Painter and painting from Steven Kaufman's blog

We are like painters, and what we are painting is what we experience, and we can draw our paint from either the palette of allowing or resistance, and so paint experiential wantedness or unwantedness.

 

In each moment we are free to choose from either palette, but we can limit that freedom by choosing which palette to draw from based not upon what we want to paint in this moment, but rather based upon what we have painted in a previous moment, so that our choice now becomes coupled to and so constrained by a previous choice. Or we can become overly concerned with what will be the appearance of the finished product, and so not pay attention to which palette we are drawing our paint from.

 

You can know which palette you are drawing your paint from in each moment by paying attention to how you feel, because emotional experience, in its wantedness or unwantedness, is the first experience we create with the paint we have drawn from the palette of either allowing or resistance, respectively.

 

We are engines of experiential creation, and our very Existence, which is itself unavoidable, makes unavoidable our creation and apprehension of some experience. And although we have no choice but to create some experience, we get to choose the most important aspect or quality of what we create as experience, which is its quality of wantedness or unwantedness.

 

And we choose that quality of wantedness or unwantedness by choosing what I refer to as our in the moment mode of being. Our in the moment mode of being refers to the way in which we are choosing, in any given moment or now, to be in relation to what I refer to as our more fundamental Individuality.

 

Our more fundamental Individuality is the Individuality that is projecting Itself from a less iterated level of Existential self-relation and experiential creation into this more iterated level of Existential self-relation and experiential creation as our Individuality.

 

Thus, as the word itself indicates, our Individuality is really an Indivisible Duality composed of two inseparable Individuals. We are as much our more fundamental Individuality as we are the avatar Individuality that is being projected by our more fundamental Individuality as our Individuality. And yet our perspective is that of the avatar Individuality, because we are the Individuality that is creating and apprehending experience from this more iterated level of Existential self-relation by becoming involved in relations with other Individualities at this more iterated level of Existential self-relation.

 

However, as we become involved in relations with other Individualities at this more iterated level of Existential self-relation and so create what we apprehend as physical experience, our involvement in those relations unavoidably places us, as the avatar Individuality, in relation to our more fundamental Individuality, and it is that unavoidable relation that is the source of all experiential wantedness and unwantedness.

 

The relation that is unavoidably created between the avatar Individuality and the more fundamental Individuality as we, from the perspective of the avatar Individuality, choose to become involved in any relation with any other Individuality, is a relation of flow, and it is that relation of flow occurring between the avatar Individuality and the more fundamental Individuality that is what we, from our perspective as the avatar Individuality, apprehend as the quality of wantedness or unwantedness associated with any experience we create.

 

The relation of flow that is unavoidably created between the avatar Individuality and the more fundamental Individuality as we, from the perspective of the avatar Individuality, choose to become involved in any relation with any other Individuality, is a relation of either aligned or oppositional flow. That is, as we project ourselves into relations with other Individualities as we create what we apprehend as experience from the level of the avatar Individuality, the more fundamental Individuality is also projecting Itself into relations with other Individualities to create what it apprehends as experience from the level of the more fundamental Individuality. And the way in which we are projecting ourselves as Individuals into the relations that create experience from this level of Reality or Existential self-relation can be either like or unlike the way in which the more fundamental Individuality is projecting itself into the relations that create experience from its level of Reality or of Existential self-relation.

 

And if the way we are projecting our Individuality into the relations that create what we apprehend as experience is like the way the more fundamental Individuality is projecting itself into he relations that create what it apprehends as experience, then there is an alignment between the direction of flow of the avatar Individuality and the direction of flow of the more fundamental Individuality, which alignment of flow we, from the perspective of the avatar Individuality, apprehend most directly and immediately as a wanted emotional experience, as the experience of wanted e-motion, as the experience of aligned and so attractive Existential motion.

