A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic

Copyright 2008 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

It can be said the individual can be seen as a four stringed instrument and each of the four aspects of the individual - the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical - are one of the strings. Each is a string which must tuned for it to function properly and in harmony with the other strings and in harmony with any other instrument in which it is played. Tuning is achieved by properly nourishing the unique true needs of each string or aspect of our being. Without the interference of mind and what it thinks and judges, the individual will seek to meet these needs to the best of their ability and their understanding within the environment they find themselves. The more the true needs are met, the more harmonious life that is live within oneself and with others. However, most of us, because of how we were raised, allows the mind and what it thinks we need or what it believes we need to interject itself rather that allowing the awareness within our being to direct us to what we need. As a result we begin to look externally to world and the activities in our life and our job to give us what we think will meet our needs.

Most organizations have traditionally expected individuals to get their needs other than a pay check met elsewhere. But it is often unrecognized that an organization has spiritual, mental, emotional and physical aspects and needs such that the organization ultimately functions much like an organism or individual. It will take on an identity and seeks to protect itself. There will be a spiritual, mental, emotional and physical aspect to each organization that parallels the discussion on viewing the human as a four stringed instrument. We need to look carefully what the organization fosters within itself and within the individual and how it does or doesn’t provide rewards and incentives for particular types and kinds of actions.

Whether we realize it or not, the individual will drawn spiritual, mental, emotional and physical needs from the organization to fit their needs if at all possible. It doesn’t matter if these needs are the real needs of the individual or only those perceived by mind as being real. The organization can and will fulfill individual needs beyond the pay check. For an organization that can meet the individual’s needs or perceived by the individual as meeting their needs, the individual become "wedded" to that organization and will give it an undying loyalty. However for those individuals who’s needs are not met, they will feel and alienation and separation from the organization and often see their connection to the organization through a pay check. Unless the organization is chartered to meet these needs or move one towards meeting these needs such as a church organization or a hospital, it is probably appropriate the organization does not seek to address them.

Nevertheless, it needs to be recognized that how an organization is structured can help these needs be meet and in doing so increase the organization’s members to freely give their energy to the organization. On this note, if the organization is going to consciously serve one or more of these spiritual, mental, emotional and physical needs of the individual member, it should address this fact in the goal or intention of the organization. There is an issue of truth and clarity of intent. Truth is essential to creativity and the creative process in that creativity and the creative process works with the truth as it is. If the individual and/or the organization is not truthful in its intentions, it will come back and haunt the creative effort.

Also, and probably more importantly, there needs to be an awareness that these four aspects of one’s being needs to be integrated. Within each individual, these four aspects must come together in an integrated fashion to allow the individual to act and/or respond effectively to any given situation. There will be the need to understand if the organization allows these aspects to be integrated or in some way foster their separation.

Whether or not these aspects are integrated or separate raises the question as to whether the organization realizes that individuals seek security externally from the organization rather than within themselves. Does it understand all individuals ultimately seek life. Does it recognize the existence of ego needs and ego preference and how they interfere with the operation of the organization and does the organization foster the development of ego needs to its own detriment by how it gives rewards and incentives.

The spiritual aspect of the organization: The spiritual aspect of the organization is best characterized as, "What is it that puts fire or energy into the life of the individual and the organization?" In actually it is what supplies energy and passion and catalyzes the individual to act and transform the existing form. It is called fire because it is the ability to melt the existing form to cause it to flow into something new. It is fire in the sense of the phoenix being able to destroy itself in fire to rise out of the ashes to become born again anew. A related and important question is, "From where does the fire of the organization come or where is the organization drawing its fire, its source of energy?" The spiritual element is about "fire" and having the ability to transform the existing word into some other form.

Although a decision about what is right and wrong is a mental decision, the spiritual aspect is what ultimately determines what one is allowed to do and not to do by how the organization views its role and position in the world. Either the organization surrenders to a social understanding of the origins of the universe or it adopts one that is independent of society. For example, a medical research organization often looks to science for the origin of the universe and its moral codes for research come from what is judged to be good or bad science. However, that medical research organization exists within a give society and that society has a dominate theological belief about the origins of the universe and what is right and wrong. Hence we hear statements made by the public that scientist are attempting to play God where as the scientists only considers themselves following the rule of good science and only attempting to push the frontiers of scientific understanding further into the unknown.

