I see myself as a "Modern Magician." I've studied many esoteric tomes and learned many practical incantations for making change happen as a Life Coach, and in my own personal development.

The most powerful and ecological personal change technology I've found is the Core Transformation process, which I now use primarily in my coaching and for my own growth.

Robert Anton Wilson on naive realism and reality tunnels. One of the best clips ever.

What is meant by “The Mystery”?

There are things that we are unconscious of that we know we are unconscious of. For example, if I suggest that you pay attention to the feelings in your left big toe, you can probably do so. You are aware that you were unaware of the feelings in your left big toe.

Then there are things that we are unconscious that we are unconscious of. Things that we don’t know we don’t know. In ourselves, this is referred to as the psychological shadow. For instance, if you read a book on the Enneagram, you might discover all sorts of hidden aspects of your personality and behavior that you didn’t know existed. Some of these hidden things we can be conscious of, some we can’t.

Among the hidden things we can be conscious of, some we can only know about indirectly. Certain spectrums of light we can only know exist by devices that translate them into other spectrums that we can perceive. Some of these things we know exist, like ultraviolet light, and some of these things we don’t know exist and can’t yet say anything about them. For example, until recently, we didn’t know that our universe was mostly composed of dark matter and dark energy, and we still don’t really know what either of those are, but we know they exist because of the effect they have on other celestial bodies.

Occasionally I’ve had the experience of knowing that there are things that exist that we can’t be conscious of even indirectly. Things that we can’t know anything about nor say anything about directly. In fact, the Universe (or Kosmos) as a whole might be something of this nature. In other words, there may be things that exist that we can’t be conscious of, but we can be conscious that we can’t be conscious of them. We can be aware of our own profound unknowing of such things that we can’t know anything about.

Every time I’ve experienced this, it has been truly profound. I think this experience is what is meant by The Mystery as reported by mystics.

Immanuel Kant referred to something he called the Noumena that underlies all Phenomena. Of the Noumena, he said nothing could be said, even if the Noumena was one or many. Perhaps that was just because he was using words instead of music.

The #1 error of personal development is pushing or forcing.

Flowers don’t grow by forcing, and neither do you. Water, sunlight, and soil, and you grow naturally.

Our job is to provide a nourishing and safe environment, and then get out of the way.

The first task of personal development should be to give up any hope of developing one’s self. Only when there is no hope, no desire for anything to be other than it is, can anything truly important and lasting happen.

En-JOY-ing life

The problem with Tony Robbins’ teaching is not his “live with passion,” but attaching passion to achievement, and to the personal (as in Personal Power).

Passion—or Joy—just comes from being aliveness itself, not from achieving anything whatsoever! Joy is the en-joy-ment of every moment, the expression of the divine liveliness, the yang of arousal to the yin of Peace. And Joy is transpersonal—it’s the joy of the universe, the joy of spirited expressiveness. It makes no sense to talk of my joy when I am truly en-JOY-ing the moment.

Living and acting from Joy and Aliveness as a way of being, one certainly achieves things—but often unpredictable things, spontaneous joyful wonderful things.

I similarly confused Joy and achievement. This turned joy and passion into a todo item (1. Pump up self with passion. 2. Work on goals.). From something natural to something forced. From something dynamic and ever-changing to something one-dimensional (more!). From spontaneous expressive Joy to passion as condition for achievement.

Joy is an end in itself, not a means to achievement, success, happiness, or anything else. When you have Joy, you are complete. Achievement comes, but no more than is necessary, no more than is ecological.

Used Core Transformation at work

Today I tried using Core Transformation while at work for a few minutes, for those “mid-afternoon-I’m-tired-and-want-to-go-home” blues. It was quite useful.

Part of me wanted to go home. When I asked it what it was wanting, it wanted to do something fun, and then to work on my coaching practice, and then to fulfill my full potential, and then peace.

Seeing how things were different from experiencing peace, I found myself thinking that I could go home if it was the right thing, but I wanted more to work and make money. I also wanted to make sure I was moving forward with my coaching practice and thus my mission. I decided to stay at work and be present there, and work flowed more easily afterwards.

I’ll be repeating this experiment—it beats having low energy and not dealing with it!

The Ecology of Transmission

Ever since Mondo Zen the other night, I’ve been in a bit of an altered state. Tonight, I’ve been experiencing confusion and even a kind of terrifying disorientation. My usual, stable sense of self has been strongly shaken.

I’m lucky in that I have a strong sangha—a group of spiritual friends, including my girlfriend, who can support me and chat with me about such things. Many modern magicians do not.

The “jet set” culture of modern spiritual teachers (as Daniel Ingram calls them) fly from city to city teaching, but do often not have a stable and safe community to support people in their personal transformations, except on a retreat setting, and once the retreat ends, the teacher is no longer accessible. Teachers need to do this to make a living in the modern world, and many want to reach as many people as possible and/or are asked to teach by people all around the world.

I wonder how many others present at the talk the other night feel shaken? There’s no way to know, since there was no structure for followup. I’ve been following up with coaching clients by email after Core Transformation sessions, but many do not reply. Feedback is quite difficult to come by, even if you are seeking it out!

How do we build ecology (wholeness, sustainability, systems-thinking, consideration of side-effects) into our methodology for change? I intuit Core Transformation as more ecological—and it is so for me—but I might be wrong in general, since there is little study done of any personal transformation technology.

I’m still looking forward to meeting with Doshin, perhaps after my sense of self settles a bit again, to try the technique again, and to discuss such issues.