Bobby’s Little Mistake

Five-year-old Bobby is just learning to read.  He speaks the word bead when he should have said bed.  Bobby’s father tells him that he is stupid.  Bobby’s father chuckles as he utters his words, thinking he is just kidding around.  But Bobby doesn’t notice the chuckle; he only notices the words because Bobby wants to impress his father.

His dad’s statement is a label, which is a form of belief.  Bobby isn’t stupid.  In fact, he read the rest of the book just fine.  He just made a mistake.  Bobby files his father’s statement away in his mind as true because parents are authority figures.

Before that moment, Bobby’s true Self was running his life.  He was brilliant, creative, and imaginative.  Bobby thought he could do anything.  After he was labeled, Bobby was still brilliant, creative, and imaginative with an added dash of stupid.  Bobby now has a belief; and from that day forward, making a mistake is equated with stupidity in his mind.  In addition, he has the belief that he can make a mistake, and he will feel fear when that thought comes into his mind.

Where Do Our Superpowers Go?

How does this happen?  How does a perfect, young boy with superpowers even make a mistake?  This is the question that stumps so many.  But, the answer is easy if you know the background to the story.  Bobby’s dad was helping him read, and his own early reading memories were awakened as he watched his son.  One of his memories involved making a mistake while reading aloud in school.  Some of his friends laughed and called him stupid.  Dad hid the label well.  He now has a Ph.D. to prove that he was not stupid.  He wrote books and papers that were labeled game-changers.  But under that smart veneer, dad hides a stupid, little boy.

Sadly, dad and Bobby have entered into a strange rite of passage that occurs between parents and children.  Dad’s belief that he is stupid has been passed on to his offspring without anyone noticing. Like magic, the false self is quicker than the eye.  And like most children, Bobby accepted the gift believing that he deserved the label.

If he remembers this story later in life, he probably won’t challenge it. He might say, “My dad did the best that he could” so he can sound all nice, good, and righteous.  Bobby and his dad stay close; the subject never arises.  It also never ends.  It is the elephant in the room that no one discusses.  Bobby will one day have children, and stupid will be waiting in the wings to enter their world too.

Ending the Cycle

We can learn how to end this cycle if we slow things down.  If Bobby brings up the memory in his mind, he will notice that there is an emotion present.  Emotion always accompanies a statement that is not true for us.  That emotion was saying, “Don’t believe your dad.  He is stating a belief, not the truth.”  But Bobby’s intellect dismissed the emotional warning.  He believed the outer authority over his inner true Self.  Years later, he still believes his father; hence the emotion is still present in the memory.

Little Bobby also made another false conclusion.  He believed that something that feels bad, in fact terrible, could be true.  From that day forward, Bobby’s mind was open to accepting any false belief that was thrown his way because he lost his natural discrimination.

The ancient initiates taught that emotion is a signal that wholeness has been divided into beliefs.  Beliefs are dual in nature, and they are usually intertwined with judgment. Stupid and smart are two halves of a whole.  And once you cut a mind in half, you can’t just shove the two pieces back together to regain wholeness.

Bobby is whole in his brilliance, which is true.  But his brilliance has been overshadowed with the belief that he is stupid. Unfortunately, his mind, which is now stuck in stupid (bad) and smart (good), will seek its opposite.  Our mind looks for its other half for completion.  But it is a false sense of completion.

Compensation

Bobby might work extra hard to excel in school proving that he is smart.  Bobby could marry a smart woman thinking that she completes him.  The belief will sit in Bobby’s mind unless he lets it go, and it will pull in its opposite like a magnet.  Once the belief finds its complement, it is even harder to let go because there is a false sense of completion.

Here is another secret from the ancient wisdom keepers.  It is usually not the person who looks stupid that passes on the curse of stupidity.  Such a person would have the belief, but they acknowledge that belief and take responsibility for it.  It is the one who has covered the belief with its good complement that passes the belief on to others. When an authority figure has a smart persona with stupid veiled, they leave trails of people wondering how they got so dumb all of a sudden.  Why?  We listen to the authority’s words without paying attention to our own emotions.  We trust the authority because they fit society’s definition of good.  And when we find ourselves thinking in a way that is uncharacteristically stupid or making mistakes, we think we just found something else that is wrong with us.  We never suspect that we have picked up another person’s hidden beliefs.

Herein lies the tough part for most people, and the reason letting go happens so infrequently.  Bobby is not stupid, but he is also not smart.  His smart veneer, while acceptable in the world, is not his true Self.  The smart Bobby may be rewarded and recognized for his achievements.  But if Bobby wants to return to his true Self, he must let go of both smart and stupid.

Can Bobby Let Go?

If Bobby lets go of these two opposing judgments, he will naturally return to his brilliant true Self. A good image to understand this process is a triangle.  Pythagoras said that if you solve two sides of a triangle, you’ve solved your problem.  At the bottom of the triangle is the dual combination, smart and stupid.  At the top is natural wisdom or brilliance.  By letting go of the bottom, you naturally rise to the top.  The bottom is the false self, the illusory world created by beliefs; the top is our true invincible nature.

When this occurs, people call it grace or a miracle because it is so rare.  However, it is actually something that we consciously cause when we have the courage to let go of our false complements.

Like Bobby, most of us have been trained to believe that a thought or statement that feels bad is true when it comes from authority. We’ve lost our natural-born ability to discriminate between true and false.  The ancient masters knew that when something felt bad, it was false.  They didn’t think in terms of good and bad; they thought in terms of true and false.

Emotions are Key

Since ancient times, this one belief about emotions has created masses of people who obey authority and deny their inner true Self. With this belief firmly in the mass conscious mind, leaders can lie and everyone believes them as long as they look good.

Bobby’s emotions would continue to remind him of his belief, even if he learned to ignore them.  Emotions don’t get tired of doing their job.  Their job is to keep us obedient to our true Self and to point out anytime we’ve believed something false.  When we listen to authority, and accept beliefs that do not feel good, our emotions send off a signal to let go.  Each time we fuel the belief with acceptance, the emotions get stronger. Eventually, the ignored emotions turn into stress, depression, and even disease.

Emotions want to free us, not annoy or harm us.  Our intellect, which is the keeper of all things false (including our beliefs), doesn’t want to let go because it thinks that it must obey authority.  Our intellect has become like a military soldier putting orders before its Self.  That idea works for war; but it doesn’t lead to a fulfilling life.  In fact, the false mind thinks that it needs a pardon from authority to drop the belief.

The real authority is not another person; it is our own true Self. When we drop our false identity of smart and stupid, a genius is revealed.  If we drop pretty and ugly, our beauty is revealed.  If we drop war and tolerance, peace is revealed.  If we drop hate and false love, unconditional love is what remains.  That beautiful, peaceful, unconditionally loving genius is in all of us.  It is our true Self, just waiting to be reborn.

Cathy Eck is the founder of Gateway To Gold and her blog https://gatewaytogold.com. She has studied the ancient mystery school teachings for decades. She is passionate about cracking the code of life’s greatest mysteries and translating the ancient wisdom in a way that is practical, simple, and empowering so that everyone can remember their true Self and live a perfect life.