Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Two Motivations That Run The World

An artist friend asked me this morning about how does one develop motivation? I thought about it and this began a long discussion. There are two motivations which run the world.


"Doing" and "Being."


1)Doing: motivation TO DO comes from the ego thinking about all the nice things it'll receive from acting in the world. A person's identity is mistakenly qualified by what is being done. The 'doing motivation' is never satisfied. Not because it is evil or wrong, but simply because it is based on a mirage. The thing being done is not real, the goal is not real, nothing is really there. We know this because every time a goal is reached the mirage evaporates. 

The nomadic ego never arrives at its destination but keeps marching on to the next mirage. There is no home for it. Not surprisingly people driven by 'doing motivation' often work themselves to death or are forced to quit at a certain time in life when their bodies and minds can no longer 'do.'  

My grandfather did just that. He died in his sleep from a massive heart attack. He never had a day off at the end of his life because his mind couldn't take it. My father is a doer. He's been crippled by massive strokes. He has lived the past several years depressed at his limitations because he can't do what he used to in the past-tense of him. He has lost his identity of what he thought he was supposed to be doing. And in this system of motivation, a 'non-doer' is a non-person. A social zero with no status or purpose. Despite our love and affection, he insists on remaining a zero. This willful, child-like stubbornness is one of the last stands of the ego. It punishes itself and refuses spiritual sustenance such as grace and love. Rather than changing its view, the ego locks down even harder on its view, causing itself suffering. It has let itself down and inflicts judgment and wrath internally and externally. Ironically this judgment is often mistaken for God's will of fate. Willful and wrathful people project their own disdain out into the world. Often this fear is masked in religion or science.

At the end the ego brings the human back to square one: what to do now? The final 'do' for the human is death or rather it is something done to it.

Doing motivation is tautological because it is the echo chamber for human existence. This person is never satisfied because they are moved primarily by fear. And if fear is the underlying engine of motivation then a person must do because they will always finds something to fear, envy, admire, or fight. The cycle is endless when you are a 'human doing.'

2) BEING: motivation TO BE comes from grace and joining w/ holy spirit. 'Being motivation' is above the world's roiling and fighting while moving through it. There are plenty of 'Be-motivators' in business, politics, and the arts. Many are famous, but most are not. The 'being motivation' rests in the soul, and not in the eternal sense. Soul in the 'Buddha mind' sense or the emptiness joined in all phenomena. There is an emptiness to the mind and there rests a pure soul. It is present in every moment but difficult to wake up.


The soul has a home. It is in the spirit. This spirit can be called Krishna, Christ, Buddha-mind. In Buddhism they describe the moment of a pure mind touching on emptiness as pouring water into water. Quantum physicist would refer to this force as the zero-point. Out of the zero-point field the universe arises. Native Americans might refer to it as Supreme Mother. Those daring enough might even say God.

Be-motivation requires a quiet, steady mind. The ego will try to trick this mind and create panic. Nothing is being done, the world is moving past us. We are losing! It's never clear just what is being lost in being quiet but the ego is effective at creating unrest and riot because it can't thrive with a quiet mind. A quiet mind finds stillness. And in stillness is grace and 'being.' Being what? Being here. Present-tense, simple, and clear.

 Being motivation can lead to being a singer, mother, or an angel. This comes from the soul which moves toward love. The ultimate love is one which includes everyone. A 'being motivated' human can enjoy interaction with the world but doesn't compete with it. Competition is impossible because the world is an illusion. Einstein and James Clark Maxwell said so and they're considered the co-founders of quantum physics. Buddhists have been saying so for a few thousand years.

A human who is being is one  who is in love with the world. They are in love because they are present. Here and now. 


 BEING VS. DOING RESULTS
There is no past-tense or future tense in being. Only here and now. In 'doing motivation' there is only past-tense and future-tense. The present is a constant state of anxiety at what is to be 'done.' There is no joy in human doing, only expectation. Conversely, human beings are frequently very funny, pleasant and alive. These human beings are often called spiritual but that implies that others are not. They are no more spiritual than anybody else, but they're just awake to now.

You can either be motivated by fear and the ego, or motivated by love and your soul. But you can't do both.

Being here is the highest type of 'human being' because in 'here' there is God. God is only here. As I write this very sentence, God is here. God isn't in past tragedies, future plans, or the holographic holocausts of images presented in the news. As Gary Renard wrote in his miraculous book The Disappearance of the Universe "God is."

Those are the two magic words at all time: God is

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