POSSIBILITY OR IMPOSSIBILITY?

THAT, DEAR SHAKESPEARE, IS THE QUESTION!

Understanding our states of Possibility and impossibility solves the problems facing you, me and humanity.

PART 1

DO YOU BELIEVE THE PROBLEMS YOU EXPERIENCE ARE EXTERNAL TO YOU?

You know the drill: it’s our partner, children, parents, in-laws, neighbours, boss, the politicians – them – those – the right-wingers, the left-wingers, the young, the old – the cost of living – the rich – the poor. It’s him, her, them or it. It’s definitely not me!

On we go, pointing our finger, certain in our mind that the cause of our problems and unhappiness exists ‘out there’.

Our list of who or what is the problem with our life – or wrong with the world – is endless and everchanging as new potential reasons come to mind. The problems de jour in the media: climate, gender, immigration, refugees, political correctness, ethnicity, inequality, health, age, technology.

And those we blame ‘out there’ include those who were ‘out there’ in our distant past – still alive or long since dead.

And we think to ourselves or say to anyone who’ll listen: ‘It’s not my fault, I’m the victim here.’

DO YOU BELIEVE THE SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS YOU EXPERIENCE ARE EXTERNAL TO YOU?

It’s the same deal: if necessary, re-read the above and replace, where appropriate, the word ‘problem’ with the word ‘solution’.

THE CAUSE OF YOUR PROBLEMS AND THEIR SOLUTIONS DON’T EXIST OUT THERE

You might be wondering what I’m talking about. This mightn’t make sense to you.

Or, you might be thinking: I see exactly what the problems are. I see them at work each day, in my family, among my friends and every night on the news – and they’re not created by me. And, what’s more, I see the solutions just as clearly. If only they would [blah, blah, blah] …

Ask yourself the following. If the underlying problem and the overarching solution were clear to us:

1. Would we still be saddled with the problems we face – most with no apparent or sustainable solutions in sight?
2. Would we still be drowning in economic, environmental and sociological mayhem?
3. Would psychological distress, inequality, hatred, wars and human suffering be so extreme and widespread?

Why, then, isn’t the cause of the problems – all problems – and solutions – all solutions – obvious to us?

WE CAN’T SEE THE CAUSE OR THE SOLUTION BECAUSE WE, YOU AND ME, ARE BOTH!

The answer to what ails us lies within you, me and each person walking the planet.

Yes! This is a case of ‘one shoe fits all’.

We can’t see the cause and solution because we are both the cause and the solution.

We can’t see the cause because it’s created and held in place by our conditioned thinking, the same thinking that blocks us from finding solutions.

We can’t see our thinking because we are conditioned to it, living in it and creating our reality from it.

We’re like fish, which probably aren’t conscious of the water they live in: we don’t generally notice the air we live in, unless someone constricts our access to it.

Like fish in water, we swim innocently about in our thinking and, like them, our thinking is our reality.

Until we see that we think into existence our reality, we won’t understand what has just been stated.

It is at that point of understanding ourselves (and others) that the answers we seek for creating a peaceful, healthy, sustainable and happy life appear in our mind’s eye.

In that moment of awakening, we see with crystal clarity that the answers lie in how we utilise the human gift of Thought (capitalised to distinguish it from our thinking, which is our individualised expression of Thought).

DESCARTES DECLARED IN A MOMENT OF INSIGHT: ‘I THINK, THEREFORE I AM.’

This mysterious energy called Thought is what enables us to create our reality, moment to moment, for or against ourselves – in service to the common good or in service to no one; at cause in creating the problems or at cause in creating the solutions.

At a moment of insight, we wake up and experience what has just become self-evident to us: that we think into existence our neverending moment-to-moment reality.

At that precise moment, we see that WE are at cause.

We have woken up.

Any relationship we have – with another person, with nature, or with the world at large – starts and ends with us.

We see that we are the creators of our reality and, by that definition, of all the relationships in our lives.

Our view of our world has been enlightened. We see that we are creating our life and that we are not a victim of life, no matter our circumstances.

In that moment of insight, we come to understand that the way we see life is created by the quality of our thinking in each moving moment.

For simplicity’s sake, I’ve called our states of thinking or, better put, our states of mind ‘Possibility’ and ‘impossibility’.

LET’S START WITH IMPOSSIBILITY

Until we wake up, our most potent but elusive state, our state of Possibility, is obscured from us by our mental accumulation – all of our memories.

This accumulation, till our awakening, is what we see the world through. The accumulation I’m referring to is our beliefs, our opinions, our judgements, and the biggie, our knowledge.

We don’t see what is, we see what we remember ‘it’ to be. We are living and seeing life through the illusions of our past.

Until that moment of inner vision, we think the world out there is coming at us, rather than being created by us, within our mind.

In that lack of awareness, we remain the problem, looking outside ourselves for the causes and the solutions.

WE WAKE UP TO POSSIBILITY THE MOMENT WE SEE WE ARE LIVING IN OUR THOUGHT-CREATED REALITY

Seeing Possibility, rather than being blinded by impossibility, requires us to see through the illusions of our lifelong accumulation. Let me re-state that, that means all our beliefs, opinions, judgements and yes, our hard-won knowledge.

When we see through those imaginary ‘truths’, we see into the realm of Possibility, the realm of our innate love, understanding, wisdom, common sense and the unimagined creativity existing within each of us.

Seeing into the realm of Possibility – that is, experiencing Possibility – requires us to see beyond our existing thinking and into fresh Thought.

