Beyond Beliefs in Illness

 Whatever you focus on will grow.

Mayim Bialik (quoting/paraphrasing someone else )

I listened to a wonderful podcast last night where Mayim and Jonathon were interviewing Dr. Ellen Langers from Harvard, a leading expert in mindfulness and the power of positive perception. (I actually believe she might have been one of the psyc professors that lectured in the Positive Psychology Course I took through the School of Positive Transformation years ago? If not, she should have been lol). 

I have been writing here for years about my belief that the mind controls the body and that our mindsets determine the quality of our lives, have I not? This realization has been growing in intensity within me over the decades. This change in perspective has not only come from my years studying psychology, ACIM, and the work of people like Bruce Lipton, but it has also come through my own life expereince. I was unknowingly testing its validity for a very long time. 

When I, after decades of effort, could not get a diagnosis and therefore physical and financial support, for what I thought were "very real things going on in my body", fearing I would succumb without that type of label and support, I was in a terrible state. Something in my life had to change. I either had to continually bust my back trying to get an elusive diagnosis or I had to rearrange my perspective. I decided to rearrange the way I was seeing.

It began with a finger from the universe pointing me to A Course in Miracles, and to Wayne Dyer, and later, Bruce Lipton, followed by a host of others. From exploring these teachings, I began to see (albeit very slowly) that what I thought I wanted was not what I needed. I began to see how such a label, such a confirmation would not help me but limit me even farther. I began to gradually see how it was my belief in illness that was bringing me down, not the lack of  valdiation and support .  

More ironically, I would much later see that it was a deeply stuffed core belief that I didn't deserve a diagnosis or support that kept me from getting it.  In a round about way, this distorted core belief  of unworthiness that was impacting my life since the beginning, long before I "got sick", was also saving my life. Though I couldn't see it at the time, believing that I would not get help because I was not worthy of it led me to not get the label I thought I needed. Without the label there was no external confirmation for my belief in illness. Despite how hard I tried, how hard I prayed, how  hard I attempted to manifest a diagnosis and the the help and support that would come with it, this belief that I would never get one, prevented me from getting one. The strangest and kookiest things would happen in my attempts. I would end up going without one.  It was suggested on  occassion that I was mentally ill, not physically so  or I was attention seeking and  "malingering". I was even called a liar on more than one occassion. My core belief of unworthiness kept getting in the way. 

After so many attempts, I began to believe that maybe they (doctors, specialists,insurance companies) were right and I was wrong.  Maybe there was nothing going on in my body .  Maybe I was "just crazy and lying" to myself and others. I started to doubt my own symptoms and therefore started to doubt that my body was sick. I started to explore that possibility of mind over matter. I began to explore my own mind, my past, and my samskaras. I began to see a need for healing psychologically. (Any psychological issue I tapped into, however, was just incidentally a comorbid happening taking place as my body was beginning to express illness. At this point several people in my family began to express the same physical symtomology that I had been expressing for years...they were getting diagnosed). I put my energy towards healing psychologically which took me to healing at an even deeper level...spiritually.

 I began to see that as more important than healing this body. I began to practice the mind-body connection through yoga, revamping my practice.Though it took some time, and a lot of falling flat on my face ( I really felt sick and limited in many ways), I began to "get beyond" each symptom or physical anomaly that showed up in my body. By removing my focus from it and "doing" despite it, I eventually got past many of the things that would have normally knocked me down. I began to focus less and care less what this body was doing.  The body itself, though I respected it and cared for it, meant less and less to me. A diagnosis meant less and less to me.  I started rearranging my life to care for body and mind without the need for physical, social, and finacial support a solid diagnosis would give me. Ironically, at the same time my focus was changing, certain specialists were starting to believe me and were diagnosing me with one tiny thing after another.  I was getting some of the treatment I needed but it mattered less. I stopped caring what my body was doing. Though I continued to take care of it by taking the prescribed medication and seeing my doctor, medical labels and treatment became less and less important to me.  

An example: Amongst many of the "little things I had going on with this heart, I was having bouts of bradycardia...heart rates dropping and staying in the low forties and thirties. Once I and the medical team connected the low heart rates with the very, very low blood pressures that would come with them and  a drastic fatigue that would lead to fainting on occassion, I became very focused on the  bradycardia. I thought if I could stop it, my life would return to normal.  At one point, I was in a cardiologist office about to sign the consent for a pacemaker when suddenly it hit me so hard. A thought emerged out of nowhere, "No! I don't need this. Maybe, I can heal myself." and that led to a discussion where the cardiologist and I agreed to "temporarily" try other things. That was in 2014. Though my pulse continues to drop into the 30's, I have not fainted since I made that decision to not go ahead.  I barely know when I am brady anymore. The thing is...it doesn't matter. If I faint...if this body succumbs even...it doesn't matter. I am okay with it. I live as if I am fine. And when the other cardiac  symptoms come...and they still come ...I just relax into them.  I casually notice and watch them in some sort of awe wondering what will happen next. I do what I know I need to do and I go on.  They do not overtake me anymore.

So, belief and focus is so powerful.  I know that. If we believe the body will get sick it will get sick.  If that belief is reinforced by society...it could even succumb to that belief. If we believe we are not allowed to get sick and will not be believed when we do get sick...well...things may turn out the way they did for me.  (not that I want anyone operating under such a belief). I am so grateful for this understanding and what it is doing in my own personal experience of Life.  Do not get me wrong though...I have not yet healed from these nasty core beliefs of unworthiness but I am getting there. I have not yet fully internalized this understanding that I can change this personalized version of Life through belief ( I am still struggling a bit because of some life diminishing core beliefs still linger within)...But I know what I want to grow ( true healing) and I therefore know what to put my focus on so it does. I hope you do too. 

All is well.

Maureen Salamen/Harvard Health Publishing (November 1, 2022) Beyond Momentary Calm. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/beyond-momentary-calm

Mayim Bailik's Breakdown (February, 2026) Your Body is Obeying Your Beliefs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCUAxJ8YSus&t=2s

Money and Soul Contracts

 Did you sign up for money struggles?

All is well!

Michael Singer On Fear

 You don't want to be locked in the prison of your fears. 

Michael A. Singer

Singer echoes what I have been writing about for years...what the book I am rewriting/revamping is all about. Of course, he isn't regurgitating what I have written or what I think...it seems infact that I am the one regurgitating what he teaches, says, thinks. Truth is, we just think alike.

Anyway, to honor his teaching today I will qoute him directly.

The mind has 7000 things that cuold bother it. And the world could do 7 million things that could bother the inside.You are not going to fix it [by attempting to change the outside]? What is the alternative if it bothers me? To learn to be okay that it bothers you.

If you say "I can't handle it," it will bother you.  If you say," I can handle it", it won't

Learn to relax in the face of the tendency to resist. 

There is no way you are controlling that outside every moment of your life in a way that the inside doesn't get bothered by it. 

It will stop bothering you when you stop being bothered by the fact that it is bothering you. 

"Is it reasonable that I am bothering myself about it?" 

Learn to be okay that it bothers you

Can you be comfortable with the fact that it is uncomfortable? If the reward is big enough!

I am going to go deeper even if it is bothers me

The deeper you go inside, you will start to feel the energy opening up inside of you...get comfortable with not feeling comfortable.

The more you are comfortable with being uncomfortable, you become comfortable.

Fear is at the root of the discomfort.

You're inside; you're not outside. Your outside conditions mean nothing. 

You built a house around your fear.

What if I learn to handle the fear? Can I handle the discomfort of fear?

"I need to be okay with feeling fear."  Life is trying to teach you to be okay with the fear. 

Work through the cherubim with the flaming sword

Relax your way through....

They are not problems ...they are growth experiences. What is? Every thing!

All is well!

