since students seemed more interested than usual (lol), I ended up expanding the lesson to six different classes during the week.

In the second week, last week I decided to present students with some scientific background in relation to the importance of words. Even though the Bible says, in the beginning was the word and the word was god (or something like that) and the Koran says in the beginning was the word and the word was creation (or something like that), I still felt that it was useful/important for me to also present students with a scientific basis for going into this topic. Thus for the second week of lessons, I explained my interpretation of the discovery that Russian scientists have made in relation to words and DNA. Then we read some of an article titled, Scientists Prove DNA Can Be Reprogrammed by Words and Frequencies. After discussing the article, I asked students to do the following:

In pairs:

1. Choose one word that you would like to be more a part of your living. For example, if you often find yourself getting impatient with others, perhaps you could choose the word, patience. Or if you often find yourself feeling disinterested, you might choose the word interested or engaged.
2. Use your smartphones to define the words and then add sentences to the definitions to fit into your life, friends, relations, etc.
3. Note! Be as specific as possible in describing how you plan to live these words.
4. Share your results in groups and with the class

Next week, I plan on watching another SOUL video. I’m not sure yet which one I’ll use; however, in consideration of attention spans, I’ll probably choose one that is not more than around sixteen minutes. Then after discussing the video, we will write blogs expanding on the words we’ve chosen. Specifically, in the introduction or first paragraph, we will look at and explain how we often experiences ourselves other than how we would like to be and then how each we would prefer to experience ourselves. Then in the next one or two paragraphs, I will ask the students to present their redefined word or words and specify how they plan to live and express that in relation to others for a whole week starting with sounding that word when they wake up each day.  

Interestingly, even though very few of my students bring laptop computers to class, we still hardly ever use any paper. These days, instead of opposing the smartphone in the classroom, I embrace it as a useful tool (but not for playing video games in the classroom, lol) and students seem to enjoy writing so much more when they’re holding onto their smart phones.

So this is my plan so far for introducing students to redefining and living words as a way not only to create themselves, but also to practice English and become better writers in the process. Overall, I would say it’s a win win situation/process for all involved. Plus, whenever students write and post blogs in the classroom, I also write and post as an example.

The Simplicity of Redefining & Living Words

On the subject of redefining words, I had had some difficulties because I attempted to make it too complex. In other words, I thought that I had to have a special/unique word for every moment of my day to precisely determine and define how I cared to express myself constantly and continuously.

Then, a few nights ago while walking in the park with my partner, I noticed that I was becoming irritated. At first, in beginning of that moment (of realization) I had already started to project or blame my irritation onto my partner for speaking. However, in that same moment, before the projection even reached her, I stopped it and brought it back to myself. It only took an instant for me to look into me (at the energetic point that I had defined as irritation) to see that the point  was actually of fatigue - having driven 7 hours that day - that had triggered the definition of irritation within and as me. Thus, all still in the same moment, it occurred to me to simply choose a different word, one that I would prefer to embody and live.

Whereas in the past, I might have spent time searching the perfect word and ended up missing the opportunity to actually change myself in that same moment; this time, I simply chose the the first correction that came up and it wasn’t just a word, it was a sentence, “walking in the park and conversing.” Still in that same moment, having simply said the words “walking in the park and conversing” and seen the sentence in my mind, I decided and committed myself to live those words and I did just that.  

From an experience of irritation wherein I as my mind had been looking to project blame onto my partner,  I instead made the decision, who I would be in that moment, by choosing and stating the word (or words) to become and live. The key point that I realized in all of this (which I had been missing) was the simplicity of redefining and living words. In other words, I now see that it’s not necessary to complicate things with fancy words. Walking in the park and conversing is just that, walking in the park and conversing. Lol, I used to think that, in redefining words, I had to choose words such as joyful or jolly expression even though it was just a judgment of how I believed I should be and not necessarily how I really cared to be or even how I self-honestly saw myself as being.

In short, by determining or choosing the words that I cared to live, stating them and trusting myself to stand as and live wholly the words that I stated, I also released myself of the energetic definition of irritation. How? Because in wholly committing to embrace and live the words, “walking in the part and conversing,” I also wholly redefined who I was and how I would be in that moment, therein leaving no room of for the energetic definition/experience of irritation. In this simplest of moments, I realized that I am in thought, in word and in deed able to change who I am in a moment.

Although these days I sometimes take for granted being able to see my thoughts as they move, almost like me as the being, stopping time inside of me to look into me and see how things are moving in the mind consciousness system of my physical body, I am also quite aware of the process that I have been walking with Desteni.  For more on simply redefining words, have a look at the Facebook pages, Self and Living or School of Ultimate Living.