While we confine our interest in Field practice to that inner state of self-friendliness we call “alignment,” we are aware that the Law of Correspondence operates—that is to say, that who we are determines the contours of our reality, inner and outer, for the universe is always paying attention to and “proving” who we believe ourselves to be. If we believe we are victims, we will not have to wait long for the universe to arrange conditions that allow us to demonstrate that belief. If we believe ourselves lucky, then this belief, too, will work its magic, for the universe is a magical place, and we ought not to let those who have become inured to the wondrous tell us otherwise.

Einstein said that the most important question we can ask is the question, “Is the universe a friendly place?” Here at the Field Center, we feel that there is a more important and prior question: “Are we friendly?” for the universe is neither more nor less friendly than we are resolved to be in the inmost recess of our being. In this, we see that the Law of Assumption is none other than the Golden Rule, for as we are, so we receive, and with an efficiency that never rests, never takes a vacation, never forgets. So we are wise to direct our attention not to what we are getting but to what we are giving, for the giving informs the getting, and does so with the authority and relentlessness of natural law. If we are friendly, which first and foremost means self-friendly, then we must find ourselves living in a friendly universe. And this is why we answer Dr. Einstein’s question with a question.

Now, if this self-friendliness were easy to come by, everyone would embrace it, and the evening news would not be what it is. We would not give in to the siren songs of adverse fact; we would release old payoffs gracefully the moment we outgrew them; we would be more inventive than reactive; love for the ideal would motivate us more than fear; and we would be so busy lighting the candles of alignment that there would be no darkness to curse. But we have been tireless in coming up with ways to be set against ourselves. Do we settle for less than our dreams, our passion, our “bliss” as Joe Campbell calls it—having condemned the best in us as “unrealistic” or “impractical?” Do we give in to despair or hopelessness, or assume the role of the victim? Do we secretly believe that we have been thrown here without purpose or meaning, to fend for ourselves until death comes for us? Are we unwilling to receive? Are we carrying burdens of responsibility that we are not constituted to carry? Do we deny what we know in our heart and gut, or pretend to know more than we do? Do we secretly believe that no matter how hard we try, it’s never enough? These are only some of the ways that we have devised to be unfriendly—and we wonder why life can be so hard.

This is why we do the work we do at the Field Center. Even one person shifting from contradiction and suffering to alignment and joy becomes a candle, an example, an inspiration, and a nonlocal influence. And we recognize further that, while the work is inner, the results ripple outward into reality, infusing the air with the friendly self-relation such that everyone with whom an aligned person comes into local contact and many with whom he or she does not will end up smiling, perhaps without knowing why. One form these ripples of self-befriending take in their less local expressions is something Carl Jung termed “synchronicity”—a word for ingenious timings that demonstrate an extraordinary degree of relevance in a form that proves helpful or useful. These are the Field’s ingenious remedies that come unbidden, when we have forgot to look for them, when we are too busy being in love with being alive to believe that we’re lacking anything, when our identity has become an outflow of gratitude for the improbable gift of this very moment. Then we see the friendly universe taking up our cause, opening doors where there were none that we could see, making the arrangements and connections for the fulfillment of our heart’s desire in ways we never could have anticipated.

Technorati Tags: Field Center, Consciousness, Metaphysics, Reality

Welcome back to Realities, and happy 2010 to all.

Over the holiday break, I received an email from a woman making what she called an “unusual request.” She was having a problem accessing the Adobe Acrobat PDF files in our Free Library because she was visually impaired and used a screen reader (a software application that converts screen text to auditory or Braille output), but she kept getting an error message that the PDF files were restricted. Furthermore, she could not open the MP3 (audio) versions of the files in the Free Library either due to some alleged issue with Javascript (perhaps she meant Flash; the MP3 files don’t use Javascript), and wanted to know if I could do something to help. We do in fact restrict the PDF files with basic security that prevents copying, but have always been careful to distill these files so that they remain accessible to screen readers, and this was the first report I’d had of difficulty of this sort, though this woman certainly was not the first person to come to our web site with special accessibility requirements. She is not a Field training student, but of course I wanted to do what I could. Within the hour, after running a quick test, I redistilled all the Free Library files sans copying restriction, zipped them up, and sent them to her, and this seemed to do the trick.

