A Recipe For Creative Juiciness

(this was a post from 2013 that had been sitting, patiently, in my drafts folder...time to dig it out for you)

I will admit that like my spiritual journey, my journey through the creative has been studied, considered, and lived for many decades now. I have pondered long the nature of creativity and I have been a careful firsthand observer of it.  Over the years I have had pieces of the puzzle,  I knew deep down that there was a way to help make creativity FLOW instead of merely flash for a few short seconds.

When I awoke many new  pieces of the puzzle came into view.  When the bliss field emerged as a part of my experience more as a steady state  experience I realized that what we call the human orgasm is part of a larger spectrum of bliss energy that is wildly creative and that once we awaken and can properly ride this bliss wave without falling off of it or needing to bleed it away through sexual union (this doesn’t happen in awakening, but that is itself another blog entry), this same baseline energy can be used in the same way that the flow of energy in a river is used as long as the water flows.  What I am saying is that in awakening energy that is orgasmic in nature flows through every corner of your being, the proverbial genie in the bottle being released and bathing the entire body in the rich nourishing flow of what the Hindus call prana. It is the very locus of ecstasy, of expansive states of consciousness, of the very essence of self transformation and of intense, wild and wonderful creativity.   Its just that in our unawakened experience that we only see this high level energy as expressed through the orgasm as being the only way to experience such high levels of energy, that we can become biased as to what is or is not possible.  When you awaken, you can open up the floodgates to inspiration.  Ask anyone who has gone through this experience.  I know people who began writing music, writing poetry,  designing clothing, artwork, etc.  In my case it fueled a whole new direction for my business which was a hot glass production studio.  I wrote short stories, children stories, music, poetry, and began a journal that turned into a book several hundred pages later.  It has also helped to illuminate the nature of creativity as being essentially an intimate encounter with the two “opposite” forces within the body, within the self and soul that we call yin and yang.

The elusiveness of the creative state is really not elusive at all once you understand how it works. We have allowed ourselves to become alienated from a fundamental instinct or way of being that is native to who and what we are.  We are operating with only half engines on full.  We can in truth live in a constant state of inspiration as the next dimension of experience unfolds in experience. There is a way  for the creative to flow unhindered. It involves the two seemingly opposite aspects of your being reaching  unity within you.  When these two forces come together, some very interesting thing happen. I have experienced ongoing creative energy flow continuously for years at a time. The nature of creativity means every corner of human endeavor is littered with creativity.  Its not that art is the place where we feel creative, it is that human experience rich and rewarding moments of creativity in every single facet of experience.  We ARE creativity.  It is in our blood bones and nervous system and souls.

When you understand the nature of creativity, it becomes much easier.  To learn more about this, read about it in my upcoming book Waking The Infinite.

In it, I go into the relationship that both the yin and yang energies have as purely etheric and nonphysical manifestations of cosmic consciousness and how the physical body then is designed to be a perfect biological mechanism for the expression and conveyance of that energy physically.  I also explain how the etheric or pranic current moves through the body and how it intersects with the nervous system, informs it, modifies and enriches it once kundalini is awakened in a more or less conscious way.  I also show how the two brains that we possess themselves are mirrors of this cosmic couple and how we can in a very practical way, learn how to marry them in order to discover that moment when the two explode in that moment of genesis, the moment of inspiration.  I further explain that it is possible to actually LIVE in a constant state of inspiration and what effects or benefits that this has. This is nothing short of learning how to ride a wave of bliss and wonder that these two energetic currents create when the consciousness of the individual is able to focus the energy in the arena of the conscious self.  Learning this is about learning the correct type of balance of feeling necessary to generate the physical chemistry needed to support the etheric or nonphysical state that those who are interested in awakenings seek to do for themselves and for the race as a whole.

There is also some suggestion that when we use different sides of our bodies, like our left hand, for example, it helps to trigger greater use of the right brain, often thought to be a critical hemisphere in the large picture thinking that makes visual art so engaging for us because we can take in a scene so quickly through that part of the brain.  Playing what I call "mind games" which are ways to help you to step out of your normal patterns of thinking can spur creativity.  It is known that as children get older, the choices for a simple creativity test change significantly.  Seven year olds, when presented with the question of what a paper clip can be turned into almost always, on average, return many more possibilities that children in their teens.  When you don't think of the possibilities, you are not aware of them, and your options are naturally limited.  By thinking more outside the box, we can incite the energies of the creative in a more dynamic and fulfilling way.  The idea that some people are just not creative, I have found, is simply just not true.  People FEEL like they are not creative, but this is different than it being a quality available to them.  Sometimes people just need to be inspired, to glimpse the possibilities through a teacher or another artist or an experience of some kind that opens us to more options.

These energies are all around us all the time.  They have always been and shall always be.  In awakening we make a lot about how we awakened, that the energy “rose” in us.  What “rose” in truth, was our own awareness of a universe that was, right out of the gate of creation, awake and aware with this vibrant boundless energy.  The truth is, it has the power to change your life tremendously and for the better if you are engaged enough to recognize what it is that seems to stand in the way of your realizing this state.

