The solution is: in all that you do be the presence of loving kindness.
The problem depends on where you start from, and where you think you are going.
The problem is situational. Like it or not you are in it. And there, in it, you have choices.
People who say you have no power of choice are lying to you, hoping to control you. That’s where they are going, to a place of power by manipulating your life through what they say and do. It is true that sometimes you may not have any power of choice over what you do, but you ALWAYS have the power of choice over how you do it.
And that completes the circle of life. There is and always will be an infinitely diverse range of problem situations with uncertain outcomes. If, however, whatever action you choose also brings the presence of loving kindness into that relational process, then you and your physical and social environments will tend towards life-enhancing solutions.
The problem is… this simple solution requires determination and values to see it through if it hurts. ‘The Solution is Simple’ series of blogs will give you reasons to persevere, and values to keep you going.
In all that you do, be the presence of loving kindness
In January 2024 John Hunt Publishers will release my book Clearing a Way: Unveiling the Mental Tricks That Hide Reality. This book gives reasons to persevere, and it explains how personal values are not just airy fairy notions. They are central to choosing life in the real world. They are vibrant feedback cycles between your cerebral cortex and your core brain that shape your thoughts, actions, and relational qualities of communication. If you value life, this synergic cycle between mind and heart is where to focus your attention when making decisions. Having an ‘in-between’ focus puts you into the world of values, the true reality of a living feedback dynamic with others.
The book is available for pre-order on Amazon now. Clearing a Way has four Parts that bring out how to persevere in making personal values explicit and central in shaping life. Firstly it explains how three sensory association areas of the brain construct your mental impressions of space, time and substance as a reality that is not a true picture of the life that unfolds in matter! Part 1 is a philosophy of reality that empowers you informationally to make life-enhancing choices…
Part 2 of Clearing a Way shows how the inner human heart of your personal values, and the emotional reactions you experience physically when they are challenged, connect you more closely into life than your rational cerebral cortex imagines. Activating your inbuilt Emotional Logic opens paths to importantly simple solutions.
In Part 3 you will see how your rationalising cerebral cortex can twist the way the reality seems into three analytical perspectives on life. Materialism, Individualism, and Vitalism are partially incompatible with each other as worldviews, creating misunderstanding and division. They can be integrated, however, if a light-hearted sense of mystery and humility is included in personal values. This defragments life. Here, being the presence of loving kindness comes into decision-making.
Rounding off in Part 4 goes deep. 3D printed models show how values are patterns of feedback movement that shape the world’s physical substance and your mindful understanding of life simultaneously. Life is a mutual feedback of movement at several levels, which develops its own synergy, informed by values. The changing relatedness of forms is a tri-directional model of movement that blends mind and matter into a conversational reality with others, where you can synergise your life-enhancing choices. The solution remains simple…
Defragmenting the Church
‘The Solution is Simple’ series of Insight blogs following this starter will apply the philosophical triunty (not dualism or monism) that is introduced in Clearing a Way to explain why the early Christian Church has fragmented into religious disharmony, causing distress for so many.
The same principles of divisive rationalisation can be applied to all religious, political and philosophical movements. They fragment into discord when those three analytical perspectives of the rationalising mind are pushed to exclusive extremes, and relatedness is devalued in favour of gaining manipulative power over others.
I believe we are entering a global era of potential to defragment previous misunderstandings on a huge scale, rediscovering diversity-in-unity about life instead. The impact will be greater than the Copernican revolution of thought and values that shifted the earth from the centre of the cosmos. A transitional time is fraught with danger, however, of collapse into emotional chaos and social turmoil. This transitional time of questioning, reflection and adaptation should happen first in the Christian Church, through which (or through whom) philosophical triunity first emerged, but which manifested divisiveness over the next millennia rather than holding together in diversity. The solution is simple.
