Freedom Through Contemplation
By Peter Evans and Helen Evans
()
About this ebook
border as the front cover.
Peter Evans
Peter Evans is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Harold Jacobson is Jesse Siddal Reeves Professor of Political Science and Director, the Center for Political Studies, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Robert Putnam is Gurney Professor of Political Science at Harvard University.
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Freedom Through Contemplation - Peter Evans
HOW OLD ARE YOU?
Modern doctors and physicists tell us that the human body completely renews itself every 5 years. Some parts
of the body renew themselves much faster, such as the lining of the stomach, which changes every week, the liver is regenerated in 6 weeks, the skin in a month. Our present bodies simply did not exist five years ago.
Mainstream culture, however, is still firmly rooted in 17th century physics, and we continue to view our bodies as machines made of matter
, a set of pumps and pipes, joints and muscles and we tell ourselves that naturally
parts wear out. Our society believes that parts degenerate with age, get clogged and malfunction. Yet, none are more than 5 years old. So how can we now explain this process of aging or of any disease that lasts more than 5 years?
Some scientists believe our bodies are patterns of energy maintained by mental images held in consciousness. We have learned
our mental images from our society and its Newtonian worldview, and so we persist in the danse macabre
which only lasts three score years and ten
.
What do you think would happen to aging and disease and hardened arteries and immobile joints, scars and degeneration if we changed our worldview? What would happen if you held your body’s image as vital,
healthy and youthful based on the information that every single atom and molecule will be fresh and new within five years?
How old do you think you really are?
COMPLAINING
Do you ever find a real hissy fit just feels good? Most of us will agree we somehow like to complain every now and then. Yet, we also know that like attracts like, what we focus on will increase, so why do we do it?
Well let’s get esoteric here, and if it’s too far out of reach, then just think of it as a metaphor. We’re multi-dimensional beings. We have a physical body, an emotional body, mental body, spiritual body. Ok, sure there are lots of different systems, but let’s go with this one. Our emotional body, where our emotions originate, has learned to vibrate at a certain characteristic ‘frequency’, if you will. It also has learned habitual expressions for times of stress, such as yelling, complaining, silence, etc. depending on who we are.
When we visualize, when we project our thoughts forth to create our future reality, the emotional body provides the ‘fuel’ to boost our thoughts into that formless space where manifestation becomes possible. We all know this. We’ve seen what happens to a wishy-washy thought with no emotion behind it. Nothing! Yet, we wonder, why does it always seem to work so well for things we don’t really want?
Because we’ve invested it with lots of emotional fuel, (usually fear) and it’s propelled like a mighty rocket.
That emotional energy is very powerful, very creative. It’s like electricity, we can use it any way we’d like, for our good or for our destruction. For the energy just wants to express itself, it doesn’t care what the expression is. With all this power behind our expressions, we’d better be sure we choose our words mindfully! Find something ‘better’ to complain about!
So, the next time you feel like complaining about something, think of something that you’d rather be complaining about. Instead of I don’t have enough clients
, how about, I have too many clients scheduled in the next few months
, or change I don’t have enough room
to I wonder what I’ll do with all this space?
Admittedly, this is just a Band-Aid approach. Ultimately, through meditation, through self-realization your ‘vibration’ will change and the need to express the energy in this back-handed manner will no longer be felt. This is usually a gradual evolution, however, and impatiently repressing the energy will only create chaos and mixed results in your life.
Gee, now that we’ve finally found a home and are settled in one place, suddenly we have consulting jobs that take us all over the world!
HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DO THAT?
We’re in the midst of buying a house and preparing to move about 500 miles from our present location. In any such venture, there are many, many details, all requiring our attention. All these details need to be anticipated and addressed by our master plan, and this is exactly where we can plan so meticulously that we lose our larger vision and our spontaneity. We should keep our eye on the successfully accomplished move and allow that vision to guide us through the details and not get lost in trivia. Of course we aren’t suggesting that it would be better not to plan, just spontaneously
move 500 miles, but there may appear in our organizational process unsuspected, alternative ways and means of accomplishing our goal. We are suggesting that we must keep ourselves firmly resolved on our goal as well as staying open to these unsuspected, God-given alternatives. For it may well be that a new idea clashes head-on with how
we had planned, but better suits what
we had planned to accomplish.
For example, we had been planning to rent a moving truck and use our pickup to tow our car on a rented trailer, and we had pretty well worked out who would drive which awkward vehicle, how we would coordinate rest-stops, what we would do if we became separated in traffic, etc. Then, suddenly, the pickup’s motor died. This was a definite blow to how
we had planned. We decided that it was too expensive to repair the old truck and keep it in the plan. To be sure, there are a few last minute preparations that would be easier with the truck, but its absence actually simplifies the trip, since we can tow the car with the rental truck, and enjoy each other’s company side by side. And what a blessing that the motor hadn’t waited to die halfway there!
We’re moving to a grand old home that is in need of repair to bring it back to its original glory. We can either see it completed and beautiful
, or we can get ourselves mired in the vision of what a big job it is, how long it will take, how much it will cost, and a million other details. Of course we have a plan of action, and we will be mindful in every step, but our real focus will be on the successfully completed project, rather than how it’s going to happen. We consciously avoid putting into mind the kind of ideas that are often suggested by well-intentioned friends like, it’ll be chaos for the first few weeks
, this is going to be a huge adjustment for you
or it’s well known that renovations always take longer and cost more than you expect.
We can usually tell where our mental focus is by observing our conversations with others. When someone asks you about a new job, a new project, a new home, do you tell them how you got it, how tough it’s going to be, how you’re going to acclimate yourself to it; or do you speak about what it is, what it will do to benefit your life, what pleasure it brings you? Are you focusing on the goal, or how
you’re going to get there?
Every thought is a prayer, and every prayer is answered. After all, like attracts like. Do you really want to pray for a lot of work, a lot of logistical maneuvering, a long, hard road
to travel; or do you want a beautiful place to live, a successful project, a rewarding career?
What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
~~John Lubbock
HOW WE PRAY AND HOW WE GET IN OUR WAY
There are some essentials about co-creative prayer in many traditions. One of them is to intensely visualize, to realize
the outcome as already acheived and to let go and let God manifest the how it will happen
.
Doesn’t that sound perfect? We don’t have to know how we’ll get the money to pay the bills, we don’t have to know how the perfect job will present itself to us, we don’t have to know how the perfect relationship will come into our