WHERE ARE YOU?

In all the writings of philosophy, religion, and metaphysics, the question of, “Where are you?” is one of the most overlooked. It was always considered that the answer was too obvious. It was one of those things to which everybody knew the answer. Had a little more attention been put on the question, perhaps we wouldn’t have ended up with the philosophies of Kant and Existentialism. Most people would answer our question by saying, “I’m at 616 Poplar Avenue,” or “I’m one block from the post office,” or “I’m here with my wife and kids,” or “I’m on planet Earth.” Such an answer is really expressing the idea that the person is being located by objects in the environment, his location is being determined by what he is viewing. But this doesn’t tell us where a person is located; this tells us what a person is looking at. And what a person is looking at is really only what a person’s attention is fixed on.

But this leaves us with one more question. Why can’t you just place your attention wherever you desire? Before this universe became as condensed and solidified as it is today, this is exactly what beings could do. You as a being are a non-material entity. You are not made up of energy or space or matter, and therefore, you do not have a location. But if you want to play a game of baseball, you better have your attention on the same playing field as your fellow teammates. A romance isn’t much of a romance if you can never be where your loved one is. If audiences couldn’t hear the symphony they wouldn’t think much of Beethoven’s music. The first step in doing anything with or against anyone or anything is to put your attention in the same environment where they are. There is not a thing wrong with this as long as you do not become convinced that the objects or people that you’re paying attention to are so important, that you dare not take your attention off them. Once this happens they forever locate your attention.

When a man becomes so worried about his wife cheating on him that all he can think about is his wife, he becomes, to that degree, located by his wife. By the time a stockbroker takes part in insider trading, his attention must have become so fixated on money that he will do anything in order to be located near more money. What a person’s attention is on is what he is looking at, and what he looks at defines his space for him.

A being gets space by viewing or looking at some thing, i.e. by putting his attention on something. Nowhere is a being’s attention more fixed than on his body. A being fixes his attention on those things which he thinks are important to his survival. The more you associate with something the more you will identify with it, and the more you will fix your attention on it. The irony is that the more you fix your attention on something, the more important you think it is. And the more powerful you think it is, the more you think you better keep your attention on it.

As a child, anyone who moves your body around or takes care of your body, you naturally believe is more powerful than you are. A being has fixed his attention on those things in his environment which he thinks are more powerful or more important than he is. You are surrounded by others who agree that this is the proper thing to do. Often a little child will be considered to have a very vivid imagination if he tells his mother that he has been to Mars or that he has just visited with his friends from outer space. This kind of thing is very much discouraged by society. What is encouraged is your agreement to put your attention on the same things on which everyone else has their attention. This is one of the major functions of schooling. Everyone studies the same basics – reading, writing, arithmetic, shop, home electronics, chemistry, and physics. Pretty soon, these things become important. No one ever thinks his attention could be anywhere but on the same things that everyone else’s attention is on. And thus a being’s attention becomes located.

Because of the intimacy of association and interaction, a body fixes a being’s attention most of all. A human easily starts to believe that he is where his feet smell. That he is where his brain is. That he is where his ears are hearing. That he is where that stiffness in his back can be felt. If you look around your environment, you will find those things that you are using to locate yourself. You’ve taken this so much for granted that you’ve turned control of your attention over to the environment. In order to change your location you try to move the objects that your attention is on. You have to take your body and drive it in a car to a different spot before you believe that you are in a new location. You have taken these things in your environment and made them into signs to tell you where you are. And if one of these signs doesn’t signal you, you don’t think you’re there. The only reason a being can be located anywhere against his will is because he has let his attention unawarely fixate on some matter or energy or space.

You will regain control of your attention under your own determinism, to the degree that you realize that it is only you that can place your attention. You must realize that you are not your attention, but that you create your attention. A being who can place or remove his attention from the environment at will, has achieved a great level of freedom. As a being you have no location, but you can consider yourself to be where your attention is.

The Guide To Unconditional Personal Freedom has drills addressing this subject.

© 2008 SEEKERS LLC