Arjuna Ardagh
A few decades ago Albert Einstein said a wonderful thing. He said,
“You cannot solve any problem in the same state of consciousness in which it was created.”
You know this already, don’t you? Have you ever experienced that you go to bed one night having a fight with your partner, or a friend, and you absolutely know that you’re right and the other is wrong, and it seems like a war without end? And then you have a good night’s sleep, and perhaps you wake up and do a little yoga or take a walk, and the problem never gets solved. It is dissolved. You feel different in yourself. You see the other with fresh eyes and the love that binds you becomes stronger than the disagreement that separated you. You’ve just experienced a shift of consciousness. When we shift our state of consciousness, the problems that seemed real in one state disappear in another state. They don’t get solved, they get dissolved.
Editors note: This is already the second article written exclusively for FinerMinds by Arjuna Ardagh, an awakening coach, writer, teacher, public speaker and founder of the Living Essence Foundation. In the end of the article you can find your access to the special gifts Arjuna Ardagh is giving away.
Just as from one perspective it seems like we’re faced with insurmountable global problems, so something else is also happening today, just under the radar, which is affecting millions of people. I gave you a hint of what that is all about two weeks ago in the article I shared with you about Dave. Dave didn’t solve his problems. He shifted his consciousness and saw things in a totally different way, and his life reorganized itself around his new state of consciousness. Many people today feel this is happening to us collectively. And I’m not talking only about new age spiritual woo-woo people wearing Birkenstocks, eating granola and wanting to hug. I mean that well recognized think-tanks advising governments and big business are recognizing that there is a significant shift in collective consciousness. Roger Nelson, until recently a professor at Princeton, has even attempted to find ways to measure collective consciousness scientifically. This shift happening just under the radar is often referred to as “awakening.” It starts when an individual expands beyond preoccupation with “me” and recognizes themselves to be something much greater, deeper, more mysterious. When many people shift in this way, in a community or a company or a church, or even in the country, we can begin to also speak of “collective awakening.” My 2005 book “The Translucent Revolution” documents how this kind of shift is impacting both individuals as well as organizations and communities.
All of this is happening somewhat out of our control. There’s not much that you and I can do about the fact that old structures are crumbling apart–giving some people the feeling that the sky is falling. And there’s not much that you and I can do about collective awakening. It’s happening now on a vast scale. What is important for you and me is how we ’re going to relate to all this. Many people today sense that next few years will be a time of unprecedented change for humanity. Looked at from one perspective, it may seem like Armageddon, and from another it may feel like our wildest dreams are coming true. The difference is in your state of consciousness.
What is actually happening?
In order to understand what is happening for all of us, it’s useful to recognize a phenomenon that occurs in recovery from addiction called “bottoming out.” Perhaps you know someone who has been an addict and then entered into recovery. Maybe you’ve even experienced that process yourself. When someone is fully immersed in an addiction, they generally don’t even know they have a problem, and if someone tries to point it out they tend to argue. It’s called denial. I had some friends a few years ago who went through this process as a family. Jim used to stop at the bar for a drink or two after work and then come home. Susan thought nothing of it. But over a few months he came home later and later, smelling of alcohol. His temper became more volatile. If anyone questioned him about the drinking he became defensive. The kids, four and six at the time, started to become afraid of their father. When he came home one night and woke everyone up, Sue tried to reason with him, and he hit her. That was the final straw. She moved out the next week with the kids back to Michigan, and from there you know the rest of the story. Things spiraled down. He got into arguments at work and then he lost his job. He maxed out his credit cards. When he got too behind on the mortgage payments he lost his house, too. And he went on drinking. Finally, he ended up in hospital with a liver disease.
From Jim’s perspective things couldn’t get any worse. But from the perspective of anyone familiar with addiction, for the first time Jim was really ready to face himself. He got out of the hospital, joined a twelve step program, stopped drinking, and within months he turned his life around. Now Jim and Sue are back together, and he has become a support to hundreds of other people to recover from addiction. The way that Jim tells it is that he didn’t have to descend all the way down into the darkness and then climb all the way up the other side. He slipped down into the lowest point and then passed through a quantum shift. He flipped out of one reality and into another.
