Sleight of Mind: How The Truth Behind Life Remains Hidden

"We shall not cease from exploration, and at the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time."-T.S. Elliot

My work as a Transformative Coach, contrary to popular belief, is actually very simple.  It can be boiled down to me pointing out to people the principles behind the human experience. That's it! Of course, it does require that at some point the client actually looks to see if these principles are true in their own life; which of course they are, otherwise they wouldn't be principles.  As we glimpse these deeper truths behind life, it has a transformative and discernible impact on our lives moving forward.

Inevitably, after people hear that, I get asked the question, "If the truth behind the human experience is so simple and transformative, then why doesn't everybody just see it and begin living wonderful lives?"  The answer is, the truth is difficult to see because of the illusory nature of the human experience.  This is what I have recently been calling Sleight of Mind, which is not all that different from sleight of hand.

Enjoy the video lecture accompanying this article.

Most people know that sleight of hand is something appearing to be one thing, and in actuality is something different.  Sleight of hand artists want us to believe that they are performing some act that defies the laws of physics, such as making an object disappear into thin air, or making themselves levitate off the ground.  We commonly refer to these tricks as "magic", however in "reality" they are simply manipulating certain characteristics of observation and perception, so as to make themselves appear supernatural. The most basic form of this is to create a distraction, and then while people are busy looking at the distraction, the practitioner performs another action, hidden to the observer, in order to give the illusion of something else entirely.

A very commonly used example of an illusion is the Wizard from The Wizard of Oz.  The character of the Wizard is made out to be some supernatural entity capable of great feats and solving the problems of all of the inhabitants of The Land of Oz.  He appears in many different forms such as a giant disembodied head, a beautiful fairy, and a great ball of fire. It turns out that he is actually none of these things, and is in fact an ordinary con-man from Omaha Nebraska.  He simply used a lot of elaborate props and sleight of hand tricks to make himself appear "great and powerful".  We often refer to him as the man behind the curtain.

Another, more naturally occurring example of an illusion, is a mirage.  Wikipedia says "A mirage is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon where light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky.  The most commonly talked about mirage is when we think we see water in the desert or during a heat wave, where there is no actual water. In this case, sand is literally appearing to us as water. But that of course does not make the sand into actual water. That is the nature of illusions, they aren't in truth what they appear to be.  A trick of the light if you will.

So, you may be asking, what do illusions and sleight of hand tricks have to do with living a wonderful life? The answer is, an awful lot. Let me first define a wonderful life for the purposes of this conversation.  Everyone will have slightly different definitions, however in my experience, if you dig deep enough, you'll find everyone wants to have deep and lasting experiences of Love, Connection, Ease and Peace of Mind... so let's go with that for now.

Illusions have everything to do with living a wonderful life, because the illusions of the Mind are the only obstacle to Peace of Mind, Love, and Well-being. The problem is, we don't know that our Mind is in a perpetual state of trickery, so it doesn't even occur to us to question our own experience of life. If we are willing to take a second look and examine how exactly our human experience gets created, we begin to see that there is much more to us than meets the eye.

The human race suffers from a single illusion, one big sleight of mind trick, appearing in countless different forms in order to carefully conceal itself from our watchful eyes. It is simple, we live a 100% internal, psychological existence, and we think it's a primarily physical, bodily, circumstantial existence. In other words, we BELIEVE that the source of our experience is coming from everywhere except the one place it actually is... within. We think our pleasure and our pain, our love and our suffering, our peace of mind, and our stress are all thrust upon us based on where our body happens to be, and what other bodies happen to be doing and saying around us.

