Mission Coach Newsletter
November 2005 (Vol. 11) ISSN 1746-1332
Welcome to the November Mission Coach newsletter. This month is part two of our exploration of the Ego in which we discover why we are “no body” without the illusion of the Realm of the Relative. This article is long! Please bear with me, and it, as it draws to a gloriously logical conclusion!
In the “What’s Up” section there’s an outline of a new Self-Leadership coaching program I will be launching in the new year. If you find the Mission Coach newsletter helpful please tell other people about it. A link to the subscription page is at the bottom of this newsletter. Now, if you have a few moments let’s venture into the timeless Realm of the Absolute and the illusion of the Realm of the Relative to find out why things ain’t necessarily what they seem to be . .
This Month's Article
Ego - Who (on Earth) Do You Think You Are?
(Part 2 Ver 1.0 [1])
It’s all Down (to the Realm of the Relative) to Experience
Outcomes for this article: - Recap on the ego so far
- To answer the question - if we are “All One” in the “Realm of The Absolute” why the hell are we here?
- To examine 2 of the essential components of experience: “Change” and “Time”
The Ego So Far
Here’s a summary of where we are with our exploration of the ego (please see the October 2005 newsletter, there is a link to the archive at the bottom of this newsletter). The presuppositions [2] that follow are based on the teachings of “Friendship with God” (FWG)[3]: - The Realm of the Absolute is the "Ultimate Reality".
- There can only be One Ultimate Reality:
. . therefore it must be the ONLY Reality
. . therefore we must be in it, right here, right now
- In this Ultimate Reality FWG tells us:
Something NOT being One With everything is impossible. What is not impossible is to create the "illusion" of not being One with everything by creating the illusion of separation.
- FWG goes on to tell us:
Your ego is your chief tool in creating this illusion. It is that device which allows you to imagine your Self as Separate from All the Rest of You.
Why Am I Here?
If you asked a seeker of “enlightenment” what the outcome for their seeking was, you will probably get an answer something like: “To be at One with God” or “To be at peace”. If being enlightened is to “be at One with God” why would we choose to enter an illusion where we are very clearly not (or at least very rarely!) at One with our-selves, let alone God? Part of the answer to this question, is to more accurately state our outcome for choosing to enter the illusion of the Realm of the Relative. A more accurately stated outcome would be:“ "To EXPERIENCE being at One with God” or
“To EXPERIENCE being at peace”
If our Creator has a Mission Statement for us Earthlings it could be something like this from FWG: You are here [in the Realm of the Relative] to EXPERIENCE the next Grandest Version of the Greatest Vision ever you held about Who You Really Are.
“Okay okay!” I hear you cry. “I get the message - EXPERIENCE is important! But why can’t I experience ‘blissing out’ in the Realm of the Absolute, at One with the Creator? Why the hell am I here?” The short answer is “you ARE ‘blissing out’ in the Realm of the Absolute at One with the Creator” – it is impossible NOT to be (see presupposition 3 at the beginning of this article). And what you are calling “here” (the Realm of the Relative), is an illusion you have chosen to create and experience.
That was the short answer; for the long answer read on . . ! If the Realm of the Absolute IS the Ultimate and only Reality, and the Realm of the Relative IS an illusion: conception is the point at which we start the illusion, and death is the point at which we end it, and the ego is the tool we use to create the illusion in between. We don’t “come from” or “go to” anywhere (e.g. Heaven). In the Realm of the Absolute (the only reality), there is no place to go, as we shall discover. To understand why we have chosen to take physical form and experience the illusion of the Realm of the Relative [4] can be summed up by this from FWG: The desire of your Soul is to know itself ‘experientially’. The reason that you cannot experience any aspect of Who You Really Are in the Realm of the Absolute is that in this Realm, there is no aspect you are not.
FWG also says: What you seek to experience is Who You Really Are. In the Realm of the Absolute you can know this, but you cannot experience it.
Clearly there is something missing in the Realm of the Absolute, which is kinda’ surprising when you consider that it is the totality of all that ever was, is now, or ever will be! What is missing are . . . The Essential Components of Experience
If you think back to any significant event in your life there was a change, or sequence of changes that took place over a period of time. You detected the change through the sensory instruments of your body (eyes, ears etc). You interpreted what you were sensing with your mind and your brain sent messages to parts of your body which released chemicals into you blood stream. Those chemicals determined how you “felt” about the event, and how you felt determined your experience of the event [5] at the time it happened. Also interesting, is that as you recall a past experience you “bring it to mind” and reinterpret the past experience with a mind which has had any number of experiences since. In other words, the mind with which you interpret a past experience now is not the same mind that interpreted the experience when it happened. Often we “change our mind’s” - and sometimes we don’t! This is how phobias are created and maintained without any conscious effort on our part. Technologies like NLP are able to make powerful “interventions” that facilitate a change in our interpretation of a past experience now. This change of interpretation changes the chemicals the body produces now, which then changes how we feel now about a past experience now – but that’s a subject for another newsletter! There are 4 essential components to the phenomena we call experience. These are: - Change
- Time
- The Body - the “hardware” of the ego
- The Mind – the “software” of the ego
All 4 are connected, to find out how, let’s explore each one starting with . . . Change
To have an experience we need to be aware of change – or more accurately stated: To have an experience, we need to be aware of the change in an instance of an entity relative to another instance of itself or relative to the instance of another entity.