Michael A. Singer ( l, 202) Fear-the Hidden Root of Suffering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c6hiWjUs9U

As Unreal as the Clothing We Wear

 Yes, death is always painful...but nothing real has actually died there, just an illusionary identity.

Eckhart Tolle

Tolle is speaking to the death of the "me" that occurs in what was deemed by Saint John of the Cross to be, "The dark night of the soul." This idea of "me" is an  illusionary identity ...nothing has really died, just this idea we may have had of ourselves.  It is painful, as I am learning through my own experience in this dark night, not so much like the pain of "grief"that comes with losing someone to death  but in the pain of confusion.  Like "Why is this happening? What does it all mean?" and "Who am I without this "me" identity? What do I do now? "

So, those are the questions this human is asking herself these days. The answers are coming, albeit not all that clearly written or quickly lol...but they are coming.

As those answers come, deeper questions arise about reality and my eyes begin to open to greater truths. Now, I look at the above quote and also think it can apply to the death of the body.  I have friends and loved ones presently grieving the loss of their loved ones right now...one the loss of a brother to cancer, and another the loss of a nephew to a sudden health crisis. I  feel deeply for them as I think about how difficult grief is. (from my own experience with it). With no intention, what so ever, to diminish this pain of grief they are likely experiencing, I find mind asking other questions. 

Why is death so challenging and difficult? 

This answer emerges: Because we believe the death of the body and personality means the death of that consciosness that made that personality and that moved that body. We erroneously see it as the end of the being we have come to know. 

But what if "nothing real has actually died here, just an illusionary identity" applies to this sort of death as well. 

Say what, crazy lady? 

We assumed the being that we loved was just the body and personality...what if these were simply the false identities the being wore while here? What if the formless essence of who they truly are/were  lives on; is still around? The more I ask and the more I ponder...I somehow "have the felt experience" that that is the truth.

This understanding, of course, will not remove the pain of losing the physical presence of what we have come to know...but it may help to alleviate some of the suffering that comes with grief. 

I hold the view that death is rather like changing one's clothes. It is not an end in itself.

The Dalai Lama

Hmm! Something worthy of thinking about, isn't it? 

All is well. 

Eckhart Tolle (July, 2026) There is Always Light at the End of the Tunnel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSyMKS7g0NQ&t=425s

Writing and Standing Up to Live with All of It.

 How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

Henry David Thoreau

Am I vain or am I finally maturing as a writer and as a human being?

I write, or at least try to write, what I have lived as I stand here in this life experience...on very wobbly legs, mind you. :) I try to strip away all the egoic costumes I am used to wearing to create an image and to just be the imperfect, struggling human, the imperfect, struggling writer, and the imperfect, struggling learner that I am. That raw vulnerability and imperfect presentation is unsettling for many. The may find it hard to read this.  It is often unsettling for this "me" that is becoming less and less the driver of this life experience, to stand in Life and write about it.

Whatever remains of this "me" wants comfort and ease, a certain freedom from pain and suffering.  It erronously believes through its conditioned programming that it "should"  get what it wants as a writer: appreciation, validation, publication, payment, notoriety, a certian life style, and freedom from this life it is experiencing now  as it  does what it does. It should also be free from the unwanted:  criticism, rejection, obscurity, poverty, difficulty, and invalidation for what  it offers the world. Somehow "me" thinks if I get what ego wants and avoid what it doesn't want, I will be fulfilled as a writer, and as a human. But as Singer reminds us

Getting what you want doesn't work!

Knowing that it doesn't work, however, doesn't mean we need to pretend we do not want the things we want and that we want the things we do not want, that we renounce, that we stuff the wanting  and the unwnating way down inside us either.

Suppressing our preferences doesnt work.

What about expressing those preferences and aversions?

 Expressing our preferences doesn't work...

Yet, isn't that what you do here -express what you see as your desires and aversions?

Expression in the above, I believe, refers to our seeking and doing to have our desires manifested or "expressed" in our everyday life circumstances, and to avoid our aversions.

So though I write, aware of these desires and dislikes, I try to stay unattached to the outcome of this writing. I am definitely not fully evolved or enlightened, but I have matured enough to know that I will keep writing, as I feel pulled to do, independent of the possible outcomes that will be expressed in the life circumstances this human may encounter. I know now, after so many experiences with desire and aversion in this lifetime, that spending energy attempting to get what I want and avoid what I, as "me", don't want is a ridiculous waste of time and precious resources.  It will never make this "me" happy.  It will simply lead to more suffering. 

"Been there, done that." 

Knowing that, Singer tells us, is a sign that we are becoming mature souls. I have evolved enough to understand... 

If you are okay getting what you don't want or  not getting what you want...you are enlightened. 

Again, I am not sure how evolved or enlightened I am at this point but hopefully I am getting there. 

Go through what you need to go through  ...grow through what you need to grow through...mature with every experience...you actually become deeper because you went through the experiences you go through.

You go through what you need to go through...everthing you go through is for the purpose of  liberation...taking you to God...pulling you up. 

All is well

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (July 2, 2026) There Are No Problems, Only Experiences.

Henry David ThoreauWalden(1854) Walden: Life in the Woods.  Ticknor and Fields.

Thoreau on Not Succumbing to Limiting Belief Regarding Human Possibility

 It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion,  which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. 

We are all convinced that we are only capable of so much, aren't we? So true to our convictions that our conditioning keeps us stuck in a certain level of being and doing. These limiting beliefs are passed down from the generations before us. What makes these "old people" wiser than us? Why do we adhere to the essaging the passed down and limit ourselves accordingly.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can.

Do we really know what we are capable of other than assuming limitation based on what we were taught?  

But man's capacities have never been measured, nor are we to judge of what we ca do by an precedents, So little has been tried. 

We really don't know, do we, and it is okay that we don't? Such not-knowing leads us into exploring and experimenting with truth like Thoreau had done on Walden Pond. 

As Confucios said, "To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge..."

All is well.

Henry David Thoreau/Full Text Archive. Chapter One: Economy in Walden Walden.https://www.fulltextarchive.com/book/Walden-by-Henry-David-Thoreau/

Truth Rather Than This

 Rather than love, than money, than fame , give me truth.

Henry David Thoreau

Hmm! I now know what Thoreau meant by "with a success unexpected in common hours" . He meant that his success, possibly the success we are all destined for if we would only allow such a success, was in discovering the truth of what this life experience is all about; about what is truly important, and what isn't; about who we are etc. In common hours...when we are busy tramping around the busy world in an attempt to satisfy an unquenchable "me"...we will not discover that truth. 

Hmm! I often longed to do what Thoreau did...go out to a cabin in the woods and just "be" for awhile.

All is well.

Living the Life You Imagined?

 I have learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of their dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.

Henry David Thoreau

What experiment is Thoreau talking about that gave him this insight to "advance confidently" in the direction of his dreams? 

He spent two years in a little one room cabin in the woods, on the property of his sccessful mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. From that experiment and the writing of it he became one of the world's greatest transcendental writers. (I am not sure if that is what he meant by success but...)

I am reading "Walden" now...well listening to it on a free adio book I found on line. It's pretty cool.

I ask myself, " Am I living the life I have imagined?" Hmm! Big question. What about you, are you living the life you imagined? Are you meeting with success?  

And what exactly is "success?" And what are the "common hours?" 

Those are questions best left for another day. 

Happy Canada day to all fellow canucks!!! 

All is well. 

Audio Books. Walden (Full  Audio Book) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaME4iHUhSE&t=561s

That Which Observes; Not that Which Is Observed

 By Whom willed and directed does the mind light on its subjects? By whom commanded does Prana, the first, move? By whose will do men [humans] speak this speech? What intelligence directs the eye and the ear?

Kena Upanishad (Verse 1) https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/kena-upanishad-shankara-bhashya/d/doc145042.html

This truth is what Michael A. Singer is speaking about in the below linked podcast.

Consciousness is a totally different thing than what it is aware of.