You could say that the process that we are in together today is very much like that: a collective bottoming out. If you’re very attached to business as usual, this could seem like the end of everything. Many well-respected commentators like Lynn Twist, Barbara Marx-Hubbard and Peter Russell recognize that over the last few years humanity, particularly the US, has been on a binge. Like Jim, we’ve been spending more than we earn, and of course most of us have been in massive denial. If you feel attached to the way that things have been, this next phase may be difficult. If, on the other hand, you’re open to a whole new paradigm, this can be marvelous. Wonderful. Liberating. The pivotal difference is in how we manage consciousness.
I am an awakening coach. That’s what I do. I support people to pass through the shift in consciousness from being contracted down into the story of a “me,” to the expansiveness of knowing yourself to be vast, silent, at peace, and not separate at all. I train other people to become awakening coaches, and to facilitate this shift. Here is some great news: these days waking up can be incredibly easy. You don’t have to change your beliefs or your diet or your lifestyle. You simply need to be willing to ask yourself some simple and fundamental questions and to be deeply honest with yourself.
Here are five simple keys for what you need to be able to pass through the collective shift with comfort and ease:
- Discover ways to be fully present: to shift your attention fully to what you’re experiencing in this moment.
- Learn to distrust your mind. Find ways to recognize the messages that your mind is giving you and then not to change negative messages into positive ones, but to free yourself from the limits of thinking all together.
- Transform your relationship from other people and the environment from one of getting to one of giving. Focus more on how much you love than how much you are loved.
- Find the right practices that work for you on a day-to-day basis to neutralize the habits that create feeling separate. Practices need to be tailor-made. It’s not one size fits all.
- Simplify your life. Find a way to discover what is really meaningful and fulfilling to you and what is just distraction. Let your life become a work of art.
I want to thank you so much for your generous responses to my last article and I look forward to getting to know you better. I’ve prepared special gift from my “Leap Before You Look” book for you to explore this at home.
Download Your Special Gift From Arjuna »
Please, post your comments and questions below, and I will respond to all of them personally.
See you soon!
Arjuna
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[ FINER MINDS ]
i think your artical has a lot of truef to it but not realy sure about being abal to to that
Thank you, this was beautiful and inspiring to read, especially the lines distrust the mind and focus on what you love, this IS the awakening — I felt my heart open when I read those words xxxx
Yeah i was really surprised to see Arjuna say that he would respond to each person who commented. I thought, “what kind of awakening coach has time for such a thing?”
i am touched to see the follow through.
I’ve yet to look at or try the free gifts, but will, and hope they will help me make some much needed adjustments.
I attend an Eckhart Tolle group from time to time, the host of which commended “Translucent Revolution.” My serendipitous encounter of you here Arjuna, seems to be pointing me toward it again.
Thanks for the encouraging article.
I am positive at my work and do well about my kids. But my husband thinking of a lady in his mind, is creating problems to me. How do I go about this?
Regarding Eistein message: the issue is whether one is in a state of conciousness or not — ultimately the use of our mental capacity is to disificers, analyzes a situation in seach for an answer. The mind our brain is program to assimilate all of lifes experiences whether good or bad to draw a conclusion. Within each one of us are the answers complete stuctured and organized one must allow this purpose to result for peace and tranquillity
Tommy
Hi,
I like your comments. But I have a question. When we are facing with a non logic or sensible man who just thinks about himself and himself and doesn’t accept any logic suggestions. How we could say we solve or disolve our problem. Iam wondering to what to do? I wish to find a way not to think to my problems and forget them.
If you are faced with a man who just thinks about himself, that is not your problem. Don’t go around thinking the way to your happiness is change others, then you’ll be happy. If this man is a source of unhappiness, for you. That is your problem, not his. Quitting your job won’t help you either, if he is your employer. The real problem lies between your ears and how you think of him and your problems, First I would start focusing on your positive traits. Leave your negative bullshit where it belongs, in the trash. If you read this article, read it again, and again, till you get it. Most problems are in your brain, they aren’t real, you just make them real.
