How to Change the World
Once we see that the state of our mind creates the state of the world, we can find the solution to all the world's problems.
How to get the most out of these Wisdom Quotes:
Put aside everything you think you already know.
Open your mind and heart to receive something new.
Take your time going through each point.
Return to any points that particularly touch you.
In the coming days, listen carefully to the wisdom within you.
1. A World of Our Own Making
"Every single thing that exists in our reality comes from a thought. All of human advancement and where we are today in society originates with a thought or an idea. So, all the things we’ve come to take for granted because they’ve been around so long, at one moment in time, were an idea, a thought.
It’s interesting because, as we’ve gotten used to that and become blind to it, we have a tendency to blame the world of things out there as if they were there before we got here and as if they’re somehow the problem.
Everything we’re up against is just of our own making, it’s of our own creation. All of our problems came from our thinking and all of our brilliant innovations and solutions have come from our thinking. And that’s a really intriguing and helpful place for humanity to look if we’re looking at how do we want to live in a different world.
We’re not going to get a different world by treating the world like the things out there were already there and created the problem. Talking about land and people fighting over land as if the land is an issue - no, we made up the lines! We said you live here, I live there - we made that up and now we’re struggling to fix that problem as if we didn’t make it up.
And it’s the same with money. We made up money! Money doesn’t have an existence without humans putting that out there, making it a thing, turning it into what runs our economy in our societies. We make up all this stuff about what money means about our well-being and we treat it as if money did that to us. Oh yea, that piece of paper made me feel bad, which made me suffer, which made me then kill that person, which made me…, made me…, made me…
Actually, there’s a completely different understanding of the mind that says, nothing made you do anything. Nothing made you feel anything. You’re just a potential for ideas and you live in a world that’s a reflection of those ideas.
If we want a better world, we have to be willing to consider that the world is made up of our own thinking. And it’s possible for us to have a very profound and yet simple, ordinary, tangible conversation about the link between those things: the current state of the world today and the fact that the world is the mirror reflection of our potential to have thoughts."
~Mara Gleason, from the video: Everything in Our Reality Comes From Thought
COACHING NOTES:
Do you have a tendency to blame the world? "We’re not going to get a different world by treating the world like the things out there were already there and created the problem." In other words, we're not going to change the world for the better by blaming it in any way.
Rather, we need to realize that every problem and every solution has been created by us. In the words of Krishnamurti, "What we are, the world is."
See this post in the Facebook Group
2. A Mind-Created Version of Reality
"Most of us are so busy looking at what’s happening around us: our life, our relationships, our work, social media, and the state of the world, that we forget to look at what’s going on inside us.
We think we’re looking at the world but we’re not. We’re looking at our thinking about the world. But because of the amazing special effects department inside our minds, we believe we’re seeing what’s out there.
Whether you’re trying to shoot a basketball, manage a busy restaurant on a Friday night, connect with a person on a first date, cure cancer or come up with the solutions to the climate crisis, your mind is either helping you or hurting you.
Moment to moment, every second of our lives, our perception of reality is being created from the inside. That perception is then projected out onto the world. So when we’re looking at our partner, co-workers, kids, communities, political leaders, social issues, other cultures, the world, you get the point… we’re not really seeing them. We’re seeing what we think projected onto them.
The mind creates our version of reality for better or worse. It is the gateway and source of all of our capabilities, our behaviors, our potential to solve problems and create new things, from the micro level to the macro. It explains what we see when we look in the mirror, how we interact with our families, the kinds of businesses we create and the very systems we design to organize society and the world at large.
If we ignore, minimize or misunderstand the mind we’ll forever be victims of a random, seemingly stressful outside world. It will feel like life is happening to us, bullying us, beating us down, confusing us.
Understand the mind and we begin to realize that life is coming from us and through us. We can begin to have clarity, resilience and influence over our perceptions, our capabilities, and the whole world around us in ways that we never thought possible.
We also realize that we are all in the same boat. We all think, we all feel, and we all make up stories in our heads and think that we’re right.
The good news is that while the mind is at the source of the problem we face as humans, it is also the source of its solutions. Because when we understand our internal world, we do not only change ourselves, we change our communities, our organizations, and our systems.
When our minds change, we can change the world."
~Mara Gleason, from the video: When Our Minds Change, We Change the World
COACHING NOTES:
Have you ever felt like a victim of a random, stressful outside world? Does it seem as though life is beating you down, exhausting you and confusing you? We have conversations about these things every day and see it as a normal way to communicate - complaining about world events and the difficulties external things are causing us.