Consciousness is the Objective Observer, not that which it is observing.  We need to redirect our focus, then, from being lost in what we are observing and experiencing to the bigger question, "Who is experiencing?" 

We need to move our focus from all the crazy things we are thinking about to, "What wills the mind to think?" 

Instead of focusing on the experience of feeling "stuck" in a life pattern ask, "Who wills the energy within  to move?" 

Instead of focusing on what we need to say or what someone said to us that seemed so hurtful ask, "What directs our speech?" 

Instead of getting lost in all the things the body is picking up with the five senses ask, " What inner intelligence allows the eye to see, and the ear to hear?  "

We are, according to this beautiful Upanishad found in the Vedas, Objective Observers of Life experience. So, what is that which is Observing this body, this personality we call "me", and the energy that comes first before all things?  

What is the answer to these questions?

God/Brahman /that infinite field of energy that pours through us and all things. 

It is eye of the eye, the ear of the ear, tongue of the tongue, and also life of the life.

So, trace back from what you are seeing to that which is allowing you to see it. Trace back what you are hearing to that which is allowing you to hear it.  Trace back what you are speaking to that which is allowing you to speak it. Trace back all the events and happenings of this thing you call, "my life" to the Source of that Life. We need to focus on the Observer rather than the observed.

We are the observers of our experience, not the experience. It is so hard for us to realize that truth and not to be carried away into identifying with what we are observing. 

It is hard to be objective and not get pulled in. Too often our samskaras get in the way preventing us from seeing who we are. It is hard to embrace the need for purification so we can trace back the source of our focus to that which is focusing. Yet, if we do Singer and many of the ancient masters tell us, we can end our sense of suffering. The mess of perception is inside, not outside.

You are objective outside but not inside. (Singer)

Though there are many translations of verse 5 onward, this is one that resonates with me the most.

Not that which the eye can see, but that whereby the eye can see, know that to be Brahman the eternal, not what people here adore

Not that which the ear can hear, but that whereby the ear can hear, know that to be Brahman the eternal, not what people here adore.

Not that which speech can illuminate, but that whereby speech can be illuminated, know that to be Brahman the eternal, not what people here adore.

Not that which the mind can think, but that whereby the mind can think, know that to be Brahman the eternal, not what people here adore. 

https://moonlightenedshelves.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/not_that_which_the_mind_can_think/

And who or what is this Brahman?

That is the thing...we really cannot know or at least conceptualize what this Brahman is. It's reality is too big for our little minds. Yet by embracing the not knowing, we will come to know the Source of who we are. 

If though thinkest "I know well" it is certainly but little. The form of the Brahman, you have known....Therefore, I think that what thou thinkest known, is still to be ascertained.  Verse 9

It is known to him, to whom it is unknown; he knows it not, to whom it is known...Verse 11

https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/kena-upanishad-shankara-bhashya/d/doc145050.html

So much beauty and wisdom in these Vedas 

Please note: Key board is malfunctioning again, and though I try to be careful when I go through again some letters might be missing.

All is well.

Michael Singer/ Temple of the Universe/Sounds True (June 29, 2026) Witness Consciousness and the End of Suffering.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g65HUsEBPNc

https://moonlightenedshelves.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/not_that_which_the_mind_can_think/

Wikipedia  (n.d.) Kena Upanishads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kena_Upanishad

Wisdom Library/S. Sitarama Sastri (1905) The Kena Upanishad

https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/kena-upanishad-shankara-bhashya/d/doc145050.html

Quenns Universit (n.d.) The Kena and Katha Uupanishads https://mast.queensu.ca/~murty/ind4.pdf

Relatively Important or Absolutely Important?

 

Everthing is relative; and only that is absolute.

Auguste Comte

As we advance a bit in this school of hard learning, we begin to make a distinction between what is relatively important and what is absolutely important. If we consider a decision another has made, for example, relatively important to our experience of Life or Life in general, we may just smile, wave a hand, and let it go.  Most happenings in this lifetime could be considered just relatively important, and this will have a remarkable effect on our peace of mind. Life is just one big flow of everchanging phenomena afterall. Most of it is just relative, effecting the individual human here and effecting other beings there...depending on their likes and dislikes... not on what is absolutely significant. We cannot cling to very much of it, let alone control it. We just need to focus on the impermanent nature of things as the flow past us. \

What is absolutely important? The learning, of course, is important, That is what we are here, in this Earth school, for...the learning that will help us to go deeper and live with a higher state of consciousness and awareness, appreciating the interconnectedness, the inter beingness of all things. When we learn to recognize and honor the Oneness of all things ; when we begin to see that Life is not here to serve this "little me" but we are here to serve it. ...the comfort of this human...we see as  very secondary and therefore relative and insignificant; what we, as  this human, can do for others, the world, and Life, however, is absolutely important!

I recently found myself reacting strongly to a decision another has made regarding the property I left in his very capable hands to look after. What they did with the house as far as changes, I saw was of relative importance ...coming and going , flowing towards this human, flowing past. It had no impact on this "me". But when I was informed that a pest control specialist was contracted to remove all "nasty insects" from the yard, I freaked...and did not see this as relative.  As far as I was concerned the conseqences of such an action would be too far reaching to natre, the experience of Life, and to this human's role as steward to the land, to see it as relatively important. It seemed of absolute importance for me to stop this process from taking place in what is still considered "my" yard. 

Most of the passing phenomena of life is insignificant, and of relative importance. Recognizing and honoring the interbeingness of all living things, to me, anwa is of absolute importance.

All is well.

Relaxed Alertness and Not Knowing

Now if you don't understand anymore about what "my life is all about" or "what am I supposed to do?"...that  is usually experienced as undesirable because the mind likes to make sense of things. And it makes sense of things by labelling things with concepts. That is what understanding conceptally is...[This type of knowing] is always limited and it is always one-dimensional...

Become aligned with the present moment...[and ask]...can I become comfortable with not knowing what is going on? 

Relaxing into the not knowing can take us to where we want to be.

Relaxed alertness, Tolle teaches, is becoming comfortable with not knowing.

All is well.

Eckhart Tolle (June 2026) Stop Chasing Awakening...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQChRel86vY&t=279s

From Anger to Sadness; From Sadness to Vulnerability

 

...

In the middle of that hardness you will find anger...sit with that...

Go to the center of the anger and you'll probably find sadness...

Stay with the sadness until it turns to vulnerability...

Author Unknown

All is well.

Devoted to Getting Rid of "Me"

 I have devoted my life to the deep understanding that Life is my teacher, my guru. It is putting me through what I need to go through to get rid of myself. 

 Michael A. Singer

This, more or less, has been my mantra for the last few years. As I keep getting pulled into the stuff outside of me and the stuff inside of me, I have to remind self often that it isn't about me.

Other words of wisdom shared in today's podcast.

Ever single person is a person having experiences...it isn't all about me

In order to be disappointed, you had to have appointed something to be a certain way. [Stop appointing.]

You didn't have a bad experience, you had a growth experience.

If you are clear enough to ask, "Can I handle this?" the answer is always "yes"!

Can you avoid resisting how the inside is dealing with the outside? 

You have two choices: Resist or Accept.

All is well

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (June 22,2026) Waking Up to Witness Consciosness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xtcfpDQeQU&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

Angst

Flame's Angst

Flittering, flickering, fluttering in the window to the Self,

 the mind's flame, a busy dancer, performs a dance of angst.

Ducking from the movement of forms that threaten to extinguish it,

 and following the objects and activities that promise 

to make it glow bigger and brighter,

it bends back; it moves forward; it glows small; it grows tall 

as it dances the seemingly never-ending dance of fear and desire. 

Feeling tiny and at the mercy of another's breath,

or a heavy gust of wind that could blow 

through the partially open window, 

it shrinks and curls forward, hiding its glow 

beneath the veils and shades it covers itself with.