Creativity will play a role in the book simply because as an artist I recognize that the power of awakening is the same power as the flash of inspiration.  the sad thing is that we in the arts call it the flash instead of the steady state flow or the dwelling place or something else that would suggest that the experience is continuous.  The fact remains, it just isn’t.  We still are beings that find this part of our experience to be something of a mystery.  It need not be.

By learning how to turn this faucet on you can learn how to bring fulfillment in your own life as well as inviting in the force that can dismantle lifetimes of dysfunction and trauma and hurt from your light body.  And if you didn’t know already, the light body records ever single thing that ever happens to you, at least of an energetic and emotional nature.  We are fast realizing that while the brain may be the locus of recording memories, it may in fact be more of a biological switching system for nonlocal as well as locally recorded or imprinted experiences which we call memories.  The realization is fast upon us, though, that the body itself records past emotional impacts, and by learning how to erase those impacts from our energy memory, we actually free up the energy system of the physical and etheric bodies to operate in a way that is far more optimal, efficient, healthy, and clear.

When awakening hits most people, they are bowled over by the experience and are in wonderment over the power of the experience.  And yet, in time, people who learn how to move through their awakenings in a successful and fulfilling way find that this same intensity is itself more a steady-state experience that is the new way of being for humans.  What is on offer for us is a truly incredible way to be and to feel every moment of the day.  To get there is the “work” that so many talk about, which in truth is merely a surrender of those patterns, beliefs, and old feelings that stand in the way of a clearer flow of the cosmic in your seemingly tiny frame here on Gaia…..which is herself a speck in a sea of specks.  And yet, even on the micro-scale, the atomic scale, everything still vibrates with knowing.  This knowing may be beyond science at the moment, but everything in our world is alive.  It may not be what science call sentient life, but it is certainly what the ancients observed is part of a universe that lives and breaths in its own way.  When you consider that energy is conscious, the whole universe, bound together by energetic forces (an atom is mostly energy, not matter), then you can perhaps begin to appreciate the impact that this has.

Creativity is itself one of the most healing of activities.  To use it as part of an awakening is not a surprising outcome because the way creativity is felt is the same way awakening is felt....it is an expansion of the self and its energies now felt in a whole new way.  Being creative roots you in your personhood, and is most often unifying in nature.  

True Buddhas

Forget the Buddha, sitting in quiet meditation as he sits on a golden lotus. Or Christ as though asleep quietly napping on the cross...Forget what you think you know...

For these and others who were real men and women of greatness among us, they have been dressed and redressed over countless years so that they have been made from our own desires, which is been that they are made into more than us.

But the Buddha in you is not this. This is the wish of the unknowing....and the Buddha, which is a nature, rests in everything. It is not one person but all of us. It is not resting on a pedestal or made more than it is. It is not one person, like Jesus was made into this God-man....only accessible by letting him into your heart.  I say, he is always present, the same as a Buddha, all pointing to the exact same thing...It is us, right here as we lose our car keys, mend broken cabinets, taking in sweet evening air. And because of this, Buddha lives right along with our common selves, smiling a world of joy because it is this and all the rest.

To heck with our false sense of divinity. Buddha farts and burps and....and oh did Jesus Christ the middle Eastern Buddha love to cuss. "Those damned Pharisees!" He said that, you just need to look. Its kind of a secret.

But you see, this makes these heroes real. We resist this...but we need it badly because we look to them for how to be. Don't be false! See the humanness and the divine as easy partners with each other. They are not a paradox to be solved, only a reality to be experienced. No I am not saying not to try to improve. I mean be realistic. If you do, you are closer to the Buddha nature in you.

Those who study the Kundalini yoga and say how they look forward to lessening personality are fooling themselves. That, and setting their poor friends, for some eventual neurotic behavior. Anything you seek to control only winds up going out of control. Work with it on its own level and you will know the path best suited for its greater becoming and fulfillment...be it a person place event or thing. All things seek their own specialized balance. Some things may be correcting course even as they seem totally "off." Don't pretend to be the Buddha hero man. Be the Buddha that yearns to be within you. You begin with where and what you are now.

There are Buddha's who are butchers, singers, carpenters...mechanics and masseuse's and writers and prostitutes. Some are thieves, some are leaders. Some hide in the seemingly most diminished amongst us. This nature resides in all things. Beyond time, you can glimpse your infinite nature as time unravels your sweet mystery for you to see....and you are infinite....expanding in all directions as you and then all the you'd you have ever been.

Don't put on airs. Be yourself. The universe cherishes the diversity of itself....seen in you and the endless others,craftily hidden inside every particle and every one of you.  Don't fool yourself; be real and honest. Be easy and be true. Show no shame and don't shame others....for someday their Buddha will bloom and you wouldn't want to have hurt a Buddha and her chances of opening her petals all the way.

Let's just be real. Let's strip away the glaze and gloss on our hero's and see them as each of us are...traveling and seeking for the hidden trigger that will release the flow of the cosmic in us. It is there...in each of us.

Namasté,

P.

What it is like to be a Bee? Do Insects Have Consciousness?

