The Less You Stress, the More You Score
"What is so Zen about Remote Viewing?" you ask. "Sometimes, remote viewing stresses me out!"
I can relate. There are those times you want so badly to be right… those times that you fear being wrong for SO many reasons… those times that someone is paying you to be right… and those times that someone's life may depend on your accuracy. Any one of these scenarios can create stress.
And you may also wonder, "If I can't be right all the time, what's the sense of remote viewing at all???"
That is just the point: When you finally stop thinking about whether each perception is right or not, and just write down every thought that comes into your head… more and more often, you will be on target!
It seems counterintuitive, but it is true!
My students score their sessions for accuracy, and they can get a bit too caught up in the score. So I've invented a new mantra for them: The less you stress, the more you score!
What Does "Zen" Mean, Anyway?
After Googling the word "Zen," I found this definition from UrbanDictionary.com:
… A state of focus that incorporates a total togetherness of body and mind. Zen is a way of being. It is also a state of mind. Zen involves dropping illusion and seeing things without the distortion created by your own thoughts. "Sun is warm, grass is green."
How perfectly this definition of "Zen" can be interwoven with that of Controlled Remote Viewing. The human body is the link between conscious and subconscious. When you incorporate "a total togetherness of body and mind" into the remote viewing paradigm, you have a wonderful session -- a session that flows along like a leaf in the river's current.
And like the current of the river, the source you tap into as you access your subconscious mind opens wider and wider to you as you relax into the process and simply record what you observe.
The definition above also says that Zen is about "dropping illusion." That is what you are doing with Controlled Remote Viewing: You are going beyond the illusion of what is real to find that which truly IS real at the target.
And that is why, when remote viewing, we avoid using nouns -- because we have to get beyond the noun to find out what the reality of the target is.
Nouns as a Way to Access the Deeper Creative Mind
In CRV, we set aside nouns because they contain so much information that needs to be expressed within the context of the remote viewing session. For example, if the police are looking for a missing child, and you say, "The missing child is under a bridge" -- that is generally considered useless information, especially if there are 50 bridges in the city.
But if you describe in detail that which you have perceived to be a "bridge" -- giving colors, sounds, textures, shapes, sizes, patterns, positions, etc. -- the police (who know the city well) may soon jump up and exclaim, "I know just where that is!"
Successful author, Ray Bradbury once wrote a series of essays called, "Zen in the Art of Writing." I recently read an excerpt that struck me with the similarity between Bradbury's exercise to promote creativity and Controlled Remote Viewing.
Bradbury realized long ago that nouns are full of information, so he used them to mine creativity from his past. He would write out a list of nouns as a free-flow of consciousness. In other words, he just allowed whatever words popped into his head to flow onto the paper: The nun. The convent. The fire. The gardener. The wife. The sabotage.
As he performed this exercise, he noticed that memories from his past would sometimes surface with the nouns. He also found that plots for stories would occur to him. This is how he came up with the idea for Farenheit 451.
Although we set aside the nouns that come to us while we describe the target, those nouns are not discarded. They often contain important information from the subconscious mind.
Think of the conscious mind as slow and lumbering. By comparison, the subconscious mind is lightening fast. Imagine the two trying to converse! The subconscious mind does not communicate verbally, but uses concepts and ideas -- which hit the conscious mind much like water from a fire hose!
It happens so fast that the conscious mind tries to make sense of it all the only way it knows how: by trying to name everything! It creates nouns with the pieces of information it has managed to latch onto in the rapid flow coming from the subconscious.
As long as we realize the nouns are coming from the conscious mind's attempt to make sense of the information it receives from the subconscious, we will accept them for what they are: symbols, notes, clues, indicators, memories, fears, desires -- but rarely are they literally the target, itself.
Running From Our Fears
Vincent Thibault is a Quebec-based writer who wrote a book about Parkour (or Free Running), a holistic training discipline using body movements that has taken the world by storm. In an article found in the May issue of Shambala Sun magazine entitled Run for Freedom, Thibault says,
"To get down on ourselves at every failure is to condemn ourselves to permanent incompetence."
In other words, our human desire for perfection dooms us to imperfection. We often begin the journey to true mastery when we come to the realization that we don't know much of anything at all.
Thibault points out that we are the only species that has the ability to wake up in the morning and decide to become better and stronger at something.
But what really hit home for me as I work with students every day who are struggling with self-doubt were Thibault's assertions about why more people don't master things that are extremely challenging.
I applied these ideas to the desire so many of my students have to become world-class remote viewers.
Basically, it is human nature to try to escape fear. We run from anything that might upset our delicate balance because we all lean toward that which is familiar -- even when that familiarity is the very thing keeping us trapped.
But if we truly want to attain mastery in anything, we have to work with it long enough to gain insight. As Thibault says, " … Insight is only possible if we stop running away."
Gaining Insight
How do we gain insight? By continuing our practice. Whether we are talking about Parkour, martial arts, playing an instrument, or remote viewing -- to master anything requires practice. But not just the grit-your-teeth-and-push-through-it sort of practice!
When you let go of the agony you feel, the fear of failure, the quest for perfection -- you will find joy and enthusiasm in your practice. Each target is a journey of discovery. Every time you remote view, you have an opportunity to get to know yourself even better.
What Is Success?