Attracted to that which it assumes will 

make it stronger and brighter...

it puffes itself up, 

flickering wildly to make itself known 

to the moth tapping on the other side of the glass.

It dances its fervent dance of angst throughout the long night.

The busy flame, during its exhausting performance,

does not ponder the truth that

 whether it dims itself to an ember, 

or manages to grow into  a ferocious fire,

it will be extinguished when morning comes. 

If it could only still itself on the wick at its center,

long enough to see that this temporary and fleeting dance 

doesn't need to be for protection or desire.

The little flame can simply experience what it is like to glow,

while it brightens the world around it;

 while it dances the perfect dance

until it merges with the light of dawn. 

© Dale-lyn June, 2026

Again I try not to judge what comes out here.  I was listening to another Michael Singer podcast and it just came out. Certainly not perfect and it doesn't feel all that inspired...it just is as it is.

All is well in my world.

 Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (June 22,2026) Waking Up to Witness Consciosness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xtcfpDQeQU&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

At the Mercy of Conditioning

 Forgive them for they know not what they do...Luke 23:34

Forgive them...whoever it was that hurt you, for at the time of the "doing, the speaking, the thinking" they did not know what they were doing. They were, as Tolle describes, "a victim of their own conditioning."

I love these words: 

You cannot demand that a human being should act beyond their level of consciousness. They can't help it. They are completely at the mercy of their conditioning...they themselves are the victims of their own conditioning....with that realization comes a certain compassion and forgiveness

This understanding, of course, must also be directed towards ourselves when we suddenly realize what we have done or failed to do as a result of our conditioning. We forgive others; we forgive ourselves.

As I think of the unconscious behaviour of others that was directed towards my loved one or myself over the years, I immediately and almost simultaneously think of what I have done to others , or not done, as a result of my own conditioned brokenness. It is an automatic thing that happens to me now. When I think of the so called "wrong-doing" of others, I automatically think of my own "wrong-doings" over the years.  I am brought down , rather quickly, from any high horse of moral superiority I might have crawled up on. Anger towards others, I see now,  leads, to anger towards myself. Hmm!

That, I believe, is a part of our evolution and awakening...to see that humanity is not a finished product. Both the other and ourselves are interconnected parts of that humanity. We are evolving together. To hurt the other, it to hurt ourselves. To forgive the other, is to forgive ourselves. 

It is our purpose to evolve and awaken out of the egoic consciousness.  And if you do not awaken, while you are unconscious, you create suffering for yourself and others. 

Let's end the suffering once and for all. Forgive your brother; forgive yourself. Let's awaken together. 

All is well. 

Eckhart Tolle (March, 2026) If You Grew Up in Chaos, Watch This!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpbQ-X_-Cig

Being Okay With Not Knowing

 Be Comfortable in the State of Not Knowing [and with that, the portal to true knowing may open].

Eckhart Tolle

This is paraphrased to some degree. Tolle is telling us that if we can settle into that space of not knowing and the confusion that often arises in our awakening, instead of saying it is "bad, wrong, shouldn't be" while stressfully seeking and striving for the knowing, we may discover a peace that takes us into awakening.  The only place that awakening to that knowing that which is beyond conceptual explanation, can take place is in the now and if we are resisting the now because we are not there and assume we should be...we won't get there. Settle into the moment by settling into the reality of it: At this moment you may be confused and do not know the truth of your experience. That's okay.  Settle into that. Relax into that. Allow that "not knowing" to be.  Allow the moment to be exactly as it is....

The knowing will come when and only when you are okay with what is.

All is well.

Eckhart Tolle (June, 2026) Stop Chasing Awakening. It Will Come When You Least Expect It. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQChRel86vY

What Is In the Way, Is the Way

 What is in the way, is the way...

Eckhart Tolle

Those are very freeing words of wisdom if we take the time to ponder them, and honor them.

The greatest deal of suffering is generated from unconsciousness

Ironically, it is also unconsciousness that leads us to consciousness by slowly removing that which holds us from it...the ego..

By the Grace of the Divine, the ego has built into it a self destruct mechanism

Suffering seems to gradually erode the egoic idenity.

As the ego gets eroded away by life challenges, we cannot help but to see and realize what lay beneath the layers of ego personality we have worn.

That which we assume is suffering, challenge, or obstacles on our path to realizing who we really are, are also the forces that lead us to that realization, therefore to  that freedom from suffering.  The idea of suffering takes us to the  realization of who we truly are behind the idea of suffering. 

The things in your life that seem to prevent you from flowering, the obstacles in your life, those things are actually the main motivating force behind the awakening.

Words of wisdom , maybe, we can all ponder?

All is well in my world.

Eckhart Tolle (June, 2026) Realizing this will end your suffering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auDhu9YReHE

Love, Not Fear

 Allow both the beauty and sadness to touch you...

This is Love, not fear.

Unknown

I am experiencing a great deal of anticipatory grief. My beautiful old girl has an appointment at three, her last appointment. We were expecting this. We actually considered making the call a year ago but held back. It is such a difficult decision for a human to make about a member of another species that doesn't communicate with words to tell us they are ready to go. How the heck do I know it is her time? So we hummed and hawed and held back and she suddenly came around to enjoy another year of food (she loves to eat), drives in the car with her head out the window, walks in the woods, swims in the river, balls to chew (she gave up chasing them a while ago), treats, and lots of people who truly loved her. We said then, we will wait until she stops eating for two days and gets noticebly weak to the point there is no doubt that it is her time. Well, the time has come. She hasn't eaten for two days, can barely walk, refuses her treats, and was not really responding to our pats and shows of affection...that is until she seen me crying after I made the call. She lifted her head up and wagged her tail a bit as if to say, "It's okay. I will be okay if you need me to be. I will stick around," 

I just smiled and said, as if she could understand, "It's okay girl.  You don't have to hold on for us. It is time you got out of that painful old heavy body you are in, so you can run in the fields again, chasing squirrels, and feeling free."  

She put her had back down and went to sleep. 

Sigh! So this grief thing we humans do is all about the willingness to allow both the beauty of the experience we have loving another and the sadness of their potential absence to touch us deeply. Grief is Love, not fear! 

All is well.

From That Place of Hardness

 Just Sit! Notice where you feel hard and sit with that...

Author Unknown

Relax Through It

 Relax through the experience of the energy that you used to resist.

Michael A. Singer

Hmm! That is the message of this time, the answer to most of our so called problems. When will we get that?

All is well.

Just Sit

 Just sit . Notice where you feel hard and sit with that....

in the middle of that hardness you will find anger.......sit with that...

go to the center of the anger and you'll probably find sadness....

stay with the sadness until it turns to vulnerability...

keep sitting with what comes up...

the deeper you dig, the more tender you will become...

raw fear can open into the wide expanse of genuiness, compassion, gratitude, and acceptance of the moment....

a tender heart appears naturally when you are able to stay present...

from your heart you can see the true pigment of the sky, ...

you can see the vibrant yellow of the sunflower, and the deep brown of your own eyes...

a tender heart doesn't block out rain clouds, or tears, or dying sunflowers,

Allow both beauty and sadness to touch you...

This is Love, not fear.

Author unknown

In my renewed committment to meditate more purposefully I created the above video. At the same time, I was reminded of the above words from a gatha or prayer or guided meditation...  not sure what you actually would call this...that I often recite. I am also not sure who actually wrote these words but over the years I have heard a lot of people use them, and too many have claimed them as their own. 

Regardless...this is a perfect recitation to listen to or recite as one is practicing the zen art of "just sitting", as I am once again inspired to do, thanks to an introduction to the way app.com.  I am no Zen master like Henry Shukman is...far, far from it but as a certified meditation and mindfulness teacher, and as someone who has attempted to meditate for many years, I am inspired to do a series of guided practices on "just sitting". Of course, lacking the Zen lineage holding, I encourage you to listen to someone who does hold it. Check out The Way App.com

The first line of that Gatha, or whatever it is, is "Just sit. Notice the hardness and sit with that..."

