What Side of the (r)Evolution are you on?
Socrates, the great Philosopher from Greece, was known for spending an inordinate amount of time sitting in silence, in a what we now call deep meditation. He credited most of his greatest breakthroughs and deepest wisdom for society at that time from the "world" he accessed while meditating.
Leonardo Da Vinci describes regularly laying down on his bed in a room after placing a candle at the foot of the bed. He would then watch the flame flicker on the ceiling until he fell into a very deep state of concentration where he would spend large amounts of time in his imagination to come up with new ideas.
Puccini said his great Opera, the Madame Butterfly, came directly from a divine source. He described the process of essentially downloading this information from a source inside himself but not of himself, and transcribing exactly what he was given. He gives complete credit for this masterpiece to this internal, divine source.
William Blake credits his entire body of work to other-worldly or divine angelic beings that visited him through his imagination and continually gave him these ideas and insights for his work.
Mark Twain wrote that whenever he needed a new story, he would simply go inside himself, describe what we wanted to create, and then would fall into a deep state of relaxation or sleep, and would awake with the next chapter of a story. He wrote some of the most famous bodies of American fiction to date.
Brahams, the famous musician, also states that his music and masterpieces came from something beyond himself; a source he could tap into and create from. This source was outside his understanding of his three-dimensional self.
Nikkola Tesla, the genius accredited for modern electrical engineering and wireless technology, described his method of approaching complex engineering problems. He was prolific in his documentation of how we would solve these problems using his imagination through powerful visualization techniques. For example, he was able to visualize a motor design in such detail that he would be able to run research and development (R&D) in his own mind to find mistakes or flaws. He could create flawless blueprints of complex machinery from imagination alone.
Srinivasa Ramanuja, considered to be the world's greatest mathematician, continually expressed that this genius was guided through specific sources in his subconscious mind. He would accomplish most of his creative work by going to bed with an intention to be visited by one of his guides, then fall asleep and lucid dream where he would then receive enormous amounts of information. One dream he recorded, describes a scene where he saw a red wall with an equation written out across it. He memorized the equation in the dream and then when he awoke, he went to work verifying the proofs. An enormous amount of breakthrough mathematical discoveries were brought to light through him and this method. His work is still being understood for advanced technologies today.
Einstein spent large amounts of time 'staring' and 'daydreaming'; states in which he'd go deep inside himself to explore, discover and emerge with new understandings. He is largely considered to be the most prolific and important inventor of his time. He created models of advanced aircraft that our military uses today, almost 500 years ahead of his time.
I could go on, extensively. All these geniuses (and countless others) have something in common: they developed their Inner World and brought forth it's power into the Outer World.
And for that, they rose above the rest of the world.
They did not all have the best education or lots of money to start. They learned how to harness their own minds, souls and bodies. They learned the magic of their inner world and used it to benefit the outer world. All these accounts include something flowing 'through' them, or 'accessing' something beyond themselves; this process, comparatively, is all incredibly light, easy and lacking burden. The genius was remarkably easy. The tireless work they did otherwise came from a state of flow where the joy of their life came from bringing the genius to fruition through their work. This, by the way, is an example of the divine feminine and the divine masculine energies at work together, in a beautiful balance.
The description above is a completely different way to live and yields completely different results. You don't have to be a math wizard, or a composer or an engineer. What I'm most curious about is this: What would you be if you accessed your inner world and let it flow through you? What beneficial thing would you contribute to your community, passions, and the world at large? How much more would you love life if you were utterly obsessed with what you do, and were in the process of becoming a genius at it?
The work we do at Flourish is not about giving you a blueprint on how to live or access your inner world. None of these people followed a blueprint on how to become themselves. In fact, the only way to do it is to discover your own path. But as humans, we want something safer, something that feels predictable and controllable. We want someone to sell us promises of how we can do A, B, C to safely arrive at the promised destination. In my experience, those don't work when it comes to being your unique genius. It only works if you are ready and willing to be and do exactly like someone else, and even then it's not guaranteed.
The work we do rather is about shared principles, guidance, support and the interpersonal connection of small groups of people on the same path. We share discoveries, group insights and on-going connections to those developing their inner world to unlock a powerful way of life. I've seen people take this path and then do remarkable things in business, love and personal development. Imagine if you were around other people who were practicing this way of life, using their own emerging genius to support you as you do the same for others? The snow-ball effect begins to create powerful movement, and quickly.
"If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be through ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear".- Joanna R. Macy
The next revolution- the REAL revolution, that will bring the change we collectively want to see will undoubtedly happen in this way: when 'normal' people realize they are sitting on the most powerful source in the universe and begin to tap into it as a way of life. Flourish is just a piece of this revolution, doing our part in the giant, universal game of freeze-tag where once you're touched; you're free.
And once you're free, living a life that knows how to develop one's inner world to create new realities in the outer world, you will most definitely (intentionally or not) begin to set others free as well.
Jesska Layne Herfst, MAPC
Founder of Layne & Hugh Consulting