Comments on: Your Own Private Universe

By: Pete

Pete — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 20:28:44 +0000

I think nothing can be proven because we cannot disprove infinity.
Therefore having an opinion is strictly personal and understanding is limited.
When faith will bring us to God, we shall truly understand the universe.
Until then, self-indulgence is vain.
Thank you.

By: Dmytry

Dmytry — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 07:11:37 +0000

Excellent article, Steve!

Still the only thing is unexplained - it is when the simulation ends forever…

By: Jethro

Jethro — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 19:33:35 +0000

Steve, have you ever read the book “The Invisible Path to Success”? It’s a pretty good book that discusses synchronicity by using a movie director/actor analogy.

Basically, on the subconscious level, you are alot like a movie director of your own life and you can even coordinate events “off-stage” with other movie directors. For example, if someone really really REALLY wants to buy the best car, and thinks about it day and night, his/her off-stage director will then coordinate with another off-stage director of someone who really really REALLY wants to sell his car to a worthy owner. If both desires match up “off-stage”, then real life events that occur “on-stage” will start to invisibly coordinate to where the two people, or “actors”, will inevitably meet-up at the right moment. One person may stumble across someone’s classified ad at exactly the right moment, while she happens to be at a shopping center two blocks away from the seller’s house. Or one person may make a comment to a friend of a friend of a friend about wanting to sell his car, and the buyer and seller connect that way.

Disclaimer: “Directors”, “actors”, “on-stage”, “off-stage” are all just terms to help draw out the analogy for explaining the synchronicity phenomenon. I’m sure that other analogies are more/less helpful to others.

By: Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 18:04:42 +0000

I don’t see there being a problem with contradicting other people’s reality, at least not for me. Whenever that happens, then from my perspective, those people just fall out of my reality. They simply cease to exist within the reality that comes through my senses. If I stop believing in something, then all the staunch supporters of whatever that belief is just fall out of my consciousness. If I start believing in something new, then the people associated with that belief all start appearing. It’s a lot like directing a movie; whatever you think about causes certain characters to come to the forefront while others fall out of the camera range.

The question about changing the color of my cat won’t help for three reasons. First, I don’t have a cat. Secondly, I’m colorblind. And thirdly, the question itself comes from a paradigm that would make this impossible. You won’t see cats changing colors as long as you believe it doesn’t happen in your reality. And if you did believe in the power of thoughts to control reality, you’d probably be trying to do much more interesting things than coloring cats. You are trying to see first and then believe, but you have it backwards. You’ll see it when you believe it. If you don’t believe it, you’ll never see it.

If I were to go and change a cat’s color, you’d never see it. If I told you I did it, you wouldn’t believe me. Any data I show you will only be filtered in a way that you’ll easily tear it to shreds. It won’t be convincing. What is “out there” can’t convince you of anything until you choose to believe.

Someone on my side of the fence will know also that people with different beliefs can’t share the same reality. So if there are a bunch of us cat colorers out there, we’re not going to bother to try to prove it to anyone. The people who need proof simply won’t intersect our reality very much; they’ll fall off the radar.

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Sun, 03 Apr 2005 17:17:27 +0000

You got me thinking. Maybe this is a naive question, but here it goes anyway… if I understand you correctly, you say you can change the reality around you using your thoughts, for example, if you believe in sinchronicity, you will start experiencing sinchronicity. OK, assuming that’s true, it means your thoughts can change reality in very complex ways, and in a lot of different places, to make coincidences happen.

As the changes become more complex and widespread, the potential of changing something that contradicts other people’s reality also increases. In other words, I think making sinchronicity happen is a lot of work.

Why can’t you make much simpler changes that probably don’t affect as many people’s reality but is directly measurable, such as changing the color of your cat?

By: Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 23:53:57 +0000

Perhaps I should clarify my intentions for this site. I’ll make a new post to that effect….

