World of Projections

by Dr. Sheri Rosenthal -

It’s so interesting to see the way people behave once they begin a spiritual path. As their awareness starts to blossom, they often feel compelled to reflect to those around them, the issues, faults and problems of others. 

The first thing we begin to see more clearly is the behavior of others, as our own personal behavior is more difficult to observe. 

Looking Inward

This is because the ego mind is protective of its territory and does not want to be challenged, changed or usurped. 

It takes an open heart and mind to be able to train oneself to look inward and concentrate on oneself rather than what is happening “outside” of us.

A perfect example of this is when a disagreement occurs between two people. We may become frustrated with that person for not seeing things the way we feel they should be seen. 

When we feel we’re right, we project our inner energy of frustration and anger (which is the result of our judgmental thought forms) on the other person and they perceive that -- usually unconsciously. 

They in turn start to react to the perceived judgment and become defensive. Then, we in turn feel compelled to let them know that they are behaving badly and that they have issues. 

However, we’re not taking responsibility for what we’re creating in that situation. 

We’ve been projecting our emotions outward and not recognizing what the result of that action is. The other person’s defensiveness is the result of OUR behavior and pointing out to them that they have issues is not awareness. That is using our spiritual path like a hammer to judge others with.

That's why it’s imperative that upon embarking on our spiritual path, we be very careful to avoid telling others what we feel they are doing. 

Focusing on Ourselves

Instead we must focus on ourselves and what we’re creating with our words, emotions, judgments and opinions.

This can be quite challenging because we’ve been domesticated by society to look outward all at all times; we believe that events are happening outside of us. This way of seeing the world causes us to take on a victim point of view but in truth there is no outside of the one to be victimized by. 

Since everyone is part of the one, we are always co-creating life in billions of combinations, like a kaleidoscope. Still in the end, the other person’s side of the fence so to speak, is not our concern. Only what we are thinking, projecting and doing matters -- as that is the only thing we can change.

Consider

I encourage you to deeply consider how you are projecting your energy, emotions, thoughts and feelings outward and what the possible reactions to your behavior might be.

Rather than jumping to the conclusion that they are to blame, instead ask yourself: How am I co-creating this situation and how am I compelling this person to react in this way with my projections? Let me know what you observe, you might be surprised! As always, I wish you the best on your path.

sherirosenthal.com

The Duality Dilemma

by Dr. Sheri Rosenthal - 

As an ex-physician and scientist, I find it exciting to see spirituality and quantum mechanics physics melding into one in recent years. Of course intellectually we can acknowledge they have always been one -- in the same way that we can all agree that duality is simply illusion.

However, as much as we can understand the concept of duality and discuss it at dinner parties and such, we still find it hard to not be attached to its existence in our daily lives.

Werner Heisenberg, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics (remember the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?) and Nobel Prize winner (for physics in 1932) once said:

"The common division of the world into subject and object, inner world and outer world, body and soul is no longer adequate."

As spiritual warriors, how do we see this powerful observation?

Today, more than ever, I feel we have a clear understanding that these divisions exist solely within the conceptual structure of our minds. 

Indeed, we possess the ultimate power and capability to eliminate those divisions and change our reality.

However, if we do not take the action to embrace our birthright of infinite awareness, we will live and die in an illusion feeling victimized by the “outer world” and life circumstances.

We can say that the pain we experience in life is the result of our attachment to duality and our lack of awareness of its non-truth.

The key to effectively dealing with duality is in engaging our awareness in both the way we think, and in the way we use the word to create our reality. 

It is extremely common for us to speak using judgmental words which create separation without awareness. We say things like:

• I had a terrible day today
• or That person was so irritating
• or The president is such an idiot! 

Not only are these statements common examples of our lack of awareness but they are not truth in any sense of the word. A great place to begin understanding how we engage in duality is to practice seeing the world as it is to the best of our abilities.

For example we can re-word those statements above to read as such:

• This day did not meet my mind’s expectations in any way, shape or form!  
• or Gosh, I took that person’s behavior personally today and allowed them to bother me 
• or I do not feel that the president is taking actions that are serving us and I would take a different action if I were in his place.

Can you see the difference between both sets of statements?

The first set makes it seem that we are the victims of life and contains judgments perpetuating duality. The second set of statements shows responsibility for ones perception and is simply stating what is from one's personal point of view.

To be even clearer -- there is no right or wrong and there is no such thing as them and me -- as Werner Heisenberg is sharing in his famous statement above.

I hope you also notice that the second set of statements are not emotional in any way, whereas the first set of statements are very emotional.

Remember, if you speak with judgment you will always be creating emotional reactions in both yourself and the person to whom you are speaking to. 

In the end you will not be supporting the oneness of life; instead you will be contributing to further separation and pain.

So are you ready to end your attachment to engaging in duality and meld quantum mechanics and spirituality together in your own heart and mind? 

