The left hand path and our creative endeavor 

A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic

Copyright 2008 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

 
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In any society, whether small like a family or large like a nation, there is the conventional path or the conventional way of being that is acceptable to the members of that society. Although there may be many different ways to live, there are written and/or unwritten ways of being that the society finds acceptable. The left hand path of convention is a way of living or being in a society that tend to run outside the written and/or unwritten ways of being. The left hand path does not mean we do everything different or against society. Rather, it only means we do one or more things or have one or more ways of being that are considered "not the way things are normally done" if not unacceptable to make some of the members of that society uncomfortable.

Our creative passion and the left hand path

Creativity by its very nature brings into the world something that is significantly different from what went before it or something not see before for it is entirely original. Hence, creativity and creative acts always lie outside the norm in some way. The question is whether or not our creative passion causes us to create in a way that takes us outside the acceptable norms of our society, whatever that society may be.

It is inevitable that our creative passion will take us outside of our own norms. Here we need to understand that our creative passion is not just something that we like to do or even something that necessarily gives us a great thrill in life. Often our creative passion may cause us to overcome great obstacles may by seem more of a burden that a thrill. It will take us to where there are not necessarily any external rewards for the external world may not realize or readily accept what our passion creates. We have no idea as to whether or not what our creative passion desires to create will, or will not, be acceptable to those around us until we get there. We have no guarantees as to acceptability when we live our creative passion. Our passion will take us into the unknown for there are no reference markers available for what it looks like manifested in the current physical world.

When we live our creative passion we will live in the unknown since we will be bringing ideas, concepts, objects, ways of being and the like into the world that have not been seen before. It is most probably that our creative passion will make us look very different than the norm for the world in which we live. That in turn, will require us to walk the left hand path of convention. There are many types of courage but it takes a very deep courage to follow one’s passion and the truth of our own being for it may take us opposite not only of our society and family but our very own ego and all that our current mind thinks and believes who and what we are.

The left hand path and the intention for our life

The problem that most individuals face in life is that the dream of the heart also know as the intention for our life, will cause us to transcend anything our current mind could conceive of what it is we came to do. We will not be able to even really contemplate what it means for our life before we have had the necessary experiences in life to do it. Because of this fact, to think about an intention for our life causes fear to arise in many people for two reasons. One is it acts as a pull or  undercurrent in our life which our current mind has great difficulty understanding until it has the minimum set of experience to understand it. That second reason is the dreams of the heart can be very frightening for they represent a path that no one else can travel for the dream of the heart is unique to our creative life energy and is key to the purpose for our incarnation into our particular body. As such, our current mind may, or may not, see it as existing within the world of possibilities. This is because the enculturated ego rarely supports dreams and visions of this magnitude for they cause us to travel a unique path in life. However, this dream of the heart is integrally linked to our hope and anticipation of future possibilities and the what we desire to experience in our.

No one else carries the dream of another. The path required by dream of our heart may, or may, not require us to follow the conventions of our family and the society. Often we are required to travel the left hand path of convention. As such, the enculturated ego, and the society in which we find ourselves, may not support the expression of that dream.

Societies are created for individuals as a group to survive in the world. Societies are not generally created for us as an individual. However, Societies are created in such a way that most individuals are able to live and survive, and even feel successful in their life. Otherwise there tends to be revolution or a sever repression of individual freedoms. Societies are the way the collective thinks they should live and that does not mean it is the best way or the safest way collectively or individually. This of course does not mean what society wants is in the best interest of society or of the individual, especially the individual as a unique creation. Societies are very supportive of those who function in roles society finds acceptable but do not looks so favorably or supportive for those who have alternative ways of living.

Societies are for the collective as the collective understands good and what is good as a social definition may not be good for the individual. Here the term "good" is not necessarily right and wrong, good or bad. It is based on what allows the society to grow and flourish. However, in growing and flourishing, one does need to look at the fruits and determine whether they are sweet or bitter.

