Gate 28 | The Game Player

Potential

The awareness, in the now, to struggle or not. To find out, for oneself, that life is of value.

The word ‘game’ comes from the Proto-Germanic word ‘gaman,’ which combined the collective prefix ‘ga-‘ (people) with ‘mann-‘ (person.) The core meaning is ‘people together,’ which suggests a sense of shared activity or participation. The word was first recorded around 1200 and referred to ‘joy, fun, amusement.’ 

By the 1300s, it began to specifically refer to a ‘contest for success or superiority played according to rules,’ such as in sports and hunting. This evolved into the modern use of ‘game’ to describe any contest or activity involving skill, chance, or endurance.

The potential of intuition is to know, in the now, whether it is of value to struggle or not. This knowing comes in response to what has been said, because the knowing lies in acoustic frequency. If the Game Player can be stubborn enough to be present and listen, they can pick up intuition, or the knowing that they should or shouldn’t struggle, fight, or take a risk.

Individuals build their intuitive capacity through trial and error in this process. They listen, take the right / wrong / no risk, and learn their own intuition in the consequences that follow. They also learn that each risk and consequence is theirs alone to accept in the aftermath, because this is a deeply individual gate.

Once the individual can be present and listen, they can take in the frequency of the sound, gain the knowing, and respond from the knowing. This is how we struggle together and alone. Cheers to the original ‘gaman!’

However, the spleen is easily ignored. The mind makes things up instead of surrendering to the pulse of knowing, because it cannot stand the uncertainty that comes with ‘not knowing’ until you do. It flails because it cannot grasp splenic intuition, and at its best, the mind typically talks us out of listening to our momentary intuition.

When gurus talk about the ‘power of now,’ they are talking about the spleen’s ability to know… now.

‘Everything about the nature of purpose is this deep uncertainty which is a fundamental theme that rides through all of individuality, because it’s in a pulse, this ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, oh I know,’ and in this uncertainty, the ability to be prepared for tomorrow. And of course, the way you prepare for tomorrow is that you’re clearly present in the now. That’s what it leads to, being rigidly present in the now.’’

Ra Uru Hu | Centers & Their Gates

Cross of Planning Application

I read about the life of Frances Perkins this week, and I feel that she demonstrated this energy so perfectly. She was an American workers-rights advocate who served as the fourth United States Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position.

Frances didn’t understand poverty as a child, so she asked her dad why some people were poor. He told her that they were weak or lazy, which she knew could not be true. She followed her own path to understand the truth for herself, despite her parents and everyone else.

This is it! Her individual knowing is the only way she could go against everything she had been told by anyone and everyone. By listening to her dad’s response, she knew he was wrong and that it was her purpose to struggle with understanding and changing poverty. She took every risk to study and stand against oppressive working conditions.

During the course of her life she played a pivotal role in creating key New Deal programs and legislation, including the Social Security Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established the minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, and restrictions on child labor. Her work significantly improved working conditions and laid the groundwork for modern labor laws and social safety nets. 

The entire world can thank Frances for following her intuition, which granted the world the weekend.

Fear of Death

The fear of death is actually a fear of whether or not life is worth value, which is why people who haven’t found the value of life will take any risk to find it. We can become so afraid that our way of life is a failure, that we are willing to take any risk and try anything, while simultaneously being unable to change or commit, which typically leads to harsh consequences.

In doing this, we are attempting to outrun death because we are afraid that we will die before we discover our individual purpose. The paradox happens when we realize that life is the purpose of life. In that realization we can stop obsessing over individual purpose and be here now, which is the only place and time that an individual can be who they are, and as a result, begin to live their purpose.

In order to be present, we have to face our fear of death, which is extremely hard to do when we are controlled by the mind that avoids this fear at all costs. Most of us adopt a mental philosophy, preferring to live in a belief that lasts forever, vs. facing the uncertainties of life while embracing the fears involved.

The dogma of religions, science, and systems keeps our uncertainty underground because the mind does not like change. It can cling to something that has been artificially created rather than witness and respond to the unpredictable life that actually happens. It convinces us that our purpose will be found in the future, rather than seeing that our purpose is happening right now.

In doing this, humans will sacrifice their body now to gain something like a promotion later, telling themselves that they will finally be happy once they have achieved whatever their mind has convinced them is more important than being present. In doing this, it appears that they are much more afraid of living than dying, and therein lies the tragedy.

As we embrace this fear, we gain the ability to be present, change, and commit. We can learn our intuition process and begin to honor it. We can be who we are and live our individual purpose.

You can ask yourself:

• Can I allow my mind to not know? Have I recognized and honored spontaneous knowing?
• Does my mind attempt to understand life, self, and others? Or does it assume it already knows?
• Do I listen to others? Does my mind consume my attention while others are speaking?
• Do I find purpose in presence? Do I recognize my value enough to be here in this moment?

Have you had any interesting events involving the concept of ‘purpose’ or ‘death’ over the last 6 days?

What are you holding onto about it? Can you let it go?