Outgrowing the Paradigm
Superando el paradigma
A student describes feeling pushed by life out of a familiar situation and into the unknown, and asks whether this movement is something real or just a story. The teacher responds by exploring how fixed paradigms of reality dissolve, and what it means to live in the flow of not-knowing.
Outgrowing the Paradigm
A student describes feeling pushed by life out of a familiar situation and into the unknown, and asks whether this movement is something real or just a story. The teacher responds by exploring how fixed paradigms of reality dissolve, and what it means to live in the flow of not-knowing.
I wanted to ask whether I'm interpreting something correctly, which I'm probably not. You're talking about the unknown, and I feel like I'm being pushed out of my job. It's almost like the universe is pushing me out because it's the right thing to do, and then my character naturally wants to hold on to the status quo because it's known. In my heart I know that leaving is the right thing, but then my ego, or whatever you want to call it, says, "You haven't got a backup." And I wonder: is it that things just happen and move? People talk about vibrations and energy shifts, and it feels like something is happening regardless. It seems to make sense to not need to know so much.
I think you're expressing yourself very well. It's just that when we start talking about this kind of thing, it's very hard to communicate. When we struggle to communicate, it's because we're touching on something deeper. If we're talking about how to make a cake, it's very easy to communicate, provided you know how to make a cake. But now we're talking about something that borders on the unknown, and it starts to challenge language.
On the edge of a paradigm
I'm feeling into what you're sharing, and it seems like you've come to a certain kind of edge. That's a positive thing, but it's challenging your whole paradigm of reality. You're grappling with what is known, with how life works, with questions about flow and energy, because in a sense you're stepping out of a paradigm that made it all known and understandable. "This is my role, I have to do this, life does that, I do this in response, and this is how I function." It's very understood, very closed. That is exactly what this work will inevitably challenge. It will bring that kind of system to a bit of a breakdown, and it needs to be rearranged so that the paradigm is more aligned with this process.
At some point you will know the whole paradigm itself as just a paradigm. When there is no more fixed paradigm, paradigms are simply recognized as paradigms. They're useful or not. It's like asking, "What tool do I use to make a cake? Is it a spoon? What's the most efficient thing?" You create paradigms to address the situation. That's what the mind is good at.
The paradigm we mistake for reality
What happens is that we grow up and are taught a paradigm by our parents and our society, and it becomes fixed. In reality, reality is not a paradigm. Then there's a social agreement on what reality is, and we all share the paradigm, or we don't, and then we have wars, political debates, conflicts of paradigms. But the core thing is that we grow up with a paradigm, forget it's a paradigm, and relate to it as reality. If we are to be free, it's freedom from the paradigm. I often call it map-making, or the interpretation of reality. Other teachers call it "the story." The pointing is the same: that's just a story, not reality. And I would add that a story can be useful in the moment, if we know it's a story and apply the right kind of paradigm. For example: I'm going to make a cake. What's the paradigm for making a cake?
Life pushing you into the unknown
What you're describing is a sense that life is pushing you out of this job, that it's happening, that there isn't a lot of "you" in it. Life is just doing that, pushing you into an unknown. And there's a sense of, correct me if I'm interpreting you wrong, a part of you resisting it but a part of you knowing it's right. At the heart level it feels right.
To me, this signals that you are outgrowing a paradigm of how you were interpreting life, your reality, what you are, and how things work. I would say yes, it is a movement into the unknown. I'm pointing to an unknown that's a lot more absolute and total, but as I point to it, depending on who's listening and where each of you are, it's going to move you into your next step of unknown. If we're very much inside a paradigm, it's going to move us out of that. If we're right on the edge of all paradigms, it's going to move us out of that too, because it's always a direction into the unknown.
Knowing what you are not
People talk about the knowing of your true nature, but the word "knowing" is tricky there, because in a sense it's the knowing of everything you are not. Everything we believed ourselves to have been that we are not. When all of that collapses, there is a knowing of your true nature, but it's no longer knowing in the same way. It's a seeing of the unknown and emptiness that we are, to put words to it. But again, those words are insufficient. It's not really emptiness, not really consciousness, not really awareness, because those are all words from which we can create an image of what they are.
The co-creative flow
You also mentioned a vibration, the energy of a flow. I would say yes, it starts to feel more like what I describe as a co-creative dance with life. There's a flow where things are happening and something is moving and acting, but it's not clearly "us." It's like a flow coming through us. Subjectively it is us, but it's not an us that is known, not an "I" that is fixed.
For example, if you wonder what your next thought is going to be, and you really look at that, you have no idea. If I ask you to contemplate choosing between the number one and two, just contemplate that, and then you choose: where did that choice come from? Could you anticipate whether you were going to choose one or two? It's completely unknown. Put a timer on. In three minutes you have to choose between number one and two. The timer goes off. You choose. Where did that choice come from? Was it really you? Were you able to anticipate it? Were you able to control it? Not really. The thought of the choice happens when the alarm goes off. You contemplate one and two, and a choice arises, spontaneously. You don't know what it will be. You could repeat this every minute and still not predict it. So where is it all coming from?
It is experienced as something moving through us, which is why I describe it as a co-creative flow. There is a universal movement, and we are a part of it. We are both the small body-mind person and we are the universe. That's something we can actually realize more and more. There is a flow and dance in the unknown, a spontaneous arising, the birth and death of every moment.
Terrifying and freeing
The experience is terrifying the more we move into that and realize that aspect of reality, but it's also expansive and freeing. The challenges of life, when life doesn't go how we predicted or wanted, are actually triggers of "this isn't how I thought life worked." They challenge the paradigm and take us more and more into a kind of humility. What you described as "my ego, my character" is this anticipation of what I want, how things should be, what's not okay, how it should be for it to be okay. All of that is, in a sense, becoming undone.