Relaxing In The Paradigm

Whatever "sense" we make out of our take on reality, I feel that somehow we have to arrive at a balance that allows us to continue with some degree of acceptance.


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Possibly, by being partial in our observations our paradigm is being constantly created from a selective source of information.
The constraints already imposed on us by the equipment of our "physical" body already act as a filter on our perception, combined with the restraining, limiting perspectives we cause ourselves by viewing reality through a selective range of conceptualisations and frames of reference.

For some of us, our paradigm, the residual effect of our worldview, may be more or less influenced by politics, by religion, by scientific study, by psychology, by philosophy and also profoundly by our interaction with our fellow beings and by our observations of ourselves.

Perhaps the summation of these influences leads us to adopt one of two basic stances - that we see the world as a hostile place, requiring defensiveness, suspicion, security - a conclusion of fear.
Or that we see the world as a friendly place, inviting openness, trust and liberty - a conclusion of love.


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I feel that these run so deep within us that although we assimilate and compensate in order to create that balance within our being - they nevertheless influence our entire perspective - even as we relax within the arms of our paradigm.

So strong is the influence of this basic stance that it puts a bias upon all new information absorbed - because we have to assimilate that information somehow into an already established balance.
In other words, we subjectively distort information, shaping it to fit within a context already allowed for, by our own paradigm.

All this takes place in the realms of emotion and thought.
We are obsessed by a compulsion to balance - to create equilibrium.
In most cases I think we acheive this - we are able to continue with our lives - carrying around this sense of emotional and psychological balance.


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Where does the compulsion for this balance originate?
Not from the paradigm itself, but from the emotional needs of our being.
Those emotional needs, although influenced by the paradigm itself, are shaped by their own requirement of balance and equilibrium.
In fact they are almost exclusively the motivating force for anything we do - and are themselves responsible for how our paradigm has been shaped.

We cannot therefore hope to reshape our world view, our paradigm and the basic emotional attitude we adopt unless we can somehow input into those emotions themselves.
Aptly demonstrated by what happens when we "fall in love" - the world becomes a different place.

At this point we enter a closed circle - our emotions are conditioned by our paradigm - and our paradigm is in turn influenced by our emotions.
Neither are free to change.

We need to find a source of inspiration, that has not yet been consumed, rendered impotent - by being absorbed into our conceptually defined world view.
We need to find a source of inspiration outside of the limited emotions that are conditioned by that world view.

Without this constant source - to take us from wherever we are, emotionally, conceptually - to somewhere else - we will remain forever defined and therefore dead.


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We need to open a window to the unknown.
We need to plug ourselves in to that indefinable mystery, that constant source of awe and mind-numbing majesty - our being.
Realising that each moment is in fact new - that we enter the unknown every second - with each beat of the heart, with each breath - we are on a journey into the unknown. Everything we do is completely at the mercy of a totally uncomprehendable universal law - allowing existence. Everything we think is only possible because of that law - a whole law - of which we have observed the merest, tiniest fraction - and in our conceit - we call it knowledge.
What else is capable of inspiring our hearts and minds?
Filling our hearts?

We are all entering this unknown together - right here - right now.
By reflection on that, within oursleves - we can find a very real unity.

Part of our paradigm is an acute awareness of death.
More than anything else perhaps, death represents the unknown.
Life - we think we can handle - we think we've understood, we have created our securities while we are here, by transforming the unknown into the known, precisely to defend us from realities like death.


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Our awareness of death creates a division in our being - like a scalpel cutting through reality - on one side, fear and negativity - on the other, love and positivity.
Our attitudes, our stance exist somewhere along the line stretching between those two conceptual poles - as positive acceptance or negative resistance - likes or dislikes - we draw our personalities with a matrix of these lines.

On closer examination however - we will find that although these poles exist (conceptually) they are unified by the actual concept itself.
We tend to ignore that unity.

For example - without death (which is really one end of the line - "physical life") - what we conceptually visualise as its opposite - life - could not exist. It would be absolutely devoid of meaning, of value. There would be no compulsion, no motivation, no recognition. In fact death defines life - birth and death being the two ends of that conceptual line. Without two ends - we could not know it as life - as anything.

The same applies to any other polarities we care to think about - they are born out of the polarity of life and death.

They are the relative attribute of existence that allows it to be known.

However it is crucial to understand that all polarities only exist in conceptual thought - in reality they are united as one attribute.
For example - black and white - the same attribute of reflectivity of light.
Loud and soft - the same attribute of pressure waves causing sound.
Pleasure and pain - the same attribute of physical/emotional sensation.

If we are honest with our awareness - we can experience this.
Total acceptance of our being implies being absolutely honest with ourselves - simply observing and letting be.

The polarised, conceptual nature of reality is essential for accumulating understanding.
By pulling separate conceptual threads from the weave - and viewing them from a limited perspective - it can give rise to an understanding - but only an understanding that is of value to that particular perspective.
It is a piecemeal understanding - arrived from observation - this we call "knowing."

However there is another form of understanding - another form of knowing - beyond the capacity of logic and reason.

Our conceptual "knowledge" although useful, is second-hand knowledge, piecemeal and from observation only - and is exclusively human in relevence and origin.


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There is another form of knowledge - whole - first-hand, and creational in its relevence and origin.

Our second-hand knowledge cannot create - only conceptually can it create - so really it can only re-create, re-fashion what is already there.
First-hand creational knowledge - well - it's obvious isn't it - is behind, within creation - and importantly it is whole - or reality would not exist.

By stepping aside from our conceptual view - we can enter into this wholeness - this newness every moment - as we are constantly being sustained by that whole law.
By simply being aware - here - now - without judgement - without conceptualisation - without trying to understand.

Total acceptance of our being - by accepting ourselves, completely, absolutely, individually - we are automatically accepting the entirety of existence - for it is one and the same.