(This is an excerpt from the book I am writing about the 12 Powers, the fundamental cornerstone of Unity metaphysics)
© 2013 Stew Bittman | All Rights Reserved
Our subconscious mind continually pumps out thoughts, something like 65,000 per day, according to scientists. Those same scientists also say that 95% or more of those 65,000 thoughts are exactly the same as the ones we had yesterday. With the same old input, no wonder we find it difficult to change!
I think of the subconscious mind as a thought factory, and its assembly line runs 24/7. It rains thoughts down upon the conscious mind without any distinction or consideration about their quality. Some of them are truly treasures and some are most definitely rejects. Some of them seem to come straight from the Source, others from less empowering places. Some reflect our current level of understanding and awareness; others are echoes of old tapes that were recorded before we had the tools to discern. Some of them serve our highest unfolding, many do not.
Unfortunately, most of us are probably used to paying more attention to the rejects than to the treasures. One my all-time favorite examples of a reject thought comes from Charlie Brown and the Peanuts comic strip: “Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, ‘Where have I gone wrong?’ Then a voice says to me, ‘This is going to take more than one night’.”
This kind of thinking is merely a habit! We’ve practiced it and gotten quite expert at it. We all know people who are accident-prone. Through entertaining those thoughts that don’t serve, over and over and over again, many of us have become anger-prone or guilt-prone or worry-prone or self-abuse-prone. Those thought patterns have become deeply etched, like Mississippi Rivers in our mind, and they make it difficult to even hear the treasures when they come. Once something launches that pattern of thinking (and often, it doesn’t take much), the pattern also tends to take us directly to New Orleans, even if had no intention or desire to go there.
For me, this idea helps me to understanding the concept of karma in Hinduism and Buddhism. It isn’t some cosmic scoreboard or ledger sheet to which I am doomed. It’s more a pattern of thinking from the past that begins to frame my experience of life and makes it more likely I will respond or see things a certain way in the present moment. The same old way. I interpret my experiences based on my past programming, which makes it seem as if things happen to me based on past actions.
We often hear the expression, “It is what it is.” And though it’s often used in resignation, there’s a ton of truth to be found in it. It can teach us acceptance and remind us to stay grounded in what’s happening in the moment. Our karma, however, makes us prone to more accurately and honestly say, “It is what it was.” But you and I can overcome our karma, and we can do it in this lifetime!
Our power of Wisdom can be thought of as quality control for the thought factory. As we establish more quality control through gaining awareness into the workings of the factory, we learn to focus more on the treasures. We learn to choose which thoughts on which to base our choices and responses. We learn to interpret our experiences based on what’s alive and true in our hearts, right now. And in the process, we become more abundance-prone and love-prone and joy-prone and peace-prone.
© 2013 Stew Bittman | All Rights Reserved
And if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now…
