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Inner Healing
Learning to Play with the Universe:
Adapted from The Matrix Energetics Experience
by Dr. Richard Bartlett
During the 18 years of my medical practice, I’ve noticed that expectation can be both our worst nightmare and our greatest friend. It can provide the impetus for you to transcend the limits of your body conditions, your mindset, and your emotional circumstances so that anything is possible in the next moment. If, on the other hand, you believe that transformation is impossible, then your expectations will create that reality. For example, if you have a cut and you’re invested in the belief that it will take the skin two weeks to fully heal, the cut isn’t going to vanish overnight.
Learning to play can help break down our expectations, which are just the unconscious rules we apply to reality. They aren’t reality’s rules; they’re our own rules based on our experiences and cultural conditioning. When you enter into play, you’re no longer thinking about outcomes, because the play is its own reward. You’re totally engaged in the present moment, which means you’re also outside of time.
Play happens when you completely forget yourself—forget time, forget space, forget that you are even human—and instead become occupied with a moment. You might even call it bliss. I’ve seen pictures of saints and yogis who appear to be very serious but they have a twinkle in their eye, a little smile which says, “I get the joke.” The joke is that the universe isn’t “real;” it’s just playing with us. The saint is saying, “I am playing back, and I am having more fun than you are.” Do you think Jesus enjoyed playing with the universe? Do you think the universe liked playing with Jesus? The scriptural evidence suggests that the universe obeyed Jesus when he spoke to it. If that’s the case, then it doesn’t come from Jesus trying to control the universe in a left-brained way; it comes from Jesus being so attuned to the energies of creation that whatever he spoke was a command.
When I talk about play, I’m not talking about running around for 15 minutes because your doctor said you need more exercise. That’s not play; that’s therapy. I’m talking about losing yourself so fully in whatever you’re engaged in that your sense of time and even your sense of self begin to change. The people who are most successful in life actually make their work into play. They have the most fun doing what they do naturally; work and play are both a natural expression of who they are. When you play, you are in effect accessing the creative potential of your right brain, a part of you that is undernourished, overlooked and underutilized most of the time. The right brain is what geniuses like Einstein and Tesla used to solve problems in ways no one had ever thought of before. Play can become a meditative tool; it can be a work tool. It can be the paint you use to color your reality.
Play can literally be anything that springs to the mind in what I call a sense of “innocent perception.” Jesus said that unless we become like little children we will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. It’s this childlike sense of wonder and possibility that we want to cultivate. If we cultivate strong beliefs and ideas, we will not be open to possibility and instantaneous change. Let’s say, for example, that I had painfully sprained my ankle. If I were to look at my ankle and see a wound that would take six to eight weeks to heal, I would be creating an inflexible reality that would not allow for healing to happen in the next moment. If, on the other hand, I were to cultivate the state of innocent perception, I might look at my ankle and see something unexpected—feathers or a frog or a bouncing tennis ball or whatever shows up, unbidden by my conscious mind. I would literally escape the trap of my left brain’s rational awareness, and in that next moment my ankle could be transformed and the sprain could be healed. That is the value of play.
One of the best ways to cultivate healing in a given situation is to ask a simple childlike question: What would it be like if things were different right now? The cultivation of asking useful, open-ended questions for which you don’t necessarily have an answer creates a welcoming response from the universe. This process actually sends your brain on a search for meaning. The left brain does not understand the context of the question, because it is open-ended and has no answer, so the right brain then takes over.
The right brain has access to what scientists have called the Zero Point energy field. The Zero Point energy field is the point beyond time and space, beyond the rules, beyond the physical laws of the universe—where there is a pure reservoir of untapped potential as energy. If you can let go of your rules and expectations, you can reach into that field. In that moment you can pull some of that pure, universal, unlimited energy into your world, which can change your physical conditions right now. Miracles are possible in the next moment, and anyone can access that potential.
We need to learn to play in a way that has an observable and reproducible outcome—so that the conscious mind has to pay attention, even if it doesn’t know what’s going on. This is accomplished by transitioning from imaginative play to virtual play. In imaginative play, you essentially make things up. You might imagine a particular outcome without actually experiencing it; maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t. With virtual play, you tap into a greater foundational reality and allow for an outcome that’s actually different—not merely imagined to be different. When your play becomes your reality, your every breath becomes a foundational exercise for transforming everything that you believe, see, feel, and experience. When you go beyond just seeing or imagining to actually experiencing or feeling an outcome in your body, you have engaged in virtual play.
The exercise that follows will help you develop the ability to experience virtual play for yourself.
Imagine Your Front Door
This is a great practice to start with because almost everyone can do it successfully. Close your eyes and imagine your front door in as much detail as possible. Reach out and run your fingers over the surface. Is it rough or smooth? Is the paint peeling? Can you picture any unique characteristics of the hardware, such as spots of tarnish on the lock or handle? What colors do you see? Is the surface of the door warm or cool to the touch? Are there dents or scuffs around the frame?
Write down your observations, capturing as much detail as you can. You may wish to compare your notes to the actual door, but remember there are no right or wrong answers. You may also try this exercise several days in a row, noticing what changes each time.
Dr. Richard Bartlett is the developer of Matrix Energetics, the science or art and transformation. This article was adapted from The Matrix Energetics Experience, © 2009 by Dr. Richard Bartlett, available through Sounds True Publishing. Dr. Richard Bartlett will hold Level 1 & 2 Seminars in San Francisco, October 30 - November 2. For more information about Matrix Energetics, visit www.matrixenergetics.com or call 800.269.9513.