 

Conversely, if the way we are projecting our Individuality into the relations that create what we apprehend as experience is unlike the way the more fundamental Individuality is projecting itself into he relations that create what it apprehends as experience, then there is opposition between the direction of flow of the avatar Individuality and the direction of flow of the more fundamental Individuality, which opposition of flow we, from the perspective of the avatar Individuality, apprehend most directly and immediately as an unwanted emotional experience, as the experience of unwanted e-motion, as the experience of oppositional and so repulsive Existential motion.

 

Emotion is thus the product of relative Existential motion, the product of the motion or flow of Existence or Consciousness relative to Itself, and more specifically is the product of the flow of the avatar Individuality relative to the flow of the more fundamental Individuality, as that relation of aligned or oppositional flow is apprehended from the perspective of the avatar Individuality.

 

The avatar Individuality is like a drop in a River that is the more fundamental Individuality. But unlike a drop in an actual river, the Drop that is the avatar Individuality has the innate ability to choose its own direction of flow, regardless of the direction in which the River that is its more fundamental Individuality is choosing to flow.

 

The Drop that is the avatar Individuality not only has the innate ability to choose its own direction of flow, but has the obligation to do so, in each moment, in each now. And the choice that the Avatar Individuality makes in each moment regarding its direction of flow creates in each moment a relation of either aligned or oppositional flow between the avatar Individuality and the more fundamental Individuality, creating in each moment what the avatar Individuality apprehends as either a wanted or unwanted emotional experience.

 

However, the relation of flow between the avatar Individuality and the more fundamental Individuality as aligned or oppositional does not just determine the wanted or unwanted quality of emotional experience; rather, it also determines the wanted or unwanted quality of what the avatar Individuality creates and apprehends as mental and physical experience as well, since every relation in which the avatar Individuality becomes involved that creates every sort of experience at every level places the avatar Individuality in a relation of aligned or oppositional flow relative to the flow of its more fundamental Individuality, thereby imparting upon every experience an Individual creates and apprehends a degree of wantedness or unwantedness.

 

And so we are like painters, and what we are painting is what we experience, and we can draw our paint from either the palette of allowing or resistance, from the palette of aligned or oppositional flow, and so paint experiential wantedness or unwantedness.  And you can know which palette you are drawing your experiential paint from in each moment by paying attention to the emotional experience you are, in that moment, creating and apprehending.

 

If you are happy while you paint, i.e., experiencing emotional wantedness, then the mental and physical experiences that you paint while you are happy, while you are in a relation of aligned flow with your more fundamental Individuality, will themselves have the quality of wantedness. But if you are unhappy while you paint, i.e., experiencing emotional unwantedness, then the mental and physical experiences that you paint while you are unhappy, while you are in a relation of oppositional flow with your more fundamental Individuality, will themselves have the quality of unwantedness.

 

In each moment we are involved in different levels of relations that create and so paint our emotional, mental, and physical experiences, but in each moment we can only be in either a relation of aligned or oppositional flow relative to the flow of our more fundamental Individuality, and so we can in each moment only create either experiential wantedness or unwantedness, since involvement in the fundamental and unavoidable relations of aligned and oppositional flow are, for a single avatar Individuality in a single moment, mutually exclusive of each other. 

 

An avatar Individual's choosing to be in one relation in one moment makes it impossible for that same avatar Individuality to choose to be in the opposite and so mutually exclusive relation in that same moment. Therefore, while choosing to be involved in the relation that creates emotional wantedness, it is not possible for the same avatar Individuality to be involved in the relation necessary to create emotional unwantedness, nor is it possible for that same avatar Individuality in that same moment to be involved in the relation that creates either mental or physical unwantedness. Likewise, while choosing to be involved in the relation that creates emotional unwantedness, it is not possible for the same avatar Individuality to be involved in the relation necessary to create emotional wantedness, nor is it possible for that same avatar Individuality in that same moment to be involved in the relation that creates either mental or physical wantedness.

 

For this reason we do not need to micromanage our physical experiential creations in order to create experiential wantedness at the mental and physical level; rather, we only need pay attention to the palette we are drawing from as we create what we apprehend as emotional experience, and adjust our choice of palette accordingly, i.e., according to the wantedness or unwantedness of what we are, in this moment, in this now, creating and apprehending as emotional experience.

 

And if in a given moment we paint something that we do not like there is nothing other than our own Individuality that can stop us from making a different choice in the next moment and painting something that we like instead.

 

And the way our own Individuality can prevent us from making a different choice in this moment than we made in a previous moment is by basing our choice in this moment upon an experience that was created as the product of a choice we made in a previous moment, by making our choice in this moment as a reaction to and so reflection of a previous moments choice.

 

There is nothing that actually constrains or dictates what we choose as our mode of being moment to moment, as we are free to choose a mode of being in one moment that is the  complete opposite of the mode of being we chose in the previous moment. But we ourselves can constrain that choice by linking our choice regarding our in the moment mode of being to a choice made in a previous moment, which we do when we try to create a wanted experience by trying to modify an already created experience, as this links the choice we are making now to a choice made previously.

 

If we would remain free to choose our mode of being without any self-imposed constraint it is necessary to let already created experience be, to not choose our mode of being according to how we want to try and modify a painting that has already dried. The canvas upon which we paint experience in each moment is as pristine or cluttered as we choose. What we have created before has relevance to what we are creating now only to the extent that we ourselves choose to make it relevant, and to the extent that we choose to make it relevant it constrains what we are able to create now, as choosing to make it relevant links what we are choosing as our mode of being now to what we chose as our mode of being then, as we created the experience that came before.

 

When we try to create emotional wantedness by modifying external reality, by trying to arrange external reality in a particular way, we are not choosing our mode of being according to how we want to feel, not choosing our mode of being according to the emotional experience we want to create; rather we are choosing our mode of being according to how we want to try and modify external reality. And even though in our attempts to modify external reality we are always trying to create emotional wantedness, the mode of being we choose in order to try and modify external reality is often not the mode of being that creates emotional wantedness, but is quite often the mode of being that creates emotional unwantedness.

 

However, swimming upstream will never get you to where you want to be. Everything that you want lies downstream. Everything that you want can only be created by projecting yourself in alignment with the flow of your more fundamental Individuality because the alignment of that flow is the source and basis of all experiential wantedness.

 

There is only what we are and what we create as experience. Experience is a virtual reality. If you would understand why you feel as you do and why you experience what you experience as mental and physical reality, then it is necessary to understand what is happening beneath the surface of the virtual reality we call experiential reality, because it is what is happening there that creates what we apprehend as experiential reality.

 

What we are are avatar Individualities that are being projected into this level of Existential self-relation and experiential creation by a more fundamental Individuality. And what we create as experience is, in its wantedness or unwantedness, completely a function of the fundamental and unavoidable relation of aligned or oppositional flow occurring between those two Individualities, as the more fundamental Individuality chooses to project or flow Itself into this level of Reality as an avatar Individuality, and then as we choose, as that avatar Individuality, how we project or flow ourselves within this level of Reality.

 

The direction of flow of the more fundamental Individuality is constant, as it is always choosing to be in a mode of allowing and therefore always creating for itself a wanted experience. Our direction of flow is not constant, as we sometimes choose to be in a mode of allowing, in which case we flow in alignment with our more fundamental Individuality, thereby creating wanted experiences, while at other times we choose to be in a mode of resistance, in which case we flow in opposition to our more fundamental Individuality, thereby creating unwanted experiences.

 

Our very Existence, which is itself unavoidable, makes unavoidable our creation and apprehension of either a wanted or unwanted emotional experience in each moment. There is no third choice. Put another way, we have no choice but to choose to create, in each moment, in each now, either a wanted or an unwanted emotional experience. But we do get to choose which we will create, and which palette we choose to draw from, i.e., aligned or opposed, allowing or resistant, wanted or unwanted, sets the tone for what we create as mental and physical experience in that same moment as well.

