Don't You Know Me?
Pretty much any topic one chooses to write on can be examined from many angles. Each way brings new insights into the same piece of the puzzle, our puzzle. This mirrors the nature of our experiences here, in particular the idea that we will explore the same challenge(s) from a variety of angles throughout our lives. This is because even a single atomic or a very simple thought (1), though it may seem almost trivial things to us, is an almost infinitely complex thing or “atom”. They have many facets and as a result can react in many different ways depending on a number of facts (which I will not cover in this piece). So, with each thought we have we manifest a thought, which is a force, and we will explore each of the thoughts we have created from many perspective. The more complex the thought, the more perspectives there are.
We manifest thoughts all the time, and are responsible for the energies we manifest, be it a thought and accompanying emotion or something beyond them. Further, once we create a thought, energy or force, “other energies” will react to it; in a crude sense you can liken these reactions to friction. These other energies are such “things” as the natural energies that exist around us, energies of other consciousness’s and the inherent nature and laws of the Cosmos (for they too are “energy”).
Not only are we responsible for our actions, we are also responsible for the reactions to our actions, though not quite the way you might think. I say this because we are not responsible for how others react; however, we share responsibility for the reaction we manifest by our energies. This is friction, or action-reaction energy. It is partially related to karma, and that all things, including what we manifest, must come full circle. Hence, we will react in turn to all the possible permutations and combinations of the reactions to our “thoughts”. This sounds like an endless cycle, but it is not. At some point our reactions to the reactions become redundant and so they “settle in” to the fabric of our mind. If the thoughts have not been through all the possibilities yet it may resurface. However, in one lifetime or another, all of us will balance out the forces we manifest.
This is just as it is for the topics I write on. I do try to explore topics from a variety of perspectives in order to present ideas from as many directions as possible, and have done so numerous times. Some of the directions I take come from the comments on my other compositions, and the accompanying thoughts I pick up about it. As I have mentioned before, I don't so much as choose topics, they make themselves known to me in a variety of ways. When at topic becomes clear to me, my next challenge is to try to hone in on the particular angle or angles it will be explored from.
I am writing this “pre-introduction”, which you are reading right now, as this has been my challenge with this topic. There is a confluence of thoughts about it, not just mine, that have come into the mix. Since I could not find one that “spoke” louder than the others, I have let them dance freely to see if they can settle on a theme; and they have. The topic became clear to me when I reread a comment from a friend in response to my request for suggestions. That comment, below, contained the following, and is the essence of what she shared:
“Run your fingers through my soul. For once, just once, feel exactly what I feel, believe what I believe, perceive what I perceive, look, experience, examine, and for once, just once, understand” ~ source unknown.... shared by Heather Dzuris
Consider this statement, do not gloss over it. Let it sink in, let it dance with you for a few moment, read and dance with it again. After a bit I am sure you will understand how simple the thought is, but how hard it is to do. The entire passage harkens back to the Awakening Our Gifts series (2), namely the sense of feeling connected, not in an abstract sense, but in a very real way. It is possible, though one must be willing to step aside and allow oneself to be unconditional and not “be loving”, rather to be love.
The connection the passage above entails is not a casual one; it is one alive with empathy, compassion, devotion and affection. The qualities we must have in some measure are empathy to want to, to allow and then enable a connection with someone or something, the compassion to care and feel for them, devotion to them in the moment and the affection to want to connect.
We do not develop such qualities in a day, or even a single lifetime, but we all have them in varying amounts regardless of whether they manifest to any extent in our lives. The following passage touches on a place where we can start:
“Look around, but do not think about what you see, try to simply observe. Do not stare, instead glance or gaze at the people as they go about their business. Do not presuppose anything; focus on simply perceiving without valuing. If you set your ego aside you will not be judge or appraise them as much. This will lead to your getting impressions from them, such as they are open, closed, happy, impatient or concerned and so on. There may even be multiple impressions. Whatever you do, do not try to analyze them. You may even get an opportunity to confirm the impressions you get should you have the opportunity to say something to them or simply through further observation of them
Our intuitions get drowned out by the noise in our minds. To re-open closed doors we have to want to hear and be willing to allow what we get without analyzing it to the nth degree. We can enhance the power of the impressions by having thoughts such as “I feel the energy between me and everything around me”, “We are not separate” or “I feel you”.” (2)
If we do not exercise our muscles for long periods of time they will atrophy. The same applies to the energies within our vehicles (astral and mental energies within our aura), with the added condition that we may not have, for example, a well developed “compassionate body”. I put quotes around this as there is no such “body”; I am only referring to the collective energies within an aura that can express compassion.
