Auto-Suggestion

 

Because we have eyes and because we are not physically blind, we delude ourselves in thinking that we really SEE anything, as eyes can only grasp vibrations.

It is the brain that interprets those vibrations and creates the mental image which, in turn, leads us to the perception that what we see is real and tangible. The brain, then, activates us as efficiently as a switch flicked according to what ‘it’ thinks is an appropriate reaction.

 

Here is a little story to better explain what I mean: Imagine you are staying in a quaint little hotel somewhere in India that is set in an enchanting garden. Imagine that the manager mentions, oh so casually, that snakes have been known to venture from the garden and into rooms, particularly those on the ground floor - such as yours - but not to be afraid as, after all, snakes are always more afraid of us, humans, than we are of them.

Imagine, then, that you wake up in the middle of the night and, on your way to the bathroom, dark in the moonlight, there is something curled up on the carpet near your suitcase, but you can tell it is about to crawl into your backpack.

 

Your heart beat picks up; you don’t know whether to move or be still until, one baby-step at a time, but ever so courageously, you inch slowly towards the wall, your hand feeling for the light switch.

In the dingy light that floods the room, much to your surprise and possibly to your disappointment, what you thought was a cobra, is only your suitcase strap.

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Our brain, our false ego-persona, also gets deceived by others who appear adamant and by others who are charismatic when their rhetoric plugs into our hopes or our fears, even as they, themselves, are deluded.

 

Here is a little New York-styled humour that had me chuckling quietly: A grey haired woman climbed three flights of stairs, opened a carved mahogany door and walked into an exotically furnished reception room.

A gong sounded, and out of a cloud of incense, a beautiful Oriental brunette appeared, gliding on the soft carpets.

“Do you wish to meet with His Omnipotence, the wise, all-knowing, all-seeing guru,

Maharishi Naru?” she asked softly.

“Yeah,” said the old woman. ”Tell Irving his mama’s here from the Bronx.” [1]

 

The most dramatic current example of auto-suggestion and mass delusion is what must have overtaken George W. Bush, some of his staff, some of the world’s leaders and some of us. Thus was the war in Iraq declared, legitimized, accepted, funded, staffed and kept current.

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Some five years after the war in Iraq was formally declared, "Serious and complex challenges remain in Iraq,” says the American President.

What a graphic example this is of how what we seek to control and manipulate - by letting bogey-men loose in our brain - sticks to us to become a *balagan much greater than would otherwise be.

 “Let sleeping dogs lie.” However old and quaint this saying might be, I say it is worth preserving, even if it means taking it to the taxidermist.   

* Balagan – a big mess

 

Size Matters

“Why is it that people seek always BIG things?” Moriya asks rhetorically. “This is very gross because real beauty is in tiny things. Here is a Hassidic story about a giant Jew who lived in a village,” she wrote one day. “Here is a story for you, CC.

There was once a very large giant who lived in a village. One day, a brave person asked him how he had grown so huge. He answered that when he was a child, he used to travel with his father who was a merchant.

One day, while they were near a forest, they were attacked by robbers who, after taking all their money and belongings, tied his father to a tree and set its branches on fire. The bandits watched as the flames overtook the tree and left only after they were sure that the boy’s father had died.

The giant added, "I looked at the fire that was my father and only saw a small fire. And I thought: 'Is this all there is to my father? This little fire? It was then I swore that I'd become big, big, big! So big that when they'll come to burn me, too, there'll be such a fire that it'll be seen all over the country.”

 

COLORS

For a comprehensive deconstruction of color-power, please refer to the glossary file called How We Need To See.  

Warm colors are Yang = masculine. They stir us into action.

Cold colors are Yin = feminine. They are soothing.

 

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colors are highly symbolic of greater forces that operate beyond our comprehension, and we should understand the symbolism of the ones to which we are most attracted.

The colors of flowers are the colors of our chakras, our spiritual garden. The only colors not commonly found in flowers are brown and black.

The colors we wear, often without much thought, vary according to the dominant color of our aura – our energy field.

Black bile = melancholy/depression. Scientists have discovered that depressive/melancholic people do actually have black/dark bile.

Seeing red = seeing nothing because of blind anger triggers a rush of blood.  At that moment, like the red cape waved in front of an angry bull, red is the dominant color in our aura.

Green with envy = jealousy.

Yellow with fear, red-faced, white from shock = all are linked to the dominant color of our emotions as translated in our aura.

Even pyrotechnical explosions are symbols of our charkas. Fireworks shoot upwards very quickly and burst violently. We watch them in awe but, too soon, there is nothing left but an acrid smell in the air and a feeling of emptiness – a longing for more – a longing for the real explosion of chakral energy – spiritual balance - the only explosion that is eternally soft and silent.

 

Black

For reasons beyond the timeless, classic appeal of black, we need to consider that a penchant for black reflects a self-absorption in one’s own problems to the detriment of others nearest to us. Black is the color of coffee. It pulls us in and is addictive. It is not a coincidence that black cloth is a true stain absorber, and that in some countries it is the symbolic color for mourners and religious orthodox. 

I am going to stick my neck out and add that orthodoxism, an aspect of extremism, is not, in this conversation, regarded as spiritualism, but merely an absorption of the self in a religious practice of the kind that is usually narrow-minded in scope and that relies mostly on ego-centred interpretation of sacred texts.

Either way, these groups are locked up in their emotional/religious mindsets, such as they may be, no differently than the Goths and the *emos* who lock themselves up in their pain and flock together, reinforcing each other’s dark view of the world.

Black is also the color of choice for many musicians, from jazz to rock. They, too, are usually immersed in their own intensity.