THE POSITIVE PARADIGM HANDBOOK:
MAKE YOURSELF WHOLE USING the WHEEL of CHANGE

“A human being is part of the whole called ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest . . . This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. . We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.” – Albert Einstein

WHY PARADIGMS MATTER

Ideas drive results. People’s beliefs color their feelings, triggering basic emotions which in turn drive their actions.

Actions that stem from a simple, complete and accurate paradigm result in personal fulfillment, harmonious relationships, and economic prosperity.

Actions based on false, incomplete and inaccurate paradigms, however well intended or passionately defended, are the cause of widespread misery, suffering and deprivation.

As detailed in Rethinking Survival: Getting to the Positive Paradigm of Change, a fatal information deficit explains the worldwide leadership deficit and related budget deficits.

In a dangerous world where psychological and economic warfare compete with religious extremism and terrorism to undo thousands of years of incremental human progress, a healing balance is urgently needed.

Restoring a simple, complete and accurate paradigm of leadership and relationships now could make the difference between human survival on the one hand, and the extinction of the human race (or the end of civilization as we know it) on the other.

Ideas Drive Results

This fundamental baseline is the starting point from which all else positive follows. Qualitative change begins from the inside, and one person at a time. Basic beliefs generate an attitude towards life. In turn, these attitudes generate emotions, either positive and negative.

Then, emotions are translated in actions which, over time, yield results. When enough people share a common passion for the same idea, changes on increasingly larger scales of magnitude occur.

Tragically, however, the belief-result connection holds true even when ideas and related attitudes aren’t consciously held. When they’re hidden away in the subconscious mind, they generate unintended, unforeseen consequences. The kicker is that you can’t change what’s been made inaccessible to the conscious mind. “You can’t leave a place you’ve never been.”

Therefore, increasing self-awareness is a top priority. Positive change depends on the ability to recognize the beliefs and attitudes that are creating the situation which requires change.

The belief-result connection explains why attempts to change the world starting from the outside are mistaken. They not only fail. They backfire. Social engineering can’t generate positive results. Forcing innovation or regimentation on large organizations and their individual members is unnatural. It triggers backlash.

As Lao Tze observed, calculated meddling is ineffective. As long as individual lives are chaotic, families will be torn apart. So long as families are fragmented, larger organizations will suffer. As long as large organizations are disorganized, nations will continue to reflect the disharmony of its smaller units.

Similarly, attempts to change one’s personal life by manipulating externals cannot yield positive results. If one rejects or rebels against the innermost creative life source, every outward level of experience is starved. Being cut off from inspiration and guidance, one’s ideas are limited and distorted. Attitudes suffer and destructive emotions take over.

Projecting a positive image to the world may succeed in fooling others for a short time, but there’s no diet plan, exercise routine or image make-over that can hide the stress or reverse the physical damage caused by internal conflict. So long as the levels of one’s inner organization remain fragmented, the results will be similarly fractured.

Bottom line: positive change is each individual’s personal responsibility, and it is achieved only from the inside out. The Positive Paradigm Handbook gives the step-by-step, how-to method for achieving this.

In the face of daunting world conflict, one individual’s change may seem insignificant. But like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Indonesia that affects weather patterns on distant continents, personal change can have unseen but exponentially powerful, positive results. This has been known for thousands of years.

Equally compatible with ancient wisdom and modern science, the Positive Paradigm of Change confirms the validity of the twin basics. For the first time, in non-judgmental, plain language, the Handbook gives the practical method for accomplishing personal change as the best way open to each of us for affecting positive worldwide change.

What is the Positive Paradigm of Change?

In working with wisdom traditions, I’ve become certain that each is striving to express a particular aspect of a single, unnameable Truth. Further, each is a mosaic piece of a larger picture. When the pieces are put together, the sum is greater than its parts.

The Positive Paradigm of Change is that larger picture. It draws from wisdom traditions, both East and West. It is consistent with biblical teachings and the essence of I Ching philosophy. It is yoga-compatible. In addition, it’s equally compatible with modern science.

In Rethinking Survival, the Positive Paradigm of Change is described as:

. . . . a new, inclusive reality map, one people worldwide can easily comprehend and agree upon. It is equally compatible with scriptures and science, bridging the gap between them. It fulfills Einstein’s intuited search for the Unified Field Theory, picturing how all parts of creation are related, interwoven and interdependent.

