I had a different blog written out today, one about due diligence, complicity and expectations based on a scandal currently playing out in England around the veracity of a memoir published in 2018. I wasn’t sure why I was writing it, just that I was awoken at 4am this morning by a very screechy owl who disturbed me from the dream I was having about the topic. And as I awoke, I heard the words ‘this is your sign to write about this’.
I don’t think what I thought it meant is truly what was meant, though. I think I was meant to free write about it because a lot of what I predicted was going to happen as a result of this scandal is now starting to emerge today. I think that was what I was supposed to take note of for my own purposes, not for writing about here. It was also to discuss with a friend as to why I would be asked to write about something that has little or no impact on me – I have never read the book in question, it is highly unlikely I ever would read the book irrespective of the scandal because I’m not a memoir person, and I wasn’t thinking of watching the film about the book which was released a couple of months ago. What came from that discussion, though, was an issue about perceptions of reality. More specifically, about the term ‘smoke and mirrors’. That reality is, in essence, smoke and mirrors and that nothing is ever as it seems.
The writing of my third book is (finally) going well and I am now three-quarters of the way through the first draft. Considering I was stuck at halfway through for quite some months, I am taking this as a real win. But it is, as always, going in a direction I was not expecting. It is going in a direction of the question – how do you persuade people to follow a faith system that is not attached to any religion rather than follow the known entity which may not be what you like or want, but it is a known. Basically, it’s like choosing the red pill or blue pill in The Matrix.
As any of you will know if you have read my blogs, I think that the ‘reality’ we perceive is a construct of our conscious and subconscious mind that absorbs all the data available to us at any one time and filters that data through our Reticular Activating System which does so on the basis of a set of variables – what our values are, what our belief systems are, what our expectations are and a myriad other filters before we are presented with an image of ‘reality’. And all this is done in a nanosecond, provided to us via our five senses. And that I believe that if we change the programme running in our RAS, we can change the ‘reality’ we are shown. This is the smoke and mirrors.
I have journaled on this question today, meditated upon it and asked my Higher Self what it might mean. And the response I have received back is that everything is dependent upon the focus you are viewing the data through. Because if you are viewing it through your egoic mind, with its innately negative outlook, you are viewing through some level of lack or limitation. But, if you are viewing it through your soul, you are seeing it through the lens of abundance and opportunity. The soul does not know lack or limitation, the egoic mind is programmed to be aware of this in its primary activity of keeping us alive.
If we view life through a soul-led focus, we have the opportunity of peering behind the veil and co-creating a life of limitless opportunity in whatever way that is right for you. You can literally co-create a life, a reality, that is beyond the wildest expectations of your egoic mind. And it is one that is based in service and the highest good of all. But it is the one that is the unknown. It is the one of innovation, of different ways of thinking, it is the one that doesn’t just take you out of your comfort zone, it obliterates it. Because it is the one that exposes you to something you had never considered before and in the best possible way.
My son asked me the other day – do we really know all the colours or is it possible that there are other colours in the universe that we have not yet seen. And of course, it is entirely possible that is true. Just because we haven’t yet seen it, doesn’t mean it does not exist. 30 years ago we hadn’t seen an iPhone, had not even conceived of one. Indeed, 30 years ago the world wide web was still the domain of CERN scientists for the most part. When I was 24, we still handwrote university essays and if you didn’t attend the lectures, you didn’t get the notes unless a friend shared theirs with you – we couldn’t conceive of a time when those lectures would be recorded and stored on the intranet for students to re-visit as and when required. Making the attendance at formal lectures pretty much obsolete. My ex-boss’s son didn’t attend a single lecture for his entire three years, instead watched them all in his own time via the intranet. He was known as the ghost student, and graduated with a First in biochemistry and an invitation to study his PhD pretty much anywhere he wanted.
So, just because something hasn’t been thought of yet does not mean it cannot exist. A new co-created reality of your life, while it does not yet exist in this current ‘reality’ you are observing, is not remotely impossible. In fact, it is entirely possible. If you choose to peer behind the veil you will see that any possibility can exist if you view life through your soul. This is the basic premise of my trilogy – that if you live a soul-led life you can have, be, and do whatever you want, that the possibilities and potentialities are endless, because a soul-led life will always be one of service to others. It will always be a life that is part of the collective conscious. Whereas if you continue to solely live through your egoic mind, you will likely lead a life of separation, and only perceive a ‘reality’ that is based to some extent (whether lesser or greater) on lack or limitation.
The ego-led life is, really, one full of certainty because it is based on the familiar premise of the existing programme running your RAS. Whereas a soul-led life is uncertain because it is completely unknown. The human mind prefers certainty because it is ‘safe’ whereas the soul is the adventurer, the innovator, the risk-taker. It is in balancing these two that the road to a life beyond our wildest dreams is to be found.
Louisa Simpson 