“IYLI” CHAPTER SIX: EXPERIENCING NEUTRALITY

Feb 10

Written By mason wooldridge

AUDIO/VIDEO VERSIONs: SPOTIFY / APPLE PODCASTS / YouTube

CHAPTER SIX:

Experiencing Neutrality

I was more than ready…

If you take time to look up the definition of the word neutrality in the dictionary, it doesn’t do a good enough job synopsizing it for the purpose of this book. So, for this chapter and the conversation ahead, we’ll put forth our own definition for neutrality in the sense of providing a spiritually based context. Neutrality: the state of being neither for something nor against something, taking no sides; the action of being fine with however the chips fall, not sweating the small stuff; acceptance of life on life’s terms; not demanding of a particular outcome.

The first time I looked at the levels of consciousness, I was struck by the fact that courage was used as the definer for entering the positive emotional sets of life, and that neutrality was seen as a higher level of consciousness than courage. However, once I gave the two words more thought and spent more time learning about the definitions of each, the meanings of each and the context of each, I was able to see the perfect nature of courage coming before neutrality, and neutrality being a higher level of calibrated consciousness than courage.

As we spent time looking at the lower attracter fields and lesser levels of consciousness from apathy and grief to anger and pride, along with everything in-between, we were able to paint a picture of someone falling in these places of wanting as also being a slave to the ego. When someone finds themselves calibrating below the level of courage, their life is not their own because their life is run by the base levels of one’s animal nature, where the animal is out for survival at any cost, regardless of the fact that as humans we no longer have to kill another animal to get what we want. The ego works for survival, and because of this fact, when you’re under the level of courage, you believe you’re the thing always wanting more, and rarely does this person ever see that in fact they’re not the thing wanting more but actually something else, currently unaware that they’re more than the thing always fighting for survival and winning at all costs. Through courage to surrender the lesser for the unknown greater, someone surrounded by fear has the innate ability to transcend the illusion that fear is a hurdle too high to jump over. Courage is what the soldier has to embody to stand up and walk through the hail of bullets. Courage is what the battered wife has to embody in order to stand up to her abuser and choose life over bondage. It takes courage to ever reach a point where one has the choice to be okay with life how it is, because without courage there is no opportunity to see any outcome in the short-term still leads in a direction worth pursuing. Without the gift of courage, and without the fact that courage isn’t something you can fake but something you have to choose based on faith, it makes perfect sense as to why one has to first show signs of courage in order to reach a point in life where they can be satisfied with whatever elements are the outcomes of future decisions.

An interesting aspect of the calibrated levels of consciousness which I have now studied and put into practice daily for many years, is that the vast majority of American pastors within the faith of Christianity calibrate in the fluctuating levels of courage. It’s important to note, no particular level from courage to enlightenment is any better than another level, it’s just simply where one finds themselves in order to move towards yet another level at another time, likened to building blocks. In the same vein as many pastors in the United States, within the evangelical church, their style of praise and worship and the method they employ for grand displays of modern music pumped forth by smiling faces and large speakers, usually calibrates two to three ticks higher on the scale in the realms of willingness and acceptance, which is precisely why someone entering a church service feeling down in the dumps can have such an uplifting experience within the service but come crashing back down once they leave. At these levels of willingness and acceptance, which we’ll dive into deeper through the next couple of steps, we see that from courage to neutrality, and from neutrality to willingness and even acceptance, monumental leaps in one’s level of consciousness are taking place. Meaning, the love present at the level of willingness or acceptance is far superior to the amount of love felt all around someone who finds their life characterized by courage. Courage is faith in action whereas neutrality is more defined as faith in glad tidings. The reason I bring this all up is to show that as one progresses through the steps and finds more and more love present as a conclusion, just like attending a church service you find more upliftment through a loud band rocking out as opposed to the message of many pastors, is the same for levels of consciousness – the higher one travels the more innate joy one experiences.

Neutrality as a way of life is a blessed situation to find oneself in, and without the courage needed to surrender the lesser over to the greater, all without any proof that life will be better because of it, one would never have the opportunity to feel okay about life taking on whatever shape it takes on. With neutrality, one becomes okay if an endeavor works out and okay if it doesn’t, fine with getting a new job and still fine with the one they have, all while allowing for the chance to start anew and feeling confident if all stays the same. Neutrality is a powerful level to calibrate at, and just like what will come in step 6, and the meaning for doing it, one is okay with further surrendering their life to God because at this point what do they have to lose?

Neutrality is characterized through the descriptors in Hawkins’s map of consciousness by having a view of God where the Creator appears to be enabling change for the better. At this level, life is satisfactory at worst and approaching hopeful at best. The emotional state which best describes how they approach the world is one of natural trust in life and trust in their potential, unlike in anger where trust is virtually nonexistent. And finally, their process for examining life is one of release and letting go of past grudges and attachments to future possibilities. Very few religious leaders of a congregation calibrate at the level of neutrality, with the best of them surrendering over their service to the Holy Spirit so that the pastor might take a back seat so that Love can come through him or her for the time their flock is present.

