Truth and God: The Path of No Resistance

 ...Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Matthew 4: 4 ESV

No search has been dearer to the human heart than that which brings to us light from God. No study has taken so much human energy, whether in times of past or present, as the study of the soul, of God, and of human destiny. However immersed we are in our daily occupations, in our ambitions, in our work, in the midst of the greatest of our struggles, sometimes there will come a pause; the mind stops and wants to know something beyond this world. Sometimes it catches glimpses of a realm beyond the senses, and a struggle to get at it is the result.

Vivekananda, 2,6. 5 The Way to the Realization of a Universal Religion; Complete Works

This is where belief and faith come in.  We struggle to live by the word of God, to "know something beyond this world" by using the thinking mind to so.  Of course, a belief is a deeply held onto thought and faith is seeking to build strength in that beleif. A Belief is never truth...it is just a thought.  Faith then is not truth either. 

Michael Singer asks in the below linked vido if there is something deeper than belief and fai

Experiencing directly is that "glimpse of a realm beyond the senses".  It can be more than a glimpse as yoga promises. Yoga is the science of the mind...and it is a pathway to the truth that exists beyond the thinking mind, and therefore beyond belief and faith. 

Consciousness is deeper. 

The real questions asked by an intellectual mind trying to free itself from itself is not "Is this something I can believe in or have faith in?" or even, "Is it true?"

The real question is, "Who has the experience of  believing?  Who has the experience of faith?" 

It is higher consciousness because that is what we are beyond the bread we eat, the hungry heart, the busy world, all our struggles and seeking, and of course, the busy mind. We cannot use thought and intellect to understand higher consciousness...that is like looking in a mirror to figure out who you are.  All you get is a reflection of what you are seeing...not the expereince of being. We need to expereince the "word of God" directly.

We are like brilliant rays of sun shining down on a mirror.  We are not the mirror we are shining on nor are we seperate little rays.  To understand the Source...from that which we emerged...from that which we are just emenations of...we need to fall back into the Source. 

True spirituality is not about belief and faith.  It is about experiencing what is real. It is not about opening to some "ideas" and the thoughts, feelings, and experiences they lead to and closing to "others".  It is not about preferring one belief or one faith over another.  It is about being open to all of it, to all Life offers.

The path to God is a direct path where there is no resistance.  Every experience of Life needs to be able to come in...be acceoted and then experienced.  Expereince is the word God braethes into us. We need to stay open to it. How do we stay open?  By not closing. What is closing? Preferring and resisting what is. What do we use to prefer and resist?  Faith and belief...the thinking mind. 

We do not have to struggle to find God...or to hear that word ["om"] that is in every experience we are offered...we just need to stop resisting what is. What is... is Truth... and it is what we seek.  Where is it?  In us and everything we are. 

Spiritually is the path of never closing (no resistance). And guess what? Christ taught yoga. He taught us to stay open to the word of God.

All is well. 

Michael A. Singer/ Sounds True/ Temple of the Universe ( November, 2024) Beyond Belief: The Path to Direct Spiritual Experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjAi8KxmJts&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=8

Merry Christmas to All

 Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plentous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. 

Calvin Coolidge? or a Jesuit saying?

Though this day is not actually the day Christ was born and a day assigned by a church attempting to gain control over the pagan ritual of winter solstice [the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches celebrate this day on January 7th, demonstrating the flexibility of the date based on Christian calendars of choice]...it is still a blessed day. It offers us a wonderful opportunity to celebrate one of the greatest teachers and the most enlightened of all beings whoever walked the planet, as we model his teachings. And what did Christ represent? Peace, compassion, and forgiveness.

May your day today and all the days that follow throughout 2025 be blessed with peace, compassion, and forgiveness.

Merry Christmas!!

All is well in my world. 

Rousing Up the Infinite Nature in All

 The old Mr., Mrs., and Miss so and so are gone, they were mere superstitions, and what remains is the ever-pure, the ever-strong, the almighty, the all-knowing-that alone remains for us, and then all fear vanishes from us. Who can injure us, the omnipresent? All weakness has vanished from us, and our only work is to arouse this knowledge  in our fellow beings. We see that they too are the same pure self, only they do not know it; we must teach them, we must help them rouse up their infinite nature. This is what I feel to be absolutely necessary all over the world. 

All truth is eternal. Truth is nobody's property; no race, no individual can lay exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls. But it has to be made practical, to be made simple (for the highest truths are always simple), so that it may penetrate every pore of human society, and become property of the highest intellects and the commonest minds, of man, woman and child at the same time. 

And as Michael Singer would say...Reality [Truth] has no preferences. I need to remind myself of this again and again. Reality just is.  Truth just is...I don't have the power to change it even if I wanted to.  It just is.  I can close to it as I found myself doing to the reality of this situation that unfolded in front of me. I can close in my attempt to change  or resist that reality. I can suffer. Or I can realize that the sum of someone else's experience is different than the sum of mine....and remember "Who can injure us?".  They cannot injure us...oh they can hurt our egos...our bodies...our minds.  They can injure our attachments and our preferences but they cannot harm who we really are. Let them injure the preferences, the attachments, the ego.  These things are only in the way of Truth. We can handle it all.

Prefer it all. 

The Great Way is not difficult for those who are no preferences.

The Third Zen Patriarch 

Anyway...that is why I am here sharing what I am sharing....to arouse this knowledge.

All is well! And may you have a blessed holiday.

Michael a. Singer (December 23, 2024) Overcoming Suffering through Acceptance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N89gHg73DQU&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

Vivekananda ( n.d.) The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 2.6 Practical Vedanta and other Lectures. Kindle Edition

Not the Body; Not the Illness

Who am I?  Not the body because it is decaying....

Ramana Mahrashi

I am sitting here with an experience of feeling quite ill.  The body is a remarkable thing...I was exposed to this bug weeks ago and started to experience the  signs and symptoms of it...even missed one day of work because of it...but being that it was not a time for me to get sick and stay sick...there were too many things out there needing me to function...I seemed to snap out of it quite quickly. It didn't go away but it moved to the back burner and started to incubate there, waiting for an opportunity to express itself.  On Friday one of the little viruses said to the army that was now tripled in size behind it, "Okay boys!  Its time...lets divide and conquer."It hit me like a ton of bricks lol. 

I was going to start by saying, "I am sick!" and then I caught myself.  "Am I forgetting all I learned...again??" 

I am not sick...I am perfect wellness....this body that I am in is experiencing a viral infection.  I am not this body.  I cannot reduce the "I am" down to a physical illness. I can not reduce the " I am" down into the body I am in.  The "I am" is experiencing a body that temporarily "has"an illness...I am not an illness.

We say "I have a flat tire" or "I ran out of gas"...when our vehichles have a flat tire or an empty tank...yet once again is this correct?  We identify with this tiny little "me" experience of being in a vehichle with a flat tire or an empty tank. You don't have a flat tire...you don't have tires.  You are not empty of gas...or well you should be empty of gas. lol This car is not you nor is this body...so what is going on in the car is not yours; and what is going on in the body is not you either. 

Illness, is just one of the trillion experiences a person can experience as the body decays.  Wow!

Quite amazing really. 

All is well

Conditionally Okay?

 If you appreciate and honor all the experiences of Life...you are a very healthy human being.

Michael A. Singer

Are you seeking conditional well-being or enlightenment? I had to remind myself over the last month or so that I am seeking the latter. I got lost seeking for a condition...an outcome ...and allowed my ego to convince me that the peace of mine and others was dependent on an outcome. I wasn't a very healthy human being.

What learning from my experience can I pass on?

When you are noticing the emotions brewing inside, remind yourself, "I don't feel like that...I am witnessing this human heart and mind feel like that...I am just watching it all." I had to remind myself to do that. And I had to stand back and say, "Wow! What a show the universe is putting on.  Cool!"

We don't have to suffer.  We just have to stop preferring and expecting Life to be a certain way. Instead of plotting and planning how to get what we want from it ...we should be questioning why we are not happy all the time. 

