Pair #96 Life, but not as we know it
Recently, I had a glimpse of the profound 'kindness' of our human life-support system.
You know how on a music player you have the LOOP button? After the song finishes it loops back to the beginning? And in the scientific field, you have "closed systems". We also talk about "feedback loops".
Well I spent a day with George Pransky and one of the things he talked about was how thought and feelings truly are a looped. We have only to look to our feelings to know exactly the quality of our thinking at any given moment, and we have only to have a thought in order to have the feeling that goes along with it.
So... if it's true that thought-feeling is a completely closed loop, then it can never be true that things create feelings in us but rather that it is always our own thoughts. Our thoughts are solely responsible.
That means we are living out only our thinking. We are literally, thinking our way through life. And...
that would mean that we have been beautifully constructed.
It struck as me how incredibly smart it is that we each came equipped with an amazing GPS system that would always help us if we ever get lost and forget that.
If we are always feeling the world through our considerations about it (thoughts) and that it is not because the world bumps into us that we feel bad or scared or afraid, then the world around us may have no inherent meaning at all. Period. It would be just a simple blank canvas.
Which opens up the possibility that the world is not just neutral but a terribly kind place to live, and that, while we are here, we've been given a built-in navigational device, a treasured gift to help us find our way.
I used to believe that how I felt was telling me that a bad thing was happening to me, but now I understand that all a bad feeling is telling me is whether the quality of my thinking is dropping or rising.
Which ultimately means that Shakespeare was right "nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
You know how on a music player you have the LOOP button? After the song finishes it loops back to the beginning? And in the scientific field, you have "closed systems". We also talk about "feedback loops".
Well I spent a day with George Pransky and one of the things he talked about was how thought and feelings truly are a looped. We have only to look to our feelings to know exactly the quality of our thinking at any given moment, and we have only to have a thought in order to have the feeling that goes along with it.
So... if it's true that thought-feeling is a completely closed loop, then it can never be true that things create feelings in us but rather that it is always our own thoughts. Our thoughts are solely responsible.
That means we are living out only our thinking. We are literally, thinking our way through life. And...
that would mean that we have been beautifully constructed.
It struck as me how incredibly smart it is that we each came equipped with an amazing GPS system that would always help us if we ever get lost and forget that.
If we are always feeling the world through our considerations about it (thoughts) and that it is not because the world bumps into us that we feel bad or scared or afraid, then the world around us may have no inherent meaning at all. Period. It would be just a simple blank canvas.
Which opens up the possibility that the world is not just neutral but a terribly kind place to live, and that, while we are here, we've been given a built-in navigational device, a treasured gift to help us find our way.
I used to believe that how I felt was telling me that a bad thing was happening to me, but now I understand that all a bad feeling is telling me is whether the quality of my thinking is dropping or rising.
Which ultimately means that Shakespeare was right "nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
© 2011 Elese Coit
If you wish to reprint, feel free, please link back here and if it's of use, include:
"Elese Coit is a leader in transformative personal change and Hosts the Radio Show A New Way To Handle Absolutely Everything. To see the world differently, reach for one of her '101 New Pairs of Glasses' on http://elesecoit.com"
If you wish to reprint, feel free, please link back here and if it's of use, include:
"Elese Coit is a leader in transformative personal change and Hosts the Radio Show A New Way To Handle Absolutely Everything. To see the world differently, reach for one of her '101 New Pairs of Glasses' on http://elesecoit.com"