It requires us to both see beyond the known and to see the known in an entirely new, refreshed, unique way – a way filled with the noble qualities of love, understanding, wisdom and common sense.

And a red-alert warning: visiting the realm of Possibility and believing we have found ‘the truth’ is just another trap, that many fall back into after experiencing an insight or an epiphany.

This happens when we fail to realise that we have innocently turned our experience of Possibility into a new belief system – a new ‘truth’, a new religion, a new cult. It’s a new mindset of impossibility to which we give a fancy label. You will know some of the labels.

No matter how often we see into the realm of Possibility, that state remains in the yet-to-be-manifest, in an unmistakable fresh experience.

Seeing Possibility will always be a new experience: fresh  and original, or something old seen in an entirely new way.

Seeing Possibility is the realm of creativity. It is the realm of seeing the sustainable and unsustainable, and how each applies to solving problems, or not.

This means that the solutions to what ails you, me and humanity lie in the realm of the yet-to-be-seen.

It means seeing the already known, but implemented and sustained from that entirely fresh state of mind.

To solve problems, whatever they may be, we need to see into the realm of Possibility for the answers. It is within that state that the problems facing you and me, and the ‘wicked’ problems facing the world, will be resolved.

It’s from solutions seen in that state (and then implemented and maintained from the understanding discovered in that state) that we will create a new, just and sustainable world. That’s my promise.

You can stop at this point if you wish, but please do keep reading (Part 2 is shorter).

PART 2

LET’S GO BACK A STEP AND ASK: WHY DO WE SEE IMPOSSIBILITY RATHER THAN POSSIBILITY?

As we can only hold one idea in our head at any given time, it follows that to see Possibility and the answers we seek, we must see beyond what we already see as reality.

We must see past the self-created belief bunker we live in – our state of impossibility thinking.

It follows that, whenever we latch on to something we believe is ‘the truth’, we are, without realising it, in a state of impossibility.

Think about that.

Isn’t every problem facing humanity a product of impossibility thinking, held in place by that same thinking?

Isn’t every problem facing you and me in relationship a product of impossibility thinking, held in place by that thinking?

In a state of belief, we block ourselves from seeing into the realm of fresh Thought and Possibility.

In the realm of Possibility, we experience transformation – a shift from seeing the impossible to seeing the possible.

That leap into the yet-to-be-seen – that vault into the still-unknown – is essential to solving the problems we individually, and humanity as a collective, face.

That answer may seem simplistic, even juvenile. Maybe that’s why innocence and the obvious so often come from the mouth of babes.

Let me put it to you again that, when in a state of belief, opinion and judgement, locked into our existing knowledge, we are the problem.

In that state we are so very, very arrogant.

And we remain the problem so long as we think our version of reality is the correct one, the true one, the only one.

No matter the problem we see out there – personal, local or global – we are it. In a state of impossibility thinking, we are the problem.

As such, any solution we come up with in that state will be doomed to failure.

THE TRAP OF ‘OUR TRUTH’ – OUR INTERNAL STATE OF IMPOSSIBILITY – IS US BEING LOST IN OUR BELIEFS

So long as we believe we know ‘the truth’, we will remain the problem.

The evidence pointing to our beliefs blocking solutions is everywhere you look. Beliefs, opinions, judgment and knowledge used as a battering ram overwhelms the solutions waiting to be seen in the realm of Possibility.

Our solutions in a state of impossibility are equally outward-focused. We look to others to blame and we look to others for the answers.

Solutions come to us when we see and understand that we don’t know ‘the truth’ of anything. At that point we open up to Possibility. Possibility exists only in the yet-to-be-seen.

We see Possibility when we have our knowledge on tap, not on top. That is, when our beliefs, opinions, judgements are way in the background, never in the foreground; when what we think we know is available to us but is not blinding us.

Crucially, seeing Possibility is not about shifting from one mindset to another, from one belief system to another. It’s about seeing that all mindsets, including the one you might think I’m in right now, are obstacles to seeing solutions and progress.

Solutions arise in our mind when we are free of any mindset; free of all belief systems; open to continuing to see into the realm of Possibility.

What I’m saying, if you’ve got this far, may seem New Age, off with the fairies, pie in the sky, impossible.

And that’s because we humans are limited in our vision by our existing reality, by our personal ‘truths’ around what we think we know.

IN SUMMARY

In a moment of genuine not knowing, out of the blue, we see Possibility.

OUR world transforms and, therefore, THE world transforms for us.

In a state of Possibility, in our evolving experience of love, understanding, wisdom and common sense, the way forward is evident to us.

Each problem you, me and humanity are facing is not the result of what we think it is. The dysfunction is not out there. It is within your mind. See that for real, and you’re free to create a new world for yourself and for others.

You are released from your hidebound reality to create a new life for yourself, no matter your age or circumstance.

Unencumbered, you are free to create your new world for your own good and for the common good.

Unchained from the illusory prison of our history, our accumulation of beliefs, opinion, judgments and knowledge – that certainty that we know ‘the truth’ – we are Possibility!

We are once again love, understanding, wisdom, common sense, and the creative being we were born to be.

Warmly …. John

 

This article does not contain one microgram of ‘the truth’. It’s a written signpost pointing you toward seeing Possibility and away from a state of impossibility.

If you wish to explore these ideas further, please click here.

If you would like to purchase a copy of the guide, Possibility … a state of mind, please click here.

If you would like to join me in September for a weekend workshop exploring Possibility, please click here.