Leave the Rest to God
27 comments May 8th, 2006 Sarano Kelley
Posts filed under 'Post Game'
Under Standing
Jason: You have truly hit on something for me here…I don’t “suffer” from the need to be understood in the sense that it shows up as strong as my blind spot nor do I perceive that with you. What is interesting is how interested in understanding others I am and how much time I spend “over communicating” or “explaining my communication” in a blatant attempt to avoid being misunderstood. I think as a young child I picked up on this distinction of how important it is to feel understood and I “used” it to build relationships… one where I worked hard to understand and never opened myself to be understood…
In fact, to a great degree, our entire conversation has been me trying to “understand” you. Where you are coming from… what is your perspective… how do you see the world… and on and on…
Not to judge, label or anything other than to seek understanding…This explains a large part of my life and my ability to form and lose relationships…Very interesting indeed…Standing in awe of Heisenberg
Sarano: It is said in certain in circles that some of the earliest Egyptian writings involved a certain tablet that one had to “stand under” in order to read it. Once one had done that, it was said that one “UnderStood”. However, as we look more deeply we see that understanding between human beings is very rare…but why?
Well, let us consider this character we call “Sarano”. One of the most interesting observations we immediately make about him is that he has one fundamental delusion upon which all of his other beliefs “hang”. It is this one delusion which is the source of the “illusion” he calls his life.
Sarano is asleep but dreams that he is awake. This would be harmless if it stopped there. If it stopped there Sarano would be funny, or interesting but not harmful. The problem is that not only is Sarano asleep dreaming that he is awake but he dreams that everyone else is awake and hence believes that he UNDERSTANDS why people do the things they do.
His usual assumption ends up with some version of how “wrong” and “bad” other people are when they do things as if they somehow purposefully and consciously chose to screw up their lives and his day all at the same time.
It is at this point that we find it hysterical when someone cuts Sarano off on the highway and he gives them the finger assuming that they cut in front of his BMW and risked their own lives on “purpose”. It never occurs to Sarano that the other driver was “asleep” in the midst of some
“daydream” just like him. That the other driver did not know that Sarano was in his “blindspot” and was just as surprised as Sarano to find that he had cut someone off. Of course, after seeing Sarano give him the finger, the other driver has no choice but to experience anger and rage with a now justified desire to teach Sarano a lesson…and so and so on until someone
gets killed…so much self righteousness, so much certainty and yet so little Understanding.
4 comments May 7th, 2006 Sarano Kelley
Game Stalling Tactics
Jason: It is amazing to me in one way that we would kill over our attachment and yet so sad that the door has been open the entire time. We (read: me) are so scared (attached)of having that which we desire that we would simply rather remain imprisoned.
In those moments of “clarity” did you consciously choose to go back to sleep or did it “happen?”
Sarano: As a kid I would always “stare” out the window…thinking about nothing…this made adults very nervous, they would ask me things like “are you bored?” or say things like “why don’t you go out and play or watch some television”. Soon I got the message “I must look busy and
important or people will think something is wrong with me” or “it is not okay to just be I MUST DO”. I have lived my life trying to impress people every since.
At age 12 I went on a 13 day long fast on water alone, when my mother found out she made me eat. The experience though was the first time I “consciously” chose to create an “opening”. Later in life it would occur again, seemingly by accident. During one such deep period of awareness, presence, I knew when it started exactly how it would end “I will want to keep it and that is how I will lose it”…of course that is exactly what happened, after about 5 days I became attached to being unattached and the world returned as something “I need to get through” rather than something that was taking place “through me”.
The last “opening” changed me profoundly…the accumulation of my various games came to a head unexpectedly and the shift was permanent. I do not have “conscious” access to the depths of that opening but the mark that it left on me is unalterable. There is a level of freedom that I gained which can never be lost even when I am so deluded as to think that “It” is far from me…”It” is never far from me.
At the same time, to answer your question, I do not think that I consciously chose to go back to being unconscious. The desire to be “normal” and to be “accepted” after years of not being accepted because I was a stutter, black, poor, a book worm, a nerd, skinny, weird, a “white
boy”, uncle Tom, etc is very strong. This desire to be accepted is like gravity no matter how high I jump it pulls me back to the ground with a “thud”.
My goal in this next game is to complete the material aspects of my game and to play a solely inner game. This level of play takes a degree of honesty that I can only at this time pretend to have. This level of play takes a level of concentration I can currently only fantasize about. I am delaying playing my current game because on some level I am afraid to move to this next level of play. However, my partner Jon is now out of the hospital and my stalling tactics have just about run out.
2 comments May 3rd, 2006 Sarano Kelley
Attachment and Anger
Jason: Thanks for the update…Your team and the many players are in my daily thoughts especially when becoming present.
You are very clear right now which is a good thing even amongst what appears to be an uncertain pathway ahead. Most people are very uncomfortable with the “not knowing” while not realizing that they are making it up anway.
I still see the anger and attachment are driving forces. These also are driving me in that I have not “forgiven” myself for my injury and my body’s “failure” to maintain integrity requiring surgery. Like it had any choice in the matter… but I nonetheless “should have known better.”
This attachment thing is a wicked master.
Do you ever have moments of clarity where you can perform and yet detach from the outcome? Is it possible that continuing to “start and re-start” teams and groups that it keeps your spirit from finding the next level? Is there a conscious way to evolve while still having to maintain
“appearances?”
The way of the householder is an interesting way indeed.
Thanks again for the update! We are sincerely very proud and attached to all of the progress. 
Much Love
Sarano: Like an alcholic my first step is to get honest about my issue…I am a slave…I am a slave to “attachment”. I am a slave to appearances.
