Posts Tagged ‘perspectivies’

Awakening Integral: Part 7 - Before All Else, There Is Perspective

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

It is really all about point of view. Watch the vid, take the awareness test, then read what’s written below.

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Before all else there is perspective.

What ever perspective you happen to be taking, depending on the point of view, or the lens you are looking through, it will actually determine what you will see. Like with the moonwalking bear. On average more than 80% of people miss it in the first viewing (if you’re really focusing on the passes). If you change the perspective from a partial whole (the white team’s passes) to a more global view of the whole picture then it is quite obvious. You’d have to be blind to miss it.

Whether from an interior or exterior p.o.v. (point of view), an individual or collective p.o.v., an ego-centric, ethno-centric or world-centric p.o.v., a gross, subtle or causal state p.o.v., or what ever the specific perspective may be, reality does not just exist out there on it’s own. It co-arises together with the perspective one takes. Just like with the proverbial rose colored glasses, what ever lens you may be looking through will color your experience of it.

It is important to see perspective taking as a practice. The practice of “taking multiple perspectives”. Integral attempts at the very least to take into consideration as many perspectives as possible. And a good integral practice will attempt to continuously open us up to these perspectives by making them part of our practice. A never ending practice of feeling into reality, into any given perspective, deepening our understanding of life’s richness and increasing our overall functionality in the world. The perspective will arise and become available to us. But only with practice.

As a test watch the video one more time. Again focus on the white team and see if the moonwalking bear is part of you view. Most likely it will be.

Like the old saying goes;

Q: What does a pick pocket see in a crowd if saints?
A: Pockets

Conversely, and with some practice, we could extend the saying;

Q: What does a saint see in a crowd pick pockets?
A: Potential saints.

It really is all about perspective. So when it comes to practice it is very helpful to always ask yourself “did you see the moonwalking bear?”

“When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.”
Max Plank

Elizabeth Gilbert: Perspectives on the nature of creative genius

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

Below I’ve posted a TED video of a talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the best selling book “Eat, Pray, Love”. In this vid she gives a beautiful talk about the nature of creative genius that questions the modern/ post-modern assumption that acts of genius come from and belong to the self. In a nut shell, Gilbert challenges us to ask the question “is creative genius something that comes “from” us, or is it something that comes “through” us?” These two points of view are easy to confuse but as it turns out the ability to discriminate between them is truly important to the psycho-spiritual health and happiness of the creative-self.

Taking a 1st person ownership of any of our creative achievements may indeed bring a certain amount of narcissistic satisfaction. But taking this ownership often results in leaving the self pressed (and perhaps, as Gilbert suggests, even doomed) to repeat previous moments of grace. However, if we shift our perspective of creative genius to a 3rd person “thing” that we have a 2nd person relationship with, everything changes. Creative Genius then becomes a “thing” that is outside of us, a “force” that we surrender to and make ourselves a channel for. When we make this shift the genius we participate with is allowed to move through us, taking the pressure of the whole universe off of the self. This simple shift in perspective from 1st person owner ship to 2nd person surrender, relieves the self of the heavy burden of being the creative source of the universe (which is quite a burden to carry).

We both come from and return to the source greater than the self. In moments of grace the self can become a manifestation of this source. But as for the “source of the source”, it is beyond anything belonging to the personal self regardless of any confusion we may have. Our job in relation to the creative genius is simply to surrender the personal and all its agendas, and to allow this creative genius to come through should it choose.

A mistake in these perspectives can have dire consiequences for the self. As Gilbert says:

“One of the most painful reconciliation’s for any artist to make is accepting that maybe he may never ascend to the genius, or glimpse of God again. This can be hard. What is he supposed to do with the rest of his life? This is one of the most painful reconciliations to make in life. But maybe it doesn’t have to be full of anguish if you never believe in the first place that the most extraordinary aspects of your being don’t come from you. But maybe if you believe that they are just on loan to you, form some unimaginable source to be passed along to someone else when you’re finished… If we think about it this way, it starts to change everything.”

In the below vid Gilbert cleary articulates the nature of the creative genius, and in doing so it appears before our very eyes. There it is….there’s God, Allah, Allah, Allah…

Ole! Ole! Ole!

~ ~ ~

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