Food #35:
Divine Creativity: Limitations, Limits, and Dreams
Connecting with Divine Creativity
"Imagination is everything. It is the
preview of life's coming attractions." (Einstein)
If you want to bring out the divine creativity inside you, here is
what you need to know:
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Limitations:
How limitations hold your
inborn, divine creativity hostage.
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Limits:
How limits challenge us to do/be
more by working around them creatively!
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Divine Creativity:
"Star Trek" lessons
about coming up with creative solutions.
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Dare Dream:
How Star Trek changed the
world for the better by imagining the future.
"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is
to venture a little way past them into the impossible." (Arthur C. Clarke)
Are you holding yourself back? If you are, is it because
you have bought into limitations?
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Limits vs Limitations:
To understand the difference between limits and limitations,
take the case of property ownership.
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Limits
are like physical property lines: on one side, you
own the property and on the other, someone else owns it. The property
line is a hard finite limit which once defined is usually not altered.
- Limitations
are like the use of property. Few people sit in
the corner of their property to get the most out of it. Usually there
are places on the property where you never go and where you always go.
These are like limitations: choices and habit which define usage.
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Limitations Blindness:
The problem with limitations is that they blind
you to what you can create given that you are a divine being who can
create anything.
Take the case of a friend who had a chance to buy a local historical
home for a song. All this person could see were the problems with it.
There were restrictions because it was an historical site. The home
was not up to code and would require extensive renovation. Yet this
friend had a family full of contractors who could have helped with
this… for free. In the end, the friend endlessly procrastinated about
buying the home. Ironically, someone else bought that property and
ended up contracting various members of the friend's family to renovate
that property into an amazingly gorgeous home.
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Limitations Focus:
If you are a fan of the reality show, "The
Apprentice", you will see that those who win set high targets and
that those who lose set low goals.
For example, in one task, the winner set a high target of "as much money
as we can raise" while the loser set a low goal of "what should be enough
to win" (it was not!). Even before the task began, the loser had lost…
because their limitation was a low goal not a high target.
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Limitations Excuse:
The real problem with limitations is that
they serve as excuses. They keep you focused on the problems instead
of solutions so that you are stopped from doing whatever it is that
you really wanted to do.
For example, I was born with a condition that should have prevented
me from walking… but I have walked since age 6 because I refused to
give up on that high target! Yet, others with my condition accepted
that as a limitation and have spent their lives in wheelchairs.
So do not buy into limitations but instead focus on what you want, make
no excuses, and do not to become blinded to your birthright as a divine
creator.
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that
something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that
something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." (Arthur C. Clarke)
Are you bumping into limits? If you are, you would be
wise to learn the lessons they have to teach you.
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Divine Creativity:
Most people would agree that blind people
should not try to ride on bicycle down the street. They would accept
that blindness is a hard limit that would prevent a person from doing so.
Yet, those blind people who have learned the sonic technique of
EchoLocation
("seeing" through sounds bounced off objects) can
ride a bicycle with as high a degree of safety as a sighted person. This
is conquering a limit through
Divine Creativity.
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Divine Inspiration:
Most people used to agree that it was
impossible for a person to jump higher than their own height.
This was before the American athlete Dick Fosbury won the gold medal
for the high jump in the 1968 Summer Olympics. His style of jumping
(named the "Fosbury Flop" in his honor) enabled athletes to jump 25%
higher than they ever have before. Now all higher jumpers use his
style (landing on the back instead of landing on the feet) in competition.
This is conquering a limit through
Divine Inspiration.
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Divine Ratiocination:
Most people would agree that, to do something
properly, you need to have formally studied the subject.
Yet the greatest feat of architectural engineering was performed by a
mathematician using only ratiocination ("logical thinking"). Greek
mathematician, Anthemios of Tralles, with the help of builders Isidoros
and Miletus, planned and built the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Modern
architects still do not understand how he made this enormous structure
highly earthquake resistant (it is still standing from ancient times).
This is conquering a limit through
Divine Ratiocination.
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Divine Aspiration:
Most people used to agree that it was impossible
for a person to fly but now air travel is an everyday event.
In 1485, Leonardo da Vinci was the first to design a flying machine similar
which was similar in appearance to modern helicopters. Countless others
tried and failed to fly until December 17, 1903 when the Wright Brothers
made their first historic airplane flight. This is conquering a limit
through
Divine Aspiration.
