Magic is Reality

The first time I was visited by the 'kind of magic' Freddie Mercury sang about, was many years ago, when I was about 25 years old. I was living in Paris at the time, and attended a 10 day seminar in Switzerland where the pervading topic and question was 'What is enlightenment?' I didn't even know much about that word 'Enlightenment', however a few weeks prior to that, I had attended a talk that a newly found freind had recommended I go to. Until that point, I had never met anyone as interested as my friend, in the same big questions about life that I also had, and was excited on a level I knew to be deeper than my usual experience, so decided to go.

While at the talk (although I had no idea what was happening at the time) I began to experience what began as a persistent, gripping energetic buzz in my feet, then legs, hands then arms. It felt somehow out of my control and seemed to have the power to take me over if I let it. I found it utterly compelling and terrifying at the same time, and as this energy got close to my heart, I panicked and began hyperventilating.

After this very dramatic and extraordinary experience I walked from South to North Paris in the dark, utterly overwhelmed in the deepest and highest happiness I had ever known, and notably to me at the time - without a shred of fear.

It came as slightly less surprising then, when a few weeks later on this seminar, while sitting on the side of this mountain (Schwiebenalp), speaking to someone about big life stuff, that my consciousness or awareness began again to expand exponentially as what appeared to be a point on this vast web that cast itself out with such speed and precision in front of me. While the experience lasted milliseconds, the memory of that vision is as clear to me as if it happened yesterday. It was showing me this web or network in fact made up the very matter that made everything, both seen and unseen. In the core of myself I understood the meaning, but myself did not.

I didn't have much intellectual knowledge of what it was happening to me at the time, but I later came to hear of a Buddhist metaphor, the Jewel Net of Indra which seemed to point to the same thing I was, from another place in me 'knowing' in that moment.

The Jewel Net of Indra is a profound and subtle metaphor referred to in Buddist texts as the structure of reality; 'a vast net that stretches infinitely in all directions. In each 'eye' of the net is a single brilliant, perfect jewel. Each jewel also reflects every other jewel, infinite in number, and each of the reflected images of the jewels bears the image of all the other jewels — infinity to infinity. Whatever affects one jewel effects them all. The metaphor illustrates the interpenetration of all phenomena. Everything contains everything else. At the same time, each individual thing is not hindered by or confused with all the other individual things.' Learn religions: https://www.learnreligions.com/indras-jewel-net-449827

I have been fascinated and motivated by this 'knowing' that spontaneously arose in me that evening, along with the concept and its implications in living life, ever since.

As of a day or two ago, I was finally able to represent it visually, not particularly in how I actually saw it then in my minds eye, but the perfection I know of it's purpose in my experience - this representation is this article's headline picture.

It is the completion of this visual representation that is motivating me to now post this article. I had no plan to do this when I woke up this morning, I have no plan for how this article will get written, the only thing I know, is that it needs to be written.

Why write this article?

With everything these days seeming and being so chaotic, uncertain and unpredictable, this needs to be written because I can say with certainty, that while it is so completely understandable, many of us have collectively lost sight of, or forgotten the very magic that is and could be what living this life is for.

I have spent much of my professional career trying to tone down toward the outside, this inner knowing I was miraculously shown. This knowing that there is more to life than what we see, feel, think, hear - just that there is something miraculous about simply 'being' a Human Being.

I toned down the full expression of this knowing, not only to a level that would enable me to be acceptable in a 'normal life' (whatever that is) but to a level that I forgot the delicate preciousness of that miracle. This toning down is maybe something you will be familiar with, but it looks like a well tailored suit of 'not being too much' - like:

• Not being too open in a way that might either challenge someone else's preparedness to be open or risking the pain of being cut off from someone else being closed towards you
• Suppressing excitement and love for people, so I don't make people uncomfortable or myself appear too emotional, putting off those who prize reserve and rationality, taking me seriously
• Not being too opinionated, and making people feel uncomfortable so that a separating offence and awkwardness is created between us

I know there are any more examples I could come up with, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind.

Making magic happen

The first time I got to experiment with pushing the boundaries with a more authentic version of me in a corporate environment was during my time at at Nordea. (There's more on that in an article written by Lan-Ling Wolff Fredell at PA Consulting.) I had worked in change management for 15 years prior to joining Nordea, so from a certain perspective, there was always some kind of boundary-pushing going on; and personally, I have always been experimenting in some way or other over the years, by gently pushing an edge (through asking lots of ‘annoying questions’!) towards something that made more sense to me. This is was also where I first got to see how magic can really happen in a more corporate environment - against the odds.

At Nordea, I got to experience both the agony and ecstasy of moving beyond the known and developed Change Management procedures, and being empowered by what I consider to be real leadership, to truly experiment. I was given a hall pass to just go for it. Don't hold back, go forth and express a perspective that might not be what people expect or maybe even what people want. Those were not the 'precise' words of course! But that was what seemed to me to be both the idea and if not that in reality, then certainly it was the result!