But if we turn inwards and understand the mind, "we can begin to have clarity, resilience and influence over our perceptions, our capabilities, and the whole world around us in ways that we never thought possible." Don't be so busy looking around you that you forget to look inside.
See this post in the Facebook Group
3. Understanding Where Feelings Come From
"If you think your bad feeling came from me, then you’re going to want to do things to me to get your good feeling back. “You’re doing the bad feeling to me so I have to do something to you to make you go away or make you feel bad.”
You can see how, on a personal level, on a relationship level, and on a political and global level, that’s at the root of all conflict -“You caused my bad feeling so I need to do something to you.” That’s really at the source of all conflict in all its different forms, from the mild to the extreme.
But also on the flip side, you can see how that’s really at the core of all the things that we innocently but misguidedly do in order to maintain good feeling. So the opposite is true too.
If people misunderstand that good feeling comes from things outside of them like certain people or certain material objects, for example - they don’t see it’s the mind and only the mind - they’ll behave in life in a way that’s desperately chasing that good feeling and doing all the things they think they need to do in the world out here to keep that good feeling around.
Basically, we’re keeping in place a lot of things that are clearly, beyond a shadow of a doubt, making the planet sick but it’s in the name of keeping us happy financially because, somehow, having wealth provides a good feeling that we have to chase, no matter the consequences. If we didn’t think we needed convenience and wealth, things that money brings, we would so not be creating those problems in the same way that we are right now."
~Mara Gleason, from the video: Livestream - 99 Problems and One Solution
COACHING NOTES:
We are accustomed to living a life of chasing what we think will make us happy and avoiding what we think will make us unhappy, without questioning the truth behind this perception. The fact that most of the rest of the world is doing the same thing seems proof enough that we're on the right track.
But if we understand how our mind works and that, ultimately, nothing "out there" can give us the rest and fulfillment we long for, we can make wiser choices about how to live.
See this post in the Facebook Group
4. A Shift in Consciousness for Humanity
"What we’re really describing is a shift in consciousness on an individual and collective level, a shift in consciousness for humanity. Not in some creepy way but in a very normal way.
And I think the way that is closer than it looks is this sheer understanding becoming more pervasive in the world. That, look you’re a human, you’re thinking of your experience of life, and because it’s coming from your own thinking, you’re going to feel it’s really true and factual. But it’s not. It’s just your version of life. It’s your mind’s version of life.
If people know when they’re down, not to freak out and go trying to destroy a bunch of things in the world that they think made that feeling happen, or try to go get a bunch of things greedily to try to make them feel better; if people just know that, "Oh, I’m in a feeling that comes from my mind and that creates my perception of the world - that’s true for me, it’s true for everyone - I don’t have to be defensive of that and I don’t have to be arrogant about that," the world would change.
If kids were learning this in school like they’re learning all the other basic things that have become so embedded in human culture - like language. To me, this looks like as big of a potential shift in human civilization. We go from not understanding that the mind is the source of everything to understanding that the mind is the source of everything.
There’s an innate intelligence that grasps language and that’s what we’ve discovered in the people that we work with, is an innate intelligence that grasps: "Oh yeah, of course! Of course, I’m living in a reality of my own making, of course, it’s my mind and my thinking. I can see that in all these different examples."
Now, if we just understood that more widely, more consistently, more universally, we would stop unnecessarily raising children to think the opposite and to create the kind of problems that are getting created in the world because of the current misunderstanding around that.
It’s subtle but it’s profound at the same time, shifting where humanity collectively sees the experience and the reality we’re in as coming from to where it’s really coming from. And there are a million different ways that we can do that."
~Mara Gleason, from the video: Livestream - 99 Problems and One Solution
COACHING NOTES:
There's an innate intelligence, a built-in knowing which receives this profound understanding of the mind as the source of all our experience of life.
We don't need an analytical brain, years of study, or a high IQ. (Eckhart Tolle says he has a low IQ.) All we need is an insight. And insights come when we are open, when we are willing to consider that perhaps life doesn't work the way we thought it did.
The beauty of it is, we can trust the wisdom within. Once we are open, life can flow freely through us and spark awareness in our ordinary, daily lives. An awareness which begins on an individual level and spreads to a global one.
See this post in the Facebook Group
5. A Kinder World
"When people have a shift in consciousness or a shift in state of mind where they feel better, they become more at ease with the fact that we have differences of opinions, differences of beliefs, which is a way of saying we have different minds, we have different thoughts, we have different versions of reality.
One of the bi-products of that is then you naturally feel more compassionately connected to human beings as opposed to divisive and locked into your own way of seeing.
