From The Publisher:

May I Have Your Attention?

Everything flows—eventually. When attention is alloyed with importance and judgments, it becomes emotional and sticks on things. It actually changes from a nonphysical wave form into very small physical particles that create thoughts with gravitational attraction. Certain ideas, objects, actions, or even areas can accumulate so many thoughts that they take on a life of their own. This is how identity is created. This is how amulets and ritual are created. This is how sacred ground is created. This is how the universe is created.

Some ideas, objects, actions, and areas are charged with great importance. The more importance assigned to something, the more attention it attracts. Attention directs attention. Stand on a street and look at the sky. Soon you’ll have other people looking at the sky. Make something important enough, and it will consume a person’s entire supply of attention. They will think about nothing else.

Some people, some events, some rituals are so charged with importance that they can cause a person to change viewpoints (or identity) and thus heal body parts, or even surrender self-control. This comes about by a very rapid shift of attention from one reality to a new reality. If the person who is shifted can sustain the shift (without attributing the phenomena to some external source), his or her life will stay changed: sudden conversion, spiritual healing, miracles.

Become good at shifting attention, build a few cathedrals, create a support group for your converts and...well, now you know. It is this knowledge that makes wizards popular in some circles and not in others.

Of course, if a person is operating with pure attention, this doesn’t happen. Pure attention just observes, no emotional reaction. The person casually wonders what all the hubbub is about. Imagine Data or Spock from Star Trek. “Curious.” That’s a very Avatar attitude. “Interesting creation.”

When a person’s attention is nearing exhaustion, an inventory should be taken: What’s really important here? What isn’t really important here? With any luck there will be a few yawns and stretches as the importance and judgments separate from the attention particle, and it returns to its neutral, flowing energy form.

An interesting process for clarifying issues is to ask someone what’s really important, and then help to focus ever finer by asking what’s really important about that. This process will restore purpose to an organization and self-determinism to an individual.

As it turns out, the importance of any person, object, issue, event, or project is seldom an intrinsic aspect of the person, object, issue, event, or project, but is assigned by the observers and participants.

(Excerpted from ReSurfacing)

 

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