I would like to focus on that one line. The practice of just sitting is all about being still and noticing what is in your present experience at the moment...noticing and allowing...all of it, including our own internal or external resistance to sitting and resting in the moment. The hardness, of course, is our resistance manifesting as tight and tense muscles, a nervous system ready to fire us into fight or flight at anytime, the hard walls of our selecting and prefering minds that decide what can come into our experience and what cannot, and the holding back from reality. What are we resisting? We are resisting external and internal triggers that remind us of the stuff we stuck and stored deep inside us, that Life is constantly offering us. This very human protective response is like a hardness...a closing off...a creation of a hard steel wall between us and reality, between what is outside and what is inside, between us and that which we are...love and peace. Hmm!

So, that is my next meditation attempt.  Focusing on that one line.

All is well.

 

Beyond Ego to Handling It All.

 Your ego is made up of that which you couldn't handle in the past.

Michael Singer

This is what I am writing about in my book.  How to get beyond this ego we created to the core of the human experience where our wounds are located, and then past that.  It is about encouraging the release of the energy around these wounds so we are free of samskaras.  If we are free of samskaras...we are open and able to handle all that life provides.  When we are open we also give shakti ...sat chit ananda...a free and clear pathway to flow through, so we can experience who we are and Life as we are: love. 

It is not about getting what you want...or avoiding what you don't want.  It is about handling it all. 

All is well

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ SoundsTrue (June 15, 2026) The Seat of Consciousness/ Freedom Beyond the Ego. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vyOWmHJV6I&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=2&t=1694s

A Chosen Project of Rewriting

 

Books aren't written-they are rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.

Michael Crichton

I committed myself to finishing one book...well, the rewriting of one book I have previously written to make it more "real" to myself and others. I needed to redirect and concentrate my focus from all the many writing projects I am working on to one. I wanted to take one writing endeavor that I could also focus my "speaking on". (To start speaking again, I need something to direct the speaking on.  Books are usually needed to be recognized in this area by speaking bureaus and such.)This particular book represents my major focus in healing and in yoga: samskara release. I want to share what I have learnt to date with hope that doing so will not only give me a platform on which I can help others, but that will enhance my personal learning journey and my own healing. 

Speaking? Who wants to hear an old woman speak about those types of things, crazy lady?

I really don't know.  I also don't know who will read this book that I will focus all my attention on in the upcoming weeks and months. (Once I am committed to a writing project, it gets most of me until it is done.) I can't think about anything other than the completion of this book in a way that satisfies this "me". Just like I couldn't think too much of the "after this is done" component of the English Learning book or the writing guides for youth I recently wrote and published, or the many completed mannuscripts for novels, other non-fiction, and poetry that has poured through me over the years. So much writing, I completed. So much writing I started without completing too. I may not be the best writer in the world but I am certainly a prolific one lol. 

Copies of these effort and time consuming projects, that took so much of my focus and energy when I was writing them, are simply sitting on my book shelf collecting dust now.  A few people have them...not everyone I intended them for... but a few. Still, I knew, from the moment I typed the first word, that my job was to write them and then get just one reader to read them so I had the sense of a completed cycle.  That's it! What happend to them after that was never my responsibility, or even my business I suppose. I write them and get at least one reader to read them and my work here is done.  The rest, I knew, was up to something much bigger than this human I call "me".

And there are times when I am called back to a project, like this one, with a certain internal whisper, "Rewrite this! This could be good."  Hmm!

So, here I am rewriting a book I feel compelled to write so that I not only get one reader, but so that I will eventually get one listener to hear me as I go from writing to speaking about this. So, cra-cra, I know. I am in my sixties for goodness sake and I am obeying a calling probably meant for a much younger version of myself. Sigh. 

One thing this focused writing gives me is a sense of purpose...a sense of creative focus. It takes my ADHD writer's mind and redirects it so it isn't all over the place. Having one thing...rather than a million scattered things...to focus on puts a well intended meaning into my day. Each project I devote myself to finishing gives me purpose and I so enjoy the process.  I enjoy the process because I truly love writing. I also enjoy the sense of accomplishment I get with every 2000 words or so written; the sense of achievement I get with every chapter completed; and the sense of "Oh wow! Look what I did!" when I am holding a copy of it in my hand.  Hmm! 

I love thinking as I write  that what I write will have meaning and purpose for someone else someday too. That it will be helpful and beneficial, that it will serve...if not in this life time of mine...after I am gone, possibly. And again, that is beyond my responsibility or control.  Life will decide the outcomes of these projects...I just have to remain completely and fully in every moment of them. 

All is well.

Renewing a Committment to Meditation

 Self realization is the act of being conscious of being conscious. Mediation is not what you are meditating on;  its on who is meditating. ...When you are not distracted by your thoughts; when you are not focsuing on your emotions; when you are not caught up with what is coming in through your senses, you get to be you. {Wise masters said} when that state was reached it was like being with God. 

Michael Singer

I am going to get into a routine of meditating more.  Though I do believe samskara release through purification should be the major component of my yoga practice, I realize that I haven't been focusing on the other components enough.  I decided to reinstate a committment to both hatha and meditation, things I have been neglecting.  I will be spending a lot of time writing my book ( I really needed one single point of concentration...one thing to focus on that gives my life a sense of purpose...so I am rewriting the book on samskara release and thus I will hopefully be releasing some of these samskaras)...and that means a lot of sitting.  So, I intend to break up the hours sitting with mini hatha/Tai Chi practices and meditations (as well as other daily activities). 

I am looking into Henry Shukman's  The Way app. and I might purchase it only as an incentive guide.  I would rather continue creating more of my own guided meditations and my own program to follow...but this might just act as a straight line of fence posts to follow, until I venture off into my own path. And I do love Zen...something I am not qualified to teach :) 

All good. All is well in my world. .  

Be Kind to Be Happy?

 

Don't be kind to be happier; be happy so you can be kinder.  The goal is serving Life and one another, not waiting and manipulating life and others so we are served. Loving kindness is who we are. 

Me....

I am realizing this after decades of asking "What can I do or get from Life to be happy?" 

I learnt, along the path, that kindness and putting others first can make one happy. Hmm! 

"I'll try that..." I said. 

I mean, I believe I was always naturally kind, not so much to myself but to others. I was, however, over run by my own pain and that often got in the way of this natural inclination to kindness especially to myself. I was distracted from being this naturally kind being that we all are..... by my programming, by the challenging external events that were perceived by this human as punishments, and by this experience of personal suffering. 

I knew I needed to heal. I heard that kindness would help me to heal.  So, I began to practice kindness for a "selfish" reason.  My meditation practice went into building these compassion muscles. I began to practice Tonglen.  

That is when the focus started to change.  It gradually went from being kind so I could be happy...(and it did make me happier); to seeing that happiness wasn't the goal...kindness was, serving others was, serving Life was....

Love and kindness is not something we do.  It is who we are. Loving kindness brings us back to Self, and when we are there we can be nothing but peaceful, and joyful. 

Hmmm! 

By all means practice kindness so you feel happier but know that such a practice will eventually turn our understanding back to truth. Loving kindness is who we are, not what we do. Being who we truly are is the goal, therefore kindness is the goal.

All is well!

Finding Sukha

 Drsta Dharma Sukha Virharin

I sit myself down on this cushion 

awkwardly  situated  

between the background of  a soothing emptiness 

and a world that dances like intoxicated fireflies in front of me, 

a world that drags my eyes up and down and all around. 

I close these hyper orbs of  unclear vision 

and breathe in deeply,  

searching as I do for that promised ease,  

for a peace so settling 

it will allow me to slip beneath this cover 

to the here and now.

