First it is important to define the difference between being and knowledge. I am taking a bit of this explanation from the works of the great minds of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky:
"Knowledge is what you have learned intellectually. It is about facts, figures, research, sayings & quotes, even inspired theories.Being is what you have left if all of that theoretical knowledge is taken away. Being is your intuition, born out of the school of hard knocks. It is the person your really are, that can deal with and transform difficulty and suffering.
"What is Transforming?
Transforming is taking difficult things and finding a use for it, in a different form or format. So for example: If someone tells you you don't have the capabilities to do or become something; you take it as a challenge and do it. You took the anger that was evoked and used that energy of the anger to pursue that which you were told you couldn't do.
In order to do that you need to want to lead a positive life, with little or no resentment. Instead of feeling defeated, depressed, angry and or bitter; you see the glass half full not half empty and move on. But you probably know that part already.
Now this does not mean completely ignoring difficult things. That is called "being in denial." There are plenty of people in the market place both material gathering wise and spiritual awakening wise, that promote this almost fairytale act of happiness. I used to have a Chinese wife from mainland China that was very down to Earth. If she would see someone acting in this fairytale kind of positive energy, she would give them a name like and say something like: There goes, 'Too Many Happy.' I saw "Too Many Happy' in the elevator today. 'Too Many Happy' said "Oh shit!" when she locked her keys in the car.
Another aspect of denial, is when someone does something hurtful or takes advantage of you and you don't communicate those things to them, that is also being in denial. That is why it is important to speak your mind even though you may lose some friends and acquaintances over it. But not having a clear conscience is more destructive to who you are than not speaking your truth and the pain of loosing a friend or two or many.
Now that does not mean that you can't be tactful either or wait for the right timing. It is not an either or, black or white, Formatory mind situation.
So It is this "in denial" part vs. transforming, that people need to get right or there is no development of being. In fact the bad things going unaddressed will build up and create illness both in the body and the mental faculties. So it is important is to understand the physiological aspects of doing these things right and understand the difference of actually transforming difficulty and being in denial about it.
Transforming into what?
Transforming into something that your create. Taking the energy of negative emotion and turning into creativity. What is the mechanism in us that does that? HUMOR! Well good humor and the creation of beauty.
Humor is the great transformer. It can, in a moment, diffuse a very difficult or threatening situation. I can mean the difference between success and failure. Most of all, it can help you stand back away from yourself and see yourself from a more objective point of view and make some real changes in yourself. It actually transforms your magnetic, electrical, chemical processes going on in yourself. If the humor is successful and used properly, it becomes creativity. This in turn produces gamma waves, the highest form of wave energy, we presently know of and the strongest in the universe. This is also true for creating beauty. It is not as instantaneous as humor, but it can have a more lasting effect. Creating you own art and even viewing someone else's that you like, is healing and transforming. A perfect example of this is music. But beautiful environments can also do it.
In order to do all of this, we need being and a lot of it. But it also has to be in concert with certain knowledge too.
There are certain cultures that have a lot of knowledge, but very little being, like the present American pop culture. But, there are cultures that have a lot of being and not much knowledge like some third world cultures.
Developing both being and knowledge will enable you to develop much more of the right kind of visionary intelligence.
You see, some people who are visionaries have visions that are seriously flawed, like Hitler or Stalin. They we visionaries alright or should I say visionaries all-wrong.
In the Mindmavericks.org workshops we have a game where someone gives you some imaginary awful thing and you cheerfully say thank you and then give an example of how you will use it positively.
So if someone hands you some horse manure you say something like, "Thank you I needed that for my collection."
Or someone give you and imaginary piece of lint, you say something like, "Thank you I was just a few lint balls short of making that lint sweater I was weaving.
Each brain game in the workshop is designed to give you a practical tool that you can almost always use to raise your intelligence and your environment.
So in the end, your happiness is not dependent on what is given to you, but what you carve out in your life. Then you have a worthwhile life and truly have achieved your full potential.