I encourage you to start doing so right now by practicing re-writing your communications. See for yourself how wonderful the results can be! As always, I wish you the best on your path.

sherirosenthal.com

Truth Liberates

by Dr. Sheri Rosenthal -

What is False Will Make You Suffer:

So often we get caught up in the idea that it’s what’s outside of us that is causing our suffering, and if we could make changes to those aspects, life would be better. We think that if our father wasn’t so angry – we could get along better with him, or express our love more deeply.

We imagine that if we had another job we would look forward to work and express our creativity more fully. We tell our friends that if we had a relationship with someone who was supportive of our goals and aspirations, rather than someone who did not understand us, everything would be different.

Well, the truth is that life is not perfect according to what we might imagine in our minds. 

It is filled with folks who have their own mind and point of view about all kinds of issues. People have wounds and sore spots that we aren’t always aware of, and they express themselves through the filter of these wounds. It would be nice if our parents were kind and loving, our partners in our personal and business lives were supportive of our creative abilities and if people honored our desires and wishes in life.

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

It’s not likely that these people will manifest change tomorrow. Therefore, waiting for tomorrow to be happy is not a very productive life strategy! As spiritually aware people we must take responsibility for how we choose to create our lives despite what others are doing and saying. Yes, it’s possible to express our love to our father even if he is an angry person.

If we wait for him to change first – we could be waiting into our next lifetime! No, we must make the effort first because we want to love and because our love is not based upon what someone else is doing – in other words it is unconditional.

BEING THE ACTION

The same applies to waiting to express ourselves fully in life, or waiting for the people in our life to change, or support our dreams and desires. We must be the action in life, not the reaction. When we wait for others to take action first, we make ourselves the reaction to their actions.

If we believe that we create our reality and that we hold divine power – then we will take responsibility for being the action and allow the others in our life to be the reaction. 

Once you change they will do so in kind – although you must be patient and allow them to adjust to your changes. Give them time to digest your change in actions so that they can create new reactions. Then you can evaluate from there whether or not your actions need tweaking.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj once said: "It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy, truth liberates."

Wise words! It’s time we see the falsehood in our thinking and recognize the truth. We create our own suffering from these false ideas and ways of framing our lives.

It’s up to us to make those changes right now and take responsibility for life and the stories we tell ourselves about it. As always, I wish you the best on your path.

sherirosenthal.com

Beyond Perceptional Limits

by Dr. Sheri Rosenthal -

As students of spirituality we are on the path to personal freedom, peace and moving through life with fearlessness. One of the biggest challenges to our freedom is our need to cling to our perceptions and believe that they’re truth.

Before I continue with our dialogue, let’s agree for the purpose of our conversation, that freedom is a state of being where we experience lack of restraints, confinement or controls of any kind.

So why would I bring up the idea of freedom in reference to perception - what's the connection?

From a scientific point of view, we can say we are beings of perception. 

We exist to take in light from our surroundings and interpret it according to the limits and possibilities of the machine that is translating that information. On the other hand, we become trapped when we believe that the machine’s conclusions are definitive truth.

If we do not have the awareness of this process, we will automatically be subject to the restrains and restrictions of the machine rather than moving past them to the freedom of absolute consciousness.

Let’s take a moment to put this into practical terms. 

Imagine you’ve just finished grocery shopping and as you’re pulling out of your parking spot. The person in the car behind you quickly pulls out at the exact same time and hits your car. You jump out of your car ready to scream at that person for driving like an idiot, smashing your car, being reckless and blind as a bat.

However, when the person gets out of their car they are crying and deeply upset. The person relays to you that they just received a call that their mother had passed away and they were stricken by grief. They didn’t see that there was someone pulling out behind them because of all the tears in their eyes. In that moment, all your anger drains away, and you offer to assist them in any way you can.

So what just happened here? 

In our imaginary story, your eyes and ears took in light and your brain translated that into a picture or virtual reality where your car intersected with another car. Your mind told you that this situation was bad and further judged the other person to be wrong and irresponsible.

The result of this interpretation was anger and resentment. In that moment, you were trapped by the limitations of your machine - and fell for the conclusions your mind came to in this situation. You lost your peace because you believed what your mind was telling you - you thought it was truth and you trusted it.

As a result, you lost your personal freedom and were at the mercy of your fear-based emotions.

In Buddhism, the Diamond Sutra says,

“Where there is perception, there is deception.” 

As students of spirituality, we must use our awareness to transcend the way we’ve been trained to perceive and to learn to see without the machine’s constraints and preconceptions.

This is true freedom, having the ability to interact within this reality without being bound to our own points of view, opinions and prejudices. 

I challenge you to ask yourself, “Is this truth,” whenever you are in a situation where you are tempted to believe yourself. See what happens!

sherirosenthal.com

Your Authenticity and Integrity

by Dr. Sheri Rosenthal - 

In spirituality we read much about authenticity and integrity but I’m not always sure we have a clear understanding of these terms.

