mada85
The Cosmic Force
I would like to share a curious cluster of small but possibly significant events that have happened to me recently. But first, I need to give you the background story.
As some of you may know, I was away from the forum for several weeks. This was really a passive-aggressive response to receiving my FOTCM membership, on which my grade was given as Listener. My self importance was immediately provoked. How could Laura, or the Church Elders, not see what a magnificent, spiritual being I really am? How could they not assign to me the high grade that I truly deserve? I was fuming! However, I thought about this and began to realise that, in fact, the grade of Listener is absolutely correct for me. Following this realisation I decided to be just a Listener. I would read the forum, I would read articles and books, I would lead a normal life, and I would treat our work here as another interest in my life and not try to make it my main focus of life in a self-important way as I had previously done.
So, this continued for a couple of months. I watched films and drama on DVD, I went out at the weekends and had a 'good time'. In short, I did what 'normal' people do. I also did a lot of drawing, and from that I learned something really important. I have had a certain kind of impatience all my life, a trait which derives from my father (possibly my mother too, but I think mainly my father). As a child, I never was given the permission to do or learn things at my own pace. Although the parent may think they are helping the child by showing them how to do things, in reality this does not help as the child develops programs such as lack of confidence and impatience with themselves. As a result a strong program in me was the desire to do things immediately so as not to keep Father waiting, a program which gets projected onto others whenever I'm carrying out some activity for them, e.g. in my job. However, I found that I wanted to draw really slowly, sometimes taking several days, a week, or more, to complete one piece. And this finally began to break down this impatience program, and help me to see its origins.
As I worked on my drawings, and lived my 'normal' life, I began to see that even though drawing is creative, it is actually a rather selfish form of creativity, in that, unless one is capable of creating truly objective art, one's work is just mechanical, however beautiful it may be. At first this thought was just a whisper in my mind, but slowly it grew louder and I could not ignore it. I began to seriously compare my 'selfish' creativity with the unselfish creativity demonstrated by Laura and the members of the forum here.
And then one day, I found myself with a choice. The choice was: do I align myself with Service to Others or Service to Self? This choice had no weight attached to it. I saw clearly that there was no divine judgement attached to continuing down the road of a 'normal' life, of watching films, being 'creative', and being entertained and having a 'good time'. Equally, there was no divine judgement attached to serving others, to participating on the forum, to working on my self or helping others, as far as I am able to, to work on their self. Understanding all this and making the choice happened more or less simultaneously, with the result that I chose to align myself with the creative side of the universe, to participate on the forum, and to work on my self, although in a way I had never really stopped working on my self. I resumed pipe breathing and POTS daily, and the full EE program twice weekly. I also gave myself permission to proceed at my own pace, which I think is actually rather slow, hence I have added Gurdjieff's quote about slowness to my signature.
Since I made the choice, some curious changes and glitches have appeared in my life, mostly to do with electrical equipment. Some I have initiated myself, others have been outside my control.
I bought a new computer, to replace my old machine which was ten years old and on its last legs. I also bought a new printer/scanner combination unit. I had some teething problems with the computer as it's 64-bit and rather temperamental where 32-bit software is concerned! A few days later the computer and printer were replaced in the office at work and internet access was restored; fortunately I managed to avoid having a wireless device installed.
My credit card was cloned, I don't know where or how; fortunately the bank's security system picked up something unusual and blocked a large purchase by parties unknown. A replacement card was issued.
The remote control for the central locking on my car failed. I replaced the battery with the same result; the garage think it may have lost its code and needs to be re-synchronised with the car's system.
My sauna blanket, which I resumed using after a break of a few months, developed a fault. A wire in the inner layer burnt a hole right through to the outer layer while I was using it. I was most fortunate in that having purchased the blanket less than a year ago, it was replaced in a couple of days.
All these little incidents have appeared in my life after I made the choice described above, and I can't help but think that the two are related. I know that others here have had similar experiences to a greater degree and would be very grateful for any insights offered.
Thank you for reading.
