We Live In Interesting Times-An Self-Development Article by Jay Ray

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We Live in Interesting Times

By Jay Ray

We live in interesting times. Old Chinese blessings wished that we might never have to live in times such as these. But here we are! These times have been prophesized from the beginning, by seers of many different persuasions. They saw them in all kinds of pictorial ways that fitted their world-views. Trains appeared like fiery monsters streaming across the face of the land. Aeroplanes seemed like mighty birds. All were very clear though, that there would come a time when the Earth would scarcely be livable and that war would rule. A time when disease would cause huge problems and kill many, and when politics would become the power and control of the few over the many. Well, you could be forgiven for feeling like they were talking about the present day because I think it’s a fairly safe assumption that they were. It’s certainly not an easy time to be trying to run a life. It is however a very growthful, one if we are willing to step outside ourselves periodically and take a reckoning of where we are at in the scheme of things. If we don’t do that we are likely to get lost in the immense barrage of external information that is streaming through our consciousness continually. Information which, although prolific, is by no means reliable. So what are we to do? Well in looking at our lives, we have to be prepared to weed out that which is unhelpful, before we have sufficient space for that which is helpful to begin to seep in. Lets look at the animal world. An animal sleeping in a clearing may look like it is totally unaware of what is going on around it at all. It is, however, picking up information from all around it all the time. It doesn’t make a move, however, unless that information indicates danger. How does it do that? Because its consciousness is not full of meaningless data, it is able to be totally present in the moment and able to act on its felt sense in a split second. It does not think about it. It does not calculate the possibilities of the consequences. It trusts its knowing. And its knowing comes to it from its felt senses. There are so many predators out there, one would think that it was a miracle that any wild animals survive at all. But they do. They survive under circumstances that would wipe us out in a blink of an eye. So we can learn from them as our Ancestors used to, before we became altogether too clever to do that. We are going to need to learn to trust our feelings. All of them: Our Instincts. Our Intuitions. Our emotions. All of them are there to help us meet our needs on all levels, because we cannot analyze everything in our thinking. It takes too long and it is not based in the Present Moment but on the experiences of the past, the fears for the future or other peoples opinions. If we do not trust our feelings the moment is lost. In the case of the animal in the clearing, it could be too late. In the case of the way things are in the world in which we currently live, there isn’t too much difference. There is a shelf life to our clean water supplies, our fossil fuels, our topsoil. There is a cut-off point to how many days we have to waste in each life. There is a limit to how much a human being can stand, as well as the Earth. So we need to become instinctual. We need to develop our senses. Including our ‘common senses’. We need to clear our minds of the constant chatter of subpersonalities and listen to the Self. We need to listen to our Soul whose job it is to help us develop our potential in this life, and has an investment in our well-being. Not an investment in how we can work 60 hours a week for less and less. Not an investment in how we can keep everybody else happy. But an abiding interest in our doing what we came here to do. Being what we came here to be. As a Species and as an Individual.