What is suggested here is that the concept of good that one is encouraged to use for societies or as an individual is that which allows for the growth and unfoldment of the individual and subsequently the collective according to their true nature. Within this concept of good, the individual is free to become who and what they are true to their nature. However, this is not a concept and something that society currently subscribes to as its goal or as it sees it is responsible for providing. More often than not, societies start with the need for a common defense of some type or another where the individual is expendable for that common good. People band together to defend whatever it is they believe that is threatened whether it be their physical security, economic security, spiritual security or emotional security.

It is possible to have a social structure where each individual is free to unfold according to their own nature. But such a structure is not what the current mind thinks it looks like for the current mind, individually and collectively, is too worried about survival and protecting themselves. To create a society that is supportive of the unfoldment of the uniqueness of each individual it must be based on a security that arise from within each individual being and a desire to share as opposed to survival and a common defense.

This point is very important for family structures. Families and organizations such a churches that are based on dealing with fear and meeting survival needs such as fear of dying if one is alone. If the family or organization believes one needs others to feel complete, that family or organization will not create the space that nurtures an individual to become free to unfold according to their unique nature. Rather, the fear carried by the family or society will permeates its unfoldment. The family or organization will fear the uniqueness of the individual for the unfoldment of the individual uniqueness will take the family and society outside of its security it desires into the unknown. Only when the family or society is founded on a sharing from a position of strength is the space created capable of nurturing the unfoldment of the unique individual. In this case, there is no fear and threat from the unknown that accompanies the unfoldment of a new creation.

In any society, whether small like a family or large like nation, there is the conventional path or the conventional way of being that is acceptable to the members of that society. Members are indoctrinated from the earliest ages and often the members don’t even realize they have been programmed in the conventional path and there are other choices available to them. Most never question the path even when the conventional path causes us pain because we are living against the flow of the desired expression of our creative life energy. Typically we numb the pain rather than explore the cause of the pain. The result is addictions of one type or another and the system in which the individual lives is actually the cause. However, society will point the proverbial finger at the individual as not being able to adapt or having some type of adjustment problems were the individual must change rather than the system changing in any way to become more supportive of the individual needs. We fail to realize that many of the social systems we create are the cause of the addictions rather than the individual not being able to adapt. An individual can only go against the flow of their creative life energy for so long before that mismatch takes it toll.

Although there may be many different ways to live, there are written and/or unwritten ways of being that the society finds acceptable. There is always one or more alternative ways for whatever way is chosen. Few turn to these alternative ways to relieve the pain they feel or to find the freedom to express their truth and who and what they really are. Rather the individual typically looks to some secular or religious teacher or healer to find their way in life to "heal" their pain.

However, more often than not, there are rules, rules and more rules as to how the individual should live. Rather than finding the freedom to live according to the truth and flow within one’s being, they are only give a new set of rule and ways of having to be in the world. The individual is directed to change their diet, change the rituals in their life, change their thinking, change the way they dress and on and on. However, few ask. "What does the individual need to do to align and be in the flow of their own creative life energy allowing their body wisdom and intuitive guidance on to lead?" There are very few opportunities to find someone who will create a safe and secure space for another to unfold unfettered and according to the own unique nature. The main problem is so few have experienced such a space that almost no one knows what it really looks like. But if one becomes that detached witness and observes carefully, they will see what it looks like and what it takes to create that safe and secure space for themselves and another.

This of course makes it very difficult for the individual who becomes the detached witness and see what needs to be done to live what needs to be done. The detached witness must create a sufficiently safe and secure space to find the freedom for themselves to unfold for only then, when they find the freedom to unfold true to themselves, will they be capable of creating such a space for another. It needs to be remembered that we cannot give what we do not have. We have to create within ourselves what we wish to give. To give the freedom to unfold in accordance with our true nature one must first be able to give that freedom to ourselves or otherwise we cannot give it to another. When the individual is able to become the detached witness to see what needs to be done, if they do not have the help of a rainmaker or dream midwife and nanny they will have to both created the safe and secure space for themselves and unfold according to their true nature simultaneous. It is a rather difficult feat but nevertheless entirely possible.