A Good mantra: 

If I want to be okay I can be okay, but not conditionally okay, unconditionally so.  I can handle this..

All is well. 

Michael A. Singer/ Sounds True/ Temple of the Universe ( December, 2024) Transforming Struggles into Strengths: The Art of Conscious Living. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQWJhpOe_nI&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=4

A Battle for Righteous Cause

 For a warrior there is no greater duty than a battle for righteous cause. It is your duty to challenge wrong doing, and you will be rewarded accordingly...Knowing that pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat are one and the same, you must prepare to fight. Do this, and you can only triumph. Gita Chapter 2:31-38

Finding more and more stability of mind and heart even though the body that was holding back a full fledged flu until after the court proceedings were done succumbed yesterday to it. S

Regardless, I am experiencing so much more peace when I ponder the reality that egos are not real...and though people may be overly attached to them and follow their directions...beneath the ego is who we are. Sometimes we do need to stand up in court and say..."No that which that ego proclaims and seeks for itself is not fair or just." 

We say this at the same time we let go of judgment, anger, and hate...knowing that a battling or reactive ego is not who we or they are.

The wise, however, are capable of mastering their own mind. Of tranquil heart, they are free of the anxiety born of the need to acquire and hoard. This is true power! Gita, Chapter 2: 45

All is well.

The Unbroken Self (2024) Bhagavad Gita - Chapter 2: The Power of Knowledge.https://www.unbrokenself.com/bhagavad-gita-chapter-two/

Working to Stay in Grade Six

Just do the work. Commit yourself to not bothering yourself!

Micahel A. Singer

Dealing with difficult people really involves dealing with yourself. I know that, I do ...yet reflection on the last few months reminded me of an old tendency I have of projecting outward. I was focusing so much on "them" and what they were doing, I was polluting my insides with negative thoughts, allowing some nasty seeds from store consciousness to grow up into my mind to take  over my mental garden and I was reacting...putting judgement, negativity, resistance, a big "No! This shouldn't be!" statement out into the universe. etc. I set out to fix and change the circumstances and them...putting so much effort, energy, and time into that "resistance" of what is. Why? Definitely for some logistic reasons but also for some self serving reasons.  I didn't like the way I felt...the way...as my old ego mind would describe it, "they made me feel". ( There was a direct personal pain and there was a pain that came indirectly came from watching my loved one suffer). Sigh!

Then when I recognized these tendencies coming up bringing a host of unwanted feelings with them,  I resisted them. How do we resist our emotions or our samskaras?  Through another human tendency-supression and repression. We push them back down. I pushed it all back down and I was a bit hard on myself.  "You are more evolved than that!! You are supposed to be a yogi!!" I found myself critically exclaiming to myself. "Yet here you are...angry and reactive! All those years of practice for this???" 

It does me no good to condemn myself or anyone else for this very human experience of battling egos.  I know that. Compassion for all...including myself is a crucial step in dealing with this. It ain't easy but compassion will free me from these heavy weights in my heart. 

Condemning them and hating them is not the solution to this problem...far from it...it will only enhance it.  Sure, any reasonable person who could see what they are doing would say, "Yeah...no wonder why you guys are so angry!" It is incredulous...it really is...and so hard for the human heart and mind to accept that others would lie, slander, manipulate, and cheat for their own selfish reasons. (This human's ego slipped into the ring there with that last statement lol) How can one feel compassion in that?

Hmm! Start with acceptance, maybe? Recognize that they "know not what they do" and even though it feels so personally directed towards us, it isn't ( a small portion maybe has to do with us but it mostly has to do with the mess each has within them, just as my reaction only has a tiny bit to do with them and is mostly a result of the mess in me). Recognize that their unconcious (less than evolved) behaviour and choices are based on an accumulation of life experiences that really have nothing to do with us. So many variables in each of their lives has accumulated into what they are doing now. And of course, ego, as it is for most humans, is the director of those choices. My egoic reaction to their choices, at the same time, is my responsibility...not theirs. If I let ego take the reins here...that's on me, not them.  At the same time, I can't beat them or myself up for their behaviours and my reaction to those behaviours. Is it right to beat up a grade five student for not passing a test in advanced calculus? Of course not! They are just not developmentally there yet.  I am not there yet. Learning is a stage by stage process. We are at whatever stage we are at!

