A World of Meaning » fulfillment in life

Are You Doing a Hancock?

Eric J Tischler — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:03:50 +0000

Today I finally rented the movie Hancock, which is about a bum of guy with superhuman powers who gets a makeover. If you’ve seen it you will get all the references in this post. Is he from another planet? He doesn’t know, as he’s had amnesia since he woke up in a hospital some years ago. Sound familiar?

It should. It’s you and me. It’s all of us. We woke up in a hospital some years ago, not knowing anything about who we really are, and have been dabbling in our superhuman metaphysical-spiritual powers, but still often have felt like lousy bums, causing damage to ourselves and to others. We lack superhuman finesse, and too many people don’t like us for some reason – or we imagine they don’t, or we don’t feel all that lovable.

We stumble along, drunk on self-pity and somewhere between dissatisfied and disgusted with how others treat us for all our clumsy best efforts to do some good in this world. And it seems all we can remember are the troubles. Somehow we feel alone, as if the only one of our kind, not understanding who were are or why others sometimes treat us so poorly. We want to connect, to have closeness, acceptance, someone to love who understands us. In our stumbling spiritual vagrancy we feel hurt and lonely but don’t see the connection.

Yet in some way we are indeed a clumsy, drunken, ignorant mess. We need a spiritual make over. We need to give more thought to the effects we are having and how we are conducting ourselves – spiritually, in particular. We are divine beings. Our powers are immense. We are taught we can manifest love, friends, fame, riches. We can heal ourselves and others. We are told that we can even fly, teleport, visit other worlds, materialize gold and gems, commune with wondrous beings of other dimensions – that we are gods. “Ye are gods,” he reminded us. Yet we are a mess.

We do need a spiritual makeover. Just changing the outer won’t be enough. Our attitude must also change. Say. “Thank you, good job.” To others. Appreciate their efforts, even if their abilities are seemingly far less than your own. They are doing their best. Answer for our mistakes. Make amends. Be not reckless in our heroic efforts. Neaten up our outer presentation – don’t be a bum inwardly or outwardly.

And know others do need us. Without your light “crime” rises. Spiritually sober and sensitive to the needs of others to our own need to connect we will find our presence is very welcome and very much able to contribute and be appreciated.

The Achilles heel? Hancock has one. We do as well. For all our power, we need to choose our higher purpose over our personal, human passions. Getting too close to the human self, falling in love with it, “needing” something personal from another – this will only drain us of our divine gifts. Our strength is from within. No, we can still love and have and hold. But do so “from a distance,” meaning from our spiritual heights. Perched high above mankind’s constructions we can reach the moon and teach others the meaning of love so they can change the world. And our one-on-one love is divine and won’t drain or consume us because we have put our godliness and higher purpose above all personal needs. We have realized others need us and that more than anything we need to give our best. We need to fulfill our highest calling. Living only for our personal desires we would waste away into a vulnerability to the less-than-friendly attitudes of society.

We are drawn, perhaps by nature, to connect on a personal basis. From across the world we are brought together, perhaps by fate, but our lives are not ruled by fate. We can choose. And we must come to see that our spiritual love for those to whom physical nature draws us extends far beyond our need for them. With great effort we rise from the wounds we have received and throw ourselves from mankind’s constructions. We leap skyward, reaching beyond the roaring traffic of this world toward the moon of inspiration which reflects the light of a greater sun.

And in that light, removed from mere physical level relations we find our selves again and the world we loved so personally comes back to life, divinity flowing again through its veins and our own.

How do Anti-depressants Produce Suicidal Thoughts?

Eric J Tischler — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:58:45 +0000

We often hear warnings of certain medications that are made for alleviating depression causing in some people thoughts of suicide when we would expect them to do the opposite. Suicide is clearly what one would expect of the depressed. Why would this happen?

It’s simple. People are depressed because they haven’t learned to process their disappointing experiences. They don’t have the understanding that would help them look at these events with equanimity. So they get depressed, and part of the process of getting through the emotions is feeling them. Antidepressants block that ability to feel, so the negative emotions backup inside their subconscious and can explode out as the deepest of depressions considerations, which is suicide.

Because they are blocking the person from processing the feelings and thoughts, these drugs do little to help a person do anything about their feelings. Issues have to be dealt with. To me depression is not merely a chemical imbalance but a belief and thought imbalance resulting in unresolved emotions. I’ve used mood correctors and found they interfered with my ability to do something about a particular dysfunctional way I see myself and/or my world.

