Magic McLelland: #4

How We Limit Our Awareness: Part III

(Excerpts from Deepak Chopra's UNLOCKING THE HIDDEN DIMENSIONS OF YOUR LIFE)

"Your mind wants to expand into unlimited awareness.  However, narrow attention is like a single light that shines on only one object.  It excludes everything outside its beam; the equivalent in the mind is rejection."

"How do we keep ourselves from entering each domain of awareness?"

"PURE BEING:  I don't slow down enough to be truly quiet inside.  I don't set time aside to meditate.  I haven't experienced the tranquility of nature recently."

"CONDITIONED BLISS:  I haven't felt joy in simply being alive.  I am not seeking opportunities for wonder.  I don't seem to be around young children enough.  I haven't gazed at the night sky."

"LOVE:  I've been taking my loved ones for granted. I've put love on the back burner as something of value.  I don't make time for love in my life."

"KNOWINGNESS:  I give in to doubt too much.  I automatically take a skeptical stance and only settle for hard facts.  I don't seem to know any wise people.  I spend little time exposing myself to philosophy and spiritual writings."

"MYTH AND ARCHETYPES:  I don't really have any heroes anymore.  I reject the notion that a higher inspiration is necessary and don't make time for it."

"INTUITION:  I look for proof before I believe in something.  I think of extrasensory powers as wishful thinking."

"IMAGINATION:  Art's not my thing.  I don't go to museums or concerts.  My hobby is television and the sports page."

"REASON:  I know what I know and stick with it.  I don't listen to the other side of an argument very often.  I just want to prove I'm right."

"EMOTION:  I don't make a scene.  I'm not impressed by people who give in to their emotions.  Holding it inside is my motto."

"PHYSICAL BODY:  I should take better care of myself. I'm not happy with my body, and I'm not much for physical activity."

Magic McLelland: #3

"Living a Multidimensional Life: Part II

(Excerpts from Deepak Chopra's UNLOCKING THE HIDDEN DIMENSIONS OF YOUR LIFE)

Of the 10 domains of consciousness, all except the first, the physical, are invisible.

"A skeptic might argue that these realms don't exist.  That's a hard argument to settle because if something doesn't exist for you, it might as well not exist."

"A philosopher might argue that reality isn't truly known until you are aware of all of these domains in your consciousness."

"The material world can be your base level of experience or not.  The other levels are available by transcending, or going beyond your base level."

"So the real question is what domain do you wish to live in?"

"To me, the ideal life is lived on all levels of consciousness.  Your attention is not bounded or narrow; you open yourself to the whole of awareness."

"You have the opportunity to lead such a life, but by focusing on one or two levels only, you've caused the others to atrophy.  They have been squeezed out of your awareness, and thus your ability to transcend is much diminished."

"Each dimension of your existence has its own purpose, offering a level of fulfillment that is not available anywhere else (these are the 'flavors of creation').  In completely expanded awareness, every dimension is accessible."

Living a Multidimensional Life: Part I

This image is a BeFunky watercolor created by shooting an image in a magazine.

(Excerpts from Deepak Chopra's UNLOCKING THE HIDDEN DIMENSIONS OF YOUR LIFE)

"Each of us lives  in multidimensions.  We can choose where to focus our attention, and wherever that focus goes, a new reality opens up."

"Through our attention we bring these dimensions to life.  We populate them, add new meaning, and paint unique pictures."

"These dimensions are really domains of consciousness."

THE DOMAINS OC CONSCIOUSNESS

1.  PHYSICAL BODY:  the domain of sensation and the five senses.

2.  EMOTION:  the domain of feelings.

3.  REASON:  the domain of logic, science, and mathematics.

4.  IMAGINATION:  the domain of creative invention.

5.  INTUITION:  the domain where the mind understands the subtle mechanics of life.

6.  MYTH AND ARCHETYPES:  the collective patterns of society, gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, male and female energy.

7.  KNOWINGNESS:  the domain of inner intelligence.

8.  LOVE:  the motivating force in creation.

9.  CONDITIONED BLISS:  the domain of awareness as it begins to become conscious of its own potential.

10.  PURE BEING:  the state before creation, pure awareness, permeates all the other domains.

(This is turning into such a long post.  I think I'll divide it into parts.)

Magic McLelland #2

Magic McLelland: First Trick

Will has been practicing magic tricks for over a year now, and I wanted to share some of them with you.

"The Life that is Waiting for Us"

"We must let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the life that is waiting for us."