Would it serve Life a little better if we had compassion for the learning of that grade five student, accepting where they are without these great expectations to change it or make them be at a level other than the one they are at? Would we serve Life and therefore ourselves better if we didn't see the frustration and acting out they were doing because of  challenging lessons as  something personal towards us?  I work with grade five students and I can see through their behaviour when they are over challenged by a lesson...they will act out and blame me or others. That is the human condition. I do not take it personally...I step back,  and open up a dialogue about their frustration as I encourage them to be patient with themselves before I readjust the lesson plan. I am compassionate. 

Why can I not be just as compassionate with the "them" in this situation? Most humans are grade five students or younger in their spiritual development.  Some of us because we got slapped around by Life a bit in order to wake us up...might be at a grade six level or higher.  So yeah, without adopting a sense of spiritual superiority I may be a grade ahead.  Or am I?  Sometimes when I see the internal mess inside of me rising to the surface I think I have been sent back to grade 2 lol. But in fairness to myself,  I chose to stay in school....I seen the need for such internal work and because I realized whatever I was doing before wasn't working, I sat there listening to the teacher. I paid attention. I did some hard work...I really did.. I moved on to the next level.  Is a grade six student any better than a grade five student? Definitely not...I was just actively in school longer...that's all. 

When we walked out of the court house the other day I encouraged my family to let as much of this go as they could...to not let their focus stay trapped on watching what these people were doing or on the hate and anger they were feeling. I said, "If they pollute your heart and your mind that is on you...not them.  You may not have any power right now to change their actions or behaviours but you do have the power to decide what you keep inside you.  Please don't let it be a "rightful" sense of hate and anger. Yes, you have a right to anger and hate even but having a "right to something" doesn't mean it is the best choice to make. It doesn't serve you in the least.  It will pollute your insides and your life if you insist on holding onto it. Try to change your focus onto the productive things and try to keep your heart open and kind as much as you can. "

They just looked at me as if I had three heads but I will keep encouraging them to do that.  I don't want them giving anymore of their precious life over to humans who are not ready to move on to grade six yet. I don't want them to get stuck in grade five forever either. 

We all must compassionately accept that learning occurs at different levels and focus more on our own learning than that of the others.

All is well

Hmm! So much learning.

All is well!

Coincidence is the Teacher Responding to Our Requests

 

Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous

Albert Einstein

Oh my goodness.  As soon as I asked for a repeat of the lesson I was meant to learn with this court experience...no word a lie...a police car pulls in and hands me a subpeona for the attack that happened here last October. OMG! Another court date coming up. Tell me there is no plan to all this that seems so randome and chaotic.

All is well!

Hard Lessons that Hurt

Karma says if you focus on hurt you will continue to suffer; if you focus on the lesson you will continue to grow.

Unknown

People used to to tell me, " Be careful what you ask for!" And I would just shrug my shoulders.   When I so arrrogantly challenged the Universe "to bring it on", I had no idea that it would oblige so quickly and so ferociously.  I hear an "I told you so," coming from somewhere. 

I was convinced I was evolved enough, prepared enough, "spiritually centered " enough as a human being   to demand more from the teacher. To stand up from my seat in an Elementary classroom to say "Let's do a crash course in suffering now so I can flush everything out in one big swoosh."

 Yeah...lol...I wasn't ready.  The teacher obliged and now I fear She is going to knock me off my feet.  

I am trying to convince myself that it is okay if the ego gets ripped off...I want it gone anyway...that sure it will hurt but if we pull it off fast it will be like ripping off a Bandaid. A sting then gone. Nope...I was wrong about that too.  It is more like the months of dressing changes done on burn patients. (I do not mean to diminish that experience by using it in this analogy. Forgive me.)

