An aside:

I disappeared a while ago. Haven't posted here or even browsed the forum much since I got a contract job in February. Got caught up worrying about office politics, and long days left little time to work on my game. As such, my state of mind went downhill, my confidence suffered, and I haven't been as social. Now that my contract is up and I'm looking for work again, I finally got around to starting on my inner game reading list, running again (being out of shape is a confidence killer), and also a renewed commitment to the forum. Especially this board, where I feel I have the most to (re)learn and the most to contribute.


AND SO...

The website "half" is usually cheaper than late book fees at the library. The first book on my list to arrive was Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. I've been reading that only for a couple of days, along with my roommate's copy of Be the Pack Leader by Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer. I went running earlier and came across some realizations while thinking about what I had read.


1. BELIEVING IN AN UNDERLYING ENERGY

For working out and for running especially, I try to keep playlists on my iPod of hard, fast, motivating music. 300...400...500 bpm, snare drum on 2 and 4 to keep my feet from slowing down. Ok, I know that's not for everyone. And sometimes, even a 460 bpm driving positive hardcore song won't keep me from tiring out.

Yet, there ARE songs that will keep me going long after my body has given up. Some of them much slower by comparison. There are certain songs that give me goosebumps and a natural high, and I can't quantify this characteristic. -- ENERGY -- it's high or it's low, or maybe in the middle. The way a person plays an instrument, the energy they put in, has as much to do with what you hear than what notes they play, the equipment they use, or any other feature. That's why you hear of many record producers trying to capture a band's "live energy" in the studio. I started thinking of this because of Millan categorizing dogs as high energy and low energy and Tolle's assertion that energy is life.


2. THE FALSE DICHOTOMY OF SELF VS. OTHERS

I was into philosophy in college, perhaps too much so. Back then, I was attracted to the works of existentialists like Sartre. If you haven't ever read the play No Exit, I'm going to spoil the ending for you. The famous last line reads, "Hell is other people." Let me spell that out... According to Sartre, the worst thing that can happen to a single person and his/her desires is another person and that person's desires. So Sartre pits Self against Others. Needless to say, that philosophy isn't going to work out very well for our purposes. Ever meet someone with a "me against the world" attitude? Not exactly prime PUA material.

Now, Tolle has a great way of thinking about the Self as separate from the Mind. According to him, our Minds often get in the way of achieving peace through connecting with our Selves. It made great sense to me when I read it, essentially stop thinking and start doing. But I soon found a hole (which Tolle may very well address later in the book since I haven't got that far) in that theory: external sources of conflict. That is, other people bringing a fight to you. What dawned on me was that this isn't my Mind that's the problem... it's his Mind, the guy that's bringing the conflict. It's all our selfish Minds causing strife, and if we could connect Self to Self we may live in better harmony.

Note: I believe that the Mind vs. Self thing is why I, and perhaps others, have such trouble with routines and outer game and prefer to focus on natural game. Those things, unless/until they are ingrained in you, are in your Mind and interfering with your Self.


3. DO NOT PROCESS: SEEING WITHOUT WORDS

Thinking about Millan's statements that dogs live in the now, along with the title of Tolle's book, during my cooldown I started to try to live in the moment. I saw my street, houses, cars, trees, etc. And I did not allow myself to think about any of these things, not even the words to describe them. I have a habit -- and not everyone thinks this way -- of very quickly processing information as soon as I see something; THINKING about it as soon as I see it. (And thinking about it too much after that.) For once, I didn't let myself think. Rather, I didn't let my Mind think. I let my Self experience. Even the music, I started listening while blocking all of the lyrics from reaching that part of my brain that recognizes them as words and phrases. I heard what anyone would hear as a completely foreign language, only a voice and its energy. Listening to our Self and its energy rather than our Mind and its thoughts is sure to help keep our instincts sharp. (Nod to Blink author Malcom Gladwell.)


THAT'S ALL

For now anway. I sincerely hope that you got something from all that reading... other than a head trip. In summary:
1. Stop trying to quantify everything and realize that ultimately energy rules.
2. Don't let your or anyone else's Mind interfere with the energy of our Selves.
3. Stop (over)processing information, just take it in and experience it.

_________________
Live Your Truth.

Check out the psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich's work on "Orgone Energy". He stated that there was an underlying "life energy" in all living creatures. Basically, when you're happy and experiencing pleaure, you give off life energy. When you're negative or depressed, your energy is stagnant.

