I was born in Israel and my parents were idealistic pioneers. They built Israel from nothing, with all the others there of course. They wanted social justice, a place to live and grow their food, a place where they could have a country and a piece of land and they wanted their children to be born in a country with a house and a field. I drank idealism with my mother’s milk. (This was long ago. Now it is a bit more complicated there.)
I was an artist from young age. I went to study graphic design. In Graphic Design you make art that is used immediately. Then I was an illustrator. As an illustrator you illustrate children’s books, for children to grow up with good stories, with knowledge and love of the world about them, with a good taste in art, as it makes for a better life. And you illustrate for adults so that they will think in a different way and they will laugh…
Then I got involved with Buddhist meditation, and the idea was to know what I am, so that I’ll live my true life.
And indeed, once you start to know something you start teaching. What can be more important than helping others know what they are, so that their lives will be good, and truthful? And that they will be good people, help each other and create a wonderful world for all of us, and our offspring…
Then I went to study art therapy, so I would be able to help people get rid of what held them back from being what they were. To show them how to become free of inhibiting ideas and thrive, so that they can live happily and lovingly etc.
And I did all these. I was idealistic and practical.
Then I started to know that every one of us has his own world, created by his own consciousness. We do not live in the same world. Our worlds meet with each other and it looks as if it is one world, but it is not so.
You can’t create a meaningful change in any part of the reality that is around you in your world. If you want this reality to change, you have to change yourself. The new thoughts and beliefs that you will have will bring to you everything that fits this new state of mind. So I cannot change or help change the people who come to do therapy with me. In one view, they are part of my outside world. I have to change myself, and as a result another version of that person will appear in my world, which will be a match to the way I have become. From another view, the patient is in another world, where he is the only one who can make changes in his world, by changing himself.
I always thought that we all lived in the same world. That there was one person in front of me, who suffered, and I helped him release the suffering and live a better life. But no.
And I thought that making art was a good thing for other people, to widen and deepen their experience, to give them the experience of beauty that will help them live a more beautiful life, with love, with collaboration, with understanding…
Now I felt there was no sense in doing anything. I always had a purpose for doing things and I missed it.
It felt like depression.
Then I decided to ask August Moon about it.
August Moon is my inner guide. I have been connected with him for a while. He always answers. He is always there.
I asked and made a drawing, as I like to get the answers through the art. Sometimes I know through words, but if it is a big thing, I make art and read the answer in it. I just like it this way.
And as soon as I started making the art, I knew the answer. The lines in the drawing spoke to me with the energy that is in them:
The reason to do anything, to do all that you want to do, is not that there is a need for it. You are not doing it for any idealistic purpose. You do it because it is your nature to be interested in doing things. It is your nature to love. It is your nature to be curious, playful, peaceful, capable and creative. This nature is what you are and it is expressed by what you do. So you do, just because you are a natural expresser of yourself.
So, you see? There is no outside reason for me to be happy. I am happiness.
And how can this be depressed?
intuitiveflow 
Yes, but there is another possibility. True that How I see you is how I decide you look to me, my impression of you and all the feelings and beliefs I have about you. And you are doing the same so in that sense we live in separate worlds we decide to believe and project them and live them.
What unifies us is not the similarity or differences we judge but the love that embraces our caring and compassion we have for each other that transcends our thoughts about one another.
And this sweeps us up through music, art, and selfless acts in which judgment and criticism, and depression and all special relationships are released more and more. it is this love that holds everything together and its the everything too.
All the rest is made up to navigate in a world of separation and alienation designed to challenge us to find the source of happiness within and through estrangement.
It is so beautiful to release an unreal identity we claim and cling to out of fear. And experience our essential unity and extending not projecting, that “love is real”
You suggest, Arnie, that when I say that every one of us lives in a different world, I mean that even though it is the same world, we see and understand it differently. Right? And you say that the reason for this is that our thought patterns interfere with our ability to experience what is in front of us clearly. And since the mental patterns in each of us are different, we end up seeing different worlds, as we twist what we see in our unique ways.
But this is not what I mean. What I mean is in the words, as they are, up there.
The worlds that we experience are appearances in our consciousness. When you dream you also experience a world that is convincing. You touch things, you eat and drink, you breath, you walk on the ground, you talk with someone, etc. They all seem real. But they are only appearances in consciousness. Awakened life is just the same.
And every one of us creates his own world. As we do not share our dreams, we don’t share our worlds.
My world is created to complement my character, so that together an experience can happen. You need someone and something that he can experience, so that experience will be possible. The character who experiences here is the one who has all his unique understandings and beliefs. Based on these beliefs, the outside world appears. I cannot change things in a meaningful way in my outside world, because it will always reflect my inner world. The only way to change anything in the outer world is to change the patterns of thought that I have in my mind.
If I set up to do therapy with a client and I do not believe that I can help him, he will not be helped in the session, because he can only appear in my outer world as a reflection of my inner beliefs. And if I believe that I can help him, he will be helped. But the character that is being helped is only one possible version of my client. That is the version that is in my world at the time of the session. When he changes in the session, his version changes to himself in a better state than before.
At the same time he has an infinite number of versions, who can be in any possible situation. But in my world only one of them shows itself.
In just the same way, only one of my versions appear in this story, while infinite others have other lives.
The version of the client that I see has a belief that he can be helped by me, and that he can go through a beneficial change. This is why he does change.
You see, it is not as I always thought, that there is this person, who has only one way to be, and he suffers some psychological suffering that I am good in resolving. And the results of my good work in the world are that many people become happier and healthier.
So what happened to me lately is that I started to know that the world is not as I thought it was. You know this by seeing in a deeper state. Being an idealist, in the deeper state, did not work. Eventually I had the discovery that I mentioned above, in the entry.
It may seem a sad discovery, when you believe that there is only one world in which we all live together. But I felt relief, because it made it clear to me that my happiness, joy, creativity, playfulness, and love are unbreakable. They are who I truly am.
And this does not mean that you have to stop doing good in the world. If what you do feels good, then it is good.
The love that you write about is a discovery of the deeper state. When you are in this state then yes, we are all in the same existence. Not only this, we are all one thing only, appearing in so many ways, and there is nothing else anywhere.
The relief, clarity and freedom you experience with happiness, joy and creativity is a taste of deep state of discover of love for one another. And yes, the pioneers who co-created Israel drew together with a common secular and religious dream despite the versions and unique expressions of that dream It was a much longed state of being designed to unify a driven people, a suffering and fractured people
.
In therapy two are drawn to each other with a matching desire, to restore an original dream of self realization through awareness of love and happiness beyond fear and aloneness.
The appearance of separate worlds is just that, an illusion with purpose, to emerge with renewed strength and purpose in a life of caring relationship. In therapy if I believe I can be there for you and help you and you believe you can be helped change can occur. The goal, I trust, is the same despite our coveted projections. based on fear. But once the desire grows to be who we truly we release judgment and criticism.And then what feels genuinely good is good and not self serving.
Thank you for entering into dialogue and sharing how you think and work with others in a therapeutic environment.
I think I understood you this time. If I wanted to draw a diagram to explain it, it would be a circle around a circle (and even more circles?). The outermost layer is the superficial layer, where everything seems to be separate and every one has his private worlds. But if you get into an inner circle you are in a deeper layer, where everything is one, and the essence of that state is love that you can experience. And therapy is a process by which you can go from the outer to the inner layers, to experience that all the separations and worlds in the outer layer were an illusion, and more importantly, experience the love that you describe as love for each other.
I’d like to leave this conversation as it is. From my side it does not flow any more. If it flows for you, you can indeed say more.
I felt exactly the same this morning.