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The Task of self creation (articolo in inglese) |
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Scritto da Gruppo Creativo Telestreet Bari
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giovedì, 15 giugno 2006 17:14 |
A Lecture From the Discovery Institute
by Frank Crocitto with Thomas Wanning
Attention is the power that comes directly from you. If you direct your attention, whatever you give it to gets stronger. If you don’t direct it and it goes out by itself, the result is the same.
The one thing you are responsible for as a human being is your attention. This is your storehouse of power. If you give it, you will get more. It is precious. Either you use it to give strength to what you want strengthened, or thieves will steal it.
Suppose you are bothered by chattering in your mind. The answer is to direct your attention to what you are doing. Don’t let your mind suck your attention away from you. Otherwise the chattering you don’t want will grow.
Or, suppose you have an important meeting. On the way you spend time going over it in your mind. Your attention is being siphoned away from what you are doing, driving, and when you get to the meeting you are without clarity. Afterward, it is clear that the situation went by you because of this.
Attention gets hooked when we dream and forget where we are and what we are doing, and also when we get so involved in what we are doing that we forget ourselves and everything else. Directing the attention requires a certain detached watching that observes everything going on both within and without you. If you are watching this larger picture, than you will know where the focus of your attention needs to go.
Everything of worth happens right in the moment. Rehearsal is useless. You are inevitably surprised if you go in with a script. You lose the moment. They don’t say what you anticipated , and then you are lost. If you are present, then whatever you come up with will be right to the point. You hear, and you respond appropriately. That’s how something of value will happen. All the rest is waste.
It takes practice and courage to go in empty. The way to live is without fear. Then something can come through. The only way you can know if this is true is to test it.
If you feel you need to prepare for a difficult meeting—say with your family—use the time to clear yourself of anything that keeps you from being present. Acknowledge your fears, and recognize that they are useless and unnecessary. Part of what undoes us is the belief that when we get to the moment we will be insufficient, that we wont have what we need.
Fear is weakness. We perpetuate fear by constantly anticipating the next moment—rehearsing the future and replaying and regretting the past. All this perpetuates weakness. Strength is found in the moment. We live our whole lives before and after. But the moment is the only thing that counts. The memory works when you are present. What you need to know will arise spontaneously.
People ordinarily believe, assume, that they are awake—continually conscious. If we had the ability to x-ray our thoughts, we would see all kinds of associations, conversations, dialogues and preparation for what is ahead. The dreams go on and on, and all the while we assume we are fully conscious of what we are doing.
But we can begin to wake up. We can look at ourselves and say, "My God, this is going on in my life! Do I just blank out like this?" In the moment when you see this you are waking up. Then an unseen hand comes from behind with chloroform and puts you back to sleep. We are unaware of what is going on within and without us. We are remarkably unobservant.
Meanwhile people continue to function. They become famous, do all the things that people do, die even—all in a state of sleep. The result is akin to hypnotic trance. Truly human powers, remain dormant. The powers that demand attention and work go unattended. The person is barely a sketch of what they might be.
The task set forth to a human being when he comes into the world is to complete his creation. That task goes unattended. Life sweeps them away, and what is most important goes undone.
What makes this sleep so powerful is that it is full of dreams and assumptions and myths about oneself. People believe they are a single unified person. As long as they believe this, the effort to become single and unified is unattended. People believe they have freedom of choice, and believing this, don’t strive for it. People believe that the very things they lack, they have—that there is no need to strive. They believe that everything has been given to them.
To corroborate this belief we have credit cards, licenses, a name and a phone number, an extraction and a religion. Hence, an identity. "Know Thyself" has no meaning. When you begin to struggle to come out of sleep, then life has meaning. When you start the work of self-creation, picking up where nature left off, developing powers of attention, then you may develop a will and singleness of person. Then you may have individuality and freedom of choice. Then you will be a real developed human being.
There is no solution to the problems of the world so long as we are in a state of deep sleep. the quality of what you can say is limited. It comes out twisted. You can’t get clarity. Lack of clarity is part of the sleep state. The task is to get out of that state—to change the state of your whole being. The change has to be radical—we are talking, almost, about two different people. Sleep is marked by lack of presence, a lack of harmony between mind, body and feeling. We are pulled apart, fragmented. The way out of sleep is through the search light of attention. You can’t love unless you first pay attention.
Whatever you do, do it with attention. Every time you touch, or move a thing, observe the kiss of surfaces. Do things carefully. The result wont be a bolt of lightning out of the blue, but very slowly, through your own effort, you can transform yourself. Whether you wash a plate, make a bed or sharpen a pencil—where one surface touches another, put your attention there. Then you will know. All kinds of doors will open up.
Stay connected to your senses. This isn’t a mystical experience. If you drift, come back. That’s the practice. After awhile that becomes a way of doing, of being. You start out connecting to your senses, and then through your senses, you are connected to the world.
Frank Crocitto is founder and director of the Discovery Institute, a school for self-development. Mr. Crocitto will present an introduction to the Institute’s program on Sunday, March 9, 1 to 3 p.m. at the Academy School, 62 Plains Road, New Paltz. The talk is titled "How to Be a Person, When Everyone Wants to Be Either a Master or a Slave." For more information, contact Esoterica Books at 914-255-5777.
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