Peter Mitchell
04-01-2006, 10:24 AM
There have been a lot of threads popping onto the forum as people struggle to either label or find a connective thread between their CST practice and their pre-CST ideological or dogmatic approach to self-transformation. Admittedly I now cringe whenever another topic containing a thousand year philosophical context or energetic reference (chi, ki, prana, PNI,) is trotted out here in print. Not to invalidate the personal journeys of Tribal members, but my understanding of the transformative experience supported by RMAX is one of efficient effectiveness and getting out of ones own way. A way to summarize what I have observed of these queries is like this:
“Three blind people are standing around an elephant. They are told to describe the elephant from where they stand by touching the elephant. One feels the leg, one feels the stomach, and the other feels the trunk and tusks. Each gives a different description based on their perspective.”
Yet it’s the same elephant!
We live in the twenty-first century with twenty-first century cultural references. These can be difficult enough to navigate through given the information saturation made possible by an overload of multi-media connections. In our journeys of personal transformation I believe we complicate the process even further by introducing concepts and labels that no longer have a current cultural reference. It would be like me coming to the States and asking a Texan to find me a “toque”. In Canada that’s what we call a knit winter hat.
In my opinion the “outside” names and labels are getting in the way of the transformational process. A name, or understanding the reference of a name, is not going to hurry along results. The only thing that will create results is the doing. You could be completely silent, ask no questions, think no thoughts, and the doing would still create results. If mindfulness of doing is the key, having begun to feel the changes CST is creating for me, I believe it is, then questions and debates regarding the doing will reap far more effective and efficient results than questions focusing on labels and semantics. Our struggle is born from resistance (read: fear-reactivity) to change.
On the upside, there are fewer and fewer threads trying to connect or cocktail CST practice to bodybuilding or the “functional training” camps. The efficacy of this system is being questioned less as understanding grows. It would seem the next evolutionary step of the Tribe is getting our collective heads around the mind/body connection without culturally specific references or non-related labels. It is an incredibly stimulating and exciting time to be here to watch and participate. The RMAX curriculum isn’t the only thing evolving.
Thank-you, Tribe!
“Three blind people are standing around an elephant. They are told to describe the elephant from where they stand by touching the elephant. One feels the leg, one feels the stomach, and the other feels the trunk and tusks. Each gives a different description based on their perspective.”
Yet it’s the same elephant!
We live in the twenty-first century with twenty-first century cultural references. These can be difficult enough to navigate through given the information saturation made possible by an overload of multi-media connections. In our journeys of personal transformation I believe we complicate the process even further by introducing concepts and labels that no longer have a current cultural reference. It would be like me coming to the States and asking a Texan to find me a “toque”. In Canada that’s what we call a knit winter hat.
In my opinion the “outside” names and labels are getting in the way of the transformational process. A name, or understanding the reference of a name, is not going to hurry along results. The only thing that will create results is the doing. You could be completely silent, ask no questions, think no thoughts, and the doing would still create results. If mindfulness of doing is the key, having begun to feel the changes CST is creating for me, I believe it is, then questions and debates regarding the doing will reap far more effective and efficient results than questions focusing on labels and semantics. Our struggle is born from resistance (read: fear-reactivity) to change.
On the upside, there are fewer and fewer threads trying to connect or cocktail CST practice to bodybuilding or the “functional training” camps. The efficacy of this system is being questioned less as understanding grows. It would seem the next evolutionary step of the Tribe is getting our collective heads around the mind/body connection without culturally specific references or non-related labels. It is an incredibly stimulating and exciting time to be here to watch and participate. The RMAX curriculum isn’t the only thing evolving.
Thank-you, Tribe!