Very nice. Thank you. Beautiful insight. Being able to differentiate between distractions and things of importance is quiet a lot to learn. I really like this article, it has helped me to think more deeply. Thanks again for helping to make my day.
Hi Arjuna,
Your free demos are excellent and they potentially bring a change positively and when practiced will ultimately let people achieve their respective goals successfully and more importantly changes a person the way God wants their children to be.
I have one question which i wanted to eagerly discuss and get solution from you that over a period of i am developing that whenever i practise meditation and also the awakening procedure which you have told, sometimes unwantedly many negative thoughts will arise counter acting it and makes me very unhappy.(they arise in such a way that when i think now i am doing meditation and your practices i will be away from thinging any negative thought, i think like that and meanwhile some negative force, automatically brings some negative thing in mind parallely when positive things are going on ) i know if i do it regulary i will over come these thoughts, but they are present in the subconscious mind and pop up all of suden, and makes rest of the my meditation time or when i pracice awakening , it disturbs me and sometimes they overpower too causing unhappy , but after sometime i get again a fresh positive way to elimminate them and i feel good that time , and keeps practising it. I thought i will discuss about this and if you have any suggestions for me . i will be highly thankful. Looking forward for your reply. Best wishes ‚Krishna.
Hi Arjuna,
I deeply respect you for answering the responses to your article.
A while ago now I had what you would call a peak experience which showed me how I was giving my power away by thinking I was a victim. What happened was that suddenly a discontinuity occured and a gap appeared and in this split second I ‘saw‘ that without doubt I was not who I thought I was, I was not limited, and much more than I thought I was. It was me who had placed limits on myself. I had identified with my thinking and thought ‘I think therefore I am‘. What a shattering moment but also what a liberation.
I saw that I had been living in a thought form which was restrictive and had kind of imprisoned me, but which I had thought was true.
I also saw I had been livinging a polarity of strong/weak and my ego thought I of course was right when I saw certain people as weak. What I didn‘t know was that one side of a polarity cannot arise without the other and the weak part which I had disowned and projected on to other people was well and active in me. But this weakness which lived in the darkness of my ignorance, which I will call my shadow, held a treasure as I was able to see that neither side of the polarity was good or bad as it was purely a judgement on my part. I have been on my journey a long time now and have been moved to go beyond both.
I don‘t run away from so called negative feelings either — I now experience them fully and in so doing I have been truly able to begin to dissolve a feeling trapped at the cellular level as I saw the pattern which I had created and which was running through my life. Once you feel and see through this unresourceful state then it‘s impossible to continue doing it,no matter what the outcome might be in letting it go.
I don‘t think you can dissolve hidden unconscious patterns by not thinking about something which might be distressingbecause I think it is only by facing,and not avoiding, that we are given the opportunity to grow.
All the very best, Jane
Can you ask Arjuna to expand his meaning on his concept:
“Find ways to recognize the messages that your mind is giving you and then not to change negative messages into positive ones, but to free yourself from the limits of thinking all together.”
So, we ignore all the messages that we recognize? Do we parse the good from the bad and forget? What are the “limits of thinking”? Everyone thinks. We have to in order to survive. This needs the boundaries explained what is considered the limit. Maybe this means LIMITED thinking, which would make a little more sense, but you’d want to change your thinking habits, not “free yourself” which could mean eliminate thinking. Hate to mince words here, but when you talk about significant concepts, you just can’t release the concepts without careful explainations.
Arjuna -
Blessings — once again — from an avid fan!!
I really want to re-emphasize something you said, and then make an analogy that I’ve used to get me back on track when things seem upside down and backward.
The point is that this awakening, or quickening, is a process — not an event.
No one can be left behind, unless by conscious choice, and even then I am not so sure…
We’ve all been so indoctrinated to the idea that mistakes are disasters… I’m of the opinion that mistakes are gifts we give ourselves — in that they provide short-cuts in learning.
