IS IT REALITY OR IS IT FEAR? - PART 2

IS IT REALITY OR IS IT FEAR? - PART 2
I woke up this morning thinking about last month's article and suddenly worried that you might think I meant not to pay attention to any hype or news. On the contrary, pay attention, but always apply your own "reality filter" or more crudely put your "BS meter". What is a reality filter? It's simply using your intuition and inner knowing to discern what the truth is for you.

I was reminded of a situation that happened in the early 90s. There was a man named Peter coming to Milwaukee several times a year teaching classes on healing, meditation and various information about his view about the world, how and why it was created and a variety of other things. I was very impressed with a lot of what he had to share and started helping to set up and promote his workshops in Milwaukee and a few other places. When he wasn't in town his students and their friends began meeting on a monthly basis and sharing healing, meditating, sharing and laughing. I wrote and sent out a newsletter to about 180 people. Doesn't seem like much now, but that that was before everyone had email, so I actually printed 4-8 pages and mailed them out each month.

I'm getting to the point, that was just a little background. Peter was a great teacher, engaging, interesting, slightly charismatic, and he had a great laugh. I always have my own truth or BS meter engaged and I was pretty clear that approximately 70% of what he taught was true and valuable. He had a couple of areas in which he had some serious blind spots and or was choosing to believe something that just didn't feel true. One of those things was that we were all going to ascend that summer. If you're not familiar with the idea - there are two different explanations of the same term. Peter's understanding was that we will leave our physical bodies and ascend into the heaven and would no longer have to go through the cycle of birth and rebirth. I was more inclined to believe the alternate explanation that ascension is a movement upward in consciousness. You do not "go" anywhere. You do not "leave" anywhere. But your perspective, your perception, is radically altered. You begin to see through the maya, or the illusion of this world.

The two explanations are quite different, Peter's seemed unlikely to me. I simply shrugged it off and didn't let it cloud my judgment of what he shared that was good.

One day we were having our monthly meeting and Ginger, a 70 year old retired school teacher, (not her name) told me that she had just spent her life savings on a trip to Egypt and a variety of other things. Her reasoning was that since we were all ascending there was no point in hanging on to the money. When I told her I didn't think that was happening. She was shocked and replied that she figured that since I was helping to promote Peter then obviously I believed 100% of what he said. That was my turn to be shocked and dismayed. It never occurred to me that anyone would rely totally on what they perceived as the beliefs and judgments of someone else. I hadn't realized that perhaps it wasn't enough for me to be clear on what I believed, but should have been sharing my viewpoint all along. I stopped writing the newsletter then and there. My final article was one in which I encouraged everyone to fully utilize their own BS meters.

When I first started studying spiritual teachings I read a book by Stuart Wilde and his very first paragraph said basically "use your own judgment. If it works for you, great. If it doesn't set it aside, you don't necessarily have to throw it all out because of a few concepts. Take in what feels right, set the rest on a shelf to reexamine at a later date." That made a huge impression on me. It honestly made it easier for me to read and absorb his information because I felt like I wasn't being asked to believe it all or not, but that I could take in what resonated with me.

This concept should be applied to everything in your life. Pay attention when you listen to the news, read a newspaper, read a book, listen to someone talk, whatever you're doing should be filtered through your own intuitive sense of knowing. If you're not sure...then set it aside. Let it sit for a while and come back to it and see if it fits or not.

Use this sense even when you're reading fiction. Novels can and often do carry incredible truths. This is one way that a writer can share something that is fundamentally true, but which may not be able to be completely historically proven. Novels also allow us to read and absorb information without that sense that this is either true or false and that we need to believe or discard. There are times I've been reading something and really enjoying the story, only to realize about half way through the book that the basic story line feels incredibly true, sometimes even a part of our history or past that has been forgotten or even purposely obscured.

What if you're not sure of your own judgment or intuition? I have a simple method that has helped me a lot. Sit quietly and feel how your body and mind feel, are you tense, in pain, feeling good, etc? Then think about the differing ideas or concepts that you're concerned about. How do you feel now? Do you feel lighter, encouraged, happy, secure, centered, determined? If so, then you probably are feeling the truth in this concept. If, on the other hand, you feel stressed, tense, tired, experiencing a heaviness or pain that wasn't there before, then I would definitely set this concept aside as one that isn't true for you at the moment. Yes, I said at the moment, there are times that things shift and what wasn't true or correct at one time, may be at another. Just keep your radar up and ask questions or other people and yourself. You might be surprised by how much easier it is for you to make decisions on just about everything