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Having trouble with the muddle of the age of fake news? Is it becoming increasingly more difficult to sort out what is true and what is not and more importantly to maintain your sanity? Is it affecting the quality of your life, your wellbeing and your relationships? Is it interfering in the way people interact and perform in your workplace? Their attitude to collaborate, innovate and create or simply the joy of coming to work? Do you notice more pessimism and apathy in the demeanour in the community that you hang out in?

Reflecting on those questions, do you get a kick out of what you are seeing and experiencing? If your answer is a firm NO, then you might want to try some Divine Intervention!

Where to point your awareness …!

Before you continue let me make some suggestions on how to get the most from this article. What you will get from the following reflection depends on where you focus your awareness, towards intellectual understanding or deeper insight?

If you want intellectual understanding, then read the words with the intend to make sense of the concepts and ideas that the words describe. However, if you want a deeper and richer insight into what the article is telling you about then point your awareness behind the words. That’s where the real information is! The kind of information that will open your eyes to see and experience life with greater clarity beyond the smoke screens of intellectual bias. A clarity that will transform the quality of your life as you know it in enriching ways.

The Age of Fake News and the gullibility of our ego mind!

What do I mean by Divine Intervention you might wonder? Let me begin by firstly talking about the nature of fake news!

I have used the term ‘Age of Fake News’ in the title of this reading as, from my observations and concerns, the way it is used by influential yet not necessarily well meaning people and institutions is making its way into mainstream thinking, reasoning and behaving. The nature of fake news has been around throughout history. But combined with the digital age, social media and the volume of information, opinions, viewpoints, their underlying agendas and loaded with emotional energy that is thrown at people it can be a daunting task to maintain a healthy perspective and see it for what it is … information, opinions, viewpoints … nothing more and nothing less! When we buy into the underlying agendas and emotional energies behind fake news we can lose ourselves in its illusion.

Here is the thing, fake news is just a label. Labels and their underlying stories are made up and reside in our intellectual or ego mind. They are figments of our imagination. The ego mind through its cognitive abilities can make things up as it pleases, then brings them to life and makes them appear as real.

The problem with the ego mind is that it is susceptible to bias and manipulation as it has NO Innate Bullshit Detector. A detector that naturally scrutinises and filters what thinking is useful, healthy and ecological. It takes effort to do that as we have to step back from self in order to be aware of what is going on in our heads, how what we think affects how we feel and how we act it out. Let alone making changes to our thinking and behaving.

Without an innate bullshit detector or a healthy level of self-awareness and self-monitoring the ego mind is a sucker for the seductive nature of fake news.

Divine Intervention to the rescue … stepping beyond the realms of the ego mind!

This is where Divine Intervention comes in … a kind of a Common Sense that draws from a higher intelligence. A universal wisdom and intelligence that operates outside the realms of the ego mind and all its trappings.

Imagine that you had a build-in Bullshit Detector or a GPS system that guides you in the right direction. That keeps track of what information is coming in, where it is generated from, and its usefulness and ecology … in real time. A guidance system that provides you with insights and understandings that allow you to play the game of life outside the trappings of the ego mind.

The ego mind is personal and thought driven, it exists only inside our head. A bit like a standalone computer that is not connected to the internet. It can only draw from and recycle what is stored inside of it. The nature of the ego mind is to put things into boxes, mental perspectives. It wants to make sense of things cognitively, bring form to it so that we can see them and put them into words. It does that by making assumptions and comparisons about what is true and what is not true. And without that GPS it can get us into strife.

Yet there is another mind, the universal or Divine mind. The universal mind is impersonal and operates outside the world of form, before the thought. It doesn’t reside inside of us, we reside inside of it and it operates through us. Think of it as the internet just more galactic or think cosmic Google.

It’s the mind through which –

  • we are innately connected with all things living and act in harmony with our planet.
  • we enjoy richer relationships with our loved ones and the people in the wider community who we engage with, who we work with and who we serve.
  • we experience greater mental, emotional and physical wellbeing.
  • we lead with deeper influence.
  • change, personal and organisational, is natural and transformational.

Because it is formless and before the thought it works outside of the world of cognitive assumptions and bias, that doesn’t exist in this space. Here, as a mental construct, mental illness, insecurity, jealousy, rivalry, anger, mistrust, competition, power, etc don’t exist. What exists is innate love, resilience, kindness and humility in alignment and harmony with our planet.

As a living organism, we are not separate from this universal intelligence, yet we are not the centre of it. We are a product of it by the very fact that we exist.

The ego mind, at its worst, wants to play God (metaphorically speaking)! Control things, often forcibly, according to its biased thinking while ignoring universal principles that make our world tick. In the world of the ego mind, we as the human race behave as if we were bigger than the planet and the centre of the universe.

The innate energy and intelligence behind life!