If there are any pastors reading this material, I have a few pieces of advice for you, and you can take it or leave it: 1) never stop surrendering your life and your fears over to God; 2) always be honest with your congregation about your fears and the limits of your experiences with God and with your faith; 3) put away the notes, speak from personal experience, and surrender over the pulpit every time for the Holy Spirit to deliver the sermon.

For all of you reading this who attend a religious service throughout the week, if your leader doesn’t do these three things, pray for him/her to do so, and ask God to provide your congregation’s figurehead with the humility to speak from their current level of knowingness about God and not from a place where they talk about things they’ve heard others say about another’s experience with being alive and with experiencing Love. The greatest message a pastor has is the one they didn’t write, the one that comes from the heart and is based on their life with God. If your pastor doesn’t do this, or they tell you how you should live through fearful words as opposed to personal actions which produce fruit in their life, find another place to worship and a new house to call your community, or else risk your own divine connection with God dwindling as the byproduct.

TRUTHS

(Chuang Tzu) The wise man moves about, not caring about home or possessions. He lives simply. His feet leave no footprints. Thus, the perfect person is one whose vessel is empty.

(The Gospel of Thomas) There was a wealthy man who said to himself, “I should fill my storehouses with grain, and then I will be secure.” This was his intention, but that very night he died.

(The Dhammapada) There are two paths: one is directed towards wealth, the other towards freedom. The monk who understands this renounces world desires.

(The Bhagavad Gita) With a heart unattached to the outer world, those who seek Me find joy and happiness.

CONTEMPLATING ON TRUTH

The days of my childhood can be described as running about from here to there without purpose or intent, with only new experience as the basis for movement. The days of my teenage years were still spent running about from here to there, but my life took on some intent for the first time, and it was because of this intent I had a framework to base my choices upon, and a solid direction to move my body towards. As I found myself moving into my young adult years, the framework which served me so well previously, was replaced by a flimsier version of movement based upon controlled chaos, which had purpose, but with which its intent was no longer to produce the fruits of righteous action, but the withering of vines found within a garden neglected. As my adult years carried on in the same fashion as the farmer who has lost his will to properly tend to his crops, I was prematurely dying on the vine.

Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, I started caring about possessions, and living had gone from one of simplicity to one of simply existing. My feet left their prints in every direction I traveled as my adult years waned on, and there was scant a place that was tread without the ability for the world to take notice that I was losing my footing. My vessel was full of the distractions of life, full of disappointments from life, full of addictions to lesser forms of life, full of wants and desires about happiness returning to my life in the form of a lighter heart and a softer brow, but in the end, it took my feet almost walking off the cliff in order to realize that the lightest and most fruitful load a man can carry is that of an empty vessel.

It was surrendering over my intent in the moment and letting go of my attachment to the life that I was currently living, which enabled me to finally be able to become free from fear in all its forms. And today, in this moment, the thought of deliberately leaving my print on this world no longer matters much, for it either will or it won’t happen, but it definitely won’t be because I forced it upon the history books. The gift of neutrality is this: either something will happen, or it won’t, either way “I’m cool.” Neutrality, a raise in consciousness from courage, holds a tremendous amount of power within it. To be good with any outcome of an endeavor is the first true sign that happiness as a subjective reality is setting in and coming to dominate.

We all come into this life at a time predetermined and chosen, chosen not only by a creator but also by the creation. Once born, what is left up to us is not to know when we will die, but how we choose to live once we are incarnated again into this particular physicality. We are given the gift of choice in this lifetime, the choice to be or not to be, and that is not only the question but ultimately the answer. It is because of this gift that one can choose to live each day like it’s their last, which helps grow the possibilities of today. In direct opposition to living this way is living like every day will be followed by yet another one identical to it, which can lead a person to believe there’s more time for salvation and evolution than what’s present now. We came into this life on a particular day and we will leave it on a particular day, but the time in-between is why we are here, for it is the space in-between the goal posts that one plays the game, with either goal post only representing what the boundaries of the playing field are.

Planning for your future self is a worthy and noble endeavor, but not at the cost of losing sight that this moment is the only gift of certainty that one has in life. When we store up riches for the future and we choose not to share with the world that which we possess in the current, we run the risk of entering the next world without the grain-house of the soul properly stockpiled. There is a fine balance between preparing for old age and truly living while you’re on your way there, and I have threaded that needle very closely at times, but the secret to keeping both halves within balance, and the truth of the matter for myself, both sides of the coin (life & death) are equally important as long as the owner of this precious metal has no attachment to which way the coin flip goes.

Do we want to be on death’s bed wishing we had done more for people, or do we want to rest peacefully as we slip into the next chapter certain that we left the world a better place than we found it? This is not your first lifetime. This is not your first rodeo. This will not be the last time you do the dance of life. Some of you, however, have found a savior, and some of you will find enlightenment, others will find happiness, joy, peace and even prosperity, but the flipside of storing your riches on earth as opposed to in heaven, is that you’ll miss out experiencing heaven on earth as well.

