Spirituality

Introducing the Human Web Browser

I saw a youtube vid the other night which talked about quantum physics, spirituality and self realization. That’s my late night tv fix…since I have no TV, I tune in youtube. Sometimes I get very kooky stuff, and sometimes I stumble onto very profound information.

One video dealt with perception. Let’s say we see a bird out there. But wait – a small portion of the inside of our brain is showing us a bird. The eye is a camera lens letting in photons. So the image of a bird is in our brain, not out there. Better said if I say “when you think you see a bird out there, you actually see the image of a bird inside your brain.”

Likewise, the words you are reading now are not out there, they are “in your brain.”

Just think, a flavor or odor is not out there. It is only when it hits your taste buds, it sends a signal “to your brain”. That’s more understandable than sight, in a way. But if 2 people smell perfume, or a fart, they think it is out there in the air. Really all they know about is what is in their 2 brains.

Isn’t there something comical about always saying “YOUR BRAIN” over and over ?:-) Hang in there, let’s see where this goes.

When you hear something molecules move in the air and hit your eardrum. The sound is in your brain. And, the sense of distance – like “I hear the bus outside” or “I see the bird 50 feet away” – the sense of distance is – yep, you guessed it – in your brain!

The point is this – we get signals as input – and then de-code them into sights, smells, sounds, flavors and more. Then from there we experience feelings and emotions based on what we experience.

We know that our senses are limited. Blow a dog whistle – and to us it is virtually silent, so we see our hearing is deficient. Examples for all the senses like this could be given. Just think of how many radio signals and wi-fi networks are going, and we do not have the perception to even know they are there, further proof that there is more out there than “meets the eye”, ear, smell, taste or touch.

WE HUMANS ARE LIKE “WEB BROWSERS”

Then the thought occurred to me – as a person who has worked with coding for the web, if you look at “the source” of a web page it looks like total gobbledy gook. Please, do this as an experiment, go to View>Source in your browser menu. Look at the code. Then notice how the browser turns “information” into colors, fonts, images and more.

Yet, a web browser is a magical little program that “interprets” or makes sense of this gobbledy gook.

So, if we humans look out there and see shapes, colors, people, hear sounds, etc – that is akin to viewing a web page through a browser. (By the way, colors exist in our brain – they are not really there)

Just imagine this unbelievable electrical “matrix” out there – and we make sense of it, just the way a web browser makes a page of code intelligible.

You are like a web browser looking out into this unbelievable “field” of energy (code) and in your brain you are able to separate, identify and sense things. For the sake of total redundance – what you see is interpreted, just like a page of code is interpreted by a web browser.

WHAT’S THE POINT?

To see profound truth always sets us a little more free, and to see through the eyes of the creator always makes us more and more blissful. So, I sit in wonder and awe as I think about this. And then I sip more coffee….my brain likes that.

Don’t think there is a creator? Well just think about the incredible engineering it has taken to come up with a MAC G5 computer that can surf the nt and have a web browser. That was no accident, right? Can you really say that we are a random accident? Just as we created computers and are greater than them, something or someone greater than us must have created us.

As well….can a computer know the human? No. Imagine, a G5 as complex and unbelievable a piece of machinery as it is, cannot know love. I believe there are many things we can’t know much in the same way. However, through quiet and meditation we can know much more than what our senses tell us.

The point is this – can we look at our reactions to things and can start to take ownership, and know – beyond the shadow of a doubt that we are responsible for our life experience, out emotions and they are inside us, not outside?

Just like the bird image is in our brain, and sound is in our brain, so are the notions of success, happiness, spiritual connectedness…it’s all an inner game. Can we take responsibility for interpreting things the way we do and know it is not “out there” but inside us?

Have fun in your brain today.

Stillness at 7am and Pervading Peace

By Adam Rafferty 2 Comments

Greetings Friends.

It’s about 7 am, and I am enjoying my first sips of hot fresh coffee…the streets of Queens are quiet and only half of the street is seeing the first rays of today’s sun….

This past week was fabulous. I had a knockout gig at Acoustic Long Island, spent time with my family, had some “working musician” type gigs, and today I leave for Nashville to hang out at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society yearly gathering.

Life is good. I am at peace. I am fortunate to wake up every day to infinite possibilities. I am blessed to have a worthwhile goal of playing this guitar as good as I can.