Now, during the email exchanges that allowed us to troubleshoot what was going on and work out what to try, she began criticizing the design of the web site on the grounds that it had not sufficiently considered accessibility standards. I thought this was a strange tone to take in any case, but even more so since it was in the same breath, as it were, that she was asking for and receiving special accommodation of her “unusual request.” I did my best to explain that we indeed had taken accessibility into account in constructing the site. Making the Free Library files available in both visual and aural formats was itself an example of such consideration, as was ensuring that text was resizable throughout the site rather than locked in graphic files, and so on. There is a point, however, I went on to say, past which incorporating universal standards begins to have an adverse effect on site functionality. Furthermore, I explained, any organization must work within the limits of its available resources. To illustrate this, I pointed out that the site content is available only in English. Those who don’t speak English might be critical on the grounds that they are not being sufficiently considered. She took issue with this analogy, too, as she seemed to be inclined to do increasingly with my position, and it became apparent to me that I was wandering into the dimly lit halls of an unfriendly conversation, at which point I offered a final attempt to satisfy her objections, ending the note with my wish that she would enjoy the articles.

That was not the end of it. The next day, I received an email from the woman thanking me for the files and the “interesting exchange,” and asking if I would send one of the files again in a different format, as she had had trouble opening it. In light of the emails of the night before, the sudden return to a friendly tone struck me as disingenuous, and likely informed by the need for still further accommodation. I emailed back telling her that the files I already had sent would have to suffice, that I had not found the exchange of the previous evening “interesting” but “adversarial, critical, and inappropriate.” Field training is predicated on truthfulness, and this was the simple truth of it. I told her further that we at the Field Center do not engage in or tolerate polemics with either students or non-students, and that in my judgment there was not a good fit either for study or further communication between us. I trusted that she would respect this, and I again closed the note with best wishes.

Now here is where the thing becomes instructional, and I hope that this will be useful to anyone who has stayed with the story this far. Not surprisingly, I received yet another reply, this one criticizing me personally on the grounds that I was “making her responsible for my perceptions” and sadly, not living up to my own teaching, this sort of thing. It is a complaint I have heard more than once over the years by sincere but misguided students who do not realize that they are committing the grossest possible error in thinking about consciousness as cause, for they are invoking the subjective element in self-as-creator to justify irresponsibility, and it is hard to imagine a greater misuse. My response in this case was to have filters placed on the server to block the woman’s email and IP addresses. Her intention that she was not welcome, that she was being denied access, had found a way to fulfill itself.

That a stranger, even in the moment of asking for and receiving extraordinary help and support, would lapse into what is probably a well practiced stance of contention and blame is not unprecedented. That this woman would presume to lecture me on consciousness as cause in the same critical and egregiously disrespectful tone, without being invited to be my teacher, this too is not unheard of. It happens. This work attracts people in various states of contradiction and suffering, and sometimes the basic requirements of receptivity and respect are not in place. One can recognize this for what it is and respond appropriately by disengaging. No big deal. But it is worth writing about, even at some length, because there is an instructional point here that is essential to Field practice.

Field training tells us that “the world is the self writ large.” The whole model moves within the arc of the subjective, and even goes as far as to propose the notion of “radical responsibility” as a requirement of practice, a term that refers to the need to be willing to take responsibility even in situations where what is taking place appears to be the result of the will of others. This is imperative, because it is our willingness that creates, and the willingness to take responsibility at this ontological depth unleashes our creative authority, power, and reach.

That said, the subjective point can become a problem. Our Audio Series I program, “The Conversation,” addresses and resolves this problem by explaining how Field training can claim that “the world is the self writ large” and still avoid the unsupportable implications of absolute subjectivity or solipsism. From time to time, I talk to students and non-students who have bought into one of these implications and been snared by the contradiction it invariably entails. For example, one woman was living with a man who was physically abusive. This had been going on for a while, and the woman was exhausted. Now, criticizing this woman on the grounds that “the world is the self writ large” and that, therefore, she was responsible for his abusiveness, would have involved the great subjective error, which at the end of the day comes down to “blame the victim.” Such a position is heartless and has absolutely no place in Field theory or practice. If someone slaps you, then that person has slapped you. To collapse into subjectivity and ask how you created the slap would be to have your feet firmly on the wrong path. It is not that the question cannot be followed to a more liberating choice. The problem is that it too readily leads into mazes of confusion; the solipsistic denial of others; and displaced, disowned, or projected responsibility. The creative extrusions of consciousness into the world are often circuitous, subtle, and indirect—and importantly, as Field training tells us, no one can create for another. Too often, the simplistic “How did I create this?” misses the point, and leads us to overlook the many things for which we, as Particles, are not and cannot be responsible. Radical responsibility does not mean taking on responsibility that rightly belongs to someone else, for example. That is not conscious creatorship; it’s codependency. The one who has been slapped, however, does have a creative choice to make about whether or not that reality is allowed to continue. Its continuation, as Field training tells us again and again (and seems to need to), arises out of willful allegiance to the corresponding identity (in this case, that of the victim of abuse), and this is the right understanding of the subjective. The woman who lived with the abusive man did not want that situation, certainly, but she was willing to keep giving herself to the identity that made the situation inevitable. She was willing to be a victim. Thus, while she was in no way directly responsible for his abusiveness, she was radically responsible for her choice to be the one who continued to endure it. This is why Field training tells us that the creative willingness that shapes our reality implies a corresponding unwillingness to settle for less, which at heart means an unwillingness to be less.

Perhaps the woman with the screen reader does not see how she slaps people, even people who are doing all they can to be responsive and helpful. I would venture to guess that she had no experience of being disrespectful in presuming to lecture me about my failing to practice what I preach, and so on. I have seen Field training couples point the finger at each other in this way and even invoke “radical responsibility” as a kind of blame game or “tu quoque” argument. This is not Field training. It is an error in thinking that can range from simple confusion to sociopathic manipulation. We should never indulge in this sort of thing, nor tolerate it from someone else. It is first and last an abdication of responsibility, and worse, an avoidance that seeks to conceal itself within profound principles. Conscious creatorship hangs on the willingness to take responsibility, but one should never turn this into an argument against another.

If someone treats you unkindly or disrespectfully, if someone is abusive to you, if someone brings to you the burden of a mean spirit and invites you to dive into the dark waters of contradiction, you have a choice. You can refuse to participate. You can hold to the high standard of self-regard and continue resting in your ideal. And if this someone, tangentially acquainted with the idea of consciousness as cause, tries to turn the tables and cast you as the offender on the grounds that you have created the offense by being at the receiving end of it, then you can meet this disrespect with self-respect and disengage. This is the great value and power of Witnessing. Sometimes disengaging is the only practical way to stay true to what’s best in us. And is this not why such people come into our experience—to test us, to give us the opportunity to stay true to our better nature and refuse to collude with them in contradiction and suffering? We can understand that “the world is the self writ large” without allowing that to confuse us about how we are being treated. If someone else will not come up to our standard of respect and friendliness, I don’t see why we should sink to their standard of cynicism and complaint. The choice, as always, is ours.

Technorati Tags: Field Center, Consciousness, Metaphysics, Reality

From time to time I receive an email asking if night dreams have any significance in Field practice. The quick answer is no. Field training doesn’t get involved in dream interpretation or analysis in the traditional sense of these. Even “dreamwalking,” which is a Field training technique, works with experiences had in the “waking dream” of everyday life in the world. We note, however, that the experiences we have in dreams while we are sleeping at night also are constructs of consciousness; consequently, they may offer important information about our intentions, where we may be embodying contradiction, or what the next step is on our life path. Furthermore, night dreams may prove suitable material for dreamwalking, themewalking, or other technique provided in the Field Center’s Course on conscious co-creating. In such cases, however, the dream will point to something available to us during the waking hours rather than something buried in some alleged subconscious, and to this extent, the night dream may simply be bringing to our attention something we have been unwilling to acknowledge while awake.

For example, someone might have a night dream in which a violent event takes place. Generally, there will be a core or central symbol around which the dream revolves, and upon waking, an intuitive sense that this symbol holds the key to the dream’s meaning. Rather than trying to interpret or analyze the dream, we might ask ourselves where in our waking life such a symbol might be relevant. It’s important to keep in mind that, in our terms, all manifestation is essentially symbolic or metaphoric in that it represents some underlying intention that has called it forth into expression. The dream becomes useful, then, to the extent that we’re able to recognize its direct significance in terms of the resemblance it bears to our waking experience. In the example given, the violence might point to an intention that involves violence to oneself or others in the form of hypercriticism. It may indicate some unresolved resistance arising from an exaggeration of Particle will, a conflict of values, or the sort of deep contradiction that can show up as an autoimmune disorder. The key to mapping the meaning of the central symbolic event lies in recognizing an area of our waking experience informed by the same spirit, largely embodied in the feeling element. Field training students will recognize this as a variant of themewalking in which we’re applying some bit of nonlocal instruction across the boundary that separates sleeping from waking (rather than across staging areas), and this based on the dreamwalking principle that all experience, whether dreamed or perceived in fact, is a construct of the beholding consciousness. This hybrid application of themewalking and dreamwalking illuminates the instruction received during the night, and provides a compass heading through the relevant contradiction in our daytime experience, or guides us to the next step along our way.

Technorati Tags: Field Center, Consciousness, Metaphysics, Reality

It is all well and good to desire things—to want health or wealth or a perfect love—but in our race to have what we want, we may fail to recognize that the power of conscious creating comes with the responsibility to live up to the thing created, and before we can live up to it, we must evolve. Desire then, viewed from the standpoint of what we call “radical responsibility,” which means responsibility for our consciousness, calls us to greater identity, To have more than we have had, we must become more than we have been; thus the need for lessons and learning—and as we say in Field training, there’s no time off from our consciousness.

Sometimes the lessons are easy, sometimes hard. This depends entirely on us. If we meet with resistance those experiences that are calling us to be more, to rise to the level of the fulfillment we desire, then those experiences become aggressive, persistent, and eventually unavoidable. Our unwillingness to meet the identity prerequisite becomes our burden and a source of suffering. Met with willingness, however, the same instruction is easy, gladly received, and resolves gracefully into a new and better version of self and reality. “When the student is ready,” Eastern wisdom tells us, ‘the teacher appears.” Field training adds to this, “When the student gets the lesson, the teacher disappears.” We appreciate the rich meaning of these statements when we remember that, for the true student, the teacher is everywhere.

This implies that there is curriculum for us, valuable life instruction, hiding in any situation in which we find ourselves suffering. Seen in this light, our suffering is our opportunity, the chance to put down resistance and become the willing student, take the instruction, and move on.

Whether we like it or not, whether we accept our fundamental role as students or not, life is a school, and the teacher is everywhere, waiting for our willing attention. This teacher, it seems, does not give up on us easily. Far from it. At every turn, life is calling us to become more, to step up to greater identity, greater fulfillment, greater creative authority, greater self-expression, greater joy, greater health and vitality, greater love for self and others, greater alignment. How does a difficult situation change if we stop resisting it, stop trying to banish it, stop assuming that something is wrong, and instead, stop talking and struggling and complaining, and begin paying attention? What if we suddenly become interested in what the situation might be telling us about who we’ve been, and who we might be? It is waiting for us to be still and listen. The liberating truth never forces itself on us; rather, it waits for us.

A disciple said to his master, “Sir, please, mold me like clay.” The master replied, “First, you must be soft like clay.” And how is clay made soft? By being pounded! In our resistance, we may feel that life is pounding us, and that it is more than we can take. At such times, we do well to remember that we can choose to be soft, to be willing and receptive, to be teachable, for the moment that we open, the fists of life open in turn and extend their gift to us.

Technorati Tags: Field Center, Consciousness, Metaphysics, Reality

Since the launching of the latest incarnation of the Field Center just two days ago on 04 July, with its new focus on supporting the emerging community of students and other interested parties, I had a front row seat on how some of us meet change. Almost without exception, the response was excited, appreciative, and encouraging. Then there was the occasional reaction from someone taken hostage by the sudden disappointment that a class he or she had been waiting to take was no longer available under the new order. So ensued the email exchanges of the sort one might expect—mostly involving the larger issue of change and the authority we sometimes give change to determine who we are, especially when the change is disappointing. The few students who took the time to express this disappointment are appreciated, of course; they care, and care deeply. There is, however, as the Course tells us, “no time off from our consciousness”—and it is the unexpected development, the left turn we didn’t anticipate, the stinging disappointment that seems to come out of nowhere that reveals to us our intentions, how much we’ve reclaimed our creative authority to choose who we are, and how much we’re still willing to export that authority to the world and to others.

Such moments, obviously, have enormous instructional value, provided that we’re willing to recognize and accept the instruction. When I see a student in the iron grip of contradiction, immersed in blame, busy being the effect, and demanding that the world be this or that while all the while missing his or her power to rise above, to disengage, to refuse to let any worldly prize count more than the inner pearl of alignment, I remind myself that each of us walks the path of evolving consciousness at his or her own pace, and that sometimes suffering is the only instruction we’ll accept. It’s a hard way to go, but the Particle infatuation with its will coupled with its determination to assign the world causal authority, is a formula for suffering. It is a real consolation to remember that contradiction is dialectical—that is, it contains the seeds of transcendence. Pushed far enough, the will becomes exhausted. Denied long enough, the truth becomes unavoidable. Sooner or later, we’re compelled by our very resistance to put down resistance, accept things as they are, and begin again from a place of greater willingness. It isn’t a matter of whether or not we’ll awaken from the dream of willfulness, urgency, and demand, only of when.

It’s not the things we win that make us more than we were, but the things we lose. Change always involves the proverbial doors—one closing, the other opening. How we meet change reveals our intentions, who we’re willing to be and, correspondingly, who we’re unwilling to be. Informed by practice, who we’re willing to be includes coming into relation to the world with its ever changing events as something greater than our will, while who we are unwilling to be involves refusing to allow ourselves to be hostages to the world. So we have our desire, but it doesn’t have us. Poise, acceptance, the willingness to move with rather than against—these are the unmistakable features of the practice of what we call “alignment,” that state of self-honoring that has gained the winning perspective that knows that nothing in the world is worth the selling of our soul.

At the end of the day, what we lost is far less important than how we meet the loss. There is no time off, and the lesson continues to show up until we accept it. Resistance ultimately is a failure method. To catch the moment of opportunity in the disappointment, to take the instruction and “overcome the world”—these are the nuggets of gold waiting to be panned from the river of change.

Technorati Tags: Field Center, Consciousness, Metaphysics, Reality

Field training recognizes the power and efficiency of allowing things to happen rather than of trying to make them happen through exertion of the will. This ability we have to let things be rather than to try to make them be is perhaps our most overlooked resource. The workings of allowing become particularly fascinating in situations where one is exerting one’s will, but without any corresponding willingness to allow; in other works, situations in which, for whatever good reason, we are unwilling to have the thing we want. This dissonance is called “counterintention” in the Field training model, and as students soon learn, no amount of effort of will or action in the world can overcome the nonlocal efficiency of a counterintention. So, we get not what we want or will to try to make happen, but only what we’re willing to have. Willingness and intention are intimately associated as the generative, creative structures of our consciousness.

This week, I had a number of questions from students who wanted to understand better the remarkable efficiency of “not-doing.” They could not understand how not acting would lead to greater efficiency and fulfillment in their lives. I explained that “not-doing” is not the same as not acting, though one can hardly miss the readiness to take the one to mean the other—so infatuated is Particle consciousness with its own will, and so ready to believe, despite literally a universe of evidence to the contrary, that its will is the principle instrument through which things “get done.” Relinquishing our will in favor of granting a greater intelligence and organizing efficiency right of way does not lead to sitting on our hands and willfully refraining from action. Far from it. Acquiescing in willingness heightens our awareness, our receptivity to nonlocal information and direction, our readiness to do our part as it becomes obvious—in short, it conveys us into a state from which we can act far more skillfully and appropriately than we can when we are relying primarily on our will. It is axiomatic in Field training that our reality happens not to us but through us, and our actions, flowing naturally from our self-definition, is part of that reality.

We will do well to check in with ourselves before we set out “creating” anything, to make sure that the corresponding willingness it there to have the thing we desire. In practice, we have to begin where we are, which means that the first act of acquiescence is to the truth of our own nature, as it is showing itself at this moment, and sometimes the truth is that we are not willing to have it. This willingness is not itself something that we can contrive through an act of will; as I have said, if we are not willing, there is a good reason for it, and this reason must be resolved so that we can come by a new receptivity honestly. For the time being, it may be helpful, even saving to recognize that, where this willingness to receive is absent, no amount of effort will be able to “make it happen,” as this alone may spare us much futile struggle and frustration. Once we have addressed and resolved whatever counterintention may be standing between us and our greater good, and having resolved it, take up the stance of willingness toward it, we will see the stunning efficiency of the Field mobilize in the direction of our alignment, putting to rest once and for all these nervous questions about how simply letting be can get anything done.

Technorati Tags: Field Center, Consciousness, Metaphysics, Reality

One idea that we can follow far in Field training is the idea that there’s “no time off” from our consciousness. It tends to confer a certain perspective on things that invites wholeheartedness. For example, we may find ourselves in a “better than nothing” situation—in a job, a romantic partnership, and so on. Seem like a good deal, or good enough, at least for now. But when we realize that there’s no time off from our consciousness, and that our consciousness is by nature creative, we may come to see that “better than nothing” ends up being not much better at all. Resignation to conditions of any sort implies an intention that will continue to justify and prove itself—that is, it will produce the very conditions to which we’ve resigned ourselves.

It’s axiomatic in Field training that “we don’t get what we want, but what we’re willing to have.” As long as we’re willing to settle for “better than nothing,” we have set into motion forces that make it foolish to expect anything better. This has a remarkable implication: In our creative life, “no” precedes “yes. This has to do with profound truths that live at the heart of Field training—that desire is not in itself creative, that intention is, that intention is defined by our willingness to be this or that version of ourselves, and that this willingness must entail a corresponding unwillingness to be less. So, regardless of what someone may want, if he or she is willing to have less, then the willingness will prevail, and in our terms, it is this something less that he or she is intending.

Field practice calls us to take a stand, to mean what we say, and to live by the law of a deliberately chosen identity even when the facts do not support it. If we are, in the innermost recess of our being, creators, and if, as Field training tells us, we create through the offices of belief about who we are and what’s real, then the willingness to settle for “better than nothing” will create the reality that belongs to that standard, and we will not be able to escape its gravitational hold until our standard changes.

Consider your own standard, in whatever situation has your attention these days. That standard is not only the star you follow; it’s also the star that the Field follows in your name. It is a law you have written for yourself, and one you can change at any time. Dreams do not grow into expression in the soil of “better than nothing.” They require more of us. The question is, are we willing to bring it?

Technorati Tags: Field Center, Consciousness, Metaphysics, Reality

Willingness, not desire, is the defining feature of our creative nature. This means, simply put, that we have whatever life we’re willing to have, regardless of what our desire may be. This is a sobering point for many of us, because it calls us to take stock of our standards. To want something while being willing to settle for far less, even for something that contradicts what we want, leads to suffering no matter how much sense the choice for less may make in its own terms. A woman in a partnership with someone physically abusive will report with heartrending sincerity how she longs to feel safe with her mate, to be respected and loved, and so on, but her willingness to remain in the situation will keep her there as surely as if she had set out to create it. The moment she becomes unwilling to be or have less than the fulfillment of her desire requires, in that very moment her reality begins to improve. And this is the predicament of many. We know what we want, but are not yet willing to live up to it. So we cling willfully to some old payoff, and our future becomes an endless replay of our past, for where there is no willingness to let go of the old, even though we may have long ago outgrown its service to us, where there is no willingness to be surprised, there is no way on to a better reality.

Willfulness is always intoxicated with a sense of its own power, but willingness is vastly more powerful as a creative force. Another way to put this: We may want something with all our heart 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but our passion will be powerless to fulfill itself if our willingness is set against it. Desire becomes creative when it fuses with resolve—viz., the resolve that refuses to settle for less. Then, and only then, have we written a new law for ourselves, a law that our experience must express as faithfully as it expressed the old one.

It is extremely important to understand that we write this new law only as an identity claim. That is, we declare, experience, and then remain true to a new and better version of self. We aren’t trying to write a law for the world. We aren’t looking to change conditions. We are, in this sense, declaring who we are, but not how that will be outpictured in facts, or when. All of that is left to the Field. The correct attitude is that the how and when of further expression of the new self we have claimed inwardly is none of our business, because we allow it to be the Field’s business. This is the key to willingness. Because we aren’t dictating conditions, timing, or ways and means, our experience opens in surprising ways. Many students find that, as they practice and their alignment deepens, their life becomes exciting and fresh, the way they may remember it being when they were younger. Willingness is rooted in the “I AM” that represents whatever fulfillment we desired, and not as an affirmation or a visualization, but as an inner appropriation. We don the new identity, and then let our willingness be shaped by the corresponding unwillingness to contradict what we have claimed. All of this is spelled out in the Field Center Course, and goes beyond what we can address here, but the essential point is that living in alignment, which opens us to the limitless efficiency of the nonlocal, also opens us to being pleasantly surprised, for the forms of expression that the Field takes when we are resting in friendly self-agreement and a corresponding resolve not to settle for less is often so much better even than we imagined.

Technorati Tags: Field Center, Consciousness, Metaphysics, Reality

There’s a popular modern parable about a man who comes across a snake lying in the road, seriously injured. A compassionate sort, he goes over and immediately recognizes that the snake is poisonous. The snake implores him to help (snakes can talk in parables) until the man, setting aside concern for himself, picks the snake up, takes it home, wraps it in a blanket, tends to its injuries, feeds it, and makes a bed for it by the fireplace so it can rest and heal. Within a few days, the snake is back on its feet (as it were). When the man goes over to check on it, the snake bites him, injecting its deadly venom. As the man is losing consciousness, he asks the snake why it would do such a thing, and the snake replies, “You knew what I was when you picked me up.”

Sometimes the story is told with a frog in the role of the man and a scorpion standing in for the snake. The point is the same, and it has a lot to teach us about our creative responsibility and its relation to the truth. In Field training, we say that “the Field operates in the truth.” This comes out of recognizing that truth is ultimately ontological. That is, truth and being are the same. The truth of a thing is its being. So when you tell me what IS, you’re telling me the truth. To say that the Field operates in the truth is to say that we can only invoke nonlocal efficiency from a stance of truthfulness, and this is why we say further that practice begins with knowing what we want (the truth of our desire) and accepting things as they are.

There is no way to use Field training principles to make an end-run around this ontological requirement. As someone wrote, “Is is, isn’t isn’t.” Things are what they are, and not otherwise. As obvious as this seems, I receive numerous emails each week from students who are looking for ways to misapply Field training principles. Their intentions have led them to certain consequences that they now want to avoid, and Field training simply cannot be used this way, not because one cannot shift identities and realities in an instant, but because we cannot escape consequences by trying to do so. Another example: Some students want to use Field training to change someone else. Perhaps you can see the contradiction that such an agenda immediately implies, since any attempt to change another presupposes believing in the very condition that one wants to change, and it is this belief, not desire, that turns out to have creative force.

The man did know what the snake was when he picked it up. He dismissed what he knew, and he paid for his willingness to abandon the truth of his own knowing. Perhaps you’ve had a similar experience. Your intuition warned you not to take a certain path, but you ignored your intuition and took the path anyway, and had to come around later, the hard way, to knowing what you knew all along. “Stop things when they’re small,’ writes Lao Tze in the Tao Te Ching, reminding us to acknowledge the truth as soon as possible and live up to what we know, because the truth does not go away, and the lessons only get harder.

Over many years of Facilitating and talking to students, I’ve found it to be a reliable and curious fact that when we claim to know something, the truth often is that we don’t know at all, and when we claim not to know something, the truth is that we know perfectly well. Obviously it’s not just a matter of knowing, but of having a vested interest either in knowing or not knowing. Sometimes, we aren’t willing to know what we know, and so, as Socrates says, we possess the knowledge, but possess it in forgetfulness. In such cases, the willingness to remember proves to be enough. I have seen many people suddenly inherit their own knowing simply because i was unwilling to agree that they didn’t know. We do know our own truth. We know the yes and no of ourselves. If we are willing to admit what we know, then we are protected from poisonous snakes and wrong paths, and many things that we do, it seems, so that we can learn not to do them.

Technorati Tags: Field Center, Consciousness, Metaphysics, Reality

Desire does not create. Understanding even this much would spare those who seek to create through altering their consciousness worlds of disappointment. Desire does not create; nor does effort or any other form of exerting the will. Field training teaches that deliberate creating is realized through willingness—specifically the willingness to be the version of self who is already fulfilled rather than, say, the willingness to have this or that. Further, there is a hidden but essential component to each specific willingness, and that is its corresponding unwillingness. This means that our willingness to be the fulfilled version of self has to be ensured by our consistent unwillingness to be less. This unwillingness is not a protest, but a natural state of being that attends to wholeheartedness. Desire is the beginning of the story of conscious creating; willingness gives the story its direction and point; the unwillingness to be less is the end of the story. Resting in willing unwillingness unconditionally and without effort secures the inner fulfillment, which in its own time and manner, continues to find expression in various forms.

Technorati Tags: Field Center, Consciousness, Metaphysics, Reality