There is an interesting bit of science happening about the consciousness of invertebrates such as insects. It centers around using computer modeling in conjunction with known anatomy to see how the brain and nervous system of insects developed and whether they have consciousness or not.  For a long time science has tended to see insects as akin to programmed robots, an idea some of you may find kind of sad an lacking for creatures that appear to be so complicated.  Simpler than us, the study finds, yes, but also that these ancient life forms also may suggest how consciousness evolved over vast time scales.

Using the insect's analogue to the human's midbrain, biologist Andrew Barron and philosophy professor Colin Klein have found that the activity being displayed there suggests that an individual insect has some sort of sense of itself within it's environment: where it is, what's around it, and how it needs to respond.

With this, Barron and Klein propose that the basis of consciousness may very well be traced back to the Cambrian period, a 56 million-year period that started 541 million years ago, when the first invertebrates first developed.(1)

Insect awareness may be debated by materialistic science, but as our ability to develop new methods for probing consciousness, we may be able to begin to bump up against still larger implications for our understanding of what consciousness is.  We can hope.  The source goes on to explain that,

"While insect brains are minute – the largest are far smaller than a grain of rice – new research has shown that they perform the same ancient functions as the human midbrain.
The insect central complex ties together memory, homeostatic needs and perception in the same integrated way. This integration has the same function as well: to enable effective action selection.

In the bee, this detailed representation of the animal in space is what allows it to perform remarkable feats of navigation. Thus, while insect brains and human brains could not look more different, they have structures that do the same thing, for the same reason and so support the same kind of first-person perspective.

That is strong reason to think that insects and other invertebrates are conscious. Their experience of the world is not as rich or as detailed as our experience – our big neocortex adds something to life! But it still feels like something to be a bee.

If this argument is correct, studying insects is a powerful way to study basic forms of consciousness. The honeybee brain has less than a million neurons, which is roughly five orders of magnitude fewer than a human. That is a lot easier to study." (2)

Sources - (1)  http://www.unknowncountry.com/
                (2) http://theconversation.com/what-it-is-like-to-be-a-bee-insects-can-teach-us-about-the-origins-of-consciousness-57792

Emotional Responsibility

Have you ever had an experience where you became upset with someone for making you feel a certain way? They kept pushing your buttons and you reacted in frustration or anger. In life it is easy to see how it is that people are the ones who upset us, hurt, or cause us pain. 

But in truth, it is we who choose to react the way that we do.  We don't like to admit that this is so, but it is.  Just as we think that others cause us pain, we also rely on others to bring us joy and happiness.  The only problem is that the source for joy is found in us, not in others.  When we do make people responsible, what we are doing is handing our power over to them so that we are unable to feel anything without someone else's involvement. In psychology, we have a concept called projection, and its pretty common for all of us to project onto others our own faults so that we swear that our neighbor or a family member or co-worker is actually the one who is at fault or who falls short. 

I have seen this behavior in action in my life with people I was close to, and it is the strangest thing to experience.  It has also been one of my own.....hot button issues.  People seeking to skape-goat me.  And you could say that what I really need to do is not worry about what others do and tend to my own stuff.  As I have worked over the years to clear away countless blocks in the light body, what the (in the nadi or meridian channels of the light body), I have found that I become less and less effected by the shortcomings of others.  Slowly, the stone is worn away. 

Being able to come to a place where you can stop making everyone the source of your happiness or your displeasure is significant.  It is a point of power.  When you take back what is yours, you shift the rules of engagement so that you are clear about whose stuff is whose.  By letting people be who they are without needing to get in the middle of their mess, the mess can remain theirs.

The benefit to seeing in this way is that it can help you to identify your own junk that you need to let go.  This material is almost always unresolved emotions that have been submerged into the body where they form blocks in the light body.  I know how that sounds, but everything points to this as a fact. While the literal memory of the emotion may not be stored in the body, there is a direct relationship between hundreds of thousands of small points in the energy body that can be massaged, or moved in order to release the stored material.   It is also possible that we do actually store unprocessed emotion in the body through a process that we do not fully understand yet. The body itself has as many neurons in the human gut, for example, as in the brain of the average cat.  That is a lot of power for processing information.  While it may do this in a very different way than the brain does, the idea that our bodies think is new to western medicine, but an ancient observation among many cultures throughout the world. 

When these blocks release, the emotion that was associated with it also goes.  It is akin to having a "reset" and is as though the issue had never been there. The cease "dwelling" on whatever the block was about.  Is it possible that this helps to rewire the brain in some way? I think that this is indeed possible.

You might know, rationally, that the way you wind up feeling when it comes to one of these blocks makes no sense, but you will be virtually powerless to do much to resist it.  But not letting the emotions stir in you is different than the release I am writing about.  It is a whole other animal, in fact.  Something significant happens when these releases take place.  It is like rewriting some script.  The freedom opens up new vistas. 

Being able to become responsible for what you feel, knowing that no one makes you feel anything is an important step in self realization. 

For more on blocks and how to work with them, search blocks and healing them on this blog.

Namaste