Three people were walking through a forest when they came upon a beautiful garden. “What an awesome place this is,” said the first one. “I wonder who’s responsible for such an incredible looking garden.”
“But it’s not just the way it looks,” said the second excitedly, “there’s a special feeling here, a very unique and powerful feeling. I wonder what it is.”
The third one grabbed his companions by the arms, stopping them short. In a hushed tone he said, “You know, things like this don’t just happen. It might be a trap. We’d better be careful.”
Shortly they happened upon an old man in white robes sitting near a fountain at the center of the garden, and the first one asked, “Oh, Wise One, can you tell us what this marvelous looking garden is?”
The old man replied in a sage and sprightly voice, “Why this is the Garden of Life. Haven’t you ever seen the Garden of Life before?”
“But, Wise One, what is that special feeling that’s here?” the second one asked.
“Why, that’s the feeling of life. Haven’t you ever felt the feeling of life before?”
Then the third one said, “But tell me sir, is there any danger here that we should watch out for?”
“Oh yes,” replied the wise man narrowing his eyes and lowering his voice dramatically.
“I thought so!” exclaimed the third man with a start. “I’m outta here.” And in the blink of an eye he was gone.
“Well,” said the old man, “now that the danger is gone, let’s enjoy this beautiful garden together.”
• • • •
The Greek word memes is used to describe ideas that are so powerful that they carry through generations of humanity—a kind of mental virus. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that a tendency toward pessimism has been our legacy. Of course we wouldn’t be so gauche as to think of ourselves as pessimists. We dress up our pessimism in respectability with ideas like, “It’s good to have an attitude of healthy skepticism toward life,” and “Don’t trust anyone until they prove themselves trustworthy.” This strategy is how we imagine we are protecting ourselves from the slings and arrows of life. We think we are wise to be cautious. But are we really?
Have you ever pondered how and how much your skeptical and suspicious beliefs about the world may be influencing the quality of your experience? Are there some lurking dangers out there for you?
An often overlooked aspect of our beliefs is that they actually radiate an expectation that draws to us experiences that conform to their character. How many times do we encounter some difficulty in life and hear ourselves saying, “I knew that was going to happen.” In other words, expectation confirmed.
As this pattern repeats, it reinforces and increases our level of conviction in the belief that the world is full of danger, and more and more of our energy and attention go into learning strategies and solutions to deal with or to avoid the danger. Get enough people doing this for many generations, and soon there’ll be a world so saturated with pessimistic memes you’ll have newspapers filled with evidence that this really is the way it is.
Just because the vast majority of people are participating in co-creating an illusion doesn’t make it true, just ubiquitous. There was a time when almost everyone believed the earth was flat. The questions to ask yourself are these: did my pessimistic world-view arise from a situation that needed a solution, or did it create a situation that needed a solution? Is the forest dangerous because of real dangers or because of the beliefs about the dangers?
I’d like to offer you a perspective to explore that is based on a particular notion: that what we perceive as reality in the so-called outer world is literally a reflection of, and therefore secondary in importance to, the inner workings of our own consciousness. Entertain for a moment that what we consider inner and outer are not separate phenomena at all, but actually a single continuum (originating in and projecting from our invisible thoughts/beliefs out into the world as physical manifestation) where what we label outer is the appearance or evidence of something within us.
This is the fundamental essence, from a mechanical point of view, of the concept that we are personally responsible for creating our reality. And the saving grace is that the universe is inherently neutral. It dutifully delivers to us what we expect to find.
You can deliberately divest yourself of pessimistic tendencies. The liberated attention you recover is yours to reinvest in a faithful universe awaiting your command. The Avatar technology is unmatched in its elegance and efficiency to accomplish these ends.
Personally, I’m replacing my dangers with opportunities. How about you?
David Gardener, Hawaii, New Mexico, California
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