As I said, it’s silly, and I wouldn’t want you, or me, to get stuck on it as a metaphor forever, but for now it’s a good working proposition – not that a proper Taoist would indulge in such personifications, preferring the Tao to remain the formless, uncarved block of undifferentiated absoluteness it is. But for improper erstwhile Taoists like you or me, and for the sake of gaining some basic understanding of the nature of manifesting what you want, I suggest we indulge ourselves. And you know why? Because …
the Universal Dinner Lady loves it when you ask for everything – it’s her nature to give.
you create your own reality and can create it any old way you like
It’s true. You can create a reality ruled by a scary ogre or one generated by someone as gorgeous and sexy as our beloved Universal Dinner Lady. It’s all about models and which ones you use. All the great metaphysical systems and all the great religions are, when stripped of all superfluous dressing and emotion, merely models you’ve chosen, consciously or unconsciously, to adopt. Once adopted, models take on a power of their own, which then rule your life.
(A funny thought just struck me. Imagine a hundred years from now some well-meaning idiot finding this manuscript and starting a new religion based on worshipping our Universal Dinner Lady. By the altar stands the priestess or priest wearing a pinafore, silk underwear, stockings and suspenders, and dolloping mashed potatoes and mushy peas onto the plates of the devotees who come up for their weekly sacrament. I like it as an idea – it’s got legs.)
But time is money and money is time, or so they say, so back to the plot. Your mind, when harnessed, is all-powerful and the way it describes reality to you is the way you’ll believe it to be. Not only that – and here’s the metaphysical twist that distinguishes this from a get-rich-quick book – the way you believe it to be is precisely the way it will play itself out on the stage of your world.
In other words, believe your world to be a hostile place where you have to fight for every scrap and morsel and that’s the reality you’ll have. You’ll (unconsciously) transmit signals through body language, facial expression, vocal sound and sentence structure to everyone you meet, that say, ‘Beat me, beat me!’ Which is fine if you’re into that sort of thing and you like suffering.
However, if you don’t like suffering unnecessarily and want to enjoy yourself while you’re on the planet, you’re perfectly at liberty to believe your world a friendly, loving place where you need but ask and you will receive. And it will be so. It’s really as simple as that.
There are actually no rules save the ones you make up. No restrictions other than the ones you invent. The world conforms to the beliefs you hold about it.
the world
The world is a concept. What do you mean by ‘the world’ when you say it? Whatever it is, you can be sure it’s different, subtly or grossly, from what anyone else means when they say it. Yes, there will be common reference points – the planet’s more or less round and it hurts when you bang your head, for example – we all agree on that – but beyond the basics, everyone’s walking around with an entirely different concept of reality. Indeed, that’s the fun of being here. We’ve tried it the other way – the way of forcing everyone to believe the same concept, but the history of divisions even in any single religion, not to mention divisions between the religions themselves, is proof enough that life doesn’t work that way.
believe your world to be a hostile place where you have to fight for every scrap and morsel and that’s the reality you’ll have.
It’s impossible to make people conform fully to an ideology because each of us, no matter how indoctrinated we are, invents our own reality. And as I say, that’s the beauty of being here – the sharing of different ideas, views and gifts – it’s what makes ‘the world’ go round.
So there’s no objective reality, no ‘the world’ from a single point of view, only subjective reality, each of us living in our own worlds and coming together to share them. Then it’s all down to whether you play nicely or not. Whether you share your world with love or defend it with fear and hatred.
And you’re free to change your concept of the world as often or as radically as you like. For the purposes of this manifesto, however, I propose – should you be in earnest about getting what you want – that we conceive things along the lines of the Taoist schema, as follows.
everyone’s walking around with an entirely different concept of reality. and you’re free to change your concept of the world as often or as radically as you like.
wu wei
Wu wei (pronounced woo way) describes the process of our Universal Dinner Lady putting the proverbial food on your plate as soon as she’s had a good twirl on the floor with you. Literally, it means the art of causing things you want to manifest of themselves without straining in any way. This doesn’t imply laziness at all – you’ll still have to work your arse off – that’s the dance, but hard work never killed anyone. What kills people is the strain.
In fact our Universal Dinner Lady won’t want to dance with you at all if you’re straining in the Great Ballroom of Life – she’ll find herself a more relaxed, gracious and nimble-footed partner until you’ve learned to ease off a bit.
So the first step is to relax.
hard work never killed anyone. what kills people is the strain.
relax
Do you know how to relax? Do you know where to start? The answer lies in your body. Relax your body and your mind relaxes on its own. This is not to suggest collapsing on the floor, though – this is about relaxing every nerve and sinew as you dance. To achieve this most effectively, pay attention to the following tension build-up points, for by mentally releasing the tension accrued at these points, the whole body, and hence the mind, will relax.
Relax your solar plexus – the upper abdominal area, that houses your diaphragm; the muscle that makes your lungs work. Because this is where you process your emotions, it tends to become stuck and rigid through the inevitable residual build-up of emotional toxins and unprocessed pain and trauma we all accrue, which in turn causes blocking in the breathing pattern. As breathing freely is the major key to relaxing, it pays to remain mindful at all times of keeping this area relaxed enough to feel the sun shining in it all the time, even on the darkest day – hence solar plexus.
We describe controlling, rigid people as anal or tight-arsed for this very reason. The fear of the messy, chaotic underbelly of life that leads a person to feel the compulsion to attempt to control reality, to batten down the hatches, naturally causes the anal sphincter muscles to contract and remain in a permanent state of contraction. As well as being unhealthy for the bowels, because the tension is transmitted throughout the intestines and stomach, this also causes the entire pelvic region to grow rigid. When your hips