Our experience of life, gets created not within the body, and not within the brain, but within the Mind; a non spacial, non temporal force that we can't even begin to conceive of right now from our current belief systems.  Within that Mind, the content of our experience(emotions, opinions, judgments, beliefs and memories) is made of Thought, and that get's brought to life through our Consciousness. Hence the three principles of Mind, Consciousness, and Thought.(to learn more please check out previous articles and videos of mine)

The reason that this is all very illusory and difficult to accept as true, is because of the simple function of projection.  You see, our entire experience of life is playing out in a Mind, but because the eyes and other senses of the body only look outward, we can't observe that mental experience with our physical senses.  So our internal experience is not only internal, but it's essentially invisible to us; and if it's invisible, then it becomes very difficult to examine in the way that we are used to examining things in the world.

We, as human beings, have two things going on in every moment.  An internal experience playing out in the mind, via thought and consciousness. And then we have circumstances playing out in the physical world. But, instead of seeing the truth, that their is no causal link between circumstance and state of mind, we project that internal experience out onto the world as if it were one gigantic movie screen, infinitely larger than any imax theater could provide.  The result is mass confusion.  What we get is, people's internal experiences APPEARING as though they are playing out in the world, but they really are not. This is the very essence of an illusion.

A movie projector is a beautiful analogy because it really does look like an entire world and story is playing out on the screen in front of us, but it's not.  It's a projection of sound and light through film onto a screen. We have the same thing happening in our minds, only the whole projection and film reel are hidden from us. That is, until we learn to look with our Minds eye, and not the body's.

The implications of this misunderstanding are significant to say the least.  We have an entire world culture thinking, believing, and behaving as though the human experience gets created either entirely through circumstance, or as a combination of circumstance and psychology.  Not for a second stopping to consider, What if it's all in the Mind? The odd and insane behavior stemming from this one mis-understanding is infinite and endless.

The good thing about illusions is, once you see through them, they will no longer have the same impact on us. Once we know what's really going on behind the scenes, we won't ever be fooled in the same way, or to the same degree again. As one of my teachers(who I'm failing to remember at the moment)said, "If you are crazy, but you know you are crazy, then you are not that crazy."

There's more good news. It turns out, that not only are we Minds(not bodies or brains), but we are of a Divine Mind. The fundamental nature of the Mind from which we come is Peace, Love, Joy, and Oneness.  When we allow our minds to slow down, and become clear, we naturally begin to experience those deeper feelings that are what make up a wonderful life.  We are the very thing we are searching for.

There's only one catch, and that is that we can think, believe, and therefore experience(because our experience is 100% in the Mind) anything, even if it's not true. Because of the sleight of mind that we all experience, we can be miserable, stressed, hateful, cruel, jealous, and depressed. These are but passing storms, all the while a deep and profound sense of well-being lives within us all, quietly waiting for a break in the weather; a weather that we unknowingly cultivate and invest in.

We don't believe we are divine because of all of the misery we experience. As long as the source of that misery appears to be OUTSIDE us, we can't let it go WITHIN us.   It is an innocent misery, because we simply don't know how the mind works.

The key to seeing through any illusion, is being willing to look. Get curious. Get suspicious of what you think you know about the human condition. It's okay if you don't know how or where to look, all it takes is a little willingness. There is more love and beauty residing in the collective human Mind than you could even begin to conceive of; and the wonderful thing about it is, it's unconditional.

If you look closely you'll see it.  It's there for everyone to see. Look for it in your brothers and sisters; your fellow human beings. We are all cut from the same cloth. This is not some obscure philosophy, but the truth.  Don't simply take my word for it, the truth about all of us is there waiting to be seen.  You may simply have to wade through a bit of mental trickery to discover it for yourself.

Once we begin to see the depth of illusion that we've been living in, we will naturally see what is behind the curtain of our personal thinking.  What we find, is not a conman from Omaha Nebraska, or sand that sometimes looks like water, but a deeper love and more profound peace than we have ever known. It is our spiritual birthright; yet, so is the capacity for free will.  We can choose to remain mindless and deny who we are deep down; living out the rest of our days in misery. Or, we can allow the truth of our Mind and Spirit to shine through. Our essence is infinitely patient, and no matter what we go through in life, regardless of how solid and real the illusion may seem, the truth will be there waiting for us... always!

Love and Light,
Tyler