An Astonishing Association
One day a computer instructor noticed that he had not secured enough work for the upcoming Christmas/New Year season. Without the income generated by the work, he would be hard-pressed to pay his bills. Though he made an effort to secure new work for this normally slow holiday season, nothing came of it. On the other hand, life had presented him with the opportunity to learn a new software technology. Since this was a slow work period, it seemed like an ideal time to take up the studies. Unfortunately, his heart was not into it, and instead dwelled on his lack of work and potential financial problems that could erupt at any time.
However, when he considered the issue again, he had a change of heart, realizing that his attitude about the opportunity was wrong. As a result, he decided to take up the work and plunged himself into learning the application. Interestingly, the next day he received a call from his agent informing him that the entire holiday season had now been booked with computer instruction work!
From this true-life example, we see that what we experience on the outside is a direct reflection of our consciousness within. There seems to be a correspondence between our inner psychological condition – our habits, wants, feelings, attitudes, opinions, and beliefs -- and how the world takes shape around us. This suggests that if we were constantly shifting to the positive, the world would continuously respond in our favor.
Interestingly, life’s response to our consciousness can take shape in two ways – positively or negatively. E.g. just after I decide that I will no longer be negative towards a co-worker, I am informed that I've been selected to head an exciting, bonus-filled project in my company. This is a positive response to a more positive attitude. Inversely, a moment after I feel an intense negative emotion towards a fellow worker, I’m informed that an important project I have been looking forward to starting has suddenly been cancelled. This is a negative response to a wrong-headed attitude and emotion.
From this perspective, we see that our normal view of life – of what is logical and possible, of how cause and effect interrelate, of how space and time function – is rendered obsolete. Instead, we develop a new perception of the connection and association between objects and individuals in the universe. It is the principle of “inner-outer correspondence” in action.
Remarkably, recent developments in quantum physics confirm this correspondence. Scientific experiments have shown that two particles of matter can affect one another even though they are on opposite sides of the globe, or even the universe! Scientists have conclusively proven that if an electron of a single atom shifts its spin direction, a second electron of that same atom hundreds or even thousands of miles away will suddenly begin to shift its spin as well. This phenomenon of “non-local connections” is a physical version of the universal principle of inner-outer correspondence that we are addressing here. It accounts not only for the subtle association between material objects, but to our emotions, feelings, attitudes, and decisions as well. When we make an inner change, we can affect conditions and attract positive circumstance instantaneously from anywhere in the world.
Still we are compelled to ask: why does this singularity exist? What enables this startling association between our consciousness and the world around us? The short answer is that everything in the universe is related in consciousness. All existence, seen or unseen forms a unity of relations, associations, and purposes. Thus, the separation we ordinarily make between our consciousness within and the world outside ourselves is an illusion, a falsehood rooted in a fundamental ignorance of our being. However, as we rise in consciousness, as we move to a deeper poise within, we begin to perceive that essential oneness and unity behind all existence that enables this fantastic relationships amongst objects and individuals in creation.
The Web of Life
And yet if everything is inextricably related in the cosmos, there must be some mechanism that allows for this harmonic association. There must be some coordinating system that connects individuals and objects to related circumstance across space and time.
We can imagine that all things -- individuals, objects, forces, energies -- are connected in an organized pattern across a vast “web” of life. Along this web, corresponding and associated physical, vital, mental, and spiritual entities interrelate and interact. E.g., when life presses on me and I make the choice to make a decisive change in my attitude, I set in motion a force, a vibration, a disturbance, along one or more of the strands or pathways of this web I am related to. When that occurs, corresponding elements or individuals along that particular strand respond and “track back” to us as we align with their unfoldings, appearing as an instance of sudden good fortune to our person.
Just as a telecommunication system responds to pulses of energy by instantly sending currents of force back to the originating party, so to changes in consciousness release energies that attract and align with corresponding conditions along the grid. In this ultra-subtle organized field of existence, time, space, finiteness, and limitation of the possible are replaced by no-time, spacelessness, and a limitless possibility. Mira Alfassa, the individual known to her followers as “The Mother”, and a partner of the Indian sage and seer Sri Aurobindo commented on this web of life in the early 1970s:
"I have a curious impression of a kind of web -- a web with ... like very loose threads, I mean not tightly meshed, connecting all events, and if you have power over one of these webs, there's a whole field of circumstances that apparently have nothing to do with each other but which are linked together there in such a way that one necessarily implies the existence of the other ... And I have the impression it's something that envelops the earth.
And it's not mental. They are circumstances that depend on one another, in a completely invisible way outwardly, without any mental logic, and yet as though connected to one another.
If you are conscious, really conscious of that, that's how you can change circumstances."
Again, one wonders why such a thing would exist in the first place. What could account for such a profound organizing mechanism, with the capacity to channel, coordinate, and associate all of life’s energies and all of life’s elements and beings across the cosmos?
Our own view is that behind all existence there is a spiritual element that enables and supports this ultra organized intelligence. Every part of our being, as well as every aspect, element, object, and being in the universe contains, and is supported by a hidden spiritual essence. From out of this originating power has emerged a vast, subtle (i.e. invisible) system of organization, reflecting an essential integral Knowledge, Wisdom, and Consciousness of that Infinite Being behind. And it is the foundation through which the Web of Life and the principle of Inner-Outer Correspondence is made possible.
Self-Analysis
Think of one or two important problems or challenges you are having in life. Analyze it in terms of a corresponding weakness on your part -- whether a wanting attitude, belief, habit, decision, or action. Now consider how to overcome that limitation, and act on it ASAP. Then watch as life respond in your favor, reflecting on the outside your new view, perspectives, awareness within.
--Roy Posner 00:59, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
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