Illusions Of "Control" and "Knowledge" -- Daily Inspirations

……..the human repression is able to have a remedy. All it takes is having the control of it…….. and to know…….. Voltaire

“Control” and “know” are interesting concepts in modern and non-modern thought. They assume that we and our brains have abilities and freedoms that contradict severely the history of the disease of being human.

If we have control – if we chose – why would we choose to suffer and die horrible lives – or survive the experience under the anesthesia of blinding distractions and mental obsessions? Why would we inflict such incredible pain on ourselves by harming others? We are one – I cannot hurt you without destroying me.

The concept that humans can somehow achieve control over themselves and their lives and outcomes is really unsupportable by observable human experience.

What the masters of sleight of hand, and mirrors and fog try to use to confuse and shame us is the periodic ability of humans and “heroes” to seemingly rise above instinct and disease to do and become the extraordinary – or ordinary. Because the brain does not always reject desirable behavior or action does not prove that if we try hard enough, we can achieve control. Humans can fly – if they have a plane or jet pack. Otherwise, they are ground dwellers.

And some days we manage to be unconscious enough to achieve the illusions of happiness, when really our brain has simply suppressed our ability to feel pain.

If we have control, we should never have to be unhappy, sad, or disappointed again. Show me someone for whom this is true – who is emotionally conscious and not medicated by some drug or outcome.

“Know” – a human derivative of the illusion of “control”. Knowledge is the creation of the cerebral functions of the brains neuroprocessor – the cerebral cortex. It is believed by the brain that what it perceives, it knows as facts, and understands, and therefore it is able to control behavior, reactions, and outcomes. The problem is that the cerebral cortex operates at the “pleasure” or pain of the primitive part of the brain. So it “knows” only what it is allowed to know. The primitive brain automatically and involuntarily controls the operations of the brain in order to maintain stability. We know nothing – we only have perceptions – and reactions – that are controlled without our conscious input into their occurrence.

Hence, the power and significance of the First Step of the Twelve Steps: “We admitted that we were powerless – that our lives had become unmanageable.” We cannot control or know anything.

When we truly experience this truth, and connect with a higher Presence (Step Two), we no longer need to know or control – we are restored to a “sanity” – an emotional balance and a spiritual awakening – that no longer requires knowing or controlling – just the consistent maintenance of an improving conscious intimate contact with Them. The rest becomes history – and Presence.

Taking a Good Look -- Remembering to Live in Precious Moments

Every now and again, take a good look at something not made with hands – a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream.

There will come to you wisdom and patience and solace

and, above all, the assurance that you are not alone in the world.

Sidney Lovett

This inspirational life quote is a reminder of some simple truths of spiritual enlightenment. First, we need to stop-- ever so often – maybe, more often – and remember, that we have forgotten something. The material world screams at us in no uncertain terms to pay attention to its useless chatter and clatter. And our brains react with screaming fierceness – “we have to avoid the present moment – human consciousness is not acceptable.” Together the material world and our brains whip up storms of illusion and confusion that keeps us from remembering – to remember – to stop and experience and reside in just this precious moment.

Take a look – open the eyes of our hearts – take a good look – at something – experience fully our experience of who we are – in something we are not – in something that is not demanding our attention – but in something that carries the subtleness of life’s inexhaustible mystery – within each precious moment – within each atom of human and spiritual experience.

Nature – natural -- not made by man -- uniquely transcendent compared to all the illusions we can create – “what is man that thou art mindful of him” – touch the face of God in moments of Their handiwork – because there are gifts hidden in their simplicity.

Wisdom – spiritual enlightenment – where our brains begin to clear of the wreckages of our pasts – where a higher Presence begins to glow in the darkened synapses of our brain – clarity of experience and intimate Presence adjusts our perceptions and reactions – and we are free to be more wholly present – in life’s precious moments. Wisdom is where human experience and God’s Presence join to become consciousness and intimacy into being.

Patience involves the absence of obsession with material outcomes because we have the guarantee of God’s Presence that all is planned and prepared for our best. The neural energy of our brains diminishes and we are no longer driven to control what will not make us happy anyway. Holding their hands – we have no need to be responsible for our outcomes, only for our presence within Their Presence.

Solace – relief from pain and grief. “Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted”. Their Presence comforts us. We are able to flow through our current and past pain and fear and sadness – and find rest. “Come unto me, all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give your rest.”

When I first began to experience rest, I experienced being a very young child, being held by a very attentive Parent and being gently rocked – safe, nurtured, and unconditionally loved and admired. The cares of my mind’s woundedness flowed out and away, and being replaced by a loving stillness – far beyond my brain’s capacity to create.

All of these gifts – nature, spiritual enlightenment, confidence and serenity, and restful spiritual healing – all these are part of the massive and emerging assurance – the personal experience that we are not ever alone – never abandoned or rejected, except by our own injured brains.

Gifts – from someone who likes us and loves us – without conditions or possibility of rejection – precious moments of God’s love becoming spiritual enlightenment.

No longer alone in our world.

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How Important Is It?: My Inspirational Human Experience (Part One)

Normally when I lead an inspirational recovery support meeting, I have detailed elaborate notes that summarize a week plus of daily inspirations -- inspirational readings, journaling, meditation, and inspiring experiences. This time I had no notes – I could not pull together all of the inspirational experiences and readings that had come together for this topic.

My collection of experiences and inspirational insights consciously began last Sunday, with an inspirational life training group that I lead using Twelve Step spiritual principles. We were finishing Step 8 and discussing Step 9: these two principles deal with identifying how we believe that we have harmed others, preparing to make amends when we really have harmed someone, and actually making the direct amends to others.

I was saying how each person will do this inventorying and making of these amends based on their level of emotional necessity. Someone in the group described this thought profoundly for me as, “how important is it?” This question has vibrated all week in my inspirational listening and journalling .

The other piece of this topic is “experience”, from the inspirational concept of “we share our experience, strength and hope”. The level of importance of anything or anyone in my life is the level of my conscious human experience of that person, thing, or situation. The way that I first became aware of my problems and illness was when my human experience became startlingly conscious – feelings started coming back into parts of me that been cut off and numb.

Before I began my spiritual recovery over twenty-two years ago, I was an “intellectual.” Being an intellectual does not mean one is intelligent—it just means that one thinks a lot. And because we think a lot, we seem to know things that others don’t know – which again makes us seem intelligent. And because we are under the influence of thought, as one would be a drug, we seem more calm and strangely in control of ourselves. This too is only a perception and not a reality.

Like an alcoholic, my tolerance of thinking was so great, that I could think people “under the table”. Again, this was not because of my intelligence, but because of my ability to ingest huge amounts of thought.

Shortly before beginning my spiritual recovery, my second wife left the scene. I believed that everything was now fixed – she was, of course, my problem. But without her to think obsessively over, I became majorly distressed – I began to detox from the huge obsessions I had be using. Thinking was no longer working for me, and I was in serious trouble.

(to be continued)


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