This brings us to the question: What is Success? Rudyard Kipling's famous poem "If" says that both success and failure are impostors. In remote viewing, is success "naming" the target? Or is it describing the target accurately? And as a new student, is success simply a high score on the data sheet? Or is it learning something about how your subconscious mind is communicating with your conscious mind?
Do you ever fantasize about success? Depending on your definition of "success," you may imagine being wealthy, powerful, famous or simply well-liked. But when we really get to the heart of what success means, we realize that fame, wealth or public acceptance are not what we really want. We really want to be accepted by ourselves. I want ME to accept me.
Sometimes, you may hope if you become stellar at remote viewing or if you get enough recognition, enough accolades, enough success, you will finally believe in yourself, you will finally accept yourself, you will finally find that peace that you are seeking so desperately within.
How interesting it is that we tend to deceive ourselves, thinking that we want certain things, when if we really get to the core within ourselves, we realize that what we are really looking for is our own internal peace of mind and our own internal acceptance. This is what we are really seeking. If you keep this in mind, you find yourself living more true to your internal compass, and your remote viewing sessions will be less about scores and more about learning.
Stepping Away from Illusions
So for me, remote viewing has become a way to step away from illusions and find the reality that is all around us -- to shed the illusions and live in reality. You may find that the life you think you are living is actually the illusion. When you let that fall away, you can experience what you have been seeking all along.
So, again, remote viewing is a way to get outside the illusion. It is a way to see past the illusions, if you choose to use it that way. Maybe that is the reason some of us are reluctant to do a session on some days, because if you sit down, then you may have to face the destruction of your illusions.
Why is that so, you ask? It is because you have to let everything else drop away in order to connect with the target. That is why we do the "Set Aside" or objectification process.
Castle Building
All of us have experienced the dreaded "Castle Building" experience. Talk about illusions! (There's that word again…) No matter how hard you try to avoid them, they are inevitable and part of the learning process.
For example, you become certain that the target is a baseball game, and before you know it, you have created the uniforms, the ballpark, the smell of popcorn and hotdogs! When you pull the target photo out of the envelope and see that it is not a baseball game at all, it can feel very discouraging.
"How can I let illusions drop away when I build a castle in so many targets I view?" you may ask. The castles you build are a very special type of illusion. By examining the point at which you moved away from the target, you can learn a lot about yourself and how your own mind is trying to communicate with you.
It is usually an accurate perception that first grabs us and makes us think the target must be this or that. Of course, it is that horrible aching need to identify what the target IS that leads us into Castle Building.
Over time and with practice, you will find that you Castle Build less and less as your need to know what the target is, lessens. You loosen your grip on the target and instead, just describe the perceptions as they flow through your mind.
Remember that the target is not going anywhere. You can take your time and allow the perceptions to flow. When the time comes that you are ready to write your summary, that's when you examine each perception to see which ones now feel that they truly come from the target.
You are a Wave; The Target is the Ocean...
Here is an analogy adapted from bestselling author Thich Nhat Hanh: Imagine that you are a wave of the sea, moving up and down in the ocean, crying for water and afraid of dying. You don't realize that you ARE the water, and that each time you dip down, you rise up again.
Sometimes we are seeking success when we are actually living in a sea of success. We seek happiness when we are surrounded by happiness.
What does this have to do with remote viewing? Just like the wave exists seeking water and crying for water when the wave IS water, the wave is part of the whole ocean. The remote viewing is like that wave, surrounded by the target.
All the remote viewer has to do is allow the distractions and the illusions to fall away in order to tap into the target. And at that moment, when the remote viewer really connects to the target, the remote viewer and the target become one.
So the feeling that you "can't access the target" is partly because of our cultural belief systems and all the self-doubt that we've taken on all these years.
But in reality, the target is always there and you, through an act of conscious volition, can merge with the target. The target does not have to be separate from you when you realize that your subconscious mind is not limited by time or space.
It sounds very woo-woo to say that we are part of everything that is and everything that is, is part of us and we are all one. But if you accept that, it makes the target more accessible. After all, science truly doesn't have proof of why a remote viewer can accurately describe a location far removed in time and space. So the idea that it works because we are One with everything is just as good as any other.
To Sum it All Up...
One way you can truly connect to the target is to let the illusions, including your need to be successful at this, to just drop away and realize that you are a wave and the target is the ocean.
It seems to me that remote viewing is very Zen -- because Zen is about observing what is. This includes the ability to accept each moment for whatever that moment offers. Each moment is a gift. And when you add up the gifts offered by the moments, you find they equal a joyful experience along the journey.
So enjoy your remote viewing journey, enjoy exploring the mystery and allow yourself to experience wonder again. You'll find that you'll begin to like yourself more, and that your ability to trust that inner instinct will grow. Happy viewing! And happy living.
Wonderful well-written article. Thanks for posting it!!
Thanks, Rosalie! I am so glad you are reading the blogs!
Hugs,
Lori
Wow, I am almost speechless. A thank you seems like not enough. I can hope that all of us learning from you take in your wisdom and make this world a better place. Like-minded people moving forward one step at a time. I feel blessed to be here!
Sending love, Linda
Fantastic article! Well-written and I learned much from the content. Thanks 🙂
I am going to keep a big sheet of paper in front of me that says "I am a wave"
Thanks Lori!
Great article, thanks for posting this.