I am seeking  that 

which will permit this busy human I call "me"

 to rest a weary mind that so needs 

the silence and stillness the eternal moment offers. 

I breathe out, 

releasing the accumulated knots of  tension 

brought on by the busyness of repressed and suppressed living.  

My body and mind settle into the breath 

as if it were a comforting hammock on a sunny July afternoon 

and I find the sukha  I have been looking for.... 

in this place  where it has always been.

 c Dale-Lyn, March 3, 2021

Tit for Tat?

 A LAW there is of ancient fame

By nature's self in every land implanted...

Bear "tit for tat" in mind,

Nor give an elephant a cuff, 

to be repaid in kind.

John Aitken fro "Tit for Tat; a Tale

I let my feelings...the emotional disturbance pushing up on the underbelly of a samskara blockage...spill all over the page in the last few days. I was dealing with a trigger to  this samskara layer and though it was an honest expression of a samskara released, it also carried with it a bit of egoic vengeance. As the painful stored stuff started to come up, I felt the need to "do" something about it, to paint a picture, to build a story  of this human I call "me" as the heroine, big enough to see beyond the behaviour of the other, and the other as the villain...a tiny broken being hiding behind a mighty costume. It was an awkward attempt at a "tit for tat". Why? 

Because I was feeling tiny and powerless to someone who was blowing themself up as mighty and powerful. I had to turn the tables. So, in a position of self righteousness I puffed myself up and began looking down at the other for their apparent self righteousness. When you peel it down to the suchness of the moment, it was all just pain talking and this human need we have to "make sense" of that pain. Truth is, pain was simply meeting pain...her pain meeting my pain, my suppressed pain meeting my experience of externally generated pain, the human expression of pain meeting another human expression of pain. The only thing we have control over here when it comes to "pain"...is the release of this pain from within...so the outside stuff doesn't lead to these long winded tit for tat reactions. :) 

Focus inside, not outside.

Tit for tat is not the way...for if so...what difference lies between tit and tat.

Amit Boghani

All is well

On Zen

 

Zen is all about sitting directly with the human experience.

Henry Shukman

So many beautiful gems of wisdom came from this podcast on Zen...I just quoted ( and sometime paraphrased) what resonated in  me.

Mindfulness is a not separate thing we are responsible for doing; it is something that helps us to realize we are already in a great field of connections and support.

Get to the point where we are seeing through the sense of self

Realization is not contigent on practice...

"This life is a movie and the purpose of life is to turn around and see the projector. "Yogananda

Awakenning and healing go together

The destination has been here all along...In the cart track analogy from ancient Chinese buddhism...one wheel of the cart is mindfulness of what is going on now and the other wheel is awakening...Awakening is the process that is already there. The journey is the destination, It is not one or the other, there is both

Zen is not a path out of the world...it is a path deeply into the world.

Awakening is here and now...there is only now...where else could it be?

"There is only the present moment and everything is here"...Thich Nhat Hanh

Let it all be...

We do these rituals just to keep the mind busy so the reality of the moment can slip in...

"Emptiness First" "Reduce it to the maximun" Andre

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose...Janice Joplin song

"We will not lose...but we never really had to lose things"

Socrates: "There are so many beautiful things in the world that we do not need."

Meditation helps us to align with the part of us that remains okay despite whatever is happening around us or to us. 

Beauty matters...appreciate it.

Empathy is feeling with, but it is not motivating. Compassion is energizing and motivating...[leading us to do something about the suffering of others.]

"The broken ones are my beloved"...sufi poet

If we trust grief, rather than try to avoid it, it can open us up even farther...

When the heart is open... we are alive...we know "this is my real life."

Heartbreak [can be] the great teacher

All things are emcompassed within one great reality...realize  that nonduality in awakening.

Water heats gradually and boils instantly.

You are love!

What is our purpose...to "Love actually." 

What if in the end we really are His love? 

All is well

Henry Shukman with Andre Duqum/Know Thyself ( March, 2026) The 2500 Year Old Trick to Instantly Silence Your Mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMk3ztb66mc&t=1262s

Michael Singer on Handling It

Yesterday I was clever and I was trying to change the world; today I am wise and I am trying to change myself.

Rumi

This intense reaction I had the other night both surprised me and inspired me. It led me away from my focus on what the others were doing, and allowed me to explore what was happening inside me. I felt this compulsion to stop running and to allow all that was crying to come up, to come up.  I sat with it.  I looked deeply into it. I explored that which the others' unconscious behaviour somehow triggered. 

It was amazing.  I didn't think I would be able to accept, let alone understand and release the amount of emotion that surfaced...but I did more than that.  I healed a bit.  Wow! I must thank the people I was recently cursing and wanting to change lol  for doing exactly what they did that inspired this release in me.

The clarity was astounding! 

These are words from Michael Singer that explore the reason why we need to let our samskaras to come up so we can experience and allow Life to be Life.

 It is not about going to God; It is about not hanging around with you.

The ego is constantly preparing itself for the way it will be presented outside, with the intention of creating something that will be a protection from anything that potentionally comes in and make it uncomfortable.

A clear being deals with things out of clarity, not out of ego

It is not about getting away from this thing; it is about getting rid of it. 

The need is to accept that the world is not under your control...

Be open to learning; Open to changing. 

Are you okay with the uncomfortable? 

You, who are in there, is not insecure; you are looking at an ego that is insecure...

[Many of us are]trying to build an inside that works for what the world is doing

Practice being able to handle what didn't feel good

Be the one in the room that can handle things.

If I can handle what is unfolding...I can be happy

If you don't get distracted by you...wait to see what happens..

Notice the resistance and the tendency to push it away...and relax

Learn how to be okay with not being okay...honor and respect when things don't go your way...

You don't go up...you just stop going down...and the energy goes up

Any work you do on yourself changes the energy of the world. 

The purpose of my life is to be able to handle the unfolding of Life that is happening in front of me...

Let go of your need to protect yourself at that level out there....

Micahe A. Singer/Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( May 11, 2026) The Spiritual Art of Handling Life.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX59A7QoGFk&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

Beyond the Entrenched Ego Programming

The personality is an entrenched ego programming, based on a biological and psychosocial need to belong. We create this personality for protection purposes and then we identify with this self concept, falsely believing it is who we are...

Me

Hmmm! That is the definition of personality I came up with as I was listening to Michael Singer's podcast today.  It is a definition that has been brewing inside me for a while now, intensified recently by recognition of this human's lingering concern about what others might think of her.  I could suddenly see so clearly how we build up these protective ego layers, attempt to become what others expect us to become, and do what we can to maintain our place in the pack. We create an ever-changing concept of self that we call "me".

What is the problem with this personality then? 

There is no self concept you can pick that works for everyone. 

Our desire is to create an image that will be okay for everyone, that will not hurt them, annoy them, displease them or make them say, "Strike Three! You're out!!!" How realistic is that?  Everyone is loaded with their own samskaras always on the verge of being triggered by things that we cannot always be aware of or control. Things about us are bound to bother others in some way. We cannot please everyone! 

It is not fun to live from this ego personality. Sure, there are times when everything we seem to do seems pleasing to others and we feel up. Even times when we surprisingly are extra pleasing to others and we feel elated! But it is impossible to maintain that level of successful people-pleasing functioning for ever. Things we do, say, think, believe...how we look, sound, smell...how we appear as these personalities...is going to be off putting to some at times. That's a given. We can not please everybody all of the time. 

We know that, and we live in fear of the moment we do not please someone, don't we? We are always hypervigilant, wondering and worrying about when the others who seem pleased with us now are going to see beyond the imposter costumes we tend to wear, and then reject us. 

So, how do we get beyond this ego conundrum?

According to Michael Singer, we simply notice the ego in action...be aware of its misguided attempts at protecting us from expulsion. Noticing, however, doesn't mean resisting. 

