Robert Anton Wilson is one of my favorite authors, social commentators, and American mystics. His writing always manages to entertain, inform, and illuminate my gray matter. In the first chapter of Prometheus Rising
Using that essay as a jump off point I would like to talk about a practice I have been engaged in over the last year, namely: Living a disproved life.
Wilson shows that we go through our lives amidst a sort of self-reinforcing feedback loop. We hold certain thoughts/opinions and then filter out those phenomenon which stand at odds with our convictions while focusing on those experiences which reinforce our beliefs.
The result is a vicious circle of self-perpetuating mental fortifications which cut us off from a clean view of any reality-possibility which lies outside of that parameter. This makes it very easy to grow ever more stuck in our mental ruts, and ever more difficult to interact with (or perceive) that which is outside of those ruts.
My father has this lovely habit of asking people for clarifications. When he doesn’t understand what someone meant, he has no bones of cutting in with, “Hold on. I think you meant X, when you said Y. Or, did you mean Z?” Once the person has clarified their point he’ll thank them with an, “Okay, good. Got it. Thanks.” and then he’ll eagerly prompt the person to continue.
To me this is a habitual questioning of the Prover. For the last couple of years I have tried to build the habit of putting the Prover aside consciously from time to time (when it occurs to me to do so) and to keep the volume on the internal Prover-voice as low as possible. Like with any habit it has been slow going, but the changes have been remarkable for me, and I think a little noticeable to others. In any event it has reduced my self generating stress by letting me spend less energy in trying to find ways that I am right.
(DISCLAIMER: It has been a sloooooooow process. 
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One of the main distinctions of the spiritual practice I follow (atma vichara) is that anything said (either internally or externally) in regards to you is something said about you. If you say to yourself that you are stubborn, that is not a pointer to you but a commentary about you. These things are characteristics, not inherent to you. Your stubbornness is not what you are, it’s a way in which you show up in the world, a habit, a characteristic behavior.
Looking at Wilson’s point we can see that we self apply the Thinker-Prover mechanism. We come to believe that we are the things said about us (either by other, or ourselves.) None of that’s true, it’s just commentary.
So, I think that living a disproved life is an effective way of letting more of what we truly are shine through, and I aim to prove it.
Cheers!
Tags: Atma Vichara, Distinctions, Inspirational