The suffering of others is part of the learning process. I look around at all the suffering beings waiting  in a que for me to be done with this court thing so I will have some time to help them and all I can think is..."Oh please...I don't want anyone waiting for me to help them anymore.  I want this all to be over soon. I don't want to do this anymore.  I don't want to be responsible for the suffering of others anymore. It is too much."   Sometimes I reflect and I realize ...I end up hurting the people I love more than helping them when I rush into help. 

I remember a line I used to share with my students when I taught them psychology..."Help is the sunny side of control." I realize, in this court thing...though I certainly had some of the skill set that he needed I was often on the sunny side of control.  Yeah. I apologized to him for that yesterday and I wanted to find a way to apologize to the truly lovely young woman who was representing him. I was harsh in my lack of trust and this need I felt to control the situation. Yuck! I didn't like that part of myself...that was a part of this "me" that I so badly want to scrape off...it was the same thing I was noticing in the others I was pointing a finger at....all ego at play.   It was really clouding my higher Self and I was acting/reacting  from that "hurt little me" rather than this omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent Self.  I recognized the "goodness" of his lawyer as a person as soon as I met her.  I had a very good feeling about her as being a fairly evolved human being.  I picked that up right away and whenever I was in her presence..."Yeah! She is a good person!" ...but.... being a less than evolved human being, my fear based ego started chirping up in my head, "Don't trust! Don't trust!" and I listened to that! Man...I slipped.  This caused  a great deal of suffering for me, as this little human, for 48 hours.  I was focusing on that suffering instead of focusing on the growth. I was sooo reactive!  I felt punished by Karma again, even though I knew that wasn't what Karma was all about. It was a messy lesson I didn't end up passing. 

Once I realized that, I came back to the classroom to humbly say to the teacher..."I made a mistake. I goofed! I took on more than I was ready for.  Can we repeat that lesson?" 

Now, I hold my breath and wait for the repeat lesson.  Hopefully, I learned enough from this week to do it a heck of a lot better next time! 

This is my Karma...all these challenges ...and I am okay with that.  I was hoping my lessons wouldn't involve watching others suffer...but if it is, it is. 

So, I might have failed a course or two...but I am sure Life has some remedial help and repeats to offer.

All is well

What Gaudy Day Denies

 She walks in beauty like the night

of cloudless climes and starry skies,

and all that's best of dark and bright 

meet in her aspect and in her eyes;

Thus mellowed in that tender light

that heaven to gaudy day denies...

Lord Byron

This poem came to me in distorted lines the other day and I had to work with my memory to put it all together...But great poetry (and as I tell my students...rhyme) gets stored in the memory in a nice neat file that is easy to retreive, I was always a bit of a poetry nerd and felt myself drawn to it. I liked the Romantic age because of the rhythm and rhyming.  I was one of the few that actually "studied" it lol and enjoyed doing so. Funny thing is I never really thought much of this poem.  I studied it and it stuck in my memory but I never really thought "much" of it.  Then it appeared out of nowhere a day ago...filling my mind spaces again...Byron's words asking to be heard. Why?

Why with everything I got going on now would I be dwellling on a poem about some guy looking at a woman with long dark hair? What has that got to do with custody cases, betrayal, toxic personalities, dying loved ones, financial woes, the cries for help I am hearing constantly around me and a body with  bones that are threatening to snap underneath me? What?

We went for a walk last night.  I was pondering those words before I even left the house...like I say...they are stuck in there now like an old tune you can't get out of your head lol.  As we were walking...I looked up and I realized I was walking in the beauty of the night.  That beauty that Byron was seeing reflected in someone else. I looked up and there were cloudless climes and starry skies....and all that was best of dark and bright met in her aspect and in her eyes...Whose the "her"? Life...I realized how beautiful Life was; how beautiful each moment was ...a perfect mixture of the  bright and the dark.  That Life was in everything around me...everyone...even in the people who will be sitting on the other side of the courtroom today. I was filled with so much peace!

