Our words are mostly past, future or illusion, because they speak from our imprisoned thinking, from the traditions with which our intellect is burdened.
Like the princess in the fairy tale of the Frog King, we played with our golden ball of spirit in the royal garden until it fell into a dark well. The power of the soul is lost in the depths of the universe.A frog appeared when we lost our connection with the Spirit. He brought the ball back to us, but only because we promised to let him sit at our table and eat from our golden plate.
Let’s start with the miracle, because in the beginning was the miracle, then came science, in the beginning was the miraculous tree of life, then came the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The baby in the devoted arms of his mother marvels at the world, it grows in this warmth and reflects his mother’s loving smile. In this way the world is nourished and Mary is called the Mother of God. In the beginning there is motherly love and the reflection of her smile in the child’s face. Looking around for a symbol you might see the flowers, they have kept the smile.
Like the princess in the fairy tale of the Frog King, we played with our golden ball of spirit in the royal garden until it fell into a dark well. The power of the soul is lost in the depths of the universe. A frog appeared when we lost our connection with the Spirit. He brought the ball back to us, but only because we promised to let him sit at our table and eat from our golden plate. Perhaps you don’t remember experiencing this, and yet you sometimes find yourself dealing with a frog, with ‘froggy’ situations that seem strange, unpleasant, disgusting, intrusive, disturbing.
The princess refused to honour her promise, but her father reminded her of her duty. It so happened that the frog ended up in the princess’s bed, whereupon she threw him against the wall, with the result that he turned into a prince.
We do not know what we are doing
Daniel Kahneman has compiled about 500 pages of scientific experiments in his unmasking book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, which illustrate how an ‘automatic thinking’ makes most of our decisions incognito and how what we perceive as rational thinking operates mostly within the framework of this automatic, instinctive thinking. He uses the terms System 1 for ‘automatic thinking’ and System 2 for ‘the voluntary system’. The competence of System 1 is based on subjective experiences, habits, selective perception, conditioning, as well as genetic and social imprints.
System 1 produces intuitions and judgements at lightning speed with the help of the brain stem and the limbic system, without the neocortex having to be involved, which is usually convenient for the neocortex due to laziness or overstraining. Cats can hunt mice without anyone explaining this to them. In the same way, we are more likely to trust simply formulated, neatly written or bold messages than messages in a blurred print. Our System 1 thinks with a ‘shotgun’, so to speak.
It believes what is often repeated. It prefers to trust the optimistic, dominant, eloquent speaker rather than the conscientious researcher who presents facts in their complexity and possibly questions himself. Narcissists appear more trusting and trustworthy than conscientious sceptics. When our gut feeling disguised as intuition says that everything is fine, our rational mind enjoys the pleasure of effortless thinking and we allow ourselves to be influenced by imaginations, images, subliminal, indirect and manipulative messages. System 1 needs less energy for its decisions because it moves along much-used paths. It feels safe when it is on the side of the majority in a group. If four out of five people are of the same opinion, it is instinctively recognised as proven and true. Galileo Galilei had to experience this first-hand, as did many other geniuses and heretics. Many of us have probably experienced how a proven fact was swept off the table by a majority vote.
Now to our cognitive System 2: Every judgement is a prejudice, because we never know the full context of an event. The context of our multidimensional universe is 99.999 per cent unknown to us.
System 2 interprets and draws conclusions, constructs stories and chains of causality, theories and philosophies in order to cope with the excess of the unknown. While some people achieve fame and glory by doing this, others can save themselves the effort, which seems sensible because the brain burns a lot of calories.
The unfamiliar is tiring and uncomfortable.
So we are trapped in our subjectivity.
So there is war between people, or every now and then a frog appears in our lives.
We are creatures of habit and “miracle noses“ and need both life strategies. A thirst for adventure and a pioneering spirit allow us to cross boundaries, connecting us to an ever greater wholeness. We are eager to learn, imaginative and empathetic, but at the same time reliable and have built up something in our careers and families, crafts and art. Habit and adventure are part of our lives, but as we can see from Kahneman, habit can easily take over.
If, like the baby, everything is unknown to me and every moment seems new, I can be open to the miracle. Wonder. The word “strange” does not exist.
Connection
The fairy tale tells us this very important thing: don’t forget that your soul is a princess, the daughter of a royal father. Your soul lives in a castle. You can remember. And if you do not remember, the voice of the royal father will resound in your conscience. And if you don’t hear His voice, the flowers keeping the smile and the stones and the angels and the frogs will show you again and again: You are not alone, you are a part in the living universe. Rejoice in the place you occupy in it.
Integration of the unfamiliar
From Kahneman’s experiments, we recognize how the unknown and unfamiliar appear unappealing to us. This is how frogs appear in our lives. However, our conscience deep in our hearts, the spark of creative primal power tells us that this wonderful universe is good. So we can submit. We can allow the unpleasant to enter our soul castle. We integrate the projection, which is karma made visible, love our enemies, in small steps, in everyday actions. We understand that we ourselves are frogs. Ego-consciousness develops from the depths of the well, of the unconscious, into the rooms of the castle. It struggles up from the earthly mud to the royal heights of a creative consciousness and lands in the bed of the princess, the primordial soul force. And is thrown against the wall. The projection, which calls itself I, shatters on the wall of space and time and – plop, life appears as a unity of soul and spirit forces. Prince and princess find each other.
Dissolution on the wall of time and space
It is relatively easy to reject unpleasantness, injustice, brutality, untruth, in politics, in society, in other people. But then to let go of our own illusions, fancies, comforts, habits, concepts, ideas, thoughts, successes, past and future, security and insecurity is a path that we can follow and that life shows us. It will lead us to be connected to everything in the living present, radiant and flowing, dark and light, sonorous and infinitely silent.
Nothing, no one, nowhere and “may-be” means: everything is open.
Learn or suffer
We will let go of perfection and planned development, control and knowledge, plans and intentions, because they lead to comparisons, judgments, competition and violence, which bind us to time. These things cause the delusion of suffering. We can let them go when we live a learning life, without the illusion of being or becoming better, because we are frogs and princesses. Knowledge excludes learning. Knowledge moves us to the subjective past, compares and strives for more. Learning is pure being, present, open to everything, to the unknown, unprejudiced.
Miracle
So you are invited to step forward into the Light of the Universal Sun with the luminous apparatus of the heart. […] You should understand that you cannot simply decide to lighten the Flame of Healing Fire in your heart-sanctuary. Of course, you can decide to do so, but you cannot hold on; there will be no evidence of steadfastness. What does show up is a caricature, a substitute, the powder-magazine of the repressed natural powers.
The Torch of Fire must be conquered; the necessary degree of purity of the heart-sanctuary only becomes possible after a complete defeat of nature. We should go to pieces as far as our retaining self is concerned. Nobody can be victorious here, who has not been in the grip of the illusion of suffering first.
When the last shooting-flame of the earthly ego-desire has faded and when we are only looking towards the hills of sanctification, the sacrifice can be accepted in this purification of our hearts.
J. van Rijckenborgh [1]
The frog that is thrown against the wall is transformed. There is no death. Remember that your soul is a princess, that your father is a gracious king. That you live in a castle, even if the situations with the frogs are sometimes hard to bear. Learn to love the frogs. You may not be able to come to terms with it for a lifetime, but it’s okay. You experience connection, integration, resolution, the miracle of love,
[1] J. van Rijckenborgh, The Coming New Man, chapter IV