The rules of society are usually created to protect some interest or another. Not all rules are good for the growth and unfoldment according to one’s true nature or of the collective. Most individuals are aware that interest of the individual ego routinely influence the rule of society. Individuals can get the rules of society changed. However, we forget the social collective itself as does the human collective have egos and those ego’s have a great influence on the rules. Just as the individual ego does not always act in the best interests of itself, so too with collective egos.

There are two sets of rules that routinely govern our external life. There are those rules of Physical Creation which are in accord with the principles of nature and the Physical Creation and those that we create to manipulate the world the way we want it to be or think it should be. The two, the principles of nature and what we want, do not always agree. It is the laws of nature that are most important and are the ones of which we need to become aware for they are they one that will cause us the most pain when not followed.

Similarly, there are internal laws just like the external laws of nature. There rules we must follow to maintain an health body and then their our the way we want to think things should be. For example, we cannot wish our muscles to be strong. We must exercise to make them strong.

What needs to be understood is a law or principle of nature will transcend any individual and society. They apply everywhere in the same way. This statement is true for both the internal and external laws. The two internal laws that are most important relative to the left hand path is that 1) we create our experiences by how and what we think and believe and 2) if we do not, or cannot, align with the flow of our creative life energy and live true to its guidance we will feel pain. To align with our internal flow and live our internal guidance, we cannot always live the way society wants us to live. That in turn causes us to follow the left hand path of convention.

The left hand path of convention is a way of living or being in a society that tend to run outside the written and/or unwritten ways of being. The left hand path does not mean we do everything different or against society. Rather, it only means we do one or more things that are considered "not the way things are normally done" or even unacceptable to make some of the members of that society uncomfortable. Our lack of convention can be in one small aspect of our family or society or it can be a totally different life style outside all norms. Few find it necessary to live the extremes but we can be guaranteed we will need to live outside the norm in some way, especially the norm of our own ego.

Creativity by its very nature brings into the world something that is significantly different from what went before it or something not see before for it is entirely original. Hence, creativity and creative acts always lie outside the norm. All that can really be done is provide a safe and secure space to allow the creation to unfold according to it nature.

In stepping into the unknown to manifest a new creation, one does not have to be overly concerned as to what may unfold. Any new creation arises from the parents of two known aspects of Creation and will not be tremendously different than the parents. The parents of the current life we experience and our creative life energy was the consciousness within our being and Physical Creation. As a result, our creativity and creative passion will not differ tremendously from those two. If we study the two, we will have a pretty good idea of the boundaries of what our creative life energy/creative spirit will be trying to create.

However, both, the consciousness within our being and the consciousness of Physical Creation, are much bigger that what society has experienced from either of them. The question is whether or not our creative passion causes us to create in a way that takes us outside the acceptable norms of our society, whatever that society may be. It will not take us out of the laws of Physical Creation or outside the laws of our transcendental mind. It will take us outside the laws of our enculturated ego and possibly those of society for the laws of our enculturated ego and society are creations of humanity and not creations of Physical Creation or our consciousness.

It is inevitable that our creative passion will take you outside of our own enculturated norms. So we will have to give up who and what we think we are and live and become different. In transcending our ego, we may find we have to face the fear of dying and we will find ourselves some what schizophrenic as our heart and mind argue and second guess each other. This fear and struggle comes from two sources. One is the fear of death because of how the ego is tied to the body and the other is fear of death because of how the ego is tied to society.

The enculturated ego is that part of the ego that society has taught who and what the ego thinks it is as opposed to whom it is. As a result, our ego is also tied to the belief of survival in the world as defined by society and we need to face the fear of death and since fear of death is tied to the collective and one of the major reason for societies existing. There is a struggle to overcome the fear of death within the individual and when the individual breaks free, there is an inner joy and bliss at that accomplishment for one relinquishes a deep attachment to the body. However, there is another struggle and that is breaking free of the collective fears. Here the struggle is not as personal but just as intense if not more. Breaking free of these fears will be like escaping the pull of gravity for in the same way each particle of mass on earth is pulling back on a rocket trying to leave the pull of gravity, the belief each person has in the collective is similarly pulling us back from breaking free of the collective beliefs.