I have been struggling...let me tell ya...I have been struggling with this that others are doing to my son and to me as a result, how they are letting their broken personalities call the shots as they seek to appease those needy and demanding personas, rather than adhering to  what that "beautiful night" within them is showing them. If it wasn't for the prospect of them taking away his relationship with his kids and they will if they win, I would never have invested as much as I did in this.  I was and still am clinging to so much in regards to being on the receiving end of what these people do and the power they seem to have over our lives. Not only did I let them into pollute my starry night but I clung to them, not allowing them to leave. They (well thoughts of them)  became the "gaudy day" to the point  I couldn't see the stars.

  This thing has consumed me.  Why? Because I let it. We can't control these people.  They believe they are right or at least their egos are convincing them they are right.  They cannot hear what I had the blessing of hearing last night as I walked...the  undisturbed silence that exists beyond court orders, the thoughts and the feelings, the judgments and beliefs, all the crazy things we humans do to make sense of Life, and all the worldly stresses we encounter in the process. There was such a peaceful silence in that space of beautiful night, interuppted only by the sound of my breath or my feet touching the earth. Part of the peace I experienced for the  short time I experienced it last night, came from other words pounding through my head, "They know not what they do." And we have no control.

I do not want to hate these people.  I do not want my son to hate them. I want to find that space beneath all this pain he rightfully feels they inflicted. ( and "I verily beleive that to be the truth".. lol) I  do not want them and their actions consuming our lives any more than they have. Regardless of the outcome (and it is such a consequential outcome) ...I realized last night...we have to let go or it will eat us alive.

We have no control of the outcome. We tried...man oh man we tried.  We had a well supported case but what we are presenting today, my fearing and untrusting mind tells me,  is not so supported based on the decisions of others. I suddenly...because of an old fear inside me...an old samskara related to past events don't trust those decisions but I need to. We have to let go and trust the process. We have to trust not only the process of the law to seek and honor the truth (which I am having a hard time with right now), we have to trust the process of Life in honoring what is.   

I have meditated and prayed for hours and I am not asking that the outcome go a certain way...I am asking that we find peace in whatever the outcome is.  We may not be able to control what come sout of today but we can control how we respond.  We do not have to hate, or resent, or seek revenge. We do not have to let these people eat up our lives anymore than they have. We can learn to build a mind at peace with all below...and a heart whose love is innocent. That is what this Life is about...not winning a court case regardless of the consequences of losing.  

My son will lose so much if that which we are trusting in fails us. On top of that it is paramount that we do not lose our open and loving hearts.  That is my worse fear. Please do not let me hate....Please help me to let it all go...and to be able to accept whatever Life offers us so I can still see and appreciate the beauty of the night. Most importantly, so I can support my son to do the same. I cannot truly support him in the way that is best ...which is not jumping into this ring as his gladiator...but by showing him that what we carry with us from the inside, no matter what is happening out there, is what really matters in this Life time...A peaceful mind and an innocently loving heart...is the best legacy he can pass on to his children. I have to be at peace to show him that.That is what I pray for,  

...But tell of days of goodness spent

A mind at peace with all below

A heart whose love is innocent!

Lord Byron

All is well. 

Finding the Way Through the Cacoon

We are like silkworms; we make the thread out of our own substance and spin the cacoon, and in course of time are imprisoned inside. But this is not forever. In that cacoon we shall develop spiritual realization, and like the butterfly come out free. The network of karma we have woven around ourselves; and in our ignorance we feel as if we are bound, and weep and wail for help. But help does not come from without; it comes from within ourselves. 

Vivekananda

All is well!

The Cat Came Back

 The cat came back the very next day...

On top of everything else my cat went missing outside in the storm for two days. Saw signs of a chase and a kafuffle tracked in the snow on my search for her and I thought she was gone.  I looked up at the universe and said, "Really?  This too?" 

Then the next day after almost three days of being wherever, she was meowing at my door ...dirty and hungry but home.

That was the Universe looking back at me and saying, "Ha! Ha!  Just teasing ya!  Having fun yet?" 

Such is Life.

