Expectations Vs. Standards to Aim For
© 2004
>> In your opinion, do you think that reading about the results of a certain exercise (not even specifically magic) and expecting them is helpful to your practice? Detrimental? Irrelevant? I have been thinking about it earlier, and I couldn't reach a definite answer; on one hand, obviously one should know the expected effects of whatever he is practicing, otherwise he is just stumbling in the dark and can hurt himself. On the other hand, from my experience, if I read about the expected results to an exercise I expect them too, and desire to experience them myself as quickly as possible (to verify them) - and for some reason I intuit that this desire is actually very harmful to my progress. <<
Creating expectations out of information can indeed be detrimental in that working with expectations will shape and therefore limit your results. However, reading about the *goal* of an exercise, or what will *result* from the pursuit of an exercise, doesn't have to lead you to *expecting* specific results. Instead, you can see them as standards that you must meet in order to have successfully mastered the exercise. Aiming for a standard is different than working with expectations and whether you treat information as a standard to aim for or as an expectation is entirely a matter of choice. In other words, you can choose to *not* let information about the exercise affect you as an expectation and instead, open yourself to fully experiencing what *is*, in that moment.
My best to you,
:) Rawn Clark
11 April 2004