“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” ~ Wayne W. Dyer
Sometimes, all it takes for us to make leaps and bounds along our spiritual path, or to turn further inwards and remove another layer of distortion that has clung to us in the past, is to shift our perception.
The purpose of Zen Koans, Sufi poetry, parables, and allegories is to do just that, and many spiritual teachers across the world employ these tactics to pull back these layers.
We can hope to return to our child-like view of the world, yet with the tools and knowledge of how to replenish this innocent standpoint from within, so it is never-ending.
Let’s look at 5 analogies to help us perceive in new ways
Sometimes we are the Goldfish, and sometimes we are viewing the Goldfish
Fish in a pond have no awareness of the people watching them from above the surface. What can help, especially when our egos want to run the show is to realize that there is a huge amount of life watching us from the surface, and that there is so much still to learn.
By opening ourselves to new ideas and recognizing when we are becoming dogmatic is humbling and allows new energies and information to flow more readily to us.
We can borrow other’s clothes but that doesn’t make them ours
This is a good one for the empaths out there. When you willingly take on the beliefs and intentions of loved ones in order to understand their experience or to please them, it will never last. The same goes for religious upbringings or the beliefs of your parents that have become like cloaks of protection but also restriction.
There will always come the time to take them off to reveal the blank canvas that you truly are. By doing so you are letting up space; by releasing dense energies that pull you in all directions you allow yourself to transmute them into pure love and send them back to Source. Doing this every day is good goal to have; every day say ‘I now release all energy that does not belong to me’ and let it go for a happy life.
You can’t help anyone else until you put on your own oxygen mask
Becoming a parent or carer drives this home, but generally speaking, meditating on this allows us to focus first on our own vortex of desires and pillars of love. What comes next follows naturally. ‘I intend to let love flow to and from me in equal balance’ is a great affirmation for any morning, as is ‘I am grateful for this new day of life.’ And it works on a grander scale, too, doesn’t it?
We all must eventually come to that decision in our lives to stop rescuing others, and if we lacked anything in the past to build new foundations that come from our own source of empowerment. In fact, forget all notions of lack entirely, you can create worlds and are eternal, never depleted. It’s only our perceptions of lack that create it.
You are sitting on your own treasure
Or rather, your own treasure is waiting to be discovered, somewhere in the vicinity of your solar plexus/heart. At your core you have a wellspring of golden energy that wants to be unplugged.
This is especially great to tap into for those who struggle from a place of poverty consciousness and are always looking for external sources of money.
Take the vibration of prosperity and swallow it, letting the warm current of currency circulate around your belly. It starts inside you. Just try it; suspend all logic for a week and imagine yourself swallowing real gold, observing it transform into a fountain of gold inside you, one that vibrates the frequency of abundance. Then see what happens. Do you feel any different?
Love and prosperity are intertwined; if you are giving and receiving in equal measure in love, it will help your money flow too.
Walk every step on this Earth in the garden, and you will know bliss
I find that meditating on the sensual pleasures of being in a garden, as well as create that in my vibration by wishing it for myself and my children, and all humans to precise reminds me that the garden could be seen as a perception.
The analogy of the garden of Eden, though makes me cringe in all its Christian associations comes from a place of truth. We can all walk in a garden because the Earth is the garden of Eden, you only need to look through the veil of duality in order to connect with it. And that garden exists within us too.
As Osho said, ‘have the courage to enter your inner forest’, and that’s what we have inside of us. Spending time in nature helps us connect with the true flow of life and allows us to give up the fight and requirement to pretend.
So there it is. Perhaps the most important thing we can gain in understanding the power of perception is that everyone has a different one. We shouldn’t fear others, but use it to gain common ground.
Holding the intention to find one thing in common with everyone you meet in the span of a day increases positivity and flows love towards our differences. Honoring others’ perceptions and allowing them to be at that stage without assuming you know better dissolves all barriers and perceptions of duality.
The perception of duality can be dissolved with every opportunity, which is the reason these interactions come into our direct experience in the first place, and in this way we can help the evolution of consciousness. It’s not what happens to us, but the attitudes in which we chose to flow our attention.
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