Do you have Attention Power? From a talk given by E.J. Gold
PART 6
No one else will train our attention for us, because it can’t be done. We are the only ones who can. And if we can train our attention, we can do anything; we literally can move mountains. If our attention can be focused, we can do anything that we have ever heard of anyone doing. It is our attention that gives us that power.
Once we become able to move mountains, it is imperative that we do not do so. We must not be like children with a new toy. Nor must we use our attention as a weapon-it has another use which has to do with our presence, the awakening of the machine, and the transformation of the essential self. These are all a product of attention. Attention is our only tool. Our will of attention is not very well developed but it is a true will, and it is the only will that we have.
This question of the true will relates to the essential self-the true will of the essential self. In certain traditions, it is called the Holy Guardian Angel. Sometimes it is called the Overself, or the Will of God. But all of these simply refer to the will of the essential self-no matter what flowery words are used to describe it.
The essential self has only two real properties, characteristics of its own: the will of presence and the will of attention. It can be here and look at something, but it can look more than in an ordinary visual way.
Robert Heinlein invented the word ‘grok’ which means to look through something, to occupy its very molecules, to thoroughly understand something because we are looking at it with empathy; to become the thing that we are looking at, because we are looking so deeply.
Take a spoon, or any other object at hand. Look at it. Every form has a corresponding universal form which is called an archetype. Every object has its archetype. The universe must have existed in that form-at least for one moment-in order for that form to exist. And that form can be tapped into.
We can see the universe rapidly altering its form in an endless parade of forms. And why not endless? There is no time. The universe is going nowhere. Once the universe takes a form, it exists now and forever. It does not break down, it does not decrease, it is for all time, because there is no time. The universe exists within forever.
The eternal world is the same as the relative world, except there is no flow of time in it, only events. In the relative world, events are measured by imposing a time sense on them. Technically speaking, time is the measure of motion. Every attempt humans have made to measure time has always been in terms of motion of one kind or another, activity of one sort or another.
We should be able to see that any object-let’s say a glass-is the universe. It wrapped around itself, went through itself, and poofed itself into existence. And now here it is-the entire universe.
When our attention is in one mode, it is just a glass and it is not the universe. When our attention is in a different mode, it is in fact a universe. It is inside itself, and it appears smaller than its insides. How can a shoe be two sizes smaller on the outside than on the inside? That is what this is all about. In a very real sense the macrocosm and microcosm are one. They are not different.
The creation is not a mirror, it is the thing itself. In a sense it is like a gauge or a thermometer upon our attention. It is a biofeedback device which doesn’t involve biology.
In one mode of the attention where the attention is very weak, where there are lots of distractions, and the attention is scattered, this is just a glass and nothing more. When the attention is fully directed upon it, then it will be perceived as the universe itself which is how it appeared within itself.
This is a device, a technique-not an exercise in cosmology. When this is just a glass, our attention is not doing very well. When this is the universe, then our attention is fully directed. At that point and only at that point, we are able to identify fully with the glass. We become the glass looking at itself. In a sense we are the glass regarding itself; The object regarding itself.
If we should ever come to see God, if it should happen, we must always remember that there is nothing but God, that God is the only thing that there is. There is nothing else. There is not ‘God’ and then ‘non-God’.
So who is looking at God? We know that God is not looking at God; it can’t be. If we look at that glass long enough as the universe, eventually we’ll be looking at God. Some way or another we will be looking at God, not the glass, and we must realize that. But from what vantage point? From what viewpoint are we looking at God?
We will eventually come to the realization that what we are looking at is what we are, no matter how we feel, no matter how we think of ourselves at the moment, we cannot be other than what we are looking at. We will see that our self-image at the moment is a convenience to assume a viewpoint, but we are actually looking at what we are. We are not looking at something other than ourselves.
So, if we are looking right at God, we can say to ourselves, "I see you, I am regarding God, I know that". There is nothing but God. This was the original idea of La il’la ha il al’la hu, there is nothing else but God.
So if we happen to be staring face to face at God, we must remember there is nothing but God. If we are not God standing before God we will be demolished; annihilated in the presence of God because there is nothing but God in the presence of God.
But as long as this glass is just a glass, we’re safe. When this glass is no longer a glass, then we become vulnerable in that way. Handling that is the work of many years.