It was said above that our creative passion is not just something that we like to do or even something that necessarily gives us a great thrill in life for it may cause us to overcome great obstacles and may be seen more of a burden that a thrill. It is here, breaking free of the collective pull and beliefs of families, professions, society and the like is were we can have their greatest impact in our life. One of the most powerful gifts we can give someone is our support to manifest their dream and actively hold the space form them to manifest it. Otherwise we are an obstruction for them for our thinking is added to the collective from which they are trying to break free.

In this regard, the dream within our heart, the intention for our life, will take us to where there are not necessarily any external rewards for the external world may not realize or readily accept what our creative passion creates. This of course is another problem for the ego. Most of us have been indoctrinated with one or more ideas of success and many even carry an idea of what success will be in an afterlife and in the non physical realm. However, our creative passion has no concept of success other than to freely and fully express itself true to itself as a unique creation.

On this note, it needs to be recognized that the heart will feel success and know what is successful by feel. It has no interest in what mind thinks. Consequently, we have no idea if what our creative passion desires to create will and whether or not it will be be acceptable to our current mind or to those around us until we get there. We have no guarantees as to acceptability when we live our creative passion. We cannot look to success criteria in the way we typically do. We must trust that the wisdom that created and sustains us to know that it knows what it is doing. But we can’t learn to trust this wisdom until we learn to feel at every level of our being and experiences how the body wisdom and intuitive guidance actually work to know they provide safety and are trustworthy. If we do not allow ourselves to experiment with them, we will never have the confidence and trust that they can lead us into and through the unknown. Our passion will take us into the unknown for there are no reference markers available for what our dream of the heart and our creative passion looks like manifested in the current physical world. However, our body wisdom and intuitive guidance, will allow us to feel our way through the unknown. When you cannot see what is before us, they will be able to guide us.

When we live our creative passion we will live in the unknown since we will be bringing ideas, concepts, objects, ways of being and like into the world that have not been seen before. So we have no idea what to look for based on how we have learned to see. Seeing is for light. Feeling is for darkness. The unknown will always look dark for if we could see it would not be the unknown. Only our ability to feel is what will safely guide us. Feeling comes from living in the heart, not the mind. Facts and analysis are of the mind. Internal knowing and sensing are of the heart. If we can develop our ability to internally know and sense in a space where we can verify what we experience with facts, analysis and seeing, we can calibrate ourselves between the two abilities and go anywhere we wish.

We are a unique creation unseen like anything else before. It is most probably and somewhat inevitable that our creative passion will make us look very different than the norm for the world in which we live. How different? Only in living it will we know. In any case, our uniqueness in turn, will require us to walk the left hand path of convention.

There are many types of courage but it takes a very deep courage to follow our creative passion and the truth of our own being for one is always struggling with the internal battle of the heart and what it feels, and the mind and what it sees. We can fully expect our creative passion and the dream of the heart from which it flows will take us opposite not only of our society and family but our very own ego and all that thinks it is. But what we will find is something more joyful and blissful than we even imagined.

Summary

To live in alignment with the flow of our creative life energy/creative spirit we can expect to walk the left hand path of convention and we can expect to live an alternative life style in some way in some aspect of our life. In this regard, we can expect to feel alone. However, our loneliness is only the loneliness the Consciousness within, or behind, Creation, felt when It chose to create playmates to share itself. So too with each of us. We chose to create a playmate with whom we can share our uniqueness. What we will find is we are infinite and we have an infinite number of playmates. They all stand before us waiting for us to live the truth of our being and when we do, we give them permission for them to live their truth. That is the greatest gift we can give.

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