As a musician, I can really identify with what you're saying about energy in a song. You can passively strum the chords to a song - or you can actually feel it.

Royalty i commend you on this article!

Every religion known to man, believes in an energy that propels the universe, they all give it a new name which distracts people from seeing the obvious. Science has proven we are nothing more then pure energy moving at a vibration that manifests in the physical. We are made up entirely of atoms right? atoms are what? pure energy!

If we are energy, and everything around us is energy, its a safe bet that we can manipulate that energy around us for our desires. Its what makes prayer, meditations, mantras, and other religious rituals work, its no more then a process to harness and use energy to create what we want in our life.

Its how people pick up negative emotions from others, how they understand if they are upset or have low self esteem, the thoughts transform into an energy they put off.

Now i see your point about his mind being the problem, however understand its your mind that determines if his problems will be yours, so in essence you cant control his mind or thinking, buy you can control yours. By changing your reaction or perception of the fight that he brings to you, will change the results it has on your life alone. Its a safe bet that the only thing that matters in life how you perceive or react to what comes your way. A good example is this.

Your sitting next to a person tapping his pencil, it become annoying to you. You can ask him to stop, but perhaps its a subconscious thing to him and it starts again, you become frustrated and that turns into irritation and anger. You lash out at this guy that is simply tapping a pencil. Now back up a second, instead of blaming him for the annoyance, change your perception of the sound the pencil makes so it does not bother you anymore. The problem is now solved without any negative emotional response.

Becoming aware of your surroundings is an amazing things, its like a matrix moment, it just is with no attachment to it. When you can detach yourself from any expectations and simply become aware, its like time around you slows down, you see things in a new light and a new sense of meaning to life comes about. This type of awareness can give you a profound confidence to overcome anything in life, its a sense of living in the moment that can never be described only experienced. Walking everyday in awareness, that becomes the trick, so that everything even the small things in life become grand.

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"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."

Great post. I've been listening to TOlle recently. And i have read that Sarte story. That was my view up till now (still sort of is). Its going to take little while to deactivate my ego and just become aware. However if your totaly unattached to an outcome, what motivates you to do anything?

I totally agree with Satre's "Me against the world" philosophy and I totally agree with Tolle's "its all about the self" philosophy. Now don't get it confused, they are almost the same. Tolle talks about living and the moment and being one with yourself and as Royalty mentioned sometimes Self comes into conflict with other people. I believe the point Satre is trying to make with his philosophy on life is that if you allow other peoples' self to affect yours, than its going to be hell. You will never be satisfied with anything. Like Tolle says, you will only be feeding your ego. So don't look at it as a "me against the world" philosophy, but as a "I'm not going to let the world affect who I am" philosophy.

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"If you're not living life on the edge, then you're taking up too much space."

the experience my friend, when you become to the point of constant awareness, you live off of every experience, you can pay that same bill 100 times, but never will each time be the same, you will only pay that bill once as the 100th bill. so each experience is cherished for being unique and never happening that way again.

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"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."

Thanks!
Right on, man. Stormy has a great stickied thread in this forum that I think everyone should read. He talks about ignoring AMOGs. From an energy perspective: Assume that I'm having a great conversation with some people. Someone comes over He's the one caught up in his Mind; therefore he is disconnected from the energy, the vibe, that everyone else is feeling. I'm not gonna let him disconnect me from that energy, too.

Seriously, though, if you do a browser "find" for the word ego in that stickied post, I think I may just be rehashing some of that.
I like that!
Good take on Sartre. It's great to have different interpretations of works like that. I agree with your sentiment, and I think we may just have a difference in terminology. In my opinion, the causes of conflict are our thinking, conscious brains... which for lack of better word I call the Mind. The Self I consider to be who we really are, our souls (maybe I should've just said that). So I believe that one, two, many Selves can connect with this underlying life energy together; when that happens you can feel a "vibe", and when someone tries to disrupt the vibe, it is that someone's Mind, not their soul or their true Self.

As a side note: One other thing I remember from Sartre (it's been a while) is the notion of personal responsibility. Something along the lines of anything you've done in your life up to this point is exactly what you wanted to do. Otherwise you would have done something else. I consider that theory (and others like it) the antidote to the "Victim Mentality".


Good vibes ,

R

_________________
Live Your Truth.