Reaching the Plateau!

Part I

by Leslie Gaddy

“In the middle of difficulties lie opportunities”

Albert Einstein

Reaching the plateau on the path of self discovery can be likened to reaching growth milestones in the earliest years of development. The first thing we do when we enter the physical plane is take a deep breath. We learn, instinctively, that breath means life. In the holy bible, when God created Earth and all its inhabitants, God breathed it all into life. Many other belief systems and religious groups show similar importance to the breath. In Buddhist practices, the meditation practices teach that the focus on the breath is the first and most important step to quieting the mind and therefore allowing one access to the messages of the soul. In Earth based practices, also known as rituals, the element of air, along with water, fire, and earth, is fundamental to balancing our physical self with the world we live in, which will lead us to the 5th element of spirit. The commonality here is that the breath or air is key to creating life or giving life to our own creations.

After the breath of life wakes us from our safe slumber within the mother’s womb and into this physical life, we immediately begin to learn the physical instincts of continuing this precious life created by the mother and father. Already the mind of the ego is taking charge and begins its search for water. The alert signals are sent to the body and we cry. The mother, who has been preparing for the arrival of this new creation, has already made the proper accommodations to ensure her baby has all it needs to thrive and instinctively produces milk for her baby to drink. So when she hears her child cry, her egoic mind alerts her body to provide what he or she needs. The holy bible tells us that before God made man, all that he would need would be provided on Earth, therefore, the Earth, the mother, has been prepared for man’s arrival with her vast amount of water supplied by the rivers, lakes, streams, and oceans. The Buddhists equate water to calmness and clarity. From this perspective, the mother’s milk calms the child and brings clarity to his or her egoic mind, creating new neural pathways in the brain to store information for later use. In other words, we learn that if we cry, then the mother provides.

As we develop from a newborn baby into a toddler, we learn that our bodies need a new way to meet the nutritional needs that nurture life within us. Both mother and child instinctively understand this and the child is introduced to new ways of attaining nutrition and this presents in the form of food. The mothers then begin to introduce foods that match what his or her bodies need and the child openly receives. This process creates new neural pathways leading us to know which foods best fit our needs and teaches us to search out the foods during times of hunger and we instinctively receive these gifts that life has provided us. We naturally desire to preserve our precious life, so we are open to receive what we need to do that. Earth based religions categorize our nutritional needs in the element of earth, understanding that the mother provides for the body. The holy bible states,

Genesis 1:29-30 29Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground-everything that has the breath of life in it-I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

In Hindu practices, food is not accepted before it is first offered to God and the ritual of placing 5 morsels of food on the side of the table represents gratitude to the divine forces. The commonality among all these perspectives is that food is key to survival,food is provided for us from a source of greater wisdom, giving the egoic mind the confidence that we can safely receive food since it satisfies the egoic mind’s mission of survival.

By the time we reach age 7, we have developed a system of meeting the basic needs of survival and we can now focus our evolution on the mind. We begin to learn in school more advanced concepts of communication through language, math, science, and social studies. We become less dependent on the core family and learn to forge out on our own and expand the concept of family to include friends and mentors. This transition can be difficult, teaching us how it feels to have to let go of the initial persona we have created up to this point in our journeys, yet, in the same breath, teaching us to become free from the constraints of dependency. We again, burn new neural pathways into our brain, creating more areas of storage for future use. Earth based religions would attribute this “burning” to the element of fire, meaning, we have to burn away that which we no longer have use for, making room for the new to grow. The practice of tossing a piece of paper, written on it all that needs to be changed, into a bonfire, simply represents this concept of letting go of “the initial persona we have created” in the physical realm. In Luke 3:16 and Mathew 3:11, the holy bible references John the Baptist baptizing the people with water, then he states that the Lord will baptize them with the “Holy spirit and fire”. Hindus believe that Agni, the fire god, has the power to consume, transform and convey. Regardless of culture or religious understandings, the commonality here is that we learn to move out of the phases of development by releasing our attachment to it and then embrace a new phase full of wonder and discovery.

The plateau is the phase on our path to self discovery that feels difficult, alerting the mind of the ego that we are moving into a new phase of wonder and adventure. By the time we reach these plateaus, the egoic mind has developed many neural pathways that have been used without fail an infinite number of times. Until it creates new neural pathways, it simply does not know how to proceed. Additionally, the mind of the ego comprehends the letting go of the old story we have been living as death and fights to hold on to life or to survive. From that perspective, that persona living out an old story experiences death, yet we understand that in its place a persona living a new story will emerge. The christian religions teach about resurrection and rebirth, Hindus and Buddhist teach about reincarnation and the cycles of births and deaths, and we can observe the trees in nature to explain these cycles through seasonal changes.

Each fall a tree begins to lose its dead leaves and branches, in the winter the tree is bare and void of life, in the spring new life grows from the tree having transformed it into a new more expanded version, and in the summer is it fully into its new form simply being itself while basking in the sun. We can compare the plateau to the tree existing in the winter months. It is bare and void of life, yet under the surface, creating a new more expanded form. Its roots are spreading out beneath the ground, its branches are expanding out and up from above the ground, its leaves are reproducing and rebirthing more versions of itself and it is learning how to function in its new expanded form. As humans, this winter phase is where we are developing new understanding and ideas through research and contemplation, creating new neural pathways from this new knowledge, making physical changes to our bodies by understanding more about our nutritional needs in THIS season, therefore, learning to function in this new expanded form. Basically, we integrate the old version of ourselves with the new version of ourselves by releasing parts that we no longer need, accommodating the parts of the new, and creating a new version of ourselves with a more expanded level of knowing and consciousness. The plateau then becomes the place in our journey of self discovery which supplies the crossroads that lead us to our next path, presenting itself through an infinite number of choices.

In the next newsletter, Reaching the Plateau Part II, I will share my experiences and updated knowledge, how a new and better version of myself manifested through choices I personally made, and explain the challenges I faced as I pioneered into new and unfamiliar places.