Each of us likely knows, to varying degrees, how much of these qualities we possess. Even if we believe we possess little of one of these qualities, if we bother to take the time we can connect with people at far deeper levels, we add to them. The idea is to allow ourselves to know them as who they are rather than who we think they are and to want to do this. It does take time to develop these qualities and it helps to have ways to do so. This short story may give you an idea of how you can further develop this capacity within yourself....
************
It is a nice night and everyone is out doing something. I head to the store to grab a few necessities and am not surprised to find it busy when I enter. I mosey along and get what I came for and then join the long line along with everyone else. I am not in any hurry so I did not need to exercise patience as I waited because the very idea of patience implies one is “waiting for something” and I was not waiting for anything at all. As is the usual for me, for better or worse, I gaze around at the various people trying to simply perceive them without think/engaging my mind. I am not always successful at this but this night it came easily, and when it does what occurs is a suspension of judgment, which is referred to as equanimity. Rather than interpreting what I perceive I am able to accept perceptions at face value without any pre-processing. I feel their energy as if it were my own, and allow it to be there unimpeded.
The others in line show varying degrees of patience, except for one individual who, as it turned out, was in quite a hurry. I didn't noticed him until I felt a strong sense of urgency wash over me. I wasn’t sure where it was coming from, though quickly realized it was from behind me. A quick glance around and back confirmed it.
The man directly behind me is fidgety, keeps shifting his weight from foot to foot and crosses and uncrosses his arms. All the while his eyes dart from person to person then to the cashier who at the moment is obviously struggling with some aspect of a transaction and the lady behind her who was focused on some paperwork. In between he rolls his eyes, looks up and shakes his head.
His frustration is tangible as are some of his thoughts that empowered it. He did not notice me looking at him as his attention was on the cashier and the lady behind her. I can feel the lower energy of his judgmental thoughts about both of them; I could feel it though I also saw some of it, or more aptly I got impressions including images flashed through my mind. I followed his attention back to the cashier as I had not been paying much attention to that situation. The reason was a person ahead of me had wonderful energy that had caught my attention up to that point. With my attention now on the cashier I get a strong impression of the considerable efforts she was exerting to deal with the issue she is having without breaking down. By not judging and feeling compassion for her the impressions I perceive are clearer. I do not know what the issue is, but whatever it was, it was taking all of her focus to maintain.
I also get the feeling she is blaming herself, not the customer, and she is trying very hard to do a good job. What is complicating it is her confusion about something. People keep coming in so the lineup grows. The longer it gets the more apparent is her anxiety. I can feel her desire to do a good job but you could see her struggle with how to handle the question the customer was asking. I felt her think about the lady behind her, and then her head shifted slightly but did not go all the way towards the lady. She did not turn to her for help. I get the sense that she is new at the job, though her name tag did not indicate it. To add to it, it was also obvious that the lady behind her was in charge and I could feel her concerned that the women might take her problems as a performance issue.
With each passing second the man is getting more agitated. I can feel the intensity of his gaze upon her and a build up of lower energies manifested by his thoughts. His agitation is taken up by some of the others who picked up on it, though they were not aware why, further adding to the growing energy. Quite quickly almost everyone in line started to notice the cashier’s problems and became impatient as well. The cashier is becoming stuck and unable to “move” as she manifests her own lower energies to go with the influx of them from the people in line. She too is becoming more fidgety, and the concern is now visible on her face.
There is an older lady behind her working on something and I am sure she would have offered to help were she were not so focused on what she was doing. Given the man behind me was the original source of the agitation energy, I thought about turning and making a joke to break up the train of thoughts he was having, something I often do in such situations; however, for some reason it doesn’t feel right to do so. I do not explore why.
