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Prior to reading The Seat of the Soul, I suffered from the disease to please. Like millions of people, most of them women, I was a slave to the needs, wants, and desires of others. I would say yes when I seriously wanted to say no. I would give precious time and energy, money, gifts—whatever was asked—simply to avoid the possibility of upsetting someone. I once flew from Chicago to Spain, appeared onstage for less than forty-five seconds at a friend’s charity benefit, then got back on a plane and flew straight to work to do my show—all because I didn’t know how to say no. To this day, I couldn’t even tell you what the charity event was for.
My breakthrough was recognizing that my intention to be liked was causing all the requests. Cause and effect. If your intention is to do what other people want, they will keep asking you to do exactly that. That was an aha moment! When I changed my intention to be about doing what I wanted, what I felt was worthy of my time, the effect automatically changed.
While writing my first book, The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics, I discovered—to my complete surprise—inspiration that came from beyond my mind, nonphysical intelligences that I could not articulate, and the electricity of creating consciously with constructive intent. I had never experienced anything like this. I loved these experiences, but, for the most part, I forgot about them after the book was finished.
The Seat of the Soul brought remarkable people into my life. Two of them in particular touched me more deeply than I could have imagined and continue to support me in ways that thrill and surprise me.
1 Evolution
We were taught, in other words, that evolution means the progressive development of organizational complexity.
“Survival of the fittest” means that the most evolved organism in a given environment is the organism that is at the top of the food chain in that environment. According to this definition, therefore, the organism that is most able to ensure its own survival, most able to serve its self-preservation, is the most evolved. We have long known that this definition of evolution is inadequate, but we have not known why. When two humans engage one another, they are, in terms of organizational complexity, equally evolved.
Jesus, we are told, foresaw the plot against His life, even to the details of how His friends would act and react, yet He did not run from what He saw. The entirety of humankind has been inexorably shaped by the power and love of One who gave His life for others. All who revere Him, and almost all who but know His story, agree that He was one of the most evolved of our species. Our deeper understanding tells us that a truly evolved being is one that values others more than it values itself, and that values love more than it values the physical world and what is in it.
We see that when the activities of life are infused with reverence, they come alive with meaning and purpose. We see that when reverence is lacking from life’s activities, the result is cruelty, violence, and loneliness. The physical arena is a magnificent learning environment. It is a school within which, through experimentation, we come to understand what causes us to expand and what causes us to contract, what causes us to grow and what causes us to shrivel, what nourishes our souls and what depletes them, what works and what does not.
When the physical environment is seen only from the five-sensory point of view, physical survival appears to be the fundamental criterion of evolution because no other kind of evolution is detectable. It is from this point of view that “survival of the fittest” appears to be synonymous with evolution, and physical dominance appears to characterize advanced evolution. When perception of the physical world is limited to the five-sensory modality, the basis of life in the physical arena becomes fear. Power to control the environment, and those within the environment appears to be essential.
AI Summary
The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav presents key insights from the Taoism tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
- [To be expanded]
Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
This entry was generated from Readwise highlights. Expand with additional context as appropriate.