The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [67]
Imagination: Art’s not my thing. I don’t go to museums or concerts. My hobby is television and the sports page. To me, most creative types don’t have their feet on the ground. Now I will catch myself rejecting my imagination and find ways to express it.
Reason: I know what I know and stick with it. I don’t listen to the other side of an argument very often—I just want to prove I’m right. I tend to have the same reactions to similar situations. I don’t always follow through with the plans I make, even when they’re good. Now I will catch myself being unreasonable and will stop to consider every point of view.
Emotion: I don’t make a scene and I hate it when anyone else does. I’m not impressed by people who give in to their emotions. Holding it inside is my motto—nobody ever sees me cry. I can’t remember anyone growing up who taught me that emotions are positive. Now I will catch myself rejecting my real feelings and find a safe way to express them.
Physical body: I should take care of myself. I’m in considerably worse shape physically than I was five or ten years ago. I’m not happy with my body, and I’m not much for physical activity. I’ve heard about body therapies, but I think they’re indulgent and a little flaky. Now I will catch myself giving up on the physical side of my life and make time for it.
Of necessity, I’ve provided very general notes, but you should be as specific as possible. Under “Love,” write down the name of someone you haven’t shown your love to or an incident you recall where you felt uncomfortable receiving love. Under “Imagination,” note the museum in town you don’t visit or the artistic person whose company you’ve avoided. By the same token, be specific if you can about how you are going to change these habits of rejection.
Exercise #2: My Awareness Profile
Now that you’ve taken notice of where your limitations lie, draw up a profile of your awareness as it is today. Keep the profile in a safe place and consult it sixty days from now to see how much you’ve changed. The profile is rated in each category from 1 to 10. When you return after the sixty days are up, rate yourself without first looking at your original scores.
0 pts. I don’t pay any attention to this part of my life.
1– 3 pts. I have had a little experience in this area but not recently and not very often.
4– 6 pts. I am familiar with this area of my life and experience it fairly often.
7– 9 pts. This is an important area of my life, one that I focus on a lot.
10 pts. This area is my home. I know it well and spend almost all my extra attention on it.
(0–10 pts.)
Pure Being
Conditioned Bliss
Love
Knowingness
Myth and Archetypes
Intuition
Imagination
Reason
Emotion
Physical Body
Secret #10
DEATH MAKES LIFE POSSIBLE
I IMAGINE THAT IF SPIRITUALITY sought sales advice from Madison Avenue, it would be, “Scare people about dying.” This tactic has been working for thousands of years. Because all we can see of death is that once you die you aren’t here anymore, this creates deep fear. There has never been a time when people weren’t desperate to know what lies “on the other side of life.”
But what if there is no “other side”? Perhaps death is only relative, not a total change. After all, each of us is dying every day, and the moment known as death is really just an extension of this process. St. Paul spoke of dying unto death, by which he meant having such strong faith in the afterlife and the salvation promised by Christ that death lost its power to generate fear. Yet dying unto death is also a natural process that has been going on in cells for billions of years. Life is intimately entwined with death, as you can observe every time a skin cell is sloughed off. This process of exfoliation is the same as a tree dropping its leaves (the Latin word for “leaf” is folio), and biologists tend to think of death as a means for life to regenerate.
This view brings little comfort,