The Direction of Intention

71.

Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Today my mind, body and I stand at the confluence of 4 rivers of thought: Krishnamurti, Otto Scharmer, Joseph Campbell and Don Miguel Ruiz. Each thought stream runs together into a big thought-ocean that goes something like this (put on your waders):

The mind must attach to something – it must have a focal point, it must make a story because the mind needs “to know.” The mind’s need is to know. Knowing is locating (who I am, why I am here, what is mine to do). Without ‘knowing’ the mind does not feel safe. The idea of safety is a byproduct of knowing.

Note: writing this is a great example of the mind’s need to know.

The body has a different set of needs that require no explanation. The body needs no focal point because the body is a focal point. The body does not need to know, it needs to experience, to feel.

Initially, the body/experience comes first and the interpretation is second. Later, after expectations are constructed and words are acquired, the patterns of expectation and interpretation can trump even the most potent experience. There is a clear warning sign that you are no longer experiencing life: it is moment you think your life is routine.

It is a trick of language that these aspects, body and mind, are identified as separate, distinct. They are not. They are one action: the body responds to the thought, the mind responds to the impulse. Ignore the body’s impulse (or judge it) and the mind will go crazy with debate. We create endless challenges for ourselves by entertaining the idea that mind is somehow separate from body, that body can be separate from mind.

People in business like to claim that they can compartmentalize their feelings, which simply means they have deluded themselves into thinking that their feelings and emotions have no impact on their thinking; it is pretense to claim that any aspect of human interaction is objective. Everything, even the most concrete data, requires interpretation, context and point-of-view.

It would be more appropriate if our words for body and mind were verbs. It would be more appropriate if there was one verb for both body and mind or perhaps hundreds of nuance verbs, like the multitude of Eskimo words for snow. There is nothing static in either body or mind. We are processes. We are relationships. We are fluid and not fixed.

Since we are convinced that they are distinct why not declare, “What a perfect team!” A dynamic body rich in experiences together with an expansive mind that needs a focal point in order to perpetually create a story of wonder!

[to be continued]

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