Instead I created a strong ground beneath the lineup to help drain away the growing energies of tension and anxiety and so on. By ground I mean I had created a form of "energy sink" beneath them, kind of like a big fan, that pulled all free lower energies down and into the earth. Any energy cast off from people’s auras is free energy and one is allowed to work with them. It is something I have done for years, though ONLY when I feel it is in everyone’s best interests. I am also very careful to ensure I am only working with free energy and not manipulating anyone. At the same time I imagined a warm calming energy around everyone, energy that remained outside their auras at all times. I do not “see” this I visualize it and if my attention is good (3), the energy will respond in kind. I am reaching out to the young lady to try to help calm her, kind of like giving her a hug and saying “it’ll be okay” from a distance.
In hindsight, I could have blocked the energy the man was directing towards her, but it was not directed with great intent and grounding the excess energy was sufficient. The energy originally built up was because his energy caused a sympathetic reaction in the people in front of me, and they passed it on. The result was a thought form that was greater than the sum of its parts.
Not everyone was affected, such as the person I’d noticed earlier, though most were. The cashier was being affected more by her own reaction to the impatient and agitated energy she perceived. People's mumbling did not help. I do not know how much my acts would help but I did it anyways. The man, still feeling affected and inappropriately delayed, fed by his judgments and inability to see beyond his own perspective, started to mumble about her incompetence along with a few derogatory comments about women, incompetence and immigrants. When he started to get louder I deliberately glanced back and looked him right in the eye.
My look was not one of challenge, or annoyance, it was one of calm understanding. He was late for something, that was obvious, but I also got the impression he left late and had expected to be able to get his items, pay and get out quickly in order to arrive at his destination close to or on time. I could feel him blaming her and himself for his lateness and running through scenarios about how to handle being late. I did not speak then; instead I nodded slightly, smiled and radiated as much calmness and reassuring energy as I could.
He did seem to calm down, though it could have been due as much to being observed as the energy I radiated or he simply could have done it on his own. I then found myself offering to switch spots with him and he immediately accepted. This calmed him down even more and soon the others returned to their natural energy state.
The line did get moving again and the sense of urgency of those in it dropped off as did the agitation of the young lady behind the counter. When I finally got to the front of the line I got her to smile by making a joke about Murphy’s Law, which I had to explain, and reassured her that the delay was not her fault and no big deal. It was nice to hear others in line speak up and echo my sentiment.
I found out she had just started and being new to the country found it hard to understand people when they speak fast. This is what led to the delay. The lady she dealt with was in a hurry to get her lottery tickets and cash in a few she’d won on. In her impatience, she began talking faster and faster. All it took to slow things down and lead to a bunch of people becoming needlessly frustrated was a person speaking a little too fast to a person who could not keep up and even when asked could not slow herself down..
************
All of this could have been avoided if the man had accepted responsibility for being late. It would not have been an issue if he was not concerned with being late as a result of this acceptance; however, he was. By not accepting responsibility he had to assign it somewhere, and in order to do that he had to have some way of justifying it. So, he drew on old prejudices and so on to make assumptions about others rather than suspended judgment. He considered her incompetent essentially blaming her for his potential tardiness. He did not remain calm or even remotely objective. If he had been he would have been accepting responsibility for being late and may not have blamed her. He may even have considered her situation. I also got the distinct impression he was bothered that the other lady was sitting on the stool doing paperwork rather than helping her.
He was obviously quite bothered by the delay, so when he didn't accept responsibility he manifested energies that ironically, made the line up move slower. Of course if he accepted responsibility the point might have been moot. Why? Well, he would have had entirely different thoughts about the delay. As a result he may have realized the cashier did not control how many people came in at once or sensed that she was trying her best or that it may have been busy for a while and the lady doing paper work simply had to get it done and so forth.
Situations like this or similar ones are common. We have all done this from time to time, and you have observed it with impatient drivers on the road, when trying to have a conversation with someone and you aren’t hearing each other, at work when pressures mount or virtually anywhere when someone isn’t getting what they want or need in the moment. When this happens they disconnect from the world around them and react in a negative fashion. There can be many reasons for this, but one thing they share is the person who is agitated is acting in a very subjective manner.
The following is a couple stanzas from a lyric I wrote a number of years ago. While not a perfect it is related:
There's no simple answer
To why we cheat `n steal.
We ignore our `brothers'
Don't we know how they feel?
We slide through our lives,
In rubber rafts on the sea.
Too small to see over the top,
Too big to act honorably.