It’s really not all about “guitar” though. I am lucky and fortunate in life to see meaningful goals ahead of me, and I get to spend my time and energy every day realizing those goals. I have made decisions and sacrifices to set up that type of lifestyle.

To witness the unfolding of it all is breathtaking. To see that I, as a human, have the ability to visualize something and bring it into being is an awesome feeling.

A few years ago I envisioned playing solo acoustic guitar for people and knocking ’em out. To see that the “vision” has materialized means I can create my reality, I can do it – whether it is a house, car, career – anything – I can do it. And, I’ll never “get there”…it’s all a delicious process.

Success is the “delicious unfolding” of one’s desires. Success is living on purpose, rather than default.

I get to wake up every day and feel this good. That is wealth, abundance and success. I wish this for everyone.

When I talk to friends and family, and I see their confusion, not knowing the career direction they want, or frustration, the comparing to others and feeling like they are falling short, not looking good enough, and all the typical psycho spiritual ailments of common folks, I want to tell them……

Turn the TV off.
Turn the laptop off.
Get quiet.
Be still.
Breathe.
Allow restlessness to arise, but stay there.
Allow the chatter to go on, it is it’s own thing. It’s not you.
Watch what happens when it stops.
Bathe in the silence.
Breathe.
Listen.

Do this twice a day for 30 minutes and watch your life change.

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Time to pack…see you in Nashville!!!

Letting Seeds Grow

By Adam Rafferty 4 Comments

Greetings Friends!

Wow, so much has happened in the last week, I don’t know were to begin.

A friend of mine recently gave me a copy of a Tony Robbins CD (sorry Tony, don’t worry – I’ll be buying stuff from you soon!) and I gotta say – the man is a genius.

The expression “when the student is ready, the teacher appears” was exemplified when I heard this cd.

A typical frustration that I bump into (and many of us do) is “why can’t I be further along than I am”. Whether it is financial, career, family, skill at something, one’s physical appearance – it is easy to be dissatisfied with the present circmstances.

Eckhart Tolle would say it is the experience of saying “no” and pushing against what is that brings us unhappiness. Absolutely true.

But Tony said something so real, so obvious that I just perked up.

He said, “maybe you’ve planted seeds and just have to wait until they grow”.

Bingo. This really chilled me out!

I often get comments on youtube and audience comments amounting to “why aren’t you more famous, you’re as good as ……(pick a well know guitarist)”. And then, I find that I am walking around, irritated slightly at the perfect unerring response of the universe. I am where I am, but want to be “further ahead”.

Add to that the financial pressures of life, a little bit of ego…and away we go!!! 🙂 The frustrated ideas bring about frustrated emotions, and then I roll down the slippery slope of negativity. Hmm….how can I avoid this?

Now I see. My little seeds of my acoustic guitar direction have had much less time underground than some other people’s “seeds”. It is natural, perfect for me to be right where I am. The seeds are sprouting, and I gotta “keep on keepin on” to make sure the water and sunlight is consistent. That means ongoing touring, practicing, writing – and WAITING PATIENTLY to let nature “do it’s thing”!

I am writing about this so that you can take a look at your life and see if you are frustrated that “little seedlings” are causing you upset because you want them to be more grown up than they are.

A farmer knows if he want’s a harvest that he has to prepare months ahead…..

The Importance of Art and The Excellence of Tommy Emmanuel

By Adam Rafferty 2 Comments

Friends, last night I went to go see Tommy Emanuel perform at NYC’s Highline Ballroom. I feel like I don’t even need to say it – it was awesome, one of the best shows I have ever seen. It had variety, virtuosity, groove, highs & lows in intensity.

He had guest performers, he had stories, and jokes. All bound together with the glue of his unbelievable guitar playing.

In short, he gives you an “experience” and does not just “play the guitar well”.
As you know by now, this man has changed my life – and I am one of many people whom he has affected. As you can see in my videos & hear on the mp3’s I plan on “doing something” with this inspiration.

What needs to be noted I think is this: great art and music shows us how EXCELLENT we are as humans, and points to how excellent we can be. Many things show us our excellence also – athletics, invention, science, writing – to name a few.

But to see someone “take it to the limit” shows us the unbelievable depth of the human mind and spirit is a treat, a joy – and much needed today in the age of ”
too much of digital everything.”

On the “meet & greet” line I was practically in tears. I thanked Tommy for his music. I had overheard him saying to the guy ahead of me how he wanted “people to walk out of the show spiritually uplifted”.

Well he spiritually uplifted my girlfriend so much I told her I’d get his number for her 🙂

Seriously though, this brings a Biblical story to mind. There was a story about how Jesus went nuts and overturned tables at a temple that had become a market place, saying something about what they had done to his “Fathers House”.

When I hear all the crapola music that’s out there it makes me want to overturn tables. But, the over promotion of musicians who have hardly practiced, who offer nothing spiritually in their music does serve a purpose. It is the perfect backdrop for when the “real thing” comes along.

Thank you Universe, God, Source for bringing us real artists and messengers who show us the “excellence” that lies buried deep in all human beings.

Giving a Free Sample Away Now; Receiving Later After the Buffer of Time

By Adam Rafferty 1 Comment

Greetings!

You and I are both marketers. In fact we all are marketers. If you have a day gig you are selling your services and time. If you are a freelancer, you are a marketer. You sell your product or service. Or, if you are in school you will soon be doing what I have just described.

Because marketing has become a discipline / study in and of itself, some people use it as an abstraction and as a talent to simply “market” something – whatever it may be. That’s fine for them, but I find it much more interesting to sell myself and my music.

Even rock bands are marketers. They provide an experience, and eventually provide bookers and promoters with an evening of profit when they bring their following to a show.

For the past few days I have been checking out some of my favorite “information gurus” to see how they use free samples, or even gifts as a giveaway. Everybody loves the idea of “FREE”. I do. It implies no risk. And, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling about the person I am getting something free from. I must say – I have gotten hooked on people after getting their free stuff.

FREE MP3s, PDF files, reading blog posts, you tube videos….get me hooked. Ok, I’m easy! 🙂

So I have been observing myself, and my own emotional buttons, seeing how I feel when they get pushed.

At “Trader Joe’s” grocery I got a tasty little treat of a sausage slice in a mini dixie cup. Yummy, at 8pm when I have not yet eaten. That made me more likely to buy them sausages. Wait- I actually did buy some!

In my quest to get better educated about marketing, I recently saw some “marketing web pages” of nobody’s whom I have never heard of, selling $497 ebook products with no free sample. Hmm, curious. What happens is I see it, and say “NEXT!”

For them to ask for a sale without giving me something is just bad marketing!

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I attempted (and still do) to look “under the hood” as it were – to take a cosmic view of this selling, marketing, free stuff. Sounds crazy I know. Leave it to us Americans to spiritualize making money! 🙂

But seriously folks, I love what I do and want to continue what it is I do – play music. So that means I have to sell the little gems that pour out of my mind, whether they are videos, books, pdfs, mp3s, CD’s or shows.

So…up rises a fear factor, a survival “worry”.

“What if I give it away when I could have sold it? That was too much work to just give away” and so on….I have experienced that. As it turns out, the more one closes off giving, it’s like putting gaffers tape over receiving! (Thanks to Mike Littman for that analogy!)

And so in a meditation, where I had clarity – I realized this:

1) No energy is ever lost.

Even if you go out to the woods and scream, everything around you received that vibration and it just gets transferred over and over, back and forth. This means, to give something away whether it is for free or not – the energy will surely boomerang back.

2) Time does not exist! Don’t forget.

When you give away a free thing – and you know step 1, that the equivalent will surely come back, the basic difference between a freebie and a paid item is the amount of time it takes to “receive” in return. If you give a freebie away, there are no “guarantees” in the material plane of getting paid. No one is writing a check or hitting a paypal button, but if you wait – and here’s the condition – truly given a piece of yourself, of your spark, of your genius – it must come back.

So there’s no real difference in a way. Giving the free thing away means you have faith that this law works.

(I think of this often when I play gigs…how I had to “sit in” for free for a while, give people a sample of “my playing” and now it has come around so that I get paid to play guitar.)

3) Feel the Worth in What You Provide

All this having been said, we all have our different gauges and inner workings as to what we charge for, what we sell and what we give away. I think another very important point is this:

Even though you might be giving it away for FREE, you must feel the worth in what you provide. If you don’t feel that what you are offering has true worth, that will be reflected back to you!

4) You’ll Get What You Give

Here’s why you need to follow step 3. If you give out CRAP, you get CRAP. If you give out LOVE, you get LOVE. Trust me, I have experienced this and know it to be true.

This is part of the reason that doing what you love, following your bliss, is so important!

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Food for thought! Now it’s time for breakfast….have a great day!