9. The World beyond

Birds can fly over the rainbow.

So can we.

We know inward and outward worlds. There is a third one. It is beyond the world we see, know or feel. It is even beyond what we can see, know or feel. Bohm calls it the implicate order. It covers everything, the cosmos.

The world covers more than we can see.

We are connected to the cosmos all the time. You may deny the connection, want proof, or ask how to find it. But there is no need for paths to reality because it is not a place to go, it is everywhere!

The world beyond is something that cannot be put into words. Bohm and Krishnamurti discussed it occasionally. They often used the word 'mystery'. A dictionary says it means 'something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain'.

What is essential is if we think that the world ends at the limits of thought. If you really try to find the answer, you will see that it may be an impossible question.

Science has solved many mysteries. It has managed to open the world of wonder to human eyes and mind.

Beauty is in facts.

In studying the world, we must start from and remain strictly with the facts.

Then the beauty of the world is revealed to us.

Filled with beauty

As a child, many of us have felt the mystery but living in a city we lose contact with nature. Adults easily 'forget' to watch the moon, to walk in a forest in pure awe, to hear music with total intensity, or to see the beauty in the eyes of a person we talk to.

Bohm says that anything in the field of reality can be explained. We can penetrate more deeply and broadly, but the essence remains a mystery.

Einstein has said that the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. We can sense it and it affects our mind and body. When we are totally taken by something we enjoy or love we feel something that is impossible to express.

In the world of thoughts, there is no mystery. Many people have a desire to experience and create mysteries. In science the original impulse was, according to Bohm, to penetrate into the mystery and reveal it, but it has been diverted and many scientists began to think they can finally explain everything. It has not happened. It will never happen.

Bohm feels that when our ego wants to experience the mystery, it makes some sort of parody of it. We think that our experiences are something mysterious. They are only our thoughts coming out of our memory.

The sense of mystery has vanished. It seems that we don't want to admit that there is something we just cannot understand and explain.

Sensitivity and clarity reveal the hidden.

Krishnamurti puts some conditions for meeting a mystery. Firstly, the body must be very sensitive and aware. The mind cannot be neurotic or emotional, but it must perceive things directly, as they are. There must also be psychological clarity.

There is no way to communicate the deepest mystery. We have to sense it ourselves. Sometimes we get a gut feeling that there is something enormous in the air.

It cannot be analyzed, either. It is like a flower; if you tear the petals off, it will not be a flower anymore. And the last condition is that there is no hoping, no wanting, and no conscious or hidden motives in the process.

The mystery is when the mind is quiet. There is no movement of thought or ego. The mind is what it is.

Reaching the ground

In April 1980, in a dialogue with Krishnamurti, Bohm used another word describing the mystery: the ground. That is something beyond the mind.

To reach the ground, all thinking must end.

To "reach the ground" all thinking must end. Thinking has created a little self with its fears, agony and sorrow. The idea of a ground sounds good to it. The self wants to find a way to go there but there is nothing to go to. There is no map, no vehicle, no road.

If we see this, seeking stops. The movement ends. Then we are one with the world.

Krishnamurti says that the brain cells undergo a change when 'the source of all energy has been reached'. He compares it with a surgical operation. Something very profound happens.

People have throughout the ages tried everything to reach the ground but they made it into a concept and a goal. In the East the goal was enlightenment, and in the West, life in heaven after death.

Thinking makes all goals out of some need. When something is missing, we go after it: food, clothes, money, friends, sex, or power. If we get it, we want something else.

If this cycle stops, there is everything, the whole world.

Why we want more than we need?

So our goal is not somewhere over the rainbow, it is in understanding why our ego wants more than it needs.

The answer is quite simple: the self is never satisfied with what it is or has, because it can imagine something more ('the good') and less ('the bad').

Read between the lines

Why don't we see this system working in us? Why do we let it rule us?

Find out. Take any thought and see what is behind it. What is your thought, why do you have it, where did it come from, what does it want from you? Describe it as exactly as you can. Find out if it came from your memory or senses?

The next step is arduous. Ask yourself, what are the assumptions behind this process? What do I want to achieve and why?