As some of you may know, I was away from the forum for several weeks. This was really a passive-aggressive response to receiving my FOTCM membership, on which my grade was given as Listener. My self importance was immediately provoked. How could Laura, or the Church Elders, not see what a magnificent, spiritual being I really am? How could they not assign to me the high grade that I truly deserve? I was fuming! However, I thought about this and began to realise that, in fact, the grade of Listener is absolutely correct for me. Following this realisation I decided to be just a Listener. I would read the forum, I would read articles and books, I would lead a normal life, and I would treat our work here as another interest in my life and not try to make it my main focus of life in a self-important way as I had previously done.
So, this continued for a couple of months. I watched films and drama on DVD, I went out at the weekends and had a 'good time'. In short, I did what 'normal' people do. I also did a lot of drawing, and from that I learned something really important. I have had a certain kind of impatience all my life, a trait which derives from my father (possibly my mother too, but I think mainly my father). As a child, I never was given the permission to do or learn things at my own pace. Although the parent may think they are helping the child by showing them how to do things, in reality this does not help as the child develops programs such as lack of confidence and impatience with themselves. As a result a strong program in me was the desire to do things immediately so as not to keep Father waiting, a program which gets projected onto others whenever I'm carrying out some activity for them, e.g. in my job. However, I found that I wanted to draw really slowly, sometimes taking several days, a week, or more, to complete one piece. And this finally began to break down this impatience program, and help me to see its origins.
As I worked on my drawings, and lived my 'normal' life, I began to see that even though drawing is creative, it is actually a rather selfish form of creativity, in that, unless one is capable of creating truly objective art, one's work is just mechanical, however beautiful it may be. At first this thought was just a whisper in my mind, but slowly it grew louder and I could not ignore it. I began to seriously compare my 'selfish' creativity with the unselfish creativity demonstrated by Laura and the members of the forum here.
And then one day, I found myself with a choice. The choice was: do I align myself with Service to Others or Service to Self? This choice had no weight attached to it. I saw clearly that there was no divine judgement attached to continuing down the road of a 'normal' life, of watching films, being 'creative', and being entertained and having a 'good time'. Equally, there was no divine judgement attached to serving others, to participating on the forum, to working on my self or helping others, as far as I am able to, to work on their self. Understanding all this and making the choice happened more or less simultaneously, with the result that I chose to align myself with the creative side of the universe, to participate on the forum, and to work on my self, although in a way I had never really stopped working on my self. I resumed pipe breathing and POTS daily, and the full EE program twice weekly. I also gave myself permission to proceed at my own pace, which I think is actually rather slow, hence I have added Gurdjieff's quote about slowness to my signature.
Since I made the choice, some curious changes and glitches have appeared in my life, mostly to do with electrical equipment. Some I have initiated myself, others have been outside my control.
I bought a new computer, to replace my old machine which was ten years old and on its last legs. I also bought a new printer/scanner combination unit. I had some teething problems with the computer as it's 64-bit and rather temperamental where 32-bit software is concerned! A few days later the computer and printer were replaced in the office at work and internet access was restored; fortunately I managed to avoid having a wireless device installed.
My credit card was cloned, I don't know where or how; fortunately the bank's security system picked up something unusual and blocked a large purchase by parties unknown. A replacement card was issued.
The remote control for the central locking on my car failed. I replaced the battery with the same result; the garage think it may have lost its code and needs to be re-synchronised with the car's system.
My sauna blanket, which I resumed using after a break of a few months, developed a fault. A wire in the inner layer burnt a hole right through to the outer layer while I was using it. I was most fortunate in that having purchased the blanket less than a year ago, it was replaced in a couple of days.
All these little incidents have appeared in my life after I made the choice described above, and I can't help but think that the two are related. I know that others here have had similar experiences to a greater degree and would be very grateful for any insights offered.
Thank you for reading.
So in effect, the universe does indeed move in mysterious ways, so electronic anomalies connected to moods and thoughts I find to be highly credible as a theory!
It really is a hard thing to practice humility.
