Landmark's WORD (An e-mail I never sent)

I never sent this e-mail because it's just a little too serious, plus I'm trying not to randomly help people or preach my shit so much. I'm trying to become more humble, and I'm just getting started... so obviously sending this would go against all that I'm trying to balance in my life.

But I still had to write it... because I used to have an EPIC tool for controlling myself that stopped working after only a few days of using it, called "The Whip" (whipping myself into submission mentally).

This is "The Word" and it replaces "The Whip" in a way that actually works.

***

Landmark said something that I never quite got,
which is that "all you have is your word".

Two days ago, I continually broke myself down over
and over while simultaneously installing "my word"
in the place of the old shit I was throwing out.
I didn't know I was doing it. But the result was one
I'd been building for a while, and yet unexpected.
Over the last two days, I haven't hesitated for even
a second one time to do exactly what I told myself
to do (and what I knew from A TON of previous
thinking that I should do.) I have thus gained full
control of my word... my mind is going to work and
doing what needs to be done on autopilot for once.

Alrighty Business Circle, you can stop reading now.

That's the POWER of landmark's idea of YOUR WORD

(I... think. It's been 2 years since I did landmark and I'm just now getting what this meant... so I could be quite off.)

Below is something that's VERY tl;dr (too long; don't read) [the whole email including this totals to 5 pages] It's so long, I'm not even going to attempt to edit it... which I think is a first for any article I've written that spanned over 1 - 2 pages.

But, I think it's a pretty good explaination of Landmark's word, and since you're in the business circle, I kind of feel obligated to give you a shot at this one.

I'd recommend you window mode your browser so the text doesn't stretch across the screen. It's going to make it much easier to read, trust me.

For the record reading this WILL significantly impress me, lol... so yeah I'd love to hear if you read it even if it's just a quick reply that says, "I read it. FUUUUU---"
---------------------------
---------------------------

So what is "your word"? And how is it "all you have"?

First, you've got to understand who YOU are... or more accurately, WHAT you are, and that's a little more complicated than Landmark's explaination that you are "a biological, *meaning making* machine".

That is to say, you're technically a robot with a really, really complicated brain that goes around making meaning of things.

Which makes a lot of sense if you consider that nothing in the real world "means" anything. If you didn't see it, sure it existed... but it may as well not have. Two comets smashing in space are just two objects colliding. The same thing goes for the most awesome thing that's ever happened to you. You got super excited and remember it to this day, but it only matters to you because your mind went "that was amazing". That amazingness is merely a "meaning" that your mind has created.

...Now hold on to your horses, sparky, cuz I gotta ask... did the holocaust mean anything? We've all thought it was one of the most horrible, terrifying things to ever happen and it taught us about the evil mankind is capable of. And that means a lot... to mankind. But really, it's all just a planet that happens to have plants and animals and people who end eachothers lives. None of it means something if no one made the meaning... outside of your head, or the heads of all people, there's nothing (other than perhaps God depending on your religiousness beliefs) that makes it mean anything. SOMEONE has to judge it before it has any meaning.

So to US, the holocaust means tons of things... but in reality (outside of our brains) the holocaust, feeding starving children, and even "love" have absolutely no meaning. In the reality, they're just things that HAPPEN.

Okay, did ya get all that? For the record, I ask about the holocaust because that seriously is going to challenge some of your beliefs. If you can't understand how the holocaust doesn't mean anything except to YOU (since you're a meaning making machine) or OTHER PEOPLE (since we all have minds that make meaning out of the world around us)...

If you just can't get that right now... that's okay, because it took landmark something like 30+ hours almost STRAIT before they tried to tell us that.

But if you're not getting that, you gotta stop reading now. The rest of this simply isn't going to make sense... you'd be wasting your time. So think about the above and see if you can distinguish things in your head from what they really are.

So, back on point.

Literally, what you are is CONSCIOUSNESS. That implies that you are MORE THAN JUST YOUR MIND.

How can you be more than just your mind, when it's 100% of what makes you conscious?

Well, imagine you were born, but just as consciousness should have developed, it didn't. You're born and your mind grows to be just as powerful as it is today (well, at least in the pure sense of brainpower, but it obviously doesn't have any of the work you've done on it or whatever), and although just as powerful and equal as your current mind, this brain has never experienced a thought. It's never run an emotion or responded to anything. It's a vegetable.

If that were true, YOU would have never existed. Only your mind would have. Hence, YOU are more than your mind.

Your mind is kind of like the projector, and YOU are the image projected.

I think I've told you before about a "clearing" or "vacuum"... if you were to magically create empty space free of air and atoms in the middle of your room, what would happen? Everything would immediately rush in to fill the empty space.

So you are essentially the empty space which the mind is continuously filling.

YOU have never seen anything. You experience images, but they come from the mind.
YOU don't have any emotions. You experience them, but they come from the mind.
YOU don't have any thoughts. You experience them, but they come from the mind.

So what do you have?

YOU have choice. That's what's meant by "all you have is your word".

Your mind projects several things into your experience, and then inside of your experience you ***USE*** your mind.

To illustrate how twisted and confusing it is, and then to make sense of it all and show where you can really see YOURSELF APART FROM YOUR MIND, I'll bring up a following hypothetical story.

One day, you are feeling sad, and your mind might project, "I don't like this, I want to be happy." You then use your mind by asking it, "how can I be happy?" It brings up that you should be more responsible, and you consider that until it then projects all the games you can play with an overwhelming emotional pull that quickly fills your experience.