The idea behind the words is that we really don’t know how others feel as our ego keeps us focused on ourselves. It is our ego that keeps us small and prevents us from seeing “over the top” which is to see what’s really out there, and our ego also keeps us too big “to act honourably”, which is to care enough to pay attention to others.
It is so easy to allow our ego and personal needs to dominate. It often seems that at the moment when we need our objectivity most, it is strained by our reactions and clarity is elusive. We know at some level, that when everything revolves around us we have lost our connection to the world around us. We also know that this isolates us behind the walls of our mind, to our detriment even though at the moment we may see them as necessary.
Being subjective is a challenge for all of us, virtually without exception. All we can do is try to learn from our experiences, and deal with it when we realize we have acted in this way. Part of the problem is that we fall into the mindset, due to erroneous thinking, that others think as we do and react as we do for this is certainly not the case. This simplifies our interactions, but it also dilutes them.
In order to do as the initial passage suggests, we must start to get beyond our ego’s sense of whom and what we are. One of the key elements to awaken and improve our awareness is to start to open up to the notion that we are not separate from the world around us. In last series I focused on this as it is so beneficial, and again referencing Awaking Our Gifts Part 4 (2), I stated:
"It is the illusion of “I” (our ego) that creates the separateness between us and the world around us. Working on reducing the ego is important whether one is working on personal growth or spiritual development; however, it is arguably the essential ingredient for spiritual growth. The ego is the clothes our “spirit” builds and wears in given lifetime. As our mind develops we tend to build into it the idea or belief that we are separate and distinct entities.
In one sense this is true; however, this perspective keeps us from growing as it isolates us from everything. The “I” tries to preserve itself and it does so by excluding others from the equation. It is also our ego that defines everything relative to us with the result that we see ourselves as the center of the universe. Everything revolves around us and our thoughts about things. It is hard to be sensitive to others and the Cosmos if we have an ego-centric perspective."
Each of us has our own reasons for doing various things, and any number of people can do exactly the same thing for entirely different reasons. We all have encountered situations where someone presumed to know why we did something and they were wrong (they presumed we would do what they would do under their perception of our circumstances), or where we may have done so ourselves.
I have had people say to me that I should know what people feel; however, being empathic or even telepathic does not ensure one avoids this, which is something I have had to learn and still work on. The primary reasons this happens are:
- We may perceive what another is feeling, but not necessarily what is significant at the time
- We may only be perceiving one aspect of what they are feeling
- We may not be perceiving something they are consciously aware of
- Our own energies, even our own thoughts about the energy can affect how we interpret what we perceive
- We may perceive the energy from a different level which changes how we perceive it.
The first four points are likely easily grasped and understood, not so the last one. To explain, I ask you to consider someone who is doing something we perceive as a selfish act. It is easy to assume this is the case; however, the act may be one of pure unconditional love. Does this surprise you? When one “brings” down a thought to connect with a synapse in the brain, it passes through the “emotional sub-planes” along the way. It will resonate with each of the sub-planes and the emotions we express are from whatever sub-plane resonated the most with it. As a result the thought will activate emotions; however, which emotions are activated depends on what emotions one has developed the capacity to express.
For example, say someone is trying to express compassion for someone but are unable to do so without conditions. This occurs when they have not developed the capacity to resonate at the higher level. As a result that love can manifest as possessiveness, anger or the need to control. A more enlightened person might perceive the original thoughts and realize that the person is trying to express their love and are not yet capable of expressing it at a higher emotion level (high sub-plane). Someone not so aware might just see the person as being "a jerk".
The applies to telepath’s as well, in that if one "hears someone's thoughts", it does not mean that thought is prominent, that they are aware of it, that we are getting other thoughts that are related to it or that we are perceiving it at the same plane as the thought occurs on. In this case, as with the previous point I was making, consider your emotional body as a filter and if you only have "negative filters" just about any thought you have will activate lower emotions. It is for this reason, for example, that when we are full of anger just about anything we choose to do is likely to "come out wrong."
In any event, in order to connect with someone you must want to feel what they feel, to be with them completely to understand as they do. We must put our ego aside, and can do so if we choose, but it takes practice and strong intent to develop the four qualities I referred to early: empathy, devotion, compassion and affection. To do this one must love others, one must care about their well being without restrictions. Love is not an emotion, though when love comes down from it's source it passes through and stirs our emotional body. The four emotions I listed are the highest emotion we can experience and so to reflect these emotions we must build up our "pool" of them so we can express ourselves using them rather than using lower emotions.