By: John

John — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 23:32:41 +0000

Hi Steve:

I’m with Kent, your blog is quickly losing my interest. I have really enjoyed your writing as it dealt with time management, motivation, goal setting, and productivity. I believe that is the point of this blog, right? Of course, it’s your blog and you can do what you want with it, but it’s my time, and I hate to waste it. In fact, I just wasted five minutues even responding to this drivel. But, maybe, in “your own private universe”, there is no better way to spend the day!

John

By: Ilya Olevsky

Ilya Olevsky — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 23:16:50 +0000

Kent said: For example, I thought when you were discussing how we create our own realities, that you were going to discuss how we don’t have to be bound by our past perceptions of ourselves. We can in fact change.

If you want to find out more about this kind of stuff you should get Personal Power II by Tony Robbins. He even has a good quote for this: “The past does not equal the future.” I think Steve is just trying to do something different from the traditional personal development gurus. At first I didn’t understand why he’s doing this either, but I’m slowly starting to. I think people get so caught up in the “practical” things that they never bother to dig deeper into the point of life itself. Of course the practical things are good to master as well, and Tony Robbins does an excellent job at this. If you want to get Personal Power II for about half the price on his own site, go to stressless.com and search for “Anthony Robbins” (without the quotes). For $100 you get 24 tapes full of priceless info (you can get CDs at Tony’s site, but they cost $210, and tapes cost $180 there).

By: Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 22:09:42 +0000

The monk’s response to Fa-Yen should have been: “Your mind must be very weak if it cannot hold a stone.”

By: Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 22:00:39 +0000

Hi Kent,

“Practical” requires a context. What’s yours?

By: Kent

Kent — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 20:04:05 +0000

The reason I have enjoyed reading you in the past — and I have read your articles since the Dexterity days — is that what you write has had strong practical application to how I live my life. However, the recent articles you’ve written seem to have a new-age flakiness that is causing me to lose interest. Perhaps I grew tired of these “the-problem-with-other-minds” questions because I was a philosophy student and didn’t find much use in these sorts of inquiries. I can entertain myself with these sorts of dilemmas at philosophy web sites. I hope you will return to your strengths and focus on helping us become more productive people.
For example, I thought when you were discussing how we create our own realities, that you were going to discuss how we don’t have to be bound by our past perceptions of ourselves. We can in fact change. You touched on that ever so lightly, but didn’t flesh it out. That sort of approach is practical and merges concepts with application. And it’s not out there in woo-woo land.
Finally, I want to say that what has helped me most about your writings in the past is that you often have a flair for using analogies in a powerful way. To cite just one example, you mentioned something to the effect that in order to change we must become like at rocket and get up a certain amount of momentum to break through certain barriers. This is a powerful concept that has had an effect on me. And your discussions of values and other areas are conceptual, but clearly trickle down to the application front. My request is selfish, partly because I have found you so helpful in the personal productivity arena. I just kind of glaze over when I read these extended metaphysical discussions. Because in the end, no matter what answer you give yourself, you still end up saying, “so what?” Ok. Suppose other minds don’t exist and I create my own reality. Or that my consciousness is being created by someone else. So what? Is it going to change the practical way I live my life? I doubt it. These reflections are meaningless to me. Give me something that will help me to live my life better. Most of your articles do, and for that I am grateful.

By: Clint Waller

Clint Waller — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 19:37:24 +0000

brilliant.

By: master of all I survey

master of all I survey — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 18:51:22 +0000

Fa-yen, a Chinese Zen teacher, overheard four monks arguing about subjectivity and objectivity. He joined them and said: “There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or outside your mind?”

One of the monks replied: “From the Buddhist viewpoint everything is an objectification of mind, so I would say that the stone is inside my mind.”

“Your head must feel very heavy,” observed Fa-yen, “if you are carrying around a stone like that in your mind.”

By: Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 17:43:33 +0000

Not likely since I don’t sleep in the shower.

By: David Peterson

David Peterson — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 17:31:42 +0000

Maybe tomorrow you’ll wake up in the shower and find this blog entry was just a dream.