Can't Get No Satisfaction?
by Paul Spatarella
When the calendar changed to the year 2000, a radio station did a survey to find the number one rock song of all time. The answer came back clear as a bell; “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones.
As I drove my car and listened to the announcement of the winning song, I nodded my head and said to myself, “That’s it, that’s the one.” That song more than any other sings out the experience of rock music listeners, and I suspect it also echoes the experience of many around the world, whether they are fans of rock music or not.
Certainly for me growing up as a rebellious teenager immersed in the rock subculture, that song seemed to put its finger on the feelings of frustration I carried around with me each moment of every day.
It seemed that everywhere around me there were people trying to sell me some set of beliefs. None of which gave me any satisfaction. Implicit in these belief systems was that these belief merchants knew the truth and that they would tell me what I should do.
It appeared to come at me from all around. Parents, teachers, government, advertisers, and peer groups all had their beliefs to sell. And every bit of space or airwave that could be bought would echo their messages of indoctrination to what each group felt was the true way. The song sings of the man coming on the radio with some useless information that is supposed to fry our imagination, but in the end we couldn’t get no satisfaction. I hear you, Mick.
I went to college and looked for satisfaction in the study of psychology.
I gained from the experience, but after graduation when many of my classmates went on to graduate school, I decided to become a rock musician. I played rock music in nightclubs and looked for satisfaction. I looked for satisfaction in music, in the role of a starving artist, in the eyes of women, in t’ai chi, in yoga and meditation, in The Silva Method and A Course in Miracles and the Seth books and in reading Richard Bach. They all helped. They all gave me something, but I was still hungry. I felt like an animal on the prowl. On the prowl for meaning, for love, for answers.
Then in 1990 I found Avatar by accident going to the wrong door in a conference center and finding myself in an Avatar intro night instead of the meeting I had first planned to attend. I stayed because the flyer on that door had a phrase on it that I had come across in one of the Seth books, “You create your own reality.”
I was fascinated and also skeptical about this new technology for self-evolvement. Was it for real? It seemed like a lot of money at the time, but I liked when someone used the phrase “end of guruship.”
I was the creator of my own beliefs, and these beliefs would attract or created the situations and events that I called my life. I was invited to explore my own belief system and learn tools to change what I wished to change. No one was telling me what to believe. This was the type of thing I was looking for.
I decided to give it a try one step at a time, and each step gave me more than I had expected. I began to shift from the identity of a creature in a cold world to awareness of myself as a creator. My view of everything shifted, including my view of others and of myself. I became more compassionate and less blaming. With Avatar, those things began to turn into things I could really feel.
No satisfaction? Get real Mick! Maybe you might want to try Avatar.
Paul Spatarella, Massachusetts
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