As I mentioned we can work on these qualities, in our interactions with the world around us. For example, gaze at someone without focusing your attention on them, do not try to interpret what you see and try to notice when you do so you can factor it out. Try to feel love for them as this is one way to stir the energies that correspond to the four qualities I referred to above in us. Once you have done or tried to do this attempt to “imagine” what they are feeling.... you must work to get past pre-conscious editing and stereotyping by quieting your mind (I know this isn’t easy outside of meditation, but it is certainly doable with practice) and letting go of your interpretation of their traits or actions.
Try to feel them instead of considering them and if you find yourself thinking and/or judging and cannot put these thoughts aside do not simply try to resist. Doing so does not help as much as you might think. Sure, it can work from time to time, but the thoughts that are surfacing are the ones that are preventing us from letting go of our ego and trying to ignore them or push them aside robs us of the opportunity to explore and learn from them.
It is important to note that the energy of impressions that come from outside of us (i.e. not ours) are different that our own. We can develop the sensitivity to know our energy from that of others. Let words surface (which is why practicing automatic writing is beneficial (4)), paying particular attention to “words” that feel strange, where the energy they evoke in us is not quite what we are used to. Such energies are more likely to have an external source, though another possibility is that they are thoughts we have blocked for a long time.
You must focus your mind and build a “feel image” as opposed to a thought or visual image of the energy you feel is from them, this will help ensure that they are indeed the source and not someone or “something” else. Figuratively, for example, when I am not getting information straight away, I consciously explore the outside of their aura to get a feel for their energy, harmonizing with it (similar to how one would harmonize vocally with a note such as C) and then allow different thoughts as they occur, no matter how silly or odd. When I do this I am looking for resonance with their energy as I perceived it.
Normally the thoughts just occur to me, but to illustrate let us look at the case of the cashier from earlier in this piece. If I wasn’t getting clear impressions, I might have formulated a thought such as, “I am feeling <scared hurt="" hurried="" pushed="" tense="" anxious....="">”. I would run through emotions one at a time in my mind, comparing it to my perception of her energy, until I feel a constructive resonance. I would go through as many as I can “remember” or imagine as people rarely have only one type of emotional energy occurring at a time.</scared>
I then might try other notions to get a feel for the person by going with what comes to mind. Continuing with the earlier example, I may have imagining being tired, or that I have home issues and so on and see if there was any resonance. Judgment must be suspended when we do this else we will begin to react to our own thoughts and emotions and clarity vanishes. As a result, we will be unable to notice when the energies match.
You would be surprised by how much you learn about another. We all do what we do for our own reasons, based on our history of experiences and our capabilities at the time. It comes back to the old "If I could have and I should have I would have". We must get past what we think and believe to be true about them. Even when we do this we still must not confuse our awareness of their emotional state with their awareness of it, or even that they are feeling what we are the same way as I mentioned earlier. Those who have developed higher emotional and mental qualities will likely perceive the energy at its higher aspect where the person themselves might not. Further, the higher the level or plane one views energy from the greater the clarity.
The interesting thing about this is that, as a result one could know the lesson(s) (not in words) that are “behind the experience” they are having at the moment. It is so much easier to empathize with people when we feel exactly what they feel, believe what they believe and perceive what they perceive. This is what is at the heart of the statement “before judging me walk a mile in my shoes”. Ones anger or hurt towards another fades when we truly feel and experience from their perspective rather than our own. They are not the same thing.
At the heart of it all is that we must want to do so and start to use, develop or strengthen our higher emotional capabilities. They are the least subjective and they enable us to connect with others in ways our lower emotions cannot. But we must build these vehicles, we will not come across them by accident. If we can get past our assumptions, our thoughts about people, if we can put our egos aside and truly want to feel and connect with others we can feel what they are feeling and we can understand why they feel as they do - we can know them. We may not be able to put it into words, but we will cease to judge them and in accepting them, connect in so many wonderful ways we cannot do otherwise.
© 2012 Allan Beveridge
Updated on May 31, 2019 by Allan Beveridge
References (*- denotes essays only available to site members of TheTwinPowers.com):