Breaking the Spell

Breaking the Spell (Chapter Four)

Four

Breaking the Spell

Consensus reality is a bewitching spell. It fascinates and beguiles. Tolstoy wrote that ‘Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.’ By washing our awareness we may help to clean the lens of our perception. We can revitalize our energies by the mere act of forming new ‘attentions’. The new currency here is not fiat money but conscious awareness. And it buys a lot more too. As the aphorism goes – ‘Take what you want says God, but pay for it’. Nothing in our world is for free. Even the act of changing one’s thinking patterns comes at a price. Yet it should be remembered that all genuine transactions are reciprocal. With real effort comes reward. However, real effort is best practiced when absent from the need or desire for reward.

Most social systems operate through mechanisms of encouragement and reward (the carrot and the stick). Again, such distractions serve to draw the attention outside of oneself, as opposed to nurturing the intention within. Our ‘civilized’ societies have directed attention away from the need for an individual to act authentically: that is, driven not by externally motivated desires but from genuine internal impulses. This necessitates the formation of disciplined intention. What this intention involves is the capacity to direct oneself in life without imitation or need for recognition and approval. The cultivation of inner intention can itself lead to knowing ‘right action’. This is when conscience is operating in balance with intuition and the creative imagination of a person’s interior life. Outward actions appear as if directed by a form of conscience, and feel ‘right’. When conscience and genuine inner feeling (the ‘gut feeling’) are operating together there is an intention that exists which is neither thought, nor wish, nor an object. It is an intention that can override the thoughts of conditioning. It creates a form of internal strength and control that can resist the daily barrage of social memes and manipulative impacts. It gives a person the power to resist subtle forms of social control.

However, power is not the force we have over others but rather the force we have within ourselves. It is through this force that a person is able to manifest ‘sincere intent’ through their actions and behavior. It is worth recalling here a saying attributed to Sayedna Ali who stated: ‘The rights that others have over you – remember them. The rights that you have over others – forget them.’ It will be necessary during the years ahead of socio-cultural change that our intentions also connect with the accompanying ‘cognitive shift’.

What we are currently passing through is another revolution in human consciousness. It is a time to be open to changing the rigidity of one’s thoughts, beliefs, and ‘sacred’ attachments. What enslaves a person is that which holds their attention externally. There is an oral anecdote about the Sufi mystic Rabia Al-Adawiya who when asked by a friend on a beautiful spring morning to come outside of the house to see the bounteous works of God, she replied: ‘Come you inside that you may behold their Maker. Contemplation of the Maker has turned me aside from what He has made.’ Like Rabia’s friend the majority of us are focused on the secondary in a way that occupies us totally. It is a consuming relationship, and one that requires all our available energies. It is in this manner that many mystics have referred to humanity as being ‘asleep’.

To ‘awaken’ the faculties of perception and creative vision calls into being a whole new cognitive system; a reassembling of how our physical senses interpret the world around us. It calls for mental concentration that can replace a person’s old conditioned terms of reference for new terms of reference which are more positive and useful. These new terms of reference should form part of a mental discipline. If people could be more aware of the ways in which they think and react – to observe their responses – they could create their own inner strengths. Such mental discipline also refers to a quality of action. To strengthen one’s inner life does not infer inner retreat every second of every day; it requires a balance (as discussed in Chapter Six). It involves knowing when to include and when to exclude. With lesser energy a person can often feel helpless in the face of external influences and impacts.

It is necessary to hold some disciplinary power over those things/ people/events that we wish to either include or exclude from the realm of our daily world. In other words, we need to rearrange our storage of experiences. When an encounter/event/impact is received we should immediately ask ourselves as to its nature and whether it is of benefit to us. The question of conscious-level storage is sometimes more of a question of what to throw away. Failure to activate this filtering only adds to our loss of internal power and discipline. From this a person can become weaker within their lives, pushed around by the influence of arbitrary forces. By being an independent presence in the world we are being asked to assume responsibility for this gift. The average person far too often acts on their thoughts and desires without taking responsibility for them. We need to assume the responsibility of our presence in the world: in this time, now, and through each moment and encounter.

By taking responsibility in this way we make each moment and encounter our own. By not taking such responsibility we let events drift away from us or become powerless to defend against their disruptive influence. In each moment there exists the opportunity for the reciprocal exchange of energies; such exchanges are the binds that serve to arrange a person’s life. Creative inner discipline allows a person to grab onto more things in life. Life is shorter than we may realize; or rather, when we eventually realize how short life can be, it’s often too late. This is nicely indicated by the following story:

A miser had accumulated, by effort, trade and lending, three hundred thousand dinars. He had lands and buildings, and all kinds of wealth. He then decided that he would spend a year in enjoyment, living comfortably, and then decide as what his future should be.

But, almost as soon as he had stopped amassing money the Angel of Death appeared before him, to take his life away.

The miser tried, by every argument which he could muster, to dissuade the Angel, who seemed, however, adamant. Then the man said: ‘Grant me but three more days and I will give you one- third of my possessions.’

The angel refused, and pulled again at the miser’s life, tugging to take it away. Then the man said:

‘If you only allow me two more days on Earth, I will give you two hundred thousand dinars from my store.’ But the Angel would not listen to him. And the Angel even refused to give the man a solitary extra day for all his three hundred thousand pieces. The miser then said:

‘Please, then, give me just time enough to write one little thing down.’

This time the Angel allowed him this single concession, and the man wrote, with his own blood:

Man, make use of your life. I could not buy one hour for three hundred thousand dinars. Make sure that you realize the value of your time.[1]

Time often appears to speed up for an individual as experiences accumulate. Inner awareness can be functional here by arranging how each moment is consciously stored and recreated (see Chapter Five). We have the capacity to embellish our lives through how we perceive and interpret our encounters. And when a person’s life is seen within the grander cosmos, it appears as but a speck in time. So it becomes important that a person aims to live through qualitative time – a life of Kairos.