Working with the Positive Paradigm empowers the “substantially new manner of thinking,” which, Einstein said, is necessary “if mankind is to survive.”

The Wheel of Change is a paradigm, meaning a worldview. It offers a positive alternative to the prevailing, dysfunctional paradigms that cause so much misery. It is an inclusive reality map that accords with the way life truly is, showing the full spectrum of human potentials. It explains how the world works, how the individual fits in, and what is required to survive.

It is called “positive” for several reasons. It refers to an energy valence, but also much more. Unlike exclusively materialistic, atheistic, hedonist or religionist paradigms, all levels of experience are present, and in balanced, correct relationship to each other. Nothing is missing. Nothing is out of place.

The Positive Paradigm model pictures an elegantly simple yet complete reality map that meets the standard of Occam’s razor: maximum inclusiveness with greatest simplicity.

Description

The Positive Paradigm wheels-within-wheels model consists of concentric circles around a common center. It places the three variables of Albert Einstein’s famous formula, e = mc² (energy, mass and light) in a two-directional, infinite continuum.

The Positive Paradigm Wheel mirrors the micro-cosmic structure of atoms as well as the macro-cosmic structure of planetary systems. At a microscopic level, its concentric rings mirror the structure of atoms with a nucleus surrounded by orbiting electrons and protons. It likewise mirrors the symmetry of the solar system with planets orbiting around the sun. On the largest scale of magnitude, it reflects the in- and out-breaths of perpetually expanding and contracting universes.

This familiar atomic structure repeats smallest to largest in the patterns of nature, from snow flakes and intricate flowers to spiders’ webs and sea shells. Similar symmetrical patterns repeat worldwide in the art of every culture — including Native Americans’ prayer Wheels, the colored sand mandalas of Tibetan Buddhists, the stained glass windows of European cathedrals and the intricate geometrical patterns that cover Muslim Mosques, to name but a few.

They speak to universal awareness of an intrinsic inner structure common to all humanity, deeper than transitory lives or cultures.

This model was originally called the Synthesis Wheel. “Synthesis” seemed to be the most technically correct choice because that term emphasizes integration of levels of experience, not unlike the term “yoga” which means “union,” close cousin of the “unified” theory of Einstein’s quest.

Einstein’s Variables: Mass, Energy and Light

m. mass. The outer rim of the circle is the realm of the material, manifested world of creation. This level is the abode of empirical science which measures tangible, material phenomena and objects. It is the plane of duality, the fluctuating ebb and flow of mortal life, the ups and downs of daily experience.

It is the realm into which public school education too often squeezes and flattens children. This is the level of which Einstein said, “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”

Those focused excessively here are unduly attached to material possessions as well as to money, social status and institutional power. Here appearances are more important than substance. Saving face replaces authentic virtue.

Paradoxically, out of balance, abundance on the material plane seems to foster an insatiable sense of lack. Limited connection with the center breeds insecurities and greed. The infinite variations on the same eternal forms are misconstrued as grounds for cultural conflict and competition for illusory supremacy.

When people live primarily on the surface, with the middle (primarily “unconscious”) level clogged and in conflict, systems break down. Attempting to fix problems caused by this inner turmoil at the superficial level can not achieve any lasting, qualitative improvement.

When internal dynamics remained unchanged, apparent re-forms are cosmetic only. Thus political theorists who write books about changing government without understanding human nature and the dynamics of natural law codified in the Book of Change (much less the central core which illumines the field) miss the point.

Atheists who deny the existence of the inner levels are materialists in the extreme. Yet, however badly religious teachings have been misunderstood and abused over time, this doesn’t alter the functional facts of existence, now confirmed by physics as well as by the consistent testimony of sages throughout the ages.

e. Energy. Much ignorance, misinformation and confusion surrounds the energy level of the Positive Paradigm. The state of chaos into which the world has degenerated attests to this deficiency, as well as the urgent need to correct it. Only the basics are described here, suggestive of further exploration.

The middle level is the domain of natural law, whose dynamics are mapped in the Chinese I Ching, the Book of Change. This body of knowledge has evolved over eight thousand years as sages continue to observe the operations of energy and document the repetitive patterns of change.

Natural law maps the energetic underpinnings of the dynamic, physical world. It is experienced as the patterned recurring cycles of seasonal change, and is equally applicable to humans and their cyclical life changes: birth, growth, decay and death.

The middle layer is the realm of less tangible but still measurable states of energy, including electricity. More subtly, it is the chi, ki or prana described by Chinese, Japanese and Indian traditions as the life force which animates all living beings. In Greek and Christian contexts it correlates with the breath, the psyche.

These subtle energies influence internal psychological states and drive external human behavior, which in turn affects social relationships. Knowledge of these dynamics is essential to personal survival.

Effective leadership and the quality of life within organizations hinge on the quality of awareness brought to dynamics at this level. While some leaders understand the dynamics of change at a gut level as a matter of common sense, systematic logic and deliberate understanding would significantly improve the results of the decision-making process.

Those denied access to material and social resources are often forced inside. Of necessity, turning inward, they develop and depend for survival upon strengths drawn from the middle and center of the Wheel.

At times, material deprivation and hardships yield the opposite and equal blessings of in-sight and emotional fortitude. At other times, however, excessive investment at the middle level results in delusions, latent with the potential for erupting into violence.

In any case, making a virtue of necessity by rejecting the material world prevents completion of the pattern. It can’t correctly be equated with spirituality.

Cultures which enforce an exclusively materialistic worldview and deny the experience of everything not tangible and measurable place severe hardships on those whose inner lives are especially active. The Handbook gives ample opportunities to diagnose such imbalances, the better to remedy them.

Societies that deny their citizens practical outlets for articulating and harnessing inner energies creatively can literally drive people crazy, to suicide, or at best, underground. Many “sensitives” survive by channeling socially banned, unacceptable awareness and longing for self-fulfilling adventure into the arts: music and literature, including romance, murder mysteries and science fiction.

This is a great loss to society. The world would be better off if high-energy, creative individuals were identified as potential leaders, trained and given employment options accordingly.

c. Light. The hub of the wheel, the Source of Light, is innermost state of being. It is silent yet fertile, that from which all forms emanate and to which all return. It is the alpha and omega, the ultimate and exclusive source of infinite light and power.

Merging with this all-encompassing source of consciousness is what scriptures refer to, quite literally, as “enlightenment.” It is the “secret place of the Most High,” home of God the Father in Heaven honored in the New and Old Testaments. It correlates with the Hindu Brahman, the Chinese Tao, the Muslim Allah, and the Native American Great Spirit. In Star Wars, Jedi knights refer to the Force. Contemporary pastors sometimes defer to “the Boss.”

The deepest center is the original seed of life from which creative solutions and new beginnings emerge in answer to the prayers and sincere efforts of those who hear and do. It’s the unfailing source deeper than ephemeral fears which gives positive survivors the inner strength to withstand the sudden shocks and catastrophic changes of Titanic times.

It is to this quiet center of refuge that sages retreat in meditation to patiently out-wait misfortune, the better to return renewed when the time is right. It is the healing place to which they turn when life becomes too difficult to endure without solace. It is the escape, far better than drugs, alcohol, sex or even music, that makes life’s challenges bearable and worthwhile.

The experience of light is described with worlds like inspiration, intuition or guidance.

Unlike the levels of mass and energy, which can be described at length from experience, the silent center of light is by definition best honored by silence. Or at least as few words as possible.

Einstein’s New Way of Thinking

Human survival, Einstein warned us, cannot be taken for granted. Tipping the scales of history in favor of survival depends on freeing ourselves from the mental prison of limited, delusional thinking.

The Positive Paradigm of Change pictures Einstein’s widened circle of compassion, complete with his magical, magnetic all-encompassing center. 

It’s also the answer to comparative religion legend Joseph Campbell’s prescient hint:

We don’t have a mythology for people recognizing the humanity of a person on the other side of the hemisphere. I’ve often wondered if some of the notions coming out of quantum physics, quantum interconnectedness, don’t express that.

WIDEN the CIRCLE OF COMPASSION

Recognize the Humanity of a Person on the Other Side of the Globe

In the interests of human survival, the purpose of The Positive Paradigm Handbook is, therefore, to make this new way of thinking as widely known and usefully available as possible.