The spiritual aspect is what allows passion to flourish. It is the spiritual aspects is what causes one to characterized as how they are going to conducts their life and what it is they are willing to figuratively, or literally, die for. It give rise to the individual or organizational code of honor. The spiritual aspect is what lies at the root of the ethics and morals of the organization. The spiritual element addresses what action meets the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law. The actual choices as to what the organization chooses as morally acceptable and not acceptable is a mental decisions but the root of all actions ultimately stems from what one spiritually believes and what creative energy can be accessed because of what one believes.

The spiritual aspects of the organization will be embedded in the organization’s conduct and philosophy of operations, code of conduct, or in the rules and regulations promulgated by the organization. The question is, "Does what the organization ask its employees do align with what the society considers as moral and acceptable behavior or does it foster some other type of behavior." One needs to look carefully here. An organization that give great charitable contributions to what are judged by society as worthy causes yet are not willing to pay its employees a living wage has conflicting issues existing in its spiritual aspects and is actually a house divided against itself and to quote Abraham Lincoln, "A house divided against itself will not stand."

If the spiritual aspects of the organization are not integrated and consistent, the organization is sewing the seeds of its own destruction. It may take time, but it will fall. This also brings up the issue that employees are sometime asked to give loyalty to an organization that has a set of spiritual values that are contrary to the employee’s personal values or to the social structure in which the employee lives. Many have learned to separate their personal life from their professional life but to do so one must numb what they feel. We cannot act in a way that goes against our inner truth and not feel the lie we live. If we don’t feel the lie, we have simply numbed what we feel. It needs to be remembered that if we are open to our feelings we will see that each thought, memory, word and deed has a feel and we can know through feelings if that thought, memory, word or deed ultimately serves or doesn’t serve you.

The emotional aspect of the organization: The enthusiasm aspect is what allows the spirit to flow forth into form. It is about the actual flow of the energy into a creation. If the spiritual is fire of life, the emotions is heat generated by the fire when it burns brightly. Without some passion, some flow of energy, creation cannot manifest. We tend to label certain feelings and actions as emotional but in reality, what we normally call emotions is a label mind gives certain types and kinds of flows of energy manifesting creation. The emotional aspect is about whether what we do allows us to expand and grow beyond ourselves to move towards accessing the depth and breath of our full being and nature or does it cause us to simply swim and stay float or actually drown and suffocates us.

One of the easier ways to understand the emotional aspect is to see the emotional as a flow of the water of life that brings life to a parched dry land that allows the trees to grow and bear fruit. The emotional aspects is the flow of energy that energizes intentions we hold in fertile field of mind to grow and unfold within the environment in which we find ourselves to create the experience we desire which is the fruit of our creation. However, these waters of life can water the parched dry land to bring life or it can flood the land in a sea of emotional fear and drown any life that is possible. On this same note, the passion we have can fuel our creative spirit or it can extinguish that spirit. The emotional element will addresses both the individual and organizational fears and it centers on the belief structure of what the individual and organization believes will hurt or harm the essence of their respective beings as reflected in the individual ego or organizational collective thinking. This gets translated in part to the personal self-esteem and identity gained from ones’ particular job or work and their rank in the organization. Some positions in the organization will instill more fire and enthusiasm than others simply by how the organization is designed. Yet, if each position is as import as any other to reach the organizational goal, then each individual should be catalyzed to action by the organizational structure, not just a few.

Obviously, since the emotional aspect is about flow of energy, and money is the normal means of bartering an individuals flow of energy. The emotional element is typically intertwined with the bottom line profit margin in business. It is tied to how much an individual gets paid and/or in their positional power and influence to affect the budget and make budget decisions.

The mental aspect of the organization: The mental aspect is what harnesses and/or controls the creative spirit and the subsequent flow of energy into form. If the spiritual aspect is the fire and the emotional aspect is the heat generated by the fire, the mental aspect is the fuel which feeds the fire and causes it to glow brightly or starves the fire causing the fire to wither and die.

