Could it be that we can’t see the truth because we aren’t present? I interviewed the kind and amazingly articulate Arjuna Ardagh this morning for an article I’m working on about change agents. Arjuna is the author of The Translucent Revolution, a must-read book about how millions of people just like us are waking up to reality, to what is, and thus changing the world. It’s one of those books I just couldn’t put down because it made me feel such hope and also hey, I’m not alone.
Arjuna’s book is a survey and inquiry into the limitless nature of being, into who we really are. As he said this morning to me, “The only way to be an agent of evolution – which means change in a direction that is expanding to become more consciousness, more loving, more alert, more gifting – is to wake up from the trance of thought and feeling that we are usually trapped in. Then you are meeting this world no longer in the habit of consumption, acquisition, strategic manipulation you are meeting the world with a generosity of spirit, you are meeting the world from a place of fullness, an overflow of well-being. From there, you can see the limitless potential of all human beings and become an agent of evolution.”
What does this have to do with what I’ve been writing about these last weeks? Or with the creative life, which is, after all, the point of my blog? Everything! When we wake up to who we really are, “An awakening that is beyond thinking and feeling, and changing experiences…Because who we really are is experiencing beliefs, experiencing thoughts, experiencing objects moving, sounds being heard. When we wake up to the one who is experiencing this moment, people describe that as absolutely peaceful. Not just loving, but love itself” to quote from a Belief.net interview with Arjuna, we are much more able to both see the truth or seek the truth of any given situation because we aren’t caught up in keeping a particular story or interpretation of our self alive and we are much more able to create from a place of creating not for yourself, but for love itself.
Okay, this is big stuff… make any sense? Talk to me! I read and love your comments so!
4 responses so far ↓
1 la vie en rose Sep 26, 2005
Wow! There is some good stuff here that I’m really going to have to ponder. I love his idea of “meeting the world with a generosity of spirit.” I often wonder if I have that quality. It can be so difficult to stay open hearted, to meet the world from that place of openness. I’m very aware of my own beliefs of scarcity…that somehow I’m not enough. Because of those beliefs I find there are times I resist myself…knowing myself, being myself, connecting to myself. Thank you for these words.
2 serendipity Sep 27, 2005
Wow- this is the first time I have ever posted to a blog before, but I have been so moved by your writings that I couldn’t hold back! I have found this idea of being ‘truth-finders’ intriging and have followed your blogs on the subject very closely. I find though that there hasn’t been much mention of when the truth brings out negative reactions and shakes up your belief system. After having just been through a very difficult summer dealing with multiple family illness’(all cancer related), I feel that I have been unable to deal with the truth that I am about to lose a beautiful brother and a loving grandma? These last few weeks I have shut down so that I do not “experience beliefs, experience thoughts” because those thoughts and beliefs can be too negative. For me, I feel I have often acted as a truth finder when dealing with media, politics, etc… but am now finding it too difficult to act as a truth finder when dealing with such fundamentals of humanity as life and death. Are there times when acting as a truth-finder works against you? I wonder if it is possible for you to be too in the moment, to lack the perspective to really see the truth that you are living? Or is the truth whatever you are living in that moment and it will change and morph with differing perspective and time? Do you have to face a painful and difficult truth as it is happening to be able to really know yourself?
3 katerina Sep 28, 2005
Thank you for these beautiful words and thoughts, I have not heard of Arduna Ardagh but wil look for Translucent Revolution. I paticularly hold i my heart at this time the final quote about not clinging to a particular iage, myth or story about ourseves that impedes the creative response of embodied ove. I want to kep this thought in mind now – I thinkit wil help me.
I too have never written to a blog before. I have written you once or twice thanking you for articular words that seemed to speak directly to me.
To serendipity-I have no wise words for your important qustions but will think of them. I do believe that things come when they are meant to , when the moment is rie, and the experiences you describe are so ful and complex, so cose or”in the moment” asyou say, that Ican hardly believe you are not fexperiencing deply. I think these things will just be forever digested and procesed and evolve in different ways over time, all of them creative. Sometimes you dont know the bulb with it’s litle rootles is under the ground until the crocus suddenly pops up.
4 Susan Sep 29, 2005
Hi Jennifer,
I think there is a message coming through to you from Translucent Revolution and the person earlier quoting Pema Chodrin, one of my favorite teachers. I hear the need for you to really be able to discern, face into, open to, accept and grow with your inner Truths first. For me the more I develop my internal sensors of my Truth, and experience how that feels in my body, my peace, my mental clarity that comes with my Truth, and I can relax into my knowing, the more I am able to discern the Truth coming from a person, media source or politician. Everyone has this ability. It may take practice, and many times it isn’t fun getting to the truth buried under my beliefs of what I want to be the truth, but when I do, it’s beautiful, and it’s powerful and it’s compassionate.
I even believe that maybe the purpose of all this overload of information, internet, media, what’s lies and what’s close to real facts has a bigger purpose in that every individual has to learn to think for themself, discern for themself, be responsible for themself and come to their own knowing for themself. It’s time to mature into full sensory people instead of relying like children on the “trusted fatherly” sources like the nightly anchor, the minister, the newspaper journalist or the political leader.
When we are experiencing mental pain, it is telling us we are believing in something that isn’t the Truth and isn’t Love. Open to hearing the Real Truth and the pain will disappear.