An old English Limerick reads:
“There was a young man who said, God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If He finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there’s no on around in the yard.”
(God’s reply)
“Dear Sir; Your astonishment’s odd;
I am always about in the yard.
And that’s why the tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by
Yours faithfully, God.”
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Isn’t it amazing how ‘perception’ creates or in the least, affects our chosen reality? Things only exist in our perception of them!
We grew up with the famous quote of George Berkeley, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” And of course we know that indeed, it does. Even though we may not be there to consciously perceive (or hear) it.
Deepak Chopra tells us in “Ageless Body, Timeless Mind”…’all that is really out there is raw, unformed data, waiting to be interpreted by you, the perceiver’.
As fellow metaphysicians and seekers of truth, we know that thought, reality and perceptions are all intertwined to create our ‘own’ world. By changing the way we think about things, we change the way we perceive them, which in turn changes the way they actually are.
I am reminded of an educational experiment where a group of teachers were given classrooms of children who were falling far behind their peers in their learning skills. Each was doomed to ‘failure’ within this system. However, the teachers had been told that this particular group of students were ‘gifted and talented’, excelling in all their grades. They were given to believe that the students were merely ‘bored’ with regular classroom work. It would be the teacher’s challenge and mission to re-excite and re-motivate this group of students towards excellence.
And so, the teachers ‘thoughts’ were changed from the dread of a below-average remedial classroom, to a ‘perception’ of under-lying greatness! The students were consequently endowed with wonderfully innervating and thought-provoking class time activities, as the instructors went above and beyond what was expected of them.
You can well imagine the outcome of such an experimental endeavor. The students excelled, the teachers were enthralled…all were blessed!
Regardless of what we have held true in the ‘past’, what the ‘future’ holds for us will depend on what we do with this precious ‘present’. Think it…Live it…Be it!
Where do your perceptions of the life you are living, lie? Do you picture yourself as an Optimist? Pessimist? Non-committal? Ambivalent? Alive-in-the-moment? “As a man thinketh, so he is…”
In a recent Sunday worship service, the congregation was offered a graph on which to hazard a guess as to which of four levels of consciousness they might place themselves. It was a definite ‘food-for-thought’ exercise, made to help one consider and evaluate where our self-perceptions might lie.
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LEVEL I; Life happens TO me. I am a ‘victim’ of it. If I am to move up to the next ‘level’, I must be willing to give up ‘blame’.
LEVEL II; I have the power to create and manifest. I do this by ‘visualizing’ what I truly want, and it appears in my life. If I am to move up to the next ‘level’, I must be willing to give up ‘control’.
LEVEL III; God works through me. I am ‘visioning’ what Spirit has for me to do on my journey. If I am to proceed to the final ‘level’, I must sacrifice all ‘sense of separation’.
LEVEL IV: God and I are One. This is the true state of ‘me’.
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Where do you sense that you are on these levels of consciousness? Knowing that we hit on one or all of them throughout our existence, that change is a surety; we relax into that change.
Do you examine your goals for growth? Are your thoughts and perceptions of where you ‘are’, holding you back or limiting where you are ‘going’? Simply by acknowledging that fact, embracing the knowledge and then releasing it to the Universe, can free us for future growth into a whole new level of reality.
Changing the way we think expands our perceptions, thus changing our entire world. Try it! Be it!
Namaste…