Belief systems limit perception. If it sounds radical, it is. Most of us spend our lives searching for meaning and excavating material to build our belief systems with. It's like we're gather whatever seems to fit into our paradigm, and building a nest... to comfortably decay in.
We discover some article or study on the ideal diet, and that becomes part of our belief system. We can no longer even hear facts that counter our belief, or we meet them with violent opposition. We discover some fact about the average human lifespan and that becomes a part of our belief system. We die on cue. We read about the archeological discovery of some ancient human relic, and that becomes a part of our belief system. Our origin story is unremarkable. Someone diagnoses us with some disease or other, and that becomes a part of our belief system. We fall in line with every other symptom listed under the disease. Et cetera, et cetera... it goes on and on.
The most beautiful expressions of aliveness I've seen in people occur when belief systems topple. You stumble upon someone who has lived twice as long as you thought was possible, and they are still full of life. Your eyes widen a little. You discover someone who eats virtually the opposite diet as advocated in the study, and they seem radiant and full of vitality. Your eyes widen a little more. Some fact doesn't quite fit into the archeological evidence. Your head spins. Someone who had the incurable disease you 'have' healed them self completely. Something shatters within you.
When a belief system topples, a space opens up. This often manifests as a light in the eyes that mirrors the brightest stars.
It reminds me of a Rumi poem...
"A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself.
That's how I hold your voice.
I am scrap wood thrown into your fire, and quickly reduced to smoke.
I saw you and became empty.
This emptiness, more beautiful than existence,
it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes,
existence thrives and creates even more existence!
Th praise is to praise
how one surrenders
to the emptiness."
As belief systems collapse, there is more space for the emptiness... the emptiness... the rapture. We are free of the mechanisms that bind us to myths. Suddenly, we are free to touch another layer of life... to touch someone more deeply.
To speak of parallel realities, is to speak of stories existing side by side. They may be told in English, or they may be told in mathematics. Shift your belief system, and you leap from one dimension to another. Look around you, and remember that you are living your story; weaving it together out of the scraps of everything you believe. If you want to take an evolutionary leap, leap into another paradigm. Or sprout wings and leap a whole octave.
History is fabricated by historians. Medical theories depend on lies and half-truths. Educational systems make us the perfect subjects of the kingdom. We're held in thrall of technology, linear time, measurements and money. When I told a neighbor that my daughter was born in December, and his first thought was that she was born before the new year, so we'd get a tax break. I told my father I was interested in longevity, and he wondered how long one could afford to live, after retirement. Money has been exalted to a god-like status in the stories some people are living. It is one of the abstractions that take over our lives.
There is no such thing as truth; there are only places to settle for a while. Think of yourself as a bird, flying from tree to tree on your journey... alighting from branch to branch, as you flutter toward... what have you named it... Your full potential? Oneness? God? Union with the divine? Enlightenment? Joy? (Has someone named it for you?)
Rest, weary one. But not too long, or you may become complacent, and miss out on a whole lot of sky. Never cease discerning between the leaves and the vipers. The sky is beckoning patiently, whenever you're ready to soar.
In truth,
Steven Budden
PS. I touch on this topic again and again, because during sessions, I touch clients, and a host of complex sensations arise. They are a vast constellation, as vast as the night sky. And then the leap to the oversimplified story, and the light dims. Suddenly, the experience is not miraculous; it is just a 'vision of god'. It is just a 'flashback to a past life'. It is just something that someone else has already experienced and labeled.
It is more than that... so much more. It is you, unfolding. It is you, getting a sense of how majestic YOU truly are.
Practice witnessing experiences without labels. Notice how vast they can become. The mind loses its grip in such a space, and consciousness expands accordingly.
#buddenprocess #bloommanifesto #bloom #dandelionseed #dlseed #evolutionaryleap