All is well

December's Breath

It likes me well- December's breath

although its kiss be cold,

Nor yet the year is sealed in death,

Tis only growing old.

Adeline Treadwell[Parsons] Lunt

 Always put this pic up in December...a way of honoring my old girl.  

She loved walking on wooded trails in December just as much as I did. 

 It is almost a magical and healing experience to be outdoors this time of the year. It doesn't matter what is going on as far as circumstances and people...getting out there...makes it all just slip away.  And Life makes sense once again.

All is well.

Missing a Sister

 Sometimes

Sometimes,

I feel you here

quietly sitting in a corner

leaning slightly onto

elbows resting on a bouncing knee.

You do not speak,

do not pass on your funny  stories

or your wisdom.

You don’t blow smoke rings

from  your MacDonald’s cigarette

over steamy cups of King Cole tea.

You don’t pull disobedient strands of long dark hair

behind your ears

the way you used to.

 

Nor do you cough in fits

 

or gasp to catch your breath

 

with each round of bubbly laughter

 

you release into the stale air

 

that I am, too often,

 

drowning in.

 

 

Yet...

 

Sometimes,

I sense you around me.

Hear an echo of that laughter

rumbling between these walls of solitude,

reaching way inside my heart

pulling out smiles

from places I thought were closed.

Faint traces of your perfume will

sometimes

override the odor of the morning’s bacon

that lingers on my drapes

and I will think of you.

You become a warm feeling … then

in the center of my chest.

That spark that once stirred in your cat green eyes

 will settle upon me

making the hairs on my arms dance in delight.

 

Sometimes,

I feel your sisterly arm around my shoulder.

Everything I didn’t say or didn’t do

is forgotten.

I feel peace

as your forgiveness wraps itself

around me in the rays of light

shining in from the  kitchen window. 

I feel your love and I know... 

I know…

 

it is all going to be Okay.

 

© Me 2005

Twenty years ago, on this day, I received a phone call from a very distraught brother that our sister Sandy had died in her sleep. Man, I miss my big sister!

All is well!

Don't Exercise Compassion Stupidly

 

Compassion is a wonderful thing. It is a sign that you as a human being have already evolved beyond complete identification of form...Never the less, the application of compassion when it becomes action requires awareness...The question is [when partaking in a compassionate deed]: Is there wisdom with it...Or is this a compassionate action without wisdom? ...It requires wisdom. In what way can I help this person?...

Eckhart Tolle

There is someone in this present drama the personality is going through that I have felt great compassion for in the beginning...I could actually feel the pain when I was with this person: the genuine heart break, the sense of abandonment and rejection, the fear, the need to cling to what she identified as an extension of herself etc...I felt great compassion for her and I wanted to help.  I agreed to take on the role of go between in communication and to assist with negotiation when asked because I truly felt I could maintain my sense of wisdom enough to help both sides.  How delusional I was.  

I expended so much time, effort, and energy...to the point of getting drained... only to realize that my compassionate action was not wise.  It was Self depleting. 

This person did not want my help to communicate and negotiate.  She wanted to pull me over to her side so she could use me against the other.  I was exhausting myself to no avail and as soon as she realized I was not taking her side (was not going to take any sides but the truth's) she  turned on me quite dramatically

There are some people that continously come to you not because they want to get better ...but because they want to suck up your energy...they want your attention...and if you continue to give it you become depleted, you experience burn out and it [compassion] has no purpose...

I still have compassion for her in her pain. I do.  I see she is acting out of this pain and others are using her expression of pain to build on this story they created. They are convincing her...not to heal...but to project all her pain onto the other...to blame, and villianize...and to take revenge even when all this will likely  backfire on her.  This is not healing and what they are doing is far from compassionate. They are acting purely from ego denying the wisdom of their essence. 