I am forever grateful for the trust shown in me. I had the experience of being enabled and free to 'be' versus being told what to 'do'. I am sure many can confirm the enormous chasm of a difference experientially between these two approaches. Knowing myself again and again as an enabled 'human being' over being valued or treated only as a useful 'human doing'. The magic that can happen in that person and the effect of that enablement on other people is both liberating and extraordinary.

While it was rarely smooth sailing, the big surprise to me was how much most people, male and female had been yearning not only to be themselves, but aspired to be similarly trusted. They resonated with a non-corporate message. One that spoke to a greater purpose over simply gaining revenue. Yes, businesses need to make money, and yes there are always going to be boundaries and limitations within most situations and business scenarios; and some of them, like legislation, are non-negotiable.

But on reflection, it seems to me that somehow, and somewhere along the line we (humanity) have collectively allowed ourselves to lose touch with something of deepest value - particularly at work. It's hard to quite put the finger on what that something is. But I realised today, that it is the most overlooked & truly outstanding part of being alive; it's the being part of being a human being...it's the secret magic inherent and simply available to all of us in that.

It has always been there, it was there when we were born, it is there when we die, it doesn't see difference, it knows only connection as itself - it never went anywhere, it just sits there, being what it is, in all it's unexplained wonder and profoundest meaning. Just sitting there patiently waiting for us to let go of the 'oh so many' ideas, assumptions and beliefs we have - that we need to be or do something that is not what we already are. We all know those moments, some see them as synchronicity, coincidence, connection with nature, as deepest love of another as oneself or maybe just a knowing of something else without explanation. But because we consciously and unconsciously choose to hold onto all of these ideas, assumptions and beliefs, we remain unaware and separate from the potential in us all to know this magic through simply being it.

There have been prophets throughout the ages who have pointed to this knowing, and predictably, while some get it, many don't, either because:

1. it's not their interest
2. it's not in their interests or
3. they simply dont have access to others who are interested or being it

Technology as opportunity

So in a world where access to information and people is almost unlimited due to technology, do we not have an amazing opportunity to develop, use and be in it to connect in a different way? Our use and development of technology has its downsides - but as a deeply wise person once said to me 'Technology just reflects what we are being in it'.

If the Covid19 pandemic has shown us anything, surely it is the degree to which, connection with each other has an internal value it's both so easy to take for granted and hard to quantify or put into words the magnitude of its value. So if technology is reflecting what we are being in it or doing with it, then do we need to relook at the question of what we want to do with our lives - and maybe ask who or what we want to be?

Technology allows us to connect in ways we never imagined possible, but are we making best use of this connectivity? I think it’s fair to say that we have focussed more on the excitement of creating and growing of the technology, and from a more horizontal perspective of getting from A to B, versus a vertical perspective that would involve taking the time to consider more deeply who we are such that it informs where we are going with all this.

In returning to 'the state of the world' - it’s clear to see how much we are in our bubbles of self preoccupation and separation, and not just physically locking down due to the global pandemic, but emotionally and psychologically as well. Taking in digital ‘news’ feeds daily that prize activating or triggering the well worn fear patterns in our nervous systems from its focus on negativity and disaster - versus perhaps seeking the stimulation of something deeper and more inspiring. Something perhaps, more akin to the magic within?

Magic or Fear

Mahatma Gandi said 'be the change you wish to see in the world'. So what do you wish for? Magic or Fear? It is that simple.

• Do we want to live in a world in which we dare to consider the magical? Do we want to see potential and possibility? Know unexplainable meaning? Do we wish to remain open in-spite of all the reasons we give ourselves to remain closed?

Or

• Do we prefer to be and reflect the fearful chaos we see around us? Do we prefer to close up and defend from this chaotic outside, closing up to the outside, using all the justifications this world will support us in, to maintain the status quo?

When deepest love, meaning, connection, values, purpose all being so close at hand, it seems such a shame to give in to the chaos, as if it's real and matters more than what we know really matters to us personally. (If we are honest to the deepest, simplest, most open and softest point in ourselves - as we are when in the knowledge of our physical mortality.)

I sense such an opportunity present in these Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) times. That opportunity is that we may never again collectively have the chance to really be and know this magic inside us - right now, and that is very much in-spite of the Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

The extremity of this pretty crazy global polarity we have actively invested ourselves in, is what’s causing:

• The close call we are causing with our environment and
• The division between each other...
• ...which itself points most poignantly to the disconnection in ourselves

We fix the disconnection in ourselves, between our beliefs, ideas and assumptions, with who and what we really are - magical 'beings'. Then we begin to heal the wound created by the idea that we were ever separate from each other in the first place - whether by race, gender, age, beliefs, size, ability, disability, countries, ways of living; or that we were ever separate from anything including our natural environment.

We fix this, and the implications spread out from us individually, like the diamonds on Indra's jewelled net I knew 25 years ago and know today, a magical network of being; spreading out by starting with us, whomever we are, to the collective organisms we call businesses, corporations, industry, government.

Networks are a powerful idea, but I know them as more than an idea, there is a unifying, living network who's magic actively informs our reality in all moments, past, present and future, the living potential in every moment, and if chosen over being closed, can ultimately begin to heal the damage caused in our ignorance, to the environment globally and to each other.