To say depression is a “chemical imbalance in the brain” is like saying poverty is a financial imbalance in the bank account. It denies the cause of the depression by denying the personhood of the affected person, turning them into little more than passive passengers in their bodies, with no responsibility for learning to cope with life, examine their beliefs, behaviors and attitudes.

The fact is that people are depressed because of things that happen or don’t happen and at the same time they don’t know how to deal with it. The answer is not sedation with antidepressants but to learn to deal with it in a way that is both heartfelt and logical. When I was in my youth in the sixties and seventies people, if someone said he was depressed we asked him what happened, not if he is taking his medication.

Yes, there are cases where antidepressants are good as stopgaps to help a person get by, but the real answer is answers, not drugs. Suicidal thoughts mean answers are desperately needed. Chemically blocking emotions, again, treats people like they were merely victims of chemical reactions, not people whose beliefs themselves are causing the chemical reactions.

Every thought you have is based on a belief. Every thought produces emotions, and emotions produce chemical changes in the body. If you practice these beliefs, thoughts and emotions long enough you get into habits of them because the body adapts to those patterns, like exercising a muscle. And we can use our will to examine our thoughts and change our behavior and emotions. We are people. We need to feel and to think, not just take pills.

Another question and answer: Why do people want to take pills instead of take charge of their selves? It’s because they want to avoid blame for their problems. But logically that is a defective approach. If the problem is your mistaken, dysfunctional thinking, avoiding changing your thinking is just another mistake piled on top of the first, compounding the fault and by that sort of evasive thinking earning double the blame. But really, there is no blame, just a need to correct and move on.

Our world has become to enamored of finger pointing. Sue the bastard, blame your parents, blame your chemicals, and make someone or something else – like a pill – responsible for fixing the problem, because you didn’t have anything to do with it? No, we can’t go on like that. We are people, not passengers. We need to drive change in our own lives and say no to passivity.

There are additional ways to resolve depression using diet, exercise and good psychology. There are some great articles at Mercola.com with more ideas.

Is It Okay? Manifesting What You Want?

Eric J Tischler — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:52:21 +0000

Perhaps some of you have wondered if it’s right for a person to ask for specific things from the Creator (which, by the way, is you on the Divine, Universal level). I myself have had issues to resolve about the nature of materialism, what is selfishness, self-denial, and what’s okay to ask for in life.

There are those who believe it’s not appropriate to ask (manifest) for specific things, but this often just masks ego’s penchant for self denial, turning God into an ungenerous person. This is all just projection and denies the Unity of all that is. Yet the question remains as to what is right to manifest in life. Do we passively wait to see what the Creator brings us, or do we participate and explore? Should we ask for what we want?

The Bible tells us to ask and it will be given. That’s pretty clear. It doesn’t say ask but don’t ask. Other works say not to ask for your self but to give to others. There are countless saints and such who have “done without” and served others. Are they the example we should follow – completely? In this modern day? Is there a new way? I certainly think so, since there are resources we can avail ourselves of and things we can do that do greatly help others and which do require sufficient funds. And if the laws of manifesting are true – and they are – then there’s no reason for anyone to suffer lack.

Should we ask for what we want? What so you really want, in life, materially and experientially? And the rub is that we be aware of the line between unlimited supply the Creator offers and vain materialism. One of my early teachers of manifesting, a woman so able she had to be careful what she said because it would happen, said that if you are willing to manifest what you think you want you will eventually learn what you really want. When the meaning and power of manifesting is understood the delineation and solution becomes plain.

At the core, manifesting isn’t about getting and having things but about your consciousness as a person and about your self/world concept. What you attain in living by the laws of manifesting is an understanding that you and all are forgiven because the source of your experiences and fulfilled needs is within you, regardless of how those experiences and things were delivered to you externally. Thus you can end the tyranny of external sources, including your own petty tyranny over others that appears as grievances, expectations and desires, voiced or not. Guilt and blame vanish. Ending this struggle is really what you want. You want to be at peace with others and yourself. You want to love them and not make demands. This is the spiritual gift of manifesting. That is why it’s so important to understand and practice it.

It doesn’t matter so much what you manifest but that you understand what manifesting means about you and your world and everyone in it. As this understanding settles in and you see the source of all things in this world – consciousness – your true sentiment and perspective becomes clear. The din, chatter and struggles of the human marketplace become uninteresting, and you find that some of the external things and experiences you were attracted to no longer matter to you, and you have peace in the world. Fearless, your love for all comes forward, and you move with grace to create situations and draw on resources that support the expression of your own best interests for self and others. You become a builder of the world, not just a slave/slaver bargaining for his sustenance and security. You are free.