The essence of who you are always has to be in the back ground of whatever you do, whatever action you perform, whatever words yous speak

It has been a nasty and bumpy ride so far taking up so much of my mental and emotional space, while affecting me physically . That sense of incredulousness over the unwise choices and behaviors of "the others"  is still there to some degree. All those dark thoughts and feelings ...the seeds of mental formations as Thich Nhat Hanh would refer to them...that I had tucked inside me had surprised me so much when they came up.  I own those shadow selves and I did not like the fact that I was forced to take accountability for them and to make peace with them. :) That was probably the hardest part of this bumpy ride. Yet, after doing so I am surprised to realize that I still have compassion for all. 

I ran into a key player in this drama at the bank the other day and very casually, without any emotional attachment, I said, "Oh look whose here too.  Isn't that a coincident? "  There was no sense of awkwardness, no anger or resentment, no anxiety or fear. It didn't bother me in the least to see her.  She didn't bother me...and up to that point she bothered me a great deal. 

Some compassion and empathy arose in me as I watched her ignoring us. I had a great sense that she was feeling vulnerable and somewhat threatened by this surprise encounter. I could almost feel her heart beating quickly in her chest as she went into fight or flight. I could sense that who she truly was, was in there somewhere whispering to her that she wasn't being wise.  I had a genuine hope that someday she would hear that whisper...not for our sake...but for hers. 

I didn't say anything.  I didn't do anything. I just walked to where we were directed and sat down amazed by my lack of reactivity. (I guess I have been releasing much more of that old samskara than I realized during my practice....the years of stored stuff I was holding on to, related to her  is being cleaned out).  Wow! That just blew me away! 

And even more significant...was that I was able to feel more than  a droplet of compassion and empathy for her. I knew, as I looked at her or later thought of her, that who she was on the inside was this pure light. She just didn't know it yet. 

Wisdom and essence are in control now. Thank God!

Sensing the essence in another is true empathy and compassion.

Eckhart Tolle

All is well.

Eckhart Tolle  (November, 2024) How to Care Without Burning Out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czAq8cTpEG8

Statistically Insignificant

 The sum of that learned experience is statistically insignificant.  It can't know anything!

Michael A. Singer

It is hard to fathom that what I and my family are going through right now is significantly insignificant. Yet, I know in the deeper part of me that it is. 

Getting carried away again, pulled into this situation...that continues to get more and more absurd while the sense of incredulousness inside me builds up to the point inside that it becomes all consuming.  

The mind shouts: "Do something! Fix this! Prove that what is being said is not true! Make the others regret what they are doing in the way you know you can!" And I listen.

I found myself using my skills to prove the others wrong...I spent hours and hours doing this...staying up sometimes until two in the morning.  This mission became all consuming to the point I could not focus on anything else.  To the point my practice was put on the back burner, my house is literally falling a part around me, I put aside the need to look after my health: told myself I will just wait until I get into see my GP in March (the only appt I could get) to start my osteoporosis meds instead of spending energy to assert my health care needs. I may not eat for more than eight hours at a time.  I sit here scrundched over with a sense of urgency that is activating an old shoulder problem. I am neglecting the needs of others.  I have not been in to see my sister in law in a couple of weeks. My other children need support but I am always so focused on this! I get all mixed up when I try to lead a yoga class, offering less than my usual self to my yoga students. I am not fully there for my grandkids. I have a hard time meditating without thinking, "Okay what can I do about that thing that they said or did..." I have not prepared my home for Christmas.  Mind is telling me to put all my energy and focus into proving others wrong and I am listening. I am so busy listening and following the directions of this mixed up mind, that I am not living! 

The situation is not crazy ( well...I can't say that  lol...it is) but ...I can say the situation is not as crazy as the fact that I am listening to  my mind. 

If they are listening to their mind no one is right...there mind is telling them that they know the truth...and that mind knows squat

I am not going to beat up my mind nor am I going to beat up the others lol.  I am going to pull back some. Yes, there is a sense of urgency that has to be honored in getting things done....but as my beautiful and wise children reminded me yesterday, "It will get done Mom...we are all going to work together to prove the truth...you taught us well...it will get done." 

Hmmm! All is well in my world.

Michael Singer/ Sounds True/ Temple of the Universe (December, 2024) The Mind Unveiled: From Addiction to Awareness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiQY5WknNOY&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=3