When I was in my previous office, some 8 years back, my manager told our team a story that had a deep insight in it (which I did not really see back then, but something I realized later). Here’s how the story goes
“There was a puppy in the woods, he was feeling sad and depressed with his life. He entered a house of mirrors (all the walls lined up with several hundreds of small mirrors). When he entered the house, he saw hundreds of sad puppies around him. Where-ever he looked he saw sad puppies. He became sure now that the world was full of sadness, because there were so many sad puppies. This confirmed the belief in his mind that sadness is all there is to life, and he became more sad and depressed as he left the house of mirrors.
There was a second puppy in the woods, he was feeling very angry within and was frustrated with his life. He had a scorn on his face and his eyes were narrow with anger. He entered the house of mirrors and saw himself surrounded by hundreds of angry puppies. He was only seeing his reflection on the mirrors, but he did not realize that. He snarled at the reflections and the reflections snarled back at him. In his mind he became convinced that this world is full of anger, and that he needed to defend himself against these angry puppies all the time. He came out of the house angrier and more frustrated with the world.
There was a third puppy in the woods, he was feeling full of joy and he was romping around with his tail wagging. He entered the house of mirrors and was extremely thrilled to see hundreds of happy puppies wagging their tails, smiling at him with glee in their eyes. He felt blessed to know that this world was full of happiness and that he had nothing to worry about, because there were so many happy puppies out there for company. He came out of the house feeling even more joyful, with a deep conviction in the goodness of life.”
If you replace the puppy with yourself, and you replace the house of mirrors with the external reality of your life, you can make a direct co-relation and realize the truth hidden in this story.
Your external reality is just a reflection of your inner space
Your external reality is like this house of mirrors. It can only reflect back to you, what you are feeling inside you. If you are feeling crummy about yourself, your will see realities that reflect this crummy feeling back at you through some physical manifestation. If you are feeling angry within, you will see your reality reflect this anger back at you through some person or a circumstance. Most people try to fight the external reality, they try to fix it and change it through their actions, without ever bothering to first sort out their inner feelings, their inner thoughts and their inner conflicts. Fighting the external reality is like punching the mirror – it serves no purpose other than reflect more anger and hatred.
It’s futile to keep wanting the external reality to be different without first sorting out the inner negativity. Every individual human consciousness has the potential to be a channel through which wellness and abundance can flow into external reality. When you align with negativity, you can only perpetuate more of it – no matter how good your intentions are, no matter how caring you are. So when you look at negativity around you and you allow it to influence your thinking, you are unconsciously perpetuating the very negativity that you don’t desire.
A true change can only flower through when you make a shift in your way of thinking, when you consciously make a choice to not defend negativity and stay focused on aligning with thoughts that are in tune with love/joy/peace. If you can’t find positive thoughts in your mind, allow yourself to just be in a space of relaxed “being” without believing the negativity of the mind. It’s your belief in negativity that gives it the power to influence your reality, a thought which is not believed does not have the power to manifest into a reality.
Let go of your conviction in negativity
A lot of humans have a deep conviction in negativity, so much so that they affirm suffering to be the reality of life. Of course there is enough evidence around in our physical reality to confirm to our minds that there is plenty of suffering in our world. But if you allow the external reality to reinforce negative thinking, it’s similar to being the angry or sad puppy that believed that the world is angry/sad because it saw such a reflection – without realizing that it’s your own inner negativity that is being reflected back at you. Let me clarify that when I say “your” negativity, I mean the negativity of the human consciousness as a whole – it’s not just a personal thing. You are part of the human consciousness, and you will see the reflection of all the thinking that is present in the human consciousness as a whole. So even if you have a positive mind, you will still see a lot of negativity around you because you are still a part of human consciousness which has a lot of negativity in it (presently).
