Change- Re-invent Your Self

"Hey Mr., can you spare some change?" You feel the change of seasons? Don't go changing. I can't believe they changed my password again. The change in time always messes me up, can't figure out which way to turn my clock, forwards or backwards. I didn't realize they changed the flight time and there isn’t another one until tomorrow.  Boy, have they changed!

            In every moment, everything changes. The entire universe is in a constant state of flux. Even your physical body is different today than it was yesterday at this time.

            Our job every day, as the embodiment of consciousness, is to constantly and rapid organize all of this information coming into our physical senses, and make intelligent meaning of it all. It is the ego that is organizing all of this information so that the world makes sense to us, and makes sense to us according to our specifications so that we can avoid fear and pain and have more joy and happiness.

 

            The problem begins with the idea that the world that is making sense to us, is the same world that everyone else is experiencing it.  The nature of the ego is to allow us to believe that the people around us, especially those closest to us and the ones that we love the most, see the same reality as we do because we seem to communicate and get along with each other so well. The primary delusion of the ego lies in the belief that the world we see and describe to ourselves, is in fact the same ‘reality’ that everyone else sees, when in truth, we are all walking around in our own personal hallucination of how the world shows up.

            We know, at least conceptually, that we are creating our reality, not in a mechanical sense, but more in the fashion that consciousness is projecting the outer appearance of our life upon the screen of inner awareness, which is made manifest through the internal dialogue, which in actuality is just a monologue. It is the ego, the self-reflecting awareness called self-consciousness, the self-identification with "I am this and I am that,” that creates the world that we inhabit and crawl around in everyday. In essence, the world that we experience every day, is just one big habit of perception and storytelling. And every once in a while, change happens!

            So what is our apprehension of change all about? For many people change, even the idea of change, creates anxiety, fear, and trepidation. This is probably why we get so attached to watching the news. Because it appears as if the world is changing extremely rapidly, mainly because of our media and the internet. In essence, the ‘World’ comes to us through the screen of our computer, filtered by Google, Yahoo, Facebook, ad infinitum.

            Our world is all about constant change. As everything is upgraded, we have to continue changing and upgrading our computers, our software, other devices, and ultimately our view the world. We can even watch the slow change of our body as we witness the reflection in the mirror slowly and progressively show signs of wear.

            As we witness the world through our electronic devices, it becomes difficult sometimes to create distinction between that which is happening in our immediate reality as Reality, that which is real and physical, from that which is happening solely as an internal, mental experience.

            We can qualitatively or subjectively measure our immediate physical reality, by that which we can feel, taste, smell, and hear. Even if we hear a sound far off in the distance, we still have to use our imagination to imagine what is creating the sound unless we can see it with our eyes. As far as vision is concerned, our immediate physical environment really is only ‘as far as the eye can see’.

            The perceiver, that which is perceived, and the act of perceiving are all happening, not as three separate actions, but as One action of conscious experience of the I AM. It appears as if the world is really out there.  However, if I examine the process very carefully, I have to admit that the experience of the world is happening inside me as the experience of my aliveness, which is consciousness expressing itself as me and as my world. And ‘my world’, is a projection, a memory of how I imagine the world to be based upon experience, belief, societal memes, and implant systems such as histories, religions, lineages, and ancestry.

            The world that I am experiencing, can only already be happening right here, right now, as me. Emotions, feelings, sensations, memory and the internal dialogue, define the self-referencing of perceived experience. We have to describe to ourselves using words, based upon our particular worldview or personal Zeitgeist, how the world looks, tastes, and feels like, and how it should be and ultimately show up for us.

            Fear of change is the fear of our own death. It is the fear of uncertainty and of the unknown.  Long before the 20th century and the modern world, humankind lived with fear and uncertainty as a baseline level of alertness in relationship to survival and the well being of the clan, tribe, or society. This is all root chakra and third chakra activation as a response to a perpetually changing environment requiring specialized skills and abilities in order to survive.

            Today, in our high-tech modern world, we are still conditioned to react to our quixotic environment with the same environmentally conditioned responses of fear and alertness around change and around survival.

            Change, as a pure idea, is the essence of the universe, of life, and of enlightenment itself. What would happen if we could become absolutely fearless around change, and the idea of change?

            The absence of change is stagnation. Change out of control is chaos. Change well managed, is the artful means by which we create a fulfilling and rewarding life of our choosing. But we have to give up control. In actuality, we have no control over change.  We do not even have control over how change affects us, or our reaction to it. We are merely the witness of the effect of change. Like the wind, the leaves swirling through the air is the effect of the wind, but not the wind itself.

            Change, like the wind, is very mysterious, and cannot be directly perceived; only its effect can be witnessed. Sometimes, change can be perceived as a subtle nuance of uneasiness in the awareness. The perception of change is a quality of consciousness. We often speak of change as if ‘coming to us from the future’, but that's not exactly the truth. Change, as a quality of consciousness, is a feeling-perception-awareness of uneasiness, sometimes verging on fear, and sometimes, if it is change that we desire, showing up as excitement. But one thing for sure, the feeling based awareness of change, is an expression of our intuitive connection in a very visceral way, as the frequencies of changing energy fields in the very ever present, present moment.

            The future part is our consciousness becoming alert to the sensation of changing energies within the matrix, and based upon a lot of neurological imprinting and memory, pointing back to early childhood and beyond, we know that the status quo of ‘our world’ is about to change.

