Letting Go Of Labels - Part 2 of 2

When all in the world understand beauty to be beautiful, then ugliness exists. When all understand goodness to be good, then evil exists. The Tao-Te Ching

The power of the human mind, body and spirit is magnified when energy flows freely through each, unencumbered by division, definition, categorization or constraint. When we allow ourselves to live in a world of definition, of labels, of preference, we restrict the flow of life energy through our bodies.

In his book Infinite Self, Stuart Wilde asserts that:

The ego has rules and regulations. From these come its desires, needs, opinions, beliefs and fears. Any time the ego perceives negativity, it will react. It will react from arrogance or righteousness, or it will react from its sense of insecuirty or from a sense of injustice because its status quo is being assailed; or perhaps its power is being diminished in some way.

I believe that the less I choose, act or react from the place that serves to bolster my ego’s status quo, the more free I become, the more access I have to the energy that wants to move through me, and the more I have access to choose from the place of my Infinite Self. I’ve been practicing and playing with this idea for the past few months, with powerful and always interesting results.

In my last post I spoke at length about my recent de-identification with the world of vegetarianism. I don’t call myself a carnivore now, nor do I call myself an omnivore. I simply say that I eat what feels right for me, and what feels right can’t be defined by a particular label. In the moment of choosing my food, I simply check in with myself, my intuition, my consciousness, my awareness of my energy and the energy of the world around, and make a choice that feels right. That may be a choice to buy locally grown, organic produce, to buy some wild-caught Salmon from Alaska, or to eat a piece of rich chocolate. It may even result in choosing to eat something that isn’t healthy, or even necessarily what most would consider a ‘good’ choice.

As an example, my wife and I went out to a fast food restaurant last week - one of the larger national chains - simply to see what it would be like to eat something from their menu after a multi-year hiatus. You might not be surprised to find out that the food wasn’t particularly tasty, nor did I feel any particular gain in what Wilde calls ‘units of energy’ after eating. Some might say I had a ‘bad’ experience…

Here’s the thing I’ve come to learn (or remember) over the past few months: giving something a label such as ‘bad’ or ‘good’, ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ immediately surrenders MY units of energy over to the EGO’s labels of that thing. By saying, “Eating at a chain-fast-food-restaurant is BAD,” I’m basically telling my ego, “You can take care of this for me now. I no longer want to have to think about it, hold it in my consciousness, or put my attention on it. I’ll give up some of my mental agility, consciousness and energy in order to not have to worry about it anymore.” And by giving that job over to the ego - the job of holding thoughts, experiences or things within a defined container, I’m also giving up the units of energy that I would otherwise have by spontaneously choosing, from the place of Infinite Self, when next I encounter it.

So if you don’t think anything is bad, is everything good?Of course not. NOTHING IS GOOD! Instead, as one of my teachers says, “You take it ALL in as nourishment.” What I believe he means by that is simply this: when we’re able to stop labeling things as good or bad, when we stop surrendering our responses to the realm of ego and status quo, we slowly begin to expand our capacity to conduct life energy.

I’ve found that this practice has resulted in more freedom in my life, more joy, more laughter, less stress, and I simply feel like I’m actively living my life from a place of consciousness. In another book, Wilde offers that, “Life was never meant to be a struggle.” Indeed, I find that the more I am able to take every experience in as a teacher, as nourishment, without giving it a label, the less I feel struggle in my life.

So this is all pretty heady stuff - but how can I actually experience it? Well, one simple method is a technique called blissiplines. Both Stuart and Satyen talk about this a lot, and the practice is simple. Find one simple thing in your life that you do on a regular basis that makes you more comfortable, that is more convenient, or in some way simply feels ‘unconscious’. This could be something simple like driving the same way to work every day, waking up to the exact same routine every day of the week, or putting your pants on the same way each morning. Once you have something in mind, choose to do it differently every day for the next week. The observe the results, but try not to offer energy to the outcomes. By this I mean, don’t get caught up in saying, “Wow, I really LIKE doing it this way.” Or, “Wow, my coffee really does taste BETTER with two creams instead of one.” Simply observe the results, and take them in as a lesson for the day.

If you’re able to do this on a regular basis, I guarantee you’ll have some interesting results. And I’ll give you a little tip on one of the blissiplines I’m currently practicing: no news for 90 days. That’s right - I haven’t watched the TV news, read a newspaper, or visited a news website since the end of July.

Want to know a secret? It is immensely liberating. I feel less stress, less fear - and yet magically, I don’t feel disconnected from ‘what’s happening’. On the contrary, all the important news that I REALLY need to know, I hear anyway.

Try it. I’d love to hear your experiences.