All these stories reveal a primary teaching of karma: whatever can be
dreamed can be done… all it takes is someone's desire and actions to
conquer a limit.
"There are always alternatives." (Spock, "Star Trek: Galileo
Seven")
Life always gives you all the tools you need to succeed... it
takes your divine creativity to use them.
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Life's Arena:
Those of you who are "Star Trek" fans will remember
the episode "Arena" in the first season. This was the episode where Kirk
is sent by "superior aliens" to a deserted planet to battle his enemy.
The winner gets to live and leave the area with his ship and crew intact.
The loser, his crew, and ship get destroyed.
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Nature's Bounty:
The aliens tell both that the planet contains
all that they will need to wage war against one another. Kirk quickly
realizes that his opponent is physically superior to him... and that his
only hope of surviving is superior mental strategy. Then Kirk receives a
flash of divine creativity, constructs a weapon out of the materials at
hand, and wins the contest using nature's bounty.
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Divine Inspiration:
Kirk's inspiration is how divine creativity
works. You do not need superior aliens to seed your path with tools. You
just need to know what you want and then to look around for anything that
can be used as tools to help you achieve your dreams. These tools can
come from anywhere... even from TV.
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Karmic Problem:
My moment of divine creativity came in the
third season of "Star Trek" in the episode "Spectre of the Gun". By then,
I was in chronic pain that doctors could not cure... and desperate for a
solution to it.
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Divine Creativity:
It came when Spock told his shipmates about
how they could put themselves into a trance where they could completely
disregard their pain. His famous quote,
"Pain is a thing of the mind",
never left my mind.
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My Trance:
So I worked on putting myself into a trance where I
could fully control the pain... and just send it away. Since Spock had
done it, I was certain that I could do it too... if only I worked hard
enough. Not surprisingly, it worked.
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Bio-Feedback:
This "trance technique" worked because it was
science and not science fiction. Today, this process is better known
as bio-feedback and chronic pain sufferers use it to control their pain.
A bio-feedback machine teaches them how to manage their pain signals...
until they can do it themselves on their own.
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Seeing the Future:
Bio-feedback machines were years in the
future when "Spectre of the Gun" aired. Yet, divine creativity brought
me this technique when I needed it... because, I believed, as Spock
said, that "there are always alternatives."
"Dare to dream, dare to deserve, dare to devote your life to love."
(American Proverb)
"All serious daring starts from within and begins with today."
(Eudora Welty)
Creation starts with daring to dream that things can be better
beyond your wildest dreams!
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Dare to Dream:
"If you can dream it, you can do it." Yet, to
do it, you need to dream it first... and the bigger the dream, the bolder
the vision, and the more powerful the result. One of the most powerful
dreams in our time is the bold vision of the future put forward by...
"Star Trek", that's right "Star Trek!"
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Better Future:
In the Federation future, all the problems of
the world - poverty, intolerance, hunger - are solved. Life was made
easier by the inventions of the human mind. Some of these big and bold
dreams have become reality: cell phones, personal computers, tablets,
IPODs and so much more.
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Cell-Mobile Phone:
For example, Martin Cooper, former Chief
Engineer at Motorola, inventor of the cell phone, said that "The 'Star
Trek' communicator to us was not at all a fantasy, it was an objective."
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PC-Tablet:
The first micro-computer, which evolved into today's
MicroSoft and Apple personal computers, was invented by Ed Roberts. He
named it "Altair" to give thanks for its inspiration by the user friendly
"Star Trek" computers.
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IPOD:
Quick-Time inventor, Steve Perlman, got the idea for
"music on demand" from Data's use of the computer library on "The Next
Generation." Quick-Time software is what powered the development of today's
music storing IPODs.
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Trek Nation:
Check out the History Channel's documentary,
"How William Shatner (read 'Star Trek') Changed the World",
for even more ways that the inner vision of "Star
Trek" created many of today's outer realities. What might seem more
improbable is the spiritual lesson flowing from all this.
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Unlimited Dreams:
When you are dreaming, really DARE to dream.
Think about what you want to create WITHOUT limiting yourself to what
you think can be done. In the 1960s, computers, cell phones, and music
on demand would have seemed like unachievable fantasies... 40+ years
they are our realities.
So allow yourself to dare to dream as big and
as boldly as you can... impossible fantasies can become amazing realities
if only you will dare to dream.
Connecting with Divine Creativity
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