      Joseph Campbell

Losing One's Cares

"How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone."
       Coco Chanel

The Universe's Operating System

(Excerpts from Deepak Chopra's UNLOCKING THE HIDDEN DIMENSIONS OF YOUR LIFE)

"When you consciously align yourself with the principles of the universe's operating system, you give yourself an opening for transformation."

"Any event can be seen as coming from the creative center in oneself."

Say to yourself:

"I made that."

"Why did I make that?"

"What do I want to make instead?"

"Then you aren't antagonists but, rather, equal players in a scene that is trying to tell both of you something."

"Wholeness puts responsibility equally on every player and allows equally for growth."

"Shifting to the operating system of wholeness is a process that each of us must commit ourselves to every day."

"No aspect of life is immune to transformation."

"There are no externals but only yourself unfolding in two worlds, inner and outer..."

MANTRAS:

"My deepest self created this situation."

"My life is unfolding according to what is best and most evolutionary for me."

"I can't lose what's real.  The externals will fall into place as they need to."

"Whatever happens, I can't be hurt."

"Three Methods of Learning Wisdom"

"By three methods we may learn wisdom:  first, by reflection, which is noblest; second by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which it the bitterest."
                  Confucius

"Beating on a Wall, Etc. and Coco Chanel"

 

"Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door."

"Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty.  It is not.  It is the opposite of vulgarity."

"The most important problem is to rejuvenate women...Then their outlook changes.  They feel more joyous."

"A woman has the age she deserves."

"The Universe is Living Through You"

(Excerpts from Deepak Chopra's THE BOOK OF SECRETS:  UNLOCKING THE HIDDEN DIMENSIONS OF YOUR LIFE)

"The universe is living through you at this moment."

"Creating a world is the essence of spirituality."

"However, if you decide to lead a consciously spiritual life, a change occurs."

"The events in your life reflect who you are."

"The people in your life reflect aspects of yourself."

"Whatever you pay attention to will grow."

"By paying attention, we add the creative spark."

"The mind is ultimately a machine for making meaning."

"The widespread feeling of psychological alienation is the result of technology's outstripping our ability to keep meanng alive."

"If you open yourself to the force of evolution, it will carry you where you want to go."

"The physical world adopts itself by creative leaps that take place at a deeper level."

"The fragmented mind cannot get you to unity, but you have to use it along the way."

"You are living in many dimensions at once; the appearance of being trapped in time and space is an illusion."

"I Don't Need to Know Everything that Happens to Me"

"Meeting Yourself at a Different Level"

"To relax into the rhythm of your own life sets the stage for meeting yourself at a different level."  Chopra

(The image is a manipulated photograph of a watercolor by Marie Laurencin, contemporary of Picasso and Matisse, and -- for a while -- mistress to Guillaume Apollinaire.  She currently has an exhibit in Paris at the Musee Marmottan in the 16th.)

"A Woman Who Doesn't Wear Perfume..."

"A woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future."  Coco Chanel

"Hiding Who We Are"

"We each express and at the same time hide who we are."

UNLOCKING THE HIDDEN DIMENSIONS OF YOUR LIFE

Deepak Chopra

A Thin Layer of Events

"The life you knoow is a thin layer of events covering a deeper reality."  Deepak Chopra

"High-Value Cranial Real Estate"

"Anytime you're using your brain for storage space, there's high-value cranial real estate being wasted on low-value activity."
              Eric Peterson

"If This Isn't Nice," Kurt Vonnegut

"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"

Kurt Vonnegut

Playing with Pencils

Chanel Sketches

(After a sketch by Karl Lagerfeld)

"The Non-Conscious Levels of Inner Experience"

(From AT A JOURNAL WORKSHOP by Ira Progoff)

"Inspiration comes to an artist by cultivated

 spontaneity as she works persistently at the

non-conscious levels of her inner experience."

Solitude

"A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it."  DeLillo

Intersections in Our Lives

"We place ourselves back in those experiences that brought us to a point of transition, to an intersection in our lives, where a change of some kind became inevitable."

(AT A JOURNAL WORKSHOP by Ira Progoff)

"Playing Sane"

"I do the shopping....I pretend to be normal.  I play sane."  Maya Angelou

Fooling the Mind

"Do not allow the eye to fool the mind."

"Life Doth Flit..."

"Life doth flit;
   Oh, shit?"

Dorothy Parker
(Thanks to S.A. for finding this
quote.)

"Life as a Series of Obsessions"