When you really get it, what you manifest will be secondary to the fact that you can, and what that means. This is the purpose of the practice of manifesting. It opens the door to brotherly love by removing the perceived cause for all conflict – obtainment through seemingly external means. You don’t have to convince anyone but yourself.

Note: “Selfishness” is a code word for separation and the struggle to get for self versus serving the well being of all without self-denial, relying on the Unity of all that is to provide through manifesting, either deliberately or vibrationally.

End Your Humble Refusal Of Good

Eric J Tischler — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:48:55 +0000

Sometimes people may be yearning so much for something they want, such as companions, opportunities, financial blessings or new abilities, but they are consciously or unconsciously saying no to these good things out of some sort of humbleness, making what amounts to statements that are aimed really to assure the giver that they are not being self-aggrandizing in asking for and accepting what they want. This is a psychological tradition of sorts that is very ill-conceived.

When you say no to good, even when you mean yes, the result is that of the no answer. Refusal is leads to not getting. Acceptance results in fulfillment. Denial of self is a plague in our world. We have to realize two things: one is that the Universe (manifestation through consciousness and vibration) will give us what we want when we accept it, and the second is that in our desiring something we do in fact believe we should have it. All the self-denial and so called humble refusal is nothing but social groveling based on thinking you have to beg others to gain your reward, even if that reward is your heavenly reward.

The concern of the “humble” person using self-denial is not to be egotistical, but really he is being egotistical in that he has misconceived virtue and spiritual attainment – or whatever you want to call it. Egotistical means separate and materialistic, meaning you define yourself by ideas of separation and your attainment or refusal of things, situations and relationships in the material world. But you don’t need to refuse good in your life to make the highest social, psychological or spiritual attainment. You need to refuse to define yourself by these things. In fact, how you define yourself in the larger sense will determine what you attain, which you can see is the reverse of the egos way. You will thus manifest according to your self-definition and “spiritual configuration” of vibration.

This is all the workings of the principle of “as within, so without.” Your life will unfold around you according to your maintained consciousness/vibration and need for growth. But be sure that you are maintaining and attaining inwardly primarily for the reason of the essential value of those attainments. If you are doing it merely to gain outwardly then you are being materialistic. There is nothing wrong with responding to material needs with inner work to resolve those issues and fill gaps in your material life. Not at all. That would be just more self-denial. Only see that what is central is the qualities you embody.

This is the parallel to the Bible verse that says, “He leadeth me in the path of righteousness for His name’s sake.” And I can testify that there is a very different vibe on doing it that way. It relieves you of the stress of material striving, which most are so useful they don’t realize it until they step out of it. It is a great strain on one to maintain that race against others, to fill the basket of life and perform materially, when all is solved in our inner attainment, both by relieving ourselves of ego’s desires in a competitive scenario, as well as answering our inner most virtue and true desire for peace and fulfillment.

The divine essence of the idea of humility is non-separation. It says, to put it in the Bible way, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” Not the illusory separate individual but the foundational Spirit that is our Oneness, which some call God. Humility means indeed not to aggrandize the separate self but it cannot mean to deny the embodiment its needs and well being. Saying no to good that can benefit all – including self – is not a virtue. Benefit must be shared by all or the Oneness is broken by separating self from that benefit, and the self remains in ego’s idea of separation. This is not your will. Your desire for good in the first place tells you that. And that will is “Thine” in Oneness.

So rather than unthinkingly responding, “No, I just couldn’t.” say “Oh yes! How wonderful and thanks! I humbly” (meaning not merely for myself) “accept and receive this goodness.” And in doing so you teach and spread that vibration to all the Oneness in embodiments, which is another wonderful benefit of accepting good.

Note: Remember always, when aiming to fulfill yourself, of the law that what goes around comes around. Wish all goodness and wisdom for others as well: “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any: that your Father also which is in heaven” (consciousness) “may forgive you your trespasses.” That’s from Mark 11:25. It means that you are shifting from separation – aught means moral obligation and seeing others in separation as your source – to the Oneness/Father/God as non-separate source: vibrational cause founded in your consciousness. You are the gate keeper of your goodness. The Oneness is the deliverer of your good. You will live by the laws you pass on others and receive what you give in consciousness.

A Good Example of How To Make Dreams Come True

Eric J Tischler — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:42:13 +0000

This is a really great video from youtube by a videographer in Chicago. It’s about making your dreams come true through simple action. We do need to do the inner work, and we do need to do the outer work. But really, it’s much easier than that, so it should be called play.

(No, that’s not me in the video, but he’s very talented and a popular channel on youtube. If you want more, search for wheezywaiter on youtube.com)