The only punishment for feeling fear, confusion, worry or anger is the feeling itself and what that does to you. You won’t “miss the boat” no matter how afraid, angry, confused, lost or tired you get!
When I travel, I drive… There are always side roads to explore, and I go where my heart takes me. While I might have a destination in mind, I meet more new friends, see sights I’ve never seen, visit places I never knew existed, and have a lot more fun this way…
Isn’t that the real point?
On this JOURNEY of awakening, some will take different roads. Some will drive straight to where they want to go. Others will have a flat tire along the way, and a few more might dally at the side of the road preferring to watch the traffic go by. Even those who lock their doors and remain inside will eventually venture out for *something.* It is all good!
Try to look at it like a road trip…
If you run out of gas, the walk to the next station can bring you to view a beautiful sunset you would have missed otherwise.
If you are stuck, relax, learn something new, and then back up just like you’d back out of a parking place after a nice meal at the restaurant. Use your new knowledge to move further down the road.
If your car breaks down, ask for help, and if you get lost, ask for directions. You’ll meet interesting people and make new friends!
Return the favor to amplify the effect.
If the weather turns foul, pull over somewhere and safely watch the lightening show until the storm passes. Then roll down the windows and enjoy the fresh, crisp air!
Your head may turn you around a time or two, but your heart will never lead you astray. Live, laugh, love, learn and PLAY — but above all — TRUST.
With love and blessings
Sue
My prayer for you Sue is that your journey to enlightenment brings you as much bliss as it does reading about it. The human language is very limited when we begin to try and explain our purpose, you have done it simply.
Blessings
Virginia
Wonderful and refreshing and the truth always rings like clear sounding bell to the core of my being.…my mind is exhausting at times, quite a bit actually and I totally agree and understand being fully present open and still is one of the keys to being free happy alive and in love with life and myself and therefore others…Thank you very much for sharing your wise words of wisdom Arjuna.…ps. the awakening coaching sounds like a wonderful idea and practice.…keep up the good work
hi! loved your article! its true and everyone is experiencincing it in some way or the other, but one particular problem that surrounds me is that i am not able to leave this me factor easily ‚its that the me and mine which confuse me the most! this hampers what i think is essential as regarding the productivity!
thanks for the awakening though!!
striving to hear more of it!
good luck and greetings!
Enjoyed the article and I am enjoying coming to the realization of who I truly am.
Hi Artjuna ,
Scary thought , ” stop thinking altogether ” We would be living in caves eating raw meat with out thought . Could you say this ” stop thinking ” in some other way ? Cheers
Excellent post Arjuna!!
I would like to stress the importance of doing those ‘tailor made daily practices’ you mentioned. If we want to really change our life, then we have to maintain our constant connection and practice everyday! Just like your physical fitness routine, you have to do it for it to actually work.
Thank You so much for the wonderful article!
Hi,
I have used the power of positive thinking over the past year and a half. My husband had a breakdown and decided he no longer wanted to be married. It was devastating to both my children and me and we could not understand it. Over time I got councelling and read self help books and started to focus on healing my husband while I meditated. I would send a bright light to him at night in my mind and surround him and try to heal him. I wrote out positive gratitute lists for all I had and all I had yet to receive. At my low points I would read my notes to myself and even though I cried over them I kept to my goal in my mind. Eventually my husband wanted to return and I agreed as this was my goal. Over a period of time I changed him from been extremly negitative about his life and our life to start to see the good in things and be grateful for all we had. It took several long months of pain and heartache but I can safely say that now he is back with me and my children where he belongs. Life for me is to be able to love my family and hold them in my bossom and protect them when they need it, to look beyond the big picture of pain when someone becomes broken and to learn to accept and forgive the pain they may cause. I am truly grateful that my family are a unit again — it is all I am. I am truly grateful for my home, my garden, my work, my flowers, my dogs, my birds and my fish. I know that the power is in the mind and with our minds we can achieve any goal we set ourselves — we just have to be patient. and it is always important to let go and move on to the next stage in our lives. Always treat others with kindness and respect even when they dont seem to give it to you — it will come in time.