The universal mind is the innate energy & intelligence behind life. It has given life to you and me, as well as all things living on our planet, the planet itself and beyond. In that sense we could call it God! It works in harmony and alignment with all things living and the universal principles that allow us to exist. It is of a higher intelligence or consciousness that is rich and unlimited source of insight, new ideas, fresh possibilities and solutions to our everyday as well as major problems.

I rarely see people who have a well-adjusted and embodied understanding of this universal wisdom at war with themselves or with others. They are in harmony with them and act with kindness. They work with and for each other. They have a natural resilience to bounce back from being human, yes, occasional the ego mind drops in and rattles the cage.  Yet this is not taken out of proportion nor is it taken out on others.

In a world where the universal mind drives the human spirit, fake news cannot survive. They have nothing to feed on as there are no takers.

When the Divine mind shows up …!

When the Divine mind shows up it provides us with deeper insights, those AHA moments, that are generated from outside the ego mind. They often show up while driving, having a shower or going for a walk. These are the kind of fresh ideas or thoughts that seem to come to mind out of nowhere. No hard thinking required. They come when your mind (ego mind) is quiet. When your attention drops from ego mind into Divine mind.

Here is the thing. Once you recognise an insight from the innate intelligence it has already been converted into form through the ego mind. Isn’t that a revelation in itself?

The ego mind as I see it has a place and a function. One is to put the formless into form. If you think back to my analogy of the standalone computer and the connectivity of the internet. In order for you to search the internet and see the information you are seeking, you need a device such as a computer through which the information that comes from the ether takes on a visible form. At times the internet connection drops out and the device can only access what is stored. For some reason the ego mind can get disconnect from the universal wisdom of the Divine mind.

Perhaps there is a design flaw in the set-up of the ego mind. I don’t know … yet! Perhaps there is some plausible purpose for the way it has a mind of its own (pun intended) or it is still evolving to connect naturally and permanently with the universal mind.

The trick is to know when what we think, what we know and what we understand about life comes from the ego mind or universal mind.

The Divine mind is always present. However, when the ego mind is busy ranting, it clouds the view to the Divine. Just because it is cloudy doesn’t mean that the sun is not shining. When we quieten the ego mind, the messages and insights from the Divine shine through and provide us with direction, guidance or clarity. It’s then up to us if we choose to act on those insights.

When ego mind works in collaboration with the Divine mind …!

When the ego mind becomes the support crew to the Divine mind magic happens! You find yourself in a place where you feel more grounded, present and at peace with yourself. Where humility, joy and love are a natural state. Where you connect naturally with others and they feel drawn to you. Where your peacefulness is infectious to them. Where your behaviours and actions are naturally directed to serve your community and your environment in mindful ways. Where you solve problems with calmness and insight. And where you lead out to create conditions where people can step above the toxicity of fake news thinking and into a world where they can unleash their highest potential.

Just imagine if we were to solve the world problems and differences through Divine intervention of the above kind. The collaboration that would take place. The world of the intellect is a transactional and reactive place. Where decisions are made on intellectual and personal agendas often based on power, money and emotions. A world of the Devine is a transformational and proactive place with a raised level of consciousness. Where decisions are naturally made in alignment with the universal principles that maintain our environment, our existence and our wellbeing.

Where did you point your awareness?

Where did you point your awareness reading this article? Did you get seduced by your ego mind and read for intellectual understanding? Maybe got some interesting ideas from it? Or perhaps found it all a little fluffy? Or did you have any Aha moments as you were reading? Did a fresh thought drop in out of nowhere that brought some clarity or a solution to something that was on your mind?

Where you want to take this depends on you and the kind of impact you want to have on your life, your relationships and your community. The choice is yours!

Just remember … killing the Age of the Fake News with the Divine Intervention and creating a kinder and more humble world … begins with you!

I trust that what you have been reading has aroused the curiosity your ego mind and connected with the spirit of your universal mind!  To find out more about how you can tap into the potential of your innate intelligence or simply reach out to start a conversation contact Mike at mi**@mi***********.com or visit www.mikeschwarzer.com.

I look forward to serving you with my next reflection!

to your highest learning and growth

Mike

 

About Mike Schwarzer

Mike is a Transformation Professional and Learning Leader who helps leaders and organisations to solve the problems that they have not been able to solve elsewhere.

He works with the underlying mental, behavioural and deeper innate dynamics that drive people’s and organisations’ thinking and actions. They learn how to tap into their inner and outer capabilities in transformational ways and see their world, its problems and emerging solutions with fresh eyes.

At the organisational level, Mike’s approach challenges the status quo and hierarchical thinking. He takes you into the world of living ‘open & adaptive’ systems and their self-organising nature. From there you will be able to create a workplace culture that naturally draws from the collective wisdom of all its people and that is highly adaptable to the changing winds of a complex world.

For more information about Mike visit www.mikeschwarzer.com.