An epiphany about the university we have chosen to be in

Per Lachaise University

epiphany noun
epiph·​a·​ny | \ i-ˈpi-fə-nē  \

Definition of epiphany

3a(1) : a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something
(2) : an intuitive grasp of reality through something (such as an event) usually simple and striking
(3) : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure
b : a revealing scene or moment

In light of this recent mass shooting - not done by a US citizen, but according to his manifesto, inspired by hatred, inspired by people who espouse or engender hatred, I wanted to share a conversation I had this morning.

Mick's epiphany.  First Day of School.

My wife Sherry had an epiphany.  After reading the reports of what this angry man in New Zealand spoke of, what inspired him to murder 49 church goers and wound 20 others, she reflected on the source of his anger. 

He claimed he was furious over the death of a young girl who had been murdered in anger. (Leaving aside his identifying her, what country she was from, and who killed her). It was a death caused in hate.

"Realize we don't die."

Which made her think of the other murders that have been done in the name of hate. Whether it's a mass shooting in a nightclub in Orlando, or a mass shooting in Vegas, or a man shooting up a high school or an elementary school - mass shootings can be anywhere, everywhere; the roots of the event are most often mired in that one emotion; hate.

"If what you're saying is correct," she began her thought to me - "that we do choose to come here, that people reincarnate and come back to Earth, they do so because it's a school.  It's a beautiful school, but a difficult school - it's filled with many possibilities for anger and hate and cruelty.  But it seems to me that the lesson that we learn when we come here, is to rise above the vibration of hate, to rise above what causes people to react in such a violent way - and respond with what hate is not."

Which got me into this post.

If we can respond with an idea of what love is - allowing for people to make mistakes, to work out their anger and hatred and fear, then we've learned how to respond with love.

  

The logic goes like this:

Earth is a school.  We choose to incarnate here for many reasons, including teaching and learning lessons in love.  We come here knowing that it's a rough and difficult location for a school, that the lessons can and will be difficult, that the school itself is complex, complicated and difficult to attend.

Tortured for 30 years, outlived all of his torturers.
Because he meditated on love.

There's great beauty here, there can be episodes of courage, of tender moments of love, there can be great acts of compassion - but when events happen that challenge our concept of love, challenge who we are as a human, if we choose to respond with hate, then we are just perpetuating that hate over and over again, and have learned nothing.

If we respond to hate and anger with hate and anger - its what keeps us mired in the muck and desolation and cruelty, sadness and pain.

School of Hard Knocks.

But if we respond differently - respond with a concept that this is a school that we've all agreed to attend, and that when a difficult lesson appears before us, we see it for what it is - a temporary state of ill will, a temporary state of confusion, fear and desolation - a class in anger and hate if you will - then we can respond in the way that will allow us to "succeed" or "graduate" from that lesson.  

A note from Garry Shandling to himself

To overcome that lesson by responding with "love" - in the true essence of that word.  When love is given freely, unconditionally, it's something quite different than love that is given conditionally, or based on the idea that you can't love unless you're "loved back."

So the only logical, lesson learning way to respond to hate and anger and violence - is by not allowing ourself to be mired in it.  Further, if we can wrap our minds around the research that no one dies, that we only bring a portion of our conscious energy to each lifetime, that when the lifetime is over we don't disappear, aren't "gone" - we transform back into who we were before we came here, before we walked into this university.  

University of To Be or Not To Be

And when we're outside the classroom, or "back home" from the university, we are able to reflect on all the things we learned, shared, gave up, or gave into - all the things we set out to learn and teach and share, and what we failed at in terms of our progression, and what we succeeded at.

So in essence, every tragedy, every difficulty, every illness, every setback in terms of the classroom, in this university we all participate in - is a form of a lesson in our curriculum.  We've set the curriculum ourselves (according to this research) in that we have "agreed" to come and participate in this university even when some of us are aware of how short or long we're going to be in on the campus grounds.

Hard to, but try.

In essence, every tragedy is a lesson in love - not the kind of "throw my hands in the air and dance among the flowers" kind of love, (although nothing wrong with that either) but the kind of unconditional love that is tested, that is honed like a piece of rough gold, polished and smoothed by each experience that we go through so that at the end of all of these classes we take, we emerge this solid gold piece of jewelry - so bright as to blind the eye, so beautiful as to elicit gasps.

Tragedy 101

Those 49 who died - and the 500 in Vegas, and all those children in Sandy Hook, and all the people who sacrifice themselves to teach us lessons in hardship and love, have all been given merit badges, have all been graduated to a higher level because they sacrificed their journey for this profound teaching, and this profound example of what love is, what love can be, what we can learn from their example of courage.

It's around us always - courage to endure illness, courage to endure hate and racism, and anger, and to get through these damn classes without falling off the bus that brought us here.

Graduation gift; epiphany

So while I may enjoy posting comedic commentary about the idiots who claim to be in charge of the classroom - the fools who can't see that they're destroying the university with every tweet that promotes hate, chokes the air, pollutes the water or kills the planet - while I may enjoy poking fun at their insanity - part of this journey is to respond to hate with the opposite of hate.

Unconditional love.

It's the thing that permeates the universe, it's what our consciousness is part of, it's what two thirds of us is always aware of "back home."  And so while we're in class together, let's take the time to embrace each other, enjoy the sunshine, and say a prayer for those folks who left the planet early in order to teach us all a lesson about unconditional love.