It’s your choice as to how you respond to the negative physical reality. If you allow it to make you negative, then you just become another channel through which negativity gets perpetuated. But if you make the choice to stay aligned with your true nature as a pure positive energy by aligning with thoughts of love/abundance/joy/wellness, you become a channel through which well-being can flow into your life and this world as a whole. Every human who aligns with their true nature of love/joy based being, becomes a channel through which human consciousness as a whole starts transforming. So instead of focusing on the physical reality, start focusing on your inner space of being. Stop defending negativity, and stop believing in the argument of the mind in the favor of negativity. All thoughts that are based in fear/lack/hatred are rooted in contradiction to your true nature as a pure positive being.
Don’t use the physical reality around you as an evidence to support your right to think negatively, because the reality by itself is just a reflection – it’s not the truth, it’s just reflecting the thoughts of human consciousness. You can bring a transformation to your reality by shifting your way of thinking, by aligning with thoughts of wellness, abundance, expansion, love and joy.
beautiful and true.thanks:)
Hi Sen
I am still trying to come to a deeper understanding of external versus internal.:
‘Most people try to fight the external reality, they try to fix it and change it through their actions, without ever bothering to first sort out their inner feelings, their inner thoughts and their inner conflicts. Fighting the external reality is like punching the mirror – it serves no purpose other than reflect more anger and hatred.’
I accept the external as a reflection of how I feel within, and I focus on my inner self rather than the external mirror.
But I think I may be taking this point too much to heart because I am now getting caught up in questionning whether to speak up about situations that I’m unhappy about e.g. working too much, being exploited etc. Because the reason I’m experiencing such situations is because something is misaligned internally. So the focus should be on realigning internally, and once this happens I will start seeing evidence of this externally, i.e. the situation will change without any need for me to “do” something to change it or “say” anything, because in a sense this is trying to change/fix/blame the external reality.
So following this line of thinking, what is the point of ever speaking up? Of communicating grievances? Of protests and demos?
I have a deep sense that communicating grievances and speaking up is vitally important, especially collectively with other people. But my mind is confused between challenging the external in this way versus working on the internal to bring about a more positive external reality automatically which renders speaking up/communicating/demos etc unnecessary?
nvibes, the understanding you are missing out on is that “action” can come from two vibrations 1. From a place of alignment 2. From a place of disconnection. The “action” may externally look the same, but one person may be taking that action from a place of alignment, whereas another person may be taking that action from a place of disconnection. For example, communicating a grievance can come from a place of alignment where you are just moving from an inspiration, or it can come from a place of disconnection where you are purely moving from a place fear/hatred – one is a conscious movement fueled by inner guidance, another is a movement fueled by negativity. Sometimes to sit without communicating grievances is just an act of confusion of the mind, where it lacks the wisdom to sense the truth in a situation.
Basically the bottom line is, connect with your space of being first, and then move from a place of inner wisdom. I can’t tell you what is the right course of action for you, you will need to check in with your own inner wisdom for that – protesting may be the right course of action, or quitting may be the right course of action, you will have to find out within yourself. If you are not “clear”, it just means you need to connect with your inner guidance more. The reason you are confused is because you don’t feel confident of your inner guidance, you are not sure what is the voice of inner guidance and what is the voice of the mind’s negativity. To come to a clarity you will just need to spend sometime letting go of “fixing it” with the mind, and just relax into your space of being allowing for the inspiration to be heard. That’s the reason why I mention that reducing mind momentum is the key/pre-requisite to alignment, when you have a high mind momentum it’s very difficult to know which action is coming from its negative momentum and which action is coming from inner guidance. For now, just focus on connecting more with your space of being and get a sense of what’s the inspiration – if the inspiration is to protest, and speak out to the management about your grievances, go ahead and do that, the action is not “negative” by itself, it’s the energy that drives the action that’s important. Sometimes wisdom may dictate that we kill a terrorist for the larger good, so killing as an act is not negative by itself, it’s the energy that motivates it – it can come from wisdom or from negativity.
Thanks Sen, this makes a lot of sense