| PROGRAMMING PARTNER: 14TH GENE KEY | PHYSIOLOGY: THYROID (ADAM’S APPLE) |
| CODON RING: THE RING OF WATER | AMINO ACID: PHENYLALANINE |
| (2, 8) |
When you look at the world in which we live today, especially the western world, it is quite extraordinary how many people live such similar lives. The 8th Shadow, like all the Shadow frequencies, is founded upon a specific fear and in this case it is the fear of being different. The 8th Shadow prevents individuals from rising out of the mass consciousness and exploring the real adventure of life. The true nature of individuality is rebellion, but rebellion is unsafe, so the mass consciousness of humanity chooses the illusion of security instead. The 8th Shadow weaves a web across the world, and this web supports the planetary comfort zone. Only when life forces you to grow, through some kind of crisis or the death of a loved one, for example, do you come to experience your true nature outside the borders of this comfort zone.
In the western world in particular, your individuality is imprinted very early in life. One of the issues addressed repeatedly throughout this book is the influence of modern education, especially in the years leading up to the age of seven. Most educational systems encourage sameness rather than difference because difference threatens the system itself. In modern education, young children go through an accepted process of tests and examinations, the very nature of which is to regurgitate memorised information with little or no scope for spontaneous innovation. This indoctrination begins in your early childhood and lasts into your early twenties as you are cycled through the same system that shaped your parents and your parents’ parents. By setting up a system where sameness is the rule, we have successfully turned individuals into outsiders and reactionaries.
One might rightly wonder what kind of education a child should have in order to keep his or her individuality intact? The radical question of the 8th Gene Key is this: is formal education really needed at all? In our modern world, the inflexibility inherent in our educational system is becoming more and more of a problem. Naturally there will always be certain children who show a disposition for formal learning — some in a variety of subjects and others in specific subjects. However, many other children simply do not need a formal education and certainly do not respond well to one. Of course, the problem is also linked to many other aspects of our modern lifestyle. What is important to realise at this stage of our evolution is that this 8th Shadow is bred into you from an early age, and in most cases, it has to be unlearned later in life if you are to have the least chance of living out your gifts and finding your genius.
One of the deep fears emerging from the 8th Gene Key is the fear of success. This fear is reinforced through its programming partner, the 14th Shadow of Compromise. You compromise your dreams not because you fear you will fail, but because you know that to succeed you will have to rebel against the whole of society and its expectations of you. You fear what you might become because you do not know who you are. The highest frequency of the 14th Siddhi concerns Bounteousness, which is the reward for the individual who dares to break free from the trap of mediocrity. In other words, the path less travelled leads to treasure. The 8th Shadow gives you a recognisable stereotype in the world which not only makes you feel safe about who you think you are, but also makes others feel safe about who they think you are. Without this stereotypical facade, who might you be and how would others approach you? The answer is that the mainstream would look at you with a mixture of both fear and awe.
Mediocrity is defined by others rather than by yourself and mediocrity has two main functions. Firstly, it keeps you from thinking outside the box. Under the influence of this low frequency you think like everyone else, look like everyone else and more or less behave like everyone else, and you will do this based on what others may or may not think about you. The second function of Mediocrity is to serve the machinery of society rather than evolution. In other words, you become a cog in the wheel of the systems established by man. In so doing, you become a part of the background of life rather than a major player. Mediocrity prevents people from being heroes or heroines. Nowadays, most of us are simply content to dream about what we could have achieved in our lives. We may watch the films and movies of others and may even be deeply moved by them, but the 8th Shadow prevents us from believing in ourselves enough to embody such a life. And the reason is fear. Fear is endemic throughout the very infrastructure of our society. Those who move beyond this threshold of fear move in a world that seems incomprehensible to the mainstream culture.
The 8th Shadow makes you a follower of outside authorities. It even marries you to systems that then become your authorities. At every turn, this Shadow prevents you from breathing the cool fresh air of your true unbounded nature. It traps you in its twists and turns and prevents you from being a free thinker. What is a free thinker? It is someone who can see beyond the current structures imposed by life. It is a person who lives for the spontaneity of his or her own creativity. Free thinkers also live freely. They follow no one, even though they may have been influenced and inspired by others. The 8th Shadow represents the well-trodden paths through life — the compromised lifestyles, the unimaginative, conformist lives lived by the majority. It takes great energy and courage to push through the darkness and fear of this Shadow and find out who you really are and what you are truly capable of. If you wish to escape mediocrity, you will have to find your own path and invent your own identity in the world. It will be like no other path and it will take you beyond your comfort zone into dangerous territory where there are no assurances that you will succeed except for your faith in your own deep and vibrant nature.