There was a time in my life when I was consumed with what the world appeared to be able to provide me, namely in the form of happiness through acquisition. Whether it be the allure of fancy cars, large homes, expensive dinners, nights out on the town, a particular type of romantic partner, and whatever else promised external relief from having to look within myself for answers to continued unhappiness. I remember the day I departed from that path and set sail towards the great unknown world of what God had in store for my daily goings on, and for the unknown land of happiness found within as opposed to the hope of momentary dopamine hits found through another purchase. It was through surrendering over my wants and desires on a moment-to-moment basis for a prolonged period of time, before there was any empty space to begin pointing towards a path of finding my heart affixed close to that which created me. It was as though I had allowed the pursuit of glamour to build a wall around my inner being, cutting it off completely from what some refer to as, “the sunlight of the spirit.”

However, today, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, pursuing the world left me full of emptiness. But living as a monk would, with regards to letting go of desires, wants, attachments and expectations, I somehow found what I had been searching for from all the shiny objects outside of me for so long – happiness. You see, happiness is not a reality only for the special few, it’s a choice for anyone who stops living for themselves and starts asking a basic question of the world around them: where can I be of service? The truth is, wealth is not a good nor bad thing, and freedom is not better than modern day indentured servitude to base desires, because they’re both subjective realities that lead inevitably towards the same realization: there’s more to this life than meets the eye. I could not have experienced freedom without first chasing after the trappings of the shiny world around me, only to come up internally empty from the pursuit. The beautiful thing about pursuing freedom as opposed to chasing after wealth is that a byproduct of experiencing freedom as your reality can also lead to immense wealth as a result. However, when one chooses to put the pursuit of wealth above their pursuit of serving God, freedom never follows, only spiritual slavery. If you desire happiness, pursue freedom over wealth, and wealth will either come or won’t come as a result but not because you did anything to get it.

In case you have not figured it out yet, surrender is the key to finding joy and happiness in your everyday life. When I stop and focus back on all of the time wasted in this lifetime and others where I spent my waking hours attached to what others thought of me or fretted about what would happen “if” or “if only,” I am brought back to this moment of right now, this very second, where the me of today can barely recognize the life I lived yesterday. I chose to pursue a connection with God over an attachment to the outer world, in what many would perceive as an aggressive pursuit, but in all reality, what I did at the basest level was constantly and consistently surrender everything over to my Creator until there was nothing left of the old Mason to hang a hat on. What happens through deep surrender is life gets re-contextualized, and new choice matrixes begin presenting themselves as viable choice hierarchies, and those new streams of choice create a new foundation for living life.

Today, I am rebuilt on a foundation of connectedness to the source, and life looks nothing like it did at earlier points in this body. Today, synchronicity guides movement, and today, a true communion with the higher self is what shines through from moment to moment. The key to un-attaching from the outside world is first realizing one is not of this world to start with, but wholly and better still, holy just visiting.

Step two towards un-attachment requires letting go of wants, desires, expectations and attachments to what one believes defines who one is in the world at large. The third step towards finding joy and happiness in everyday life is being able to recognize these gifts in real time once they arrive. The last obvious point of life that many would consider a secret, which I will share now, is that happiness is a choice, and just as much of a choice as sorrow, but it takes consistently surrendering the ego structure in order to witness life from a place of having a “heart unattached to the outer world.” Having a heart unattached to the outer world doesn’t mean the world will disappear from view, or that you’ll be fired from your job, or that you’ll vanish into a mindset of “nothing matters.” Being unattached to the outer world simply opens up room in your day-to-day life where natural states of experiencing God have room to seep through the cracks forming within the personal ego structure. If you desire happiness and joy as regular subjective experiences, stop wanting anything, forgive everyone all the time, and surrender over every thought to God.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR STEP SIX

This is one of the quickest steps we have in the program for transcending the ego and fear in all of its forms. This step sets up a second part found within step seven, which is also mutually as quick but quite a bit loftier in its attempt. For this step, find a quiet place to read the step and the prayer internally. Once you have taken a few minutes to meditate and pray on what this step and the prayer says, read out loud as declarative sentences the step and the prayer. If you don’t mean this step or don’t have time for this prayer, put the information away and come back to it.

STEP SIX

I am entirely ready to have God remove my attachments to the baggage of life found through steps 4 and 5.

STEP SIX PRAYER

I am ready for your help oh Lord, and for you to take the things that brought shame and destruction into my life away from who I am moving forward.

if you live itexperience neutralitylovetruthgodsurrenderforgivenessgratitudechoosing lovethe gift of choicehappinessjoypeacefreedomegopositionalitychoose god

mason wooldridge

“IYLI” CHAPTER SIX: EXPERIENCING NEUTRALITY

“DD” THE HEART

“DD” THE MIND