Today I pay homage to the great Albert Einstein. Why? Because I feel like it, no other reason. He threw out some gems for us to ponder. “I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.” “Love is the greatest force there is.” And perhaps my favorite: “You can’t solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it.”
Quotes such as these have great ramifications for us in our lives, if we choose to ponder them for a while.
For example, rational thinking has its place in the world. It probably serves us really well when considering things like schedules. But there is another kind of thinking that I think opens us up to possibilities, and this is what I believe Einstein was referring to. He also said that “imagination is more important than knowledge.” I like to play a game I call “What If?” In this game, I simply imagine how life would be IF. It is a form of spiritual practice for me. What if? This game allows me to imagine possibilities. And here’s the kicker: if I can imagine them, they can happen. My job isn’t to know how they can happen. My job is simply to know that they can.
And here’s where the next quote comes in handy, my favorite. This quote has also been attributed as saying that one can’t solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it, but I like consciousness better. Consciousness goes deeper. Consciousness is not just our thinking. It is our feelings, our beliefs, our very sense of who we are and how we show up in the world. Einstein is not the only one who told us that if we want to change our life we need to change our thinking. “Change your thinking, change your life” is the tag line for Centers for Spiritual Living.
And change your thinking, change your life is the very foundation of all of my own personal work in the world. Having problems in your life? Change your thinking. Feeling like life is unbearable, hopeless, not worth it? Change your thinking. Having problems with other people, or with relationships? Change your thinking. And then I proceed to provide tools to do exactly that. And again, it isn’t just about changing the thinking. It is about changing the consciousness.
This is difficult to describe. I have a Masters Degree in...wait for it.....wait for it.....Consciousness Studies. And I still don’t quite know what that is. What I can tell you is that we studied philosophy, science, religion and psychology. What I can tell you is that incorporating all of those schools of thought and study into my own life changed my consciousness and produced a person who was different than the one who entered that study. I changed my thinking, and my life changed.
This is why I like Einstein so much. This guy was a scientist who knew the power of things like imagination and intuition. He knew the power of love to solve all problems. Which brings me to his love quote, “Love is the greatest force there is.” Never mind that the Bible says love never fails. Never mind that it is said that love is a synonym for God. Yes, those all affirm that love is the greatest force there is. And if you don’t believe that, allow me to share with you another experiment I’ve played with over and over again, and discovered that it works, every time.
If love is the greatest power there is, then love should be able to solve all problems. But in order to do so, love needs to have a way to express. That way is through us. WE need to be the vehicles through which love moves. WE need to be love. WE need to have the consciousness of love. I began to consider, when contemplating this experiment, what love could/would/should look like in my life. First of all, it is unconditional. This means I place no conditions on whether I love someone. It has no exceptions. This means I love everyone equally. I’m an equal opportunity lover! And what does love feel like? It feels peaceful. It feels joyous. It feels relaxing. And sometime excited and enthusiastic. Short version: love is always positive, never negative. So I began to consider where I felt negative in my life, and I began to replace that negativity with positivity. I got so good at it that people were calling me Pollyanna. I did not care. I intuitively (thank you again Albert Einstein!) knew I was on the right track. Am I successful at it all the time? No, but I strive. I have used this technique when I was ready to divorce my husband. I’ve used it when I have felt the weight of the world’s ills on my shoulders. I’ve used it when there has been an antagonist in my life whose seeming goal seemed to be to cause problems for me. I have used it when I found myself harshly judging others. I’m still happily married and the antagonists always seem to go away. The others remain idiots but when I stop harshly judging them, I can sometimes have compassion for them, which is another form of love. I am not perfect at this. I haven’t yet solved the world’s problems, but you know what? Love is the greatest force there is and if enough of us embody it, together we CAN solve the world’s problems.
It is time for me to bring this blog to a conclusion, which is sometimes difficult for me to do, because one thing leads to another which leads to another and I could go on and on. So I will close with another Einstein quote, “creativity is intelligence having fun.”
In this holiday season, I wish you fun, creativity, changed thinking and most of all, unconditional love!
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Yuletide Greetings, Happy holidays, Joyeux Noël, Feliz Navidad, Seasons Greetings!