Those who follow the mainstream path of mediocrity are essentially devoid of life force and lacking in a true sense of purpose. These are people whose words and actions may be of some service to the world but who, at the same time, lack fire and grit. Such lives are wooden lives and such people have allowed themselves to become hollow. They gave up on their dreams somewhere between being a child and growing into an adult. Without embracing their fears, they became swallowed up by their responsibilities and the many compromises they made throughout their lives. The result is that they live lives that do not belong to them or allow them space to breathe or create.
The difference between the reactive and repressive nature concerns the human spirit. In the repressive nature, this spirit has collapsed inward at some point in life. In the reactive nature this spirit is channelled into the world where it creates an illusion of itself based upon its dreams. Such people live purely artificial lives. On the surface they may seem successful and even original, but beneath their patina they have compromised their spirit to some aspect of the system. You can spot the difference between the repressive and reactive nature through their relationships — the repressive side never leaves their relationships out of fear of change. The reactive side cannot stay in their relationships because their façade inevitably breaks down and rage rises to the surface, at which point they usually run away.
To break out of the heavyweight frequency of the 8th Shadow you have to take an exciting leap of faith in yourself. This 8th Gift catches people’s attention because it brings something fresh into the world. The Gift of Style has little to do with our popular interpretation of this word — it has more to do with following your own unique rebellious spirit out into the world. True style cannot be measured by materialistic trappings nor can it be faked. It is the natural flowering of your individuality. To find your own style is to be yourself without concern about what others may think. Since it bypasses the mind, style cannot be imitated or preconceived, always emerging spontaneously and naturally. It also involves travelling along paths that involve risk, but only as society defines risk.
True Style takes great joy in shattering the grey world of mediocrity that is considered the norm. This Gift does not sit happily within society, although the pure joy and freedom of expressing your true nature far outweighs any repercussions that may come with the territory. Individual uniqueness is something that our modern societies uphold and idolise, but in reality we are afraid to have too many colourful individuals. Style is more than skin deep. It is the cutting edge of creation itself. Individuals manifesting this Gift have surrendered themselves to a creative process that controls them, rather than them controlling it. Creativity can be a thankless business. Oftentimes an individual is so ahead of his or her own time that their uniqueness is not appreciated until after their death. However, the sense of expansive freedom that comes from letting go into such a process is so fulfilling that success or failure is no longer a major driving force or consideration in their lives.
Style is dangerous to society and its logical structured system-based thinking and infrastructure. It is dangerous because it mimics nature, which so many systems try to control and explain. Like nature, style is given shape by a wild, organic and unpredictable energy. It is full of genius and quantum leaps. For the individual, the 8th Gift brings a deeply fulfilling sense of purpose, but so often these individuals find themselves unable to interface their Gift with the world. Style in and of itself does not make one an outsider — in fact it makes one an insider to the secret processes of life. But to the powers that try to maintain control of the world, style is considered dangerous or at best eccentric or quirky. This is why individual uniqueness is usually confined to those realms like art, fashion or music where it is acceptable and where there is some space for it to breathe. In most other spheres of society, individual style is generally suppressed because it is neither trusted nor understood.
Until a collective coalesces made up of individuals who are free thinkers, the 8th Gift of Style will remain on the fringes of society. In the meantime, anyone who breaks out of the lower frequencies of the Shadow states will have to confront the spectre of a collective that cannot allow individual freethinkers much leeway. Fortunately, freethinkers who find their own sense of style are not really concerned with fitting in. Their only concern is to free more freethinkers! Such freedom is truly contagious. Thus such people inherit a powerful mission in the world even though they may not see it that way.
Finally, this 8th Gift is about actually manifesting individual dreams rather than simply dreaming them. When the 8th Gift is released from inside your DNA, you suddenly begin to make things happen, and it may seem to you as though the rest of the world is simply stuck inside a dream world. This is the by-product of operating at a higher frequency. Now anything becomes possible for you because in yielding to your inner spirit, the sheer force of creativity that comes through you frees up channels and opportunities that were previously blocked. Such is the power of genius, for it carries within it more than just a new concept — it carries intent from a higher realm that is far beyond the individual through whom it manifests.
The 8th Siddhi of Exquisiteness is the natural revelation and manifestation of all the siddhic states. Each Siddhi is holographic in the sense of being reflected within all other Siddhis. Exquisiteness is experienced when the divine essence begins to shine through the individual. In this superlative state of bliss, you fall in love with your own pristine manifestation because it is through this uniqueness that the divine currents can be accessed. Exquisiteness hints at a beauty that is beyond all words. You shine like a diamond in the heart of creation and wherever you look, you see other diamonds in various states of clarity, each one unique and each one exquisite and incomparable.
At this rarefied level of consciousness, where all levels paradoxically cease, you come to realise the great joke of individuality and differentiation — despite its exquisiteness, individuality is an optical illusion created by the mind. You experience yourself riding in a genetic vehicle that is unique, but your being rests in the consciousness field behind all differentiated forms. This is the stage at which you achieve transcendence of your genetics. You remain differentiated at the level of form, but at the collective universal level your awareness permeates all forms, making you both a drop in the ocean as well as the ocean itself.
Your true nature is wildness. There is no taming where the divine is concerned, and thus this state of exquisiteness sees through mankind’s many veils. All systems break down under this wild, ebullient energy that comes straight from the source of creation. The few who have manifested this Siddhi have been as fleeting and beautiful as light playing through clouds. Life never repeats itself and they are never the same from moment to moment. In every single second, they are new. This is the origin and meaning of the famous Zen saying: “You can never step in the same river twice.” This saying points to the truth of the 8th Siddhi — the truth of human nature. Like water, it is always moving, changing and evolving but the river itself is unchanging, and the river is consciousness.
People in whom this truth is reflected shine as bright lights amidst the grey background of history. The great avatars and sages who walked among us expressed the true nature of this Siddhi. Our most common mistake lies in trying to emulate such people, which immediately takes us away from our own uniqueness and drops us back into the Shadow of Mediocrity.
The people of the 8th Siddhi are not leaders. They are examples. They do not want anyone to follow or mimic them. Wherever such people see the inauthentic or imitative, their very nature exposes its ugliness. Because of this trait, they have a very powerful liberating effect on individuals. At the same time they are often criticised and spurned by society. Like Socrates, they wish for people to find their own answers and their own questions. Their very presence acts as a light to free individuals from structured systems. Their language is the language of the rebel, and they use beauty as a means to reflect an individual’s true nature. They are not limited to any single form of expression but will play with science or art, yoga or tantra, logic or poetry, since to them all expressions can be a means to display the exquisiteness of the Divine in form. To the person immersed in the blissfulness of this 8th Siddhi, all life is absolutely clear. This clarity moreover is paradoxically found in the very uncertainty and wildness of life. These people leave no tracks for others to follow. They know life as a rush of contradictions and mysteries never designed to be solved.
As an aspect of the genetic family known as the Ring of Water, the Siddhi of Exquisiteness is chemically bonded to the 2nd Siddhi of Unity. These are the two great feminine Gene Keys in the human genome, drawing all human beings along their inevitable journey to self-realisation. One of the great mysteries of the 21 Codon Rings is found here. The Ring of Water forms a kind of eternal genetic knot with its polarity, the Ring of Fire. These two chemical families and their amino acids phenylalanine and lysine move us human beings along the trajectory of our destinies, ensuring that our genetic material finds its opposite match. Even deep within the body, these chemical families set the primal blueprint for the balance of all the opposing forces inside us. It is in the crossfire of these two Codon Rings that the mystical figure-of-eight is forged within each of us. This eternal love knot deep within our planetary gene pool sets each man and each woman squarely on the human journey. The true symbolism of the number eight represents the timeless quest for the buried treasure that lies inside each of us — that elusive diamond of our true nature.
People of the 8th Siddhi sparkle like exquisite rare jewels. Such people create their path as they walk it. Their legacy to the world is to dismantle all concepts of how one should live or what one needs to do in order to attain any particular state. These are the only people who are not strangers in the world, since they are inside existence itself. To them, the only outsiders in the world are those who look outside themselves for guidance or definition, and the only strangers in the world are those who spend their lives in imitation of someone else, because that is what makes then strangers unto themselves. These people give you no hope of following them at all. The only thing they give the world is their own exquisite lovingness — their absolute delight in being abandoned to the mystery itself, with no need for method or meaning. Theirs is the rush of existence, the aching pulse of the passing moment and the boundless joy that can only come from touching the core of your own existence.