 

Therefore, if we would create more of what we want and less of what we do not want, it would be to our advantage to pay less attention to our previous experiential creations and the palette we chose to paint them, and pay more attention instead to the palette from which we are drawing in this moment as what we paint what we create as experience now.

 

But it is not the wantedness or unwantedness of what we are thinking, nor the wantedness or unwantedness of what we experience as physical reality that lets us know with certainty from which palette we are drawing in this moment, in this now. Rather, it is the wantedness or unwantedness of what we feel, the wantedness or unwantedness of what we are creating and apprehending as emotional experience, that is the most direct and immediate indicator of whether we are, in this moment, choosing to flow in alignment with or opposition to our more fundamental Individuality, and so whether we are, in this moment, choosing to draw from the palette of allowing or resistance, alignment or opposition, as we create what we experience as reality.

 

Experientially there is nothing more important than how we feel, because how we feel indicates our in the moment involvement in the relation that determines whether what we create as any type of experience in that moment will have the quality of wantedness or unwantedness. However, when we choose to let what we have already created as experience determine how we feel, as we do when we react to already created experience, then we are still choosing how we feel, still choosing the emotion we create, but we are not doing do freely in that moment; rather we are then choosing in a way that is being dictated by a choice made either freely or not in a previous moment.

 

We all have free will, we all have the innate ability to choose without restriction our in the moment mode of being, our in the moment relation of flow to our more fundamental Individuality. But sometimes, in exercising that freedom, in exercising that ability, we inadvertently and unknowingly limit and constrain ourselves, so that it then seems that we have no choice but to feel a certain way depending upon the circumstances. We think that if something unwanted happens then we have no choice but to feel bad. Likewise, we think that if something wanted happens that we have no choice but to feel good.

 

And so it is that we spend our lives trying to arrange external circumstances in a way that will allow us to reflexively create emotional wantedness rather than emotional unwantedness. And this is certainly one way to go about trying to create wanted emotional experience, but it is not freedom, and it is not in accord with our nature as Beings that possess free will. It is bondage, but it is bondage to nothing other than our own experiential creations. It is making already created experience the determiner of what will be created as emotional experience now, rather than just deciding directly what one would like to create as emotional experience in this moment and then being able to become involved in the relation that makes that creation possible.  

 

We are always free, because there is nothing outside ourselves that can constrain what we are choosing as our mode of being in any moment, in any now. And as it is we, as Individuals, that inadvertently cage ourselves, by choosing our mode of being as a reflexive reaction to already created experience, it is only we, as Individuals, that can release ourselves from the cage we have constructed, by instead choosing our mode of being with the conscious intent to create a wanted emotional experience, regardless of either external or internal circumstances.

 

Of course this is easier said than done, else we would all be doing it. The difficulty is not in making the choice, the difficulty is in recognizing that such a choice even exists. And the reason it is difficult to recognize that such a choice exists is because we do not realize the extent to which we are responsible for creating what we apprehend as experiential reality.

 

Everything that we experience as reality requires our involvement in a relation in order to create what we apprehend as experience. What we experience as reality, emotional, mental and physical, simply does not exist in the absence of our involvement in the relation that creates it.  Experiential reality is a virtual reality, and it is a virtual reality created and apprehended by what does actually Exist, and what actually Exists is Consciousness.  The Reality of Consciousness flows in relation to Itself and creates what it then apprehends as experiential reality. Consciousness is the River, and it is also the Drops, experiential realities of every variety are just the swirls that come into relative existence where that River and those Drops flow in relation to each other.

 

We are the Creator that has mistaken itself for its own creation, the Painter that has become lost in their own painting, and in so doing we have also lost sight of how it is that we create the creation, and in losing sight of how we create the creation we have also lost sight of the fact that it is we and we alone, as Individuals, that get to choose whether what we create as experience has the quality of wantedness or unwantedness.