The point of asking these questions is just to understand, not to judge or to assert your actions. You ask out of sheer curiosity and the urge to learn.

To proceed, we need intelligence. The word comes from two words: inter and legere and means 'to read between the lines'. Bohm explains:

"Thought is like the information in a book and intelligence has to read it to see what it means."

Intelligence is a tool used in solving problems but also a must-have ability for everyone. We all have the potential for it and we all need it in daily living.

To awaken intelligence, thinking must stop.

Intelligence gives meaning to words and feelings. When we are thinking, there can be no intelligence: to awaken intelligence, thinking must stop. This is not what we usually think of intelligence.

For intelligence to operate, we must listen not only to the words but to the meaning. 'Listening with ears that hear much deeper' breaks our conditioning, habits, and images. The conscious level of the brain is hard, clever, and brittle. It can never be intelligent.

The lack of intelligence has led to distorted thoughts. Being overloaded with thoughts, by the self, by fear and sorrow, our damaged brains produce chaos. Traditions have conditioned our brains to a fixed view of reality. The structure is the same in the west and the east, although the forms of beliefs are different.

Listening beyond thoughts make a way to a new society.

The very act of listening to that which is beyond thought heals the brain. Out of that, there can be a new man and a new society.

Here may lie our chance!

One million miracles

After 20 years in a big Finnish corporation, I started working with philosopher Esa Saarinen in 1997. Our jolly mission was to "make people happy at work".

Some of our idols had talked about this subject, but we invented our own formula. We gave lectures, had seminars, and arranged dialogues. I wrote nine books about working together and leading people.

The purpose of work is to do miraculous things.

One sentence summarizes our message: The purpose of work is to do miracles.

That is what I think life is all about: doing something miraculous. We are able, if we are willing. We have the potential, if we want to use it.

Many people shrink their life. They have lost the art of awe. They work because they get paid. Yet, salary is only one of the seven reasons to work.

I have met too many people who don't like, or even hate their work. About half of the people think they must work. The other half think they want to work because they like to use their ability to do something good for others. It is other people's work that makes living a good life possible for us.

Work and life are one package. If we want to lead a good life, we must like our work. Too many people feel that they are not respected and trusted at work.

To change that they must respect and trust themselves, not wait for others to do so! There is no point in wasting your life as an outcome of having a negative attitude. All the bad energy we inhale and carry with us will make our own life miserable.

We must deal with all the thoughts and feelings we have.

You don't have to like our life, but you can love it.

It is important to check the reasons to work. We don't have to like our job, but we can and should love it, because every job offers us a chance to do miracles.

The principle is very simple: our customers expect something from us. We can give them a little more. And the amount of good we give will bring a double amount for ourselves.

Something special

The same principle suits life: if you expect something special, you will get something special. Seeing life in the right light is the first and last step. It elevates the mind and heals the brain.

There is a huge unused potential in you and in everyone you meet. Looking with fresh mind helps you see the immense beauty in the world.

There are three ways to meet a miracle: see one, do one, or be one.

You can see the miracle in anybody. You can always do something amazing, but you must also see that you yourself are a miracle. Life in you has no limits except the thoughts in your mind.

We can meet one million miracles by seeing, doing, or being one.

I once calculated that if we see or do two miracles every waking hour, we experience one million miracles in our lifetime.

'Business guru' Tom Peters is one of my idols. He spoke and wrote about many things ten years before anybody else did. He had many powerful insights, but my personal favourite is this quote from his book The Pursuit of Wow:

Each day is a miracle.
Each breath of wind, snow flurry,
bit of good news is miraculous.
Enjoy them.
You ain't going to be here forever.

Seeing the world as a miracle is possible for anybody, anywhere. Looking at the stranger in the street or your child, feeling a raindrop on your skin, sitting on a train reading feeds, seeing a mother talking to her baby or an old couple walking hand in hand.

Being aware is a miracle that nobody on earth can explain or prove.

Let's not start to list or count your miracles. Then it becomes stressful. Let's be aware and live our life loving what we do.