If this does not make much sense don’t worry . . .
. . . try this experiment:
Put the tip of the index finger of your right hand on the “X” and then the “Y” below and keep your finger on the “Y” while you read the next bit: This is what you have done:
You put your index finger (the first entity) on the letter “X” (the first position or “instance” of that entity) then you moved your finger to position “Y” (the second position or instance of that entity). In your “mind’s eye” you compare the first instance: “Finger Being at X” with the second instance: “Finger Being at Y” and you notice that your finger (the first entity), relative to the paper or screen (the second entity) has moved. The result is you are aware the position of your finger has changed. Please feel free to take your finger off Y now. You have just had the experience of “Finger Moving”. Why is this significant? It’s significant because in the Realm of the Absolute (which is the Ultimate and ONLY reality) “Finger Moving” is Absolutely impossible, and the reason for this is that in the Realm of the Absolute we don’t have . . . Time
In October’s newsletter we saw that the Realm of the Absolute (the Ultimate and only Reality) exists as a Singularity. Here’s a quick recap on the nature of a Singularity: In a Singularity time does not exist; everything that ever was, now is, or ever will be, exists right here, right now!
Not only are we “All One”, we are “All One - All at Once”!
To have an experience we need time – or more accurately stated: To have an experience, we need to be aware of the change in an instance of an entity relative to another instance of itself or relative to the instance of another entity.
Now hang on a minute! Isn’t this the same definition that was given for Change? Yes it is, and here is the reason: for us to be “aware” something has changed we need to separate one instance from another instance and we do this with a gap we call “time”. Please try this experiment:
Put the tip of the index finger of your left hand on the “X” and “Y” below: I bet you a million of any currency you choose you did not do what I just asked you to do! “Yes I did!” You cry. “I put my finger on the X and then the Y. Send me the money!” If that is what you did, my million (also currently an illusion but I’m working on it) remains safely in my Universal Deposit Account. My request to you was to put the tip of one index finger on the “X” AND “Y”. Now, unless you have an extremely large finger tip it would be impossible to place it on the “X” AND the “Y” AT THE SAME TIME! [6] At one instant your finger was on the “X” and at another instant your finger was on the “Y”. Between the instance of “Finger Being at X” and the instance of “Finger Being at Y” was a gap, or to be more precise, 2 gaps: - A gap of space (or distance) between the letters X and Y
- A gap of time (or duration) for your finger to move the distance between X and Y.
We know from physics there is (or appears to be!) a connection between space and time and we know time is an essential component of experience, so let’s play . . . What happens if we remove time by removing the gap? If we remove the gap, “Finger Being at X” and “Finger Being at Y” becomes meaningless, because X and Y are now the same place – they have to be because there is no distance between them and it takes “no time at all” for your finger to go where it is already. Without time there can only ever be one instance of anything, because there can be no gap between instances. What we are left with is simply “Finger Being” and here it is: (to find out why you can’t see it please read on . . .) To discover what’s happened to Finger Being, let’s see what happens to the other entity in our experiment - the paper or computer monitor. Let’s take the example of a computer monitor, for consistency we shall call it “Monitor Being”. Use your finger to draw an imaginary line from the bottom left corner to the top right corner of your monitor. If you have a 17 inch monitor your finger would have travelled approximately that distance and covered the gap in under a second. Now remove the gap between the corners of the monitor and what happens? Looks like Monitor Being has joined Finger Being (which disappeared). Without time both have ceased to exist. Let’s continue our voyage into timelessness by removing some more gaps: from head to toe, from North Pole to South Pole, from the end of the Universe to the other. Remove time and: Body Being, Planet Being and Universe Being all cease to exist. What’s more, they cease to exist TOGETHER – they are now just “One Being”. How can that be?
For the same reason that without time there can only be a single instance of an entity (because no gap or separation can exist between instances), there can be no gap or separation between entities either. Which brings us right back to the Realm of the Absolute and us Being “All One”. Up to this point the expression: “We Are All One” has served as a comfortable euphemism. Now we have come to the end of part 2 of this article on ego we are confronted with a gloriously logical re-interpretation of this expression . . . Conclusion If the Realm of the Absolute IS the Ultimate and ONLY reality
in which there can be no separation between Beings then
ultimately there can only be One Being:
God / Allah / Krishna / Whatevah . . .
If ultimately there is only One Being then You and I are it:
“You, and I are God Being” To be continued . . .
Next month we look at the body – the “hardware” of the ego. Footnotes for this Month's Article
[1] This article is the most challenging piece I have ever written (you wouldn’t believe the number of times I rewrote it!) and I reserve the right to continue to find better ways of explaining the concept of ego! That is the reason for the version number.
[2] “Presupposition” is a term used in NLP to describe a way of thinking that serves us to believe to be true even though it cannot necessarily be “proved” or demonstrated to be true.
[3] FWG’s discourse on the ego starts at page 77.
[4] See the June 2005 newsletter for more on the “why” and the “what” of experience; in this month’s article we are exploring the “how” of experience. See the link to the newsletter archives at the bottom of this newsletter.
[5] If you have not yet seen the film “What the Bleep do we Know?” do go and see it! The Polish Wedding scene explains this chemical process beautifully. If you are interested in this subject the book “The Molecules of Emotion” by Dr Candice Pert is a good read.
[6] Yes you could put the tip of a single finger on X and Y at the same time – if you printed the page really (really!) small – but that would be cheating!
What's Up?
From Self-Leadership to Mission Coach and back again!
Mission Coach started life as the concept of Self-Leadership and, having just had some coaching myself (I needed it!), I have decided to re-brand and re-launch www.self-leadership.com. The outcome for Self-Leadership coaching will be for the coachee (with some skilful facilitation of course!) to rediscover and adopt the beliefs and align with the values that best serve their outcome. To achieve this, we will be Belief Modelling using the “Experiential Array” developed by David Gordon and Graham Dawes to determine what those beliefs and values are, and then we will use my techniques to facilitate the belief adoption and value alignment. If this (somewhat brief description) of self-leadership coaching sounds like the coaching you want and would like, please email me:
paul@self-leadership.com and I will arrange an introductory session for you. There are a number of Belief Models on the Mission Coach web site, including those for: Richard Branson, Herb Kelleher and Anita Roddick. See the link at the bottom of this newsletter.
Links For This Edition of the Mission Coach Newsletter To subscribe to the free Mission Coach monthly newsletter please click here:
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If the text for this link is on 2 lines the link may not work, in which case click here:
www.mission-coach.co.uk from the main menu select “Resources” then “Newsletter Archive”. Links for this month’s article:
To go to the “Ego – Who Do You Think You Are?” technique, please click here:
http://www.mission-coach.co.uk/pages/mission_coach_process_ego_who_do_you_think_you_are.asp
If the text for this link is on 2 lines the link may not work. In which case click here:
www.mission-coach.co.uk from the main menu select “Processes” scroll down the page and click on the document icon for the “Ego – Who Do You Think You Are?” technique.
To go to the “TimeScape – There is no time. Like the present?” technique, please click here:
http://www.mission-coach.co.uk/pages/mission_coach_process_timescape.asp
If the text for this link is on 2 lines the link may not work. In which case click here:
www.mission-coach.co.uk from the main menu select “Processes” scroll down the page and click on the document icon for the “TimeScape – There is no time. Like the present?” technique. Links for Self-Leadership Coaching in the “What’s Up?” Section:
The following are links to belief change techniques.
To go to the “Beyond Belief” technique, please click here:
http://www.mission-coach.co.uk/pages/mission_coach_process_beyond_belief.asp
If the text for these links are on 2 lines the link may not work. In which case click here:
www.mission-coach.co.uk from the main menu select “Processes” scroll down the page and click on the document icon for the “Beyond Belief” technique. To go to the “UWoT Useful Ways of Thinking” technique, please click here:
http://www.mission-coach.co.uk/pages/mission_coach_process_uwot.asp
If the text for these links are on 2 lines the link may not work. In which case click here:
www.mission-coach.co.uk from the main menu select “Processes” scroll down the page and click on the document icon for the “UWoT Useful Ways of Thinking” technique. To go to the Belief Models page on the Mission Coach web site please click here:
http://www.mission-coach.co.uk/pages/belief_models.asp
If the text for this link is on 2 lines the link may not work. In which case click here:
www.mission-coach.co.uk from the main menu select “Belief Models” scroll down the page and click on the document icon for the belief model you would like to read. To buy “Friendship With God” by Neale Donald Walsch from Amazon UK click here:
www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340767839/selfleadershi-21 To buy “Friendship With God” by Neale Donald Walsch from Amazon USA click here:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340767839/missioncoach-20 To contact me Paul Beeston (I’d like to hear from you!)
mailto:paul@mission-coach.co.uk
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