Straddling two Worlds

There’s one world in which we help and care for each other. We cooperate freely and giving is not perceived as a loss. It’s an honour. A sense of unity is experienced with each other, and with nature. No separation exists despite appearances. The joy, pain and success of others I share.

I feel compassion and gratitude in abundance, I notice the beauty and kindness that is all around me. A forgiveness for mistakes I and others make, a forgiveness that happens so quickly that it practically doesn’t even have time to exist. In this world I love everyone.

In this world I ask how can I give more, extend love and share joy, expand creativity. I enter a flow state creating designs, walking in nature, talking to another, and I forget my ‘self’. There’s such a quiet and calm inside that I hear what I need to do or say, inner promptings arise about decisions, so quickly there is little decision making. Just sometimes a pause to hear the prompting. There is a very noticeable lack of self focused rumination, and self criticism doesn’t occur.

Emotions and thoughts are felt physically as vibrational waves, some approach and alert to their presence as a physical disturbance in the body. Fear arises if say, a scary dog is encountered….and the emotion passes, dissolves back where came from without trace or thought about it. Emotions are experienced and at the same time seem held within an embracing ‘vessel’ much larger. Like a wave in the ocean. In this world I experience myself as the ocean.

In the other world I experience myself as the wave, and I forget about the ocean. Many thoughts are believed to be true and generate feelings and then more thoughts and it’s noisy in here. Inner promptings are easily drowned out in the self focused rumination.

Theres planning ahead, the risk assessment of future situations, the critical appraisals of past situations. The wrongs and rights of who did or said what. The worries about survival, about business all seem real. I experience a lot of fear and irritation in this world.

In the other is we are in competition with each other. I am alone and separate from others and the natural world. In this world I try to get what I can from my clients and employees for as little as possible. In this world I feel slightly better when I compare myself with those who have less (e.g. money, social position, power) and I feel jealous when others have more, as I compare myself and feel diminished.

Love or fear. I know which world I want to fertilise in myself and out there.

Painting by Paul Stone.