At some point, you can't just keep playing games because they're not worth it any more. The fun emotions you get off of them turn grey. Your emotions change and your mind tells you that you're sad again. It brings up the same stuff as last time, this time with a stronger emotional pull towards responsibility.

And so it repeats but this time, you choose to do some responsible things in your life. Then responsibility becomes less enjoyable until you're back to games. But every time you are responsible, you see more of the good sides about it.

Now that was almost completely PROJECTED STUFF. YOU chose to follow what you're mind was saying, because you FELT (from the projected emotions) that your thinking was sound.

But one day, you're not so sure the pattern of repeated behavior is right anymore. The good sides of doing something greater with this responsibility stuff has been growing on you. You find yourself, one day, back at sadness, and feel another projected emotion that says "I should REALLY think about this..."

And then something magical happens.

I've seen my friend Alex Shahparnia make this click, I've seen myself make this click, and I think most people had a moment in their life that was more empowering than any other moment they've ever experienced by a long shot.

You spend a few hours running the show a little more than usual. You start out asking yourself if it'd be better if you really started getting responsible. Your mind projects that playing games all the time is "living the life". You think about that for a while and eventually end up comparing it to all the times you were sad even though you were playing lots of games, and in making the choice to listen to your emotions and spend this time thinking, you have enough control over the experience to really compare past events side by side, until an overwhelming emotion gets projected that says, "BULLSHIT. Playing games all the time is NOT the life, look how depressed I've been".

Powerful emotions take over. Empowering emotions take over. Emotions that completely overwhelm other emotions until you've locked your door and turned off your phone because you're literally crying and yelling at yourself. In these critical moments, YOU CHOOSE to throw out certain emotions (very specific, suddenly outdated ideas of yours) ONCE AND FOR ALL. At this point, YOU (YOU meaning, you VERY CONSCIOUSLY) make a CHOICE (something the mind, on it's own, is uncapable of doing.)

And with that strong choice you give YOUR WORD that you'll start being on the responsible side of the tracks from now on.

End of story.

Now go back and notice that you...

...DO NOT OWN YOUR EMOTIONS. You share them with the brain, as it continually is projecting them into your experience.
...DO NOT OWN YOUR THOUGHTS. You share them with the brain, as it continually is projecting them into your experience.

So how do you then actually OWN your word? Isn't that shared? How is "your word" the "only thing you have".

Your word was formed from comparing projections and then making a CHOICE. Only you could make that choice, since the mind can't make it without you. It needed you to be conscious, to recieve all the thoughts and emotions, and then piece them together. You didn't have to make that choice... as a matter of fact, you could have made it ANY of the times you were being responsible, but the emotions being projected weren't powerful enough for you.

AT NO POINT DID YOUR BRAIN EVER "PROJECT" THE CHOICE INTO YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS. It only projected all the things you used to make the choice. It can be said that you were BOUND to make that choice based on the emotions, thoughts, and process, but THAT CHOICE IS YOURS, AS IT COULD *ONLY* COME FROM YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS (and remember, your consciousness is YOU, and YOU can control your mind, and since you).

Now, that choice was yours for the moment... but it can fade off with time. I believe you own it, but you may not maintain it. Hence, the reason your word is all you have is because...

Your WORD, which comes from your CHOICES, was never projected from the mind, it came from within consciousness. And you can CHOOSE TO FOLLOW YOUR WORD DESPITE PROJECTED THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS.

Now don't get confused here and think you've given your word to show up to your job / class on time. You haven't. You show up to those things because the second you consider not showing up, your mind projects emotions that say "Nope, you gotta go." And even if you decide to stop going to work, it's just your mind going "I can't take this any more." At no point have you GIVEN YOUR TRUE WORD.

But if you decide you're going to do something no matter what... you can simply FREEZE THE PROJECTOR. You can actually just say, "I gave my word, I'm going, and I'm not going to think about it, I'm just going to do it." Isn't that a projected thought, though? Not if you've set that thought up before hand, and you've SET that CHOICE up BEFOREHAND.

Now for the sake of sanity, let's say this is 90% true. Let's say you can't complete freeze up the projector, but you can get it stuck in a certain loop you've desired by rigging it before the show starts.

So take my friend Alex. He was always up and down in his grades in school... smart kid but lacking motivation... and then in college his grades began to plummet. He was on the fast track to drop out.

Then... outa freakin' nowhere... he starts getting strait As and gets into UCLA faster than you would have thought possible.

What happened there? Well, the story from above... and one day, or over the course of a week or a month possibly... I don't know the details... he came to a strong choice that he was going to turn it all around. And then he got stuck in a loop of getting strait As. He rigged the friggen projector. He made his choice, and whether he knew it or not, he had given his word... because he certainly followed it.

Could it be that his mind just started projecting all the right stuff? Yeah... that's exactly what happened. My question is, could the mind do that without Alex's choice? I don't think so. And that's why Alex owns his word, that's why it's something that's HIS. It's not something his mind projected origionally. It's something that he concluded and then used effectively.

It's lunch time... Health food, or hamburger? Emotion --> I want yummy. Emotion --> I want to be healthier. The more powerful emotion and thought process behind it wins, and you are decided. But if you gave your word that "will always eat health food for lunch" based on previous choice, you might eat health food no matter how much the mind yells "I WANT THE FRIGGEN HAMBURGER. ONE TIME MAN. ONE TIME!" you can say, "nope, talked about this, the word says eat the health food" and you can thus automatically eat the health food without having to think about it.

That's because your word is YOURS, not your MIND'S, and you have power over your mind. You can choose what gets projected. You don't always gotta just decide.