Verification: Lighting Your God Particle

Verification: Lighting Your God Particle

When we come across a concept, idea or experience that is new to us or outside of our normal range of consideration, if we merely believe in this new knowledge without verifying its validity for ourselves, it is equivalent to dismissing it. We essentially terminate further questioning or sidestep a more profound exploration that could lead to verification on a deeper level.

Without questioning there is no quest, and belief neutralizes our curiosity. If a person dismisses concepts, ideas, or experiences that they have not encountered before, then they basically close out the possibility of reaching new understandings and they stay in the same relationship to themselves and the world around them. If a person stays open to other unknown or mystical possibilities, there is a chance to verify experiences that are outside of one's current understanding and level of Being. As Rilke advises "to live the questions."

Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. — Rainer Maria Rilke

The act of verification implies a willingness to go into the unknown (beyond our current understandings), hold on to the questions and eventually make it known, not through belief but through inner verification. How could we have new self-realizations and evolve if we do not tip toe into the unknown and make verifications our own?

Take for example trying to observe and verify the idea that negative emotions are not only illusory but harmful to conscious evolution. As a child, I was taught and witnessed countless examples of adults expressing negative emotions as real, necessary, and unavoidable. Through imitation I learned to do the same, to “let it all out," which was considered a cathartic means to release pent-up emotions. The expression of negative emotions was not viewed as a choice but as a natural approach to dealing with conflicts and that by expressing my “feelings” it would supposedly help me feel better.

In fact, the fundamental idea in the Fourth Way of viewing man as a machine made me feel uncomfortable and triggered a negative response. To verify for myself the machine’s desire to express negativity, I needed to suspend what I had been taught and allow the possibility that there was something new to be learned about negativity that was beyond my current understanding. After years of self-observation of my mechanics and seeing what triggers negativity, I have verified how the expression of negativity depletes the energy I need for higher states of consciousness.

How did the process of verification unfold? First, by observing negativity in myself and others with the psychological tools of divided attention and self-observation. Seeing clearly over the course of many months – without judgment or trying to change anything – what I felt most self-righteous about and how this self-absorbed feeling could so easily lead to expressing negative emotions. Simple little things, like seeing my negative response to someone not putting the dishes in the dishwasher, taking too long in the shower, not saying “thank you” for a favor I had done, someone else taking credit for “my” idea or disagreeing with my moral opinions, etc. After gathering enough evidence of the habit of expressing negativity, I then could predict and resist expressing specific, small negative emotions externally. Finally, through the long Work of self-observation and self-remembering, I could eventually also begin to resist expressing negativity internally.

Divine presence is the rarest and most precious substance in the universe, but men do not develop enough of their God Particle to experience it. — The Teacher

The value of this struggle is the energy that the friction spontaneously makes available for self-remembering and higher states. These are rare moments of transformation that can strengthen and fuel Higher Centers. Rather than feel depleted by the negative emotion taking hold of me, I take hold of the energy that the resistance creates and redirect it towards a more conscious purpose.

The first time that I successfully transformed a negative emotion gave me freedom I had not experienced before. Through the act of verifying, I had changed my understanding – a sort of reprograming from a past misunderstanding – and I am now able to be more at peace with myself and my relationship to the world around me. Of course, this transformation process is a continual struggle, which implies an endless energy source. This verification gives me courage to take risks and discover other concepts that are currently beyond my understanding that may also fuel conscious evolution.

Behind the emotion arising from the realization of mechanicalness lies peace. And it is this emotion that can overcome negative emotions. — Maurice Nicoll

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Equestrian Portrait of the Emperor Shah Jahan from the Kevorkian Album