Kairos, to the ancient Greeks, was the god of the ‘fleeting moment’ that presented a passing favorable opportunity within the fate of Man. So Kairos time represents living within the state of the right and opportune moment. Within such states the human being is more open to connecting events, circumstances, and life’s flows. In fact, many people have witnessed incredible ‘coincidences’ when in certain states of flow and qualitative time.[2]

Such moments must be seized upon before they are gone, perhaps forever. Within this qualitative state a person is more likely to be able to adapt to changing circumstances and be more open to possibilities. These present times, in fact, demand the qualities of experiencing Kairos time in a way that linearity is replaced by entanglement. In what has been described as the ‘Quantum Age’ our modern sciences are finally reconnecting with the ancient knowledge of universal connectedness.

All too often we assume that an event occurs as if it existed separately within a vacuum. In actuality, all events are interconnected and woven with all other events. Our human actions are always prompted by a whole range of events rather than a single cause. Likewise, any action that a person performs is not an isolated event. Each and every action has consequences; many of which are beyond our knowing. Similarly, situations are often changed by events which seemingly have no connecting relevance. By being more internally connected to the external flow of events a person begins to shift from viewing impacts and happenings in a regular linear and limited way. In Kairos time, each breath is not counted, but tasted. Taste remains where numbers fade:

Golden Moments

To enjoy them while you can in the time that you are in

For that very moment that may not begin again.

They are there to be absorbed like the smell from passing skin,

Not to be ignored for fear of hesitancy within.

In life, moments seek, but do not return.

Golden Moments must always burn.[3]

A person acts as part of the world, yet simultaneously as a contribution within a much grander whole. Sometimes we can do little more than to treat the world as a continuing mystery – as something incomprehensible that at times reveals comprehensible secrets. In this way we can never reach the end, or cease to be enthralled.

Within the comprehensive flow of the incomprehensible lies our ideas of ourselves. When at certain times we are able to ‘act’ – to do and accomplish things – when before we couldn’t, what has changed is the idea we hold of ourselves internally. This internal image that we hold becomes the marker of our ability and capacity to do and to be. This is the creative perceptual space a person exists within. This is the realm of our deep human creative vision. We may have to change our ideas of our ‘selves’ in order to catalyze a shift in our cognitive apparatus. For example, with a ‘fixed’ sense of self a person may react to obstacles by meeting them head-on. This abrasive style is often a way of manifesting one’s sense of self-importance. Yet often a more suitable way to navigate through life is not by meeting obstacles head-on but by maneuvering around them as if they were obstacles of less importance. One of these ‘maneuvers’ is to act without expectation of reward, and to have no expectations from other people. This positioning creates a healthy kind of detachment: a space which can be filled with a more disciplined conscious awareness.

Another ‘maneuver’ is the rearrangement of internal components. In other words, the shifting of priority of various internal components such as ego; self-importance; responsibility; self- pity; action and inaction; judgment. We often cling to these components in inappropriate degrees. For example, we need to be careful about giving too much priority and importance to our ordinary assessments. Our assessments and forms of judgment are, as already discussed, largely a creation of external social conditioning. As such, they are often culturally and regionally biased. Therefore, we should not be so quick to look at and judge phenomena. When we begin to change these individual aspects of ourselves we start to shift our whole being. This is because a person functions as a systemic whole. So when one part or aspect is changed the whole inner arrangement shifts its pattern. New relations can be formed within a person by making a small change at a time. We should not forget that: ‘We do have the power to change, but we must change to have the power.’[4]

The aim of this brief chapter is to introduce the idea that a person’s ‘cultural spell’ can be broken. New and creative perceptions, thought patterns and behavior can be brought into focus. In a way, we need to ‘learn how to learn’. And we need to refresh our sense of self, our convictions and beliefs – even our thoughts. Most of the time we assume we have a stable consciousness. Yet in actuality a person is at the mercy of inner and outer impacts. As such, behavior will vary with emotional states that are affected by unseen forces. All too often a life ends up as an unconscious struggle through a myriad of impacts. What can actually slow this human drama down is disciplined awareness – a fixing (concentrating) of perception. And it is our cognitive systems that interpret and filter our external perceptions. The link between a person’s interior realms and the exterior physical world – the perceptual bridge – needs to be polished. Yet the everyday world serves to numb and dumb down our energetic connecting links and creative capacities. Revitalizing these energetic and creative capacities is thus about managing one’s energy; being vigilant with oneself; and learning to step away, which shall be discussed in the subsequent essays.

A TALE TO FINISH: Renunciation

After reaching old age, and after a home life of many joys and sorrows, a husband and wife decided to renounce the worldly life and devote the rest of their time to meditation and pilgrimage to the most sacred shrines.

One time, on route to a Himalayan temple, the husband saw on the path in front of him a fabulous diamond. Very quickly, he placed one foot on the jewel to hide it, thinking that if his wife saw it then perhaps a sense of greed would arise in her that could contaminate her mind and delay her mystical evolution. Yet the wife, discovering the ruse of her husband, said in a fair and gentle voice:

‘Dear, I would like to know how you have renounced the world if you still make a distinction between diamond and dust.’

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Taken from the book ‘Breaking the Spell’ (published 2013/2020)

[1] Shah, I. (1980) The Way of the Sufi. London: Octagon Press

[2] See Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1993) The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium. New York: HarperCollins

[3] The author’s own poem dated 17/8/95

[4] Birkbeck, L. (2008) Understanding the Future. London: Watkins