Some folks have told me they believe these words refer to being honest and true to themselves but I most often feel that they are speaking about their ego-self rather than the true self inspired by the divine within.

By the time we are adults we actually believe that the way we are is our authentic self, but normally this is far from the truth.

We’ve been deceived into believing that what we think about ourselves is what’s real – rather than the no-thingness of the Infinite within us.

François de La Rochefoucauld, the French noble and writer has been noted to have said; 

"We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves. When we are young, we mold ourselves to become what others tell us to be until we finally believe that is who we are. Since we are domesticated using punishment and reward, we seek the reward which comes from doing and becoming what others expect from us.  

Fear of punishment is a strong incentive. Eventually we no longer even know who we truly are – only what we believe ourselves to be. The disguise is complete, our integrity and authenticity gone, traded for a biscuit or a shred of love."

It is this very observation that we must be on guard for in ourselves in every moment. 

By questioning our motives and our thinking, we can begin to get clarity on what is truth and what is not.

It takes persistence and faith that what is ultimately true will reveal itself.  In the end it is harder and requires more energy to be what we are not, than what we really are.

The disguise takes personal power to maintain and requires constant internal dialogue to uphold. In other words, our constant reiteration of what we believe about ourselves and our world in our mind, helps keep the construct of the disguise in place.

Once we take the time to quiet our thoughts, we can see the construct of the mind fall apart and we are no longer certain that what we believe about ourselves, or anyone else for that matter, is truth. 

It is in these moments that the truth reveals itself and we see the light of our integrity and authenticity shining through. 

We glimpse the perfection of our divinity and see that our faith has been sorely misplaced. And even if letting the disguise fall away is uncertain and oftentimes frightening, our ultimate freedom of expression is well worth the temporary fear we experience in letting go.

In that moment we no longer seek approval or love from others though our words and actions; we no longer need the biscuit or the shred of love.

Our actions are genuine expressions of life moving through us, rather than from the neediness of our wounded ego.

We are no longer diminished by the disguise; we expand to the width and breadth of the universe, knowing we no longer are trapped and bounded by falsehood.

We realize deeply that when we are no longer beholding to anyone for approval or love, we are whole or one unto ourselves and we have embodied our integrity fully and completely.

This is the reward of our spiritual path:

Ultimate freedom from the masks we wear that seemingly keep us safe but steal our greatness and our personal power.

I encourage you to go beyond your comfort zone and challenge yourself to let your disguise go, it never really looked that great on you anyway.

sherirosenthal.com

Beyond the Limits of Perception

by Dr. Sheri Rosenthal -

As students of spirituality we are on the path to personal freedom, peace and moving through life with fearlessness.

One of the biggest challenges to our freedom is our need to cling to our perceptions and believe that they’re truth.

Before I continue with our dialogue, let’s agree for the purpose of our conversation, that freedom is a state of being where we experience lack of restraints, confinement or controls of any kind.

So why would I bring up the idea of freedom in reference to perception - what's the connection?

From a scientific point of view, we can say we are beings of perception. 

We exist to take in light from our surroundings and interpret it according to the limits and possibilities of the machine that is translating that information.

On the other hand, we become trapped when we believe that the machine’s conclusions are definitive truth. If we do not have the awareness of this process, we will automatically be subject to the restrains and restrictions of the machine rather than moving past them to the freedom of absolute consciousness.

Let’s take a moment to put this into practical terms. 

Imagine you’ve just finished grocery shopping and as you’re pulling out of your parking spot. The person in the car behind you quickly pulls out at the exact same time and hits your car.

You jump out of your car ready to scream at that person for driving like an idiot, smashing your car, being reckless and blind as a bat.

However, when the person gets out of their car they are crying and deeply upset. The person relays to you that they just received a call that their mother had passed away and they were stricken by grief.

They didn’t see that there was someone pulling out behind them because of all the tears in their eyes. In that moment, all your anger drains away and you offer to assist them in any way you can.

So what just happened here? 

In our imaginary story, your eyes and ears took in light and your brain translated that into a picture or virtual reality where your car intersected with another car.

Your mind told you that this situation was bad and further judged the other person to be wrong and irresponsible.

The result of this interpretation was anger and resentment. In that moment, you were trapped by the limitations of your machine - and fell for the conclusions your mind came to in this situation.

You lost your peace because you believed what your mind was telling you - you thought it was truth and you trusted it.

As a result, you lost your personal freedom and were at the mercy of your fear-based emotions. In Buddhism, the Diamond Sutra says,

“Where there is perception, there is deception.” 

As students of spirituality, we must use our awareness to transcend the way we’ve been trained to perceive and to learn to see without the machine’s constraints and preconceptions. 

This is true freedom, having the ability to interact within this reality without being bound to our own points of view, opinions and prejudices.

I challenge you to ask yourself, “Is this truth,” whenever you are in a situation where you are tempted to believe yourself. See what happens!

sherirosenthal.com