Living the Inner Life

ChatGPT and other A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) platforms making news lately. While A.I. might be powerful and potentially dangerous, the really frightening part is that we seem so eager to give up our natural intelligence for an artificial one. Before the industrial and information revolutions, we relied mostly on our human capacity to intuit, observe and inspire. When tech tools were limited, we tapped into the unlimited part of our consciousness. Now, those skills have atrophied from lack of use and we have traded the superior for the inferior - willingly. The hope for the human race depends on our shift toward a more balanced use of our own consciousness with the analytic power of our invention - A.I.

There are only two days of the week you never have to worry about - yesterday and tomorrow. We only really live in the present, but can often find ourselves mired in the past or grappled with the future. Like Ram Dass said: Be Here Now. There is power in the present. We can recognize dangers long before they become a big problem. And see opportunities that otherwise would have been missed by not being present. To be instantly in the present moment, listen to your breath, and be aware when you breathe in and breathe out. You can only hear your breath in the present moment!

What are your core values? Having a strong center, like the trunk of a tree, will strengthen and balance everything else. In exercise, developing a strong core will help make the rest of you strong, resilient and balanced. In Judo, martial arts and other sports, keeping your center is vital to success. Same with the Inner Life. We are confronted constantly with emotions and distractions that can make us feel off balance and frustrated. But the more we have an inner core, a center of strength and wisdom, the better we can keep our footing and not get thrown off by the slings and arrows of life. Your inner center can be your guiding star, and always point you in the right direction, even when you get off course. And, this powerful center of conviction and strength will give you peace of mind and heart, and help you relax.

Often we turn to government and elected leaders to solve our problems. While there are many things a government can do quite well, like the military, police and fire departments, and infrastructure, there are so many things it can't. Prohibition altered the Constitution of the United States to make drinking illegal, because people could not regulate themselves. This did not work and actually lead to worse problems like organized crime. We also want to turn to other people in our lives to fix things (or place blame for our own problems), but so many of our issues are meant to be solved within. So who is in charge or you? Are you run by an autocrat within, or tyrant, or a wiser, more evolved part of yourself. Kennedy suggested "Ask what you can do for your country." Same with our inner lives - "What can you do for your own Self?" 

With all the recent UFO and UAP sightings and publicity lately, I take a look back at what Dr. Carl Jung wrote about the flying saucers in the late 1950s. Jung didn't doubt the existence of the saucers, nor the truthfulness of the eyewitness accounts, but instead focused on the psychological implications - both personal and collective. Dr. Carl Sagan said that either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone in the universe - and each is equally terrifying!

The metal Alchemists of long ago sought to change lead into gold by subjecting it to heat, chemicals, distillation and various experiments in the laboratory. We also do this in the kitchen when we mix flour, sugar, egg, water and a few other things, subject them to heat, and wind up with a cake. Same with the inner life. Dr. Carl Jung drew a parallel between these alchemical operations and the psychological process of transformation. He called it Individuation - becoming whole, complete, healed. Many believed that this is the real truth behind the Alchemists - that they were transmuting their own base emotions, thoughts and desires, refining them through several steps until they are more golden, untarnished and luminous. Inner Alchemy for improving our own Inner Lives.

When you reply to the people and events in our lives, are you reacting or responding. A reaction is an automated reply, like a knee-jerk reflex, usually without any thought. It can also be a habit of speech, triggered by a stimulus. But if you respond, there is thought involved, and at least a second of two of time that allows a more present, more useful reply. 

In an emergency, there is no time to think - you have to react instinctively. In non-emergencies, you have the opportunity to consider the situation, assess your options, and choose the best way to respond to the person or situation. If you react out of habit, ask yourself if this is the habit you still want to project, or, if not, then go about changing your habits of thought, speech and action. By becoming consciously aware of how you reply - reaction or response - you can gain control of yourself and your response.

The great love stories from religious scriptures, mythology, movies and fairy tales are actually metaphors for our inner lives. It is that beauty within ourselves that is sleeping and needs to be awakened. We are under a spell of materialism that has made us beastly, which only beauty can conquer. The quest for the Holy Grail is an inner journey to find and recapture that better part of ourselves. The Hermetic Marriage of the Sun and Moon; Orpheus and Eurydice, Isis and Osiris - even the characters in Pretty Woman - all point to the Romance of the Soul that we all must awaken and marry within.

Sabotage is usually an attempt to disrupt or derail something that is deemed negative. This is a solution. But when we 'self-sabotage', it is most often something that we DO want, yet we have this urge to dismantle it. So how is self-sabotage a solution? If we want to disrupt a negative part of our personality, that would be called self-improvement. Yet we hear so many stories, as well as our own, where an attempted improvement (or new project or venture) gets squashed. Also, the 'sabotage' happens after we have already made much progress. Sometimes, we stop ourselves when the end goal is in sight. This is because, for whatever reason, we feel this new thing or positive change is uncomfortable in some way. We must get through the discomfort zone to stay in the race long enough to finish. Create a larger vision of yourself that includes these improvements and changes we want to make in our lives. 

Faith is the belief in things unseen. In this podcast, I am not talking about 'faith' as being a style or sect of religion, nor a belief in a supreme being. These are great topics I hope to cover soon. Here, I am only talking about the hidden possibilities that lurk in the unseen world. When we rely too much on our senses, our understanding or what we believe, we can be missing so much more. To cultivate this 'faith factor', we have to keep the door open for these hidden possibilities, so that they may come in. Faith is truly a leap of faith. Sometimes we have to leap before the net appears.