Professor Martini

The Flipside of Anger or Hate

Epiphany; 
noun: 

"A manifestation of a divine or supernatural being."

"A moment of sudden revelation or insight."

An epiphany (from the ancient Greek ἐπιφάνεια, epiphaneia, "manifestation, striking appearance") is an experience of sudden and striking realization. Generally the term is used to describe scientific breakthrough, religious or philosophical discoveries, but it can apply in any situation in which an enlightening realization allows a problem or situation to be understood from a new and deeper perspective. Epiphanies are studied by psychologists and other scholars, particularly those attempting to study the process of innovation.


Epiphanies are relatively rare occurrences and generally follow a process of significant thought about a problem. Often they are triggered by a new and key piece of information, but importantly, a depth of prior knowledge is required to allow the leap of understanding. Famous epiphanies include Archimedes's discovery of a method to determine the density of an object ("Eureka!") and Isaac Newton's realization that a falling apple and the orbiting moon are both pulled by the same force. From Wiki

"Relatively rare."

I heard an epiphany this morning and thought I'd write about it. A friend was really angry about something.  It was something that has angered a number of people, and to be specific about it is to take it out of the world of "hate" or "anger" and to put it in the world of "cause and effect."

Alcatraz. Prison of the mind.

In other words, any normal person would see this video clip of someone being hurt and would feel a swelling of anger in themselves with regard to the event.  In her own life, she has had a similar event, but not the same event.  Meaning, her reference to the feelings of powerlessness, hurt, humiliation and fear were not the same as the person in the video she was watching, but one could "associate" those feelings with a "fear based memory."

Post traumatic stress disorder is a fear based memory.  Seeing people hurt by people in authority is a fear based memory.  Reading about a sexual abuse case in the news sometimes triggers the memories of fear or abuse, and brings back those feelings of anger. 

But this post is about addressing just the energy of anger and hate.

Anger, hate, fear is a prison.

Because as my friend was reflecting on the feelings of anger and hate regarding that tape, she was also aware that she had awoken in a state of anger, had already cut her finger badly by accident, or lack of focus, and was generally in a state of rage, fear, anger and resentment - not just from watching the video of someone being hurt - but from all of it.

She realized "Everything that's been happening in the world that is being focused on by the media" contributed to her state of mind.  

All of it infuriating in her mind, and more importantly in her energetic field.

And then she had an epiphany.  

She saw that the energy of hate is closely aligned with anger, and stepping into, or living in a state of anger or hate forces an energy shift in us that puts us into that focus.  That it's a self created energy, and that it is just a matter of focus to be in that beam of energy, or to not be in that energy.

Light. Tunnel. End.

As she experienced that thought, she was suddenly overcome with a feeling of compassion for the perpetrator in that video.  




She saw that the person committing the act of violence was also living in that state of fear and anger, and that the action was a direct result of being in that state of anger and hate.

It didn't mitigate her feelings of horror of seeing what happened to the victim, but she saw and understood that the perpetrator was acting as a direct result of living in that state of anger and hate, or fear and disconnection. She had an overwhelming feeling of compassion for the perpetrator.

I'm not posting the video or the description of the violence - because that would be missing the point.  The point is that living in a state of fear, living in a state of anger and hate only causes more violence, anger and hate.

It's a choice to be in the energy of hate and confusion, anger and fear.  

We tend to forget that everything that we think, feel, sense or experience is a result of exterior input.  Meaning the light wave that hits our eye is translated into an electrical signal that enters our memory, or the smell of food is a wave that reaches our nostrils and stimulates that part of our memory bank, the sound wave that moves through the air and reaches our ears  is translated to a signal that goes into our memory and causes a reaction - or that the sensation on our skin is actually an electrical signal that moves through our body to remind us of something... all of it is an electrical impulse.

All of it exists outside of us.  None of it exists inside of us.

It's a matter of reacting to what we're seeing, sensing, hearing or experiencing.  And that's a choice for us of how to react.  We can react the way our parents reacted, our grandparents reacted, the way our friends or community reacts - or we can choose to react the way we believe we should react.  

With or without fear, with or without ignorance, with or without hate or anger.

The  Dalai Lama calls himself a "professional laugher."

As the Dalai Lama has pointed out - "Hate or anger would be a useful emotion if they caused the person we hated to be sick or ill.  But it doesn't.  It only serves to make us sick or ill."  

We can't control what other people do, we can't control how other people behave, we can only control how we react to them.

And when those feelings of hate or anger arise within -- try to unfocus that feeling - or shift it -- to see that it arose out of fear and anger in the perpetrator, that we don't have to experience that anger and hate, and adjust it so that you are not attached to the experience of it.  

From a Flipside perspective,  people under deep hypnosis often say that the very worst things we can imagine happening to people were "agreed upon" prior to coming to the planet.  That's a disconcerting piece of information but it's not my opinion, belief or theory.  It's just what people consistently say about their own journey and path.  Meaning it's next to impossible to understand why an event occurs, unless we ask the people involved.  Unless we literally "step into someone else's shoes" to understand it.

If we understand that people act out of anger and hate because they're living in the shadow of anger and hate, it allows us to not react with our own anger and hate.

It would be easy to say "the answer is to try to live in a state of love and compassion" but we all know how difficult that is.  

Just try to live in a state of understanding.

Turn this...

Or this.

Into this...

Find the thing that shifts your focus from anger and hate to understanding or compassion.  

It's a much healthier way to navigate the planet.  

My epiphany for the day.