So, those two leaders of those two countries don’t feel this need to be the better one, be the right one, be the superior. The good news is there’s less terror created in the world just simply by that realization.
What I find fascinating is, as this becomes collectively understood, you begin to see that, when people feel better in themselves, they naturally want to do better collectively in the world, they want to be kinder.
I’ve never seen a human that, when they realize the nature of their own thinking is made up, illusory, didn’t relax and naturally feel better and see the world in a way in which they wanted to do better in the world.
It’s almost like our thought systems create this illusion of separation and threat, and when our thought systems relax, we don’t see other people as threats. We see them as just another human making up their reality and we’re connected to that in a way that’s natural and effortless.
It’s so helpful when people can see this is true on a micro, personal level and it’s the same way on a macro level.
I can humbly admit that when I feel bad I’m way more inclined to get irritated with people and think what they’re doing is wrong or annoying. If I’m in a really low mood and I don’t know that it’s just my mind, I blame everything and everyone and I want to do mean things to those people because I feel bad toward them."
~Mara Gleason, from the video: Livestream - 99 Problems and One Solution
COACHING NOTES:
What we see most of the time is the world trying to fix its problems with the same level of consciousness that created them. We focus on the symptoms rather than the root cause.
But the way to a better world is to relax. Imagine a world where everyone wasn't freaking out over their thoughts, where we learned early on to understand their illusory nature. The repercussions of this would be truly phenomenal and, to some degree, it's already happening...
See this post in the Facebook Group
6. Get Out of My Way!
"If I’m in one of those days when I’ve got a million things going and I’m stressed, and I see someone walking in front of me who’s moving slowly, I find them annoying.
I’m on the sidewalk, I’m trying to get somewhere and you are in my way. What are you doing? Can’t you feel me back here? Can’t you feel that I’m trying to move quickly and you are the only thing in my way? And if I was crazy enough, if I didn’t understand it enough, I could push them out of my way because they’re standing in my way.
I’ve been so absorbed in my own thinking, in my own stressed-out state of mind, that I see an innocent stranger in front of me on the sidewalk is a problem that I want to move out of the way.
People are like that all the time, in their car, or you go to get coffee from someone and they do your order wrong and, if you’re in a bad mood, you feel like they did it on purpose. Like, ugh, really? You didn’t hear what I said?
We take things personally and we want to do things externally when we feel that. I can see that in myself so why wouldn’t it be the exact same thing on a macro level, on a global level?
And that’s how you end up with people doing a lot of things externally to hurt large numbers of people because they misunderstand that somehow that’s going to make them feel powerful or make them feel better or make them feel like we got it right.
And that’s what we’ve got in the world today - a lot of mild and extreme examples of people externally trying to change their experience when that is not actually how human experience works."
~Mara Gleason, from the video: Livestream 99 Problems and One Solution
COACHING NOTES:
Who are these "people" that we like to complain about and blame for all our perceived problems? More importantly, are you open enough to see that unconsciousness is also within you?
This isn't about comparing unconscious acts: "Well, I get angry sometimes but I wouldn't hurt anyone on purpose." This is about seeing that it all begins with believing the thought that something "out there" is causing your bad feeling. See if you can catch yourself doing that.
See this post in the Facebook Group
7. One Big Suspense Thriller
"I feel personally like my job over the last 10 years (since I came across these principles, this understanding of the mind) has been one big suspense thriller of watching what happens when a human or two humans, or an organization of humans or a multi-million dollar company of humans suddenly goes:
"Oh, wait! There’s a link between how we’re using our minds and what’s possible for us in life? There’s a link between how we’re using our minds and the chronic issues we’re having in this company? You mean it’s not the budget? You mean it’s not the boss we all hate?"
It’s like, really seeing that’s it’s never anything out there, that at the end of that movie there’s this amazing plot twist where people see their world and what they thought they were dealing with from a completely different perspective, and things become possible that weren’t possible -not because they changed anything out there but because they changed their understanding of the fact that it all came from here in the first place.
I feel very compelled to share this with the world because I can see so clearly now that what helps an individual, which helps a family, which helps a company, that helps a culture, that helps the world is a different understanding of the mind."
~Mara Gleason, from the video: Everything in Our Reality Comes From Thought
COACHING NOTES:
To change the world, we need to see that the state of our mind creates the state of the world. But the good news is that the mind is not only the source of our problems - it is also the source of the solution.
Understanding our internal world leads to change in ourselves, which then ripples out into change in our communities, our organizations and our systems. When our minds change, we can change the world.
See this post in the Facebook Group