Don't shut her up, don't push her down, just nod. 

I try to be honest with myself and others when I notice my ego personality at work and my people pleasing tendencies. I try to call it out by saying, "Oh...there I go again, worrying about what others might think. Hmm! " 

I observe the human tendency to want the good opinion of others. From a distance, I explore it and look deeply into it. I allow it. I do not shut it up. I don't push the samskaras back down.  I notice them and allow them and all those old core beliefs to emerge. give them a nod and continue observing it all from a distance.  This tendency is definitely beginning to wear away.

Once I catch the ego personality in action I say something to the effect

...just stuff that got caught...I can let go now.

I go back to my inner work of allowing samskaras to be released. This "work" involves allowing for the slow digging away of layer after layer of personality, usually by life. In this case, every time, I do not match the desires or expectations of others, I know it is okay. This lack of approval or down right rejection is good for me. It helps with the inner work. I remind myself of the words Singer shares in the podcast

You've taken on the greatest challenge...the liberation of the soul...

I get back to work.

All is well.  

Michael Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( May 8, 2026) The Illusion of Self: Breaking Free From ego. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU1sVkx_pII&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

Love Beyond the Other

 Love is something you either do or don't do inside yourself...

Love has nothing to do with the other person...it is already in you.

Michael A. Singer

I am going to proclaim something very bold and others may call be "grandiose" for saying such a thing but, "I think very much like Michael Singer does! We have very similar perspectives and wave lengths." 

You or any other human hearing me say that might respond with, "No, you don't! You are just listening and learning from him and more or less regurgitating what he says."

There is some truth to that.  I do listen and learn so much from him. I do assimilate what he has to say, putting it in my own words...but... I was thinking like this long before I ever read "untethered soul".  I was studying yoga long before I knew he existed, coming to many of these realizations on my own. He, however, pushed me further into my understanding of these things by removing the "woo-woo"I kept tripping over, and presenting these ideas in a very practical and secular way.  I just loved the way he explains yoga purification and it inspired me to learn more about samskaras and how to release them...thus the book I am writing now. I do owe much of my learning to him, but not all of it.  Whatever was directing his learning, has also been directing mine...and  possibly yours...and somehow that learning has intersected.

We do differ in our approaches, as well.  I do not pay much attention to low hanging fruit, for example.  I want to dig to the roots of this experience of living. Where as he might say:

Don't dig down to get it [the deeply buried and painful samskara], let it come up to you.  Focus on the low hanging fruit in your samskara release practice first. (paraphrased)....

I say "dig!"

 I realize now it is not so much that we should dig to get to that samskara, it is more of a digging away of the layers on top that prevents those hidden samskaras from coming up. It is about clearing the path.

What are we shoveling away when we clear the path?

We are digging up the articial layers on top of that which we are hiding from. We are shoveling through those parts of the psyche, the false parts of this "me" ego identification that gets in the way of us experiencing who we truly are.  This samskara release approach I share is about removing, or more often, allowing Life to remove the false layers of personality that we over-identify with. If not the personality itself, at least our identificaton with it. 

I thought of that as I listened to the below linked podcast on Love. I recently had this very same conversation with another regarding our expectations for intimate relationships. We discussed how texpecting others to match our preferences gets in the way of allowing the other person to be exactly who they are. And at the same time, expectations lead to resistance of the  person being who they are, stopping them from triggering all our samskaras, so it is easier to remove what is truly in the way of our healing and therefore our innate ability to feel and experience love. Relationships are meant to rumble, shift, and loosen the earth above our samskaras ...to give us the incentive to clear the path  and make room for these samskaras to arise so we can deal with them. So, we can grow into who we truly are.

It is not so much that you love the other person...you love love...

Love is not about the other person.  It is about whether we are open or closed to the internal flow of it that comes form within. What closes the channel for this love to flow through.  Expectations of how someone should be in order for us to love them! 

If you want to feel love all the time...don't close your heart

We need to acept that people have their own sum of accumulated experiences governing how they see and respond to the world...that opens and closes their hearts. They are not there to keep our hearts from closing by matching all our expectations. The job of keeping our hearts open belongs to us...not them.

We need to stop resisting the "what isnness " of our experiences including the experience of relationship. In order to do that we need to surrender and accept.

Accept that people are not the way you want them to be

And reminding ourselves, as we look at the other person who didn't meet our expectations of them...

Nothing you did is worth closing my heart over.

I agree. I accept and learn to embrace these truths.

All is well!

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True (June, 2026) Love is not Fund: It Is Unblocked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjN9fHFHNEw&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

A Book and a Lot of Greats

 Harnessing your spiritual connection [to your deepest Self] isn't about what you know. It's about how deeply you feel. How honestly you live. And how courageously you are willing to show up as your truest self. 

Sean Collyns

Reading a great book with great writing on a topic that resonates greatly within me. It is with great surprise that I found myself enthralled with this book, written by a psychic medium with great public acclaim. I have a great deal of skepticism, as you know, when it comes to the genuine intentions and ability of psychic mediums. So, I am not sure why I listened when something from the "Great unknown" inspired me to click onto one of his reading sessions, and then led me to go to Amazon to purchase his book. I wasn't expecting much.  I really wasn't...just following that compulsion.  But I found the writing to be great.  And the topic matter...not so much about talking to dead people...but about growing at that deepest level of our being...to hit me right in my core with a great big, "Yes!" The book has had a great impact on me so far! 

That is a lot of "greats", isn't it? 

All is well

Sean Collyns (2026) Your Soul is the Source of Your Power. Hay House: Sydney

"What Will Others Think of 'Me' ?"

You will become way less concerned about what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. 

David Foster Wallace

I love the above quote and find myself laughing at this "me" a bit when I read it. I just spent hours editing a web page that I gave my most recent yoga students access to. Why? Because I was asking the question, "What will others think of 'me'?" I was programmed since childhood to ask that question whenever I did or was about to do something that would call attention to this "me". (Still hear my mother's shrill voice in my ears). 

I laugh because I am reminded by the above words how little people actually think of my "little me" when they are too busy thinking of their own. Of course, there are glorious moments when others think of us in a positive way. That's nice but that is something we cannot become attached to.  It is very brief and doesn't last before their mind takes them on another journey elsewhere. And if judging, finding fault, criticizing,  or rejecting any expression of my little me will help someone distract from the problematic focus of their little me or help to inflate it in some way...well, then maybe they will spend more than a moment or two out of their earthly life spans focusing on me and what I offer in a negative way. But even that is less than a blink of an eye in that life span...isn't it? It certainly isn't worthy of the time and focus we put into worrying about what they might think and what we attempt to do to rectify their opinion if it is negative . Crazy.

So, there I was going through my imperfect....but potentionally very helpful.... videos for anyone wanting to take yoga a bit farther... editing the notations, removing those that I thought would be too out there for this crowd..for any crowd actually. "Sprucing the place up for company" lol. All because that question was in my mind.  I offered a gift and like I do when I offer  gifts of me...I question, "What will others think of this me?" 

It is not an overwhelming thought...I have long sinced gotten past the concern I used to have for other opinion...but there are still traces there...leading me to question and revamp the value of my gifts in terms of what others might think of them, and me as a result.  Sometimes, I retract my gifts before the others actualy receive them. What a pity.

A gift is a gift. It is inspired, created, and passed on.  What others think of it is really none of my business after that. I know that...but....

There I was wondering what others would think of this gift and me as the creator and giver of it. sigh

It is funny how we assume people are going to think more of us than what they do, isn't it? What does it really matter anyway. We have one Life to live. We can't live for other opinion.

We give our gifts because that is what we are called to do...whether they are accepted by others or not.  The giving from the heart makes the giver's life  richer, if not the receiver's.

All is well

Act, Dream, Believe

 To accomplish great things we must not only act,but also dream; not only plan but also believe.

Analote France

A lot to unpack with that one...will be back.