            When we are tuned in energetically and spiritually, we can feel change coming. I'm sure many of you reading this at this point in time, are very, very clear, that you can feel the changes that are here, and that are coming to the planet, to world culture, to the geopolitical and to the economic structure of society. We all know at this point, even when we are not tuned into the news and the media culture, we can feel the change that upon us, and we feel it at the very core of our being.

            Change creates a sense of unsettledness and insecurity. The mind will spend a great deal of energy creating strategies and agendas in its attempt to evade these deep feelings of insecurity. This accounts for a world of insurance policies, guarantees, and litigations. We can build all sorts of structures externally and internally to protect ourselves, and create the illusion that we are safe from change. Yet, in the end, change will rule, every moment, every day, every week, every year, every decade, every life. And in the end, the body will change to such a degree that it can no longer sustain the life force itself. And then we die!

            So, what’s a mother to do? On the physical plane, it is wise to build yourself a sturdy castle with a deep moat, fortify it well and defend your territory to the death. And don't ever leave it out of fear, because outside the walls of your castle change is the order of the day and it could kill you.

            But how should we relate to change on a much deeper level, and ultimately have a more authentic relationship with the natural stages of life that constitute and represent to our psyche, the sum total of change, i.e. aging?

            There is a great cosmic wisdom behind the sense of insecurity that comes with the idea of change and actuality of change. This cosmic wisdom is twofold. The idea of change, and the idea of stagnation that is the result of the inability to change, are the two faces of the same coin. When we are comfortable, and life is grand, and we are having an amazing adventure, we fear change because we want our good fortune to last forever.

            The other side of the coin, is our fear that whatever struggles and difficulties we may perceive and think that we have, things will never change and life will remain this way forever resulting in a sense of stagnation and indolence.

            It is this insecurity that again pushes us to a deeper inquiry. If we are caught up in the external projection of reality into the field of objects, ‘I am this and I am that’, we will forever be a victim and a pawn in the game of life. Not because there is any truth in this idea as a reality, but because that is how we perceive and project ourselves to be in the world. Change happens to us!

The other alternative is that we can adopt an entirely different perception and interpretation of the same information. We cannot see the wind, but we can see its effect in the movement and scattering of things around us, and we can feel the wind upon our skin.

            In the same fashion, we cannot directly perceive that energy which moves the world that we call change, but we can see its effect in the movement and adjustment in the greater, outer world as well as in our inner world. Change inevitably shows up as the movement of people, events, rites of passage, and the drama that shows up in our life.  And likewise, we can feel change, sometimes like a gentle breeze and sometimes like a strong wind.

            As we learn to shift our perception from the external world ‘out there’, and begin to focus our attention and awareness upon the present moment itself, we begin to access the present moment as a feeling connection to the Quantum Field. No longer associating with the objects ‘out there’, but now focusing upon awareness and perception of right here, and perceiving the body not as an entity, but as a field of awareness, we will be making great headway. As one becomes more skilled at fixating perception upon the feeling of the present moment, everything that changes will fall away no differently than the shimmering of leaves in a gentle breeze. What will remain constant will be awareness in the present moment, fully embodied, right here right now, fully alive, radiant, and at peace, fulfilled to the brim and ready for more Life to keep unfolding forever and forever if we had our way. Take a deep breath!

            In the perfect present moment, time is not eternal, time ceases to exist and that which is eternal and ever present reveals itself.

            When we come home to ourselves and identify that which perceives the awareness, ever present and ever now, is the only non-changing constant in the entire universe. That which we perceive is in a constant state of flux, that which perceives is eternal and changeless. Perceiving and awareness can never exist outside of the eternal present moment that has no beginning and no end. All that we perceive and experience with the physical body, will cease to exist when we are no longer. The physical world only exists to a body that can perceive through the physical senses the physicality of the world. When the physical body goes, so does the world.

            Tomorrow morning when you look in the mirror and perceive the ever changing lines upon the reflected image of your face, you will feel the subtle emotional rendering of change. But if all of a sudden you focus your attention upon that which is perceived, and that which is perceiving, something else happens. In that emotion or feeling that comes up, that here we stand yet another day in front of the mirror, looking at our self to see if anything has changed, one can get a glimpse, a little taste of that which we truly are, that which never changes, beyond thought, beyond feeling, and beyond our story, we are Awareness.

            All the changes in our life are like the reflection in the mirror, we identify with the reflection, which looks like the real thing, yet it is only a reflection. In the telling of our story, we are only recanting the reflection, and like the image in the mirror, the story reflects all of the perceived change that has ever happened to us. And in the end, the story will be swept away by Change.

            I would assume, by looking at my own personal world at this time, and by looking at the greater world, change is the order of the day. Our being, our nervous system, and our consciousness and sub consciousness, will react and process change as it has always done. Just let go! Feel what the body has to offer up for you to feel, whether it seems appropriate or not to the mind. This will help you to establish a healthy relationship to all change. Pay attention and focus your awareness on the background on which all change is happening. The background is unchanging and forever stabilized in the present moment. It is awareness itself that never changes. Awareness can never leave the present moment and is antecedent to all thought, perception, dreaming, belief and anything else that the mind can conjure up.

            As always, the only true fortification that we have in relationship to change is the ever-present awareness. Quiet the mind, feel the body, and be the ever-present presence that you are. Change happens!

.-James Hyman

 

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