Although there are a number of parts to the creative process it can be summarized in three phases. The process starts with the unmanifested or free energy available to creation. It is followed by the flow of energy represented in the creative spirit flowing into form and experienced as the emotional aspect with the final resulting form of the energy represented by the physical. The mind and mental is not part of the creation process itself. Rather it controls, throttles, and/or other wise directs the flow of energy and is what determines the blueprint for the particular form that will manifest. The mental is what takes an energy that can have one of an infinite number of forms and forces it into one particular form over all others. The mental aspect is a filter and is what determines whether we live in a world of abundance or poverty and lack. There is always abundance. We don’t see it simply because of the mental perspective that we have in the moment.

Organizationally, we tend to view money as the life blood of an organization and the ability to get things accomplished. However, the truth of the matter is that money is only a symbol for the energy. Being a symbol, money loses much of the power that is available in the energy the money represents. Energy can be ultimately used to create anything where as money cannot. If an organization focuses on money it will be limiting what it can do. If however it focus on energy and the flow of energy within the organizational intention and the intentions of each individual, it taps into an abundant and unlimited source of energy. To make such a choice lies in the ream of the mental aspect of the organization.

The mental aspect is what creates the laws and addresses what action meets the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law. The mental aspect addresses the belief structure of both the individual and the organizational collective and whether or not the beliefs create the space for the organization and organization to grow beyond itself or limits one or the other or both. It determines how a particular problem or issue is characterized and how the organizational collective views the world. It is the mental aspect that determines if the has competitors and adversaries and that it feels it must compete. Or it determines if the organization has a uniqueness such that there is really no competition. Rather there is only the lack of awareness on the part of the public as to what the organization can provide. To look to capture an existing market is much different than creating a new market and each view will create a different type of organization although its physical structure may be the same. One can look at nature to see how certain plants are better suited to certain environments than other plants. Yet there is always a mixture of plants that exist in any given environment. The question that really needs to be asked is, "Is the organization really suited for its environment in which it finds itself?" It is the mental aspect that determines the view which allows the beliefs to exist that foster fears or obstacles that suffocate the individual and/or organizational flame or which allows individual and/or collective freedom of movement. It is what the organization believes that breaths life into the organizational actions or causes their actions to slowly wither and die.

The physical aspect of the organization: The physical aspect is the "proof of the pudding" so to speak. What manifests physically is where the spiritual, mental and emotional aspects all come together to produce a physical manifestation that is the composite of the three. The physical aspect of the organization is very much analogous to how one’s physical body feels. Does the organization internally and externally cause pain or pleasure being sensed? Does the feel of the organization in what it thinks, remembers, says and does serve its individual members, the collective organization and society itself or does it not sever one or more of them.

The physical aspect is about living and being in the world. The physical aspect is very much about the things of the earth and deals with the creature needs of individual and organization. The physical aspect of the organization can be as simple as, "Are the computer tables that employees are required to use designed to be at the proper height to address the natural position of the hands," and "Are the meeting rooms of the proper shape and size for the number of individual who will be meeting?" Or, physical aspects can be complex such as whether or not a new production process with special chemicals pose an environmental risk and/or health risk to the workers and general public.

The questions is whether or not the spiritual, mental and emotional aspects of the organization can bring the energy to create what the organization desires in the way the organization desire to do it. That of course reveals the flip side of the coin. What the organization is doing reveals its spiritual, mental and emotional aspects. By how and what the organization does in the world and how it does it tells us the truth about an organization. If an organization in one country follows all the rules and regulations for worker, public and environmental health and safety and provided decent wages and salary benefits but then has other facilities in other countries with the intent of not being regulated and being free to do what it wants when it knows the hazards of what it does, tells you a lot about the real intent of the organization and what is motivating the organization. To know the truth about organization, one only needs to look at the fruits it produces in the world. Not just it products but all it fruits at every level of being.

Related topics
Success criteria of the mind and heart
The issue of employee satisfaction, happiness and fulfillment

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