True authority comes from within. Activate yourself.
No one outside of you can tell you what is true or how to live your life.
No one knows exactly what this reality is or what the purpose of life is.
No one has the Final Answers.
Many people you encounter will pretend to Know.
They will try to convince you to believe them.
They will urge you to blindly follow them.
But if you do this, your own intelligence will die.
No external authority can show you what is true.
“The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth,” as Krishnamurti put it.
At best, great teachers can simply point toward the Path.
They can help you cut through the barriers blocking you from your own innate wisdom.
They can give you useful maps, but the map is never the territory.
Your truth is something you must discover for yourself.
Through your own experience, through deep listening to yourself, your unique Way and Flow will emerge.
Find your own enlightenment.
Do not become dogmatic about anything.
Do not assume you have found the Final Answers.
Always retain a Beginner’s Mind that can reshape itself as new discoveries emerge.
Investigate what is true for yourself, by looking inside yourself.
When you come upon new ideas, use discernment to discover what resonates and what is useful to you.
Discard whatever does not resonate and what is not useful.
Mine deep beneath the layers of ego, persona, trauma, conditioning, and indoctrination, to what lies beneath.
Beneath all these there is an Immeasurable Intelligence.
This Intelligence is much older and more powerful than the conscious, rational mind.
Your intuition—your soul-level internal compass—is the portal through which Immeasurable Intelligence flows into your world.
Connect to this Intelligence, flow with it, trust it. It already knows where to go.
The rational mind is necessary to survive in this world, but it is just one tool with a fairly narrow pragmatic purpose.
There are many matters and questions—the Biggest Questions of existence—that the rational mind is not equipped to address.
When you attempt to use rationality to address matters outside its domain, the mind simply runs in circles and ties itself in knots.
In the modern world we have become obsessed with the life of the mind.
We worship rational thought as the ultimate expression of human value and intelligence.
In this way we have become severely misguided.
The rational mind lives in a world of maps, symbols, and abstractions, cut off from direct experience of Reality itself.
The concept of “tree” prevents you from directly experiencing the bark-clad earth-claw bursting from the soil.
The most valuable forms of wisdom and understanding emerge from direct experience of Reality.
This is why your own experience is Key.
Many will urge you to discount your direct firsthand experience.
They will tell you they already found the answers.
They will tell you the answers are in the back of the textbook, and all you must do is memorize and regurgitate them.
This is an insult to your living intelligence as a human being.
You possess immense capacities for discernment, understanding, and creativity.
You have the ability to see the world in a way no one has seen it before.
You have the ability to notice things no one has noticed before.
The Great Questions have not been answered—not even close.
The Mystery is vast as ever—it is Infinite.
Activate yourself as a wisdom-seeker.
Activate yourself as a student of your own experience.
Observe your world closely.
Become aware of the phenomena flowing in and out of your field of awareness.
Learn to remain the witness of your experience, without clinging to any of it.
Pay close attention, realizing attention is your most precious resource.
What you pay attention to is creating your reality, your future.
The world is overflowing with countless distractions.
The Things Worth Paying Attention To are a tiny subset of the possible things you might spend time on.
Realize this, and rigorously sharpen the katana of your attention.
Slice away the bullshit, pay attention to what truly matters:
Your life. Your relationships. Your experience. Your dreams. Your highs. Your lows. Your habits. Nature. Visionary teachers and artists. Sharing your gifts. Whatever calls out to your Soul.
Discard whatever does not ignite your curiosity and excitement.
Discard whatever does not speak to your Soul.
In this way you will become your own authority.
In this way you will become unstoppable.
To invoke Joseph Campbell, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
Leave no stone unturned.
Look in the shadows.
Look where other people are afraid to look.
In this way you will find rare treasures.
And become your own master.
Activate yourself.
Feel the life and intelligence coursing through you.
You are an immeasurably powerful being.
You are worthy.
You are Divine.
Listen deeply.
The answers you seek are within you, waiting for you to uncover them.
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This post was originally published on HighExistence.
About Jordan Bates
Jordan Bates is a Lover of God, healer, mentor of leaders, writer, and music maker. The best way to keep up with his work is to join nearly 7,000 people who read his Substack newsletter.