All is well

The Thoughtless Gap

[When you are in that still space, that gap between thoughts] the unconditioned consciousness can act and speak through you.

Eckhart Tolle

I know I spend much more time than I ever did in that gap. I see myself slipping into it when I look out at the tops of the flowers emerging from the window box; when I am watching the birds at the feeder, or listening to their songs. 

I really feel it when I am walking in the woods...one step at a time on the path that just goes around in one big circle with no beginning, no ending. Like the moment I suppose.  As I walk without any real thought of "doing", I take in all the sensory information: poplar trees, bigger and older than I have ever seen before, beautiful birch and cedar, new leaves emerging, the smell of honey suckle and apple blossom, the buzzing of insects, the sound of wind or rain in the branches; the huffing and puffing of my dogs as they sniff about tugging and pulling at the leash.  Though I am recalling and recording description now, at the time there is no thinking about these things; no narration- just the felt experience and awareness of them. Time slips away...there is no "when I..." there is just "this, here, now." 

I am not aware at those times of being in the thoughtless gap that I, as one of 8.3 billion human beings,  am experiencing "presence"...I am not aware of a "me" and an "it".  The moment just is and I am it. Everything, including me, all tangled up in one perfect moment of existence. 

It isn't until I reflect on it like I am doing now that I see that I was aware, in a thoughtless gap. Then athe writing comes...the unconditioned consciousness acts and speaks through me and reminds me of where we humans are menat to be.

Hmm!

All is well.

Samma Ditthi

 Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.

John Lennon

I have been contemplating the purpose and meaning of Life for quite some time. Wondering how best can we humans experience these gifts of Life we have been given to play with for a few decades of earthly time? I came up with this after listening to this Sounds True offering today:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKBiaOnoMmg

Your life takes its shape from what your mind dwells upon...

Huh? 

Your personal mind takes its shape from what the individual dwells upon on...Your brain takes its shape from what the mind focuses on (neuroplasticity)...Your body takes the shape from what the brain focuses on. Are we, then, what the mind focuses on and can we then control body and life by changing the way we think? 

What I got from this is that...yes...it can and we do need to work with our minds if we want to change the lives we are living. We also need to change our view of the world...what we are looking on and what we are expecting from that which we are looking on.

Does that mean that we are shaping what it is we are looking at? That we are creating lives of struggle and scarcity or lives of abundance and ease? That we have the power to get what we want by changing our thoughts and manifesting etc.? 

"Can I use my spiritual powers of will to force the moments in front of me to be the way I want them to be?...

Yes, you can ,,,,but I feel sorry for you...cuz there's a whole lot of people who didn't want it that way and they didn't get  to have it the way it naturally would have been....

So, there is a ripple effect of manifesting that goes beyond the wants and desires of the "little me" that we often fail to consider? We do not tend to explore the far reaching consequences of getting what the "little me" wants ...how pulling that from the universe may impact other beings, nature, karma, the natural flow of universal laws. 

So much of manifesting is all about the "little me's" desire to be comfortable, isn't it? It isn't about experiencing the natural flow of reality or about why we are wanting to manifest certain outcomes in the first place. What we fail to see is that the answer to our so called pursuit of happiness is not about manifesting and changing the "out there", it is about dealing with the "in here."

This brings me right back to where I was in my discomfort...back to the painful but neccessary process  purification.

Either you accept reality and let go of  the garbage you stored inside because you couldn't handle the realiy that happened before, or you go out and try to manipulate reality to be the way you want it to be right now....what about everyone else? 

Maybe the big question isn't so much, "How can I change the neuroplasticity in "my" brain, so both "my" Life and "my" health are more comfortable for "me"."  Maybe it isn't about, how can I learn to manifest so I can change what shows up in front of "me".  Maybe the big question is how do I view reality now?

The big question is: 

How do we tend to view reality when things happen? The "right way" or the "wrong way"?

The first "Right" in the Buddhist Eight Fold Path is "Right View" or Samma Ditthi. Right View is all about seeing reality exactly as it is. It is all about seeing Life through the Four Noble Truths: There is suffering; more importantly, there is a cause for that suffering (our pulling in and pushing away from our experiences based on our preferences) and there is a way to get beyond suffering- the Eight-Fold Path.

The practice of right view is to make a choice, moment by moment, not to focus our gaze on what we want things to be, nor to ignore the parts we wish were not there, and not to close our eyes. Its looking at what is right in front of us. Koun Franz/ Lion's Roar

Can you look at what is right in front of you? Can you accept Life for what it is, even when painful things happen? 

Can I honor and accept its [the happening's] right to exist? Singer

Most of us are taught to resist those things, aren't we? To pretend, deny, hide, avoid, numb, suppress and repress. First, we judge the happening as being good or bad, right or wrong, should be or shouldn't be. Then, if it is painful...we close our eyes! Our judgements and resistance prevent us from experiencing the lives we were given to experience fully. 

It is not that it is good or bad, right or wrong- it just is.... Why? ...It is because...

I have been having a challenging time over the course of the last few months.  I have been practicing samskara release through purification for years now...which simply means attempting to heal by releasing all that stored trauma etc from within.  I am really getting somehwere with that.  I have, or life has, peeled away so many layers and I have hit the samskara layers. It isn't easy when all that stuff that was stored in pain comes back up to conscious awareness. I spent my life running from it and here it is ...smack dab in my face and I have to deal with it for the first time probably. Yuck!  I have also been looking around at these present "life circumstances" I erroneously call "my life". ...and sometimes, despite my awareness and practice, find myself judging it as "bad, wrong, shouldn't be". I resist the moment by wanting something other than it. I also personalize the experience by focusing on this human's little slice of existence, saying things like, "When is this human going to catch a break?"

After months of narrowing this focus of awareness...this view...down onto the "me" and its problematic life drama, it was getting really dark and heavy in here.  I just wanted happy change...for things "out there"  to become easier, so I could feel better "in here".  So, I began this week to dream and visualize, positively affirm, and attempt to manifest a better life.  Now, I know there is nothing wrong with doing that. Science has proven that hope and positivity are powerful energies that can change the neuroplasticity of our brains, and therefore our life experience. It is much better to focus on the positive than it is to focus on the negative.

 I found myself in the last couple of days looking into the idea that maybe I can change the reality of what is happening around me and to this "me" by changing my perspective, my view.  By being more positive and hopeful...by ...heaven forbid... "manifesting".  Though I loved the increase in energy, the focus didn't really feel right. Why? This type of focus  keeps me from exploring the real question that will set me free. 

How can I accept, allow, and honor life as it is? 

The temporary manifesting focus was all about 'me'...this entity that is really nothing more than a self concept. It was denying the truth that though I could, through this powerful mind once it is trained, get what I desire.... Life isn't here to serve this "me"...it isn't all about "me". I am just one of 8.3 billion humans on this planet. My time here is just a blink of an eye. What can I know in this blink of an eye compared to what the planet, which has been here for 4.5 billion years, knows...and the cosmos which has been here for over 13 billion years knows?  

It isn't all about me and my desires or aversions. This idea of "me" is in the way of the true experience of Life. That being said, we do need to love all of who we are, including this me identity, I believe, in order to truly love others, to truly love and experience Life.  We also have to gently love this "self" away....if that makes sense... with Right View. Hmm! Back to the drawing board and not the dream board for this human.

A great spiritual being... they don't want it to be the way they want...they don't have a want...there is just experiencing reality and doing what can be done to raise the energy in that moment.

All is well! 

Michael Singer/Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( June 1, 2026)  You don't need to Rise; You Need to Release. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goVMUe6yJrA

Koan Franz (May 24, 2023)  The Eight Fold Path: Right View in Lion's Roar.  https://www.lionsroar.com/right-view/

Sounds True ( May 31, 2026) Your Brain Was Built for Predators...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKBiaOnoMmg