Zen is: never meeting expectations

Exit From The Matrix

by Jon Rappoport

One thing I’ve learned from giving lectures to audiences over the years: never meet expectations.

“Expectations” is a large container waiting to be filled up. People have these containers. They lug them around with them. They want them to be filled up.

For example, if they expect shocking information from the speaker, and they get it, their expectations are met.

Audiences train themselves to be audiences, and their expectation-containers are ready when they sit down to listen.

There is something missing. Something monumental.

The present moment. The present now. The alive moment. Because, for all its fanfare and interest, the event is not really in the present.

This is by design. No one wants the moment. People’s whole lives are devoted to avoiding the moment, because it is spontaneous. That’s what a moment is. Spontaneous.

“Everyone can act. Everyone can improvise. Anyone who wishes to can play in the theater and learn to become ‘stage-worthy.’” (Viola Spolin)

No one is used to spontaneity. No one is prepared for it. No one knows what they would do or how they would react in the spontaneous moment. That’s why it is avoided.

“Through spontaneity we are re-formed into ourselves.” (Viola Spolin)

Yet, the paradox is: people yearn for the spontaneous moment. They yearn for that freedom. It’s not freedom as an idea or concept, but freedom as a living thing.

“That which is not yet known comes out of that which is not yet here.” (Viola Spolin)

I bring all this up because passivity is the universal effect of living for most people. In that state, they still have expectations and those big containers, but the way they receive information is colored by passivity.

They certainly don’t intend to climb up out of their own passivity. That’s the last thing they would do.

“It [spontaneity] creates an explosion that for the moment frees us from handed-down frames of reference, memory choked with old facts and information and undigested theories and techniques of other people’s findings. Spontaneity is the moment of personal freedom when we are faced with reality, and see it, explore it and act accordingly. In this reality the bits and pieces of ourselves function as an organic whole. It is the time of discovery, of experiencing, of creative expression.” (Viola Spolin)

So when I speak to audiences at live events, I find a way to remind them that we’re in a kind of false relationship. It’s interesting and false at the same time. There we are in a room, and I’m the speaker and they’re the audience. I’m active and they’re passive.

Those are our roles. Those are our functions. It’s accepted, but it’s unworkable. It’s self-defeating, unless we all want to be existing in a dead space outside the living present moment. And I don’t.

This means I have to readjust things. I have to let people know that I know they’re there. Right now. I know they’re listening, and I know they’re absorbing, and I know that beyond a certain point (10-15 minutes), they’re going to shift down into passive mode.

Finding a way, an interesting way to let them know is a challenge.

It’s really a challenge that extends to the whole world.

Are we alive or are we doing it by the numbers?

Look at any set-up, which is “the way things are supposed to be,” and “the parts that people are supposed to play,” and you can see light. The light is what could happen to upset that situation and turn it into something else. Something that would bring people in from the cold, into the moment itself.

Spontaneity means everything is created now.

That’s why I keep writing about imagination, because imagination will change a life. It won’t only change the content. It’ll change the way life happens.

Here’s something I can guarantee: a conspiracy that is taking place anywhere in the universe where beings populate planets, where they think, plan, strategize. They’re not living in the moment, but they claim they are. They’ll say, “How could I be anywhere else? We’re all in the present. That’s all there is.”

But they’re wrong. Their big containers are in the moment, and they’re waiting outside to accept the flow of information from the containers.

If a person (usually a hard-headed realist) thinks he’s already in the moment, have him go up on a stage with another person and take on the role of a galactic cop on patrol, questioning a suspect who is accused of stealing a planet. If the realist can eventually improvise and do it, he’ll experience being in the moment in a way he never has before.

Likewise, if he painted 200 paintings, something different would happen to him. He would come to the edge of what he already knows (which he’s expressing in the paintings), and then he would step off. He would do something on the paper or canvas which is not what he knows. It would arise spontaneously, and he would feel a new space, a new energy, a new now.

Imagination. Alive imagination. That’s the key. The key to the door that leads out of the Matrix.


exit from the matrix


In response to that, here are the contents of my collection, Exit From The Matrix:

First, my new audio presentations:

* INTRODUCTION: HOW TO USE THE MATERIALS IN EXIT FROM THE MATRIX

* EXIT FROM THE MATRIX

* 50 IMAGINATION EXERCISES

* FURTHER IMAGINATION EXERCISES

* ANESTHESIA, BOREDOM, EXCITEMENT, ECSTASY

* ANCIENT TIBET AND THE UNIVERSE AS A PRODUCT OF MIND

* YOU THE INVENTOR, MINDSET, AND FREEDOM FROM “THE EXISTENCE PROGRAM”

* PARANORMAL EXPERIMENTS AND EXERCISES

* CHILDREN AND IMAGINATION

* THE CREATIVE LIFE AND THE MATRIX/IMAGINATION

* PICTURES OF REALITY AND ESCAPE VELOCITY FROM THE MATRIX

* THIS WOULD BE A VERY DIFFERENT FUTURE

* MODERN ZEN

* THE GREAT PASSIONS AND THE GREAT ANDROIDS

Then you will receive the following audio seminars I have previously done:

* Mind Control, Mind Freedom

* The Transformations

* Desire, Manifestation and Fulfillment

* Altered States, Consciousness, and Magic

* Beyond Structures

* The Mystery and Magic of Dialogue

* The Voyage of Merlin

* Modern Alchemy and Imagination

* Imagination and Spiritual Enlightenment

* Dissolving Stress

* The Paranormal Project

* Zen Painting for Everyone Now

* Past Lives, Archetypes, and Hidden Sources of Human Energy

* Expression of Self

* Imagination Exercises for a Lifetime

* Old Planet, New Planet, New Mind

* The Era of Magic Returns

* Your Power Revealed

* Universes Without End

* Relationships

* Building a Business for Success

I have included an additional bonus section:

* My book, The Secret Behind Secret Societies (pdf document)

* My book, The Ownership of All Life (pdf document)

* A long excerpt from my briefly published book, Full Power (pdf document)

* My 24 articles in the series, “Coaching the Coaches” (pdf document)

And these audio seminars:

* The Role of Medical Drugs in Human Illness

* Longevity One: The Mind-Body Connection

* Longevity Two: The Nutritional Factors

(All the audio presentations are mp3 files and the documents and books are pdf files. You download the files upon purchase. There is no physical ship.)

What has been called The Matrix is a series of layers. These layers compose what we call Reality. Reality is not merely the consensus people accept in their daily lives. It is also a personal and individual conception of limits. It is a perception that these limits are somehow built into existence. But this is not true.

What I’ve done here is remove the lid on those perceived limits. This isn’t an intellectual undertaking. It’s a way to open up space and step on to a new road.

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

8 comments on “Zen is: never meeting expectations

  1. just quickly, yes sir, you are, the Zen master, wake um up….

  2. Andy says:

    Part of the dynamic is you the speaker Jon is active and everyone is passive. That is true. But everyone in that audience at one point thinks that you are talking to them and about them specifically. In one instance or many instances. Then they come down to earth again a remember that you are really talking to no one in particular. But for brief moments there is that illusion and the thought is valid briefly then it adjusts. In their (our) minds there is a non-passive moment where there is communication even if neither side hears it. So it is an imagined instance when neither is passive. Ok that did not make any sense. Good article anyways. Thanks.

    • dawnatilla says:

      i dont really think people are thinking that he is speaking only to them…

    • arcadia11 says:

      lol. it made sense.

      an audience is not passive. it is
      processing info on a number of levels
      simultaneously, very very quickly.

      • Andy says:

        My internal dialog is out of control. Even the positive ones.

        • Andy says:

          Oh and expectations. I do not really know anything about you Jon… so I do not think I have any expectations for your content. That might shift a little if I were to take time out of my day to go listen to you speak but not by much. This article was interesting so I asserted my thoughts.

  3. dawnatilla says:

    Jon, you are an amazing man!

  4. dawnatilla says:

    jon, Id like to offer this perspective: some people are enlivened by these events…(talks, concerts, etc) and arent wanting to be shocked, but validated in their new way of thinking. someone like you can and does enliven and help many people live in the now.( yes, assuming and optimistic) but thats just one part of the spectrum..a good one at that. cheers !!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *