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Spirituality and Filling Holes

the Emergence Explorer

Questions for the Week of October 2, 2006



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these questions were based on the article
How Holes Teach Us To Be Spiritual


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This Week's Questions


[posed by David A.]
  • Are questions without answers, "holes?"
  • Is believing in God like believing in "holes?"
  • If my clients can't picture their financial possibilities, is this a hole in me or a hole in them?

Do you know?



[Question 1] As a CPA and Financial Planner, I often meet with clients who cannot visualize their financial future, even when I describe the possibilities to them. If I can't get my clients to picture their financial possibilities, is this a hole in me or in them?
[Answer] Good question, Dave. You see, while the obvious answer would be that it is your clients who have the hole, in truth, it could be you who has the hole. Or the both of you. You see, blankness in one person often provokes blankness in the other person. Thus whomever goes blank first usually makes the other go blank as well. Moreover, once this happens, unless you consciously reconnect, this blankness usually deepens and becomes self reinforcing.

For example, say you were trying to advise a client as to how to invest in a retirement account. Say you also had a hole in your conscious ability to picture yourself growing older and retiring. What would happen is, each time you tried to picture yourself retiring, your mind would go blank. Moreover, your blankness would likely extend to an inability to picture others retiring as well.

Worse yet, in this case, you literally wouldn't be able to tell who had gone blank first. Did they go blank first and cause your mind to empty? Or did you go blank and simply Layer 2 it which then caused them to go blank?

So now, let's say it is you who has the hole. How would this play out in your financial planning sessions?

Basically, each time you tried to advise people about retirement, your inability to picture them you or them retiring would provoke the same blankness in your clients' minds as well. Along with confusion. And disconnection. This disconnection would then likely lead you to drive a Layer 2 logical stake straight into their brains. Which would then likely lead them to either feel a lack of confidence in you or feel angry at you or both. At the very least, they would feel a lack of confidence in your advice.

How then can you know for sure which of you has the hole? Easy. Rather than offering your clients financial advice right away, you might ask your clients to first show you their pictures for this part of finance. So, if you were discussing retirement, say, you might ask them how they picture retirement.

If you do, make sure that you ask them to give you as many visual details as they can, from getting up in the morning to seeing bills come in the mail. Then, as they describe their pictures, watch their eyes for blankness. Or if you have a good Layer 9 connection between you, you could try monitoring your own diaphragm for emptiness.

Either way, if they can't picture retiring, then it is they who have the hole.

The thing is, you also need to know for sure if you yourself have a hole. Thus, you also need to explore these very same pictures in yourself. Ideally, you would do this at a time when you are by yourself and are normally conscious. Or you could have your wife help you to explore these scenes, being she is also trained in Emergence. In fact, this might be a good way to do this, as we all, at times, need the help of a guide. Why not have the guide be your wife?

Hole or no hole, ultimately then, the goal would be for you to continuously expand the scope of your professional picture set, by continually increasing the number of details you can see in your own financial pictures.

Why would you want to do this? Because for every Layer 2 explanation you offer your clients, there will be a potentially blank response coming back at you. And for every vivid image you offer them, you increase your chances of creating a stronger and more lasting connection between the two of you. As well as improving their confidence in you and in your financial advice.

Realize too that for every hole you experience in your clients' abilities to picture finance, you, yourself, will feel pushed into their visual abyss. And will likely fall into these holes unless you have a pretty powerful, personal picture in your mind with which to ground yourself.

As always then, developing a comprehensive visual library of peoples' financial possibilities is the key to being able to sit and converse with them while at the same time, minimizing your chances that you'll fall into their financial "holes."

Oh, and one more thing. Realize that the most common hole in peoples' financial pictures is not in their ability to picture the money part of financial life scenes. Rather, it is in peoples' ability to picture money changing over time. This makes having people picture financial events over time one of the most powerful tools in any planner's financial advice. And after all, isn't money-over-time what you are actually helping them to financially navigate?

[Question 2] My wife and I are trying to have another child. With each failed opportunity, I become more and more discouraged. I know at one time I was able to visualize having another child. Now I have a hard time picturing this. My question is, is my inability to picture us having another child; my "what I cannot see?"; a "hole?" In other words, would you consider my lack of faith in a new child coming to us, a "hole?"
[Answer] I must apologize at the onset here Dave, as I'm not sure I can offer you much of an answer. Why not? Because having a child is such a profoundly personally experience. Thus, I feel reluctant to offer you some mere Layer 2 logical answer, as in no way would this do justice to your question. Or to our relationship.

What I can say is this. Your inability to picture having another child is indeed a "hole" in your visual ability. And this block would be a good thing to heal. More important though would be to ask what I see as the unspoken question, this being, "Is your inability to picture having a second child preventing you from having this second child?"

My answer? No, it is not. Why not? Because life and death are the providence of something much greater than ourselves. And for anyone doubting this, simply ask yourself how many times births and deaths occur in completely illogical ways.

On the other hand, would becoming able to picture having a new baby help you in your desire? Absolutely. How? By creating the finest form of prayer we humans can ever offer up; a visual prayer.

Ultimately, then, this all might be seen as a great example of how to live, the "Serenity Prayer," meaning, " change what you can change and let go of the rest." Here, you could change the quality of your prayers, but then would need to let go of the outcome. Hard? Yes, I know. But is the alternate any better? More important, would be to consider how this alternative; not letting go, would affect your existing little girl. Probably not too well.

Do your best Dave. And complain to me if you need to. I won't get tired of supporting you.

[Question 3] Although I can not scientifically prove the existence of God, I believe in God. Is my belief in God like believing in holes, where the part you can't see; the "hole," is God, and the life events which have lead me to my belief are what surrounds this hole? Is this the leap of faith I must take in order to truly believe in God?
[Answer]
Is your belief in God like believing in a hole, where the hole is God and the life events which have lead you to your belief are what surrounds this hole? Absolutely. In fact, my personal search for a visual metaphor which explains my belief in a higher power is actually what lead me to fall in love with this very metaphor. This and my desire to explain to others my belief that the physical world we can see is intimately connected to an equally important, non physical world which we cannot see.

I am not also alone in this belief. Many folks believe that a connection exists between the physical (visible) and spiritual (invisible) worlds. That these two worlds exist as two equal and connected parts takes peoples' personal beliefs a whole magnitude further though. How?

Well, if we acknowledge that holes exist, at least as literal non physical entities, then acknowledging the existence of a spiritual world is but a short step past that. And if we admit this idea; that there is a literal non physical world, then we take a huge step toward understanding the relationship between science and spirituality. How?

Seeing these two worlds as equals means seeing these two perspectives, science and spirituality, as equals. This makes them complementary partners who need each other rather than two warring and dissonant enemies, each trying to outdo the other.

In other words, seeing these two worlds as equally important partners allows us to merge the empirical proof of the scientist with the faith of the spiritual explorer. No coincidence people like Newton and Einstein voiced these very beliefs.

What then does all this mean? It means that if we believe in holes, then we can find a basis for faith, simply by believing that holes literally exist. Not bad for such a simple non obvious but observable entity.

Then again, this belief in two equally important worlds is the basis for many of our oldest and most revered philosophical and spiritual symbols, and can be seen in everything from the Taoist Yin / Yang symbol and Egyptian Ankh to the Celtic cross. In fact, all combinations of the circle (the "hole") and the cross (the four directions of the physical world; what is around the hole) represent this connection; "the union of heaven and earth."

No coincidence, this union is the basis for all shamanic practices. Including emergence.

[Question 4] When Michelangelo sculpted the David, he was quoted as saying that the statue was already in the rock. He just removed the stone around it. Is the sculpture of the David, a "hole?" And does being able to see this hole prove Michelangelo was a creative genius?
[Answer] The ability to see holes in blocks of stone could very well be considered a proof of creative genius. Given the finished "hole" is capable of amazing those who see it. Then again, this idea holds equally true for everything from artist's blank canvases and potters' lumps of clay to financial planners' advice on how to resolve personal debt.

Here then is one of the most exciting things to know about holes. Learning to seeing "holes" opens many doors to potential creative genius. Sadly, most folks fear holes so badly they avoid them like the plague. Which leads me to wonder, is everyone a potential creative genius, and are those who never experience this genius simply people who have never found a way past their fear of holes?

Makes you wonder what the world would become were we able to help people past their fear of holes, doesn't it (smile)?

[Question 5] When we EPs speak about what we can and can not picture; the visual vs. the non visual, would "questions without answers" be "holes"? If so, then when we find an answer; meaning, when we become able to visualize an answer, could we then say we have filled in this hole?
[Answer] Are questions without answers, "holes?" Very much so. And if you consider how I answered your previous questions, you may be able to see something even more important; how every unanswered question holds the potential impetus for a spiritual discovery. As well as for an act of creative genius. and scientific discovery.

Of course, the big leap of faith here would be to honestly embrace the beauty in "not knowing." Unfortunately, for most people, this is counter intuitive and next to impossible to do consciously. Making Layer 2 logical admissions? Yes, most normal people can do this easily. But making Layer 7, "personally needing to know," admissions to themselves? In truth, most folks find this next to impossible to even recognize the difference between Layer 2 and Layer 7 let alone to live not knowing in Layer 7.

This leads me to wonder if the best motive for creative genius would be the personal desire to see "God." Or the "hole," if this is an easier way to describe this missing picture.

As for your second question, is getting an answer, filling in a "hole?" To some degree, Dave, yes, it is. However, since all holes are infinitely deep and open spaces, filling in a hole is more like clarifying the edges which surround a hole than actually filling it in.

What I'm saying is, holes and non holes never change in size. In fact, even when we have blocks, they still remain equal in importance; as what I call, the "two- that-are-one."

What does change with healing and becoming more conscious is that we get better at picturing both. Which then changes our ability to experience both worlds in such a profound way as to alter our very consciousness. And our ability to love.

All this from simply redefining our sense of what is a "hole," and what is not.


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