Until I stop kidding myself and get how asleep and inauthentic I am no progress is possible. Yes I have had minutes, hours, days, even a week of that sublime “awareness” for which there are no words to express. Yes I have been outside of my prision cell and been shown the world out there.
But I prefer to be secure so I returned back to my cell since it was better to hope for freedom than to endure the having of it. To be driven by “attachement and anger” is my condition …nothing to be proud of just something to be straight about…I too know “why the caged bird sings”.
10 comments May 2nd, 2006 Sarano Kelley
Unforgiving
Jason: Give us an update on the kids if you get time… we are all pulling for you, the team and the kids. The stakes are indeed very high for them and the message.
Sarano: The kids are doing well and I appreciate your and everyone else’s support. We have had to do a lot of around the clock kind of activities to set up teams for the superintendents, 2 groups of young people and a group of teachers and parents. We are blessed to have powerful partners like Dharmaboost, the members of SKI, TEAM and Brooke who have donated their limited free time for the kids. This has truly been a team effort. We are due to get the footage here on Monday. From there our Omaha team will go into action and I am hoping that by next Monday we will have the footage of the show up at the website for all of you to see. I have yet to see it myself but the effects are already being felt.
As you know Jason, we have conducted The Game for entire companies one company where I was coaching 1600 people all at same time and over their 90 days that company had a 60% increase in revenue. When I went to then do it for 9,000 sales people for a Fortune 500 company the unexpected cost of getting it done was a real financial set back for me. Then of course after I had the critical mass necessary to launch (I trained 3,000 out of the 9,000) the leadership of the company changed and my work with them was seemingly derailed. Admitedly, I got a bit depressed.
Here it is several weeks later since that set back and I called the acting president of the Fortune 500 company and got back in The Game. Rather than blowing me off as I feared he immediately went into action and that company is still a vital place for showing what The Game can do for some 10,000 people. I have no idea how much time got wasted by my getting “depressed” when it seemed like the “rules” of the game had changed.
After getting knocked down I almost didn’t get up before the ref got to 10…almost got knocked out of the game.
The kids on the tv show are representative of 300,000 young people we would like to lead to in the fall. While this doesn’t scare me I have to admit that I know alot is riding on it. Israel still continues to aggressively utilize this work and they will be following the show closely for indications of what to do with the children of the middle east.
When it comes to the city of Dallas unless I get a major media opportunity I have no clue how I can make a significant difference there. The project isn’t stuck, I just haven’t found my way yet…many think that the Albany tv show could help to rally the media and other resources in Dallas.
It’s strange, I have always hoped to show what a person, a team, a school, a school district, a city and a country could do when people align themselves with their purpose and tap into their incredible potential.
It’s almost surreal to see aspects of them all happening.
At the same time, The Game that has me most “off balance” is the one for the kids. With the other games it seems that I can accept some amount of failure. I can accept that some temporary setbacks are vital to discovering what it will take to create the “final” win. When it comes to the kids the outcome is so important that my relationship to myself would be best described as “unforgiving”. I need to make peace with myself on that. I am giving it my all and that is all I ever ask of anyone else…at times I find it difficult to take my own medicine…speaking of medicine my partner Jon has been getting some encouraging news about his cancer…this is another place where I am unforgiving…I have not been consistent in calling him and I must admit that I am a bit angry with myself about that…trying to keep it all in perspective…your support helps a lot my brother…thanks for helping to keep me on track.
2 comments May 2nd, 2006 Sarano Kelley
Post Game: Perplexed?
Patrick:
The thesis: The motive behind is always Love.
The experiment: To live as if this were true ( this part of the experiment is still under development,but letting go of who I think I am is central to the methodology).
Sarano:
I must concur that letting go of who I think I am is central to understanding that “the motive behind is love”. For example, I do not love the cancer in Jon’s body, I do not love my “inauthenticity”, I do not love those parts of myself that I deem “shameful”. My love is neither
objective nor encompassing, my love is specific and subjective…at the core of my subjectivity is the simple fact that I somehow believe that I know “what is really best” for everyone, that things are good only if they go the way “I think they should”. It is this notion of myself that
extends itself into “knowing” what is best for others, then the world and ultimately leaves me “questioning” the master plan rather than feeling the motive behind it…the ever present love underneath it all. Is it wrong for cancer to love itself and hence to replicate itself, do not all things seek to grow, is it wrong for me to be “ashamed” of myself, is not my shame a desire to “do good”. How do I unravel this knot at the source, how do I let go of who I am without coming from a lack of love for who I am? Perplexed?
44 comments April 28th, 2006 Sarano Kelley
Post Game Question AnyOne?
GB: As this thread continues other patterns seem to emerge. There is anger. There is fear. Knowing you–these things are melded together. Is your fear due to your fear of your humanity? Is it due to your anger in the knowledge that you can not cure Jon? This is not the role of the Hero is it? Yet your life is led with the role to lead the masses out of the darkness and into the light of their own realization—however in some things you remain powerless. Is it the fear that you must be a fraud, not good enough—people will see you for who you truly are—a man, with flaws, with love, with concerns, with compassion, with anger, with fear? How can you lead like this when you are one of us? You can’t save Jon—that is out of your hands. He will live or he will not but you can not effect the change to suit your needs. The Hero would be able to save him. You want/need/must be the Hero—but in that there is duplicity and condemnation (self imposed). What do you seek? Better yet —what is important about the thing you seek–to you?
Sarano: Now we start to get to the bottom of this…what is it that we seek and more importantly, why? Why seek? What does one hope to gain by seeking? These are great questions. My experience is that people like myself like to hide behind answers because we cannot deal with the uncertainty, the lack of control, the arrogance of “I know”. Let me see
how long I can tolerate your question before I have to allieviate myself by “acting” like I have an answer…shall we?
8 comments April 21st, 2006 Sarano Kelley